I can't draw, not even a little, but I really really need a map for this campaign idea to work. The question is, what do I do? Are there any Dnd Cartographer out they that can turn my color coded and numbered hexs into a map that will inspire my players to invest in their home city? I've tried using Inkarnate, but I'm just hopeless.
Ah I should have mentioned that. Thats what I usually do when they enter a city in a campaign, but since the whole campaign takes place in one city I have specific needs: A river, the Sea, 3 cliffs in the heart of the city etc.
I've got a campaign set in a metropolis right now and tried a whole myriad of mapping software options, but nothing was designed to work with the scale I needed so I ended up just going back to basics and drawing a simple map which focused more on expressing the discrete districts than anything else. Which I know isn't the answer you were probably looking for. I'm not a great drawer either, but I found that drawing the shapes of each district first allowed the city to take form well enough, and I was happy with the result. For traveling I told them that on foot it would be an hour per inch, and I use a piece of string to measure that out on the map.
It's worked well enough so far, but if I ever get time I might draw more detailed maps of each district. I think that sort of thing might be more tailored towards the software I tried using too (since my scale won't be as large as trying to fit the entire thing).
I use a lot of the assets from https://2minutetabletop.com/, and they have some items that you can use to build your own city/street maps using tools like Wonderdraft/GIMP or photoshop. It takes a little time to build the map of course, but the assets are of excellent quality so it might be worth checking out if you have a minute.
Cart 3 does have a city mapping module but I believe that cost extra. At least it was an extra add on to the humble bundle I bought of those tools. I’ve used donjon for quick city details and it turned out pretty well.
CC3 is reputed to have a steep learning curve, though I have not tried it.
Wonderdraft is not hard to learn, since its author is a genius at interfaces and ease-of-use for the user, but it is not meant to make cities. You CAN do it (I have), but it will take hours to get right... vs. being able to make a wicked world map in literally minutes. There is just not a good way to do roads and buildings without painstaking individual placement and lots of micro-tweaking. I did it once -- I will not do it again.
I'm hoping after Dungeondraft is finished Megasploot will make something like CityDraft - and then I will be in heaven.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
CC3 is reputed to have a steep learning curve, though I have not tried it.
Wonderdraft is not hard to learn, since its author is a genius at interfaces and ease-of-use for the user, but it is not meant to make cities. You CAN do it (I have), but it will take hours to get right... vs. being able to make a wicked world map in literally minutes. There is just not a good way to do roads and buildings without painstaking individual placement and lots of micro-tweaking. I did it once -- I will not do it again.
I'm hoping after Dungeondraft is finished Megasploot will make something like CityDraft - and then I will be in heaven.
Yeah, I got CC3 at a steep discount but it was uninstalled after a week, I agree with a steep learning curve that I did not have that much time to spend on it.
I've been wanting Dungeondraft but I just have not been able to pull the trigger and go ahead and buy it.
I was going to get CC3 until I learned it was CAD based. I detest CAD systems, after having tried to design a model train layout with "XTrackCAD" (which was free). A free CAD system I *might* have tried, but I am not going to pay top dollar for a system I know will have a UI that is completely unintuitive to me.
Wonder- and Dungeondraft are great software. It's just that neither was designed with making cities as its primary goal. DD is for interior areas inside crypts, dungeons, etc., and WD is for large continent-sized maps.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Side question. I am crafting my own city maps for my own campaign and continent. Do any of the map-makers generate anything on hexes, as opposed to squares? It is not earth-shattering to build large scale maps on squares, but I do play with hexes when dealing with encounter scale mapping.
Another vote for CC3 being hard to learn, but once you get how to do it, the maps are beautiful. It takes a lot of trial and error though, unless you’re an architect or engineer type who uses CAD a lot. I just got in the habit of saving every time I managed to do something right. It’s still hard, but I can mostly pull off what I want.
Side question. I am crafting my own city maps for my own campaign and continent. Do any of the map-makers generate anything on hexes, as opposed to squares? It is not earth-shattering to build large scale maps on squares, but I do play with hexes when dealing with encounter scale mapping.
Worldographer does actual hex maps, hex-by-hex. It's on sale right now (or rather, the bundle with cityographer and dungeonographer is... I am seriously thinking of getting it).
Wonderdraft will overlay either squares or hexes onto your map if you want, but it is a free-form painting program so it doesn't put symbols down "by hex" the way Worldographer does. It looks a lot prettier (IMO) than Worldographer, but if you want an actual hex-based map, Worldographer might be your go-to.
They are both about the same price ($30), I think... I recommend watching some YouTube videos about people showing how to use both things so you can see which one you think you will like better. I use WD right now for my party campaign, but I am thinking of doing Worldographer for my solo game, because I'm going to be mapping that out hex by hex as the character explores the world, and won't know what is coming ahead of time (using RNG to generate). So I need discrete hex symbols rather than the more free-form system of WD.
