Schools of magic

image: twitter - @ahruon

From the gamist point of view, there are plenty reasons to divide magic into colors in an RPG

- increased replayability

- increased difference between various PC casters

- increased customization and sense of identity. Say that novice wizards start with one color, expert can add a second and masters can add a third That makes for organic character customization which comes up through gameplay, not at character creation. Much more if you pair it with all or some spells being "found" in-game.

- different types of wizards build world. Factions, tensions, zones on the map that belong to ones or others. The whole Kanto is built over making zones for each pokemon type, but the same can be said about Ravnica.

- the opportunity to create different legendary spells or magic items tailored to specific types, which can be quested for by their respective PCs. This type of "item hunting" is one of the best things you can have when you play a sandbox.

And, lets face it, I want to create something inspired by Pokemon Magic since ages. It's one of the best examples of good gameplay-oriented worldbuilding in history, and there is a lot to steal from it.

After thinking a lot about this,  I think that the correct number of schools for my project should be around four or five in the book, with around 10 spells each (lets say: 6 basic, 2 expert and 2 legendary). But instead of closing them in a wheel (as MTG does) keep it open so one could create custom schools or spells around any concept one should want (chronomancy, technomancy, etc. Sense of taste not included) while still being compatible with the existing lists. As I was doing my research, I found out that the uneven GLOG does "in spirit" much of what I am striving to do, but of course, I am going to do it my way anyways. 

So, first of all, lets see some examples of magic schools portrayed elsewhere.

You got eight of them in post-3e D&D: abjuration, alteration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, invocation, and necromancy. This particular case is interesting because types are defined mostly around their "role" in game: alteration and illusion are suited for adventuring tricks, conjuration and invocation are more suited for combat, with necromancy having a very defined use. To put it in a way, wizards are much more "pigeon holed" in what they can or cannot do.

Pokemon, on the other hand, is divided by theme (lightning, plant, water, etc) but the role of every theme is mostly the same: beat the other guy down. 

Magic the Gathering's five colors fits nicely between both examples: Colors have a solid definition in theme, and while all of them can take you to "zero life" they play wildly differently. And while they have limitations and specializations, they feel like they are built around a theme in-game and not around utility in a design room as 3e D&D does.

Ideally I want to conceive five wizard schools and try not to rip off MTG straight in the process. Five is a curious number to base something, as there are much lesser correspondences than with the number four (four directions, four elements, four seasons, four quadrants on an X/Y graph); though it is used on chinese systems (earth-metal-wood-water-fire) or japanese ones (wind-fire-water-earth-void). Also japanese use a five season calendar that divides summer into a rainy and a dry season.

So, to begin with, here is a table in which (you/I) can roll up some wizard schools. Your school spell list gets one spell for each type below, but for one that is unknown to them (roll). Two other types get one and two extra spells respectivelly, for a total of 10 spells. A school with three types of offensive spells is likely to be a very quarreling faction, while one that focus on alter the self or alchemy will look more like a sect of cultivators.

1 offensive (damage + certain status alterations)
2 healing (damage and or status alterations, including death)
3 divination (prophecy, ESP, commune-style questions, etc. Tapping into the "hidden" side of everyday things, such as travelling through mirrors or speaking with animals, also goes here)
4 summoning (other entities, forces or objects)
5 enchanting (alter things and people, also non-violent combat moves such as sleep)
6 altering the self (transformation or other power ups)
7 alchemy (preparing potions or other consumables, probably buffed in uses to compete with instant spells)
8 protection (any kind)

Now, roll two or three times for the themes of the school. These will help you give form to the spell list, and hint which forces or mythological animals power your advanced spells. Just forget for a while that these are the official pokemon types.

1. Fire
2. Water
3. Grass
4. Electric
5. Ice
6. Fighting
7. Poison
8. Ground
9. Flying
10. Psychic
11. Bug
12. Rock
13. Ghost
14. Dark
15. Dragon
16. Steel
17. Fairy
18. Normal

Suit yourself to choose what each of this words mean. Fairy in the pokemon game is used mostly as mind-alteration (which make more sense on the Psychic type IMHO) but it can be interpreted in a more open way and make it about fate, bending space and time and other works of elves and demigods. It feels natural to expand Ghost into necromantic/exorcist territory, while type: Normal is probably best used as representing animals and other beasts (druidic style)

Now roll twice for your thematic colors

1. Red
2. Blue
3. Yellow
4. Orange
5. Purple
6. Brown
7. Black
8. Green
9. Pink
10. Indigo
11. White
12. Emerald
13. Lavender
14. Turquoise
15. Gold
16. Silver
17. Bronze
18. Cyan
19. Magenta
20. Go monochromatic. You can always choose this instead of any result. If this is your only result, roll again.

