Grid layout questions

[CaptainJohnHawk]

So I am creating a basic tavern floor plan map. I have never really added a grid inside my interior maps, just because I feel getting each room perfect (not having half squares against the walls and things) is really important. However If I add realistic wall thickness to the map. The walls would not be a full square thick. I want them to be thick enough I can add texture to the walls themselves. However if I make them realistic thickness, it almost forces me to use half squares or have different sized squares in the hall ways. How do you work around this issue? I don't want to randomly extend hallways to ensure the proportion is the same.

I hope this question makes sense. Its sort of hard to explain what I am asking.

Summary: I don't want to have a line of "half-squares" against a wall, and encompass wall thickness into the plan.

Any examples you could show me, would really help me out!

Thank you
Capt.JH

[Midgardsormr]

It kind of depends on exactly how thick the walls are and the size of your squares. A standard D&D square is, if I recall correctly, 5 feet. That's plenty of room to accommodate a wall of reasonable thickness if you put it right on the line. Most interior walls in a modern U.S. home are less than six inches thick (a 4" wide stud, plus two sheets of 1/4" drywall, and maybe another inch for baseboard).

[CaptainJohnHawk]

I guess when you think of it as being 1/10th of a squares thickness it doesn't effect the 9/10th square on the other side of that wall. However if I want thicker walls, then the square on the other side gets smaller and smaller, which I am trying to avoid. I don't think what I am trying to accomplish if mathematically possible. Maybe that's why I am struggling

[lostatsea]

AhH even in fantasy cartography reality bites ! If you center the wall on the grid the difference is split between the two rooms. That being said if the walls are going to be very thick there is no way around it cutting in to grid size. There really isn't any way around it especially in the halls !

[atpollard]

Since you are looking for thick walls and rooms with interior dimensions in whole square increments, some liberty with 'reality' is going to be necessary.
What about using a design grid (just for layout, not for display in the final product) that is half the standard grid (say 2.5 feet for D&D).
This might allow you to design a tavern with rooms in multiples of exactly 5 feet (the final display grid size) and walls 2.5 feet thick.
This will allow each room to have a 'perfect' grid.

For realistic wall thicknesses, one typically just centers the wall on the line and ignores the fact that the outer 5' square is actually 5' x 4'10" (4" wall centered on a grid line).

[CaptainJohnHawk]

AhH even in fantasy cartography reality bites ! If you center the wall on the grid the difference is split between the two rooms. That being said if the walls are going to be very thick there is no way around it cutting in to grid size. There really isn't any way around it especially in the halls !

I was realizing this more and more as I started building this map. I suppose I don't really NEED to place a grid on the final work anyways.

Since you are looking for thick walls and rooms with interior dimensions in whole square increments, some liberty with 'reality' is going to be necessary.
What about using a design grid (just for layout, not for display in the final product) that is half the standard grid (say 2.5 feet for D&D).
This might allow you to design a tavern with rooms in multiples of exactly 5 feet (the final display grid size) and walls 2.5 feet thick.
This will allow each room to have a 'perfect' grid.

For realistic wall thicknesses, one typically just centers the wall on the line and ignores the fact that the outer 5' square is actually 5' x 4'10" (4" wall centered on a grid line).

This makes a lot of sense. I think I will use this technique. I never really considered lowering the grid size to accommodate the features.


Thanks for the advice all!

[Gamerprinter]

Honestly when I place grids in some interior structure like a tavern, the grid is there to inform players of the scale inside, especially for concerns of combat. However, very often the grid indeed includes half squares or even smaller partial divisions. While I generally shoot for chambers cut in equal 5 foot squares, very often the walls aren't 5 feet wide, usually something close to 2.5 feet wide, which means even if one side of the wall lay on a grid line, the chamber adjacent is going to start with a half square. At no point will all the chambers exactly lineup to the grid, and its not my intentions that they should.

I don't build the world around a grid, a grid only facilitates use of tokens or miniatures, it doesn't define the space. I'd go as far as saying that my grids never fully match my designed spaces, nor should they.

When creating any map, laying the grid is the last thing I do, that is when I include a grid - sometimes I'm creating a map that will be used in a virtual tabletop application, where the user can place his own grid. If a grid already exists, it might not lineup with the grid tools of a given VT app. Sometimes I create 2 versions of a map, one with a grid, and one without.

[CaptainJohnHawk]

Honestly when I place grids in some interior structure like a tavern, the grid is there to inform players of the scale inside, especially for concerns of combat. However, very often the grid indeed includes half squares or even smaller partial divisions. While I generally shoot for chambers cut in equal 5 foot squares, very often the walls aren't 5 feet wide, usually something close to 2.5 feet wide, which means even if one side of the wall lay on a grid line, the chamber adjacent is going to start with a half square. At no point will all the chambers exactly lineup to the grid, and its not my intentions that they should.

I don't build the world around a grid, a grid only facilitates use of tokens or miniatures, it doesn't define the space. I'd go as far as saying that my grids never fully match my designed spaces, nor should they.

When creating any map, laying the grid is the last thing I do, that is when I include a grid - sometimes I'm creating a map that will be used in a virtual tabletop application, where the user can place his own grid. If a grid already exists, it might not lineup with the grid tools of a given VT app. Sometimes I create 2 versions of a map, one with a grid, and one without.

Thank you for the advice. I kept getting stuck trying to build rooms around the grid, and it was messing with my hallways and wall thickness. So I will scratch the grid for now. Build the tavern first, and then go back in with a 2.5ft grid to make the rooms equal.
This has helped out alot thank you

[Chick]

If you need a grid for the players, just make your map with walls as big as you want, then put a separate grid in each open area (hallway, room, etc) for the players. They don't need to see the big picture, and if they do their own mapping, that's their problem, not yours.

[CaptainJohnHawk]

If you need a grid for the players, just make your map with walls as big as you want, then put a separate grid in each open area (hallway, room, etc) for the players. They don't need to see the big picture, and if they do their own mapping, that's their problem, not yours.

I suppose I could slightly alter the size of each grid, so that each room and section has a perfect grid but are slightly different from each other as far as size goes. That shouldn't be that big of a difference to be super noticeable!
Thanks Chick