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Player Location Management

D

daplunk

Well-known member
Hi Team,

Throwing something out there a bit different but we we're thinking about it today and the concept was exciting.

It's possible for players to purchase land, buildings, ships, spaceships in the games we play. How cool would it be if we had a virtual tool with a heap of pre-made images that could be re-sized, rotated, flipped, etc to enable the design of player owned real-estate.

Picture a castle, the ability to add rooms, walls, torture chambers, kitchens, armories, etc.

On top of this the system should be able to link in with the requirements to manage the asset.

Staff would have a cost per X (month, day, tenday, etc)
Special Rooms may have a once-off cost, and an on-going cost as determined by the DM.
Give the DM the ability to add in items that can be created with the resources purchased.
The output would work as a Smart Image does now allowing it to be sent to the players as a usable map.

Link all this to the calendar and automate the cost. Have it spit out an invoice that needs to be covered for the upkeep.

In my mind Realm Works grows over time to become a complete DM cloud solution enabling the players to log in between sessions and interact with such a tool and submit their requests for DM approval.

The content market could be used to purchase new addons, themes for the feature.

I can dream...
 
For the mapping part, I already use a dedicated program called Campaign Cartographer 3. With it, I can lay out castles, homes, inns, space ships with the cosmographer add on, continents, worlds, even star systems. Just convert the maps to the appropriate size PNG file and then import the maps once they are done and everyone involved approves.

Daily, weekly, monthly, or annual costs could possibly be broken down and handled with a spreadsheet, in my opinion. The spreadsheet could even be imported into RW.

It would be nice, if the Calendar system were fully functional to be able to auto fill in payment (upkeep) due dates.

It's an interesting idea and not without some merit, but I think it would be way down the road considering some of it can be handled outside of RW and then imported into RW.

Hopefully, the content market will allow people to sell maps, adventures, campaigns, npc concept packages, and the like as long as they don't infringe on copyright or someone's Intellectual Property. I'm sure LWD is working towards that end, but it may be late in the roll out phases for the content market.
 
I have tried to use CC3 but the UI is awful :(

Absolutely acknowledge that this is a pipe dream and has no chance of getting priority, nor should it.

I've just spent the last 48 hours mapping out my perfect DM software and this idea sounded fun. Kinda like a pay to win mobile app for a table top game. I could see it getting my players hooked at least ;)
 
Pathfinder has rules in Ultimate Campaign for managing buildings (multiples) including custom-designing the set of rooms involved, as part of the "Downtime" section. HeroLab has implemented these nicely.

The only part missing is the graphic representation.. in HeroLab, it is all just more data on the forms.

Note also the "Kingdoms" are implemented in the same book, and HeroLab, so if you want in-game stats for a realm, you can put the relevant bits into HeroLab and tuck a portfolio into your Topic in RealmWorks.

On the graphics front, there is a collection of image tiles (I use them in Gimp) made by a professional graphics artist for game mapping HERE
 
Silveras said:
On the graphics front, there is a collection of image tiles (I use them in Gimp) made by a professional graphics artist for game mapping HERE
Click to expand...

Neat. I wasn't aware of that resource. I have CC3+ but tend to use Dungeonographer more. Takes so darn long to create things from scratch in CC3+

I've also been taking purchased maps and converting into battle maps using the process that DM David walkthrough on his blog:

http://dmdavid.com/tag/how-to-print-map-graphics-as-battle-maps-using-free-software/

I've also started buying dungeon/adventure tiles as I find sales on Amazon, Walmart, and E-Bay. Just getting to lazy to create my own. Would rather spend time on the story and making sure I know how to run combats (which is taking more time now that my players are getting into the higher levels and combat is getting more complicated).
 
MNBlockHead said:
Neat. I wasn't aware of that resource. I have CC3+ but tend to use Dungeonographer more. Takes so darn long to create things from scratch in CC3+

I've also been taking purchased maps and converting into battle maps using the process that DM David walkthrough on his blog:

http://dmdavid.com/tag/how-to-print-map-graphics-as-battle-maps-using-free-software/

I've also started buying dungeon/adventure tiles as I find sales on Amazon, Walmart, and E-Bay. Just getting to lazy to create my own. Would rather spend time on the story and making sure I know how to run combats (which is taking more time now that my players are getting into the higher levels and combat is getting more complicated).
Click to expand...

