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

Click to expand...

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.

Click to expand...

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.

Click to expand...

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.

Click to expand...

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.

Arbitrary said:

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.

Click to expand...

I have forgotten some of the details, but if we're talking about the same adventure, the players take a back seat to some extremely important/powerful NPCs that come in and save the day when the players are getting their asses handed to them. It was/is a really controversial adventure because the PCs played second fiddle.

Despite having read all the game material printed for the setting, I've only run one campaign in Athas and I ran it in such a way that, once completed, you're pretty much done with the setting. The entire goal was to stop the Sorcerer-Kings (along with their defiling magic that was sucking the world dry) and then try to find a way to repair some of the catastrophic damage done to the planet by the Kings.

The campaign ran the entire power spectrum. They started as escaped slaves (or something similar), built power and influence behind the scenes with the various factions until they were powerful enough to challenge the god-like Sorcerer-Kings.

I've never read the Dark Sun novels, but one of my players had and he said our campaign had a few similarities. Obviously, you can play a Dark Sun campaign in a lot of different ways, but I wanted to run an epic, super high-stakes, world-changing campaign like the War of the Lance from Dragonlance. It was awesome, but the problem is that once you've done that, it's hard for the players to go back.

As far as the setting being juiced -- yeah, it is. Characters always started at level 3 and their ability scores were capped much higher than other settings.

The idea is that the world is such a harsh place that only the strongest survived and psionics is part of that evolution. Every creature has some form of psionics. It was also a design decision because the world had no traditional gods and it filled some of the magical void created by not having gods to grant spells.

The elements (Air, Earth, Water, Fire), kinda function as druid-like psuedo-gods, but it's still not like the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk.

Even arcane magic was limited to Preservers (those who did their best to limit damage to the world when they used it) and Defilers (those that gave zero fucks). Both of whom are hated by nearly everyone in the world.

Anyway, at this point, I'm probably talking about stuff you already know.

I always check thrift shops too when I'm driving around at work. Last stuff I got was 3 5e and 3 4e books. $5 each lol

bigmark268 said:

I always check thrift shops too when I'm driving around at work. Last stuff I got was 3 5e and 3 4e books. $5 each lol

Click to expand...

You can still find amazing deals this way, but shit like Stranger Things raised public awareness and it's much harder now.

It can actually be super frustrating because a lot of the people with old D&D material automatically assume if it's got the ampersand on it, it's worth money and that couldn't be further from the truth. Yeah, a lot of D&D stuff is valuable, but there is still an absolute fuckton that goes for less than its cover price.

I search Mercari periodically and there have been at least half a dozen times where I have seen some compilation of garbage (random pieces from 3 or 4 boxed sets) and a 4e hardback priced at $1000+.

It's hilarious.