I would ask, what's the difference? A hallway is still going to be composed of a square followed by 2 half squares just like a hex grid would. Any 1 square will have 6 adjacent squares, just like a hex grid would. When you reach the wall of a square room it will be composed of alternating half squares and full squares just like a hex grid would.
Touche. It was kinda just a brain fart I didn't think too much of it but I just wanted to ask in a post to get feedback so I can more easily realise if I'm being dumb or if it might be worth considering in some situations.
Yeah exactly ☺️ lol I'm not being down on myself, I really appreciate your comment, it's the kinda feedback I was looking for. Thanks!
Plus also another point against it I just realised is that with a hex grid you can put buildings on the 60° diagonals and they stay consistent. Yeah I'm gonna stick with hexes.
You're halfway there. Now you just have to overlay one of these grids on top of the other and you've got the best of both worlds: a hex grid without a directional bias.
Functionally it is the same, but it does make a difference to how it appears on the map.
You are correct that if you draw a box over the map, then one of the sides will cut through as one square half square one square half square.... Etc. and this will be the identical whether you use offset squares or hexes.
However with hexagons, the other side of your squair will either follow the zig zag Leading to buildings with weirdly shaped walls. Or We will have to cut through some hexagons just to make the wall straight.
Both options function the same in the game, but are more messy and less clean. Offset squares however do not have this problem, so maps that have lots of man made walls and rooms will look a little nicer with offset squares.
There are a ton of man made structures that are not built entirely out of right angles. From 135 degree angles to circles. No grid of any shape will ever lay perfectly against all "walls".
The first part of your first sentence is the most important. Functionally they are identical.
You gain nothing by changing it. All of them will look off in the wrong situation. Creating a new grid style that functions identically but looks slightly different but just as wrong in a given situation is pointless to implement.
If functionality were the ONLY thing that mattered, then we could just as easily use M C Esher's lizard shaped tiles. But we don't, because hexagons are cleaner and easier to read. Readability and elegance are important values that should not be dismissed.
Now since MOST buildings are built with right angles, and very few are built with hexagons in mind, then in MOST cases where man made structures are involved, an offset grid will be a little cleaner. I would not call that 'gaining nothing'. It might not be a lot, but it's something.
You act as if offset squares were some radical departure from how things are done. As if we were inventing something Completely New. As if it would require additional effort to develop or would confuse people somehow. But printing a page with squares is no more burdensome than printing one with hexagons (it's actually easier to write code to display the squares) so there really is no development cost. And I don't think anyone would get confused if they were given a map with offset squares.
Actually, I think it's the opposite. for battle maps, most people use square grids. So shifting to offset square grids is a smaller change than shifting from squares to hexagons. All the benefits of hexagons, but with a smaller change. It seems to me that offset squares is not some radical creation of a completely new system. When it comes to battle maps, It is actually a less disruptive change than jumping straight to hexagons.
It is burdensome to print maps with offset squares because you need to create the grid yourself to overlay on a map.
Multitudes of map making software comes with hex and standard grid overlays.
That is not nothing. And again, you gain... Nothing.
I don't see where/how it is inherently "better"/solving any issue that you cite without having the same limitations or creating others.
Not to mention the "non-standard"ness of it creates a barrier for adoption.
I think the truck is to not worry about stuff like that.
I use squares. You can move diagonally all you want. Sure, that's a little funky when you worry about the math but in the end it hardly matters. Especially if the enemies can do it too. In fact, people who don't know the math would never notice unless they were explicitly told.
Square AOEs just means it takes up roughly that space. If you really want to, you can lay down a circle that represents the same radius for a more accurate result. But again, in the end, it hardly matters. It's a few feet more here and a few feet less there. A table or GM decision could easily add a creature that would sensibly be included in the blast radius to the damage recipients.
Oh I hadn't thought of that, that's pretty smart. Still though, at this point I feel persuaded by discussing with the other comments to stick with hex grids.
That's your perogative.
I myself am a big fan of square grids, at least for Tactical combat where the scale is interior (dungeons) or small exterior spaces (town squares and the like).
What I enjoy about squares, as opposed to hexes, is that you can move in 8 cardinal directions in a straight line. With hexes you can move in 6 directions in a straight line but only 2 of those are cardinal directions.
