Hex map question

[HidesHisEyes]

For people who use hex maps in their games, can you help me understand them.

Specifically, is the hex map player-facing or GM-facing? So the players look at a hex map and tell you which hex they want to go to, or do you just use it as a tool for yourself to keep track of where they are? I’ve heard of people doing both, but both seem potentially problematic to me.

If it’s player-facing then I’d worry it could turn into a bit of a board game, with players engaging with the map rather than the fiction - not necessarily a problem depending on the kind of game you’re running, but it doesn’t seem that suitable if you’re trying to get an engaging narrative experience out of overland travel rather than just a gameplay experience. It seems like it might become a bit of a stale procedure of choosing a hex and ticking resource-management boxes, punctuated by random encounters.

On the other hand if it’s GM-facing then you need to find a way for the players to interface with the hex map just by talking to you. The obvious thing seems to be for them to tell you what direction they travel in and you pick the corresponding hex, but then the problem is that hexes have six sides; if they say north/south or east/east (depending on the orientation of the hexes) then which hex do they end up in? I’ve heard people say they don’t pick a direction but rather a route, based on your description on the terrain in their current hex, but that seems like it becomes essentially a point crawl and you might as well just use a point map.

So which do you do? And what kind of game do you use it for? Am I missing something? Or is it just that if I have this kind of problem with hexes I should just stick to point maps?

[Xervous]

For me, much of the value of a hex map comes from the compartmentalization of space.

We are bringing out the ‘searching a hex’ rules because we decided that time matters for this game. It’s not an issue of Stop BBEG before the cardboard wheel on the board game hits zero. No, it’s Johnny cares about the Mayor Mcflurple and wants to make it back in time for his good friend’s wedding so maybe let’s not spend forever searching under every rock. I’m not here to play gotcha with overland travel. Putting some rules and standards on exploration can be helpful for getting to the actual interesting parts and driving decision making.

Why hexes vs an open map? When it comes to searching or traveling there’s the possibility for a great deal of questions pertaining to the practical details of relative distances. Guessing a number for how wide a berth to give the Ogre lair translates into more concrete choices. “Two hexes of open fields” is easy to eyeball and keeps the game running. That works for every Ogre they encounter? Great, you’ve abstracted something the characters learned and the game runs smoothly as the exact mileage from a specific ogre lair is not an important detail. This one ogre is ranging far afield? Must be some unusual circumstances that warrant investigation.

Hexes simplify travel calculations... for places the players have already been. Part of the reward for exploration is knowing the terrain after all.

In closing, hexes provide a common language for discussing distance, travel, and other particulars related to areas. They’re useful if you want to empower the players to make informed decisions.

[KillianHawkeye]

We're talking about an overland map? Not a player-scale map for combat?

In that case, the main benefit my group has seen of having any kind of grid (square or hex doesn't really matter) is measuring distances for travel time purposes. I suppose the grid on a battle map serves the same basic purpose, actually, with the added value of tactical positioning.

[dafrca]

Why hexes vs an open map? When it comes to searching or traveling there’s the possibility for a great deal of questions pertaining to the practical details of relative distances. Guessing a number for how wide a berth to give the Ogre lair translates into more concrete choices. “Two hexes of open fields” is easy to eyeball and keeps the game running. That works for every Ogre they encounter? Great, you’ve abstracted something the characters learned and the game runs smoothly as the exact mileage from a specific ogre lair is not an important detail. This one ogre is ranging far afield? Must be some unusual circumstances that warrant investigation.

Hexes simplify travel calculations... for places the players have already been. Part of the reward for exploration is knowing the terrain after all.

In closing, hexes provide a common language for discussing distance, travel, and other particulars related to areas. They’re useful if you want to empower the players to make informed decisions.

