3rd party Utilities
 

Well, since I've been stalled by reality (gonna have to find a new home soon, and attending school, and working...) and not being able to contribute much, especially not a mod to show off these utils in,

check out these map making utilities. Both are freeware:
Dungeon maps - dungeon crafter ( Dungeoncraft - drungeoncrafter... small world, eh?)
http://www.dungeoncrafter3.com/

Dungeon crafter util is my favorite becuz it exports BMP maps and allows you to make a graph paper-style overland map. You have to resize the map by 75% due to the square size being 20 (DC uses 16). BUT, you can use custom art by loading your own bmp images into the util (I believe Uatu made an overland map template that could be used with this program). It doesn't just do dungeon maps, either; as I wanted to do a top down style for my smaller towns (instead of the "smalltown" event")

Another one of note is you can google "campaign cartographer" and "autorealm" and find the older versions of these for free download as well

check out the worldgen fractal mapper:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~johol/fwmg/fwmg.html

SilentThief

Re: 3rd party Utilities
 

If you've started your programming classes yet, I'm sure they've exposed you to (or required you to use :D) flowcharting with pseudocode...
You can do that for DC, too. ;) It works very well, much better than the sitting-down-with-only-a-vague-idea-let's-see-what-happens approach that I normally use.
The best part is that you don't even need a computer, just a pen(cil) and paper. Though, after handwriting out the first text event, I did switch to storing it in a Word file (so I could spell check it). I have an hour and a half to two hour commute (each way) on the bus, so plenty of time between naps to doodle on a design. :)
You can't actually do any of the art this way, unless you're hand drawing and scanning those pics in, I suppose, but you can get a list of exactly the pieces you need.

Just a thought. ;)

Re: 3rd party Utilities
 

Arrrgh... I hate flowcharting, though... Unless I get to use my own flowchart method (not some other, complex method that they force you to learn). ;)

Re: 3rd party Utilities
 

As long as I don't have to use Visio i.e. another MS product, I'm fine. :D