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Old 01-16-2018, 03:15 PM   #11
Chris Goodwin
 
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Default Re: TFT - Game Accessories

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Originally Posted by JLV View Post
Personally, I find them extremely useful for what I assume their intended purpose was -- figuring missile weapon range effects. I also find them useful for mapping, believe it or not, feeling that a 10' square is pretty close to a megahex, and a 5' square is pretty close to a single hex (not as close, but still a useful guide). In short, I'd hate to see them go away.

(Slightly off-topic, but still at least tangential...) Finally, didn't someone do a "conversion" thing where they showed how to convert megahexes into squares at one time? That might be a very useful tool for helping convert mapping into grid paper for buildings and the like, while simultaneously retaining the advantages of hexes for combat and range calculations. (I can't find it in my files right now, but I distinctly remember the author dealing with odd room shapes, corridors, T-intersections, and so on.) And hexes are enormously important to TFT's tactical combat simulation -- without them it not only wouldn't be the same, it also wouldn't work nearly as well.
Given that a hex is a hex... I mean, it's been a very long time since I've had any TFT materials, and I don't recall something as basic as the exact size of a hex... but given that movement, range, and distance are measured in terms of hexes, does it really matter whether a hex is a yard or a meter? In my erstwhile TFT clone, I assumed that one hex was either one yard or one meter. Three meters (or a megahex, or a "multihex" as I called it) comes in within rounding error of ten feet across.

I'll quote myself here:

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If using a square grid, one multihex is a group of nine squares arranged three-by-three; it might prove useful to set one multihex to be 10 feet by 10 feet. In a square grid, assume that for lateral movement, one diagonal square is equal to two squares of movement distance, but for areas assume that one space diagonally is equal to one hex (one yard or meter).
I happen to have a couple of Noteboards that are marked with both squares and hexes. These are great for both square-grid mapping and hex-grid movement. If I didn't have those, I would use a transparent sheet; overlay it on a one-inch square grid to draw my maps, then overlay it on a one-inch hex grid for play. Or I wouldn't bother, and I'd just draw square-grid buildings (or dungeon walls, etc.) on hex-grid media using a ruler.
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Old 01-16-2018, 03:46 PM   #12
JLV
 
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The "Conversion Thing" I'm talking about was an actual set of hexes, laid out to conform with squares, with appropriate rules (not many) on how to read and use them, which you could print out and use for play. I sure wish I could find the copy I KNOW I downloaded of them! ;-)

As far as the "official" dimensions of the hexes in TFT go, they were one hex = 1.3 meters, and a megahex = 4 meters. If a meter is 3.28 feet (which is close enough for my targeting work for guided weapons, and therefore should satisfy our requirements for accuracy here), then each hex equals 4.264 feet across (pretty close to five feet) and one megahex equals 13.12 feet across (which would actually be a bit more than we like to allow, but given that walls are always drawn on the lines of the graph paper, and are usually not trivial in thickness given medieval load-bearing wall construction techniques for above ground buildings, I think we can say that 10' is close enough. So yeah, not an issue.

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Old 01-16-2018, 05:11 PM   #13
Steve Jackson
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FWIW, I have just finished recovering a good Word version of MELEE from a scan of the second edition, and nowhere does it define hex size at all. That must be in the later releases. It does say that turns are about five seconds each. So for MELEE taken by itself the official answer at the moment is "Big enough for one person to stand in with room to fight."
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Old 01-16-2018, 05:22 PM   #14
Chris Goodwin
 