But either one would probably do you... depending on your preferred style.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I bought Worldographer with the City/Dungeon add on. The bundle cost $69. I installed the Windows Native version. I cannot comment on the Mac or Java versions.
I have been able to get the application to start up exactly once. I played around with city generation. It was great until I tried to alter percentages of races in the town. It insisted that the races did not add up to 100, even when I set all but one to 0 and one to 100 (surely 100 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 100!?!?). I tried to generate a 2nd city map and everything hung. I closed and restarted the application, or tried to. I have not gotten it to open up again, since. 2 hours of trying things. No dice.
At this point based on this experience I cannot recommend Worldographer.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I bought Worldographer with the City/Dungeon add on. The bundle cost $69. I installed the Windows Native version. I cannot comment on the Mac or Java versions.
I have been able to get the application to start up exactly once. I played around with city generation. It was great until I tried to alter percentages of races in the town. It insisted that the races did not add up to 100, even when I set all but one to 0 and one to 100 (surely 100 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 100!?!?). I tried to generate a 2nd city map and everything hung. I closed and restarted the application, or tried to. I have not gotten it to open up again, since. 2 hours of trying things. No dice.
At this point based on this experience I cannot recommend Worldographer.
Salute to you for providing a down in the trenches experience.
I bought Worldographer with the City/Dungeon add on. The bundle cost $69. I installed the Windows Native version. I cannot comment on the Mac or Java versions.
I have been able to get the application to start up exactly once. I played around with city generation. It was great until I tried to alter percentages of races in the town. It insisted that the races did not add up to 100, even when I set all but one to 0 and one to 100 (surely 100 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 100!?!?). I tried to generate a 2nd city map and everything hung. I closed and restarted the application, or tried to. I have not gotten it to open up again, since. 2 hours of trying things. No dice.
At this point based on this experience I cannot recommend Worldographer.
Will you be able to get you money back? I am guessing not.....
I have emailed to ask for a refund but I am not optimistic.
I am really bummed to be honest... I thought it looked like a neat program and I liked that it would generate the whole city for you, a family for each household, shop prices, and all. You have to configure it but it is worth it to do that once for an hour and then auto-gen a bunch of cities.
So first and foremost if this is a custom campaign the first 3 things you need to realize about a town is 1. Why is this town HERE? Did they settle around a mine? Are they a logging town? Does the town have a shit load of flowers and beekeepers? etc etc. 2. Points of Interests - What can the players do in these towns? Add an Inn or two, maybe a fight pit or a local carnival stopped in. If the camp is a mining camp add a blacksmith or a mercenary company building called like "The Brass Bulls" and they take care of local problems, but there short on men and BAM quests. and 3. Get a basic layout of the town. You don't even need a map just make a bullet point list of all the important buildings then add filler between them of living space/out houses/stores etc. You want something to fall back on incase they enter the town and have goods sell, but its a small town and the only store is a Honey/Flower shop or a brewery, so why would they buy weapons/junk?. Maybe theres a traveling merchant that stopped by etc. Always have a list you can fall back on so your not lost in the dark.
I have emailed to ask for a refund but I am not optimistic.
I am really bummed to be honest... I thought it looked like a neat program and I liked that it would generate the whole city for you, a family for each household, shop prices, and all. You have to configure it but it is worth it to do that once for an hour and then auto-gen a bunch of cities.
Alas... it was not to be.
Hoping you get the refund but I cannot imagine you are the first person who ran into similar experience with the application.
I can't draw, not even a little, but I really really need a map for this campaign idea to work. The question is, what do I do? Are there any Dnd Cartographer out they that can turn my color coded and numbered hexs into a map that will inspire my players to invest in their home city? I've tried using Inkarnate, but I'm just hopeless.
Can you just show them a really cool map of a city and then move your hexes around?
Ah I should have mentioned that. Thats what I usually do when they enter a city in a campaign, but since the whole campaign takes place in one city I have specific needs: A river, the Sea, 3 cliffs in the heart of the city etc.
I've got a campaign set in a metropolis right now and tried a whole myriad of mapping software options, but nothing was designed to work with the scale I needed so I ended up just going back to basics and drawing a simple map which focused more on expressing the discrete districts than anything else. Which I know isn't the answer you were probably looking for. I'm not a great drawer either, but I found that drawing the shapes of each district first allowed the city to take form well enough, and I was happy with the result. For traveling I told them that on foot it would be an hour per inch, and I use a piece of string to measure that out on the map.
It's worked well enough so far, but if I ever get time I might draw more detailed maps of each district. I think that sort of thing might be more tailored towards the software I tried using too (since my scale won't be as large as trying to fit the entire thing).
I use a lot of the assets from https://2minutetabletop.com/, and they have some items that you can use to build your own city/street maps using tools like Wonderdraft/GIMP or photoshop. It takes a little time to build the map of course, but the assets are of excellent quality so it might be worth checking out if you have a minute.
Worldographer has a Cityographer add-on.
Campaign Cartographer 3 has a city mapping module, I think.
Using Wonderdraft to make cities is possible but extremely time consuming.
