Diagonal wonkiness scenarios

[Zander]

I was kind of on the fence about 1-2-1 vs. 1-1-1 movement before I did my playtest of 4e last weekend. I found it made a dramatic difference in play.

It made movement much faster for one thing. I just started moving and BAM! I was done. I didn't have to try to remember if moving diagonally was my second diagonal or my third or what.

If you use this method, you don't need to keep track of how many diagonals have been moved but you can still move diagonals with little spatial distortion. You do need to be able to add halves though which you may find distracting. YMMV.

 

[anon]

More movement=good
Less mental bookkeeping=good
Less simulationist=neutral
More cinematic=good

 

[rkanodia]

Perhaps it won't even be a problem of believability, but just one more reason for other people to think we're nerds.

"You play D&D? Ah the game whose players can't see the difference in length between a straight line and a diagonal!"

I disagree on two points:

First, I think most people don't think of 'highly descriptive of physical reality' as an important attribute for a board game to have.* Does Clue have 1-2-1-2 movement?

Second, I somehow doubt that '1-1-1-1 movement' will ever be the defining attribute of D&D to non-RPG players. I think that non-RPG players would probably list 'teenagers pretending to be elves', 'weird-shaped dice', and 'living in your mom's basement' as the defining attributes of D&D. If D&D becomes mainstream enough that Average Joe's reason for not playing is that the diagonals are wonky, I'll be thrilled.

*I'd further posit that it hasn't even occurred to most people to think about it, but if you presented them with a survey and made them think about it, that's what they'd say

 

[Will]

Well, to extend my example:

A man stands 50 feet from a line of 11 soldiers. All are equidistant to him.

Another man stands 50 feet from the soldiers on the opposite side. All the soldiers are equidistant to him.

The effect is, when I look at the grid, my instinctive understanding about distances and position get tossed out the window.

Normally, I can mostly ignore move rules except knowing how far I can go. Heck, in 3.5e, if I had a string of the right length, I could simply use it to figure out where I can go without having to count anything.

Now? Everything I see on the grid is a lie.

 

[Rex Blunder]

The first thing I did after reading the OP was Ctl+F for "contrived" to see if someone beat me to the punch. Thanks, Kwalish Kid.

If you've ever played any non-3D video games - Ultima, early Final Fantasy, Civilization - your brain won't explode when you switch to 1-1-1-1. Experience with Chess will help too - just imagine you're the king. (Chess movement makes heavy use of exceptions-based design, so I guess it's biting WOTC's style a little bit.) Checkers is a little different, using 1-1-1-1 for diagonals and ∞-∞-∞-∞ for straights.

I remember exploiting diagonal movement in Civilization to cover more ground when exploring the map. Sometimes it made a difference too... I sometimes found a hut earlier than I otherwise would have; so I would sometimes get Pottery or Bronzeworking early. NOTE TO DMS: DO NOT USE 1-1-1-1 MOVEMENT IF YOU WANT TO CONTROL YOUR PLAYER'S ACCESS TO POTTERY!

 

[Wormwood]

NOTE TO DMS: DO NOT USE 1-1-1-1 MOVEMENT IF YOU WANT TO CONTROL YOUR PLAYER'S ACCESS TO POTTERY!

Laughed. Out. Loud.

 

[Nytmare]

If the DM has to design a dungeon with specific wonky movement rules in mind, then that's a problem.

...

Having to even think about this, let alone design dungeons with this in mine, is problematic for many DMs. It forces them to design a dungeon based on the movement rules, not on the scenario and details the DM wants to present.

What is there to think about? You just make the dungeon and throw people into it. There is no more "DM thought" that needs to go into the design beyond "thing #1 is x away from thing #2." You can say that x is some number of feet, or you can say that it's some number of squares, where are the mental gymnastics involved in that?

 

[Exen Trik]

How would 1-2-2-2... effect things? It's about as simple, just one easy diagonal and the rest are double. Results in larger areas being octagon shaped, which I like better than squares. I'm probably missing some important complication though...

Good? Bad?

 

[Mistwell]

I like ketchup.

I like mustard.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Perhaps it won't even be a problem of believability, but just one more reason for other people to think we're nerds.

"You play D&D? Ah the game whose players can't see the difference in length between a straight line and a diagonal!"

Let's not forget that it's also the game that doesn't know the difference in attack speed between a dagger and a greataxe. Maybe the round-based system of timekeeping needs to be tweaked in order to avoid temporal wonkiness?