Questions of the Grid

[Gamerprinter]

Why do you adhere so strictly to the published mechanics? I already know the answers that will be "Because I don't play with the same people on a regular basis so I need to keep the rules as expected". I'm more interested in those of you that play with the same people. Do you not like using House Rules that could potentially "fix" a broken mechanic or do you feel that you won't be playing the system "right" or something else? I'm curious from a game designer perspective. In every system that I've been involved in there has always been a statement to the effect of "If it doesn't work for you, toss it out". I'm just curious if folks do that.

I've got nothing against house rules, but my gaming group had a 10 year D&D hiatus after the auto accident death of our primary DM. Last year, someone everyone in the group knows but never played with had a nearly full set of 3.0 with some 3.5 books and wanted us to playtest his campaign world. So know we are tip-toeing through the rules just as 4E is about to come out. We want to know the rules well enough to fix what is broken in our game - but that takes play time to fully understand what is wrong.

Regarding square grid and D&D, two issues.

For printed maps only targetting a D&D gamer market, using square grid is the "expected" format as the existing game mechanic uses square for movement - plus it matches the square bases, lots of miniatures come with.

The second is, well from my experiences at work, (not including VTT) if there's no grid, their's no visible scale - How big is that tree, oh I thought that was a bush. Scale issues arise.

Like I said in the games I DM, a grid is something "foreign" to my maps - I don't use them at all. Grids can hide and confuse detail on the map.

Also on that commissioned map I did for the Blue Max game, they wanted Hex of a specific size, based on the scale of the miniature planes being used in the game and its game mechanic requirement of a visible hex grid. I didn't want to hide the detail, so I created a "fatter" line on the grid, made it white, then gave it a 60% transparency. They weren't really lines, rather shapes cut-out from a rectangle the size of the map area.

Xara doesn't let me apply transpanency to lines - I can change color or make them not visible. Any object or image can have transparency applied, so I created a grid object, not stacked hex pattern with a defined line width.

[jaerdaph]

I know exactly what you're saying, Ralph, about the "because it has always been done that way" mindset since we both work in law firms.

I'd have to say the d20/3.Xe rules (and 2e and 1e before that) primarily determine (dictate?) my dungeon/floor plan/battle mat preferences, and nostalgia and aesthetics after that - I remember going right to the maps after opening up a D&D or AD&D module when I was kid because I thought they were so cool. So while, yeah, the rules have heavily influenced my preference, I still like the way it looks. A square grid can, however, limit design choices, especially when mapping dungeons.

I have been moving away from d20 and derived games though towards more “rules-lite” systems such as vs. Monsters, so the grid becomes less of a need and more of an aesthetic preference. I may just have to try thinking outside the box (or should I say, "fall off the grid") and give maps with no grid a try in these games.

[Badger]

ya'll lost me at "Which Grid type do you prefer...."

[RPMiller]

I'll take that to mean no grid for you.

Interesting results in the poll, and very useful. Thank you to everyone that contributed and especially to those that commented. I really like seeing the various trains of thought and getting a glimpse into the minds of other gamers... as scary as that might seem.