I DM'd a lot in a time before software could do anything more than let you type up your scenarios and roll a dice. What kind of software is out there now for DM's running a game.
Are any of them any good?
[RPG] What software can be useful for a DM running D&D
adnd-2edungeons-and-dragonstools
Related Solutions
Steal from minimus and social network analysis
One of the relationship models I like the best is from Minimus. Where the player is instructed to denote a directed graph with blue and red arrows to indicate like and dislike. Every node of this graph is another person who "each person can do some- thing useful that your character can’t; they’ll ask for something in return." By indicating the from of the relationship and the utility of the relationship in the graph, a very simple social network can be depicted. As players play, changes in the relationship map (page 4) represent real character development.
To adopt this for a longer game, keep the same map principle and continue drawing in pen. By indicating additional likes and dislikes (also accompanied by a want/need descriptor and potentially in a subgraph if things are too fiddly) you can see easily the predominant attitude of an NPC towards anyone else (is it mostly blue? Is it mostly red? Is it thick? Is it thin?) and the historical trends of their relationship. Social Network graphs are also quite flashy. For extra credit, place nodes on index cards and connect them by yarn pinned on the wall. (One of my favourite diagramming techniques). If you play in a place that provides this, the relationship map on the wall will be a constant reminder of the game during the game session and will make relationships (and their manipulations) obvious. The ritual of adding more yarn to the wall is a tangible and real reward (or punishment) that is easily linked to feelings of real satisfaction.
In terms of linking to diplomacy checks, I would first use an alternate diplomacy system. To produce the least impact on the game, I'd borrow The Giant's alternate diplomacy rules and assign modifiers based on the graph. The count of blue to red indicates a point on intimate/nemesis and maps directly to that bonus. Risk v. reward is a case by case, with the want/need of a specific relationship providing a bonus if invoked.
This method, especially if constructed in a persistent index card/yarn mode, provides a visceral and tangible graph of relationships in the game that acts as a focal point and means of tangible reward for characters, while keeping things simple and easily searchable. A digital version of this map can be trivially made with graphviz. Beyond graphviz, I'd recommend yEd or an online flowchart tool of your choice. If you're willing to do a bit more work, the graphviz extension for mediawiki should produce excellent results. If you want a prettier layout, I recommend Illustrator or equivalent vector graphics program.
If you are fine with an online solution, Obsidian Portal is one I could recommend. Some people have had bad experiences with the interface being clunky, but I think the site looks quite fresh and responsive (I think they have had a design overhaul in late 2013).
Some key selling points:
- Wiki pages, which you can interlink quite easily, allowing you to keep track of things that are related. Wiki pages also support public and GM-only information to be saved.
- Adventure Log, which is where you can post the notes of your sessions and write down the overall progression. It allows you to Wiki-link, so you can interweave your Adventure Log with your Wiki pages.
- Create characters, but not just PCs, NPCs as well. Again, you can have GM-only information here, allowing you to create major plot NPCs in advance and 'unlock' them when the time comes.
For organizing an open world, I would personally create some Wiki pages to comprise a town. Using links, you can connect the page about the town in general to the big landmarks in that town, like a church, the blacksmith and stables. They would in turn have their own Wiki page, which could state in which town it resides, and which NPCs live or work there. Following the NPC link, you'd end up on a biography and stat block page of the NPCs, where the biography could link back to the town page, and the NPCs building page.
Using this approach, and combining it with Vereos' answer, you can create an incredibly potent spider web of pages, while still being able to easily navigate from one point to another.
- Each category from Vereos' answer could be its own Wiki page, which grows gradually as your players progress.
- Each item on such category page would simply be that, an item in a list. You'd use Wiki-links to jump to that item's own page, which would give you the details. This keeps the category pages clean and simple.
Best Answer
I've used ProFantasy's products for creating cities, continents, etc. They are excellent products and full featured though they can get a little pricey.
An alternative for creating dungeon maps is using a vector drawing program such as Inkscape (free) or Xara (pay). You can create objects that you can quickly cut and paste for repeated patterns. Since it's vector based these can easily be accurately resized for different scales. You can even print out pages for use with miniatures.
Most of all I've depended on spreadsheets software (Excel, OpenOffice Calc) to create templates for character sheets. A lot of these templates are available online or you can create your own. Ultimately you can print them out if you're not using a computer at your gaming session or view them online.
I've normally stored game notes and adventures in Word or OpenOffice Writer, but I've been considering using a wiki (such as Twiki) or a small database (such as sqlite) to store some of this data.
When playing DD3.0-3.5 I had written a perl script that helped me generate NPCs. It was quite a bit of work, but proved quite useful. It generated full stats, spells, skills, etc.