I backed the Kickstarter for the Fantasy Art Kits, and I've been very happy with the resulting graphics components.

I should point out for others that they're not really "tiles" per-se, in the sense of "game tiles". They're .png files with transparency. If you use a graphics tool like Gimp or Photoshop that supports layers, you can assemble them into a very professional-looking map after some practice.

Because they are such files, individual objects can be made into tokens (both for creatures and objects) for use in various VTTs pretty easily. For example, you can create your maps with doors and secret doors left out, then add the appropriate "tokens" for closed or open states on top of the map in your VTT program.

Epic Table, Fantasy Grounds, and d20Pro have licensed the art for commercial use in their products. I know that tokens based on the art are available in the Fantasy Grounds in-tool store, but I am not sure of the details in other cases.
 
daplunk said:
I have tried to use CC3 but the UI is awful :(
Click to expand...

I fully agree. I have used CC2, CC3 and now CC3+ and found, that whatever they are developing it has nothing to do with any kind of UI improvement. Some of the bugs in the engine as well are old acquaintances.

With decades of having CC I still use only a little bit of the features. Nevertheless, I'm quite fast now creating new maps, and with a little training CC is rather powerful. Fine tuning then happens outside of CC with graphics tools. E.g. I've never found out how to create wobbly distorted walls of ruins with CC3. So I just create a .PNG and Adobe Photoshop or other less expensive tools do that nicely.

Yes, I could probably read the manual. But physicists never read manuals of any kind.
 
@wurzel

Yeah, I really should take the time to really learn CC3+, if I could only find the time. I did go through some video tutorials and I did read through the manual, but it didn't really "stick" and I've not put in enough time to get proficient. Instead I scour DriveThruRPG, a number of Patreon creators, and other sites and alter in GIMP.
 
wurzel said:
I fully agree. I have used CC2, CC3 and now CC3+ and found, that whatever they are developing it has nothing to do with any kind of UI improvement. Some of the bugs in the engine as well are old acquaintances.

With decades of having CC I still use only a little bit of the features. Nevertheless, I'm quite fast now creating new maps, and with a little training CC is rather powerful. Fine tuning then happens outside of CC with graphics tools. E.g. I've never found out how to create wobbly distorted walls of ruins with CC3. So I just create a .PNG and Adobe Photoshop or other less expensive tools do that nicely.

Yes, I could probably read the manual. But physicists never read manuals of any kind.
Click to expand...
CC is basically an art program. It is not really meant for non artists. If you use Photoshop or any other graphic arts program the terms and concepts of CC will be familiar to you.

What the gaming world needs is a GM oriented mapping tool. I've given some thought to it and not come up with any useful ideas.
 
There is also this map program (Worldographer or Hexographer) in the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...eator/posts/1654990?ref=backer_project_update

It is the development of this one: http://www.hexographer.com/

I use it because it is fast and easy and actually gets me what I need from a map making program - namely a geographic fixture for my world, ensuring consistency and basis for thinking up cultures and adventures.

I am - was - not aware of Other World Mapper, but I will have a closer look now - thank you for the pointer.
 
A list of map making software:

Since people often ask for map making software I decided to make a short list here. I am sure there are many other programs out there just as deserving of a mention.

I included some of the above mentioned and added some more.

I have no experience with any of them except the Hexographer series and CC3.

Hexographer
Homepage: http://www.hexographer.com/

Worldographer (Hexographer 2)
Homepage: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...apher-2-easy-map-world-creator?ref=nav_search

Other World Mapper
Homepage: http://www.otherworldmapper.com/

Inkarnate
Homepage: http://inkarnate.com/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=inkarnate&spfreload=10 (since the home page tells you next to nothing)

ProFantasy (Campaign Cartographer)
Homepage: https://secure.profantasy.com/default.asp

Dundjinni
Homepage: http://www.dundjinni.com/

Fractal Mapper
Homepage: http://nbos.com/products/fractal-mapper

And of course probably the greatest tool of them all: Pen and paper.
 
Well, they have a homepage, so I assume they are around - I don't know.

Edit:
It seems like the latest update was in 2008 (with a quick look). But the homepage still seems ready to accept money.

Edit-Edit:
HowEVER, on their news page they are talking about the work on version 2.0 and it is posted in 2016.
 
Last edited:
Last I heard on their forums Dundjinni had been bought out and they were trying to restart but that was several months back and I've not heard anything since.
 
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