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Have you ever modded your favorite PC game, but been left unfulfilled? Perhaps wanting more comments, or just want to show your creation off in a way that’s different than just uploading it to some download site? Or maybe you just want to mash up a bunch of mods together into one glorious creation, and easily show it to the world.

I may be going out on a limb here, but why not use your creation with your D&D group? Make a cool looking dungeon, hook your computer to a big TV, and show them how the dungeon really looks! Of course, you can do much more than just make a cool dungeon. So I’ll take a look at a few games, and offer some ideas.

Neverwinter Nights
Now here’s a game that’s based on D&D 3rd Edition rules, and easily moddable. With the Aurora Toolset, you can quickly layout a city, wilderness, dungeon, and whatever else you wish, using the tile-based system. Creating NPCs and encounters are also relatively easy with the Toolset. So right off the back, you have a pretty easy way of settings things up. However, if you’re also one who’s technically inclined, you can dive right into the scripting engine, and create something that’s unique. So, basically, whatever you want to build, you can do so rather easily using the Aurora Toolset.

Now, how about running your creation in the game, and in a way that makes sense for a paper and pencil session? You could just hop in, create a character, and run around as you normally would, but that would be much more work for you, and ultimately wouldn’t make too much sense to your players. The character you create will have different ability scores, skill ranks, and feats from your players.

So instead of starting the game up normally, start it up with the DM client. This way, you can run around anywhere, quickly teleport to where ever you need to be for your players, and allow the AI to run without your DM character interfering (such as hostile NPCs running at your character intent on killing it). Also, by starting up in the DM client, you have more power over the various encounters in the adventure you designed. So instead of placing static encounters using the Toolset, just create some basic ones, and when in the DM client, place the encounters whenever the appropriate situation comes up.

For example, say you have a room you’ve created where there’s supposed to be a bunch of orcs. Perhaps the orcs are drinking heavily in celebration of a recent, successful ambush on a merchant caravan. The door to this room is closed, so the PCs cannot see the orcs at all. So, when running the NWN DM client, there should be no orcs placed in that room yet. Now, if one or more of the PCs decides to listen to the door to try to find out if something’s in the room, and successfully rolls their listen check, use the DM client to place the whole encounter into the room.

I won’t go into the specifics on how to use the Aurora Toolset, or the DM client for NWN. There are plenty of resources out there full of information on how to get the most out of both. The best place to start would be the official site.

Also, don’t feel that you need to stick with just the default stuff that’s available for the game. Take advantage of the many mods that are available! Mods can range from adding clothing, creatures, items, etc. to make a more believable gaming experience. There’s also helper mods available, such as expanded PC animations for players, and tools to make DMing easier. One great mod that would be very much worth getting is the Community Expansion Pack (CEP). It contains all sorts of goodies that you can throw into your creation to make a much more believable environment that you can then display to your players.

The Elderscrolls III: Morrowind
Now, despite this game not being related to D&D at all, it can still be useful in displaying your imagined D&D world to your players. One benefit to using Morrowind is that everything is in first-person (with optional 3rd person), whereas NWN is purely 3rd person. This can be better for immersion for your players, as then they are looking through the eyes of the character living in the world, rather than having a bird’s eye view of everything.

Morrowind comes with The Eldersrolls Construction Set (TESCS) right out the box, so it’s quite mod-ready. However, it may take you more time to learn how to do stuff with it. Every single item, including individual rooms, are hand placed, unlike in NWN. Because of this, you can create much more elaborate areas, but it will probably take you more time than it would using a tile-based system. However, I tend towards tools that allow for more creativity, and as such, I tend to lean more towards the TESCS.

Aside from being able to place each and every single item, Morrowind also offers actual terrain you can modify. You can create any kind of terrain type you can think of, from plains with gentle slopes to craggy mountains. Also, you have more control of how bodies of water can be shaped, which is great for creating rivers and lakes. However, I will state that you cannot have bodies of water at different heights, which is rather unfortunate. However, there are models you can place to create the illusion of multiple water heights, such as the animated waterfall models.

Also, just like in NWN, there’s a slew of mods out there for you to take advantage of. They range from improved artwork to entirely new items that can be placed, worn, or what have you. So definitely check them out!

The Elderscrolls IV: Oblivion
I’m not giving this a plug just because it’s newer than Morrowind. Though, I will mention that graphically it’s much prettier than Morrowind, provided you have the hardware for it. Also, you may find this game to be more appropriate for your D&D campaign, as things such as the trees, mounts (horses rather than guars), and architecture are more like what you’d expect in your typical fantasy adventure.

One thing that I do like about Oblivion is the fact that the NPCs have daily routines. This would be great for situations where the PCs need to wait until some NPC leaves a building or area before sneaking in to snag some sort of artifact, and then getting out in time before the said NPC returns.

One thing that’s rather unfortunate about this game, though, is that the version of the TESCS for it is not packaged with the game. However, it’s only a 6.5MB download, so go ahead over to the main site and grab it!

Other Games to Try
While the above three games are good examples of what you can use to help visualize the environments your players are in, you might want to try some others as well. If you like to have large scale battles where the PCs can effect the outcome, give one of the Total War games a try. And for more exotic environments, and perhaps more sci-fi, you could give the Unreal games a go. Ultimately, you could use any kind of game to help visualize the environment and action that the PCs would see.

General Tips
Lastly, some general tips that will work with all of the games mentioned, plus most other games you may want to try using.
Know your console commands! Most PC games these days have some sort of console available where you can type in commands that are mainly used for debugging. You can use these to your advantage to help manage the items and actors within the game, such as shutting off AI, making yourself invisible and unkillable, etc.
Have as much as possible prepared beforehand, if not everything. While this may be one of those “duh!” things, it can’t be stressed enough. Not only do you need to do your normal preparation, but you need to make sure that everything is in order with the particular game you’re going to use.
Make sure your computer has a large monitor, or can plug into a decent sized TV. This is kind of a given, but I thought I’d mention it as well. It would suck for your players to have to squint to see what they’re supposed to be seeing. Plus, they won’t have to fight over who gets to take a look, since you can only cram so many heads together to view a small screen. So bigger is better here.

This is simply just an idea at this point, since I have yet to try this out for myself. But it seems like it would be a lot of fun to do, and quite rewarding.
So, have any of you tried something like this before? And what other games do you think would work well?