In truth, I use whatever is handy - from paper and pencil to whatever app(s) I have access to.

That said, I’ve just started playing around with Affinity Designer 2 - which I suspect would be a lot like working in Inkscape (since they’re both vector based).

Photoshop if I want to make something really nice.

Otherwise, I just use one of those dice map generators, roll them on a piece of paper, and then draw around it. This is my favorite one https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c4/a2/96/c4a296f1201b05073413eae7938356bd.jpg

I use Gimp and just hand-draw everything. I’ve learned that players don’t really care too much about maps, so going above and beyond with high quality, ultra detailed stuff is wasted effort unless you derive joy from the creation process.

I settled on Campaign Cartographer 3+.

It has a steep learning curve, but seems to be the most powerful tool by far.

Depends on the Map I want to make and how much time I have.

Worldographer for hexmaps, I’ve tried other programs like Hex Kit but honestly I like Hexographer the most because it is the easiest to read and fastest to get something put together in.

Dungeondraft for Dungeons/Battlemaps, there’s some issues I have with it with how it handles several assets but overall it’s solid and just your assets straight out of the gate are solid.

Wonderdraft for ‘Useless Maps’, this one is for world maps but for the most part I use it to make a map that players might find on a goblin that details their plans to attack a village or a city map in an old style so it is used more to convey an atmosphere.

Honorable mention to dungeonscrawl which I use to just sketch out a dungeon real quick has enough functionality for me.

I use inkscape for overland maps. I use Watabou Medieval City generator for city maps. I use Dungeon Alchemist for dungeon/indoor battlemaps.

I’ve been using Wonderdraft. It’s resource heavy for my little laptop, but it’s easy to use.

Tiled. You can even cut up (in Gimp) a bunch of other maps and create your own tilesets. So now I have a bunch of them, one with most often used rooms, one with basic walls, one with security measures etc

Inkarnate works great and has a lot of usable styles and assets.

Wonderdraft

For large-scale maps, a combination of Inkscape, Gimp, and Wilbur for me! The general process is:

• Rough out landmasses in Inkscape
• Rough out a heightmap on those landmasses in Gimp
• Simulate erosion on Wilbur
• Bring it back to Gimp for colouring and manual details
• Back to Inkscape for labelling

I made this as a fancied-up version of a Quiet Year game I played with some friends https://i.imgur.com/gB3sIEs.jpeg

For smaller-scale ones like D&D battle maps, just plain old Gimp (or sometimes some layout with Inkscape beforehand, and also sometimes some textures made in Inkscape). I made this version of Biete Mariam, a church in Ethiopia https://i.imgur.com/nz1ysvY.jpeg

Honorable mention for small village photos and maps: Tiny Glade.