Integration
We asked this question recently on the Facebook page, but since there wasn’t much response, we’ll repeat it here.
We like to think of Masterplan’s various features as being well-integrated – an NPC can have its own encyclopedia entry, which can be linked into a plot point; a randomly generated art object can be make into a treasure parcel and assigned to a PC – but are there any areas where we could do better at this?
What parts of Masterplan that aren’t linked together, should be?
July 10th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I don’t know about integration stuff, but it would be REALLY nice to see an official tutorial on how to create AddIns. I found a very basic intro on creating an addin with commands, but I haven’t been able to find anything regarding implementation of Pages and such with Controls.
July 10th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Perhaps integration has more to do with how the screens interact with one another. It would be kind of an interesting feature to allow “hyperlinks” inside your plot descriptions that would link directly to encyclopedia articles. Not sure if you would code it in wiki format or whatever, but that would be nice. Also, maybe a “hover over” option to give a brief synopsis of that links encyclopedia entry.
*Seconded regarding add-ins*
July 10th, 2011 at 11:31 pm
It’s be nice if you could link to encyclopedia entries right in the “flavor text” areas of encounters and areas, in order to quickly jump to them.
Unless there’s already a way to do this that I’m not aware of. In which case, I’d love to know how.
July 11th, 2011 at 4:43 am
The way the encyclopedia interacts with the plot space could be better, like linking directly instead of a see also at the end of the plot point, similar to what Fieari said.
Likewise, pictures being able to be embedded in the encyclopedia articles, perhaps using the existing ability to use html in the articles, would be bonus. (Yes, I appreciate adding pictures to encyclopedia articles, this would be the next step.)
There were two things I wasn’t really pleased about, actually, in my session today.
1st – The ability to allocate treasure parcels is great. Making a note about parcels that were sold off for the good of the party, or an ability to sort them would be great, as well. In an entire campaign, you come across possibly hundreds of parcels. Basically, allowing that aspect to interact with the rest of Masterplan would be fantastic. I created a work-around by making a PC and calling it Vendor and allocating anything sold as allocated to Vendor. I then make the Vendor PC inactive for the rest of the session.
This leads to my second concern:
2nd- The Player Character list, it’s great that I can make PCs inactive in order to affect who appears in the combat manager. I love it. I just wish that when Masterplan was calculating party XP for BUILDING encounters, it payed attention to the level and number of the PCs I have set as active. Or, better yet, while it calculates XP in the plot interface, it allows you to indicate, somehow, that party size has changed for certain plot points.
One of my players left the country for a few months and we’re going to continue with only four players, but I’m having to do quite a bit of math in my head in order to calculate encounters, XP, and treasure for the smaller party. I can adjust my campaign settings, but we’ve already gone through nine levels with a 5-player party, and my predicted XP amounts will change. Um, right?
Anyway, it’s a round-about way of saying I’d like to see the Player Character list’s integration looked at.
Thanks for reading. And MANY thanks for your hard work.
July 11th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
My comments got too long, so I e-mailed them…
July 11th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
I have used masterplan mostly for mindmapping my previous Warhammer campaigns and managing notes for said sessions. As I’m embarking on my return to DnD with a new 4.0 Campaign, I’ve ran into some unfortunate difficulties that make my preparation a bit more complicated then necessary: While viewing, for example the treasure parcels, It is impossible to browse the main workflow – which would be helpfull to determine what kind of parcels to create.
Same is true for writing up Background / encyclopedia entries.
Having several windows open at the same time would be a great boon to my workflow.
July 12th, 2011 at 10:48 am
What would be fantastic would be to flesh out a PC more with abilities etc, then integrate a Magic Item with the character details. So if a player was given a +1 breastplate, it auto increases their AC by 1. This will mean the Magic items would have a greater impact in Materplan than they currently do.
July 14th, 2011 at 8:18 am
I actually think the integrations pretty good! There’s a few suggestions above that maybe make sense, but my use style has found them to be issues.
My own personal issues are:
You see I do most of my maps in GIMP and import them into maptool, then cut them up into multiple Map Areas. And this doesn’t seem to be in the XML of registry 
a) The 100×100 size limit on imported pictures means I have to half the size of many of my maps
b) Better support for building monsters would be great. With the switch to web tools I dropped DDI and find I’m very happy without it… But I am sick of digging through errata and manuals when I build monsters. So the ability to select the various bits of a monster (e.g., Level 7 Elite Brute Leader) and have the basic stats there, even if it’s in a suggestions pane or if I have to hit another button. Well that’d be hugely valuable to me.
Anyway sorry for the sideline but hey at least it’s some kind of feedback
July 15th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I’d love to see an integration with a site that people could upload their completed adventures to and others could download them for use/inspiration. Once I’ve finished running an adventure, I’m not likely to rerun it, so I don’t feel a need to protect it, but I can’t find a site that collects Masterplan adventures.
