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RPT Newsletter #965 | 7 Great Mapping Apps You Might Not Have Heard Of Before

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
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7 Great Mapping Apps You Might Not Have Heard Of Before
By JohnnFour | Published August 2018, updated June 18, 2021

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #965


Mapping software is a personal thing. I know what I like. Within moments of opening software I know if I’m going to be in for a rough time.
Software design comes down to the preferences and philosophy of the developer. They build software according to how they want to accomplish their tasks.
Therefore, what is one game master’s perfect interface is another’s sea of frustration.

We built Campaign Logger with a very specific design philosophy. You can dive in immediately and start taking notes, organizing your ideas, and building your library of NPCs, locations, items, and encounters.

Some game masters want a more structured approach. They want forms, and database fields, and more complex data types. Realmworks is a great example of this.

Where Campaign Logger is “Twitter meets a wiki” I feel RealmWorks is more like “database meets knowledge management.”
This is fantastic because it means we all have awesome choices to help us run our sessions and campaigns.

Which brings me back to mapping software. I still haven’t found an app that works the way I think.
So I went questing for mappers. And found a few I thought you might not have seen before and could jive with how you prefer to make maps.

The first was suggested by Generator Sage ELF called Hextml.
  1. Hextml (free)
    This one’s built for online play. Hexes and squares, lots of icons, notes, submaps, and fog of war are a few features.
  2. Grid Mapper (free)
    This is one of my all-time favourites because you can draw a map with your keyboard. Hit a letter to drop a map symbol and then hit the v key to cycle through variants.
  3. Mapui (free)
    Another simple mapper. You can share your maps out and collaborators will see your changes in real time.
  4. Dungeon Builder (commercial)
    Beautiful, hand-drawn isometric grid mapper. There’s a demo you can download.
  5. DungeonFog (commercial)
    Another beautiful mapper that builds painterly styled maps. Monthly subscription is $5-$10.
  6. ANAmap (free)
    Ultra-simple mapper. Great for quick and simple maps. Flash-based.
  7. Illwinter’s Floorplan Generator (commercial)
    Not sure the name is appropriate because you can draw dungeon, building, and wilderness maps. A simple mapper with a few dozen icons, colour and black & white options, and importable icons.
 
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