In 3rd Edition, what's your preferred wilderness hex size?

[Alzrius]

I never notpaid much attention to the different scales in various hex maps. I just figured that the size of the hex wasn't important; it was how you used it (in your game, I mean).

 

[Celebrim]

I never notpaid much attention to the different scales in various hex maps. I just figured that the size of the hex wasn't important; it was how you used it (in your game, I mean).

Hex size has the following concrete effects that I know about:

a) How many hexes does the party pass through each day. More hexes in turn means more opportunities to change direction, and more potential variety in terrain experienced. Generally parties will move 12-24 miles per day using land movement. If your hex is 12 or more miles across, the only option is to move to an adjacent hex, and the only experience of travel is, "You travel all day and enter a jungle (or remain in a jungle)." Where as a hex size of 3 miles might record the same experience as passing a small lake, an open area recently scoured by a forest fire, and two small steep sided hills while traversing a jungle area. The former is tight and plays fast. The later feels more like travel and gives the player lots of potential agency but may drown the players in unimportant details and slow the game down unnecessarily.
b) How many adjacent hexes can the party see? With very large hexes, the party probably can't see out of our across a hex at all and so really doesn't know where it is going to go until it gets there. To be able to see more than one hex away even in open terrain generally requires a much smaller hex size than is commonly in use (1 mile per hex, for example). Small hexes allow the DM to communicate new options for exploration that exist to either side of the path of travel, but again at the cost of slower and perhaps more redundant play.
c) How easy is it to stumble onto fixed encounters? The larger the hex size, the more likely it is that any fixed encounters on the map will be encountered. If a hex is 18 miles across, then its hard to dodge and its easy to find the lost ruins, where as a hex of 6 miles across may require clues in adjacent hexes and/or carefully planned funneling of player movement if the lost ruins are ever to be found.

 

[Alzrius]

Hex size has the following concrete effects that I know about:

<snip>

And here I thought the joke I was making was obvious. Next time I'll include the smiley.

 

[Fuseboy]

I asked this question elsewhere, but I'm curious. When you play, do you talk to the players in terms of hexes, or do you just talk in terms of distances and what they can see? (Do they map on a hex map, too?) Do you generally assume the players are at the center of a hex, or do you just use the hex grid for scale and keep track of roughly where they are within the hex?

 

[Celebrim]

I asked this question elsewhere, but I'm curious. When you play, do you talk to the players in terms of hexes, or do you just talk in terms of distances and what they can see? (Do they map on a hex map, too?) Do you generally assume the players are at the center of a hex, or do you just use the hex grid for scale and keep track of roughly where they are within the hex?

I never mention hexes to the players. I try as hard as possible to avoid referring to metagame constructs like levels, classes, 5' squares, hexes, or anything else that is just an abstraction when describing the shared imaginary space.

One of the reasons that I prefer a small hex size is that it allows for an easier translation of the map to narrative. Ideally this narrative involves hours travelled and sights seen, and says nothing about distances or hexes or map symbols. I prefer relatively dense 'wandering encounters' with relative rare risky ones, if only to help me generate things like, "In the late afternoon you startle a troop of monkeys feeding on persimmons. They scramble into the trees and shout what are doubtless obscenities to you in their crude language." The point is to spend a few seconds each day of travel reminding the players, "Oh yeah, we are _in_ a vast jungle, not merely travelling by map." Well, the other point of harmless encounters like that is to allow stealthy insertion of less harmless things, otherwise you end up with players just attacking everything they see because even if they don't know what it is, they figure it probably wants to take hit points from them.

I track miles traveled per day. Depending on the hex size used, this may allow for 'center to center' travel or it might not. I can remember one occasion with 1" hexes representing 36 miles. Obviously, players never travelled more than a fraction of that in a day, so plotting movement was more of a protractor and ruler sort of thing than anything else. However, in general, I don't feel there is a need to be exacting in the placement of the party. Even when an 1/8" of an inch error represents being off 4 miles or so, in the long run it doesn't matter much to the narrative so don't sweat it.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I asked this question elsewhere, but I'm curious. When you play, do you talk to the players in terms of hexes, or do you just talk in terms of distances and what they can see? (Do they map on a hex map, too?) Do you generally assume the players are at the center of a hex, or do you just use the hex grid for scale and keep track of roughly where they are within the hex?

I, on the other hand, have a less... ummm... involved group and it is easier to lay the map out and refer to travel in the number of hexes. Travel within the hex is handled abstractly as an 'encounter area'. I had been using 25 mile regional hexes and 5 mile local hexes, altho I may be changing that due to this thread.

What they see, on the other hand, is describes just that way. "From where you are you can look east to see the shimmering blue of a large lake, to the south their is a thin wisp of smoke from a campfire or farm, to the west are rugged hills."

I would love to play akin to Celebrim.. I just don't have the right group for it