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Good RPG Mapping Software


Fergo113

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This may be a little off the BRP track, but can anyone give me some advice as to what, in their experience, the best rpg mapping software tools are. I know of DriveThruRPG has a load of different software mapping tools for sale, but just where do you begin??? :confused:

Most of the campaigns that my group are involved in are either of the fantasy or modern genre. What I am interested in are mapping tools for designing countryside terrain for player characters to adventure through, townships, floor-plans (fantasy and modern genre, heck, why not even throw in future/si-fi floor-plans for good measure as well :thumb:) etc.

With so many options available, what have people bought that they thought was really worthwhile and that gave good additional support, updates and value for money (oh, and produced really nice maps!). :happy:

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I started with ProFantasy Software - Campaign Cartographer 3 - map making for game, historical and hobby mappers (actually I was using version 2) but didn't really like the interface, too CAD-like for my taste.

More recently, I've had pretty good results from AutoREALM - The GNU Mapper

Hope this helps

Mark

Abusus non tollit usum

"Abuse is no argument against proper use"

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I use Campaign Cartographer 3. It's very attractive, and whilst it has a fair learning curve due to its CAD-like interface, it produces some very professional looking results.

It has Campaign, Dungeon, Spaceship, and City extensions. Also there are plug-ins to emulate many popular map styles, including Mercator, John Speed, the old ICE Middle Earth maps, and others.

I'd recommend it. It's a bit pricey, and will take a bit of time to learn, but it has good manuals and gives excellent results.

Cheers,

Sarah

"The Worm Within" - the first novel for The Chronicles of Future Earth, coming 2013 from Chaosium, Inc.

Website: http://sarahnewtonwriter.com | Twitter: @SarahJNewton | Facebook: TheChroniclesOfFutureEarth

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0one Website make a kind of customizeable PDFs that allow you to pick "tiles" and make a map. I just discovered the site a day ago and haven't checked out these, but they look interesting. As far as I can tell they fall between prepared maps and a normal mapping program.

I bought dwarf stronghold in the blueprints line. It's nice, has a few too many secret doors and a couple of layout decisions I might argue with, but very useful to someone who is artistically challenged like myself. :)

There are a few free samples to download.

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I'm a CC2/CC3 fan, mainly because it makes drill-down easy. I agree the learning curve can be a barrier, but I'm able to make a high-level map, split it into submaps that get detailed, and link everything together.

If I ever want to print out a poster map, I can electronically paste all the detail maps together and get a big one with tons of detail.

Steve

Bathalians, the newest UberVillians!

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I'm still using my ancient copy of Campaign Cartographer 1 (through DOSBOX); I really ought to break down and give CC3 a look at some point. Any of the CC users been using it long enough to know how much the conversion learning curve is liable to be?
I started with CC2, not DOS. I can say that Profantasy has worked hard to make the tools more powerful, and the software overall easier to use. I think a CC2 user will find CC3 easier to use (and will also have lots of bitmap graphics options opened up as well).

As for CC-DOS, If you are familiar with the Verb-Object ordering of cc2, it should be straightforward. You could also ask your question on the profantasy forum (Forum.Profantasy.com or the cc2-l group on groups.yahoo.com -- both are well attended) and get an educated answer.

Steve

Bathalians, the newest UberVillians!

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I started with CC2, not DOS. I can say that Profantasy has worked hard to make the tools more powerful, and the software overall easier to use. I think a CC2 user will find CC3 easier to use (and will also have lots of bitmap graphics options opened up as well).

As for CC-DOS, If you are familiar with the Verb-Object ordering of cc2, it should be straightforward. You could also ask your question on the profantasy forum (Forum.Profantasy.com or the cc2-l group on groups.yahoo.com -- both are well attended) and get an educated answer.

Steve

Its probably not worth the trouble; I was just curious if jumping two versions would be more trouble than its worth to me, and thought (given the sometimes older demographic of BRP types) that someone else might have gone through both versions and have an opnion.

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  • 2 years later...

Dungeon Painter Online, it's really cool.

scr_editor1.png

- No downloads, installation or registration required.

- Simple interface

- Wast selection of objects and textures

- Layers and groups

- Export to png and jpg

- Maps sharing through online gallery

- Export to multipage pdf for print

- Special black & white collection for print

- Tile categories & subcategories with preview

- Square and hex grid

- Hotkeys

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I always have trouble finding non-fantasy mappers. Seems Modern and Sci-Fi games are not appreciated much. Anyway, the one I currently extensively use is "Shuffler". It is Modern games and Sci-Fi only and extremely fast to use. It does have a bit of a limited feature set, but you can extend it with custom pics.

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