The tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) scene is a vibrant, digital playground where players from all over the globe come together to roll dice, fight monsters, and explore fantastical worlds. Thanks to online platforms like D&D Beyond, adventurers have everything they need at their fingertips: from character sheets to rulebooks. Recently, D&D Beyond developed a Virtual Tabletop (VTT) of their own.
This article will guide you through using this VTT—the D&D Beyond Maps tool—to upload your battlemaps and put a personal flair on each of your campaign’s exciting scenes.
Why Use Battlemaps In D&D Beyond?
Imagine your players embarking on an epic showdown with a fearsome boss in a sprawling, ancient throne room or engaging in lively negotiations amidst the chaotic buzz of a bustling city marketplace. Now imagine their “oohs” and “aahs” as you unveil a battlemap that not only shows them exactly what their characters are seeing but also captures the atmosphere, down to the flickering torches or shifting shadows.
While vivid verbal descriptions are the cornerstone of tabletop role-playing games, a well-drawn battlemap can elevate your sessions from abstract verbal descriptions to rich, visual experiences.
How To Use D&D Beyond Maps
Step 1 - Create A D&D Beyond Account
To use D&D Beyond’s VTT tool, Maps, you’ll need a Master Tier account, which you can sign up for here. The Master Tier offers comprehensive features, including unlimited character creation, access to homebrew content, and early access to tools such as the Maps feature.
Not ready to commit to a paid subscription? No worries! You can explore all these features with a free one-week trial to ensure it’ll fit your table’s needs before making any decisions.
Step 2 - Choose Your Map
Any image can function as a map for your game, and D&D Beyond currently supports JPG, PNG, and WEBP as image file formats. You can even draw your own map! However, if you’re looking for beautiful, ready-made maps that are sure to impress your players, our extensive library has you covered.
Explore over five thousand battlemaps, ranging from eerie villain lairs to mystical landscapes like the dead body of a god lost in astral space—making sure that every scene is as unique as your story. Visit the Maps page on our website to browse our full collection, or, for exclusive access to the highest-resolution, VTT-ready downloads, consider joining our Patreon.
Here, you can choose a membership tier that suits your needs and start downloading maps that will set the stage for your party’s adventures.
Step 3 - Access Your Campaign On Maps
To start uploading your maps, you first need a campaign on D&D Beyond. You can either create a new campaign or select from various premade campaigns available, depending on the sourcebooks you own on D&D Beyond.
To access your campaigns or make a new one, navigate to Collections, then “My Campaigns”.
Once you have your campaign, navigate to the Maps tool, select the campaign from the dropdown on the Maps homepage, then click “Go”.
This will bring you to the Map Browser page, where you’ll be able to choose from the Basic Maps provided, or upload your own.
Step 4 - Uploading Your Map
To use one of your own maps, we’re going to click on “My Uploaded Maps”, then click “Upload Map”. This will open up the “Add Uploaded Map” window.
Give your map a good name, and upload the image you want to use for your map—either by clicking the window to open your computer’s file browser or dragging the image directly into the dialogue box.
Keep in mind that the maximum file size you can upload at once is 10MB, and Maps has a 10GB per-user storage limit.
Step 5 - Scaling Your Map
Once you’ve uploaded your desired image, click “Next” to proceed to the “Create Token Scale” window. This is where you’ll be able to adjust the map’s scale and size relative to the tokens in your campaign.
Here, you’ll see a white circle surrounded by a dotted square with smaller circles and a red arrow in each corner, overlayed on the map you just uploaded.
The large white circle will be the size of a Medium creature’s token on your map—that is, one “square”. The dotted square, on the other hand, should represent one grid square, while the smaller circles represent its corners.
To scale your map properly, align the smaller circles to the intersections of the grid lines on your map, then use the arrow in the bottom right corner to resize the box until it lines up with your grid squares.
Step 6 - Add Your Map To Your Campaign
After your map is properly scaled, click on the “Save” button to properly add it to your map browser. Once you’ve done this, you’ll see your shiny new map in your “My Uploaded Maps” section.
From here, simply click on the “+” button to the right of the map’s name to add it to your campaign’s map list and start playing with it.
Made a mistake? No worries, just click on the kebab menu (the three dots) under the “+” button to edit or delete your map.
Step 7 - Start Exploring!
Now that your map is in place, it’s time to bring it to life!
We recommend familiarizing yourself with the VTT tools provided by the Maps tool—including the Fog of War tool to hide secrets from your players, Draw tool to sketch out key elements on the map, and the Point and Ping tools to highlight places of interest or danger to your players.
As you explore all the possibilities, don’t forget to keep an eye on the D&D Beyond Roadmap page for new features and enhancements to come!