Oofta
Legend
I doubt Maps is supposed to be a Roll20 killer, that's what the VTT will target. This is for people that want something lightweight and simple to use.
D&D General Maps on D&DBeyond
bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
and a strong reason to go from the light sub to the heavy sub
Oofta
Legend
Having Maps as a gateway drug wouldn't surprise me at all.
Truth.
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I'm late to the party having been busy with work, but I spent some time playing around with DDB Maps this evening and I was very pleasantly surprised. This is basically what I was looking for five years ago when I had to move my game online and was looking for an online replacement for my beloved MapTool.
I had spent many, many hours testing most of the major VTTs before settling on Foundry. The one thing none of the VTTs I've used were good at, in my experience, it making it easy for me as a DM to run no/low prep games. With TableTool, I could pull up a map from my collection of hundreds, apply fog of war and drop tokens in a couple of minutes. The DDB Map alpha is the closest I've come to finding an online tool that givens me a similar fluid and convenient experience.
Depending on the campaign, I could see using this as my primary online battlemap tool for a 5e game, even with its current limitations.
What I like:
The maps from my purchased DDB material is easily available by default
I can upload a map, apply fog of war, and plop tokens in under a minute
With my decent, but not great, overseas internet connection, it runs silky smooth, it just never gets in my way
Many in my group use DDB as their primary character sheet already as Foundry and its various community created DDB integrations are wonky and I've given up on trying to get everything cleaned up and get the automations working properly in Foundry. The DDB gamelog displays in the DDB Maps, so you can see everyone's rolls.
What I would like to see improved:
First, I don't want them to try to develop every feature set of the more robust VTTs. They should be looking to compete with Owlbear Rodeo more than Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20. But there are some quality of life features I would like to see.
1. Character sheet integration with tokens. Having the character sheet open in a separate tab is not that big of a deal for players, even if they don't have a dual-screen setup, but but it is kind of a pain for the DM. Currently, I will need to have tabs with stat blocks open for various monsters and need to set up the encounter builder separately or do it with pen and paper. I would be nice to be able to just double click on a token and pull up the associated character sheet.
2. Integration with encounter builder. I would be nice to have another tab in the token browser that would allow me to select from pre‑created encounters. Even better it would be nice to have an option to create an encounter from the tokens currently dropped on the board.
3. Default to the eraser tool when I click "cover all". This is very minor, but I default to applying FOW and I find myself forgetting to click on the eraser tool.
4. More FOW eraser options. Example: changing the eraser size and shape, being able to draw out sections where you want to remove FOW. Again, for now, this is a minor wish for me. I find the current eraser fine. But a few more eraser options would be welcome.
That's about it. While I have no plans to drop Foundry, and would continue to use it for more cool prepped map effects and support of systems other than 5e, I could see DDB Maps, even in its alpha state, becoming my default battlemap for 5e games. Its really all I need most of the time. Will wait and see what the WotC 3D VTT offers when it is released, but the only features that would likely get me to take out my wallet for a full-featured 5e VTT would be solid and user friendly application of AOE damage and effects and good status tracking.
All-in-all I feel that this makes my DDB Master Tier subscription much more valuable to me.
I had spent many, many hours testing most of the major VTTs before settling on Foundry. The one thing none of the VTTs I've used were good at, in my experience, it making it easy for me as a DM to run no/low prep games. With TableTool, I could pull up a map from my collection of hundreds, apply fog of war and drop tokens in a couple of minutes. The DDB Map alpha is the closest I've come to finding an online tool that givens me a similar fluid and convenient experience.
Depending on the campaign, I could see using this as my primary online battlemap tool for a 5e game, even with its current limitations.
What I like:
The maps from my purchased DDB material is easily available by default
I can upload a map, apply fog of war, and plop tokens in under a minute
With my decent, but not great, overseas internet connection, it runs silky smooth, it just never gets in my way
Many in my group use DDB as their primary character sheet already as Foundry and its various community created DDB integrations are wonky and I've given up on trying to get everything cleaned up and get the automations working properly in Foundry. The DDB gamelog displays in the DDB Maps, so you can see everyone's rolls.
What I would like to see improved:
First, I don't want them to try to develop every feature set of the more robust VTTs. They should be looking to compete with Owlbear Rodeo more than Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20. But there are some quality of life features I would like to see.
1. Character sheet integration with tokens. Having the character sheet open in a separate tab is not that big of a deal for players, even if they don't have a dual-screen setup, but but it is kind of a pain for the DM. Currently, I will need to have tabs with stat blocks open for various monsters and need to set up the encounter builder separately or do it with pen and paper. I would be nice to be able to just double click on a token and pull up the associated character sheet.
2. Integration with encounter builder. I would be nice to have another tab in the token browser that would allow me to select from pre‑created encounters. Even better it would be nice to have an option to create an encounter from the tokens currently dropped on the board.
3. Default to the eraser tool when I click "cover all". This is very minor, but I default to applying FOW and I find myself forgetting to click on the eraser tool.
4. More FOW eraser options. Example: changing the eraser size and shape, being able to draw out sections where you want to remove FOW. Again, for now, this is a minor wish for me. I find the current eraser fine. But a few more eraser options would be welcome.
That's about it. While I have no plans to drop Foundry, and would continue to use it for more cool prepped map effects and support of systems other than 5e, I could see DDB Maps, even in its alpha state, becoming my default battlemap for 5e games. Its really all I need most of the time. Will wait and see what the WotC 3D VTT offers when it is released, but the only features that would likely get me to take out my wallet for a full-featured 5e VTT would be solid and user friendly application of AOE damage and effects and good status tracking.
All-in-all I feel that this makes my DDB Master Tier subscription much more valuable to me.
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
A much better way to lure people in than "hey kids, more digital dice," as fun as some of them might be. (I like the mimic set, myself.)
number 2! I want to build an encounter based on what's on the map (with the ability to remove tokens that are not in teh CURRENT battle, or something like that). I really don't want to build the encounter builder ahead of time all the time.
I agree, I hope they concentrate on keeping this simple.
darjr
I crit!
Have you looked at owlbear rodeo?
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I did. Years ago. So I am sure it is much better. At the time, I also backed Role on Kickstarter and was using that for a Mage game. Since Role integrated video conferencing and an inline, easily customizable character sheet, there wasn't anything I felt that I needed Owlbear Rodeo for.
For my 5e game, I've been running Rappan Ahtuk for years and I went radically in the other direction, and prepped over 100 maps with walls and doors for line of sight and auto-reveal, secret doors, automatic token movement to new maps, teleportal traps, and in many cases ambient lighting and ambient sound. But after years of high-prep massive dungeon crawling, I'm looking for to run my next campaign with little map prep work. If I run 5e I'll use DDB Alpha since the character sheets would already be in DDB.
If I run a non-5e campaign, it will depend on the system. If Dungeon Crawl Classics, I'll likely use Foundry with the DDC system to automatic the table rolls (DDC loves its tables). Otherwise I will certainly give Owlbear Rodeo another look. Foundry's manual fog of war support has been terrible and is clearly not a priority its community and, therefore, its developers. As much as I love Foundry, I'm getting burned out on map prep and troubleshooting community mods.
darjr
I crit!
I can’t test this out now but the sizing of a medium token to the map seems really genius.
youtube.com
Adding your own maps in D&D Beyond #dndbeyond #shorts #napkinmap
Because who hasn't had their players head straight for the Very Planned For Cave? Try Maps: https://dndbeyond.link/yt_Maps_UploadandScaleMaps is a new browse...
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