Hex vs Square

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

The only genre that I can't recall ever seeing miniatures for were for pirates and buccaneers.

As an aside, I have an fairly decent collection of pirate miniatures. Probably Old Glory figures, but I may have picked up some Foundry figures during one of their sales.

I don't think there's an RPG genre where I haven't been able to find miniatures, though affording them and justifying the purchase is often tricky.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I personally find theater of the mind very frustrating to run, because either I'm not great at conveying spatial relationships verbally or people aren't great at maintaining a mental model of them.

I've found it very helpful to draw sketch maps for players, or ask the GM to do so. That makes TotM a lot easier.

[Duringar]

I have to admit, I have never in all my years used miniatures for rpg games. When I was younger we would paint a miniature that closely resembled our minds-eye character, and it was placed in front of our character sheets.
This was for d&d. For both, gurps/d&d, we would be asked to get a dice or mini to be placed for marching order or for when we would be doing a major end adventure battle. Then it was more to show where obstacles where, making it more immersive.
It was always on a square map. We never were concern with facing, that smacks to much like tabletop miniature gaming (Warmachine/Infinity/etc.).

The notion of drawing a map on a hex layout and being concern where the lines intersect with the building and x% of a hex equals a full hex is silly. It really begins to get more into miniature gaming and not rpg a story out, and doing both takes away from the roleplaying/interaction of the story. To each their own. My thought is that if a model runs up to a building then their flush with the building, to cite that one would need to cringle a building to fit the map is odd. In the books (and I agree with another poster) they seem to just overlay the hex map over/onto the layout.

I thank you for all the input. I have learned a new aspect of roleplaying that I will add to my toolbox. For now, I will keep running my group mapless, except for the rare event that may pop up.
Thank you everyone. Happy Gaming.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've found it very helpful to draw sketch maps for players, or ask the GM to do so. That makes TotM a lot easier.

Using a grid seems a lot easier than drawing a map every turn...

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Using a grid seems a lot easier than drawing a map every turn...

I don't draw a map every turn. The sketch is of the place, just so that people have reasonably compatible mental images of it. Play is then TotM.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I don't draw a map every turn. The sketch is of the place, just so that people have reasonably compatible mental images of it. Play is then TotM.

Yes. But my frustrations come from when people have moved and relative positions have changed I have a mental map of them, and the players usually don't. If this character moves 5 yards in this direction and these fighters move 5 yards in this other direction, and then on the subsequent turn when the PCs are attacked in melee, I get a lot of pushback because the player didn't do the math, or didn't do it the way I did.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I personally find theater of the mind very frustrating to run, because either I'm not great at conveying spatial relationships verbally or people aren't great at maintaining a mental model of them. I don't mind playing with it, but I still prefer mapped. When it's my game it's always mapped.

I find the 'tactical' end of RPG has always being more my comfort zone. Theater of the mind can handle a 1 on 1 combat or duel. But 5 on 5, 10 on 3, 6 on 1...where are the flankers, can the terrain be used to canalize on one flank...As I get older I find my mind is a bit of a shrinking Theater and a map helps keep those details squared away.

Of course I can barely play chess on a board. For those playing ranked chess in their head a hex map may be totally unnecessary.

[agentdenton]

Eehhhhhhhh, I like hexagons. I'm a scifi guy and they look more technical to me.

[borithan]

Originally Posted by Varyon

One thing I've considered - mostly as a joke, but it could certainly be workable - is to have the buildings, rooms, roads, etc in a setting designed for GURPS actually follow the hex grid. Hex-shaped rooms, roads that meet at 60-degree angles, etc. If you design everything with the hex-grid in mind (like when designing maps in at least the original StarCraft, IIRC), everything will line up without issues.

There are a subset of hex games where they did this or similar. Not quite hexagons, but drawn with the hex grid in mind. The original edition of the "Sniper!" wargame had maps where buildings, street grids, and vehicles were parallelograms (rather than rectangles) so the angles fit the grid better. The sci fi volume literally had hexagonal buildings (could justify it more in a sci fi setting). I think they dropped it for the second edition cos it just made everything look to weird. There was a medieval wargame series called "Cry Havoc" which while it didn't have hexagonal buildings, the rectangular buildings were all represented by weird shapes so that every hex was either inside or outside a building or room. There have been some modern releases for it by some fans, but notably they have moved away from this way of drawing the map.

I think my favourite story about hexes in wargames is the (possibly apocryphal) story of one the of the first games that used a hex grid had a bit in the rules explaining that hexes had been determined to be play better "but for clarity hexes will from now on be referred to as squares."

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Harpoon allowed turns of arbitrarily small angles IIRC.

As I understand it uses plotting on a map though, no grid of any type, so I guess it doesn't have any grid to impose those difficulties on.

Originally Posted by Anthony

GURPS supports minis for tactical combat. It's not used much in high tech combat because using a yard-scaled tactical battle map with engagement ranges of hundreds of yards doesn't work terribly well.

My main issue for using minis though is that at the suggested scales (1 inch grid, with 25-28mm models) the miniatures are *too small*. They should be roughly twice the size (or the grids half the size), but then they don't tend to fit on the grid. the 40k RPG has a similar issue. I don't have an issue with using minis that are bigger than the ground scale (that's just the norm in wargaming), but it bothers me more the other way round for some reason. Just a personal irritation though.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I personally find theater of the mind very frustrating to run, because either I'm not great at conveying spatial relationships verbally or people aren't great at maintaining a mental model of them. I don't mind playing with it, but I still prefer mapped. When it's my game it's always mapped.

I tend to use theatre of the mind only in the most uncomplex tactical situations. Usually one on one affairs, or if you a couple of people a side in situations where there isn't much chance to manoeuvre. Or on the opposite end, when the ranges being fought on are so large that mapping is impractical (and where the specifics of *exact* distance and angles tend to matter less).

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Using a grid seems a lot easier than drawing a map every turn...

I have used sketch maps for combats in some RPGs, but you don't tend to draw a new map every turn. Literally drawing on the map to give positions and facing's can work. However, this tends to be in systems or encounters where exact angles and distances matter less, so I can say "It is about one turn's running between that door and the rock" or "Yeah, from that tree you can cover these angles, but line of site over there is blocked by that rise."

Does result is rather scribbled messes by the end, but better than relying on players and Gm definitely having the same situation in their head.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by borithan

As I understand it uses plotting on a map though, no grid of any type, so I guess it doesn't have any grid to impose those difficulties on.

I was responding to something about gridless miniatures games, specifically about if games exist where 5° facing changes matter. In most games I have played its usually just eyeballed multiples of 45°, Victory at Sea for example. In Harpoon you used a protractor and could make arbitrarily small turns.