Roll20 has become one of the leading virtual tables for players to come together remotely to share their TTRPG since their launch in 2013. With a major system restructuring in March 2024, Roll20 continues to strive to reach the heights of VTT with regular new features and improvements. On November 12, 2025, Roll20 will finally launch one of the most anticipated features to date: Map Pins.
Roll20 fans have been asking for this feature for almost a decade, and now that it’s finally here, using it in-game will make the game much more immersive for everyone at the virtual table. The Map Pins feature will be available exclusively to Roll20 Pro and Elite subscribers during an early access beta launch, giving them the opportunity to test it in-game before anyone else ahead of the official release.
Map Pins on Roll20 are a virtual game changer
According to Roll20 Senior Marketing Director Jayme Boucher, the Map Pins feature is something they have been hoping to offer for a long time. Unfortunately, before the system was rebuilt in 2024, Roll20 could not technically offer this service. So, what exactly are Map Pins, and why do so many Game Masters and gamers want them in their ATVs?
Map pins allow GMs to annotate their cards with hidden information that they can then reveal to their players during the game. Map pins can contain useful notes and facts that might have previously been provided in a document once an area has been introduced, or they can even reveal secrets that encourage the adventuring party to explore further. GMs are the only ones who can see these pins before making them accessible to their player using the system’s visibility controls. This means easier preparation time without having to navigate obstacles to maintain an air of mystery while exploring.
They are also very easy for GMs to create, using documents or just a single section anchored to the document. Dragging the document or section onto their map creates an interactive pin that automatically fills in the document information. If there are images, titles, text and GM notes, these will also appear in the information. The text fields can then be easily edited by the GM, allowing them to hide information and even images from the player’s card until they are ready to display them. Once a map pin has been created from a document, it becomes a clickable part of that document, allowing instant movement across the map to the pin itself.
Roll20’s map pins aren’t just for map details
Map pins are the perfect way for GMs to add detail to things like NPCs, shops, quests, and more. They can be used to turn just about anything a GM might share with their players in documents into interactive story maps that they can click on to learn more. For example, revealing a new store to players for the first time doesn’t have to be a waste of time. Preparing the details of the store in advance, including details about the shopping NPC and their wares, allows the GM to keep the flow constant even when the game is about to become a full-blown shopping spree.
Since these pins are layerless, the GM can access and edit them from any layer without having to change. One of the biggest complaints from GMs in the past has often been the complexity of switching between the GM layer and the player layer when on a map, but when it comes to pins this won’t be a problem at all.
For Roll20 Pro and Elite subscribers, this is a great opportunity to help improve the ongoing upgrades and changes that are still taking place on the Roll20 tabletop engine. They openly encourage feedback from their users, and even if the suggestions don’t happen immediately, the proof that they’re actually listening is in the creation of the map pins itself. Map pins were suggested on the Roll20 forums almost a decade ago, and as they are always striving to improve the way tabletop players play virtually, many updates and performance improvements have been made since the relaunch of their tools.
As previously reported, the Map Pins feature is now available in early access beta on Roll20 for Pro and Elite subscribers.