SiderisAnon
First Post
Lately I've been playing a number of games like Torchlight, Titan Quest, Overlord, and Age of Empires. These are all top-down games with fairly simple world/dungeon maps. As I play them, I wonder why there isn't a tool like that for a GM to use to create a game on the fly. I know the original Neverwinter had a toolkit, but my attempts to use that were less than spectacular because it just isn't designed to be usable on the fly. None of the video game mod systems I've read about really seem to have the tools to create any kind of a 3D world and make adjustments and additions as you're playing. They all seem designed to create content that has to be reloaded every time there's a change and which really aren't designed for anything but playing that video game. (Which makes perfect sense for its intended purpose, but doesn't work for GMing.)
Does anyone know of any decent software out there, free or paid, that does this kind of detail? I know there are several 2D tools like Fantasy Grounds and MapTool, but these seem to effectively be flat tiles with tokens on top of them. That's great, but I was trying to figure out how to do this in a 3D environment. I'd like to be able to have full figures for the PCs and NPCs, actual walls and furniture, and all the kind of scenery we'd love to have at the gaming table but don't have the money or space to buy and store.
Failing an existing product, does anyone know of any of the video games that come with SDK or modding tools that could modified on the fly so that the GM could lay out a scene for the players as things happen? Being able to use it remotely for online gaming would be excellent, but I'm thinking that might be asking for just a little too much.
If all else fails, does anyone know of a good 3D library package that has a decent amount of fantasy art resources and/or easy to use other 3D models for? Maybe my next coding project could be creating a package that other people could use. I'd need something that had available art resources of some type because my artistic skills are pretty poor. Any suggestions on where to start looking and researching?
Or am I just dreaming a little too early in the technology here?
Edit: To be clear, I'm thinking of virtual minis, virtual scenery, virtual terrain, and that sort of thing, not a fully animated game experience. I don't need the orcs to march out and swing their swords, but I'd like them to be more than little tokens.
Does anyone know of any decent software out there, free or paid, that does this kind of detail? I know there are several 2D tools like Fantasy Grounds and MapTool, but these seem to effectively be flat tiles with tokens on top of them. That's great, but I was trying to figure out how to do this in a 3D environment. I'd like to be able to have full figures for the PCs and NPCs, actual walls and furniture, and all the kind of scenery we'd love to have at the gaming table but don't have the money or space to buy and store.
Failing an existing product, does anyone know of any of the video games that come with SDK or modding tools that could modified on the fly so that the GM could lay out a scene for the players as things happen? Being able to use it remotely for online gaming would be excellent, but I'm thinking that might be asking for just a little too much.
If all else fails, does anyone know of a good 3D library package that has a decent amount of fantasy art resources and/or easy to use other 3D models for? Maybe my next coding project could be creating a package that other people could use. I'd need something that had available art resources of some type because my artistic skills are pretty poor. Any suggestions on where to start looking and researching?
Or am I just dreaming a little too early in the technology here?
Edit: To be clear, I'm thinking of virtual minis, virtual scenery, virtual terrain, and that sort of thing, not a fully animated game experience. I don't need the orcs to march out and swing their swords, but I'd like them to be more than little tokens.
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