Tabletop RPGs –– the kind you play with rulebooks and funny dice, like Dungeons & Dragons –– may be products of your imagination, but using maps can avoid arguments about how far the elf wizard is from an onrushing orc. RPG Cartographer and Battle Map let game masters design environments and track character movement in them, and each brings its own approach to mapmaking with unique benefits and drawbacks.
RPG CartographerRPG Cartographer lets you create maps by assembling preset terrain and object tiles. Choose a background, then drag in hallways, treasure chests, and more to build your map in up to five layers. Libraries of numerous tiles and objects are included, but navigating them is time consuming. Lack of undo and copy and paste makes building complex scenes a chore, although layer-management features help somewhat. When a lair is to your liking, a wealth of tokens representing players and monsters lets you keep track of your game as you play. A special map layer can obscure secret areas of the environment until the time is right.
RPG Cartographer lets you make maps with a slightly more realistic look.
RPG Cartographer 1.0
D. Brad Talton, Jr.
lvl99games.com
$10.99
iPad
Pros: Plenty of terrain and object graphics included. Multiple layers.
Cons: No undo. Time-consuming to create large, complex maps.
Battle Map lets you create maps by quickly painting scenery with your finger, then adding objects on a layer above the background. While the stock object library is slim, you can import new artwork and give objects unique colors and other customizations for more variety. But you’ll have to change each object manually since there’s no copy and paste (you can undo, however). As you move player and monster tokens through your creations, optional lighting and line-of-sight settings simulate how much of your environment characters can see. Unfortunately these resulted in odd artifacts during play and occasional crashes while building maps. A built-in die roller and the ability to display maps on external displays round out Battle Map’s bag of tricks.
Creating large environments quickly is a snap with Battle Map.
Battle Map 1.6
Razeware LLC
razeware.com
$29.99
IPhone+iPad
Pros: Easy to use. Object customization settings. Shows maps on external displays.
Cons: Slim object library. Occasional crashes. Wonky lighting and line-of-sight features.
The bottom line. Despite Battle Map’s issues, its simpler and more varied toolset gives it an edge at the gaming table.
