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Software Reviews
Campaign Suite
Ease of Use: 7/10
Functionality: 8/10
Robustness: 6/10
Technical Support: 9/10
Value for Money: 8/10
Total: 7/10
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Campaign Suite has been a devil to review. I’ve had the software on my computer for a little while now and in that time Twin Rose posted very many free updates to the program. It was rather hard keeping up with them. This determination to produce the best bit of software for any Dungeons and Dragons player helps to push Campaign Suite right to the forefront of RPG technologies. These updates add significant extra wealth to the program; the most impressive technological advance that the updates brought in the time it has taken to re-write this review has been CS’s ability to generate random (but appropriate) weather and the most interesting content addition in this time has been a tie up with the rather nice Mystic Eye Games that’s going to allow you to import the critters from Dreams and Nightmares.
Campaign Suite is a piece of software that allows you to create a d20 character on your computer; it allows you to create one randomly, by careful stat selection, of any level, multi-classed or not and it even lets you create a high levelled character in just a few steps using their easy-peasy “wizard” feature. Having said all that I think it would be wrong to simply consider Campaign Suite as simply a character generation program. If you’ve not worked it out by now then let me tell you that Campaign Suite is a suite of program features for your campaign.
Just a glance along the buttons on the program suggests that you can create characters, maps and campaigns. The software will randomly build a character for you – and this includes picking a random name – and it’ll randomly draw a map and provide encounter tables as well. Campaign Suite doesn’t create a campaign for you, how could it? The create campaign functionality provides the framework for you to hang your campaign notes too. Actually, it does more than that, the campaign method is all cleverly tied together and presented as a fairly easy to use database like system. This means that you can, for example, click open the skills section, find all the skills from the core rules, pick one to open up and see at a glance whether it’s an exclusive skill, whether you can use it without training and a bunch of related information. It’s just the sort of utility you want to have handy when you’re writing your adventure details into a Word document and don’t have space on the desk or the time to go fussing around with the large hardback books that D&D has become. Not impressed by the skills? There’s a huge collection of monsters in there too, one that lists quickly and can be searched through by typing keywords into an input box; as you type the list of monsters narrows down. I haven’t tried comparing the list in Campaign Suite to the Monster Manual but it looks comprehensive to me. In addition, you can add your own creatures to the database or busy yourself by adding in official monster updates like the second Manual. Mind you, given Twin Rose Software’s current track record, I suspect you’ll find updates will add in official monsters, skills and feats automatically and as the Open Licence on d20 stuff allows. I think that unless you try right-clicking on the various options in the campaign screen that you are likely to miss out on some of the extra functions the software provides. Campaign Suite seems to run a constant battle between providing a neat and tidy interface and one laden with text heavy instructions. At the minute the urge to provide a tidy interface seems to be winning over but the useful tips which pop up when you start the program help to provide some words of wisdom, you just have to squint a little to read the black text on the dark blue background. Yes, you can turn the tips off so they stop bugging you. Yes, there are searchable help files but I know people (like me) never get around to reading them. Once you’re done adding your monsters, gods and encounter tables to your campaign you can, of course, save all your hard work to a file. If you want to save two campaigns that have different races or skills then this doesn’t seem to be a problem for the software either.
The character creation system is robust and detailed. Importantly, Campaign Suite goes that extra length to provide the sort of depth to character recording that becomes unwieldy and silly in paper based systems. For example, the software keeps a simple list of the hit points rolled at each character level, which character class brought you the increase (for those multi-classed wonders) and allows you to edit these individually. For me, a computer generated character sheet is useful for looking after NPCs character sheets, for keeping GM copies of player character sheets (for those GMs out there who lets their players look after their own character sheet) and for helping with the maths and game mechanics. Even if I had a slim and impressive laptop I would still rather have a paper copy of my character sheet in play but Campaign Suite is capable of printing off character sheets in its archives. More tempting still, I think, is Campaign Suite’s ability to export character sheets into an html template. This means you can easily throw your character onto the web for worldwide inspection. Imagine how handy that could be for forum based games of D&D. I think the character wizard is the best feature of the generator though. It’s possible to create a high level character really quickly. The characters that the wizard throws together a pretty complete too, all the standard feats that the character class brings are added in and there is even the random generation of equipment too. There are still some finishing touches to add after the wizard’s created the character, you can still add in some extra feats and you’ll only ever get characters with “normal” hair and eyes. Just what are normal eyes anyway? By the way, the term “character wizard” refers to the clever bit of software that automatically works things out for you; it’s just an unfortunate overloading of terms when it’s applied to roleplaying software!
