Calling all keen cartographers: popular Dungeons and Dragons virtual tabletop Roll20 is preparing to give away three prizes of $100 (£76) in marketplace credit to whoever creates the best tabletop RPG maps in its map-making challenge, later this month.
Part of the famous virtual tabletop‘s annual Roll20Con promotion, the ‘Scrawltember’ map-making challenge asks fans to create maps using Roll20’s own free Dungeon Scrawl DnD map maker, then share their creations on Twitter during the three days of Roll20Con: Friday, September 20 through Sunday, September 22, 2024.
Each of the three days has a different theme for your competition entries, according to Roll20’s announcement this week:
- Friday, September 20: Underworld – “Caverns, tunnels, or other dark natural places beneath the surface.”
- Saturday, September 21: Nautical – “Island terrain, seaside scenes, or the vessels used on the high seas.”
- Sunday, September 22: Stronghold – “Fortresses, castles, or other man-made structures to infiltrate or escape.”
Naturally, none of it has to be intended for Dungeons and Dragons, of course, but as ever with such things, there’s a lot of fantasy theme overlap.
To enter, you’ve got to create a free Dungeon Scrawl map inspired by one of those prompts; download your map in an image format; and share it via Twitter on the correct day, making sure to use the hashtag #scrawltember and tag the official Roll20 account (@roll20app).
Roll20 will pick one winner from each day’s entries to win “$100 of Roll20 Marketplace titles” of their choice. The firm says in its blog announcement it’ll announce all three winners by Friday, September 27, 2024.
It confirms you’ll retain ownership of your map once submitted (even if it wins) although the competition terms and conditions (read them here) allow Roll20 to use your submitted maps for “promotional, advertising and other commercial uses”.
Dungeon Scrawl has been around for many years as a free, standalone browser-based tool for building simple maps for DnD and practically any other tabletop roleplaying games you like. It was acquired by Roll20 in September 2023, with the VTT intending to integrate the tool directly into Roll20 itself – but at time of writing this doesn’t appear to be possible yet; you have to export your map as an image, then import it back into your Roll20 campaign.
Still, it’s a cracking little tool for making quick and dirty TTRPG maps – and a bit of time cooking up something fun on it this month could win you 100 bucks’ worth of content for your next DnD campaign.
With the One DnD release date around the corner, too, it’s worth stretching those map-making muscles – for more info on the brand new rules, check out our DnD 2024 player’s handbook review, and our breakdowns on the changes to DnD races and DnD classes.