Best Rpg Mapping Software
Advertisement I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know an awful lot about These are the best indie RPGs you've never heard of. Each of these free games has something fresh to stir your imagination. Aside from what this year’s taught me. Even as someone who is The most interesting people I've met have been RPG players. Tabletop RPGs have been labelled as everything from satanic to the cause of suicides – but they're really just a form of collaborative storytelling. And hardback rulebooks, I can’t deny the allure of using a few smartphone and tablet apps to make things easier and more immersive.
The Best Digital Tools for Organizing Your RPG. Like creating interactive maps and. The reMarkable E Ink Tablet Is Way Too Good For Its Software. What's the best software for mapmaking? Finding map-making software on the Macintosh has been really. So in terms of best use of your limited time.
So after chatting with bearded fellows about character creation and building an immersive game world at this year’s PAX, I went looking for more tools to augment the Playing games on a computer or console is great fun, but these systems set the rules in code and often are designed to be played with just one person in a room. This makes the.
The RPG City Generator takes a number of inputs and returns detailed. Free online mapping software. - No downloads, installation or registration required.
Create Unrivalled Atmosphere: A good Game Master (GM) can set the scene, build tension and keep other participants on their toes, but the hum of your dishwasher, air conditioning, or city streets hardly provides the appropriate ambience for dungeon crawling or off-world exploration. That’s exactly where Syrinscape comes in. Syrinscape is a cross-platform software package for GMs who want to add believable, immersive sound to their games.
The app is available for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android, and uses a subscription or downloadable content (DLC) model to provide users with access to a rich set of fantasy and sci-fi soundscapes. After playing with the app at PAX (and scaring passersby with a few sporadic ), I was impressed by the variety of sounds, overall quality on display, and ability to create incredibly unique and detailed background and foreground noise. You can either pay $10 per month (charged bi-monthly) for a which provides access to both sci-fi and fantasy ambience, take out a $6.50 per month subscription if you only want the fantasy sounds or cough up $3.99 for each sound pack in if you’d rather own the content outright.
The subscription model might work out well for regular groups, who can split the cost and meet often enough to justify the expenditure. Alternatives.
is a resource for players and GMs with a decent selection of free, web-based sound effects and soundboards. The project currently has four different themes to choose from, including both fantasy and sci-fi elements. Fund them on (or donate on the website) if you’d like to see more. is a free Windows-based sound mixer for tabletop roleplaying games, with lots of content to download for free. is another free sound mixer for Windows that allows you to import your own sounds. Create & Develop Characters: Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a complete newbie, creating a character can mean hours of deliberation over strengths, weaknesses, and all-important stats. Once you’ve finally created your likeness, you’ve then got to keep track of what you’ve learned, your level, and all the other pertinent information the game world throws at you.
HeroLab is a digital assistant for the RPG enthusiast who is serious about their characters. The software works out things like relevant bonuses, penalties, and modifiers for you, which means less time spent with your head in a rulebook. A helpful character creation system walks you through required fields and attributes, and the interface adapts to your character — you won’t see spellcasting selections if you can’t cast spells, for example. You can even attach portraits, add backstory, and provide the GM with all your information digitally using the Tactical Console. The software runs natively on Windows, Mac OS X, and also the iPad. A standard Hero Lab license will cost you $29.99 per game system, though pricing for specific rules and games varies so take a look at the for a better idea. The iPad app is completely free, and as such, it can be used free of charge as a basic character sheet for starting your game. If you want to evolve your character as you play and add further detail, you’ll need to shell out for the appropriate license however.
Alternatives. is a set of tools for players who want to move beyond pen and paper and embrace the power of web-based character sheets and maps. The project is currently in beta, uses Google Drive for syncing and storage, and doesn’t cost a thing.
is a free, open source character generator and maintenance software for tabletop RPGs. It currently only supports the d20 system and runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux Create Profile Images: What’s a hero without a face? If you’re using an app like HeroLab to track your character’s progression, you might as well make use of the ability to attach an image of your hero’s likeness. Even if you’re not using HeroLab, you can still design, save, and print your character’s profile picture to add an extra visual element to your game.