This is why I LOVED the clear hex sheets TSR put out for a time. I used those with various open maps to allow us to do just as you suggest, have easy conversations about time and distance. It is one of the few items I was glad I elected to just stuff onto my book shelf and keep. :smallsmile:

[Stonehead]

If it’s player-facing then I’d worry it could turn into a bit of a board game, with players engaging with the map rather than the fiction - not necessarily a problem depending on the kind of game you’re running, but it doesn’t seem that suitable if you’re trying to get an engaging narrative experience out of overland travel rather than just a gameplay experience. It seems like it might become a bit of a stale procedure of choosing a hex and ticking resource-management boxes, punctuated by random encounters.

I don't find it ends up more board-gamey than combat, and most people are comfortable dealing with 5ft squares instead of continuous space. As for being boring, hexploration is only as boring as the space being explored. If your players want to get from point A to point B, and there's nothing important in between the two, then just narrate the journey, and consume the resources. If they don't know where their goal is, or there are many different possible paths, or other entities moving on the board, then it makes more sense to draw up a map and start counting turns.

Actually, I think it's perfectly analogous to drawing a combat map and rolling initiative. It's one way to track movement in fiction, that's well suited to one specific setting (fighting foes of roughly similar strength in close quarters), but would just get in the way of others. Just like you don't track initiative when exploring a dungeon out of combat, I don't track hexes for simple overland travel.

One other thing to consider is scale. If you want your players saying "We've already looked in this forest", and not "We've already looked in this hex", make the forest the size of a hex. If you want them to say "We've explored the forest west of the river but not east of the river", then make it two hexes, and so on. If a scale like this doesn't fit, it's probably a bad idea to use hexes.

[Tanarii]

I've done DM-facing in the past, but I've found that player facing works fine. It works best if you make them draw the map, just as with a dungeon, especially if there's things that can cause them to mess it up, like getting lost. But even with a world map visible to them (a la Forbidden Lands) it works fine too.

You're not going to be describing every dale and meadow they travel through anyway, describing the dominant terrain of the hex(s) as they pass through them is sufficient. More detailed description is usually an encounter of some kind anyway, be it an in-hex terrain issue, a location found, a lair, tracks or other points of interest, or wandering monsters.

Of course, if you're not using game structures to support wilderness exploration ... you might as well just do a point crawl.

[Pauly]

There are 2 ways to handle it.

1) If the token representing the player/party has a face, you use the face of the miniature as the point of reference. Then you turn the figure to the desired direction and move forward/back.

2) if the token had no ‘face’ then you have a reference hex marked 1 through 6 either on the board or next to the board, and then the direction is called based on the reference hex.

[Yora]

If it’s player-facing then I’d worry it could turn into a bit of a board game, with players engaging with the map rather than the fiction - not necessarily a problem depending on the kind of game you’re running, but it doesn’t seem that suitable if you’re trying to get an engaging narrative experience out of overland travel rather than just a gameplay experience. It seems like it might become a bit of a stale procedure of choosing a hex and ticking resource-management boxes, punctuated by random encounters.

On the other hand if it’s GM-facing then you need to find a way for the players to interface with the hex map just by talking to you. The obvious thing seems to be for them to tell you what direction they travel in and you pick the corresponding hex, but then the problem is that hexes have six sides; if they say north/south or east/east (depending on the orientation of the hexes) then which hex do they end up in? I’ve heard people say they don’t pick a direction but rather a route, based on your description on the terrain in their current hex, but that seems like it becomes essentially a point crawl and you might as well just use a point map.

Yes, in my opinion, your asessment is complete correct.

There really are two ways to uses hexes in an overland map:
One is a tool for the GM to quickly approximate the travel distance between any two points on the map and the overland movement rate for each section based on the predominant environment type.
The other more or less treats the hexes as outdoor rooms for the players to explore one by one. I really don't like those, as they feel boardgamey to me too. (I don't use grids in combat, and don't run 3rd or 5th edition for the same reason.)

The GM-facing solution is indeed not that much different from a pointcrawl map. And for a campaign where travel is largely limited to roads and rivers, a pointcrawl map might be the more convenient solution.
A hex map becomes advantageous when it is expected that the players will try to cross straight through forests and plains. The possible paths players can choose (and get lost) are pretty much endless. Pointcrawls make sense when you know in advance all the possible paths the players can take.