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FWIW, I have just finished recovering a good Word version of MELEE from a scan of the second edition, and nowhere does it define hex size at all. That must be in the later releases. It does say that turns are about five seconds each. So for MELEE taken by itself the official answer at the moment is "Big enough for one person to stand in with room to fight."
I went with three feet or "approximately" one meter, solely because that's GURPS scale and means that GURPS resources (maps, etc.) can be used as is, and because that seems to me to fit the criterion you mention.
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Old 01-17-2018, 02:49 AM   #15
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FWIW, I have just finished recovering a good Word version of MELEE from a scan of the second edition, and nowhere does it define hex size at all. That must be in the later releases. It does say that turns are about five seconds each. So for MELEE taken by itself the official answer at the moment is "Big enough for one person to stand in with room to fight."
You're right of course; the numbers I was using come from "Creating a Labyrinth" on page 18 of ITL...
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Old 01-17-2018, 09:23 AM   #16
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FWIW, I have just finished recovering a good Word version of MELEE from a scan of the second edition, and nowhere does it define hex size at all. That must be in the later releases. It does say that turns are about five seconds each. So for MELEE taken by itself the official answer at the moment is "Big enough for one person to stand in with room to fight."
1 1/3 meter was the size quoted in ITL. After an initial affair with using hexes for dungeon mapping, I went back to graph paper. In those days, I interpreted a standard 10' wide corridor as being 3 hexes wide (or about 1 1/3 yard). The thing to remember is that the smaller the area the hexes represent, the more hexes large creature will take up.

One thing I don't like about megahexes is that they are irregular in width. A corridor 1 MH wide, will be 3 hexes wide about 1/3 of the time and 2 hexes wide about 2/3 of the time. This is okay (I suppose) for natural tunnels. But even there, it causes some odd combat effects because 3 figures can be positioned to battle 2.

That said, I think that megahexes practically scream TFT. It's hard to see how you can relaunch TFT without them.

Something that I bitterly object to is the 1 square = 5' scale of D&D3E+. This scale makes rooms and corridors crowded and lessens the opportunity for tactics to matter. My 10' corridors have always been 3 man-sized figures wide and always SHALL BE! THIS IS SPARTA. Uh, sorry.

Another option would be to use the 1 hex = 1 yard scale of GURPS. That would allow TFT to use GURPS maps and the like. I would, however, leave larger TFT creatures the same size in hexes, though. The bigger the creature (in hexes), the weirder the movement becomes. All IMHO, of course.
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Old 01-17-2018, 12:02 PM   #17
David L Pulver
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Default Re: TFT - Game Accessories

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Something that I bitterly object to is the 1 square = 5' scale of D&D3E+. This scale makes rooms and corridors crowded and lessens the opportunity for tactics to matter. My 10' corridors have always been 3 man-sized figures wide and always SHALL BE! THIS IS SPARTA. Uh, sorry.

Another option would be to use the 1 hex = 1 yard scale of GURPS. That would allow TFT to use GURPS maps and the like. I would, however, leave larger TFT creatures the same size in hexes, though. The bigger the creature (in hexes), the weirder the movement becomes. All IMHO, of course.
If a scale is set, I'd prefer two meters. In my opinion, anything less than that means a prone character occupies two hexes, which TFT avoids. There may also be issues for mounted combat.

Also, with a supposed five second turn, a one meter scale makes little sense...
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Old 01-17-2018, 09:26 PM   #18
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Didn't the old Fantasy Master's Screen essentially replace Megahexes with some calculation dividing hex range by 6 for missle weapon penalties?

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Old 01-17-2018, 10:10 PM   #19
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Didn't the old Fantasy Master's Screen essentially replace Megahexes with some calculation dividing hex range by 6 for missle weapon penalties?

Allen
Yes, it did, but I think they were still printing Megahexes on all or most of their maps (even for Dragons of Underearth, they still had Megahexes). I think it was phrased that way on the screen because it was a LOT simpler than trying to describe Megahexes in text, plus it IS technically more accurate.

As I recall, we used the Megahexes as a quick and dirty range guide, but went with the specific number of hexes if it actually mattered in Melee and Wizard anyway, long before TFT was officially published. Megahexes were more a "graphical aid" to speed play, than they were a hard and fast rule limit.
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Old 01-18-2018, 07:30 AM   #20
Dave Crowell
 
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The only ones that I'm aware of are produced by Litko Games Accessories, and those are only 2-hex arrangements and they seem only available in 1"/~25mm.
Litko will do coustom shapes and sizes if they get a big enough order, or the custoer is willing to pay enough.
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