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Map-Making Software for RPG Campaigns?
mandrake*rpgdx writes "I'm looking into downloading/purchasing some map making software for my Table Top RPG group. I've heard about the free (GPL'd) AutoRealms and wondered if anyone with experience can compare it to commercial products like Campaign Cartographer, and if there is any Linux based map-maker I can grab?" The one I've been most impressed with, and might pick up at Gen Con this year, is Dundjinni. Anyone else have any software favorites?
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 impressed with CC, but the damn thing is windows-only. Hell, I'd buy a Linux version, if one were available.
So for now I use graph paper and non-photo blue pencil, then painstakingly ink, then photocopy. It takes a while, it's slow, and it's hard to edit or zoom etc. So yeah, if anyone's interested in doing a project like this in say, C++ I'd like to help.
... 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:
... What demon had to be slain that left its ichor to stain this map?
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.
Players: Ok. Let's see we'll need 18 standard ration units then, let's make it an even 20.
---- vs...
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)
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.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot