There are many great tools to help DMs make world maps for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Creating maps is often a significant step in preparing for campaigns and sessions, making sure that the story is cohesive in terms of accessible locations and allowing both the Dungeon Master and the players to fully immerse themselves in the world. There are several great tools available for use on the internet, both with different features and functionalities, but a few of them are particularly beloved throughout the community. And while maps, much like minis, aren’t needed in DnD sessions, DMs who want to make their campaigns even better can benefit from intuitive tools that grant them the opportunity to release their imagination.
Inkarnate is considered one of the best on the internet, offering Dungeon Masters the tools they need to shape out a high-resolution map which allows them to explore the location of the campaign from different perspectives. Another popular tool is Wonderdraft, a software that offers players the opportunity to insert their very own custom assets, allowing them to create worlds of any aesthetic and escape the common trend of DnD games, namely playing exclusively in medieval fantasy settings. And Project DEIOS, which is still in development, presents new tools and opportunities for enhancing Dungeons & Dragons for many players, connecting specific locations to the entirety of the map.
DMs Can Make High-Resolution Maps For D&D In Inkarnate
Inkarnate is one of the best map-making tools for DMs making their own DnD campaign world, and it’s quite popular in the DnD community. Despite being a browser application, it offers a great variety of tools to help players shape the setting of a campaign in a highly detailed map. Inkarnate users can also create high-resolution maps, making it easier to make areas as detailed as possible even when zoomed in. This can contribute heavily to immersion during sessions. It also has a very simple and clean UI, requiring minimal work to understand how to use it.
Inkarnate also allows players to better control the aesthetic of the maps they want to create, with different assets that are important to connect the world map with the campaign. Inkarnate features battle map creation functionality for more specific locations and encounters, which makes this tool even more powerful. With this feature, most of the work DMs do in preparation for DnD campaigns is condensed into one single place. Not only that, but with a robust free version and a premium option with an accessible price, Inkarnate is even more flexible for DMs with a variety of budgets.
D&D DMs Can Add Custom Assets To Wonderdraft
Another powerful tool for creating detailed maps is Wonderdraft. It offers DMs all the tools they need to make a proper world map for their campaign, even giving them the option of drawing a spherical map that imitates a planet. While there is a learning curve when using the application, its UI is simple, with quick search methods and filters to sort out assets and terrain types, making it a powerful tool for creating maps that will help DMs make a DnD session like no other. However, it’s a software players need to pay for once to install it in their computer, which can be limiting to some.
Because Wonderdraft doesn’t rely on an online connection, it’s easier to add custom assets to use when creating maps. Dungeons & Dragons DMs can make their own custom environment elements and add them to the application or browse websites like Cartography Assets to create a map that fits the proper aesthetic of the campaign. This makes Wonderdraft a great application for those wanting to run campaigns with more unusual settings, such as futuristic or steampunk. And while Wonderdraft doesn’t feature support for making battle maps, the same creator has another application called Dungeondraft that fills that need.
Project DEIOS Merges World Maps With Battle Maps For D&D
While big detailed maps for Dungeons & Dragons can enhance a campaign, it can be very tiring to create one and manage each location with a specific battle map, which makes Project DEIOS a promising option. While it’s still in development, its released alpha showcases functionalities that are both intuitive and innovative. One of its core features is how it merges the creation of battle maps and other specific locations with the general world map, allowing the creator to zoom in and out of locations to see their interior and exterior more clearly without having to open other files. It also doesn’t require the creator to place each asset individually, instead allowing DMs to select the area an asset should occupy. This allows for greater versatility when creating maps for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns.
Much like Wonderdraft, it seems that Project DEIOS will rely exclusively on downloadable software for computers but use a subscription service to access all of its features. However, with the innovations promised by its developers, once it fully releases to the public, Project DEIOS might become one of the most powerful tools in map creation for modern players of Dungeons & Dragons. According to the teaser in the project’s website, Project DEIOS seems to fulfill most of the players’ needs for a campaign, and it will be a powerful tool for virtual tabletops, since it allows both players and the DM to better understand where the events of the adventure are taking place.
While some prefer to play without them, both maps and figures make Dungeons & Dragons easier and, for some, it’s important to be able to visualize locations to make plans of travel and better understand a campaign's setting. For the Dungeon Master, making maps, especially general world maps, can be very tiresome and difficult, but by using the right tool it can become one of the most fun parts of world building. Maps not only allow the players to better imagine what is taking place in the story, but also make it easier for DMs to plan out the campaign as they guide the party throughout the story's various locations.
Source: Inkarnate, Wonderdraft, Project DEIOS, Cartography Assets