I'd prefer hexes but most everyone is used to grids so I stick to that.  Hexes get rid of the "diagonal problem" but yet the only people I've ever met who had a problem with diagonals didn't seem the least bit interested in converting to hexes.

Quote from: Thornhammer;1057777Kinda depends on the game.

If I'm doing tabletop D&D, I want squares.

If I'm playing Ogre or a similar wargame, "square" is a dirty word and I want hexes.

If I play a skirmish game - fantasy, sci-fi, historical - I don't want either and instead want to use a tape measure.

I'm kind of the same.  For dungeon crawls I want squares.  For just about everything else, hexgrids.

I'm not a fan of gridless measuring.  I always prefer to have my squares or hexes, even if the one used isn't necessarily my ideal.  A hexgrid dungeon is better to me than a freeform measured dungeon.  An outdoor mecha battle scenario using square grid is preferable to tape measure.

That said, it's just a mild dislike.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1057719Squares for fantasy! Hexes for scifi! To deviate is heresy!
But don't ask me what to do about scifi games with magic!

(6+4)/2=5 so Pentagrams, obviously:D!

Grids for Skirmish combat . Meaning if I'm running a RPG and I'm using miniatures to represent combat.
Then I'll use a grid with each square representing 5' .

For large maps such as Sectors in Scifi RPGs or maps of Terrain (such as coastline/inland maps showing cities , roads etc)in Fantasy RPGs, I'll use Hexes.

I have a bunch of Paizo pawns. And a cool table I use as a riser for combat. So I prefer grids for local combat. I also love sandboxes and hexes for wilderness exploration. So Hexes for regional maps.

Used to using hexes as a Herophile, but actually I prefer just measuring.... My battlemat has both so either work fine. Has anyone used a staggered grid? I find them a good approximation of the mean between the two. YMMV...

Decades of Traveller, Star Fleet Battles, Centurion, Silent Death, and now The Fantasy Trip and maybe even (gasp) GURPS have burned hexes indelibly in my brain.

Except for Car Wars, of course, and War Machine.

I don't use either for combat in RPGs. But squares makes more sense for buildings and such because they tend to be built with a lot of right angles and rectangles. Whereas hexes make sense outside, since they are basically the same size in every direction, eliminating the corners of a square.

Wargames, I used to play Car Wars which used squares, and Star Fleet Battles, which used hexes. The former made sense since again, cars and buildings/roads tend to be straight, while for the latter, it was in space

I prefer hex maps for strategic or terrain maps, and square maps for tactical or minis play.

Bemusingly I actually rarely use hexes or grids for RPGs. And rarely use minis or physical representations at all.

Quote from: Omega;1057904Bemusingly I actually rarely use hexes or grids for RPGs. And rarely use minis or physical representations at all.

I don't think that's particularly unusual. Despite my labeling it a 'tactical roleplaying game', about half my playtests resolved combat entirely using theatre-of-the-mind.

Using 'paces' for measurements really seems to help people visualize close combat even better than using feet or meters. People seem to have a more intuitive sense of "6 paces away" than they do of "30 feet away" or "10 meters away" (even if those are all more or less the same distance) and it completely avoids immersion-breaking measurements like 'spaces' or 'squares' (that said, my world does have an in-unverse measurement of area called a "square" that is short for a "square pace" that gets used for measuring houses and other large structures and can be used for shapeable areas of effects).

It also let me throw in a little real life etymology as "mile" is short for "mille pacum" or "1000 paces" and the game world mile I use is therefore 1000 paces/5000 feet (instead of the modern measure of 5280').

My Minis consist of some little wooden disk from a craft store with little pictures of the creatures on them.  It works well.

Even when I have all my grid stuff played out and ready to go, sometimes it makes more sense or helps the encounter to just go straight theater of the mind.

I use hexes or better still nothing but I am running Savage Worlds currently and the players cannot seem to cope without hexes.

Quote from: Chris24601;1057967I don't think that's particularly unusual. Despite my labeling it a 'tactical roleplaying game', about half my playtests resolved combat entirely using theatre-of-the-mind.

Using 'paces' for measurements really seems to help people visualize close combat even better than using feet or meters. People seem to have a more intuitive sense of "6 paces away" than they do of "30 feet away" or "10 meters away" (even if those are all more or less the same distance) and it completely avoids immersion-breaking measurements like 'spaces' or 'squares' (that said, my world does have an in-unverse measurement of area called a "square" that is short for a "square pace" that gets used for measuring houses and other large structures and can be used for shapeable areas of effects).

It also let me throw in a little real life etymology as "mile" is short for "mille pacum" or "1000 paces" and the game world mile I use is therefore 1000 paces/5000 feet (instead of the modern measure of 5280').

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.  I'm using paces in one of my own designs for mostly the same reasons.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1058064I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.  I'm using paces in one of my own designs for mostly the same reasons.

My promotional website should be up by mid-October. I'll PM you some more details if you're interested.

On topic, one of the things that I think really helps with immersion in fantasy settings are naturalistic units of measure. Hands, feet, finger-widths, arm lengths, steps/paces; volumes and weights determined based on items from nature. Also, anything you can relate to a person in relation to them is always going to be more evocative.

Even though "stands twice the height of a man" is only about 10-12 feet, it sounds a LOT more impressive than "its 20 feet tall" even though 20 feet is far taller in actuality. Because it's easy to imagine something being twice your height... 20 feet is more abstract. Likewise, "the height of a three story building" will convey a better visual sense to players than any specific measure ever will.