Buy it

I love this VTT. It's the reason my old D&D group got back together. I do not regret buying it and my time in it has been an absolute blast. However, there is one very large caveat; making maps is painfully tedious. It takes hours to make some maps and that takes away from precious D&D prep time. If Talestavern didn't exist, this would be a hard pass. Talestavern is why someone should buy this map making software and it is, to me, the main selling point. It makes the software shine. And I think a lot of people don't even know about it after purchasing. Well, here is your PSA. Essentially, you can copy codes directly from the Talestavern website and paste them right into Talespire. BAM! it auto builds the map from the site into your instance of Talespire. The first time I did this it was a revelation. It has made a lot of prep very very easy.

I do wish that the software was a bit better without Talestavern, though. It would be nice if they offered some kind of importer to work with other mapping software. Maybe a json importer so I can import stuff from Dungeon Alchemist or Dungeon Draft. The actual map making needs some more automation. Maybe some auto wall features as drawing walls can be frustrating. Would even be cool to be able to lay my map.png over the creative space so I can trace it in Talespire. Also, the ability to reference a pdf collectively in game would be huge.

I've spent well over 100 hours into this software, so I am very familiar with its quirks. It's this double edged sword of having all of Talestavern for fast prep, but if I want to build a custom dungeon from my adventure book, I am looking at 4 - 6 hours of prep time just to make the map. I don't have that kind of time.

In the end I do recommend it. It's a powerful tool to have on your GM tool belt.

I'm still learning and experimenting with the features, but so far i think it will turn out to be a valuable tool for my 3.5 sessions