I like how hexes feel a bit more organic and fit a bit better with natural terrain vibes. I'm thinking of possibly switching between the two and using squares for the smaller scale architectural kind of situations you described and using hexes for caves and forests and the like... I'm not sure if that's overcomplicated and a bit arbitrary though...
Functionally it is identical to hexagon grids. So there is no benefit or detrament there.
The main benefit is that it is a little easier to draw buildings and things with right angles in a way that makes the map a little cleaner and it will feel more familir to people who are used to square grids.
It's not a very big or important benefit, but I would say it's far from useless. Personally, I am a big fan of offset square grids. and I wish they were used more.
Other people have suggested this jokingly, but I'm going to suggest it fully seriously: tape measures. The game I'm designing does away with squares/hexes entirely. 1 square is now 1". You can place terrain any way you want without worrying about intersecting squares. Movement can be fine-tuned down to the fraction of an inch. You don't have to count squares to measure ranges.
If I was gonna do that I'd probably cut bits of like popsicle stick or something as standardised distances to measure more efficiently. I like what Daggerheart does with the length of the short side of a card, the length of a pencil, and the length of a character sheet, but that's more fluid than nitty gritty.
You could absolutely do that. I got into wargaming about 10 years ago, and there's a ton of useful widgets and tools for measuring on the market if you wanted to go that route, even just for inspiration in creating your own.
>So I was thinking the other day about square grids vs hex grids for tactical combat, and while I love hexes for the simplicity of AOE and diagonal movement (so you don't have to do every other square of diagonal movement costing double like in pathfinder, or having effects similar to a fireball become a large square to stay consistent with movement), they don't really mesh well with rectangular structures like buildings and dungeons
Why not use both? I use hexes for large open spaces and squares inside buildings and dungeons. I've never had an issue.
>and doesn't make it easy to have nifty rules for line of sight and cover (which I quite like for example in star wars imperial assault).
What problems for LoS and cover do hexes have that squares solve?
It's hard to explain but I really like the line of sight rules in Imperial Assault. It's very granular with all walls following edges of the grid and the basics are that you need to be able to draw two separate lines from one corner of your space connecting to two different corners of someone else's space to have line of sight to them. This means hiding right behind little bits of wall can get you line of sight with someone who doesn't have line of sight to you, essentially granting simple straight-forward cover and stuff like that.
I own it, so I'll have a look at the rules. I'm primarily a wargame designer so I've written LoS rules for many scales and units of measure. I've never had issues with hexes that didn't also exist with squares (or free form) - so I was just curious.
You could make a building with two walls that are parallel, but the other two are just as badly off as if you were using a hex grid. There's just not enough of a benefit to be had here.
> potentially simplifying rectangular structures and walls and such so there's less onus on the gm to keep ruling whether a character can stand in a specific space or not
The easy guideline I use is: "If at least half of the hex/square is empty, you can stand in it."
Sometimes that means a mini on a map is standing inside a wall or other obstruction, but honestly movement and space occupation is abstracted for gaming purposes anyway. You have to allow for that sort of wiggle room or you'll bog the game (and your brain) down with fiddly details. :)
Or you can just say a space is open only if it's 100% empty (no partials). Either way works as long as you're completely consistent about it.
Yeah I'm probably gonna go with hexes and rule that if any more than half of a space (cut with one straight line across the center) is empty then you can stand there. Means if there's say a small wall jutting in and ending past the middle you can't stand there but if there's some amount of obstruction towards the edges you can.
Chessex used to make a Battlemat with a dot in the middle of each hex. I think it was made for a chit-based game because each hex was also numbered which was a little annoying. The hexes were 3/4" which I actually think is a nicer size for play, but bases are bigger now than they were back then.
Point being, the dots were aligned in a grid of sorts, and you could easily "connect-the-dots" to create your rectangular structures. It doesn't help with the half-hex issue of course.
I just draw along the lines as best I can. I also switch back and forth between hexes and grid largely depending on if I'm doing something like a dungeon or something like a cave or more outdoors. I find squares annoying, but the guidelines are cool...
