Battle Maps

[GM Marvel]

Does anyone know of any easy map making programs for battlegrids?  I use to make really nice (if I do say so myself) maps with Dunjinni but they don't really support the newer Windows.  I've seen some online help with getting it to work but it is excessively complicated and well beyond anything that I would attempt.  So any help would be greatly appreciated.  Oh and I do have a roll20 account but know little of making maps on there.  I played on there with a friend a long time ago so I don't really remember much of the map stuff.

[DM Vitkyng]

For free map-making try Pyromancers.com, it should meet all your needs, for free. For more power I use profantasy.com's Campaign Cartographer/Dungeon Designer/City Designer bundle which costs $99.

[Ramen]

I'd probably argue Roll20 is the way to go. Making maps is fairly easy; they even give you free assets to do so! Granted, it does take a bit of time if you want a very pretty and/or detailed map, but it might be worth it. An easier answer to your question (or if you're lazy like me :p) is to find a map that more or less meets your criteria, upload it and set it as a background, then just populate it with props and NPCs. Boom! Done.

As an alternative to building everything manually in Roll20 or if you're feeling like randomization is more appealing, in my IRL game I've been using The Risus Monkey Random Map Generator for dungeons and a smattering of towns, resized it, then just set a plexiglass grid and picture frame over it. It doesn't always fit the aesthetic of the campaign world, but it's got a certain charm to it, and my players (for the most part) seem to like - or at least tolerate - them. You could probably do the same thing as the above with the generator by importing the image, resizing it, then setting the grid parameters to suit your needs.