Post by cowboyleland on Jun 27, 2013 17:18:01 GMT -9
Hello All,
I started off writing a reply to Wyvern over on cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/thread/4859/scale-calculators-papermodels?page=1&scrollTo=50696 but it got kind of long and so I am starting this thread in the hopes that some of you will play "Devil's Advocate" to straighten me out if I have gone astray.
My jumping off point is that when people draw maps on a grid there is a tendency draw objects so they fill the square. There are more than a few maps drawn for D&D3e/Pathfinder that show pieces of furniture like chairs filling up whole squares that a supposed to be 5' on a side and Savage Worlds squares are supposed to be six feet on a side. Those are really big chairs! So I'm wondering if 1"=3' (1:36) scale wouldn't be better for RPG's
Wyvern mentioned about the 5' not being the area a figure "occupies" but one they can "work" in. I've done some re-enactment stuff myself and I can draw my rapier or broadsword in a doorway (which is more like 3' wide than 5')and don't forget the historical sheildwall and phalanx formations where soldiers fought pretty much shoulder to shoulder. If we remember that characters in Pathfinder must engage with figures they come adjacent to, a medium size guy with a dagger is controlling a 15' square piece of real estate. I think 9' is more reasonable. Reach weapons would simply double the number of squares they could reach. There would be more "granularity" when calculating the reach diagonally.
To get back to the furniture: if a chair is on a 3' square mat and I try to stand on the mat, I am either about to trip on the chair or ON the chair. If I try to share a 5' square mat with a chair I'm probably OK. A small bed could be 3'x6' a double 6'x6.'
I usually like to show players what they see, and nothing more. This means one room at a time, or a room and hall/adjoining room at most. I think there would be room for this kind of set up in the middle of my gaming table at 1:36 scale.
Any thoughts?
I started off writing a reply to Wyvern over on cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/thread/4859/scale-calculators-papermodels?page=1&scrollTo=50696 but it got kind of long and so I am starting this thread in the hopes that some of you will play "Devil's Advocate" to straighten me out if I have gone astray.
My jumping off point is that when people draw maps on a grid there is a tendency draw objects so they fill the square. There are more than a few maps drawn for D&D3e/Pathfinder that show pieces of furniture like chairs filling up whole squares that a supposed to be 5' on a side and Savage Worlds squares are supposed to be six feet on a side. Those are really big chairs! So I'm wondering if 1"=3' (1:36) scale wouldn't be better for RPG's
Wyvern mentioned about the 5' not being the area a figure "occupies" but one they can "work" in. I've done some re-enactment stuff myself and I can draw my rapier or broadsword in a doorway (which is more like 3' wide than 5')and don't forget the historical sheildwall and phalanx formations where soldiers fought pretty much shoulder to shoulder. If we remember that characters in Pathfinder must engage with figures they come adjacent to, a medium size guy with a dagger is controlling a 15' square piece of real estate. I think 9' is more reasonable. Reach weapons would simply double the number of squares they could reach. There would be more "granularity" when calculating the reach diagonally.
To get back to the furniture: if a chair is on a 3' square mat and I try to stand on the mat, I am either about to trip on the chair or ON the chair. If I try to share a 5' square mat with a chair I'm probably OK. A small bed could be 3'x6' a double 6'x6.'
I usually like to show players what they see, and nothing more. This means one room at a time, or a room and hall/adjoining room at most. I think there would be room for this kind of set up in the middle of my gaming table at 1:36 scale.
Any thoughts?