[J-H]

I have the full Hexmap. One of the players has a couple of blank copies of the map and is filling in terrain, notable areas, etc. When they need to tell me where they go, they tell me a direction or the map reference, and I just draw lines on my map to see where they go. Along the way (flying) they learn about the terrain of the hexes, but don't find anything beyond random encounters unless they stop and search, or unless they do something dumb and fly right between two of the main enemy cities in broad daylight (yep).

[HidesHisEyes]

Thanks everyone, that has helped clarify things for me. I backed the Into the Odd remaster Kickstarter and it comes with a starter sandbox adventure with a hex map which I’m excited to try out. I think I will go with a blank version for the players to fill in as they explore. That sounds like the right way for me to use the hex map.

I asked because at this point I’ve played so much Dungeon World that I’m out of the habit of that kind of overlaid structure, since in that game everything is worked out from a sort of central point of focus which is just wherever the PCs are, even combat.

[Jay R]

From hit points to rolling a d20 for complex skills to levelling up, a role-playing game is based on using simple discrete functions to simulate an infinitely complex continuous phenomenon.

A hex map is no different. A large forest with a couple of rivers, two villages, a lake and some paths can be easily simulated with a hex map, with very little loss of detail, and no loss of game-affecting detail.

Treating all land in that hex like it's the same terrain is no different from treating everything from 20 feet to 70 feet as "medium range" for a bow, or treating any sword blow, anywhere on the body, as 1d8 damage.

A crucial aspect of game design, including the part of the design done by each individual GM, is the judgemnt call on what parts can be simplified for the simulation, and to what degree.

Yes, any player, at any time, can ignore the activity being simulated and treat the simulation as a meaningless dice game. The solution to this is to create an immersive world with, with suspenseful encounters.


Having said that, I will usually create a mental picture of a place where something important happens. [I've been a Philmont Ranger. I know a large number of outdoor wilderness locations.] When the orcs attack, I can quickly take that spot in the mountains and decide that it's, for instance, at Steamboat Rock just east of Cimarroncito, or in the meadow at Miners' Park. Then I know any necessary details that will affect the encounter.

[Tanarii]

The GM-facing solution is indeed not that much different from a pointcrawl map. And for a campaign where travel is largely limited to roads and rivers, a pointcrawl map might be the more convenient solution.
A hex map becomes advantageous when it is expected that the players will try to cross straight through forests and plains. The possible paths players can choose (and get lost) are pretty much endless. Pointcrawls make sense when you know in advance all the possible paths the players can take.
I think this is the key point here. A hex map isn't need for overland travel tracking in general, just when wilderness exploration is a focus of the game.

[Yora]

I think a big reason why hex maps for overland travel were used for such a long time is that the first designers and playtesters happened to have a wilderness hexmap around, which they had taken from the board game Outdoor Survival. It got them a resulting gameplay experience that they thought was fine and simply kept on doing things that way.
The pointcrawl system was only articulated and spread around GMs ten years ago. Long after D&D had stopped using overland travel adventures, and quite late in the Old School Revival period.

[Tanarii]

As I understand it, the original game using Outdoor Survival hex map, and later versions in AD&D, were supposed to be wilderness exploration. Effectively the random encounters, which included castles and other civilized and semi civilized type encounters, were procedurally generated content.

Where it didn't make much sense was in my personal favorite setting, BECMI's Known World / Mystara, once they started coming out with beautifully colored hex maps in the Gazzateers on a 8 mile scale. Conceptually you could still wilderness explore plenty of dangerous areas, but the Known World was pretty densely civilized and plenty of road and caravan trails.

Meanwhile the FRCS just had maps of terrain and roads rivers in a non hex format, and a clear plastic hex grid overlay.

Short version: At this point, I'd never bother with a hex map unless I'm doing a hexcrawl, preferably with procedural content. I've done exactly that for 5e and Forbidden Lands. IMo it works better in the latter, because it has better crawling game structures.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm doing both simultaneously with the west marches game I'm setting up, but I have

[1]A lot of online players, so I can use roll20 and take advantage of layers and such.
[2]Way too much free time
[3]Unresolved psychological issues and self-loathing.

