Wednesday, August 24, 2011

In Praise of Geomorphs -- and Dave's Mapper

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it here before, but, in case I haven't, let me say now that I absolutely adore Dave's Mapper. Look at this terrific dungeon level I created from several of the geomorph sets available through the site:
I like dungeon geomorphs. In fact, I think they're a nigh-essential tool in running a megadungeon-centered campaign. Like all such tools, they're no substitute for individual creativity or hard work, but they definitely have their place. Goodness knows I wish Dave's Mapper had been online when I started my Dwimmermount campaign two years ago; it certainly would have made my life easier at times.

10 comments:

  1. Neat map and a handy tool! I'm not a big fan of megadungeons, but I can see where this would be very useful.

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  2. Just tried it for a smaller dungeon (1x1 setting): works great!

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  3. Did I hallucinate an option to switch between Dungeon, Cave and Dungeon/Cave tile sets? I could've sworn such a thing was available a few days ago...

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  4. Jeff: Try "Map Mode" in the top left.

    I do love Dave's Mapper. Great stuff!

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  5. Hmmm. Map mode was not on the bar on my machine at work, but I can see it now on my wife's Mac.

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  7. Jeez Loouis, that is one busy-ass dungeon level. Even without monsters in it. Sheesh.

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  8. Heh, I surfed by Grognardia this morning and read about the MM 2. Then decided to see what kinds of DM creation tools have been invented since my last gaming session in 1991, read some stuff and surf back here and find this. Its like made to order blogging.

    Very nifty design tool. I owned the original geomorphs from TSR and liked them, but found them of limited utilty. For ideas and quick visualations of the possible, Dave's Mapper is ideal for what needed this morning.

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  9. Dave's Mapper is, indeed, great, but when I used a generated map in an LL game, I had a hell of a time describing corridor and room dimensions to the players.

    I was trying to do this old-school, with a mapper, but eventually gave up and came up with some reason to just give the players the map. Looking at the map you've got there, I shudder to think how I'd run it!

    I have thought of using post-its to cover sections of the map, revealing areas as PCs progress through the dungeon - they're an impatient group not wise to the ways of old...

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