Tabletop Game Tools & Applications, Part 1
We live in a golden age of online tools for tabletop gaming. Let’s face it, a game runner’s job is hard enough and a little help mortaring together even the best designed setting can take some of that load off their shoulders, allowing them to concentrate on running the game and engaging with the players.
Illwinter’s Floorplan Generator
There are a ton of dungeon and terrain drawing applications out there (so many that it probably warrants an article in its own right), but I picked this one this time because it is cheap, easy and fast. The shallow learning curve is also a welcome change from applications that draw heavily from the traditional CAD model. Just lay down your 7 gold pieces at Steam, download and get cracking. Print out your maps in multi-page PDF or use them in electronic format.
Illwinter’s Floorplan Generator
Medieval Fantasy City Generator
Quickly generate anything from small villages to sprawling cities for your fantasy world. This algorithmically driven tool has several fine-tuning options (I like the labels option on Style). You can even export to PNG or SVG, which is particularly handy if you plan to do use it in scale-able/dynamic way later. Medieval Fantasy City Generator is completely free, though I’m sure a donation would probably be appreciated.
Medieval Fantasy City Generator
Tavern Generator
An oldie but a goodie preserved in the Wizard’s of the Coast archive site. Once your have a city, your players are going to look for taverns (because they’re filled with shady individuals hiring adventurers for all sorts of mischief). While you won’t get a map, this generator gives you a basic description, some NPC information, a few rumors and even a menu (my favorite part) and accommodations information.
Tavern Generator
Kobold Fight Club (Encounter Builder)
Balancing encounters is a key design feature of D&D 5e. It is also one that gives a lot DMs a hard time. While a lot of “off sheet” factors can really change the effective challenge rating of an encounter, at least we have the incredibly popular Kobold Fight Club tool to take much of the math out of official process.
Simply add your party (mixing and matching levels as necessary) and then search through the large selection of monsters to find out what level of challenge and experience points you’re looking at. You can even generate random encounters of various difficulty to match your group composition.
Kobold Fight Club
Ok, not so much a resource but a reminder of how incredibly awesome and talented at mapmaking and illustration some folks are… and how I am not. 🙂
But seriously, just peruse this resource and get some inspiration and maybe find a project you’d like to support.
Cartographer’s Guild
