first off, i would recommend learning DirectDraw7, as it is faster than BitBlt. but, the structure of your maps would be the same so:
your map will basically be a 2D array (or a few 2D arrays if you want layers) of integers, where each integer is the index of a tile graphic. you also need to have your tiles somewhere (i would put them all in one long thin bitmap) and some way of tracking which tile has what coordinates in the bitmap. for example:

Public Type TileType  Index as Integer  Left as Long  Right as Long  Top as Long  Bottom as LongEnd Type 

then, make an array (or collection, whatever) of these TileType structures, and fill them in with the proper info (load from a file maybe?). when you need to draw your map, you look up each tile index in the map array, find the right coordinates from the TileType array, and BitBlt/DDrawBlt from the bitmap to the form. there are a lot of customizations and optimizations you will want to do, but that is the guts of it.
there is a web site devoted to VB RPG programming, called The Blackhole, it is pretty good as it focuses on VB RPGs. unfortunately, lately i have had trouble connecting to the site, i don''t know if they have server problems or what. but, keep trying, sometimes it is there.
HTH.

--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)