I have played D&D for a couple years and am a newer DM. I am wanting a real cool map creator but all the apps that I am getting are hard to navigate or kind of a pain to get my idea onto the screen. So here is my question what tools or apps do all of you use to make really cool maps for your own campaigns or to fill the gaps in the already made sourced campaigns?
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If stealth doesn't work burn everything to the ground.
Hello Gremlin! I’ve been making maps for a few years now, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the hobby. If you’re willing to share which apps you’ve tried to use, it’d be much appreciated to help narrow your options down. I’ll try to summarize a few choices below.
Inkarnate Inkarnate (inkarnate.com) is a hugely popular platform used by newbies and pros alike to make detailed maps of every variety. It’s one of the most versatile tools out there, able to create dungeon maps, isometric maps, regional maps, and world maps in multiple different styles. This site is my personal favorite — it’s a bit difficult for beginners, but there are tons of useful tutorials and other resources out there that make up for this issue. Inkarnate is a subscription service with a free version and pro version; the pro costs $25/year or $5/month and unlocks access to various assets, commercial use, and a few other features.
Beyond its utility as a personal tool, Inkarnate has a robust collection of maps to download and use in your own campaign. It’s super useful when you have a one-shot planned but no regional/dungeon map to go with it. I’m starting to sound too much like a paid advertiser, so let’s move on to . . .
Dungeonfog This is an interesting one. I’ve tried Dungeonfog (dungeonfog.com) myself, and wasn’t a huge fan. It functions similarly to Inkarnate; both tools give you a pool of stamps and textures to use, and both have a free version and paid one. In my opinion, this one isn’t worth the hassle — the UI is very difficult to navigate and the pricing is double what Inkarnate offers (4x the price at the commercial tier).
Dungeonfog features a collection of public maps similar to Inkarnate’s, but they’re generally not as high-quality and there certainly aren’t as many. The site is a decent pick, but I don’t recommend it — especially not for a beginner or casual user.
Dungeon Scrawl Dungeon Scrawl (app.dungeonscrawl.com) is a wonderfully simple battle map creator. Highly recommended if you’re looking for a quick old-school dungeon without a lot of details. It’s super easy and it’s free. The only downside is that, much like Dungeonfog, this tool can only be used for dungeons and you won’t find regional maps or world maps of any kind.
Wonderdraft and Dungeondraft These two tools are intended for use in world maps (wonderdraft.net) and dungeon maps (dungeondraft.net), respectively. They’re one-time purchases that cost $30 each. While I’ve never personally used either of these services, I’ve heard great things about them and have recently been looking into Wonderdraft as a possible replacement for Inkarnate, which has a tendency to lag. These two sites are lumped together because they’re made by the same creator.
I hope my advice has helped clear things up, at least a little. Good luck with your map-making journey, and if you have more specific needs in a software please let me know! The sites mentioned above are just the tip of a wonderfully detailed iceberg. Happy gaming!
Fractal Mapper 8 (Not super expensive. every asset you lay down on the map you can add notes for the players and for the gamemasters which the built in scenario builder can then produce a web formatted page for the dungeon including the map)
Other World Mapper (Cheapish considering what you get for the money At 60 dollars you get all Map assets to be honest i own a license have not explored it)
I've been using Dungeon Painter Studio. It's $20-30 on Steam, if I remember right. The workshop has a decent selection of assets (particularly from Forgotten Adventures).
However, it seems to be abandoned now. The developers seem to have disappeared after a big argument with the community about how things were being implemented in the upcoming DPS 2.
I have not tried anything in depth. Honestly I looked real quick on the my tiny cheap tablet and there was not much so I was looking into who could point in which direction for like a PC option to get my gameplay to the next level.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If stealth doesn't work burn everything to the ground.
For tactical-scale top-down battlemaps, or hex-tile area/regional maps, or isometric maps, try MapForge. It offers mapping content for many game genres (fantasy, sci-fi, modern day, post-apocalypse, etc.). And 60 of the mapping content Add-Ons are free!
Hello community,
I have played D&D for a couple years and am a newer DM. I am wanting a real cool map creator but all the apps that I am getting are hard to navigate or kind of a pain to get my idea onto the screen. So here is my question what tools or apps do all of you use to make really cool maps for your own campaigns or to fill the gaps in the already made sourced campaigns?
