I'm really enjoying these ACME posts. I've been playing internet dnd for a couple years now with a group of folks, and I'm very dissatisfied with using a mapping program. Not only is it slow, complicated, and One More Thing That Will Fail, it's also a distraction to everyone I think.

I've watched an arms race as each of the folks who takes a turn DMing spends more and more time making these intricate and beautiful maps. Not only does this put much larger time demands on the DM, but it also constrains them into a fairly railroaded game. As PCs we're less and less able to go off the beaten path or do anything that wasn't planned for as well.

In addition, since the game client shows just about everything the PCs need to know, there's less need for folks to stay engaged and pay attention to everything that's going on. Combine this with the enormous temptation to mess around with other things online while they wait for their turn, and you've got a recipe for some very mediocre game sessions.

All that to say that I'm right there with you. Very excited to see your mapless system is developing well!