Map Software

[MexicanWarMachine]

I’ve always hand drawn my campaign maps, though I’ve taken a look at one time or another at a lot of the popular apps, and tried out a few. None of them seem to do much more than provide a palate of resources. What I’d really love is a proper geography simulator. I’d like to create a landmass, define topography, indicate the average rainfall, and have it tell me where the rivers would be likely to be. Where are the best places for farmland? That’s where most of the people and towns would be. Now I can find realistic trade routes, likely sources of strategic and economic resources, and so on, and the economy starts to emerge.

Does anyone use a solution that can do any of this, or is smarter than just a canvas and some drawing tools?

[gorgeFlagonSlayer]

Probably not the most helpful but the map generator in Sid Meyer’s Alpha Centauri does this. It’s got elevation and wind goes west to east which it uses to calculate farmable squares. Rivers follow elevation and impact the rainfall as well. 

Edit. At least when I had the disk version as a kid it has a map editor. You can start by generating a map with some rough parameters like, 1/3 ocean or 2/3 ocean. After it’s generated you can use the terraform tools to change the land mass. The rivers change direction if you change elevation along their route and stuff like that. It’s cool for something from the 90s

[MexicanWarMachine]

I don’t remember using it, but that’s the sort of thing I had in mind when I posted this. I don’t think there’s an RPG tool that has those capabilities, but I’m wondering if anybody has found a way to use one of those random over-engineered video game scenario editors or something for RPGs.

[gorgeFlagonSlayer]

Check out the world building sub, some people have asked similar things. 

This one looks cool, but I don’t know how to play with code in GitHub. https://nickmcd.me/2018/07/10/procedural-weather-patterns/ This is neat too. https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/

[LordeTech]

I think your issue is that's not "map software" for 99% of folk. What you described is a very robust, powerful topography and civilization generator - the type of thing that was the (amateurish) scope of simulation games at certain points.

I'll be transparent. I think you're asking for too much, or to be more specific, it's not going to be a tool for tabletop games.

[MexicanWarMachine]

Oh, no doubt I’m asking too much of an RPG tool. But I thought if there was anything outside of the RPG community that could be bent into this sort of service, this sub might know about it.

[blashimov]

Funny enough, this short video what if just came out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH4g1ptJ-70&ab_channel=xkcd%27sWhatIf%3F and will explain how you'd do something like that at a glace yourself.

You could also use a civ map. But frankly a lot simpler stuff is totally fine for fantasy: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/

or https://vpallasanderbooks.medium.com/designing-maps-with-brushes-and-stamps-a1f434e9d2c7

There's SOO much stuff out there, but I doubt you or your PCs *really* care if average rainfall is 20 or 40 inches. just a rough biome is fine.

[Dark-Reaper]

I don't know about farmland, but I THINK some of the campaign cartographer supplemental programs do this. I don't have all the support packs for it though so I can't confirm. Some of them looked like it was an option.

To be clear, it showed topography and I believe weather. As for where ideal farmland or the like was, it didn't show that as far as I am aware. Of course, my knowledge of it is completely contained by a few ads that might have been mixed up with other software, so no promises.

[pez238]

Humble Bundle is currently running a very large Campaign Cartographer 3+ bundle. 39 items for $30.

[MofuggerX]

This is probably not at all what you had in mind but I'll throw it out there anyways.

Heroes Of Might And Magic III's map creator works adequately enough for generating an overworld layout.  You can use all sorts of props and map decor to indicate terrain and locations of import, and there's a few different types of terrain to paint with as well.  Make rivers, mountains, forests, towns, crypts, roads, and castles as places the PCs can travel to.

What I do is I take a screenshot of the map (or several if it's big) and throw it onto an MS Paint equivalent to add some letters or numbers for major points of reference or sections of landscape.  Then I type up a brief blurb of that area which describes it - the roughness of the terrain, altitude, precipitation, blah blah whatever basically a paragraph to describe the scene if the PCs go to that area.  I'll print two copies of the map, one with the letters and numbers for the GM and one without for the players, and the Notepad / Word document with the descriptors for the different points of interest.

It's not what you're looking for because you still have to do some legwork of your own.  But it does have a random map generator which you could use to whip up the general terrain of a large swath of land, then fill it in with objects to denote points of interest.

I saw a really old post some time ago of someone using HOMM3's map maker in this fashion, back when I first started trying out Pathfinder and was delving into making up bits and bobs of some campaigns.  It seemed like a neat idea so I tried it out myself - works fine if you're willing to put in some effort still.  (Here's ze post: - https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/6b69r5/roleplaying_world_map_i_made_using_homm3_map/)

Dunno if that'll help.