I've played versions of D&D regularly for about 37 years with several hundred people in various home games, con games, etc...and I think in all that time there was one home game once that did not use a grid. And that was because the minis guy forgot to bring the box of minis.
Never played the module...but I've always been a SWAT team style check every room before proceeding kind of player....definitely in videogames...But, the Horn is not hidden at all. It's pretty much the first tower anyone sees when entering the Keep. Why did everyone not bother going in there? I'll admit, I've never played this module. Fair enough. But, it's not hidden at all. Did you player routinely leave areas that were very easy to get to unexplored? Because that's a very different kind of player than I've ever had.
Here's a link to the map. The horn is in E. Am I missing something?
----
Sorry, but a thought occurred later on that I thought I'd add. I think this bit right here, with Lanefan and myself, illustrates some of the real difficulties in discussing earlier editions in anything but very broad terms. To me, the notion that you'd leave an unexplored area, right near the beginning of the adventure, just wouldn't happen. We were Greyhawking ie. strip mining modules LONG before that term became popular in Living Greyhawk. How could you avoid encounters? You never knew where the really good treasure was, but, dollars to donuts, the presence of some tentacled beasty was a pretty good indicator.
But, in all fairness, I don realize that there are others that didn't play this way. I guess the point I've been trying to make through this though, is that WE DID. Not because we were munchkins or Monty Haul or anything like that, but, because, it made the most sense to us to do so.
When I was a kid we used a checker board ... with chess pieces to cover the miniatures we did not own (which were most of them). Later I painted a proper-scale grid on a table.
I remember using m&ms/skittles & graph paper, they didn't fit in the boxes right but nobody really cared too much. Put a bite mark indent on one edge to indicate your shield side except for monsters "cause it would be gross"
Kinda, sorta. The grid and hex were there for examples, not as actual game rules. As is usual for 1e rules, the figures actually contradict the rules. Only 6 medium creatures can attack a single medium target, but, the grid they show allows for 8 attackers. Additionally, only 4 large creatures could attack a medium creature, which makes the whole flanking thing really wonky - is a large baddy in your front flank or rear flank, for example.
If your table grid is drawn in 2-inch squares, you can do it just fine using old-school metal minis that have smaller bases as three of them will (usually) fit across a 2-inch (meaning 10') hall.