July 15th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
I have to head out soon, so here is the short list of where I think there could be some improvement:
1) Links from the Issues to the Plot Point (and while I’m at it, the ability to mark Issues as ignored so they don’t show up in the list anymore)
2) When building a randomized encounter from an encounter deck, don’t remove the creatures from the deck until the encounter is saved. Even with a good deck, sometimes you get weird combinations and want to spin again, so to speak.
3) We have file attachments. We have encyclopedia entries. Why not attachments on encyclopedia entries? They are a good fit, especially if you use other tools besides Masterplan.
4) I don’t know if this really qualifies as integration, but when trying to create a tactical map from an imported image, getting the gridlines to line up correctly can be very frustrating.
5) Hyperlinks.
July 18th, 2011 at 12:07 am
Maybe there’s a way to do this that I don’t know about, but it would be nice if there was a simple notepad on the encounter page. I use masterplan for play-by-post, so I’m frequently running combat one turn at a time. So, for example, if a creature runs off the current map, I can note it in on the notepad area, or any other notes that I want to track that are tied to the combat.
July 20th, 2011 at 7:42 am
Great work! I love the project so far, and it’s saved me much time, paper, and ink. I really have no complaints, but some features that would aid me personally (and I imagine a great number of other DMs) are thus:
1) Ability to give tiles Hazardous Terrain status, which would then be counted as the correct amount of movement when running an encounter.
2) Ability to set custom tags on tilesets, and during map-building customizable primary/secondary organization (Primary: organize by tileset, Secondary: organize by type, maybe even Tertiary: Organize by size)
3) A GREAT feature would be a sort of exploration mode, where you could display a large map on the DM screen and for the player view you could click/drag a rectangle (or several to make up unique shapes) and right-click to send that(those) portion(s) to player view.
3.5) Also, allowing map areas to have abnormal shapes would be nice, through a “merge area” option or something so rooms don’t have to be visible through walls.
4) Ability to organize monsters by “Domain” or “Habitat” and select that as a sort option, and an option for choosing which creatures can be put in using the Random Encounter Generator.
July 31st, 2011 at 10:37 pm
I’d like to be able to see from the treasure parcel screen what plot points the parcels were bound to.
August 12th, 2011 at 10:42 am
I would also love to have the option to link directly to encyclopedia from plotpoints and background, like you can link to other encyclopeia items inside the encyclopedia : [[item|text]].
I would also like the option to similarly link to images in the attachments for inline images in encyclopedia, background and plots.
I would also like the popup to be bigger, now i always have to resize them.
When it comes to aligning the tactical maps with the grid, how about the option to add padding to each of the 4 sides of the image (in pixels). So if the grid is really 50×50, but there is 25 px missing on the bottom, we can pad the image with 25px of white (or black) to get the grid to align.
And i second the request for being allowed to have several windows open at once.
August 12th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
One more thing:
Where do we enter information like: “Saving Throws +5 against fear effects” and “Action Points 1″.
This seems to be quite important information to remember during the encounter, but i cannot find any fields for it.
August 12th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
And another one:
Option to use html tags in the campaign rules description. Also an option to add image to items of this section, and to link to the encyclopedia items.
August 12th, 2011 at 11:17 pm
The campaign rules entries should be sorted alphabetical (for each section) like the encyclopedia.
The map lists (tactical and regional maps) should get the move up/down functionality so you can reorder the maps. Or get an category option and use alphabetical listing.
Also the move up/down functionality could be greatly improved by adding drag and drop for reordering.
August 16th, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Simply Put – Battle Screen (Monsters and other NPC’s have Images and stats displayed larger clearer on the second display, possibly with a scoll bar)
Also the option to upload many images at once, in bulk would be golden, selecting each NPC one by one is a bit of a hassle.
August 17th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
It would be nice if Skill and DC Damage charts/lookup were accessible from plot points and possibly encounters. I often have to refer to the charts when building out plot points, and they are useful when designing and running and encounter.
November 26th, 2011 at 3:57 pm
This is an awsome resource. Unfornunately you have it chained to a rules system that I do not, nor will ever use. An add on for customisable OGL rules would be the only way this product could be usefull to me.
February 16th, 2012 at 1:33 am
I’m new to the app and find it to be of exceptional quality. The only thing I feel is missing is a method to store the “state” of a PC between encounters. As very harried DM I would appreciate that little house keeping chore taken care of for me. Surges used, HP remaining, and Daily Powers used is enough I should think. Slap a short rest/extended rest menu entry somewhere and call ‘er done. The combat screens very well executed. This would add considerably to the utility of the app.