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Foeofthelance
2014-08-30, 03:50 PM
You are playing a game on a board whose spaces are laid out as hexes. (So six sides to a space.) You have a unit that can move once per turn, and only in a straight line. How many directions can the unit move in?

I'm asking because I'm running into an issue with a play-by-post game I'm running, and wondering whether there's a miscommunication somewhere, or if certain players are being a little thick.

Cazero
2014-08-30, 04:13 PM
Any battle grid (save Erfworld types) is a gross approximation of an actual freedom of movement. If your unit can only move in one direction at a time, there are two way of looking at it.

The direction are restrained to the sides of each spaces, and the unit is limited to exactly that set number of directions (6 for hexes, 4 for squares). For a single move, you have to keep going through spaces in a straight line perpendicular to the first side crossed.
The direction is not restrained. The hexes (or any other grid) are used to approximate distance travelled, allowing fast tactical analysis, but the actual direction of the movement is a straight line from the origin to destination. Any obstacle analysis (line of sight, etc) is made along this line and not the theoritical path of spaces taken to go there. An infinite number of direction are possible, given enough distance.

The former is simple and fits most board games, except RPG where the latter, wich makes more sense, is better suited.
You have to define exactly what you mean by "straight line" for your unit. If it is chess-bishop-like, definitely n°1. If it is more along the lines of "can't turn while charging", it's n°2.

Prince Raven
2014-08-30, 09:37 PM
All of the directions the character is capable of moving, so 360 degrees for most characters, potentially more if they are capable of flight.

Remember that under most circumstances battle grids are abstractions, not physical laws of the game world.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-31, 12:35 AM
I'd say you could move to any hex whose center you can connect to the center of your own hex with a straight line that doesn't pass through movement-impeding hexes. You are considered to move along that line and pass through each hex it passes through.

Short answer: any direction.

1eGuy
2014-08-31, 06:29 AM
You are playing a game on a board whose spaces are laid out as hexes. (So six sides to a space.) You have a unit that can move once per turn, and only in a straight line. How many directions can the unit move in?

I'm asking because I'm running into an issue with a play-by-post game I'm running, and wondering whether there's a miscommunication somewhere, or if certain players are being a little thick.Any, but limited by the hexgrid. So, say a character can move 2 hexes on the scale you're using, that obviously allows them to move two hexes in any of the 6 main hex directions. If you mark those end points on the grid with coins you'll see that they show the form of a larger hex. All the hexes along the edge of this big hex are reachable from the central hex with a movement of 2 and by a character moving in a straight line at some angle. It's true that to do so the figure would have to move through an inner hex along an edge instead of a face, but you don't care about that because they didn't stop there. They can't stop on an edge (otherwise the grid isn't going to add anything), but they can move through one okay.

You'd have to look at obstructions with a ruler to test whether a straight line would work, but it's usually pretty clear.

Alternatively, you can just scrap the grid completely and use a ruler. This is the original D&D system - the characters' movements were given in "inches" meaning literally that - you measured so many inches with a ruler on the table and moved there. Spell and missile ranges were similarly given. There's no need for a grid at all. But, of course, it's not much help for PbP.

Jay R
2014-08-31, 09:38 AM
360 degrees. The player tells you what hex he's heading for, you look at a straight line from start to finish, and if there's something in the way, the PC can't do it. Otherwise you're playing floor-tile games as kids often do.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-31, 11:41 AM
I'd allow a great many varieties of straight. On a hex, /\/\/\ is perfectly fine for straight.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-31, 11:43 AM
Alternatively, you can just scrap the grid completely and use a ruler. This is the original D&D system - the characters' movements were given in "inches" meaning literally that - you measured so many inches with a ruler on the table and moved there. Spell and missile ranges were similarly given. There's no need for a grid at all. But, of course, it's not much help for PbP.

I did a few sessions of Pathfinder like this. It worked surprisingly well, though it helped that one of our players was used to doing it in 40K.

