DM Tools for Mapping

[Hand of Evil]

I've signed up for Worldographer 2025. I've been a supporter all the way back to when it was called Hexographer. I don't work for them or have an ownership.

So here is some questions because I'm curious how you all think?
1. How important is the ability to randomly generate vs just make a map manually?
2. Is the prettiness of the map really important? I've been wondering if maybe a more lightweight tool for pretty player maps would make sense. I think Worldographer is great for knowing where things are at and keep track of nations etc...
3. Do you all like making battlemats? Traditionally I've used a big marker board for drawing battlegrounds. Not sure printing battlemats is worth the effort.
4. Is your map making tool driven by your VTT? I've been thinking about maybe looking into a VTT (e.g. Foundry) as I have some old friends more distant now. We might have a nostalgia game for old times sake.
5. Do you use a mapmaker for worlds, regions, small scale, dungeons, cities, towns?

So I'm just trying to stir up some creative thoughts about how we design our campaign worlds.

First and foremost, you run what you brung, meaning you get out of a program what you put into it, time, knowledge and effort.

1. Not for my games, I have a number of maps I have purchased, found or made over the years that I use for random locations.
2. I like pretty maps; they are important to me; I think my player would take cave drawings.
3. No, not worth time and effort. I use a marker and grid/hex pad (and HO train landscape items and other stuff found at toy or art store.)
4. No, never got into VTT.
5. I use Campaign Cartographer and related add-ons. Have picked up just about every other map maker and have been thinking about RPG Map Forge, which is just Brushes that are imported into a Photoshop app or such.

 

[Emerikol]

I'm answering myself just to give my views on the matter now that some of you have responded. And Thanks!

I've signed up for Worldographer 2025. I've been a supporter all the way back to when it was called Hexographer. I don't work for them or have an ownership.

So here is some questions because I'm curious how you all think?
1. How important is the ability to randomly generate vs just make a map manually?

Until very recently, I would have said not at all. I always draw my maps. I think though if you want an entire world it's easy to generate it now and it looks decent. I an then go in and tweak the setting area to my hearts content. So for me its easier to change to my liking then start from scratch if doing an entire world.

2. Is the prettiness of the map really important? I've been wondering if maybe a more lightweight tool for pretty player maps would make sense. I think Worldographer is great for knowing where things are at and keep track of nations etc...

For my own use which is the primary use as most PCs don't see the whole map, I care very little with super pretty unless it is also highly functional. But I would take pretty if I can also get pretty I suppose.

3. Do you all like making battlemats? Traditionally I've used a big marker board for drawing battlegrounds. Not sure printing battlemats is worth the effort.

I never used battlemats. I think if I could use them digitally they would be great. At the table I just use a marker board and grease pen. Maybe if I built myself the ultimate gaming table that had a monitor under glass as the table top then I'd like battlemats more. I just don't care for the idea of printing them out.

4. Is your map making tool driven by your VTT? I've been thinking about maybe looking into a VTT (e.g. Foundry) as I have some old friends more distant now. We might have a nostalgia game for old times sake.

I've played VTT a few times. For a VTT, I can see the right tool being useful.

5. Do you use a mapmaker for worlds, regions, small scale, dungeons, cities, towns?

Yes. I use worldographer which supports drawing your own. It provides an ability to scale in to smaller hex sizes automatically. I usually do my cities and towns separately but I do map them.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I've signed up for Worldographer 2025. I've been a supporter all the way back to when it was called Hexographer. I don't work for them or have an ownership.

So here is some questions because I'm curious how you all think?
1. How important is the ability to randomly generate vs just make a map manually?
2. Is the prettiness of the map really important? I've been wondering if maybe a more lightweight tool for pretty player maps would make sense. I think Worldographer is great for knowing where things are at and keep track of nations etc...
3. Do you all like making battlemats? Traditionally I've used a big marker board for drawing battlegrounds. Not sure printing battlemats is worth the effort.
4. Is your map making tool driven by your VTT? I've been thinking about maybe looking into a VTT (e.g. Foundry) as I have some old friends more distant now. We might have a nostalgia game for old times sake.
5. Do you use a mapmaker for worlds, regions, small scale, dungeons, cities, towns?

So I'm just trying to stir up some creative thoughts about how we design our campaign worlds.

I don’t dm much but, when I do and I want to do world building, I find maps to be a big obstacle for a few reasons:

- Pre generated/ free maps.
These never save time. By the time I’ve toggled through all the options or scrolled through hundreds of maps to find what I want, it’s turned into wasted hours.

- making my own. I find the learning curve steep and, once again, my sense of getting what I want and playing with all the settings, it takes me hours. And I’m not usually happy with what I’ve created.

Hopefully that answers 1 and 2

3- battlemats are less important as far as prettiness goes but I’ll also spend hours trying to find a nice map because most of my dming is online. In person, I just use paper or a battle mat and scrawl what I beed

4 I mostly use roll20. It sucks for making maps or drawing stuff

5. For world maps, see 1 and 2

My ideal:
-To be able to generate maps in a vtt.
-to be able to scrawl a map, put in a few text prompts (dungeon, outdoors, forest) then have an AI take my drawing and generate something nice. Once again, Ideally, in the VTT I’m using.