If stealth doesn't work burn everything to the ground.
Hello Gremlin! I’ve been making maps for a few years now, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the hobby. If you’re willing to share which apps you’ve tried to use, it’d be much appreciated to help narrow your options down. I’ll try to summarize a few choices below.
Inkarnate
Inkarnate (inkarnate.com) is a hugely popular platform used by newbies and pros alike to make detailed maps of every variety. It’s one of the most versatile tools out there, able to create dungeon maps, isometric maps, regional maps, and world maps in multiple different styles. This site is my personal favorite — it’s a bit difficult for beginners, but there are tons of useful tutorials and other resources out there that make up for this issue. Inkarnate is a subscription service with a free version and pro version; the pro costs $25/year or $5/month and unlocks access to various assets, commercial use, and a few other features.
Beyond its utility as a personal tool, Inkarnate has a robust collection of maps to download and use in your own campaign. It’s super useful when you have a one-shot planned but no regional/dungeon map to go with it. I’m starting to sound too much like a paid advertiser, so let’s move on to . . .
Dungeonfog
This is an interesting one. I’ve tried Dungeonfog (dungeonfog.com) myself, and wasn’t a huge fan. It functions similarly to Inkarnate; both tools give you a pool of stamps and textures to use, and both have a free version and paid one. In my opinion, this one isn’t worth the hassle — the UI is very difficult to navigate and the pricing is double what Inkarnate offers (4x the price at the commercial tier).
Dungeonfog features a collection of public maps similar to Inkarnate’s, but they’re generally not as high-quality and there certainly aren’t as many. The site is a decent pick, but I don’t recommend it — especially not for a beginner or casual user.
Dungeon Scrawl
Dungeon Scrawl (app.dungeonscrawl.com) is a wonderfully simple battle map creator. Highly recommended if you’re looking for a quick old-school dungeon without a lot of details. It’s super easy and it’s free. The only downside is that, much like Dungeonfog, this tool can only be used for dungeons and you won’t find regional maps or world maps of any kind.
Wonderdraft and Dungeondraft
These two tools are intended for use in world maps (wonderdraft.net) and dungeon maps (dungeondraft.net), respectively. They’re one-time purchases that cost $30 each. While I’ve never personally used either of these services, I’ve heard great things about them and have recently been looking into Wonderdraft as a possible replacement for Inkarnate, which has a tendency to lag. These two sites are lumped together because they’re made by the same creator.
I hope my advice has helped clear things up, at least a little. Good luck with your map-making journey, and if you have more specific needs in a software please let me know! The sites mentioned above are just the tip of a wonderfully detailed iceberg. Happy gaming!
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I thought that Dungeon Alchemist was a child’s fisher price tool. But after using it, the software is very capable of creating gigantic maps.
Fractal Mapper 8 (Not super expensive. every asset you lay down on the map you can add notes for the players and for the gamemasters which the built in scenario builder can then produce a web formatted page for the dungeon including the map)
Campaign Cartographer 3+ (Many addons Expensive, Steep learning Curve but decent maps)
Other World Mapper (Cheapish considering what you get for the money At 60 dollars you get all Map assets to be honest i own a license have not explored it)
I've been using Dungeon Painter Studio. It's $20-30 on Steam, if I remember right. The workshop has a decent selection of assets (particularly from Forgotten Adventures).
However, it seems to be abandoned now. The developers seem to have disappeared after a big argument with the community about how things were being implemented in the upcoming DPS 2.
Sad to hear maybe you can find new sites from this thread as well!
If stealth doesn't work burn everything to the ground.
I have not tried anything in depth. Honestly I looked real quick on the my tiny cheap tablet and there was not much so I was looking into who could point in which direction for like a PC option to get my gameplay to the next level.
If stealth doesn't work burn everything to the ground.
For tactical-scale top-down battlemaps, or hex-tile area/regional maps, or isometric maps, try MapForge. It offers mapping content for many game genres (fantasy, sci-fi, modern day, post-apocalypse, etc.). And 60 of the mapping content Add-Ons are free!
If you like hand-drawn style maps, Canvas of Kings (Steam link) is pretty cool and can do both small and ginormous maps.