This version contains a lot of features we’ve been working on for some time now, and we’d very much like to hear your feedback on them. As always, if you find Masterplan useful, please donate whatever you can to support development.

Small changes include the addition of monster knowledge checks to the quick-reference list, and the ability to check the difficulty of an encounter against a party of a different size and/or level – people have been asking for something like that for a long time. You can also now export items out of libraries (creatures, traps etc) which will make it easier for you to move content between computers. Trap stat blocks can now show multiple attacks, which is another feature that’s been absent from Masterplan for too long.

The majority of the work for this version, however, has been for the combat manager. Firstly when you begin an encounter you’ll be prompted to say how you want to roll initiative, as before, but this time you’ll also have the option to set unique names for your creatures (in case you need to distinguish between Orc 1 and Orc 2 by describing the minis you’re using, for example), and if you’ve elected to enter initiative scores manually you’ll be prompted to add them before the encounter begins.

During combat, you’ll notice a new tab that’s been added on the left – Encounter Log. This will show you a history of the encounter so far, including damage taken, powers used, and so on. You’ll also see that the range of effects you can add to your combatants has been widened: defence modifiers, damage type modifiers, regeneration and auras can all be added (which allows you to add auras to your PCs for the first time).

You’ll also notice that the Line of Sight tool has been greatly simplified – now when you turn it on, Masterplan will draw lines from the selected map token to the corner closest to the mouse, letting you quickly decide whether that token has line of sight to that square.

After an encounter you can see a breakdown of its events – the encounter report. This feature is related to the encounter log, in that it takes its raw information from the log, which is then presented to you as a set of charts which you can use to show your players how long they take each round.

Let us know what you think of this update in the comments – we love to hear from you.

New feaures in this update include a (slightly) redesigned encounter builder, the ability to create random monsters (just a bit of fun, that one, really) and the ability to see a breakdown of creature abilities (by keyword, effect, and damage).

You can also share your campaign background between projects, and encyclopedia entry templates are now supported.

Finally, you can predefine map tokens and overlays for your PCs in the same way as combat effects, which is another handy way to speed up combat encounters.

This version updates the combat screen significantly, including the ability to customise the columns shown, and adds the ability to export handouts containing magic item stats.

However, with the dwindling amount of free time I’ve had available, it has become more and more difficult to actually concoct compelling adventures in a short period of time. After two sessions that felt more like stumbles rather than steps towards, I discovered that the best option is basically setting up each session like an episode of an overarching plot that is mostly developed by the players. Sure, this is hardly the first time that an episodical format that has been used in D&D (I recall an issue of Dragon magazine mocking this with Lidda the Vampire Slayer and Krusk’s Creek), but it gives each session a very specific feel that players will remember, without hours of work. The best part of all? It works perfectly within Masterplan.

Just looking at the plot workspace you can imagine how simple it is to create a story arc spanning several “episodes.” For me, I create a skeleton with several plot points with nothing more than a name and maybe a brief description of what I want to occur during the episodes that take place within those points. I then go down a level within each point and create the individual episodes that should each span a single session. From there I may just give a description of the episode and include a combat encounter as the game element, or I might even go down another level if I have time and write out each interaction I imagine the party having that night. Throw together an NPC or two with encyclopedia entries, and you have a fleshed out episode.

Depending on how long each game session lasts for your group, you might want to create one to three combat encounters for an episode, though I limit myself to two, and rarely go beyond one. My biggest problem with combat in D&D is how much is slows down the pace, even when using a complete DMing suite like Masterplan. Since my sessions rarely last more than 3 hours, putting a whole bunch of combat in tends to just make the night slow to a crawl. We need to avoid that with an episodical format, and make each night feel like a self-contained adventure that stands on its own. Therefore, less combat, more compelling story.

In my game, the players have recently returned to the mainland after exploring the island of Morinui and repelling the orcs from the mainland that wished to develop a new military base on the island. They sought to make peace among the groups of that island, but now to seek to conquer the Underdark, as one of the dwarves in the group has a deep hatred of drow, and the other dwarf wishes to spread the teachings of Moradin amongst the heretics below.

This developed into a Underdark story arc that begins with them trying to actually find an entrance, with the top-most level in the plot workspace named “Entering the Underdark.” Below that, we have “Finding the Entrance,” “Saving the Escaped Drow Priestess,” and “Fungal Forest.” Yeah the names need work, but they work for my purposes. Each of those three are individual episodes that have a simple theme: finding an entrance to the Underdark by exploring an abandoned dwarven guard post; figuring out what to do with a drow priestess that escaped bondage by her own rebelling people; and meeting the guardian of a mushroom forests that seeks to protect her land from the new drow priests of Torog.

The next episode (which we haven’t played yet) will start a new plot point titled “Political Meanderings,” starting with “The Lost Priestesses,” followed by “Lesser of Two Evils.” In working out the next few episodes, I plan on spending about an hour on each, fleshing out a few encyclopedia entries and creating a combat encounter that is short and sweet, but very fun. And in the event that the party will derail this plan, I can switch out one episode for another, so long as I plan ahead.

I might be missing some key usage of Masterplan here, as I haven’t had a great deal of time to look it over with work constantly getting in the way of fun. But I feel like that this formula works particularly well with the suite, and deserves a try. And if you have any comments or recommendations on developing episodical gameplay, or anything else discussed in this post, please leave a reply below!

Interested in reading more roleplaying articles by yours truly? Please visit We Xogo!

You might write about how you organise adventures with Masterplan, how it has affected your DM style, or perhaps about a particular feature you find useful. Maybe you’ve learned some tricks that you’d like to share. Maybe you’d like to go the whole hog and write a whole series of articles detailing the creation of an adventure – that would certainly be useful to those who are new to Masterplan.

If you’re interested, email us (masterplan@habitualindolence.net) and we’ll organise an account for you.

This update features a handy information panel (showing typical DCs and damage expressions, and available when editing a plot point, designing an encounter or running an encounter), the ability to download an example project, and the ability to import multiple Adventure Tools creatures at once.

We’ve also added keywords to map tiles, to make it easier to find exactly the tile you’re looking for when building a map. Finally, you can now specify the availability of magic items.

You’ll notice another small but useful improvement when you multi-select combatants in the combat screen.