There are several different versions of Hero Machine to choose from, and unfortunately they all rely on Adobe Flash ( The Internet's relationship with Flash has been rocky for a while. Once, it was a universal standard on the web. Now, it looks like it may be headed to the chopping block.
What changed?). They’re all suitably old school in nature — you’ll even find the odd reference to poor download times on dial-up connections.
(above) is the simplest to use, though it contains a huge number of customizations — including clothing, headgear, wings, tails and even different backgrounds. Everything has an assignable color and the art style isn’t dissimilar to what you’d find on a trading card or in a fantasy novel. You can pay to download Hero Machine 2.5 for $9.95, though be aware you only get the same flash.SWF embedded in an advert-free.HTML page that you’ll need to open in your browser. (below) takes things to the next level, offering an almost-fiddly level of detail to play with. The art style is of a higher quality, you can apply multiple attributes (e.g.
Two necklaces, rather than one-per-category as with HM2) and you can zoom in on your character’s face for a better look at things. If the advertising annoys you, then you can pay $0.99 per month for which removes all advertising and makes the designer window bigger (for both versions).
Create Cohesive Campaigns: From the creators of HeroLab comes Realm Works, a campaign management tool designed specifically for GMs who are looking to leverage software to improve their roleplaying experience. It’s a digital aid to help GMs keep track of their campaigns, plots, locations and the tiniest of details, but it’s also a tool for players who are in turn drip-fed information by the GM as it unfolds in-game. Realm Works includes access to the Realm Work Content Market, which provides pre-created content from publishers and enthusiasts alike. Pluck locations, NPCs, dungeons, and more straight out of the cloud and integrate them into your game with a few clicks. You can then use the software to individually reveal various aspects of your world — from partially obscured maps, to portraits, relationships and so on.
It’s also designed to take much of the agony out of the GM’s preparation work. It can take hours to assemble the various relevant materials, character sheets, notes on what happened the last time you played and an overview of the story so far. Realm Works makes this far easier by automatically generating summaries for you. Realm Works is currently only available for Windows.
The full GM edition costs $49.99 and comes with six months access to Realm Works Cloud Services (charged at $24.99 per six months thereafter, or $39.99 for a full year). Cloud services enable you to keep your campaigns in sync and push information to each of your players,. Standard players can purchase the Player Edition (also Windows-only) for $9.99 per user, with discounts applied for. is a completely free planning and campaign design tool for the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons that runs on Windows.
is another campaign and game management system for Windows, though it looks like it could use an update and costs around $35 to buy. is a Windows tool for players and game masters running the third edition (or revision 3.5) of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s no longer supported by developers and thus free to download. is a When it comes to getting a research paper, ebook or novel completed, Scrivener can help you stay organized and motivated — that is, if you know how to use some of its best features. Used by screenwriters, novelists, and anyone who needs a hand organizing a big project. It can also be used to create a comprehensive overview of your campaign, story, characters, NPCs, and more (though there’ll be a lot of manual work involved). Create Your Miniature Army: Another Lone Wolf product (Hero Lab, Realm Works), Army Builder is designed specifically for use with tabletop miniature games like Warhammer 40,000, Lord of the Rings, Warmachine and.
The software is available for both Windows and Mac, with a free roster viewer app also available on iOS devices. The software is designed to add “point and click simplicity” to the at-times complex task of creating army lists. The software checks the roster you have chosen against the rules for your particular game, eliminating mistakes and removing the need for you to constantly check the rulebook yourself. There’s no calculations for you to manually perform as the software does the sums for you, leaving plenty of time to experiment with different rosters and tactics. When you’re ready you can print out a quick reference sheet for you to consult during gameplay, or simply use the free iPad or iPhone app instead. You can buy Army Builder for $39.99 which provides access to all supported games (no need to buy separate licenses for separate game systems). Alternatives. is a fairly complex-looking calculator for Warhammer 40k, with little in the way of instructions. provides up to date Warhammer 40k files for Lone Wolf’s Army Builder (above).
is a free, fast and powerful army list creator for a number of tabletop games. It runs on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac OS X. Do you play roleplaying, miniature or other tabletop games? Let us know what you think and what we missed!