So in the end I uploaded a nice map, notated it on the GM layer, then covered it up with blank hex-sized tiles indicating a surveyor's best guess at what the terrain was like. At first all they'll see is a pretty crude wilderness map.
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/247321593_10221699724948412_4571295800546425708_n. jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=gHD2E7IWMQcAX-gBUMQ&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=336aaefeab42b3db1ba1d6d570d433a7&oe=61A80F3F
I hope this works, I'm linking from a Facebook post so who knows
But as they explore, I'll delete the hex tiles and shift special features from the GM layer to the map, so the map will gradually become more and more detailed as the game goes on.

[HidesHisEyes]

Yes, any player, at any time, can ignore the activity being simulated and treat the simulation as a meaningless dice game. The solution to this is to create an immersive world with, with suspenseful encounters.

I think that’s true of sub-systems or game structures like D&D’s combat, or an organised, procedural system for navigating a hex map. But I think at the core of any RPG is just the idea of the players and GM creating fiction, using the mechanics as an interface - and at its most basic level that actually can’t be reduced to a meaningless dice game. In a VERY minimalist game that just has a core mechanic and no additional system, you’re forced to interact with the fiction at all times, because otherwise the dice rolls would be truly meaningless. I guess I’m wary of additional systems/structures because, although they can add a lot of consistency and convenience when done well, they’re also vulnerable to the dice game problem in the way the core mechanic isn’t. Does that make sense?

[LordCdrMilitant]

For people who use hex maps in their games, can you help me understand them.

Specifically, is the hex map player-facing or GM-facing? So the players look at a hex map and tell you which hex they want to go to, or do you just use it as a tool for yourself to keep track of where they are? I’ve heard of people doing both, but both seem potentially problematic to me.

If it’s player-facing then I’d worry it could turn into a bit of a board game, with players engaging with the map rather than the fiction - not necessarily a problem depending on the kind of game you’re running, but it doesn’t seem that suitable if you’re trying to get an engaging narrative experience out of overland travel rather than just a gameplay experience. It seems like it might become a bit of a stale procedure of choosing a hex and ticking resource-management boxes, punctuated by random encounters.

On the other hand if it’s GM-facing then you need to find a way for the players to interface with the hex map just by talking to you. The obvious thing seems to be for them to tell you what direction they travel in and you pick the corresponding hex, but then the problem is that hexes have six sides; if they say north/south or east/east (depending on the orientation of the hexes) then which hex do they end up in? I’ve heard people say they don’t pick a direction but rather a route, based on your description on the terrain in their current hex, but that seems like it becomes essentially a point crawl and you might as well just use a point map.

So which do you do? And what kind of game do you use it for? Am I missing something? Or is it just that if I have this kind of problem with hexes I should just stick to point maps?

I use hex maps.

I'm not sure what you mean by player facing or GM-facing. They're in the open between us, on on roll20 where everyone can see. Nominally hexes can be referenced by a board-row-column code but in general we just point to the hex things are moving to. Whether they face the player or face me is basically just how they line up, and with multiple mapboards they might be in different orientations.

Advantages of hex maps include better direction control for situations where the facing of the pieces matter, or you don't want to think about diagonal movement implications. Disadvantages include, if pivoting costs movement, it can be awkward to move "straight" out along a hex side.

As for games I use them in, I use them in A Time of War, which is Battletech, which natively uses hexes. A lot of wargames I play also use them.

[Stonehead]

I think that’s true of sub-systems or game structures like D&D’s combat, or an organised, procedural system for navigating a hex map. But I think at the core of any RPG is just the idea of the players and GM creating fiction, using the mechanics as an interface - and at its most basic level that actually can’t be reduced to a meaningless dice game. In a VERY minimalist game that just has a core mechanic and no additional system, you’re forced to interact with the fiction at all times, because otherwise the dice rolls would be truly meaningless. I guess I’m wary of additional systems/structures because, although they can add a lot of consistency and convenience when done well, they’re also vulnerable to the dice game problem in the way the core mechanic isn’t. Does that make sense?

