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Hammerfast Hex Map -- I Saw What You Did Thar
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<blockquote data-quote="Windjammer" data-source="post: 5123956" data-attributes="member: 60075"><p>In a sense, yes. As part of developing 4E Mearls picked up playing OD&D at the WotC offices to see how the game works. OD&D didn't come with a hex map but mentioned that you ought to buy the Avalon Hill game <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1511/outdoor-survival" target="_blank">'Outdoor Survival'</a>. Mearls bought that game in 2008 for presumably similar reasons - wanting to see what OD&D is about, so he can draw on that to develop 4E further. ('Develop' not as in 'mimic' but as in: mine for ideas and putting a new spin on them). You can read his <a href="http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2008/12/outdoor-survival.html" target="_blank">thoughts</a> here. The important thing is - look at the Outdoor Survival gameboard and you'll see where the scaling, annotating, and artwork for the hex maps from 70s Judges Guild to 00s Necromancer Games come from:</p><p></p><p><img src="http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic563578_lg.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>In other words, I don't think Mearls is 'old school at heart' if that means that he's always leaned towards that stuff. He's discovering it only recently and finds out that it suits him. (Being similar in that regard, I'm the last one to complain that it's 'too late' or such nonsense!) </p><p></p><p>The other thing about the Hammerfast map though is that, while containing hexes, it doesn't contain numbered hexes. So it's really a very partial nod to traditional hexcrawling. In fact, this very observation about Outdoor Survival's map was Mearls' own beef when he bought it:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Why do hexes need numbering? So you key section write ups to section codes. The essence of a hexmap is that anything could happen in any hex, which is why you'll want to code all the hexes, and not just put city and forest names on it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Windjammer, post: 5123956, member: 60075"] In a sense, yes. As part of developing 4E Mearls picked up playing OD&D at the WotC offices to see how the game works. OD&D didn't come with a hex map but mentioned that you ought to buy the Avalon Hill game [url=http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1511/outdoor-survival]'Outdoor Survival'[/url]. Mearls bought that game in 2008 for presumably similar reasons - wanting to see what OD&D is about, so he can draw on that to develop 4E further. ('Develop' not as in 'mimic' but as in: mine for ideas and putting a new spin on them). You can read his [url=http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2008/12/outdoor-survival.html]thoughts[/url] here. The important thing is - look at the Outdoor Survival gameboard and you'll see where the scaling, annotating, and artwork for the hex maps from 70s Judges Guild to 00s Necromancer Games come from: [img]http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic563578_lg.jpg[/img] In other words, I don't think Mearls is 'old school at heart' if that means that he's always leaned towards that stuff. He's discovering it only recently and finds out that it suits him. (Being similar in that regard, I'm the last one to complain that it's 'too late' or such nonsense!) The other thing about the Hammerfast map though is that, while containing hexes, it doesn't contain numbered hexes. So it's really a very partial nod to traditional hexcrawling. In fact, this very observation about Outdoor Survival's map was Mearls' own beef when he bought it: Why do hexes need numbering? So you key section write ups to section codes. The essence of a hexmap is that anything could happen in any hex, which is why you'll want to code all the hexes, and not just put city and forest names on it. [/QUOTE]
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