maps and mapmaking. more specifically, there's something that's been bothering me for a while now. There are endless skirmish-scale settlement-scale and topographic-scale square grid mapmaking tools online, and that's great. There's plenty of topography-scale hexgrid mapmakers too, presumably because of D&D's ancient use of hexgrids for overland travel. and that's great too. There arent many hexmakers ive found for settlement scale maps, but i've had some luck torturing them out of the battletech mapmaker in the megamek software, or other videogames that generously offer to print the outputbutfor the life of me i cannot find a decent skirmish-scale hexgrid mapmaker. i must have tried a dozen programs by now, but the ones that offer hexgrids are either borderline unuseable or just put a hexagonal overlay over a square grid. it's ridiculous that after decades of computer tools for TTRPGS the best i've found is GIMP where i have to draw the damn things by hand. Not to mention the endless enshitification of google makes it harder and harder to find niche programs to match what i need.what are you anons using to create your maps?do you know of any decent skirmish-scale hexmappers (that are free, or at least worth the price)?what do you think of maps in general, do you even use them?i'll share any spare maps i have within the size limit to get the ball rolling
just in case you ever want to print a map and play on paper, since you can cut this one up without obviously revealing the seams between roomsi promise they wont all be phandelver
Here's one of mine, made in DungeonPainter (a primitive free version of something available on steam). The structure is the inside of a pyramid with dead-ends placed strategically to lure would-be thieves into traps, packs of skeletons or both. my personal favourite was the flammable oil room. it's okay as a program, but the hexgrid is virtually unworkable.
This one is a pre-made hexmap from an old game (free on steam) called Battle for Wesnoth. It has a fairly nice artstyle and a built in map editor, and it's in hexes, but sadly isnt quite in the right scale.
you can get a lot out of the wesnoth map editor actually. this project never quite saw the light of day, but it shows the flexibility of the scale in the editor
an earlier draft i ruined. if you ruin something just a little bit you're an idiot. but if you ruin it badly and intentionally enough, it becomes art (probably)
this is from my current preferred map-painter, helpfully named "RPG map editor" by deepnight games. its free and runs in a browser, and can do a lot if you sink the time into it, but works great for zero effort stuff too.
this is closer to how RPG map editor looks if your'e a talentless hack like me who uses the default settings. The orcs have had to seal off a lot of the ruin since they accidentally opened the passage to the spider den.
last but not least, megamek's map creator. sadly it's a bit too specialized for anything that isnt battletech IMO
>>97244277>Wesnoth editorOh the memories. I made my first maps as GM with that, almost 20 years ago. Such a comfy style
>>97244178Map I made inkarnate of a large village/borderline town in Warhammer Fantasy, located somewhere in Ostland, near the borders of Kislev
>>97244178Not using a hexgrid for much but I've seen maps posted where anons just overlay a grid on irl maps. Depending on the style of game you're running that might work.
A couple of years ago I tried to make a "world map" for my autistic worldbuilding project that essentially is set in a gigantic, biotechnological City located in east asia. I'll propably try to revisit this map next year with the aim of making it more legible as well as obscuring it's geographic location a bit more. A location grid system is also an useful element I plan on adding. On some level I've considered just turning this map project into some sort of web page etc where one could just click on different filters and shit to see different elements of the map.
