Making great looking modern day battle maps (New Pro user, feeling overwhelmed)

((First time poster and very new, apologies if posted in the wrong area but this seemed to be the best fit)) Hi all! I'm running a game based in modern day London and a lot of the existing battlemaps seem to be for Americanised cities (in blocks with a grid style road system, and building interiors of a more modern construction rather than modernised Victorian style). I tried making a map on the fly for my group and it went badly, so therefore I should prepare maps in advance. Thing is, I can't find any tilesets for creating the building layouts first. I can find dungeon ones, but putting carpet in a dank crypt doesn't make it look any better :D There's so much content, but it seems that what I'm after is buried somewhere and the usual "modern", "20th Century" etc keywords do not seem to draw out what I need. I've sat and watched a LOT of the Roll20 youtube videos and if it was fantasy/D&D then I wouldn't be having such an issue. I'm happy to sit and create tile by tile, making bigger maps, but it seems that someone somewhere must have already created a tileset. Or, very possibly, I'm missing a big step such as pros using another map building software and then exporting into Roll20 for their games. Even if someone could gently point me in the right direction and then delete this post I'd be grateful. I just paid for the Pro account thinking it has everything but I realise I'm missing something vital to bring it all together. Help please!

Did you try using "Victorian" as a search term?  That might get you a few more options in a style you can use. The only other thing I could say is that you might need to see what you can find for building assets that you like, and then set up your larger scale maps in GIMP or similar to create your maps.  You could import a map of London (or a region of it) as a background layer and then build your custom maps over the top of that.  While the art on the Marketplace here is almost all downloadable to use after purchase, you might need to poke around other sites to see what you can find.  Cartographer's Guild, various map making subreddits, Cartography Assets, and even DeviantArt might have some assets that would work for you.

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Kraynic said: Did you try using "Victorian" as a search term?  That might get you a few more options in a style you can use. The only other thing I could say is that you might need to see what you can find for building assets that you like, and then set up your larger scale maps in GIMP or similar to create your maps.  You could import a map of London (or a region of it) as a background layer and then build your custom maps over the top of that.  While the art on the Marketplace here is almost all downloadable to use after purchase, you might need to poke around other sites to see what you can find.  Cartographer's Guild, various map making subreddits, Cartography Assets, and even DeviantArt might have some assets that would work for you. Ahh, Cartographers Guild! I'll see what leads I can get there. "Victorian" is one of the terms I used but the hits I got back were distinctly steampunk. I feel as if everyone who is making these great maps already has a process that I'm just ignorant of, like wanting to become a mechanic and all I'm getting is dent repair tutorials and a few general maintenance hints. I'm vaguely aware of using something like Gimp with snap to guides, and somewhere there's got to be a tileset that exists (or if it doesn't then I need to make my own or adapt the nearest I can find). I'm not the greatest with Gimp, so there's the learning curve of another system as well. I naively thought map making was part of the Roll20 hobby, rather than a whole hobby in itself! :D

When I've needed modern cities I've used google maps zoomed to an appropriate level, saves a lot of hassle and gives very realistic lay outs ;)

What?  That sounds like cheating!  (I'll have to keep that trick in mind.)

Man Ziechael, I totally forgot about that!  I did that for a Spycraft game I ran one time:

Those are some fantastic examples! One way I like to search for real world city maps is to use "print" as a search term (e.g. London map print ). Lots of people like to buy sweet, framed prints of cities like London to hang on the wall, and there will be digital versions online in sales catalogues. They'll often be stylized with some artistry, and better suited for creating atmosphere than a Google map. You can get fantastic historical maps this way too (library of congress has lots of digital preservation examples), and I found some amazing Boston maps. If you're looking for something that could serve as your world map, this is a quick-search example of what I mean: For for modern city encounter maps, I've had success searching for "floor plans" of famous buildings, or sometimes "blueprints." For example, here's a link to an image of London's Pickle building. There are really cool floor plans of the "Vatican floor plan." Others are better, but you get the idea: I create city encounter maps by cropping and zooming a few blocks, and then sketching line drawings of the buildings (like the Dyson maps of the Waterdeep campaign), so players really feel where they are.

Maybe, these?&nbsp; <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/4572/meanders-map-pack-victorian-mansion" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/4572/meanders-map-pack-victorian-mansion</a> Fully furnished Victorian Mansion with Blank Templates for Custom Design.