Recently I ran out of storage on Roll20.
This only happened because I stopped paying for it, of course. I had been an avid user of it until a couple of years ago, when the frequency of my online gaming became monthly, rather than weekly. And although I don't think Roll20 is overly costly - its actually cheap if you use it to run a weekly game - its an expense I didn't need.
Its not like the free version isn't still good.
But of course, I lost quite a few resources - everything above my storage quota - and I couldn't upload anything. So I decided to do two things: check how much crap I keep on there that I don't need, and learn how to use less storage.
Turns out the answer to the first task was - a ton. Especially as stuff you buy does not contribute to the storage and you can buy personalisable noticeboards for your fantasy tavern that do WAY more than the homebrew one I had on there, despite how proud I was of it. So I cut back.
Eventually, I had a tiny amount of storage I could use again. Know what I did? I uploaded a map from an old DnD adventure. And then I drew over it. And then I deleted it. And then I uploaded a different map, this time of Utah, and drew over that.
So basically, here is a step-by-step instruction set on how to create an interactive hex-crawl map for your campaign, either from an existing resource, or from something you want to adapt:
1) Upload the map you want to use and place it on the GM Layer. You can still see it.
2) Switch to Map Layer. Select an appropriate pen thickness from the drawing menu and trace over the coastline of other major features. You may want to use different colours, or you may want to stick to classic black and white. Pen thickness can help distinguish between different kinds of linear features, such as coastline, borders or rivers.
3) Switch to GM Layer. Select a feature on the map, alter the thickness of your pen to suit, select a colour and draw over your feature, for example a mountain, a tree or a bridge. If possible, make it a single, continuous line. You can draw it large and then select and reduce it. It doesn't matter if you have to try this a few times; take the time to get it right. I actually sourced some icons for cities and castles because they looked better, but you may be better at this than me.
4) Select and copy your feature, then paste it everywhere you want it. Repeat for any other features you want to show on your map.
6) All your map features are now on the GM Layer. Players can't see them. But you will make these features visible when player characters enter a hex. So select now which ones you want players to begin the game knowing about or already able to see. By making a few of the features visible, you make it clear to players that this map has such features and this will hopefully pique their curiosity. Move these features to the Map Layer. I suggest large mountain ranges are included in this, as characters have a variety of ways to know about them, even if they cannot see them. But you don't have to put them all on yet; in fact its better if you don't.
7) At this stage, decide if you want to include icons for famous or visible creatures, such as known goblin territories, giant eagles, or dragons. This can represent local knowledge, or in the case of large flying beasties, actual sightings from adjacent hexes.
8) As your players progress, make more features visible, hex by hex. Annotate using the Text tool.
Dice pool settlement generation works on a VTT, too. There are various methods running about on the internet, for using dice pools to generate towns and villages, etc, where the physical spread of the dice represents the layout of the settlement. You can do this on a VTT. Have your VTT roll a handful of dice, using the 3d dice setting. You may have to use an Advanced Dice setting or type in the dice you want using '+' or find some other means of combining different die types in the pool, depending on your VTT. But it should be possible get a handful of varied dice roll across your screen. Screenshot this. The screenshot is necessary because as soon as you click on the screen the dice will disppear. When the screenshot pops up, copy it, typing or freehanding the numbers onto the grid (the grid helps you locate them precisely). You then cross reference the numbers with whatever index of building types you are using. Like I said, there are several versions of this on various blogs - you'll have to select one that works for you or invent your own. But very basically, the number on the die tells you what sort of building it is. Os something. Anyway, my point here is just that you can do this on a VTT, too. You could probably do it in session, but I haven't tried that. And you can pretty it up with map tokens between sessions, if you feel the need.
If you decide to give any of these ideas a try I would love to get feedback.
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