So, Dundjinni will actually run on Linux, but you have to run the installer under Windows, and then copy the files over. (it's Java) There are some other big complaints here. It uses bitmapped graphics rather than vector drawing, and so you can't zoom in/out, scale elements, etc. AutoRealms could be ported to Linux, save that it would depend upon Borland's Kylix Open Edition (free as in beer). CC and its cousins are nonfree/nonopen, windows only. The same seems to be true of Fractal Mapper.
I was always i. Perhaps you should read the Fractal Mapper nbos.com. You can publish any maps you created under whatever terms you like, so long as they don't contain any Fractal Mapper map symbols (because the map symbols are art that they have created and own). They do not 'legally own' any maps you create under any circumstances, even if you include their map symbols, copyright law doesn't work like that. If you create maps with Fractal Mapper distributed map symbols you have created a derivative work based on their work. You cannot distribute it, but they certainly can't distribute it either (nor do they own it). If you use Fractal Mapper as a tool, and do not include any of their pre-made art then they have no more claim on your maps than Adobe would have claim to an image you created in Photoshop.
Why anyone actually uses such complex map generating software that does such things as break the whole map into grids and hexes and calculate travel times and such. Let me illustrate, go put on your roleplaying hats and compare: GENERIC OMINOUS SOOTHSAYING SAGE (GOSS): You need to go to Ramadamadingdong, which is eighteen hexes out from your location and standard rules are to roll for encounters each hex.
Check hex D14 on your map. Let's see we'll need 18 standard ration units then, let's make it an even 20. GOSS: That which you seek lies in mysterious and distant lands unknown (stretches gnarled finger to emphasize that whole 'way out there' thing).
Your path is perilous, your tread is treacherous, your fly is unzipped. Players: This journey, how many days? And thanks (zip). GOSS: I know not, but this burned fragment of a map drawn on the skin of a Dire Wallaby shall guide your path. Beware, for the hand of a madman was that who authored, or the madman guided the mad hand, or perhaps a sane hand of a mad man- Players: -Yes, this shall do!
(snatches map). What demon had to be slain that left its ichor to stain this map? GOSS: Oh, I merely ran out of tissue. OK, I'm feeling a little silly, but you can see how even realistic props can enhance silliness. Nothing wrong with the GM having the hex maps, but for godsakes, please stop exposing these to the players. AutoREALM is pretty nice, however, there's some small clumsiness in the UI.
It's the kind of software that you want to use to create really complex maps, because it sure isn't smooth enough to do anything really simple. It's sure very powerful, has some nice drawing tools and such. Very nice layering functionality too. The symbol library feature helps too. The only problems I had were with snapping/accurate ends, zooming and panning (there's a separate pan tool, no mouse shortcut, and panning tends to screw up the display until done). Also, in this day and age, I'd definitely expect the program to do EPS or SVG exporting, but nooo-oo, not yet! Okay, it's been an year since I used it - hope it's being improved a bit.
AutoREALM had one curious feature, too - name generator, based on context-free grammars. I found it a pretty strange coincidence that I spent this day tweaking my context-free grammar based text generator, and the first thing I see in Slashdot after that is some question about AutoREALM.
www.iki.fi happens to have one AutoREALM grammar as an online demo =). I still have yet to find one that I really like. I'm still forced to sit down and hand draw all my maps. While it does have the nice side of forcing you as a GM to figure out the specifics of everything on the map, it is annoying because it would be really nice to edit and zoom in and out on maps to give to players. I've played with most of the mapping software out there1 and it all has problems that limit how useful it is, especially for a GM that does not work off a laptop when gaming. I've seriously thought about writing my own; I have many pages of notes on how to implement the system and a few directories full of testbed code and graphics. My biggest problem with mapping programs is how they force you to think within their structure rather than being a more freeform tool.
cheshirehall.com I'm using in my current Firefly GURPS game. 1 I have not played with Dundjinni. It looks very 'pretty', but I prefer Tolkien-esque lineart maps for the simple fact that they don't use four gallons of ink to print out. I'd suggest looking into using SVG for game map creation, because there's getting to be a lot of Open Source tools out there (like inkscape.org, that I help develop) that can edit, convert, etc. I've done some map making with it and while it lacks many of the advanced features that commercial map tools have, it's got the basics, plus if you can code, you gain the option of adding the feature in yourself.;-) Making maps with Inkscape / SVG is different than using CAD-style software like Campaign Cartographer, but you can achieve pretty much the same things. With features like alpha blending, text-to-shape, layers, grouping, shape fills, tiling, and infinite zoom, you can make much 'prettier' maps in much less time than it'd take to do in a CAD-like program.
