So, have you heard about this "Kickstarter" stuff? I think they used to call it "crowdsourcing" before this enterprising group of souls put together this Kickstarter site and took the ball and not just ran with it, but got in a high-performance car and drove across the continent and jumped the ocean with it.
Anyway, my point is not them, but the things that can be done with Kickstarter, like this,
Realm Works - Streamlined RPG Campaign Tools, a new "virtual tabletop" application, for tabletop role-playing games, allowing for sharing of maps, chat, dice rolls and various other things, but I have to say this project seems to really raise the bar on the features it offers. I'll be amazed if they can really provide the things their intro video shows. A GM can make or upload maps, sure, but also link to sub-node type of content on those maps, and have documents and other maps all associated with these, information blurbs that the GM can simply highlight or check to make known to the players, rather than typing things out at the given time - assuming you're not a lazy GM, of course. If you're just a horrible GM like I am, you might as well mail your players a half-eaten tuna sandwich with your bitemarks forming an image of a clue they uncovered, for all the pleasantness and speed you'll deliever, with any application.
BUT, for those that DO drag themselves out of bed before 5 PM and put some forethought into their role playing game adventures for their players, Realm Works seems to be able to offer a plethora of tools that could multiply any GM's productivity and efficiency. Check out the Kickstarter page for it - they've got 18 days to go at the time of this post, and are halfway to their projected goal to make
Realm Works a reality. I'll be interested to see what happens.
