D&D General The 10' hallway default. How? Why?

[dave2008]

The correct answer is almost certainly that the designers weren't architects and just picked a round number.

No I think it was strictly graph paper and scale related.

 

[Wiseblood]

Sure, that's transparently obvious.

I still don’t see it. What are you pointing at?

 

[dave2008]

I was walking along some long corridors in a hospital earlier this year and I noticed they where pretty close to 10 feet wide. Celings where about 10 feet high too.

The minimum corridor for a modern hospital (in the USA) that will accommodate patients in beds is 8'. Things can only get bigger from their (also forget if that does or does not include the bumpers - I don't do a lot of hospital work).

Also consider, most PCs don't walk around dungeons with tape measures. It doesn't make sense for characters to estimate distances to more than one significant figure. It makes more sense to describe a room as "about 40 feet across" than "37 feet across" or even "35 feet across". The maps can then be seen as approximations, not accurate blueprints.

That is a really good way to look at it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The minimum corridor for a modern hospital (in the USA) that will accommodate patients in beds is 8'. Things can only get bigger from their (also forget if that does or does not include the bumpers - I don't do a lot of hospital work).

Well, this was a UK hospital, and I think that part dated from the 50s or 60s. The main corridor was wider.

 

[Nebulous]

So large monsters can come and go as they please?

In a fantasy world with a massive overload of size large humanoid creatures (or non-human) that makes perfect sense.

 

[Nebulous]

I still have some old minis, and, yes, they're noticeably smaller than the current plastic ones, but not, like 15mm vs 25mm smaller.

Yeah, the size of modern plastic minis have gotten...odd. The original 1e giants were fairly small. The plastic hill giants are now the same size or smaller than some of the trolls. Seriously, the trolls are HUGE in 4e, out-muscling nearly every giant figure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The rooms would be pretty tiny at 5' per square, but are reasonably sized at 10' per square.
View attachment 114005

However small the rooms or wide the corridors at those scales - how thin are some of those walls....

 

[Wiseblood]

However small the rooms or wide the corridors at those scales - how thin are some of those walls....

.5mm to .7mm usually but mine are .9mm.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, the size of modern plastic minis have gotten...odd. The original 1e giants were fairly small.

10 to 20 ft tall, from Hill to Storm. Trolls 9+, Titans 18+.

The plastic hill giants are now the same size or smaller than some of the trolls. Seriously, the trolls are HUGE in 4e, out-muscling nearly every giant figure.

I think I still have one of those (I eventually settled into using painted minis for PCs and tokens for monsters).
Wouldn't be surprised if the sculpt was done for a huge creature, then just put on a large base when they realized the mistake. Other WotC plastics look like they may've had similar/opposite issues.

 

[dave2008]

Well, this was a UK hospital, and I think that part dated from the 50s or 60s. The main corridor was wider.

To be clear, I was talking about the code minimum. One rarely designs a hospital to the code minimum.