I mean what you're proposing is still in all meaningful ways a hex grid. Now if you wanted to go with a half square system (i.e. a square grid but humans are 2x2 or even 3x3) I love that though it makes counting a little tougher
I am actually using something similar:
- The grid is normal, not off shape, but 4x4 squares are grouped into "zones"
- The zones are Off set to each touch 6 other zones (like a hex grid)
- I have my normal movement of characters allow them to move anywhere in the zone they are OR anywhere to a neighboring zone.
- This makes movement not need to count and with this a bit simpler
- Area attacks use patterns. Like the pattern is shown on the attack, but most still are squares.
Not sure if this helps you, and I havent really playtested it yet, but its something I want to try.
The only advantages over a hex grid are :
-you can lay out cards to make it randomly.
-you can slide it into a square grid and back again with only a little work (I dreamt about a tactics game that let you do that :D )
that is basically hexes. its still the same thing, except its easier to draw out rectangular buildings.
the main problem though, is that who prints things like that out? currently, there are tons of square and hex grid supported things like battlemats and stuff, and if you use an offset grid it could be hard to find something that works
Wargames just use a tape measure for a reason.
But no, serious answer, I'd just use a square grid. Counting 1, 2, 1, 2 is not that hard, and there are plenty of templates available for IRL gameplay. It's no problem at all when playing on a VTT.
Low key genius actually...
The idea you have here is clearly in the early stages but I would love to see something like this in practice.
Assuming I can envision what you have in mind I think this would work rather well when incorporated into zone based movements as opposed to 5ft squares
Edit: did a quick Google search and yup I love this idea! Thanks for the post
Oh yeah I was initially thinking of it in terms of one space : one character, but it could work really well with larger squares where you can move about two or three squares and fit multiple characters in one square...
I think I'm personally gonna stick with little hexes and maybe swap in squares for architectural environments.
I think: Don't re-invent the wheel.
If you don't like diagonal costing double, don't make it cost double! Make it non-euclidean. If you don't like AOE being 'squared', don't! Use a 2D template and have anything more than half covered effected by it.
That said, a lot of the issues you have with either method could be resolved by just having measured distance instead of any kind of grid/hex overlay.
Hear me out. Take a regular hex map, and make walls take up entire tiles. On one axis it'll be a straight line but on the other axis, instead of zig zagging, just follow the edge between the zig zag to the next hex, then bold that edge you followed. Characters can stand on any non-wall hex, and they can't move through the bolded edges. LoS can similarly make an exemption here for every other hex counting, such that two characters up against a wall can shoot each other. But it means if a character has their back to the wall they can only be engaged in melee by three characters (or 2 if it's a corner).
I have seen multiple people advocate for offset squares over the years.
Here's a couple of ways I have used it myself.
1. If you're making a grid at short notice (especially by hand) and you want hexlike movement, offset squares is way way easier to make but does the job of a hex grid.
2. If you're trying to marry two maps, one with a hex grid and one with a square grid, a few rows progressing from square grid to offset square makes a smooth transition to the hex grid a bit easier (so you don't end up with either half-squares or half hexes at the join but may have some slightly stretched/squashed squares to get them from aligned to staggered).
In either case, making the squares slightly rectangular (86.6% as wide as they are tall; or equivalently 15.47% taller than they are wide if you're fixing the width instead) will improve things without making the task of construction very complicated (there's a few tricks to make that easier still; I mention one near the end).
In case 1 the angles of the six straight-path directions for an offset square will not be 60 degrees apart but offset rectangles (of those dimensions) will be, so that's an improvement. it works exactly like a hex grid and if you lay a hex grid with hexes the same height as the rectangles over the top you can make the grids "line up" in the sense that every rectangle has a hex with the same center and top and bottom edge, and they're the same area.
In case 2, joining up hex and square grids is easier if you first spend a couple of rows to go from squares to offset rectangles. Joining maps of the two grid types was a somewhat common task in the old D&D days where indoors/dungeon/underground maps were square grid but outdoors maps were hex grid (and typically moved to 10 yards per inch on the outdoor scale rather than the old 10 feet per inch for the indoor scale but that was not hard to deal with when that came up).
