Roll20 Adds Dungeon Scrawl To Its Portfolio For Real Time Map-Making

Popular virtual tabletop Roll20 announced that it now has free digital map-making tool Dungeon Scrawl under its umbrella. Just when it looked like there would be no big tabletop news this week. In a post on the Roll20 forums, Principal Product Manager Andrew Searles detailed what this means for users of both websites. 

Searles starts off by explaining the major appeal of adding Dungeon Scrawl to Roll20’s VTT platform: real time map-making. He shows a proof-of-concept in this video where he leads a group through a cave, allowing them to pick paths while quickly adding tunnels based on their choices. Such VTT integration was apparently asked for by over half of Dungeon Scrawl users. However, this functionality isn’t ready yet. 

The dream of seamless map drawing in Roll20 has to wait as the team is still working on its own updates to the software, says Searles. Therefore no launch date for real time map-making was given. That said, Dungeon Scrawl creator Keir is staying onboard to help with continued development. 

Searles and Keir assured users that Dungeon Scrawl as it is isn’t going anywhere. You can still go to the classic Dungeon Scrawl website and make unlimited maps for free. You can also export them as PNGs, create isometric maps, and more without needing to give Roll20 any money. The tool itself is also unchanged, presumably until proper Roll20 integration is figured out. 

The Roll20 announcement post is an open forum for Q&A, with Searles and Keir fielding questions for the next week. More details will probably emerge there, but for now it’s a waiting game.