Hexes are cool!

We recently did away with grids completely in our game, and couldn't be happier.

Good Mark 1 eyeball gets it right every time.

In another group, we tried hexes for a while, using UA rules. Didn't take.
 

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I'm Bigridial- I've spent enough time playing so many RPGs and wargames that I don't have a preference between hexes and squares. I have several battlemats, some of which are dual-sided, and even have graphing paper in both styles.

Heck, I remember playing SJG's Battlesuit. It was a spinoff of OGRE /GEV, concerning the combat of the power-armored infantry units, and AFAIK, it was unique in one particular aspect- it used neither hexes nor squares, but points. Each unit was centered on a dot which represented the center of its space- in a normal grid, it would be the center of the hex or square.

Determining LOS was as simple as connecting the dots.

It didn't catch on, but really, it was pretty simple.
 

I prefer hexes in general, but I think they're lousy for mapping anything with architecture, whether an inn or a dungeon.
 

My solution to drawing architectural features on a grid map is to be guided by the actual shape of the object, letting the hexes or squares fall where they may.

IOW, if I have a straight hall "2 hexes" wide, I consider that to be where the 2 adjacent rows of hexes are staggered. Then I draw lines connecting the bottom of the hex to the top of the hex on each side- cutting off the points of the hexes. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HexagonalGrid.html
 

Greylock said:
We recently did away with grids completely in our game, and couldn't be happier.

I never use grids in my games, either. For those rare cases that a distance is debated, a ruler is brought in.

Different strokes.
 


Outdoors we just use the good ole ruler. Most of my indoor pieces (master maze and hirst arts) have grids built into them.
 

I've used both. Meh, squares might be less than accurate, but, heck, if I wanted accuracy, why the heck would I play D&D? :uhoh: It's close enough, it lets everyone have a general idea where everything is and it works. Sure, reach might be wonky on occasion and this or that, but, by and large, it works.
 


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