EDIT: link to Dont worry, I've got a Sword where the author has worked on the same topic.

EDIT 2: 8 Schools of Magic by Reckless Dweomer

source (a game called wizards of unica)

The Gender of Magic

It came upon me that there are two kinds of magic users. 

There is one kind that goes out exploring, learns spells and throws fireballs from a staff. This is the one we model in D&D. They activelly seek to get into the monster's lair and take out their magic loot. This is Gandalf, this is the Dying Earth guys and also any wizard you see casting Bolt2 in Final Fantasy games. You can even argue that White mages and Priests from Dragon Quest belong to this group. Kvothe from The Kingkiller Chronicles does not have a staff, but it's otherwise a perfect example. Their magics are visible and obvious; immediate. They often embody the concept of Glass Cannon (fragile but potent combatants), but still a cannon. They are the Yang (or male) side of the casters, and we usually call them wizards. They often learn their craft by reading books in posh wizard colleges or equivalents and in their extreme variant do not require any special inner wisdom: just memorizing shit and repeat some words boldly. Their magic tends to have very clear rules for casting, very scientific with little mysticism.

The Yin (Female) kind also appears much in fantasy, but rarely in the form of main characters. Yin implies a degree of passiveness, so they are not specially suited to star in an adventure book, though they might fit better on more introvert, small-scoped novellas. Yin magic users do not cast flashy spells, but rather do things like influencing others or preparing potions. They are not usually adventurous but stay at home; sometimes for years or for life, improving their magical skills often in solitude. Their magic is not "shot" but instead often requires a degree of intimacy. It also works subtler and slower: they seduce, think, trick, deceive and plot to get their goals, to the point that sometimes it's not clear where the manipulation begins and the magic ends. We usually call this casters witches, and when they appear in a story is very likely that they are helping characters or villains. Rhea de Coos, Malefica, or the Fairy Godmother. Though they're often women, some male mages in fiction embody this archetype, for example Merlin in his mentor facet, Flagg from Eyes of the Dragon or Jafar from Aladdin.

In rpg games we usually play wizards. I don't think there is nothing bad at it: they just work better for what D&D does. Playing a witch is a little more difficult. Mind that if what she does in-game is to shoot elemental spells and go killing monsters 4 loot you are essentially playing a female wizard. The very act of being an adventurer is Yang on itself, while Yin would be concerned to introspection and travelling "the world inside you" (which can be awesome on itself but not an usual part of D&D). Yin wizards are present as NPCs such as antagonists, the alchemist hirelings or the potion sellers. 

But as the Tao shows, Yin holds Yang inside and viceversa. So every single thing, and every magic user in existance has, of course, a little bit of both. To traduce this to rpg mechanics: If we assume both approaches of caster to be the same class (Magic User), how likely is that a Wizard can cast lots of spells, but require an alchemist to prepare a potion for them? and how likely is that said alchemist has researched lots of potions that are EVIDENTLY MAGICAL, but hasn't cared of learning a single level 1 spell? I think that the lines should blurr a bit in there. Still struggling to make my "perfect" magic system/class, and got stuck thinking about this. Ideally, a class should let you advance your character on either field, instead of making you choose between artificially created distinctions like "the Wizard class" or "the Alchemist/witch class". I've found this documents that might serve as inspiration in future attempts to create it. The challenge is that the more you push a character to become a "brewer" you put more emphasis on downtime, which might not sync well with the biorrhytm of the rest of the party. 

There are, of course, some tricks like making potions "quantum" (as in, you are given X potion points each downtime, then you spend one point to produce a potion that "you always carried with you"). To make this ability organically mixed with the "fireball gun", magic users could choose to learn a potion recipe instead of a spell, with potions being more potent than level 1 spells, but not more than level 3 spells. This way one could advance freely between the wizard and witch concepts, while having a good reason to specialize in potions at the start of the game (more potency in exchange of more complexity) and a good reason to not do it (more spells, in the end they might be more useful, you never know). Also with spells get more powerful the more level you have (such as magic missile) it might compensate little at the start, but a lot when you are level 10 or more. 

And, for closing, let me ask you a question: do you feel that you have ever played a "witch", in the Yin sense of word?

Magic system sketch v2

After all this time, I've still haven't found a magic system that I like 100%. This is the current iteration I am working now. Numbers are made to fit with this other previous work, though they can work with any rules using roll-under, under a magic stat such as wisdom or intelligence.

Wizards grow in 2 fields:

# of Spells and Magical skill

There is a magic skill, lets say X in 6, that grows as the wizard gets more powerful. 

