Question about maps

[Jyps]

Hello, everyone!

What do you do when it comes to maps for playing TTRPGs online?
(Assuming your system needs a map)

I'm looking for tools to draw or customize dungeon maps, mainly for D&D or similar games.
Don't have any particular preferences. I'm just curious about what solutions have worked best for other GMs.

Thanks in advance for any insight you could share!

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't have a ton of experience playing online, but we did it for a year and a half during Covid. When I ran a game, I was just able to find some maps online that looked close enough to what I needed. And some adventures even have digital maps that you can use.

If worse comes to worst, you can just download an image of a grid and draw on it in MS Paint, which is essentially what I do by hand with markers and a vinyl grid map in my IRL games. Fancy maps are nice if you have them, but they're not necessary. It's enough to just portray the basics of the environment.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Do you already have a program, any program, that you work with for graphical stuff?

I would mostly just google for maps, but it can be useful to add your own stuff to it. For instance: I wanted a map with a big dinosaur nest in it, so I just found a "field and trees" map with roughly the right shape and then either copied a nest into it or drew a simple representation of one, not sure which one of those anymore. Paint would work for that, although I would recommend the GIMP/Gimpshop(/whatever name they go by this week). The big thing this adds that you can use immediately is layers, so not only can you add a dinosaur nest, you can keep it separate from the background so you can modify, move, remove or replace it later, without undoing everything else you did with the map.

[J-H]

I've used RPGMapmaker, which is pretty good, but limited in assets.

I usually just use an Excel grid, screenshot/crop/paste.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I've used RPGMapmaker, which is pretty good, but limited in assets.

I usually just use an Excel grid, screenshot/crop/paste.

Ooh, I might steal that one.

[hifidelity2]

For VTT I use Owlbear Rodeo
For Maps it a mixture of
- The “base” backgrounds provided and then just sketch over them using the pen tool
- Downloads from the internet – a search often gives what you need
- Larger maps are normally hand sketched, scanned and then modified

I use, in order of simple - complex
Paint
Paint.net
GIMP

[Jyps]

Hey guys!

Big thanks to everyone for the useful insight.

I had never heard of Owlbear-rodeo before, but it looks just like what I needed!

[NichG]

For local-scale stuff I've lately enjoyed using Dungeonscrawl.

For world maps I used to use a combination of Krita and Blender, basically making the terrain in Blender and then painting over it and detailing with Krita.

These days I'm trying to figure out how to get Stable Diffusion into that workflow - it's bad at just making a map from nothing even with fine-tuning, LoRAs, etc; but if you give it an initial outline with land and water and mountains and forests and such blobbed in, upscale things massively, and then inpaint patch by patch (so effectively each inch of the map has a distinct prompt where you're telling it what to draw there, not just 'draw a map') you can get nice blending between a scale map for understanding the distances and paths between points, and a sort of more abstract amusement park-like landmark map showing things about each of the places. It's a significant time investment to make a map this way, but I like the results in the tests I've done.

[King of Nowhere]

Hello, everyone!

What do you do when it comes to maps for playing TTRPGs online?
(Assuming your system needs a map)

I'm looking for tools to draw or customize dungeon maps, mainly for D&D or similar games.
Don't have any particular preferences. I'm just curious about what solutions have worked best for other GMs.

Thanks in advance for any insight you could share!

https://inkarnate.com

this site is a wonderful tool to draw fantasy map, I've been using it for world maps.
for smaller environments, i use roll20. it can take some work, but if you past the sprites in the right way you can make a lot of cool stuff

[glass]

There is a Humble Bundle now on Campaign Cartographer (https://www.humblebundle.com/software/cartographers-vault-treasury-expertly-crafted-maps-software?hmb_source=search_bar). I have not pushed the button myself (although I am considering it), so I cannot vouch for how good the software or the bundled maps are, but its there if you want to check it out....

[Gnoman]

I can't vouch for the quality of the bundled maps because I don't, as a general rule, use premade content in my games, but the Campaign Cartographer software is absolutely fantastic for making them yourself. The only real problem is that it is an extremely powerful tool with a somewhat obtuse interface - getting the most out of it takes a lot of practice.

[Trask]

I draw out the dungeon/area on graph paper with pencil & shading, then go over the lines with pen and then scan it to my computer. Sometimes I use colored pencils too.

It works well and I find easier than fussing with software (easier for me anyways).

[tchntm43]

My current process:
1. Inkarnate for the non-moving parts of maps. In my experience Inkarnate by far produces the prettiest maps and is very good at organically-shaped things like cliffs and rivers. But it doesn't do moving parts or fog of war.

2. Arkenforge for in-person with a VTT screen, for moving parts and fog of war effects, and making sure the map it scaled perfectly for the 1-inch= 5 ft grid for playing with miniatures.

3. Roll20 for online games, for moving parts and fog of war effects