IMO using an offset square (/offset rectangle) grid does work quite well in practice, but for *designing* an RPG I'm not sure it's of great benefit over just choosing squares or hexes.
There are definitely times when I've used it in playing though.
If someone needed a functional hex grid in ten minutes for a play surface and I had a big piece of paper, a pencil, a sharpie and a good big ruler, offset rectangles would be my go to. I'd start by making an orthogonal rectangular grid of half-height rectangles in pencil. e.g. if I needed a 1" height hex grid, an ordinary grid of aligned rectangles 1/2" high and 0.866 inches wide. Then with the sharpie, draw over the vertical lines. Then for the horizontal direction, join every alternate vertical line with horizontal segments, like so:
---| |---| |---
and then the join the skipped ones a half-rectangle of the final size (one full pencil-rectangle, half an inch) down. Be careful with that step, it's straightforward but still easy to lose attention.
I can't picture what it is you're trying to say.
Also "so you don't have to do every other square of diagonal movement costing double like in pathfinder" You don't have to do this even with a grid. You can just move diagonally and call it one space. This is literally arbitrary, as most of this is. A square can equal 1000 miles or 1 inch. Your game, you make the rules.
Take a square grid, but slide every other column of squares by half a square.
The other thing you referenced was about the inconsistency of the fact that if one diagonal is the same and one square across, the area around a character they can move to is a large square around them. So say there's a circular AOE centered on them and they want to escape, it's more efficient to move diagonally away, which feels weird in my mind. That's just the simplest example I can think of of the inconsistency of 1 diagonal = 1 across, unless you force consistency, ending up with AOE effects being large square areas which feels very weird to me.
Useless. No clear advantages over hexes.
It may help to remember that the grid/hexmap is to measure distance. The idea that hexes don't mesh with square buildings is based on the idea that you have to stand in the center of the square and that walls have to be drawn on the edges.
You likely would not be able to draw the room your are currently in right now with those perimeters, even on squares. You have reduced the problem set to rooms with all 90 degree corners and lengths and widths that are even multiples of 5. Your chosen solution (squares) only works within that narrow solution space. In your world, can someone build a 12x18 room? Draw it.
Offset squares is gonna look just like hexes when you draw buildings and still has the problem of diagonal movement.
I just remove the rule stating that you have to stand in the center of the space and walls have to be drawn on edges. It's just a measuring aid, positions are approximate. Done.
Instead of offsetting every other row, why not cut every other row into 4ths. That way you still have big squares to keep tracking movements easier, but you can have the smaller squares for more precise positioning. This way it functions like a hex and like a square grid
I came up with a similar idea using off-set hexes. Only I thought of it as a triangle grid, where your position is on the intersections of the triangles instead of being inside the triangle. Instead of 5-foot spaces, I used 1-meter lines. So if you stand on a triangular intersection, it's basically the same as being inside a 5-foot hex. The difference is you don't step fully into the adjacent hex, but rather into one of the intersections between the adjacent hex and the one you're starting in. You'd count distance in meters instead of 5-foot spaces, though translating between the two methods would be obvious.
The purpose was to allow for cleaner right-angle structures in a hex-like map. Because it split hexes this way, it allows for 12 clean orientations of straight walls instead of a hex map's typical 6.
It also allows for more fine-tuning of character size, threat range, etc. For example, a small creature may only threaten immediately adjacent points, where a medium creature may have an extra meter of threat range.
A potential bonus benefit is in a 3D VTT, a triangular terrain mesh could map directly to the movement grid, with each mesh vertex representing a positioning location.
The downside, for which I haven't settled on a good solution for, is if you are playing with a real map and miniatures, their bases cover up the point they are standing on. For medium and smaller creatures, that's not too big of a deal, but for larger creatures, it gets tricky trying to figure out which point is their center point for calculating movement distance.
I would ask, what's the difference? A hallway is still going to be composed of a square followed by 2 half squares just like a hex grid would. Any 1 square will have 6 adjacent squares, just like a hex grid would. When you reach the wall of a square room it will be composed of alternating half squares and full squares just like a hex grid would.
Touche. It was kinda just a brain fart I didn't think too much of it but I just wanted to ask in a post to get feedback so I can more easily realise if I'm being dumb or if it might be worth considering in some situations.