Using certain magic items (like oracles) passive reactions (like detect magic) or small magic effects (cantrips) uses a roll of this to work. Wands also use this as primary factor of power, I will explain soon. 

# of Spells is very reduced, even though if spells themselves are more "versatile" and should not have a single, ultra-specific effect.I want to limit it to four or five even in very powerful wizards. More spectrum is added by gathering items (jewels, wands, etc) that allow casters to have more repertoire. This magic items are not too overpowered because they need a good magic skill score to work, so it is fine. It is hinted in the books that Gandalf uses fire thanks to the elven ring he carries; so wizards having lots of power and not many spells has basis on the holy fantasy books.

This is a hint on how this could work:

Lets say you have a spell list of 2: Heal and Cold

You use the Cold spell to deal damage, so you roll 1d6 and check your magic score (3)

If you roll under or equal your score, you take that number of HD from your enemy or enemies (you decide how this damage is divided). Lets say that the Cold spell has a side effect or alternate effect of slowing enemies down: then everyone affected rolls a save or is paralyzed. At 0 HD they are frozen permanently until defrosted. 

Having more level or good gear might increase the number of dice you roll: If you roll multiple d6, treat them separatelly

If you roll OVER your magic score, then the result is assumed to be equal to your magic score (3) but either the spell is lost if all dice are over (like a vancian system) or you lose magic die which roll over (making energy decrease instead, instead of making spells deplete separatelly)

Depending on the spell, the number rolled can be interpreted as HD of damage, yards, meters, possible individual targets or just an abstract degree of effect (up to the GM to decide the spectrum of effects on all results from 1 to 6). 

A very interesting interpretation could be to make a spell (for example, CHARM) be able to target a monster with HD equal to [number rolled + wizard HD]. So the spell always works with monsters under the wizard's HD, and makes a nice progression for spells to grow up in power as the wizard does (per BX rules, sleep, charm or hold person have hard caps on which monsters can be affected based on HD or size, but seem a little arbitrary and make you wonder: why is a dragon never affected by a sleep spell, EVER, no matter the wizard's skill? it seems something that could happen on a fairy tale. Why not in a D&D game?

So, wizards get exponentially better as they raise their magic score, which is something I activelly want. My idea is to make multiclassing possible, but mathematically sub-par. Having one fighter and one wizard should render more "powerful" characters than having two fighting-wizards, even if the latter might be useful in some situations. 

Having made this, only one more task remains: to make a provisional spell list to be tested, and deciding what kind of effects can be used as cantrips or produced on a different way.

One idea is that both HEAL and COLD, as do FIRE or BOLT, can produce light under certain conditions (for example, when used by a "magic score=3" wizard who is carrying a wand). This way, you can have spells produce lights of different colors depending on the wizard's favored powers (just like jedis have different lightsabers)

Another one is that spells give you both active and passive abilities.

Having mastered the HEAL spell means that you must be a very lawful or righteous person, so you have a +1 to turn undead.

Having mastered the COLD spell might give you a passive resistance to cold temperatures, and so on. 

Ah! I almost forgot: Wands allow certain effects (such as light) but magically imbued wands give you an extra d6 when rolling to their favored spells (Wand of cold gives you an extra 1d6 when casting cold, for example). This die never depletes unless you are one of those sick people who makes wands a depleting resource.

Here is a big good list of spells alongside the cantrips/passive bonuses they grant to the caster that memorizes them. While I make my own list (the real tough work) this can serve as inspiration

initiative without rolls

 

Happy new year! it feels like its been a long time without posting. Or maybe its just my feeling. This blog has been boosted like x 10 in visitors since Alex Schroeder mentioned me in his blog (its not like I had many before lol) and I should be making only hIgH qUaLiTy posts from now on. 

I want to take an entry to talk about my initiative houserule, and why I like it so much.

Basically, unless there is surprise, initiative goes to the side whose has the single member with more max HP, and only in case of a tie I randomize it.

Additionally to this, I don't do the "one side acts, then the other side acts" thought it would work perfectly I guess. I complicate it a little further by making the side who acts choose one member which acts (for the monsters, the GM chooses) and then, after the action, a member of the other side acts; and this goes on until everyone involved has taken its turn. Arrows and Spells can be shot reactivelly (spells require an armor-based roll to work in time) but doing so it consumes the turn of the shooter/caster.

