The D&D thread

I have been semi casually looking for a program or app that takes real maps or images and converts them to old D&D style hexmaps?

Something like taking a satellite image and converting it to the Mystara style maps.

I don't think its possible, given that terrain and satellite maps do not show elevation and such that clearly so you'd prolly just have to drop your own hex overlay on top and than manually go through and change everything over to the proper map icon.

This brings me to the second alternative. Anyone know any good map making software or app for that style that could be used to 'paint over' an existing RL map by manually placing the hex grid and then filling in the proper terrain over the RL graphics yourself?

I have this weird desire to set a campaign in what is essentially a collapsed empire based on the RL geography my friends and I live in. See how long it is before they notice all the geography and old ruins and roads match up.

So I know I'm about 30yrs late on this. But I just started reading some of the old planescape setting and adventure books. These things are great. Just so out of thr box and wildly creative. I wish I had bought these when I was a kid lol

bigmark268 said:

So I know I'm about 30yrs late on this. But I just started reading some of the old planescape setting and adventure books. These things are great. Just so out of thr box and wildly creative. I wish I had bought these when I was a kid lol

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All the old 2e Planescape stuff is amazing. The setting is somewhat hard to run, but reading the material is S+.

I'm fortunate to have gotten physical copies of everything long ago because there's little chance that I'd buy stuff now. Most of it has gotten stupidly expensive.

For example - A decent condition Planes of Conflict boxed set is typically $600-$800 on Ebay. The Hellbound (metal af) boxed set is usually about $400 and a few of the 96 to 128-page softcovers are $300ish.

I have a mountain of D&D material, but my Planescape and Dark Sun stuff are right at the top of my favorites.

You can easily find PDFs of it all, but it's just not the same as having the material (and most importantly, the maps) in your hands.

Grabbit Allworth said:

I'm fortunate to have gotten physical copies of everything long ago because there's little chance that I'd buy stuff now. Most of it has gotten stupidly expensive.

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That's a hoot. All that stuff was on super clearance back in the day. No one gave a shit. Game stores and book stores alike choked on it.

Yeah I remember looking at it and being like nah. I wish I bought every clearance dnd book I ever saw lol

Arbitrary said:

That's a hoot. All that stuff was on super clearance back in the day. No one gave a shit. Game stores and book stores alike choked on it.

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Yep. I think that plays some part in why it's so expensive now. When the stuff first came out, a lot of it basically rotted on shelves and that led to smaller and smaller print runs.

Several of the last few products for each setting had relatively small runs and once people finally realized the content was good (and wouldn't always be readily available), it shot up in price.

Also, I have no evidence of this, but I suspect modern D&D writing being absolute trash is motivating some players to seek out copies of the older material.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Yep. I think that plays some part in why it's so expensive now. When the stuff first came out, a lot of it basically rotted on shelves and that led to smaller and smaller print runs.

Several of the last few products for each setting had relatively small runs and once people finally realized the content was good (and wouldn't always be readily available), it shot up in price.

Also, I have no evidence of this, but I suspect modern D&D writing being absolute trash is motivating some players to seek out copies of the older material.

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You have to figure too that when TSR went under a lot of product just didn't make it on to anyone's shelf or even a box in the basement. It went in to the dumpster. Slaying the Dragon, which I think you've read, has a story about a storage warehouse that the company stopped paying stuffed to the rafters with unsold or returned product. Hell, I know a couple nerds that were raiding the dumpsters at TSR HQ during it's last days.

I dumped basically all of my ancillary gaming crap years ago to free up space keeping only the specific books that I like but I can think of a couple dorks that still have shelves full of shit. I should clue them in on their hidden fortunes.

The price of Dark Sun stuff has seen a surge recently. Likely in response to the rumor of a 5e Dark Sun product in the near future.

I'm not the least bit excited about a Dark Sun product designed by current WotC. They literally just hired (3!) trannies for the D&D design team in the last few months.

The collecting side is whatever but I'd kinda like to see what a long-term campaign looks like. I had the boxed set and read through it and it looked like super death. I know the base races and classes are a little juiced and psionics have a long and proud history of being nuts but the adventure that came with it had you fucking tanking dragonlich godking Lord Dregoth for like three rounds for the victory objective.

That did not seem like it was a thing you were going to be able to do.