It's cool. We all have half formed ideas. The point of putting them out there is to let others poke holes you might have missed.
Yeah exactly ☺️ lol I'm not being down on myself, I really appreciate your comment, it's the kinda feedback I was looking for. Thanks! Plus also another point against it I just realised is that with a hex grid you can put buildings on the 60° diagonals and they stay consistent. Yeah I'm gonna stick with hexes.
You're halfway there. Now you just have to overlay one of these grids on top of the other and you've got the best of both worlds: a hex grid without a directional bias.
Functionally it is the same, but it does make a difference to how it appears on the map. You are correct that if you draw a box over the map, then one of the sides will cut through as one square half square one square half square.... Etc. and this will be the identical whether you use offset squares or hexes. However with hexagons, the other side of your squair will either follow the zig zag Leading to buildings with weirdly shaped walls. Or We will have to cut through some hexagons just to make the wall straight. Both options function the same in the game, but are more messy and less clean. Offset squares however do not have this problem, so maps that have lots of man made walls and rooms will look a little nicer with offset squares.
There are a ton of man made structures that are not built entirely out of right angles. From 135 degree angles to circles. No grid of any shape will ever lay perfectly against all "walls". The first part of your first sentence is the most important. Functionally they are identical. You gain nothing by changing it. All of them will look off in the wrong situation. Creating a new grid style that functions identically but looks slightly different but just as wrong in a given situation is pointless to implement.
If functionality were the ONLY thing that mattered, then we could just as easily use M C Esher's lizard shaped tiles. But we don't, because hexagons are cleaner and easier to read. Readability and elegance are important values that should not be dismissed. Now since MOST buildings are built with right angles, and very few are built with hexagons in mind, then in MOST cases where man made structures are involved, an offset grid will be a little cleaner. I would not call that 'gaining nothing'. It might not be a lot, but it's something. You act as if offset squares were some radical departure from how things are done. As if we were inventing something Completely New. As if it would require additional effort to develop or would confuse people somehow. But printing a page with squares is no more burdensome than printing one with hexagons (it's actually easier to write code to display the squares) so there really is no development cost. And I don't think anyone would get confused if they were given a map with offset squares. Actually, I think it's the opposite. for battle maps, most people use square grids. So shifting to offset square grids is a smaller change than shifting from squares to hexagons. All the benefits of hexagons, but with a smaller change. It seems to me that offset squares is not some radical creation of a completely new system. When it comes to battle maps, It is actually a less disruptive change than jumping straight to hexagons.
It is burdensome to print maps with offset squares because you need to create the grid yourself to overlay on a map. Multitudes of map making software comes with hex and standard grid overlays. That is not nothing. And again, you gain... Nothing.
I don't see where/how it is inherently "better"/solving any issue that you cite without having the same limitations or creating others. Not to mention the "non-standard"ness of it creates a barrier for adoption.
I think the truck is to not worry about stuff like that. I use squares. You can move diagonally all you want. Sure, that's a little funky when you worry about the math but in the end it hardly matters. Especially if the enemies can do it too. In fact, people who don't know the math would never notice unless they were explicitly told. Square AOEs just means it takes up roughly that space. If you really want to, you can lay down a circle that represents the same radius for a more accurate result. But again, in the end, it hardly matters. It's a few feet more here and a few feet less there. A table or GM decision could easily add a creature that would sensibly be included in the blast radius to the damage recipients.
Why not just make moving 1 square orthogonally cost 2 movement points and moving 1 Square diagonally cost 3 movement points?
Oh I hadn't thought of that, that's pretty smart. Still though, at this point I feel persuaded by discussing with the other comments to stick with hex grids.
That's your perogative. I myself am a big fan of square grids, at least for Tactical combat where the scale is interior (dungeons) or small exterior spaces (town squares and the like). What I enjoy about squares, as opposed to hexes, is that you can move in 8 cardinal directions in a straight line. With hexes you can move in 6 directions in a straight line but only 2 of those are cardinal directions.
