Maps are a fantastic visual aid for creating a fun and immersive experience for your D&D players. They are also a great tool for a DM to plan and plot to provide a challenging and entertaining story. However, creating maps can be a time consuming and exhausting process. That’s why I thought it would be fun to share a few of the dungeon generators I’ve collected to help me build maps without the hours and hours of tedious work. Don’t get me wrong, I do love building out a great dungeon crawl, but sometimes you just don’t have enough time in between campaigns. I hope these bring you as much joy and relief as they’ve brought me from time to time.
Creating a vibrant and exciting dungeon is the goal of every DM, so I’ve put together a list of my favorite dungeon generators.
Dungeon Generator (DunGen)
This Dungeon Generator by DunGen is very simple and easy to use, giving you a pretty boiler plate dungeon crawl map. Just choose from one of eight themes, choose the size you want, and choose your tile size. I believe if you donate to their Patrons account you can get the VTT dynamic lighting and walls, but outside of that this map generator is free. They also provide an option for multi-level and Special rooms (which is a beta feature right now). Once you’ve got all your options selected, just click Generate and download your map. I’ve used this map generator a couple of times, I just drop it into MapTool and start adding objects to populate the rooms.
Go to Dungeon Generator (DunGen)
Dungeon Creator (fantasy-calendar.com)
This particular dungeon creator is great for a quick dungeon crawl map. All you have to do is update the settings to suit your needs and click Apply and it will generate a map for you. You do get to choose if you want Dungeons, Caves, and if you would prefer to limit the unique rooms. Plus you can specify the height and width of the dungeon. One other feature I like is the Megadungeon option, which has many of the same features, but you can also create multiple levels that tie together, just click the + sign next to the Level and you get the next level map.
They also provide some modularization to the maps meaning certain portions of maps you can change. If you simply mouse over the map, any section with a green square around it can be changed, just click and that section will change. Some of these sections have several options, so if you’re looking for a little bit of customization, you’ll get it with this generator.
Once you’re done, you can download a Full JPG Map, or if you’re using a tool that supports VTT (Virtual Table Top) files you can create a map that already has wall lines drawn, plus you can choose to show or obscure walls. This tool has saved me HOURS of tedious dungeon map building!
Go to Dungeon Creator (fantasy-calendar.com)
Dungeon Scrawl
If you prefer a more personal touch, but are still working on a budget, then I definitely recommend Dungeon Scrawl. You can draw custom rooms, hallways, and various other shapes and build out a dungeon crawl of your own design within minutes. It’s not terribly fancy, but it’s functional and if you’re in a rush to get a map put together a really great option and you can build some really elegant maps.
Go to Dungeon Scrawl
Dungeon Painter
Dungeon Painter does have a free online version, but it’s not worth it. However, if you’re willing to pay for it, then you’re going to get a powerful mapping tool. I purchased a copy through Steam and have used it quite a bit to build out very custom, very detailed, beautiful dungeon maps. If you do purchase it through steam, there is a huge library of tokens, objects, and textures you can download and use which gives you a lot of possibility for mapping.
Technically you can use Dungeon Painter to build towns and worlds, but I feel it’s best use is dungeons. For all other maps I prefer to use Inkarnate. You can test drive the free version online, but it doesn’t do it justice. With Dungeon Painter, you just have to take a leap of faith!
Go to Dungeon Painter (also see it on the Steam Store)
Goblinist Random Encounter Generator
While not a map generator, this allows you to pull together a quick encounter for your characters based on some basic options. First you have to add your players, so select your players’ levels and click Add Player, and be sure to add for each character. Choose the difficulty for the encounter, select an area and a few other options, then click Generate Encounter and the tool will spit out something for you based on some simple calculations. It’s definitely a time saver, and if you don’t like the encounter just click Generate Encounter again, simple as that.
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