I’m not sure where this thread belongs, either in the software section or here. I’m sort of looking for advice on two fronts: getting educated on using FT, and also simulating plate activity in FT.

I'm beginning to plot out the world map for my D&D world, in which I've been adventuring already for a few years. I have very few set-in-stone requirements; two continents a couple thousand miles apart with temperate coastal areas, and at least one reachable southern continent with areas of a more tropical climate. The rest is up to chance and I hope to make it naturalistic if possible.

I’m totally new to FT. I’ve spent the weekend fooling with it and learned a few things, but I’m having trouble finding tutorials that are comprehensive enough to set me in the right direction! So here’s what I’ve been thinking;

FT always generates continents with the highest elevations smack in the middle. I can certainly edit and fool around with this, which helps things look more natural. But I was wondering if anybody has advice about how to simulate more earthlike crustal activity within FT, so I can place continents/mountain ranges/ocean ridges in logical places.

Also, my experiments are looking pretty crude at the moment. Even if I have to paint the continents totally by hand to get naturalistic plate activity, I worry that the whole thing will look artificial because I’m not getting a good random look from my tools. Are there tricks for producing large continents that appear more accidental? Particular map projections that help the editing work out right at the poles? The only advice I’ve come across is to use large prescale offset tools with a small value, and sort of stipple the markmaking. Maybe this is just a skill to be learned, but maybe there are other tricks?