Map Scaling

[PhoenixPhyre]

So I'm trying to be better about actually mapping things out in more detail. One thing I would like some help with is scale. I see three major categories, with some sub-categories

Overland--hex maps
Continent/Region: 1 hex ~ 1 day's travel (~30 miles)
Kingdom: 1 hex ~6-10 miles

City--Freeform, assuming printed on an A4 or LTR page
Big city: 1 inch ~ ????
Small city: 1 inch ~ ?????
Town/village: 1 inch ~ 100 feet?
How much detail do you give in cities?

Dungeon/Building
1 inch = either 10 feet or 5 feet, depending on whether it should be a direct battle-map or not.

What do you prefer, especially for city maps? Do you show every building? Or just districts? Or a mix?

[Beleriphon]

What do you prefer, especially for city maps? Do you show every building? Or just districts? Or a mix?

Depends, some times every building can be fun to draw out to scale, but usually I go with major roads and then block of areas. If a building is large enough or important enough its drawn out to scale.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I like standardizing on the six-mile hex, going up and down in multiples of six. A six-mile hex is a good baseline to use for lots of reasons (many given in this article (http://steamtunnel.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-praise-of-6-mile-hex.html) on the subject), and going with multiples of six means that you can consistently "zoom" from one level to another (i.e. a 36-mile hex has a certain number of 6-mile hexes within it in a given configuration, which each have a certain number of 1-mile hexes within it in the same configuration, and so on, like this (http://www.starfleetgames.com/images/Nested_Hex_Grid_1480.gif)).

So you have hexes at the following scales:
ScaleNicknameUsage
1" = 36 milesPoliticalGood for demarcating nations and major terrain features
1" = 6 milesOverlandGood for overland travel in plains and other not-too-extreme terrain
1" = 1 mileTerritoryGood for mapping out the surrounding roads/farmland/etc. around a large settlement and, for larger or more spread-out settlements, the extent of the settlement itself
1" = 880 feet (1/6 mile)CityGood for mapping out districts and neighborhoods in a city or large town, as 1 hex is two to three city blocks (2⅔ standard modern city blocks)
1" = 150 feet (146⅔ feet, rounded up)DungeonGood for "adventure sites" (dungeons, caves, fortresses, etc.), because each hex is slightly smaller than a standard battlemap so you can have multiple things in the hex that can all reasonably interact with one another and can easily all end up in the same encounter
1" = 30 feet (24.4 feet, rounded up)BattleGood for mass combat, because each hex can fit one Colossal creature, 6 Medium creatures side-by-side, and so forth, making it idea for scenarios where you have tons of humanoids fighting big monsters and/or you group smaller creatures into larger units
1" = 5 feet (4.1 feet, rounded up)CharacterSelf-explanatory


Obviously you wouldn't use all of these scales all the time, or use all of them at all, but if you ever want to populate a nation with city-states and towns or place a hamlet in its larger terrain or political context, you can do so seamlessly. And the recursively-nesting-hexes thing best for overland maps, but you can use the same scales with a normal grid at smaller scales and get the same benefit as long as the important stuff on your square grid can roughly fit within a next-size-up hex.

[JoeJ]

I think you'll find mapmaking easier if you don't try to standardize scales. Rather, choose the scale that fits the area you want to map onto the size of paper you're using. You do need to be sure to indicate somewhere on the map what the scale is, but that's something that should be on every map regardless.

[Pelle]

I'm prepping a hexcrawl game, and based on the scope and distances I want to have, I found that 12 miles looks like a good hex size. Too high mesh resolution will require too many hexes to key, and will be too bothersome to handle with navigation checks etc.

I'm designing for using Short Rests when camping in the wild, and Long Rests when camping at established settlements, about 3-4 days of marchings apart from each other. With about 2 random encounters per day, it will lead to the normal Adventuring Days of 6-8 encounters with 2-3 Short Rests in between. With mostly difficult terrain and average travel speed, it will be about 12 miles per day. With hexes of that size I can make do with one Navigation check per day on average, not slowing down play too much.