Modern Map Users: A Question of Scale

Hey Everyone. I'm working on a new set of packs for the marketplace; a Modern Waterways and Modern Industrial Park set. And I have a question for how folks would like to use it. My "Test Group" of DMs is evenly split, so I put the question to you.  What sort of scale would be the most useful? A reasonably accurate "one square = 5ft" scale, which is what I use for my other modern packs, works great on normal streets, but in the case of things like Oil Tankers and Industrial shipyards, you'd need to stitch together 8 or 9 maps to fit a whole boat. So, which would you prefer as a GM?  - An Accurate (mostly, as accurate as you can get on a grid) Scale that you have to stitch together - A 1/4 Scale that includes an entire "scene" or "area" (like a ship or a warehouse) in one map? I appreciate your feedback greatly! It'll help influence new packs that come out. Feel free to answer below, PM me, or  vote on my twitter poll. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Some Marketplace packs actually have both (though not many). Usually when they have both, the smaller-scale map is labeled as a Reference, Overview, or Preview. Here are examples that come to mind, See the graphics called Morning Shade in this, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/855/adve" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/855/adve</a>... The city map in Karterra compared to the District maps, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/720/kart" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/720/kart</a>... The "Layout complete" in this, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/587/stea" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/587/stea</a>... Preview in this, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/272/post" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/272/post</a>... As Badger indicated, a "large scale map" (5 feet per unit) is actually detailed and shows a smaller footprint area (in mapping terminology). A "smaller scale map" shows a larger area with less detail (for example 10 or 20 feet per unit). Personal opinion? I think some games could use more "smaller scale" maps on-offer. Some examples of the need, Superhero maps (both wilderness and especially urban), because they can fly, drive, and move fast. Wargames maps (all eras, Modern, Futuristic, historical, Warhammer fantasy, etc), because you are placing 1 token often to represent a whole army or column of troops across a battlefield. &nbsp;Any kind of vehicles, cars, airplanes, air-battle, car-wars, tank games, can use the map with more territory.&nbsp; Even D&D for wilderness travel, especially old school tended to use 10-foot square units (if not much hexes for overland maps like a county, state, nation or continent), and often games with long-range spells or large AOE like Fireball (let's say something with 300 yard range) actually would extend waaaay off the edges of the map when you only have today's standard 5-foot scale encounter maps. Something great about Roll20 tho, is the Zoom, from 10% to 200%, and also the way that Roll20 displays "thumbnail" or reduced version of graphics if you are zoomed out to save the viewer's bandwidth. &nbsp;If you make what Badger suggested of 5-foot detailed maps, yet providing 8-9 maps of this size that can be assembled --- in my experience this should still work fine in Roll20, even with 9 large maps assembled together on 1 Page, with a size of 90x90 units if not larger (even 220x200 units). &nbsp;With THIS kind of arrangement you can almost have the best of both worlds. The GM and Players can actually zoom OUT to something like 40% and they get the appearance of the smaller-scale (larger area map showing). But they can zoom back to 100% and really see the map in the 'traditional' 5-foot scale detail. In conclusion I would recommend testing the final size of your assembled map if you do the 'large scale' detail of 5-feet, but then assembling all these maps as-if-they-are-tiles onto one big Roll20 page. &nbsp;Zoom out, zoom in, scroll around. If it's manageable then offer this detail and give a Preview, Outline, Example, or "Assembled Map Overview" graphic as a guide so that users can choose if they want 9 pages of separate encounter maps, or 1 mega-map with all on a single contiguous Roll20 Page.

Hey Gold, Thanks for the input. I think you're spot on that some games could use "smaller scale" maps, and that they're very underserved. I've been aware of Roll20's scaling features, and agree it would be awesome to get the best of both worlds. That's part of why I was posing this question to the community. Perhaps I didn't phrase the question correctly. I understand how both map types work, and have created both in my personal games. I'm looking for feedback on which version users would find most useful. As all of my modern maps are modular, and meant to be able to be built from the ground up (think legos), I'm concerned that assembling an entire "small scale" map would be "too much" for most DMs. Would assembling an entire Google Maps City tile by tile be too much of a pain? Cause, I know I can definitely fight with scaling down images when I'm DMing. I very much appreciate your opinion on the smaller maps; that's how I was thinking of using them as well. Thanks again!

