@doppelgreener I became aware of it when we found the films at the local video store about six years ago. Then my worlds collided when John Rogers became the show developer for the TV series. That's this John Rogers. And Fred Hicks started re-tweeting his comments about how they use RPG concepts in the writing room.

Just thought it was interesting because there was some discussion a few days ago about JC and WotC talking about other RPGs

@BESW At what point did you start disliking Dresden Files (now that i'm generally caught up except for the ancillary stories)

@NautArch A lot later than I would now.

I started feeling like something was "off" after about the third book, I think? But I couldn't identify it and at the time I hadn't read a lot of other urban fantasy to compare it to.

@BESW ha, fair enough :). And guessing any further discussion is kind of spoilerish

I finally dropped it around Ghost Story, after reading the last couple novels purely on the momentum of enthusiasm for the game and sharing the books with my friends.

@BESW yeah, Dforck was saying a lot of people didn't like GHost Story

Officially I dropped it because I ran across a tweet by Butcher explaining that he was making decisions based on how miserable he could make Harry, and that was definitely a big part of the uncomfortable feeling.

@BESW Well, miserable heroes is sort of a hero cycle thing.

There's crisis and victory, and there's misery porn.

@BESW hmm, I didn't get the misery porn feeling.

But on reflection, and having read a lot more urban speculative fiction, definitely part of what felt "off" has nothing to do with that.

Hey does anyone have recommendations for software to keep track of games, especially with mapping? I'm going to be running my first full 5E game as DM soon and I'm not really liking most of the stuff out there already, it seems limited to mostly mapping out individual dungeons as opposed to world maps.

MS paint or paint.net for simple low-detail maps. Openoffice or MS office or notepad++ or gdocs for notes, character stats, and so on. PCGen if you have the patience. Whatever you're comfortable with.

@BESW What was it?

@MikeQ @RobRose for notes our group's had great success with google docs, since we can just share it to anyone ever anytime

@RobRose What do you mean by keep track? How are you creating your world maps?

@MikeQ see I kind of suck at art though and I was hoping to find something to help with drawing maps.

@NautArch Sorry, helping my dad get ready for the day center.

@doppelgreener +1 Our group keeps a collaborative log of each and every session as well as inventory and character sheets in Google Docs. Great stuff.

@BESW no worries - we can table this for later :)

@NautArch Currently I've just sketched things out on paper but it's not very easy to keep track of details regarding everything

@RobRose are you hoping to use the software to display/share the map with players? Or just keep and use it yourself?

@RobRose +2 to Google Drive. Between docs, sheets, drawings, etc - there's something to keep track of everything. We don't track each other character sheets, but we've used it when inventory needed to be tracked (things left behind, etc.) and done some storytelling on the sessions.

@Rubiksmoose A little bit of both. If there was a program out there that allowed me to "reveal" the world map to players that would be great, but otherwise just for my keeping.

@RobRose So that's two issues. 1 is designing the map, 2 is sharing it (and controlling how it is displayed to players). Is that correct?

@MikeQ Yeah, I suppose that would be accurate.

I don't have any experience with it but would roll20 or something like it be what @RobRose is looking for? Or overkill?

@Rubiksmoose Roll20's maps seem to be more for individual dungeons as opposed to worlds as a whole. I suppose it would work for dungeons though.

@Rubiksmoose Roll20 would help with the sharing issue, yes. Essentially you upload the map as big, static images, then scale them. The owner can put a "fog of war" over parts of the map they don't want to be visible.

@RobRose 1 doesn't really have a good answer. Maybe use map generators for inspiration, or look through historical/fantasy maps to get an idea of what they generally look like.

@RobRose I'm guessing, but I'll bet there is a way to make it work with world maps as well (or whatever non-dungeon maps you are working with)

@MikeQ Worried that would be the case. Thanks though!

@Rubiksmoose Yeah, I'll see what I can do, thanks!

@RobRose Land masses and water bodies generally look like blobs - if they're meant to be natural, then randomish is fine. Don't try to be exact or perfect - maps are typically somewhat inaccurate, and often use symbols to represent things (e.g. little hill shapes to represent mountain ranges, rather than elevation charts)

If you're looking for low-tech, for the last dungeon of Lost Mine of Phandelver (which we were/are doing over several sessions), I made a copy of the map from the book, then taped a piece of construction paper over it. I'm cutting out sections revealing what the party has seen as they travel through. Might work for a world map as well.

