Starfox
Hero
1E actually had this, in that different weapons had different frontage . In a 10 ft. corridor, you could fit 10 spearmen but only one guy with a greatsword. Armies have often preferred smaller, stabbing weapons because they allow you to pack more "sardines" into a small space. That said, DnD is not an army game. Except for special occasions like amalgamating several fighters into "troops" (like swarms, but of humanoids), I'd not recommend as much detail as 1E had here.
A game is run on squares, and those squares can be pretty arbitary. Even in-game measurements like feet are actually arbitary. My homebrew game is metric, and we use DnD adventures with a scale of 1 square = 1 meter without actually changing anything else. Yes, rooms become somewhat smaller, but it really doesn't matter much. By the same token you could do what people before me have suggested and just change your map scale - effectively making the in-game foot shorter. Much easier than actually writing new rules for the game. Again, 1E actually had this, with game scale inches of different length depending on where you were - an inch of game scale was 10 ft. indoors and 10 yards outdoors.
In other words, if you want more squares on your in game maps, just add more squares without thinking too much of what it means in-world.
A fun example of how game scale can change vs real life is the Runequest calendar. The Runequest (Glotantha) year is pretty short - 280 days if I recall. And still character age is measured in years, and some of the experience system in RQ is time-based too. A character in RQ was considered a young adult at 18 and mature at 25. Glorantha is a bronze-age setting, and historically, those ages are way too old - people were generally considered adult around 16 in the past. Well, enter the shorter year, and suddenly age 18 in Glorantha is age 14 in our years, and age 25 is age 20. Another solution was that each Gloranthan day was longer, close to 30 hours, to make ours and their years as long.
A game is run on squares, and those squares can be pretty arbitary. Even in-game measurements like feet are actually arbitary. My homebrew game is metric, and we use DnD adventures with a scale of 1 square = 1 meter without actually changing anything else. Yes, rooms become somewhat smaller, but it really doesn't matter much. By the same token you could do what people before me have suggested and just change your map scale - effectively making the in-game foot shorter. Much easier than actually writing new rules for the game. Again, 1E actually had this, with game scale inches of different length depending on where you were - an inch of game scale was 10 ft. indoors and 10 yards outdoors.
In other words, if you want more squares on your in game maps, just add more squares without thinking too much of what it means in-world.
A fun example of how game scale can change vs real life is the Runequest calendar. The Runequest (Glotantha) year is pretty short - 280 days if I recall. And still character age is measured in years, and some of the experience system in RQ is time-based too. A character in RQ was considered a young adult at 18 and mature at 25. Glorantha is a bronze-age setting, and historically, those ages are way too old - people were generally considered adult around 16 in the past. Well, enter the shorter year, and suddenly age 18 in Glorantha is age 14 in our years, and age 25 is age 20. Another solution was that each Gloranthan day was longer, close to 30 hours, to make ours and their years as long.
