RP Mapping

Buildings
Roleplay features some common buildings that should be in every map to serve a setting for each job. However, you should consider whether they interfere with the theme or setting of the map as ambiance is what makes great a roleplay. Here are a few mentions.


 * Police station (Civil Protection)
 * Mayor's office
 * Plain residential buildings, e.g. a hotel, detached houses, mansions etc. (Citizens)
 * Places for small business, e.g. stores and restaurants (it might be a good idea to have stores of a specific type as well) (Shopkeepers)
 * Lowlife areas, e.g. cheap properties (Gangsters)
 * Underground tunnels or a subway (might be a good idea to think these thoroughly)
 * Bank
 * Medical center
 * A labotary for drugs
 * Scenery, e.g. monuments and statues to increase realism

Map borders
It is a common practice in RP to surround the map with tower blocks and inaccessible buildings to block the players' view out of the map. However, this is overused and there are many more ways of doing this, such as:


 * Hills
 * A 3D skybox ocean
 * Blocked off roads
 * Opaque fences
 * Locked gates
 * Combine roadblocks

Or anything else you can imagine as long as it doesn't interfere with the map itself.

Use clip textures in order to add invisible walls blocking access to certain places. It might be a good idea to use this on rooftops for example in case they're only intended for scenery purposes.

Secret doors
Sometimes you don't want your über secret room with 1,000 puzzles required to gain entry to be bypassed with a battering ram. You can create doors that aren't affected by RP scripts with the func_movelinear brush entity. These doors cannot be owned, rammed, lockpicked nor interacted with. Another alternative, would be to use the func_illusionary brush to make walls look real but really you can walk through them—as seen in rp_evocity. Yet another option, is to make fake doors using trigger_teleport placed in front of the entry position, this is not advised, as the door becomes less visible to the player.

Detail
You've put the pieces together; the map is playable. However you might feel like something is rather missing. Perhaps it's about the detail.

Roleplaying maps should be more detailed in general to enhance the realistic feel. Therefore don't forget to add these:


 * Light sources and glow sprites
 * Env_sun
 * Soundscapes for different areas
 * Props and decals according to the setting (don't forget set up fade distance for props if you want the map to run smoothly)
 * Architectural details, such as all kinds support structures and columns

Weapons
RP is not a deathmatch gamemode. Keep this in mind when placing guns in your map. If you make a gun store don't put automatic weapons in, such as SMGs and AR2s. Gun stores should generally have pistols and crowbars. Although adding magnums may seem like a good idea, they are one-hit kills, and thus encourage deathmatching. Also keep in mind that some servers use custom weapons and certain guns might not even be acquirable.

Police station armories should not feature automatic weapons either, for two reasons. Firstly, it is unrealistic. The police in real life are not equipped with MP5s and sniper rifles. Secondly, people will try to break in and steal the guns. This is a problem that plagues RP_HomeTown2000, where the most common activity seen on the map is people breaking into the PD and stealing the powerful automatic weapons.

Although if you want to add a secret admin only armory that's fine but make sure it is not accessible from inside the map anywhere without noclipping.

TL;DR: Avoid placing hard coded weapons in the map, especially powerful ones.