Watabou and Donjon both have random city generators.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Cart 3 does have a city mapping module but I believe that cost extra. At least it was an extra add on to the humble bundle I bought of those tools. I’ve used donjon for quick city details and it turned out pretty well.
CC3 is reputed to have a steep learning curve, though I have not tried it.
Wonderdraft is not hard to learn, since its author is a genius at interfaces and ease-of-use for the user, but it is not meant to make cities. You CAN do it (I have), but it will take hours to get right... vs. being able to make a wicked world map in literally minutes. There is just not a good way to do roads and buildings without painstaking individual placement and lots of micro-tweaking. I did it once -- I will not do it again.
I'm hoping after Dungeondraft is finished Megasploot will make something like CityDraft - and then I will be in heaven.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, I got CC3 at a steep discount but it was uninstalled after a week, I agree with a steep learning curve that I did not have that much time to spend on it.
I've been wanting Dungeondraft but I just have not been able to pull the trigger and go ahead and buy it.
I was going to get CC3 until I learned it was CAD based. I detest CAD systems, after having tried to design a model train layout with "XTrackCAD" (which was free). A free CAD system I *might* have tried, but I am not going to pay top dollar for a system I know will have a UI that is completely unintuitive to me.
Wonder- and Dungeondraft are great software. It's just that neither was designed with making cities as its primary goal. DD is for interior areas inside crypts, dungeons, etc., and WD is for large continent-sized maps.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Side question. I am crafting my own city maps for my own campaign and continent. Do any of the map-makers generate anything on hexes, as opposed to squares? It is not earth-shattering to build large scale maps on squares, but I do play with hexes when dealing with encounter scale mapping.
Another vote for CC3 being hard to learn, but once you get how to do it, the maps are beautiful. It takes a lot of trial and error though, unless you’re an architect or engineer type who uses CAD a lot. I just got in the habit of saving every time I managed to do something right. It’s still hard, but I can mostly pull off what I want.
Worldographer does actual hex maps, hex-by-hex. It's on sale right now (or rather, the bundle with cityographer and dungeonographer is... I am seriously thinking of getting it).
Wonderdraft will overlay either squares or hexes onto your map if you want, but it is a free-form painting program so it doesn't put symbols down "by hex" the way Worldographer does. It looks a lot prettier (IMO) than Worldographer, but if you want an actual hex-based map, Worldographer might be your go-to.
They are both about the same price ($30), I think... I recommend watching some YouTube videos about people showing how to use both things so you can see which one you think you will like better. I use WD right now for my party campaign, but I am thinking of doing Worldographer for my solo game, because I'm going to be mapping that out hex by hex as the character explores the world, and won't know what is coming ahead of time (using RNG to generate). So I need discrete hex symbols rather than the more free-form system of WD.
But either one would probably do you... depending on your preferred style.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Just want to give a small update.
I bought Worldographer with the City/Dungeon add on. The bundle cost $69. I installed the Windows Native version. I cannot comment on the Mac or Java versions.
I have been able to get the application to start up exactly once. I played around with city generation. It was great until I tried to alter percentages of races in the town. It insisted that the races did not add up to 100, even when I set all but one to 0 and one to 100 (surely 100 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 100!?!?). I tried to generate a 2nd city map and everything hung. I closed and restarted the application, or tried to. I have not gotten it to open up again, since. 2 hours of trying things. No dice.
At this point based on this experience I cannot recommend Worldographer.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Salute to you for providing a down in the trenches experience.
Will you be able to get you money back? I am guessing not.....
I have emailed to ask for a refund but I am not optimistic.
I am really bummed to be honest... I thought it looked like a neat program and I liked that it would generate the whole city for you, a family for each household, shop prices, and all. You have to configure it but it is worth it to do that once for an hour and then auto-gen a bunch of cities.
Alas... it was not to be.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
So first and foremost if this is a custom campaign the first 3 things you need to realize about a town is 1. Why is this town HERE? Did they settle around a mine? Are they a logging town? Does the town have a shit load of flowers and beekeepers? etc etc. 2. Points of Interests - What can the players do in these towns? Add an Inn or two, maybe a fight pit or a local carnival stopped in. If the camp is a mining camp add a blacksmith or a mercenary company building called like "The Brass Bulls" and they take care of local problems, but there short on men and BAM quests. and 3. Get a basic layout of the town. You don't even need a map just make a bullet point list of all the important buildings then add filler between them of living space/out houses/stores etc. You want something to fall back on incase they enter the town and have goods sell, but its a small town and the only store is a Honey/Flower shop or a brewery, so why would they buy weapons/junk?. Maybe theres a traveling merchant that stopped by etc. Always have a list you can fall back on so your not lost in the dark.
Hoping you get the refund but I cannot imagine you are the first person who ran into similar experience with the application.
Update... somehow it decided to start kind-of working again.
It is very counter-intuitive in terms of the UI -- certainly nothing like Wonderdraft. And of course... whether it will keep booting up, I don't know.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.