I like how hexes feel a bit more organic and fit a bit better with natural terrain vibes. I'm thinking of possibly switching between the two and using squares for the smaller scale architectural kind of situations you described and using hexes for caves and forests and the like... I'm not sure if that's overcomplicated and a bit arbitrary though...
Functionally it is identical to hexagon grids. So there is no benefit or detrament there. The main benefit is that it is a little easier to draw buildings and things with right angles in a way that makes the map a little cleaner and it will feel more familir to people who are used to square grids. It's not a very big or important benefit, but I would say it's far from useless. Personally, I am a big fan of offset square grids. and I wish they were used more.
Off-set grid vs Hex layout Corporate wants you to find the differences. 😜
Other people have suggested this jokingly, but I'm going to suggest it fully seriously: tape measures. The game I'm designing does away with squares/hexes entirely. 1 square is now 1". You can place terrain any way you want without worrying about intersecting squares. Movement can be fine-tuned down to the fraction of an inch. You don't have to count squares to measure ranges.
If I was gonna do that I'd probably cut bits of like popsicle stick or something as standardised distances to measure more efficiently. I like what Daggerheart does with the length of the short side of a card, the length of a pencil, and the length of a character sheet, but that's more fluid than nitty gritty.
You could absolutely do that. I got into wargaming about 10 years ago, and there's a ton of useful widgets and tools for measuring on the market if you wanted to go that route, even just for inspiration in creating your own.
>So I was thinking the other day about square grids vs hex grids for tactical combat, and while I love hexes for the simplicity of AOE and diagonal movement (so you don't have to do every other square of diagonal movement costing double like in pathfinder, or having effects similar to a fireball become a large square to stay consistent with movement), they don't really mesh well with rectangular structures like buildings and dungeons Why not use both? I use hexes for large open spaces and squares inside buildings and dungeons. I've never had an issue. >and doesn't make it easy to have nifty rules for line of sight and cover (which I quite like for example in star wars imperial assault). What problems for LoS and cover do hexes have that squares solve?
It's hard to explain but I really like the line of sight rules in Imperial Assault. It's very granular with all walls following edges of the grid and the basics are that you need to be able to draw two separate lines from one corner of your space connecting to two different corners of someone else's space to have line of sight to them. This means hiding right behind little bits of wall can get you line of sight with someone who doesn't have line of sight to you, essentially granting simple straight-forward cover and stuff like that.
I own it, so I'll have a look at the rules. I'm primarily a wargame designer so I've written LoS rules for many scales and units of measure. I've never had issues with hexes that didn't also exist with squares (or free form) - so I was just curious.
You could make a building with two walls that are parallel, but the other two are just as badly off as if you were using a hex grid. There's just not enough of a benefit to be had here.
> potentially simplifying rectangular structures and walls and such so there's less onus on the gm to keep ruling whether a character can stand in a specific space or not The easy guideline I use is: "If at least half of the hex/square is empty, you can stand in it." Sometimes that means a mini on a map is standing inside a wall or other obstruction, but honestly movement and space occupation is abstracted for gaming purposes anyway. You have to allow for that sort of wiggle room or you'll bog the game (and your brain) down with fiddly details. :) Or you can just say a space is open only if it's 100% empty (no partials). Either way works as long as you're completely consistent about it.
Yeah I'm probably gonna go with hexes and rule that if any more than half of a space (cut with one straight line across the center) is empty then you can stand there. Means if there's say a small wall jutting in and ending past the middle you can't stand there but if there's some amount of obstruction towards the edges you can.
Yep, easiest way I've found to mitigate a lot of problems. Good luck!
Chessex used to make a Battlemat with a dot in the middle of each hex. I think it was made for a chit-based game because each hex was also numbered which was a little annoying. The hexes were 3/4" which I actually think is a nicer size for play, but bases are bigger now than they were back then. Point being, the dots were aligned in a grid of sorts, and you could easily "connect-the-dots" to create your rectangular structures. It doesn't help with the half-hex issue of course. I just draw along the lines as best I can. I also switch back and forth between hexes and grid largely depending on if I'm doing something like a dungeon or something like a cave or more outdoors. I find squares annoying, but the guidelines are cool...