See the inkscape.org to get some ideas of what can be done with these features. It has a fancy calligraphy mode that could be quite handy if you need to hand-write calligraphic text on a map. There's also a nifty bitmap-to-vector tracing tool that might help in converting hand-drawn maps to vectors.
Also comes with several useful tutorials (in the Help menu). There's also a site for sharing SVG clipart (like map symbols), the openclipart.org.
Not a lot of RPG art yet, but there's some and it's likely going to grow a lot. Plus, since all of its content is Public Domain, there's no restrictions at all placed on your maps if you use it. I could.easily. imagine this being a way for RPG mappers to collectively build an open library of RPG map symbols and artwork.
Campaign Cartographer is great if you want real maps. It's a CAD program, which means 2 things. 1, It's hell to learn if you don't already know CAD.
It's every bit as useful as you want it to be. You can map a continent, zoom in and map a county, zoom in and map a barony. Everything fits across multiple levels.
The majority of the other 'map' making software out there is really drawing software. Dunjinni fits into that category.
You can draw pictures, but they are just that, and not functional as real maps. They may be prettier, and easier to use if you have more experience with drawing programs. And I won't argue with you, either.
Not that that helps much. There is unfortunately a tendancy on the CC-2 mailing list to ignore such problems. All I can suggest is the standard response you'll get there: Download the UberManual (requires registration of purchase), Do the tutorials, ask questions on the mailing list (Yahoo.Uggh.) That third part is probably the biggest help. The community is actually very helpful.
Pathfinder Rpg Mapping Software
But if you haven't done the first two, expect to get a lot of responses that point you. Path: pouncer.easynews.com!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easyn e ws.com!easynews!novia!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01. N ewshosting.com!216.196.98.140.MISMATCH!border1.nn t p.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com! N ntp.giganews.com!pd7cy2so!shaw.ca!pd7tw1no.POSTED! Like someone already said, most of the other programs are bitmap-based, wherease CC is a real CAD program and thus vector-based. The difference is that there is very little you cannot do with CC (aside from the primary RPG use, I have used it e.g. To draw floorplans for selling an apartment, and plan to use it for garden design).
Best Mapping Software Free
Also, CC is professionally produced software - the UI might not be completely 'Windows Standard', but it does work logically and provides all the functionality you need (I have had some bad experiences in this regard with other software where UI design has been less competent). The tradeoff is the steeper learning curve, though the manuals are quite OK. The available extensions cover most if not all RPG illustration needs, so you can expand the software as your needs grow. A host of free content (maps and symbols) is available from the Profantasy website.
I guess it mainly depends on the quality you want to get and the time and money you are willing to invest. If all you want is to sit down and quickly create some relatively simple maps, then you are better off with a simpler and cheaper program (or pen and paper.). If, on the other hand, you want to have the ability to create beautiful and detailed maps and are willing to spend some time on it, then it is worthwhile to invest your money and time in CC.
It is worth repeating that both investments are required - frequently people who have the money don't have the time, and vice versa:-(. Wanted to create maps for illustrating a fantasy novel, CC would really be your only sensible alternative. By the way, if money and time is no object (I wish.), look into the e-onsoftware.com + curiouslabs.com combination for creating illustrations. You can get some pretty decent results without any drawing ability, but buying both the software and the content will cost you an arm and a leg, not to mention a significant chunk of your time. Disclaimer: I own CC and most of its extensions. I have not tried all possible pieces of mapping software that exist so there might be something better out there but I seriously doubt it. I am not in any way affiliated with Profantasy, e-on software or Curious Labs.
