Public / Private Player Hand

Module Design
1

Hi,
Probably a simple problem or maybe I’m misunderstanding what Vassal can do.
I’d like to create a player hand that is visible to everyone but all the cards are masked, so for instance players are aware of the number of cards in a hand but not the actual details of the hand.
Thanks

2

There are other ways to provide a simple count of cards in hand but sure, you can make a Player Hand visible to a whole list of sides, each one of which will be able to see only unmasked cards or the ones that it owns.

3

Maybe I’m missing something - from the documentation it seems to suggest that when an “owner” masks a card they will have visibility of the card but everyone else will just see the mask. From my experimentation it doesn’t matter who draws the card from the deck any and every player can mask it, and any and every player will see the front or mask of the card depending on the mask state.

4

For the Mask trait to work properly, you need to ensure you have various settings correct:

  • You need to define Player Sides.
  • Make sure you set the “Can be masked by” option of the Mask trait appropriately.
  • If you want the owner to be able to view the card while it’s masked, you need to either change the “Display style” option of the Mask trait to something other than the default of “Plain”, or enable the “Peek” or “Autopeek” options.

Note that for Mask to work properly, you must set a “Key Command” in the trait; a Menu Command alone will not work. If you want the optional “Peek” feature to work, it also needs a Key Command and not just a Menu Command.

One other option to be aware of is the “Allow non-owners to unmask pieces” setting under Global Options.

5

If you are using the “Any player” or “Any side” setting on the Mask trait config, be aware that the personal module password of the masking player is what regulates visibility. So in this case it’s not sufficient to fully test how things will work to other players by just masking something and then hopping into a different player side–your password hasn’t changed, so you’re still the owner!

But it’s almost certainly fine, and here’s how you can be sure:

  1. Mask a piece
  2. Save the game
  3. Close out and change your module password temporarily, making note of what it was to begin with
  4. Open the saved game file, you ought to be prompted to take a different player side than you had before
  5. Check the piece. It should only show the back side and you shouldn’t be able to unmask it (unless you’ve chosen the Global Option that overrides the default inability of non-owners to unmask things)
1 Like
6

image
image1895×984 189 KB