How to Generate a Hex-Grid Map for Your Tabletop Campaign

You’re prepping a hex crawl for a tabletop RPG campaign, and hand-drawing a hex-grid map with distinct biomes, meaningful points of interest, and readable coordinate labels — the kind that lets you say “the ruins at hex 14-22” and have everyone at the table find it instantly — is a genuinely time-consuming art project before you’ve run a single session. A procedurally generated starting map gives you a real, usable base to build your campaign’s geography on top of, without needing to hand-illustrate every hex from scratch.

Hex crawls specifically benefit from a grid with actual biome variation and placed points of interest, not just a blank grid — the terrain and points of interest are what actually drive exploration-based play, and a procedurally generated starting point gives you real structure to build encounters and story around rather than staring at empty hexes.

What generating a hex-grid map actually involves

A useful hex crawl map needs biome assignment across the grid (forests, mountains, plains, and similar, ideally with some believable geographic clustering rather than random noise), points of interest placed at a reasonable density for exploration-based play, and coordinate labels so you and your players can reference specific hexes clearly during a session. Exporting as vector SVG matters for actual usability — a vector file scales cleanly whether you’re printing a physical map or importing it into a virtual tabletop at a different resolution.

Why people get stuck here

• Hand-drawing hex grids at the biome and point-of-interest level. This is a real time investment for something that’s ultimately a starting framework you’ll customize and add to during actual play, not a finished piece of art.
• Generating a grid with no coordinate labeling. Without labels, referencing specific locations during a session (“go to that hex we talked about”) becomes vague and hard to track consistently across sessions.
• Random biome placement without geographic plausibility. Purely random biome assignment (a mountain hex directly next to an ocean hex next to a desert hex) can look and feel less immersive than terrain with some believable clustering.
• Exporting in a format that doesn’t scale well. A raster image map can look pixelated or blurry once printed large or zoomed into on a virtual tabletop, while a vector SVG stays crisp at any size.

What a good hex map generator looks like

Assigns biomes with reasonable geographic clustering

Generating terrain that clusters somewhat believably (forests near hills, plains stretching between features) gives you a starting map that already feels more like a real landscape than random noise.

Places points of interest at a usable density

Distributing points of interest across the grid at a density that supports actual exploration-based play gives you real hooks for encounters and locations, rather than an empty grid you have to fill in entirely yourself.

Labels hex coordinates clearly

Clear coordinate labeling is what actually makes the map usable at the table — being able to say “hex 12-08” and have it mean something specific to everyone.

Exports as clean vector SVG

A vector export scales cleanly for printing at any size or importing into a virtual tabletop platform without quality loss.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Treating a generated map as a finished product rather than a strong starting framework to customize with your own story-specific details.
• Not adjusting or hand-editing biome placement where it conflicts with specific plot points you already have planned for your campaign.
• Generating a map with too sparse or too dense a point-of-interest distribution for how much exploration-focused play you actually intend to run.
• Exporting in a raster format if you know the map needs to scale up significantly for printing or a large virtual tabletop display.
• Forgetting to keep your own session notes tied to specific hex coordinates as the campaign progresses, letting the map’s usefulness as a reference tool fade over time.

How to do it with Hex Map Generator

Online Tool Store’s Hex Map Generator generates your map entirely in your browser.

1. Open the Hex Map Generator tool.
2. Generate a hex-grid map with biomes, points of interest, and coordinate labels.
3. Review and adjust the generated map to fit your campaign’s specific story needs.
4. Export as vector SVG for print or your virtual tabletop platform.

Frequently asked questions

What is a hex crawl, and why use a hex grid specifically?

A hex crawl is an exploration-focused style of tabletop RPG play where players move across a hex-gridded map, discovering points of interest and encounters as they travel — hexes are used specifically because they allow more natural, equal-distance movement in six directions, unlike a square grid’s diagonal movement inconsistency.

Should I use the generated map exactly as is?

Treat it as a strong starting framework — most game masters adjust biome placement, add or remove points of interest, and layer in their own campaign-specific locations and story hooks on top of the generated base.

Why export as SVG instead of a standard image format?

SVG is a vector format that scales without quality loss, which matters for a map you might print at a large physical size or zoom into significantly on a virtual tabletop — a raster image would lose sharpness at those larger scales.

Final thought

A hex crawl map’s real value comes from the campaign built on top of it — generate a solid, labeled starting framework, then spend your actual prep time on the story and encounters that make the map come alive at the table.

Try the free Hex Map Generator tool