Hexes are cool!

[Asmor]

It turns out that the length of the typical mechanical pencil is the perfect length for moving 30 Feet on a typical grid mat. Using that as a guide distance, and landing in the 'sanest' square simplifies things immensely.

You know, we used to do that pencil trick to. We started getting fed up, though, when after a few sessions our movement kept shorter and shorter.

Never thought of using a mechanical pencil.

 

[Halivar]

It worked find, but if you're the type that is hardcore looking for any edge a 1" square can give you, it won't...

LOL! Those were the days. I would always cant my 1" balsa-wood bases at 45-degree angles to eek out that extra half-inch. Really helps when you have command-in-control limitations in wargaming.

I think it's pretty standard in RPG's to use round bases, however. You also don't have to worry about facing, so free-form movement is a better option that in most other games.

 

[Wik]

Someone may have already explained this.

One a square grid, the distance from the center of one square to the center of any adjacent square is not constant. The centers of the squares North, South, East, and West of you are closer to you than the squares to the Northeast. In other words, unlike a Hex grid, it takes more movement to move diagonally than it does to move in straight lines.

The official rule for this is that every other diagonal square counts as two squares. This was a pain in the ass, because it meant A: keeping track of one more thing in combat. Urg. B: you had to keep track of all the diagonals you'd moved, not just sequential ones. So you'd be 6 squares into 12 square movement trying to remember if this was the 3rd diagonal square you'd moved through, or the 4th.

There's a limit to how much you can reasonably be expected to manage in a game, and this was it for us. So for no other reason other than negative conditioning ("we hate this, so we've adapted to not doing it") we don't move more than one diagonal per movement anymore.

Ah. So, it's not like there's some crazy math reason or anything. It's just a "it annoys us to count" sort of thing.

It's not something that's ever bothered us in play, but I can totally see your point. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[Shortman McLeod]

After years and years of using hexes, we switched to Squares with 3E. For a long time, we bitched because of diagonal movement. Eventually, we just learned not to move diagonally.

An elegant solution.

 

[Ranger REG]

My hex love started with Battletech.

I use squares for the ease of my players using 3E.

Meh. Played BattleTech and Star Fleet Battles using hexes.

If there were to be a BT d20 RPG, I'd switch to square grid.