 

[Emerikol]

My ideal:
-To be able to generate maps in a vtt.
-to be able to scrawl a map, put in a few text prompts (dungeon, outdoors, forest) then have an AI take my drawing and generate something nice. Once again, Ideally, in the VTT I’m using.

I think you'd find worldographer a nice tool. It will generate any size map outdoor map up to an entire world. It is hex based so you just click on hexes to fill in what goes there. For dungeons it is easy to rough out something quick that looks decent in a VTT. It does cost money but it's a one time buy and not a subscription.

 

[GuardianLurker]

I've signed up for Worldographer 2025. I've been a supporter all the way back to when it was called Hexographer. I don't work for them or have an ownership.

Also have it. And Campaign Cartographer, and a few others.

So here is some questions because I'm curious how you all think?
1. How important is the ability to randomly generate vs just make a map manually?

I don't generally create a full random map. I certainly don't for anything the player characters will directly interact with. IMO, it leads to completely nonsense maps - like the one in B1.

I find that randomization is great however, for adding DETAILS to the world. For example in Worldographer, when you expand to the more detailed hexes, it sprinkles terrains within the larger one. I find that very useful.

2. Is the prettiness of the map really important?

Ultimately, not really. If I can take the time to make it pretty, I will. But it is very much not a priority of mine. I've run whole modules with scans of hand-drawn maps on graph paper. If it keeps the party oriented, that's generally enough.

3. Do you all like making battlemats?

Physically? I have. I find a large blank battlemat (e.g. the Chessex ones, or the modular dry/wet erase tiles, or...) works best in conjunction with the pre-printed ones (like Paizo's). My players will, given the option, run right off the edge of the map.

4. Is your map making tool driven by your VTT?

Nope. And I'm solely using Fantasy Grounds. As long as the tool can produce high-res JPGs, PNGs, or BMPs, I can deal.

5. Do you use a mapmaker for worlds, regions, small scale, dungeons, cities, towns?

Regions, small scale, yes. Dungeons, these days I have enough module backlog that I can generally reuse one of their maps. But I've certainly drawn enough as well, though given the grief my players have given me, I don't bother with more than the basics anymore when I do. Which is why I hunt for pre-built maps.

I actually find that a lot of the map-maker SW's "Map Notes" doesn't work well for me. I'm explicitly thinking of WG's "notes" tool, but CC has much of the same functionality. I tend to work Story-to-Map, not Map-to-Story. Or put another way, maps (and map maker software) are visualization, not organization, tools for me.

 

[Emerikol]

<snip>

Sounds like you are a thoughtful and organized DM.

I find that randomization is great however, for adding DETAILS to the world. For example in Worldographer, when you expand to the more detailed hexes, it sprinkles terrains within the larger one. I find that very useful.

I have part of a world I'm prepping that I've drawn but I thought if I wanted a full globe that I'd just randomly generate the globe and then write over an area with my map. In the future, I may generate and then tweak significantly. I find worldographer 2025 generates decent world maps but I absolutely can add or subtract to make it entirely mine.

 

[aramis erak]

One of the key elements of Worldographer (and Hexographer before it) is that the randomization method takes into account neighboring terrain when generating. It correlates more like a real world than a true random would. I've found them both immediately useful and easily modified when I want to. Both flat projection and icosahedral projections available. It is, however, still hex based. If you've got enough ram, it can go down pretty deep.

 

[Emerikol]

One of the key elements of Worldographer (and Hexographer before it) is that the randomization method takes into account neighboring terrain when generating. It correlates more like a real world than a true random would. I've found them both immediately useful and easily modified when I want to. Both flat projection and icosahedral projections available. It is, however, still hex based. If you've got enough ram, it can go down pretty deep.

Yep. I generate a world but it's super easy to tweak. I start with 180 miles hexes and then go do to 30 mile and 5 mile hexes.

 

[GuardianLurker]

I have part of a world I'm prepping that I've drawn but I thought if I wanted a full globe that I'd just randomly generate the globe and then write over an area with my map. In the future, I may generate and then tweak significantly. I find worldographer 2025 generates decent world maps but I absolutely can add or subtract to make it entirely mine.

Actually, if I'm building a whole globe, I actually prefer using Fractal Terrains, and then exporting the appropriate regions for the detailed shots. FT generates worlds quickly, and its tweaks are easy to understand, so I can just step through iterations until I find one I like.

And FT includes climate, rainfall, etc. Which WG doesn't do. But FT doesn't really do the multiple levels of detail with surprises like WG does. So FT for the globe and high level/low-res stuff, exported to WG for the regional/small-scale stuff, and then the wild-west hunt at the battlemap level.

 

[Emerikol]

1. Neither. Plenty of free maps on the Net.
2. Extremely important.
3. Neither. Plenty of free maps on the Net.
4. Only play online, played VTT while F2F for years before switching to online. If its not VTT, forget it.
5. No. Plenty of free maps on the Net.

This is very interesting. A very VTT driven person. What percentage of today's players would you think are of similar thinking? I could go either way I think.