I don't think the core systems are really immune to being reduced to just dice, it's just that it typically isn't very fun to do so. Like, d20+modifiers, or dice pools, or 3d6 vs stat or whatever core resolution mechanic you use is still just a probability distribution. I think this thread is getting dangerously close to a false dichotomy though. An rpg being enjoyable as a game doesn't make it any less enjoyable as a role-playing mechanism. I get that crunchy, mechanically-intensive games are likely to attract players that are only into the game layer, and don't care about the rp layer, but if you're playing with a group you already know and work well with, they aren't going to lose interest in the story because it was laid out on hexes. Like, good cinematography has never ruined the story of a movie, and good graphics don't make the gameplay of a video game any less fun.

I'm not saying you should use hexes for overland travel, there are a lot of drawbacks of doing so, but I don't think "The players might get invested in the game layer" is one of them.

[HidesHisEyes]

I don't think the core systems are really immune to being reduced to just dice, it's just that it typically isn't very fun to do so. Like, d20+modifiers, or dice pools, or 3d6 vs stat or whatever core resolution mechanic you use is still just a probability distribution. I think this thread is getting dangerously close to a false dichotomy though. An rpg being enjoyable as a game doesn't make it any less enjoyable as a role-playing mechanism. I get that crunchy, mechanically-intensive games are likely to attract players that are only into the game layer, and don't care about the rp layer, but if you're playing with a group you already know and work well with, they aren't going to lose interest in the story because it was laid out on hexes. Like, good cinematography has never ruined the story of a movie, and good graphics don't make the gameplay of a video game any less fun.

I'm not saying you should use hexes for overland travel, there are a lot of drawbacks of doing so, but I don't think "The players might get invested in the game layer" is one of them.

I think it’s a matter of taste. If we get deeply immersed in the heavily gamey parts of an RPG then I personally start to feel disconnected from the narrative side, at least sometimes.

When I say the core mechanic is immune, I mean that if we’re just talking about a pure action-resolution mechanic on its own then it’s impossible to engage that mechanic without directly referencing the fiction in some interesting way. Eg if I’m making a sneak check then it has to be because my character is sneaking right now in the narrative. Whereas in for example D&D combat a lot of the choices I make on my turn, I make them in relation to other rules, not the fiction: heal to get hp back, activate special attack to push enemy back one square etc. Yes these things still mean something in the fiction, but that’s not what I’m thinking about when I do them.

Sorry I’ve derailed my own thread pretty severely here. I guess this rambling is the deeper reason for my original question about hex maps. Thanks for the tips on hex maps anyway.

[Stonehead]

I think it’s a matter of taste. If we get deeply immersed in the heavily gamey parts of an RPG then I personally start to feel disconnected from the narrative side, at least sometimes.

When I say the core mechanic is immune, I mean that if we’re just talking about a pure action-resolution mechanic on its own then it’s impossible to engage that mechanic without directly referencing the fiction in some interesting way. Eg if I’m making a sneak check then it has to be because my character is sneaking right now in the narrative. Whereas in for example D&D combat a lot of the choices I make on my turn, I make them in relation to other rules, not the fiction: heal to get hp back, activate special attack to push enemy back one square etc. Yes these things still mean something in the fiction, but that’s not what I’m thinking about when I do them.

Sorry I’ve derailed my own thread pretty severely here. I guess this rambling is the deeper reason for my original question about hex maps. Thanks for the tips on hex maps anyway.

If it's technically derailing, it's at least an interesting derail.

That's good to learn though, that being engaged to one layer could distract people from another. I shouldn't assume everyone is like me. To me, the mechanical layer is a good way to enforce characterization, not to distract from it. Like, if one melee fighter moves to protect the wizard, and another moves to backstab an enemy, that establishes who they are. One is loyal and protective, while the other is tricky and aggressive.

Not trying to argue or anything, if it's distracting to someone, it's distracting to them. Just trying to explain what I like, because not everyone feels the same way.