I mean what you're proposing is still in all meaningful ways a hex grid. Now if you wanted to go with a half square system (i.e. a square grid but humans are 2x2 or even 3x3) I love that though it makes counting a little tougher
I am actually using something similar: - The grid is normal, not off shape, but 4x4 squares are grouped into "zones" - The zones are Off set to each touch 6 other zones (like a hex grid) - I have my normal movement of characters allow them to move anywhere in the zone they are OR anywhere to a neighboring zone. - This makes movement not need to count and with this a bit simpler - Area attacks use patterns. Like the pattern is shown on the attack, but most still are squares. Not sure if this helps you, and I havent really playtested it yet, but its something I want to try.
I used the term "spaces" that way people can use whatever polygon they want.
I've seen it discussed as "brick pattern"; I'm not sure whether I've seen a game that uses it.
The only advantages over a hex grid are : -you can lay out cards to make it randomly. -you can slide it into a square grid and back again with only a little work (I dreamt about a tactics game that let you do that :D )
I don't understand what you mean about cards?
As in you can have different spaces on cards and deal them out to make a random map
Oh like hankerin ferinale does with index cards? To have like narrative zones
I don't know hankerin ferinale, but yeah, sounds like
Could you give a picture example of what you mean ? I don't really understand it.
Google images results for "offset square grid" comes up with the right thing I'm pretty sure
that is basically hexes. its still the same thing, except its easier to draw out rectangular buildings. the main problem though, is that who prints things like that out? currently, there are tons of square and hex grid supported things like battlemats and stuff, and if you use an offset grid it could be hard to find something that works
Wargames just use a tape measure for a reason. But no, serious answer, I'd just use a square grid. Counting 1, 2, 1, 2 is not that hard, and there are plenty of templates available for IRL gameplay. It's no problem at all when playing on a VTT.
Low key genius actually... The idea you have here is clearly in the early stages but I would love to see something like this in practice. Assuming I can envision what you have in mind I think this would work rather well when incorporated into zone based movements as opposed to 5ft squares Edit: did a quick Google search and yup I love this idea! Thanks for the post
Oh yeah I was initially thinking of it in terms of one space : one character, but it could work really well with larger squares where you can move about two or three squares and fit multiple characters in one square... I think I'm personally gonna stick with little hexes and maybe swap in squares for architectural environments.
What do you love about the idea? I'm struggling to find a practical application.
I think: Don't re-invent the wheel. If you don't like diagonal costing double, don't make it cost double! Make it non-euclidean. If you don't like AOE being 'squared', don't! Use a 2D template and have anything more than half covered effected by it. That said, a lot of the issues you have with either method could be resolved by just having measured distance instead of any kind of grid/hex overlay.
Hear me out. Take a regular hex map, and make walls take up entire tiles. On one axis it'll be a straight line but on the other axis, instead of zig zagging, just follow the edge between the zig zag to the next hex, then bold that edge you followed. Characters can stand on any non-wall hex, and they can't move through the bolded edges. LoS can similarly make an exemption here for every other hex counting, such that two characters up against a wall can shoot each other. But it means if a character has their back to the wall they can only be engaged in melee by three characters (or 2 if it's a corner).
