What computer RPG support is worth paying for?

[johnsemlak]

I'm a bit technically unsophisticated and I find sometimes find the computer support options out there a bit bewildering. Sometimes it seems to me that something for sale is actually doing something that you can get from free products. Now, I'm willing to pay for a quality product, but only if it really delivers.

Sometimes I also find that digital gaming accessories don't really make things easier than the old trusty 'pen & paper'. Depends of course on what your doing.

I'm most interested in character/NPC generation software. I like Heroforge (availabe free ), but I certainly there are things that could be better about it.

Mapping & adventure design software is something I'd like to give a try. Again, there's a bit of free stuff out there. Is there anything for sale that is really worth buying?

 

[MarauderX]

IMO, no. In a way I hate to say that, but you can pick up nearly everything you need from free programs that are out there, depending on the level of detail you want to achieve. I use MS Word to outline and detail the key elements of my adventures (NPCs, locations, stats, flow charts, etc.), then use the available free stuff that's out there to add levels of detail, like the demo version of DungeonCrafter to do floor plans. Word is great if you get into using it beyond typing out what you need. Add in links to other Word files, like NPCs, so that they are referenced in and when you are changing stats it will be automatically updated in the main adventure file. If you have access to photoshop or illustrator or other commercial programs you can do the colorful cheery stuff yourself, depending how long you want to spend on it. There are tons of free tiles via the 'net to use and modify for maps and such, giving a great start to what you need. I tend not to spend hours and hours setting up every session, I just update what might happen next in the campaign and go from there. On top of all this rambling, software products tend to have new releases pretty often and you might end up spending more time editing the patches and finding fixes or wishing that it did something that you want it to. You end up spending more money on a competitor's release because, just like a cell phone, once you have it you can't seem to be without it. IMO.