As a long-time gamer and sometime-artist (that is, I know enough technically to not be laughed out by my artist friends), I'm somewhat surprised that nobody has mentioned that before you get into all this mapping software, you really should think about the map. Sketch things out, make notes - whether they're on paper or in a word processor or on MS Paint/GIMP/Photoshop. There has not been one map-making program I know that will help you out with the planning stage. In fact, most of them are detriments to it.
If you already have a map, that's another matter. I don't like Campaign Cartographer specifically because it's a CAD program. It's slow and a pain to fix or alter things on other layers. The one thing it does better than (so far as I can tell) any other gaming-mapping program is link and keep track of notes.
In today's XHTML computing world, though, this isn't that impressive. Even so, I've seen more interesting maps drawn by inartistic DMs using a pencil than I have with inartistic DMs using mapping software. But that's just map-MAKING software.
What I'd love to see is software that has a GM map and a player map on the same computer. The GM map would include pop-up notes for the GM, icons for who's where, but the player map would only have those areas flagged by the GM to be player-viewable.
I'd love a SIMPLE interface, or an interface I could use simply. Normally we just use a Battle Mat, erasable markers, and dice representing where we are. We save more money for pizza and elvish hookers that way. There are simply so many ways and reasons that someone would want, or care for, RPG Map-Making Software. I just touched on the two that meant the most to me.
I have to agree. I'm not looking for professional level maps.
Best Rpg Mapping Software
Something simple and tile-based is all most people need. Nothing that I have seen posted here has addressed the issues that I (and apparently Thenomain) find to be most important. Give me a program that allows the GM to create a map, including creatures, traps, doors, passages, etc. Let the players view the bits of the map (remotely even, possibly through this thing they call the 'Internet'?) that I want them to see. Allow the GM to reveal. For any non-trivial map, I would start with pen and paper and only move to CC once the paper version is at final draft stage.
The editing aspect is what makes using a program really worthwhile (aside from getting really nice looking maps); after a few editing cycles and a few dozen game sessions pen-and-paper maps get smudgy and hard to read, not to mention lost. For maps that you only use a few times though, pen and paper might be better (if you don't care about getting that nice professional lo. Every now and then a map I drew about 15 years ago of a fragment of a quasi-mediaeval European town shows up. I was fed up of American maps of 'mediaeval cities' in which there were perfectly square city blocks with a FedEx drop-off box on every corner. profantasy.com used some of my holoweb.net from my fromoldbooks.org Web site, so I link back to them, but as far as I can tell their products or for Microsoft Windows. They gave me a free Castles program, but I didn't try it under WINE.
On Linux today I'd probably look at using either Grass (a fairly complex GIS program for the hard-core enthusiast) or a vector-based drawing program such as Inkscape. It's useful to have a drawing program that handles layers (Inkscape does these days), and a vector-based rather than bitmap program is good because (1) the maps print OK, (2) when you ditch that old 640x480 screen and go for 24,000 x 9,000 pixels:-) you can still find the map, and (3) you can zoom without it getting blocky, and (4) you can edit it later. If you insist on using a raster/bitmap program like GIMP, use a separate layer for everything and keep text layers as text for as ong as possible, so you can edit them. Maps with spelling errors look really stupid. Plus it's neat to be able to go back and add detail during the campaign. If you give the players a copy of the map file, export it to a bitmap first, with the layers containing your own notes well hidden! Or first save the file, then carefully delete the layers you don't want them to see, and then save a copy under a different name and send that.
But that process is error-prone especially if you're tired. I sometimes gave players incorrect maps, e.g. Badly remembered or done with 'poor cartography', and they'd end up piecing the truth up from the obvious contradictions. One had an entire country whose existence was censored:-) There are a number of clip-art fonts around with map symbols.
Some are commercial (I'm sure you respect commercial licences, since you want the GPL to be respected, right?) such as Adobe's Carta, but there are some free ones too. There are also some low-cost fonts especially for making RPG maps by David Nalle at fontcraft.com. I think they have some non-Free non-free software for Microsoft Windows too. An alternative to clip art fonts is to make your own symbol library, e.g. By drawing pointy muontains and so forth with a pencil, colouring them with crayons, and scanning the result before and after adding colour. You could then trace these in a program like Inkscape, too.