Jay R
2014-08-31, 12:13 PM
Alternatively, you can just scrap the grid completely and use a ruler. This is the original D&D system - the characters' movements were given in "inches" meaning literally that - you measured so many inches with a ruler on the table and moved there. Spell and missile ranges were similarly given. There's no need for a grid at all. But, of course, it's not much help for PbP.

This is a continuous model. Using a hex grid or square grid is a discrete model. But in either case, we need to remember that the model is a simplistic description of a more complex reality. The goal is to use it to approach the reality, rather than to diverge further from it. Requiring a straight line move to follow an axis of the grid is using the model to diverge from reality, not to approximate it.

Slipperychicken
2014-08-31, 12:39 PM
This is a continuous model. Using a hex grid or square grid is a discrete model. But in either case, we need to remember that the model is a simplistic description of a more complex reality. The goal is to use it to approach the reality, rather than to diverge further from it. Requiring a straight line move to follow an axis of the grid is using the model to diverge from reality, not to approximate it.

I think it's still technically discrete because you're going with defined 1inch intervals as the minimum.

Jay R
2014-08-31, 09:38 PM
I think it's still technically discrete because you're going with defined 1inch intervals as the minimum.

You are correct that some aspects are discrete. In Chainmail (the combat system for original D&D), nobody had a movement allowance of 3.6285874354023469 inches. But:

A. If somebody can choose to move in any direction, then it's continuous.

B. If somebody with 4" movement can choose to move more than 3" but less than 4", then it's continuous.

As mathematical models are characterized, this is a continuous model, though it has some discrete elements.

Prince Raven
2014-08-31, 09:39 PM
I did a few sessions of Pathfinder like this. It worked surprisingly well, though it helped that one of our players was used to doing it in 40K.

One of my favourite things about the Iron Kingdoms RPG is how similar it is to the wargame, including being gridless.


I think it's still technically discrete because you're going with defined 1inch intervals as the minimum.

You don't have to move in 1 inch intervals though, a PC capable of moving 4 inches could choose to move 3.7 inches if they wanted to.

Foeofthelance
2014-09-01, 03:08 PM
Having looked over the reply so far, the answer seems to be miscommunication on my end when it came to writing the rules.

The answer as intended by the rules is six directions, or straight lines through the individual faces of the hexes. Its supposed to be the trade off with another movement type, which is slower but allows you to change directions while moving. Think the difference between a rook and a king in chess. The rook can move at greater speeds, but is limited to how many directions in can move in a single turn. The king can move in all directions, but is limited in speed.

So since the error seems to be on my part, how should the rule be written to make this more clear? Is the addition, "In straight line along the hexes" enough, or does it need to be spelled out in more detail?

Beneath
2014-09-01, 03:30 PM
For a board game, "in a straight line" is intuitive to mean what you want in a way it's not for an RPG.

"In any of the six directions" might work as a description?

Foeofthelance
2014-09-01, 03:38 PM
The game in question is less of an RPG such as Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, but is more of a turn based strategy game such as Civilizations with some roleplaying elements as people develop their own race on a galactic scale. The reason I left that out is because I wanted to see where people's natural assumptions lay, which gives me some insight into where the problem occurred and how to correct it. Its one of those things where 6 of the eight players had been naturally doing it the right way, but two weren't. Had it only been one person I might have been more suspicious of foul play, but two people coming to the same conclusion was enough to make me consider whether it might be a descriptor issue.

Prince Raven
2014-09-01, 09:41 PM
"A straight line in any of the six directions" is much harder to misinterpret than "in a straight line", particularly if your players are used to RPGs where the battle grid is only an abstraction.

Segev
2014-09-02, 01:24 PM
I would phrase it as, "May move up to N spaces in a straight line, with no turning." By specifying that he is moving spaces (or "hexes" or whatever) on the board, you restrict the movement to the tactical abstraction provided. It becomes clear that this is not a grid used to ease estimation, but is in fact a descriptor of how you can possibly move.

It becomes clear that you are not able to "move N spaces in a straight line" if the space for which you're aiming requires moving through spaces that are not in a straight line.

LokiRagnarok
2014-09-04, 02:14 AM
Include a picture?