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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8675259" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, its really quite ambiguous. In OD&amp;D the game pretty explicitly says &quot;use Chainmail&quot; and then it actually describes the scaling as 1&quot; = 10 yards (or 10 feet indoors). Now, that isn't a grid, its a SCALE, and grids were generally used in minis battles in that era as a convenience (you can quickly measure distances and areas without needing to trot out a tape measure or a template). Beyond that, dungeon maps in the OD&amp;D era were explicitly drawn by convention on a 1 grid square = 10' basis using graph paper. So generally you HAD a grid indoors, as well as a scale, even if you didn't lay out a battle mat. Even if you used the 'alternate combat system', all it did was tell you how to handle attack rolls, everything else was still bog standard Chainmail (the idea that you could, technically speaking, play combats without Chainmail is erroneous, though obviously most people figured out ways around that pretty easily). AD&amp;D includes PICTURES of a hex grid and a square grid and explains how characters fit on it and how facing works. OTOH the actual rules don't mesh with that very well, so its kind of just a grab-bag of mix-and-match techniques.So, grids have pretty good reference in books, if slightly indirect in the earliest days, and SCALES are very explicit. I agree, lots of people didn't play with them at all, ever. I actually never played WITHOUT them, because I recall the first time I did, which was around 1982/3 in college when we played in our dorm room and there was simply no place to set things up. I recall it seemed very awkward and less like a formal session of play than a bull session to me, lol. Of course, by then, playing on a table with a grid was both widely known, and not so much used anymore.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8675259, member: 82106"] Yeah, its really quite ambiguous. In OD&D the game pretty explicitly says "use Chainmail" and then it actually describes the scaling as 1" = 10 yards (or 10 feet indoors). Now, that isn't a grid, its a SCALE, and grids were generally used in minis battles in that era as a convenience (you can quickly measure distances and areas without needing to trot out a tape measure or a template). Beyond that, dungeon maps in the OD&D era were explicitly drawn by convention on a 1 grid square = 10' basis using graph paper. So generally you HAD a grid indoors, as well as a scale, even if you didn't lay out a battle mat. Even if you used the 'alternate combat system', all it did was tell you how to handle attack rolls, everything else was still bog standard Chainmail (the idea that you could, technically speaking, play combats without Chainmail is erroneous, though obviously most people figured out ways around that pretty easily). AD&D includes PICTURES of a hex grid and a square grid and explains how characters fit on it and how facing works. OTOH the actual rules don't mesh with that very well, so its kind of just a grab-bag of mix-and-match techniques. So, grids have pretty good reference in books, if slightly indirect in the earliest days, and SCALES are very explicit. I agree, lots of people didn't play with them at all, ever. I actually never played WITHOUT them, because I recall the first time I did, which was around 1982/3 in college when we played in our dorm room and there was simply no place to set things up. I recall it seemed very awkward and less like a formal session of play than a bull session to me, lol. Of course, by then, playing on a table with a grid was both widely known, and not so much used anymore. [/QUOTE]

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