Creating Maps Quickly?

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum... I'm a pretty new GM, and I've tried using Roll20 to run a custom campaign of mine. Unfortunately, my group stopped playing my campaign because it really wasn't going anywhere and I often had to cancel because I couldn't make enough maps and story on a weekly basis.  From my experiences, making content for Roll20 is pretty grueling. I'd use GIMP to outline the walls and grid of my map (which made for HUGE image files...), then add in each detail/decoration and every NPC/enemy (complete with loot), and then I would have to go over the whole thing with dynamic lighting lines. The process took so long, I often didn't have time to just focus on the story and the players' interactions with NPCs. I pretty much tried to make the sessions last just through 3-4 combat encounters every session, which ended up being boring... I've actually never written a campaign for just a plain tabletop rather than Roll20, but I've heard that most details can be glazed over and made up as the session goes on. It seems to me like that is impossible for Roll20. My main question is: Are there some tips/tricks that make campaign-making for Roll20 a bit faster?

Hi Erin! Try using the Art search to find map tiles, and-or the Roll20 Marketplace. You can quickly place pre-made maps on the Roll20 tabletop, and then begin taking your time for adding Dynamic Lighting only if you feel Dynamic Lighting is needed to enhance the appearance (it is often not necessary but can be a cool effect). The pre-made maps you place can range from packs of pieces containing hallways, rooms, floors and walls to arrange; or other maps that are already assembled. The maps that are already assembled can range from battlemaps (like a square of farmland, or a small set of rooms in a temple), to complete buildings or dungeons, or can be geomorphs or geomorphic tiles which means you can place tile-after-tile side by side and they will connect with doors and halls, to make ever-larger maps. Also some of these can be downloaded to use in your GIMP setup, or alternately can be placed and assembled quickly directly on the Roll20 tabletop grid. Wiki docs for the Art search, <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Art_Library" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Art_Library</a> Roll20 Marketplace maps link, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search/?keyw" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search/?keyw</a>... Roll20 Marketplace tiles link, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search/?keyw" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/search/?keyw</a>... Finally for another tip from a different perspective, based on roleplaying games in general, try using more of your voice & description, and less reliance on Maps for parts of your game session. Concentrate your map-making for specific parts of the game session (often a tactical combat scene) and make sure the session's gameplay includes some parts that are not requiring a specific map, and instead provide a nice generic backdrop or splash page (like a forest, campsite, an inn, or just the moon and stars) for Players to look at during these unmapped parts of the session. This kind of gameplay could be roleplaying and meeting characters in the world, exploring, traveling long distances, or sometimes could be combat situations if you are able to run it without a map. Make part of your session purely role-playing with talking segments, either Game Master portraying the non-players and talking to the players, or instruct and guide the players to talk amongst themselves. For example give them a subject to discuss, "Player 1 and Player 2 should take 5 minutes to roleplay and discuss something that your characters agree on, and have in common." Or "Let's take 10 minutes for the players to all say your ideas for the next adventure strategy." &nbsp; Exploring and long distance travel are also done best by words, voice, talking, description, narrative, and not relying on step-by-step maps. For example you can tell the group, "You travel for 15 miles, along the way you see this, this, and that. What do you do?" You might have a Map for these overland travel and wilderness sections, but it could be one continental map that you return to often, for travel scenes.

I'll +1 everything Gold has to say here. I would also say that the brush tool can do more than you think it can in-game. Your players just need to know what things are and where they are. Your representation of them on the map need not be completely photorealistic or an exact match of your description to the players. The map packs on the marketplace are worth the price, for sure. $5 for a set of tiles that can be used to make an infinite number of dungeons of a particular visual style? Sold. If you insist on using free resources, I'd point you to Tiled . I used it for a campaign that used isometric maps for every encounter/market scene and I was able to make an encounter map from pretty much nothing in less than an hour generally. Spriters Resource and OpenGameArt are fantastic. If you want world maps, that's another can of worms. But I'll go ahead and plug the thread I just made. Feel free to use one of the two maps I made, or both!