Campaign Suite’s ability to let you draw – or even randomly produce – dungeons is a good indication of the flexibility of the software. The random dungeons are good enough. You’ll find lots of dead ends, “floating rooms” and strangely designed complexes but I can’t but help think that if your games still revolve around dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl then these quirks pale into insignificance compared to how handy the feature is. Of course, you don’t have to draw dungeons; Campaign Suite comes with textures for grass, dirt, masonry or mixtures of the two. If you want to use these different textures then you need to draw your dungeon shape, re-select it with the arrow tool, pick the new texture and then click on the shape again. You can save these maps, print them out or export them to a basic image type called a bitmap (.bmp). As a .bmp file you’ll be able to open it up in the free Paint utility that comes with your Windows computer or post it to the internet (although if you’re a webmaster you’ll want to convert the basic .bmp to a more efficient file type for the internet first).
All these functions and utilities don’t come without a cost. There is better mapping software out there than Campaign Suite, there is better weather generating software out there and there are different character generation tools too. The point is that Campaign Suite puts them all together and delivers them in one move. It’s about convenience and completeness. Another drawback is that Campaign Suite, at the minute, is rather prone to crashing. I think this will settle down and become less of a problem over time as the free updates continue to grow and evolve the software. The updates for Campaign Suite will continue to be free (and they seem to appear in bursts every other week) until it’s the most complete campaign and mapping program available.
You can try Campaign Suite for free too. Try it with some features disabled for 30 days. I recommend this as good way to introduce yourself to the software, although you can’t play with all the features you do have time to decide whether you are going to settle with the feel of the Suite. The trail also updates itself via username and pass key when (if) you decide to buy the full version so you don’t need to bother yourself with another download. In fact, if your modem is really slow or your internet access at work is blocked from such personal downloads then you can order Campaign Suite on CD. If you decide you want to go with Campaign Suite then you need to pay but, fortunately, Twin Rose accept all and sundry methods of payment so you don’t actually need to have a credit card to make the purchase. This seems like a wise concession to me given that lots of pre-credit card age people roleplay.
Another thing to note is the Twin Rose Software website and forums. The forums are a superb place to go and fetch prompt technical help if you find yourself struggling with any aspect of Campaign Suite. I found that my printer didn’t like the idea of printing out character sheets at all. I posted this to the forum and received a huge amount of help. When I tried a different printer I got a better result from Campaign Suite. It just goes to show that even in the twenty first century you can’t expect perfect behaviour from your computer and is another reason to recommend downloading the trail version first. It also goes to show what a difference it makes when you have access to free support rather than an expensive telephone helpline.
Campaign Suite won me over. It looked fairly basic to begin with and I wasn’t all that impressed, however, as I played around with it and created a few sample NPCs, campaign notes and little maps I changed my mind. The free updates added more to my liking of the software and I was impressed at the pace of growth. I think Campaign Suite will be a winner. You might not like the idea of paying for roleplaying software but it means that Campaign Suite’s developers have a concrete reason and the resources to keep adding to the program, support for it wont disappear to the funding crises that can destroy labour of love projects and that given this commercial viability that other roleplaying companies are more likely to team up and contribute (see the Mystic Eye news as an example) to it. As any d20 gamer knows, the process of character and campaign creation can be rather complex at times and so it does make sense that Campaign Suite reflects this – but as I found it only takes a little while of trail and error before you’re used to the way the program works.
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