Amazing D&D map maker is like the Sims for Dungeon Masters
Feb. 2, 2024Opinion | Dungeon Alchemist keeps blowing my mind
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Dungeon Alchemist feels like cheating when it comes to D&D.
With this map-making software, all you need to do is… well, drag and click. That’s it. There’s no trawling the internet for designs thatsort offit the bill. You don’t need to fork out for plastic D&D kits, or cobble together a DIY solution. Instead, you just hit ‘go.’ And there it is – a dungeon full of loot and secrets.
I’m not entirely convinced it isn’t sorcery. However, I’ve been reliably informed that Dungeon Alchemist is powered by AI which figures out where assets the developer has created should go. Yes, you can place everything from walls to chairs yourself. But if you’re cutting it fine before a session or have to create a battlemap on the fly, this will do the job in seconds.
Honestly? This sort of tech could change everything for time-strapped Dungeon Masters everywhere.
Cutting corners
Making maps or dungeon tiles for D&D – or any of thebest tabletop RPGs, actually – is hard. Unless you opt for ready-made kits and pre-existing campaign maps, the process can be a real faff. It’s fun, of course. But when you’re short on time, that’s not always what you need.
Dungeon Alchemy promises to let you cut those corners.
This software (which isavailable via Steam) was developed by Briganti to streamline the process of making battle maps for D&D and other TTRPGs. While it was originally meant for top-down designs that could be used in virtual tabletops, things quickly escalated; before long, it offered the ability to place miniatures (taken from DIY miniature store Hero Forge) into a fully 3D environment and look around in first-person mode. In terms of immersion, it’s beaten only by Mirrorscape (whichuses AR to create what might be the best virtual tabletop yet).
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Price:$44.99 / £31.99Platforms:SteamMinimum specs:Intel i5-650 / AMD Phenom II X4 973, Geforce GTS 450 / Radeon HD 5770, 8GB RAM, 2GB of available space
Quite easily, apparently. The software populates desks, dungeons, and kitchens with artfully-placed greebles that bring the whole thing to life. It makes my homemade efforts look utterly crap.
What’s more, it’s a bit like The Sims; you can spendhoursmanually creating taverns, castles, forests, ruins, and anything else you can dream up bit by bit. This can then be printed out (with your own printer or having it put onto a rubber-backed mat viaKraken Wargames), transferred to a virtual tabletop like Roll20, or used as-is by importing your custom Hero Forge miniatures for a first-person ‘walkthrough.’ The latter in particular is wild; you can use your creation as a visual aid when describing what your party witnesses.
Seeing as other gamers can upload their own maps to Dungeon Alchemist’s Steam Workshop (and assets that’ll populate them), the options start to get overwhelming. The level of creativity on display is absurd, and it’s reminiscent of community builds for Minecraft. Leave the fans alone to their own devices for five minutes and they’ll make something you couldn’t even dream of. And the best thing is, that’ll only improve in time.
The level of creativity on display is absurd
It has to be said that Dungeon Alchemist isn’t perfect. There’s obviously a limit to its asset library, and it can’t doeverything.Go beyond the standard fantasy staples like dungeons or wildernesses and you may struggle to find what you need. I’m not trying to say it should replace dungeon-tiles or hand-drawn maps on graph paper, either. But if time and energy are things you’re short of, this will be a godsend.
For an alternative, check outFablecraft - it takes D&D-style virtual tabletop and makes it so much better. As recommendations of what you should play next, be sure to check out thebest board gamesor thebest card games.
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