D&D 5E Mapping tool--what's the current state of the art?

[Zaruthustran]

Reading the DMG, it's got some pretty specific guidelines for the scale of hex maps.

Province scale: 1 hex = 1 mile
Kingdom scale: 1 hex = 6 miles
Continent scale: 1 hex = 60 miles

So 1 continent hex = 10 kingdom hexes = 60 province hexes.

Are there any map programs that offer a "zoom" function? Such that I can create a continent, zoom in on an arbitrary hex, and then populate that hex at the kingdom level? And then zoom in again, and the kingdom-scale map converts to a province-scale map?

What's the current state of the art, for campaign world maps programs? Something that's easy to use, zoomable, with handy tools for laying down features (terrain, roads, points of interest)? I recall Campaign Cartographer to be a thing, but surely there are some new contenders.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

An All-in-One zoomable program? hmmmm....I can't think of one. That said, ProFantasy's Campaign Cartographer can do something "almost as good".

In CC3 (latest version is v3), you can make a map with 'hotspots'. These 'hotspots' are linkable to whatever you want. For example, you can have a map of a continent. On that map you have your countries 'hotlinked' to their country level map. Your country maps have 'hotlinks' to individual provinces. Your provinces have 'hotlinks' to individual cities. Your keep/castle in that city has a 'hotlink' to a map of that castle. A label called "Castle Key" is 'hotlinked' to a text document. Etc...etc...etc...

You could place a label on the 'lower' linked areas that go back "up" to something specific. So, for example, you could have your Province map have a key on the side called "Country Level", "Continent Level", "Capital City", "Capital City Castle", "PDF - Common Monsters", "PDF - Religions", "Video - Valley Fly-Through", "Music - Gen. BG". Each of those would be 'hotlinked' to whatever it was for.

Yes, it does take a bit of work, but if you just did a bit at a time, as needed for your campaign, I could see it being a really cool "Total Campaign Package". I have done this, but only to a very minor effect (a few linked maps with other maps, PDF's and HTML pages). It was pretty cool, really, but to really get full use of something like that you'd have to have your computer where you GM...which I don't.

EDIT: Hehe...didn't really answer your original question! Yes, each map you have could have it's own scale and whatnot. And before you ask, yes, there is a 'distance' tool you can use to figure out distances from A to B to C to D, etc. (and yes, you can do things in metric if you wanted...).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[travathian]

I want to be able to Google Maps my continent.

Zoom in, zoom out, directions, find nearby, markers, etc.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Are there any map programs that offer a "zoom" function? Such that I can create a continent, zoom in on an arbitrary hex, and then populate that hex at the kingdom level? And then zoom in again, and the kingdom-scale map converts to a province-scale map?

It's certainly not state of the art, but I recall being able to do this with HexMapper when I last looked at map software a few years back.

 

[aramis erak]

Are there any map programs that offer a "zoom" function? Such that I can create a continent, zoom in on an arbitrary hex, and then populate that hex at the kingdom level? And then zoom in again, and the kingdom-scale map converts to a province-scale map?

Can do it:
Any vector image editor (including Inkscape & CC3)
Any CAD Program (which is a subset of vector editors, and includes CC3)
Hexographer (which was a nifty surprise to me.)

 

[Jan van Leyden]

A fan group of the German RPG The Dark Eye manages the project Dere Globus for which they transferred the maps to Google Earth. This happened with consent of the publisher and was possible due the the large number of consistenly drawn maps. The video you start from the linked site has German text only, but gives you an impression of the visuals, anyway.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Thanks all. Hexographer comes close to what I had in mind, though it doesn't offer a true zoom: all it does is magnify (move the "camera" closer and farther from the map). It doesn't actually change the detail level.

In other words: you can't zoom into a hex, such as a "grassland" hex, to reveal all the features of that hex: the little farmhouse, the nearby cultivated fields, the entrance to the goblin lair across that small brook. It doesn't offer true zoom capability as described in the DMG where 1 continent hex = 10 kingdom hexes = 60 province hexes.

I did give it a try anyway, and another disappointment was it didn't have undo/redo functionality. If you place a forest hex and decide you don't like it, you can't just ctrl-z it away. You've got to instead paint it over.

I'll give HexMapper a shot. Thanks for the replies and keep the suggestions coming!

 

[Zaruthustran]

Hmmm... I wonder if something like a map editor in Civ V would deliver what I'm looking for? Or Endless Legend? Has anyone used a videogame's map editor to create D&D maps?

 

[rjfTrebor]

i think the easiest answer is going to be colored pencils and some printed hex paper. it'll take a bit of time to get good, but you do have a lot more control.

another option would be to try a more dedicated image editing program like photoshop and create these maps from scratch. it's not really the answer you wanted, but i've actually looked for something similar and it just doesn't exist yet.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I gave HexMapper a try. It's what I was looking for. Each hex of a map is a single surface (grass, woods, sand, swamp, etc.) and a single terrain (flat, hilly, mountainy, etc.). But you can select any hex and decompose it into hexes. In other words, turn the hex into a bunch of smaller hexes. The program even has an "interpolate" option which takes the surrounding hexes into account, resulting in a somewhat organic blending of the base hex (say, "flat woods") with it's neighbor (say, "hilly scrub"). So when broken down, the majority of the hex will be flat woods but as it nears the border to the "hilly scrub" hex those will fade to "hilly scrub".

It also handles elevation. The program documentation says that it can provide a pan and zoomable 3D view but I haven't gotten that to work.

It's clunky and you don't have fine control over the zoom level: each hex breaks down into 49 sub-hexes, each 1/7th the size of the parent hex. So it's not the same 1 hex breaks into 10 hexes of the DMG's continent => kingdom scale, or the 1 hex into 6 hexes of the kingdom => province scale. But it's still pretty cool.

HexMapper runs in java so it's got some limitations. I would have loved to see smooth scrolling at any zoom level; right now when you zoom you can only edit that single hex; if you've got a river that you want to extend to an adjacent hex you have to zoom out, select that adjacent hex, then zoom in to continue the river.

But again: this tool is simple, zoomable, with just enough options (and not too many). It'll suffice. Though I do want to give a videogame editor a shot.