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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thpr" data-source="post: 3270591" data-attributes="member: 48911">I think that's a challenge in this area, because it is a small niche and a complex problem.  It is therefore difficult to spread out the development expense (time) across a small user base and make any money in the process.  I can buy software for many of the engineering challenges I encounter at work, but those start at $5K and some can run upwards of $50K for an application to do what I need.  I don't think that's reasonable.  I believe this is why you have encountered the lack of 'good' software.I have to say, I empathize with LrdApoc's frustration.  In my case, I would like to be taking notes in order to help the software you are lamenting develop... however, it's a challenge, given the lack of detail you provide... Specifically, you know what you mean by 'good' instantiations of these functions, but I have enough development experience to know that you have not communicated your definition of 'good' or things like 'Campaign Management' to me.So - assuming I was interested in trying to achieve your requirements, here is a sample of the questions I would be asking to you:For CharGen: Does good mean SRD only? d20?  Do you want CharGen for all of the non-WOTC sources?  How much rules enforcement do you want in the generator?  Does fun involve things like an animated die when rolling takes place (is that an eye-candy statement)?  Do you want to be able to customize the output sheet (if printed)?  How should it handle rule changes/conflicts (e.g. if a Class is defined as providing a new ability by an extra book)?  Define Campaign Management: Does this just mean storing notes?  When you make references in the notes, do you require that those link (like a Wiki?)  Should you be able to reorganize the notes (e.g. mind-mapping)?  How does this link to the mapping software and CharGen when NPCs are involved?  Should part of the campaign data be viewable by players (requiring a security system?), so that they can annotate maps and the general storyline?  How do you want to be able to extract this information?  Should it be free form information, formatted PDF, etc.?  Is this for use during the run or reference information?  For Mapping: Do you want just a plain mapping program (walls/doors) or do you require furniture and color?  How much modification of the map do you want to do?  Is this build from scratch or random generation?  Do you want vector mapping (like playing with shapes in powerpoint) or pixel mapping (like playing in Photoshop)?  What do you want to map: Star Systems (3D)? Worlds? Countries? Cities? Castles? Buildings? Dungeons? Caverns?  If a program performs random generation, should be it built to conform to physical reality (the building won't fall down if you put furniture on the second floor)?  Do you want randomization by geography (northern climes require fireplaces at given intervals and you end up with very limited and repeated building designs in the pre-oil, pre-electricity era)?  Do you want generation for different time eras?  What about different cultures?  (I could go on for pages here... because I developed RPG-MapGen [see Sourceforge].  I admit it does have a few warts to it - the main one being it only does dungeons.  The second being the generation algorithm suffers from a known performance bottleneck, which means it takes a few seconds to make any given map.  I know the solution, I've just haven't been spending time on it.)... or are just listening.</blockquote>

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