Easy Map-Making Help

[Keinnicht]

Hey, I'm DMing a campaign that actually requires a decent amount of map making, since there's a lot of battles taking place in cities/towns. And, while I do have the patience to draw a map of a medium-sized dungeon, I do not have the patience to draw maps of multiple large cities. Is there a program or some other way to make this easier? Right now I've just been sticking the BBEGs and minions into large, easy to find buildings, but feel this is a little silly. Not to mention it will get silly when they've conquered very large cities and they're still just lumped together.

[Talon Sky]

Myth Weavers (http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_dungeon.php?) is always good.

[dgnslyr]

Boot up Dwarf Fortress, and generate a new world. Fully fleshed-out world right there.

[kyoryu]

I don't know of any real programs, outside of the Campaign Cartographer ones... and those, from what I understand, have a hefty learning curve.

As far as managing large maps... think of "appropriate detail." You don't necessarily need to know where every single building is - have a map of the overall city structure, with larger "blocks" and main streets, and then more detailed maps of important areas of the city as appropriate.

If you need a more specific map of a previously un-detailed area, make it up on the fly. Alternately, make a few maps of semi-generic streets, and use one of those. Retcon it into being the "official" detail if you need to.

You don't need to map every town, and every house, and know who lives in it.

[Mikka]

I use an online Excel sheet, every field is made square and then counts for 5x5 feet surface. I can color them to give a primitive appearance of the battlefield. Write names "bandit" "corpse" etc, so its perfect. My players can edit it at will so i only have to update my part of it : ) really really wonderful and handy after having struggled with a ton of less optimal stuff.