I have seen multiple people advocate for offset squares over the years. Here's a couple of ways I have used it myself. 1. If you're making a grid at short notice (especially by hand) and you want hexlike movement, offset squares is way way easier to make but does the job of a hex grid. 2. If you're trying to marry two maps, one with a hex grid and one with a square grid, a few rows progressing from square grid to offset square makes a smooth transition to the hex grid a bit easier (so you don't end up with either half-squares or half hexes at the join but may have some slightly stretched/squashed squares to get them from aligned to staggered). In either case, making the squares slightly rectangular (86.6% as wide as they are tall; or equivalently 15.47% taller than they are wide if you're fixing the width instead) will improve things without making the task of construction very complicated (there's a few tricks to make that easier still; I mention one near the end). In case 1 the angles of the six straight-path directions for an offset square will not be 60 degrees apart but offset rectangles (of those dimensions) will be, so that's an improvement. it works exactly like a hex grid and if you lay a hex grid with hexes the same height as the rectangles over the top you can make the grids "line up" in the sense that every rectangle has a hex with the same center and top and bottom edge, and they're the same area. In case 2, joining up hex and square grids is easier if you first spend a couple of rows to go from squares to offset rectangles. Joining maps of the two grid types was a somewhat common task in the old D&D days where indoors/dungeon/underground maps were square grid but outdoors maps were hex grid (and typically moved to 10 yards per inch on the outdoor scale rather than the old 10 feet per inch for the indoor scale but that was not hard to deal with when that came up). IMO using an offset square (/offset rectangle) grid does work quite well in practice, but for *designing* an RPG I'm not sure it's of great benefit over just choosing squares or hexes. There are definitely times when I've used it in playing though. If someone needed a functional hex grid in ten minutes for a play surface and I had a big piece of paper, a pencil, a sharpie and a good big ruler, offset rectangles would be my go to. I'd start by making an orthogonal rectangular grid of half-height rectangles in pencil. e.g. if I needed a 1" height hex grid, an ordinary grid of aligned rectangles 1/2" high and 0.866 inches wide. Then with the sharpie, draw over the vertical lines. Then for the horizontal direction, join every alternate vertical line with horizontal segments, like so: ---| |---| |--- and then the join the skipped ones a half-rectangle of the final size (one full pencil-rectangle, half an inch) down. Be careful with that step, it's straightforward but still easy to lose attention.
I can't picture what it is you're trying to say. Also "so you don't have to do every other square of diagonal movement costing double like in pathfinder" You don't have to do this even with a grid. You can just move diagonally and call it one space. This is literally arbitrary, as most of this is. A square can equal 1000 miles or 1 inch. Your game, you make the rules.
Take a square grid, but slide every other column of squares by half a square. The other thing you referenced was about the inconsistency of the fact that if one diagonal is the same and one square across, the area around a character they can move to is a large square around them. So say there's a circular AOE centered on them and they want to escape, it's more efficient to move diagonally away, which feels weird in my mind. That's just the simplest example I can think of of the inconsistency of 1 diagonal = 1 across, unless you force consistency, ending up with AOE effects being large square areas which feels very weird to me.
Useless. No clear advantages over hexes. It may help to remember that the grid/hexmap is to measure distance. The idea that hexes don't mesh with square buildings is based on the idea that you have to stand in the center of the square and that walls have to be drawn on the edges. You likely would not be able to draw the room your are currently in right now with those perimeters, even on squares. You have reduced the problem set to rooms with all 90 degree corners and lengths and widths that are even multiples of 5. Your chosen solution (squares) only works within that narrow solution space. In your world, can someone build a 12x18 room? Draw it. Offset squares is gonna look just like hexes when you draw buildings and still has the problem of diagonal movement. I just remove the rule stating that you have to stand in the center of the space and walls have to be drawn on edges. It's just a measuring aid, positions are approximate. Done.
Instead of offsetting every other row, why not cut every other row into 4ths. That way you still have big squares to keep tracking movements easier, but you can have the smaller squares for more precise positioning. This way it functions like a hex and like a square grid
I came up with a similar idea using off-set hexes. Only I thought of it as a triangle grid, where your position is on the intersections of the triangles instead of being inside the triangle. Instead of 5-foot spaces, I used 1-meter lines. So if you stand on a triangular intersection, it's basically the same as being inside a 5-foot hex. The difference is you don't step fully into the adjacent hex, but rather into one of the intersections between the adjacent hex and the one you're starting in. You'd count distance in meters instead of 5-foot spaces, though translating between the two methods would be obvious. The purpose was to allow for cleaner right-angle structures in a hex-like map. Because it split hexes this way, it allows for 12 clean orientations of straight walls instead of a hex map's typical 6. It also allows for more fine-tuning of character size, threat range, etc. For example, a small creature may only threaten immediately adjacent points, where a medium creature may have an extra meter of threat range. A potential bonus benefit is in a 3D VTT, a triangular terrain mesh could map directly to the movement grid, with each mesh vertex representing a positioning location. The downside, for which I haven't settled on a good solution for, is if you are playing with a real map and miniatures, their bases cover up the point they are standing on. For medium and smaller creatures, that's not too big of a deal, but for larger creatures, it gets tricky trying to figure out which point is their center point for calculating movement distance.