Another thing to keep in mind about maps is that the idea of a complete map where you know exactly where you are and how to get to your destination is a fairly modern invention. A rough outline of locations and travel times is really adequate for most adventure planning.

@RobRose OpenRPG, perhaps. It works offline if you just want to use it as a display interface, and you can upload whatever images you want as map backgrounds quite easily and switch between them, so you can have one map with the world and other maps with whatever else you want. Battle fog didn't work super well the last time I used it, but that was more than ten years ago.

Alright cool, thanks for the tips everyone!

@RobRose Also, a friend is recommending something called "Realm Works", which is supposedly very good for worldbuilding and managing notes and NPCs. It is structured like a wiki, so it's easy to organize stats and notes for associated things.

I do agree with @PeterCooperJr:

A map like this one can be better than a map covered with fog. It makes sense that characters would be able to learn something about distant lands--just not necessarily reliable or detailed something.

@BESW Needs some illustrations of dragons and sea serpents

The best medieval maps all have clearly fake areas with legendary lands and gold temples and stuff

Another thing one can do is have the players make the map themselves as they go along.

Since the PC were citizens of a dragon empire, I think that'd be frowned upon.

I like to use maps as "where you could go!" rather than "where you've been."

I also like The Angry GM's "Getting There is Half the Fun", where it's clear that the point of a "Where you could go" map is just to make travel choices clear and interesting: Take the shorter riskier path or the longer safer path?

@BESW That is typically how I draw them, because it's less work

Other maps I've made for campaigns:

Recently, since a lot of our campaigns are set in something very much like real modern-day places, I've been annotating a shared Google Maps document.

Here there be bees

Don't you mean dragons?

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

@BESW for searching purposes, the name for that is Google My Maps. Here's a link for people with a Google account: google.com/maps/d

Does an uncharted island still count as uncharted if it's on a map?

@MikeQ it oughtn't

"Charts" are strictly nautical, landlubbers use maps

Unless the proper name is "Uncharted Island", which is great

@MikeQ I'm gonna use that.

@MikeQ To which the ship "Untitled" sails?

@MikeQ Strictly speaking, they know it's over there somewhere but everyone's measurements of exactly where come back different from everyone else's.

(It's actually a giant turtle.)

@BESW torta incognita?

Yes.

@BESW Are there four giant elephants on the island as well?

@MikeQ under the island

standing on turtles

all the way down

No, just an exiled colony of xenophobic aquatic elves.

an uncharted island is also one nobody's really been able to figure out the shape or content of

you can know an island's over there, and see it every day, but if nobody's actually gone over there and figured out what's on or in it, it's not yet been charted

@doppelgreener You can know what's on it, but unless someone took the time to chart that, it's uncharted

Yeah. Everybody knows the island's there, but nobody can pinpoint its exactly location and anybody who goes there doesn't come back.

@SPavel technically true

@BESW because it's so nice they don't want to leave?

....yes.

(see above re: xenophobic elves)

@Siro Hi!

I just realised Siro's cool-lookin' avatar is a kerbal and now I like it a little bit more even.

lol

those little scamps

Am I crazy or is this edit by @thedarkwanderer just wrong? rpg.stackexchange.com/posts/113477/revisions

5e, rounding down is the norm and I don't see why this case is any different.

@Rubiksmoose rounding down is absolutely the norm in 5e

and that answer makes my eyes glaze over

@NautArch me too! Like I've dealt with lots of math before (and lots more than this) but I could not bring myself to follow the argument all the way through.

I rolled it back

@Rubiksmoose there are some round up exceptions, but they are exceptions

@NautArch taking average HP at level up is the one that comes to mind

@Rubiksmoose this is because math is usually more interesting than this

@doppelgreener It would actually be very hard for it to be less so XD

@Rubiksmoose equations are boring, but mathematics deals with fundamentally understanding the universe. but iteratively going "look, math" is eyes glaze over time.

@Rubiksmoose @NautArch I have noticed, though, when deconstructing monsters that sometimes rounding is... inconsistent. I remember noticing it a few days ago, but I can't remember what it was and a friend's got my MM =\

A friend has your Monster Masher? I hope they get good use out of it

:P

And clean it before they give it back.