I've found that assembling a huge map (battlefield; city; overland trek; megadungeon; castle with grounds) out of, say, 4x4 units tiles, is - like you said - too much. 20x20 tiles even. Takes a lot of work and then there are many-many objects/graphics. But when it comes to the 'premade maps' of 30x30, 31x31, 40x40 units (sizes I have found in Marketplace), it's already a nice size 'encounter map' which some people will use as a single page with just the one map, and if it's made to fit neatly side-by-side with perhaps 4, 9, or 12 of these maps to form a 'huge' landscape, I think this is not too much work for the GM. I do this, and I've seen/played under a few other Roll20 GM's who do this too, but it is typically a more advanced technique or a game that the GM put some work and Marketplace buys to create it. If you would like to come into one of my games that has examples of this, send me a PM, I would welcome you for a chat and actual-use examples. I have some Brass Badger marketplace art in the game, but my 'huge' assembled 12x12's are either homemade Photoshops of mine, or mostly Gabriel's or Hapke's packs from Marketplace, also some Saul Wynne who did quite a few "mega maps" in the Marketplace. My game is just good old AD&D but we try to play it on a fairly epic scale, with a lot of mysterious wilderness, more than a zoomed encounter scale. Saul's Mega-maps like this, look at the Countryside (farmland) ones in this pack, we used 4 or 8 of those Countryside tiles and played for several weeks going across that, <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/291/map-" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/set/291/map-</a>... It does seem like the most popular Market option is 5' scale units, for pages of just perhaps 30x30 units, and many 3E, Pathfinder, 4E encounters are written for that size Encounter-Map. Oftentimes a table-mat with markers and minis at home would be around that. But I think there is more of an opening for expanding with more digital GM's to try scales like 200x180 units with either 5', 10', or 20' per unit scales, and allow more of a free-roaming elbow-room (or larger wars, faster vehicles, longer spell ranges). &nbsp;I would say my vote is for 5' per unit, offer 40x40 or 80x80 units per "tile", and allow these tiles to fit together in a 4x6 arrangement, or 9x9 arrangement, or 8x12 arrangement, or something like that. &nbsp; But to really hit a size that hasn't been done as much, it would be neat if you make something like 10' or 20' per unit, provide more than 200x200 units of ground divided into however-many tiles as necessary, that would be turf for something like a car, tank, or war game, or village-to-village overland trek. EDIT / P.S.: Upon reading your Twitter poll I realize your question is specifically towards this Industrial scene. It was tough to vote out of only the 2 choices, since I kind of wanted both, but I voted for the "complete scene" because I feel that is the lesser-served option in the market, and could be useful in Industrial theme for superheroes, tanks, or cars, on that scale. What I'd really like to see is either BOTH in one pack (complete scene, with sub-maps showing detail areas?), or, the 1st option ("Accurate") but enough tiles of this detail that could be arranged side-by-side to make the mega-map (which would look like "Complete Scene" if you zoom out to 10%).

Badger, I did a little more research and found that you've already made lots of tokens (including modern) in 40x40 units, presumably the 5'-per-unit detail scale, they seem to work great for that. (Roads, floors, etc). On that note I think something that would be neat is if you included a zoomed-out overview that covers more territory, but which also works stylistically with the regular detail-scale pieces you already made. For example a DM could make a Cutaway for an action-sequence, but have the main movements happening on the overview scale map (all on 1 page of roll20). Just another idea and feedback for you. Then I even found some of your courtyard / multi-building maps are around 105x130 units (at 5'). Those are great too! This makes it easier to see how, well, even 4 or 9 of these would still not be a full city. So if you want to allow something like a whole Downtown of a city in urban, in a manageable number of maps like 9 maps that could be arranged together, you might need to back-out the zoom to to the "small scale" like maybe 10' or 20', to be able to show many skyscrapers, factories, or shipyards with vessels.

Badger, I have extensively used your "Modern Buildings," "Ruined Buildings," "Metro-Matic," and Dystopi-o-matic" along with your "Modern Interiors," "Final Touches," and "Pubs and Taverns" to create maps on both the large size in order to show players the area they are in and their surroundings along with building maps at the "five foot scale" for action and adventuring. If possible I would say follow what you have been doing well this past year or so. Give us the modular pieces to build the ships, etc on a large scale, and the detailed bits to make individual cabins, passages, etc.&nbsp;

I'm working on some large maps and regional maps, and this discussion was really useful. I'm working on a homebrew ruleset based on Car Wars, which routinely needs spaces of 100-200 5' squares on a side.