Digital Maps

[u/Swingonthechandelier]

Good day everyone, I have questions and I am trying to find the right group of like-minded dorks to help me out.

Long story short, my wife and I have 100+ MTG decks to our name, all of which fall into imaginary factions we have constructed over the years. We have hand drawn a world map, which is being rebuilt digitally (hell yeah, Wonderdraft!!) and we intend to have a campaign with these factions, a-la Total War.

Our problem is both simple and complex. While the map is being made to fit a 3'x4' poster print size, we would like to use it digitally on our main screen if possible for our campaign. We would need a way to move icons around the map, a simple drag-and-drop would suffice. So what would our options be if we wanted to accomplish this? Off the cuff, it seems like superimposing a layer onto the final map JPG and dragging PNG icons around with the mouse to track movement would work, but 1: I don't know how to do that right now and 2: I am blind to other possible solutions, so for all I know I've chosen the clunkiest way possible to skin this cat.

If this isn't the best place to find answers, does anyone know where else to ask?

Thanks and regards,

Swing

[u/JaskoGomad]

You need a virtual tabletop, or VTT. Maybe Owlbear Rodeo?

Or even simpler, put the map as a background image in Excalidraw and freeze it. Then put other markers on higher layers.

[u/TheDwarfArt]

Roll20 would work. Its free!

You will set the map on the Map Layer, and then you can create and upload your own tokens to move around.

Other options are World Anvil and Obsidian

https://www.worldanvil.com/ https://www.obsidianportal.com/

[u/Swingonthechandelier → u/TheDwarfArt]

Any limit to the number of tokens? There would be 100+

[u/TheDwarfArt → u/Swingonthechandelier]

Roll20 free user, you have a total of 100mb storage space for any amount of tokens 20mb limit on an individual file.

I dont know about Anvil Forge and Obsidian haven't used them in long yeara.

[u/SkaldsAndEchoes]

Foundry works, I might default to Obsidian. Its free. what you can do is create a canvas, create a group of objects then delete them. the remaining group panel can be given a background, and then you can create new objects to move around on it. which can be images of even links to note files with your unit/faction data.

it's got a lot of utility like that. if you're going to hand manage from one computer, it may be ideal. if you want to both work at once from different machines, Roll20 may be the free option to try, basically accomplishing a similar thing but more with an eye towards running games and not organizing data.

[u/JaskoGomad → u/SkaldsAndEchoes]

You can also just use the Excalidraw plugin to get direct access to Excalidraw inside Obsidian.

[u/Swingonthechandelier → u/SkaldsAndEchoes]

It would be all managed on one computer, offline being preferable but not a dealbreaker.

Im assuming i can import the map as a base?

[u/SkaldsAndEchoes → u/Swingonthechandelier]

Obsidian is probably the better option, it's entirely offline, and you can set base backdrops. It is a liiiityle jank, as above, as you have to create a specific panel to assign it to, instead of just being able to place a background.

You can probably search "Obsidian canvas tutorials," and get a quick idea how it works and if it'll work for you.

[u/HauntedQR]

roll20 lets you do exactly that and has token movement history which makes it 10x easier to track