(Edit: I wonder if difficulty affects this at all. I mean, if a fight is so hard you have to take the tactically optimal action, you don't have any room to express your character. Just kinda thinking out loud.)

[HidesHisEyes]

If it's technically derailing, it's at least an interesting derail.

That's good to learn though, that being engaged to one layer could distract people from another. I shouldn't assume everyone is like me. To me, the mechanical layer is a good way to enforce characterization, not to distract from it. Like, if one melee fighter moves to protect the wizard, and another moves to backstab an enemy, that establishes who they are. One is loyal and protective, while the other is tricky and aggressive.





(Edit: I wonder if difficulty affects this at all. I mean, if a fight is so hard you have to take the tactically optimal action, you don't have any room to express your character. Just kinda thinking out loud.)

Yes you may well be onto something there. After all, you can still have the characters show their personalities by protecting or backstabbing in a game like the ones I like, where those actions are described in purely fictional terms and then resolved with a core mechanic, with no need for turns, five foot squares or potentially even hit points. And you can also force players to make tactical decisions, albeit of a different kind, in that type of game. If the danger and difficulty is great enough that everyone has to make the optimal action without regard for characterisation, then they will make the optimal action whether the game has an extra layer of mechanics or not.

But for me, it’s about the fact that I have to engage with the extra layer of mechanics first, I suppose. Even the metaphor of it as a “layer” which we’ve both used, I think captures the problem I have with it - that it’s something that comes between me and the fiction. Whether I’m acting to make the tactically optimal move or to portray who my character is (both of which I regard as “roleplaying” btw) if that extra layer is there then I need to focus on its various details and nuances. I know those details all have good reasons for being there (in a well designed game), but the longer I play RPGs the more I’m drawn to bold, broad-strokes mechanics that stay close to the fiction, resolve things quickly and push me back into thinking about the fiction.

Again, entirely a matter of taste, and I’m just thinking aloud really.




Not trying to argue or anything, if it's distracting to someone, it's distracting to them. Just trying to explain what I like, because not everyone feels the same way.

Absolutely, that is always what I’m doing in this kind of discussion too.

[Yora]

Have you heared of our Lord and Savior, Worlds Without Number?

It's a free pdf with a small lightweight rules system that cleans up the earliest editions of D&D with the modern lessons of hindsight about easy to use notation, and a huge collection of tools for running open world campaigns.
It's more or less Basic/Expert (like Oldschool Essentials) with a skill system and less rigid way spellcasters access spells.

[HidesHisEyes]

Have you heared of our Lord and Savior, Worlds Without Number?

It's a free pdf with a small lightweight rules system that cleans up the earliest editions of D&D with the modern lessons of hindsight about easy to use notation, and a huge collection of tools for running open world campaigns.
It's more or less Basic/Expert (like Oldschool Essentials) with a skill system and less rigid way spellcasters access spells.

I have! In fact I have the hardback on my shelf after my girlfriend got me it for my birthday. Haven’t played it yet but it looks great, particularly for this exact kind of thing: methods for structuring and prepping a campaign, and an unusual amount of clarity on how to use things like hex maps. I wanted to ask the playground for their input on the mystery of the hex map all the same though.

[Yora]

When aiming at a more Going With The Flow type of campaign, where players imagine the scene rather than looking for solutions on their character sheet, I would definitely not use hexes as outdoor rooms that can be checked off as the party movies through them. Players shouldn't see hexes at all.
Even in situation where a complex tactical situation requires markers to show everyone's relative positioning, I don't use a square grid on the ground. I feel it only makes everyone approach the fight more as a logic puzzle and in turn switches off the part of the brain that imagines the environment in which the fight takes place.

[Stonehead]

Yes you may well be onto something there. After all, you can still have the characters show their personalities by protecting or backstabbing in a game like the ones I like, where those actions are described in purely fictional terms and then resolved with a core mechanic, with no need for turns, five foot squares or potentially even hit points. And you can also force players to make tactical decisions, albeit of a different kind, in that type of game. If the danger and difficulty is great enough that everyone has to make the optimal action without regard for characterisation, then they will make the optimal action whether the game has an extra layer of mechanics or not.

But for me, it’s about the fact that I have to engage with the extra layer of mechanics first, I suppose. Even the metaphor of it as a “layer” which we’ve both used, I think captures the problem I have with it - that it’s something that comes between me and the fiction. Whether I’m acting to make the tactically optimal move or to portray who my character is (both of which I regard as “roleplaying” btw) if that extra layer is there then I need to focus on its various details and nuances. I know those details all have good reasons for being there (in a well designed game), but the longer I play RPGs the more I’m drawn to bold, broad-strokes mechanics that stay close to the fiction, resolve things quickly and push me back into thinking about the fiction.

Again, entirely a matter of taste, and I’m just thinking aloud really.



Absolutely, that is always what I’m doing in this kind of discussion too.

Yeah, it's important for different characters to feel different. The best way to do that is obviously just to describe them differently, and have them act differently. I think it's really cool though if the mechanics can reinforce that. So like, if the fighter has "My years of training give me +2 to hit and damage", and the barbarian has "My primal rage gives me +2 hit and damage", it's fine, but it feels like kind of a waste of time when you could have them be the same, and leave it to the player to decide the fluff. If however, the fighter has "My years of training give me +2 to hit", and the barbarian has "My primal rage gives me +2 damage", it helps add to the feeling that they're using fundamentally different fighting styles.

I don't think such a thing is impossible using only 'broad strokes mechanics', but I don't really have enough experience with those systems to come up with an example.

Edit: To vaguely try to get back on topic, that's one thing a hex map could theoretically help with. If swamps for example slow down travel speed and hand out a bunch of penalties, the players will hate them almost as much as their characters do when you describe the nasty water soaking into their socks. Probably not worth the small boost in characterization if you weren't focusing on exploration anyways, but interesting to keep in mind.

[Tanarii]

When aiming at a more Going With The Flow type of campaign, where players imagine the scene rather than looking for solutions on their character sheet, I would definitely not use hexes as outdoor rooms that can be checked off as the party movies through them. Players shouldn't see hexes at all.
Even in situation where a complex tactical situation requires markers to show everyone's relative positioning, I don't use a square grid on the ground. I feel it only makes everyone approach the fight more as a logic puzzle and in turn switches off the part of the brain that imagines the environment in which the fight takes place.
The difference is that wilderness exploration doesn't operate in the same scale as combat. You're either concerned about a chunk of a days travel, or trying to reach a destination. Either way, there's very little "imagine the scene" needed for hexes to destroy. Anything that requires more imagination than immediately visible general terrain (ie the current Hex) is already an encounter and taking you off navigating hexes on the map.

The main advantage of player-facing hexes (but not a player facing map) is for them making maps based on DM description. I have no idea how the players of the original west-marches drew a map, given it was a vector map (not hexes) AND the players never saw it.

[HidesHisEyes]

Yeah, it's important for different characters to feel different. The best way to do that is obviously just to describe them differently, and have them act differently. I think it's really cool though if the mechanics can reinforce that. So like, if the fighter has "My years of training give me +2 to hit and damage", and the barbarian has "My primal rage gives me +2 hit and damage", it's fine, but it feels like kind of a waste of time when you could have them be the same, and leave it to the player to decide the fluff. If however, the fighter has "My years of training give me +2 to hit", and the barbarian has "My primal rage gives me +2 damage", it helps add to the feeling that they're using fundamentally different fighting styles.

I don't think such a thing is impossible using only 'broad strokes mechanics', but I don't really have enough experience with those systems to come up with an example.

Edit: To vaguely try to get back on topic, that's one thing a hex map could theoretically help with. If swamps for example slow down travel speed and hand out a bunch of penalties, the players will hate them almost as much as their characters do when you describe the nasty water soaking into their socks. Probably not worth the small boost in characterization if you weren't focusing on exploration anyways, but interesting to keep in mind.

Oh yeah for sure, it’s a real drawback of the approach I described. There are clever ways that some games circumvent it, but in general the more minimalist you go, the less design space you have for differentiating characters. It’s all a balancing act.