I've been playing like this in my last campaign and I've accostumed myself a lot to it; to the point that I don't think I am going back. Combat is much more swift (much more combined with the "no damage, just take a Hit Die" houserule), and also it makes interesting effects in game: 

Having a Fighter in the party is suddently much more important. His instincts help everyone to take the lead on a fight, even if he doesn't fight himself: Maybe he just grabs the initiative so the thief can do something first. Tougher monsters are also scarier, because their sheer "speed". Suddently it also matters in which turn of the watch the monster appears: if the fighter is asleep, the monster can get a great advantage.

The "alternate sides" thing also adds an element of strategy for the players, something that its often missing from combat when a game makes the fights a little bit abstracted. Using this (also abstract) ways to control combat gives PCs more buttons to press which, in my opinion, adds a +1 to old D&D.

Sometimes I like to distinguish swords from the other weapons because they add a little bonus to HP only for initiative purposes. They are the weapon of heroes after all.

And thats it. 

I want to note that it is also possible to make a much more gamist initiative without rolls, and I found out by playing pokémon this last weeks.

In the GBA games, initiative works like this: both trainers choose their movement at the same time, then the pokemon with most speed acts first. Stats are very granular, so having a tie is very rare.

Certain movements have priority over others, regardless of speed. For example, taking a potion or changing pokemon goes always before any attacks (there is but one attack AFAIK that specifically strikes before retiring the pokemon). Some attacks have a "quick" tag that makes them go before the enemy, and there are slow attacks too, which work the opposite way.

It could very easily be ported to tabletop by assigning a sort of speed stat (dexterity is the easiest) and then listing which kind of actions have priority over others. This very choice can lead to very different combat systems and tones (for example, if healing has priority over attacking, if spells go first or last, etc). 

Offtopic: If you speak or understand spanish and like the game, I reccomend you this awesome Team Rocket Edition hack by Dragonsden. You play as a Team Rocket recruit acting parallel to Red and Blue in the original Game Boy games. The lore of the game is so good that its really a pity that its not "official", I am really enjoying it!

make your own anime

I want to test the rpg principles I talked about on the previous entry, and I needed a spark. So I re-made an old table for making your own anime; and then I will try to make an RPG out of it! hahaha. 

If you want to join, cross the first letter of your last name with the month you were born and find out yours. Write a short summary of the plot and describe 3 to 5 main characters (you can use behindthename for finding some names quick). The idea is that if Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop could hypotetically be made rolling on a similar table, we can come up with similarly awesome 26 episode animes.

Asteroid	January: Gospel
Barrel roll	February: Serenade
Cultist	March: Noir Jazz
Dragon	April: Mantra
Emerald	May: Boogie
Frontier	June: Fugue
Galley	July: Sōkyoku
Hadou-ken	August: Blastbeat
Istari	September: Synthwave
Judoka	October: Shoegaze
Kaiju	November: Blues
Lancer	December: Dub
Midgar
Ninja
Oasis
Pyramid
Qilin
Raygun
Shoggoth
Transhuman
Underworld
Valkyrie
Witching hour
XI century
Ys (city of)
Zombie

I will roll with a dice myself, because I already set up the table knowing my own month and name lol. Optionally, you can add the words Hotel or Squad to whatever name you get, after or instead the second word. Post results!

Why OSR

The best thing for me about Old D&D and its clones (and what brings them over any other games) is, in my opinion, how they are the only rpgs that care about procedural game generation. That is: you have a looping mechanic that keeps the game forward, by the chemical reaction of the PC's advancement rules (XP for gold) and the dungeon stocking chart (or hexcrawl generation chart). As long as you have this, there is a game going on. 

This allows the GM to wholeheartedly assume the role of a "referee", instead of burdening him with the tasks of being an Omniscient God, a plot writer, a world builder, a wise mathematical balancer and fun enforcer. I'd say even more: He is allowed to be all these things whenever he wants (you can build a dungeon manually, or even build a complex, dungeon-less adventure) but you are not forced to. If the players go on an unexpected way, or if you don't feel creative at any moment, you can just fall back on the pure game: let them do it! it is built for that. In a sense, (old) D&D is the only rpg that provides you the game rules AND the game.

This is something that all the 90s books that came after failed to understand. Games like L5R or Vampire give you only the game rules. Then they give you a 300 page lore brick, from which the GM must make the game himself, having to rely on "mission" based sessions to play. Well, this is not something impossible to do: I'm sure there were and will be many successful campaigns with that! but it lacks the mechanical structure to support the game on itself and the point of playing it becomes abstracted or null once the GM pulls the foot 1 gram from the gas pedal. In a sense they are exponentially much more "GM demanding", specially if you are not heavily invested into their worlds. (This, of course, is something that capitalism fixed quickly by selling you modules and splatbooks). 

This doesn't even make them better suited for story-based games. Actually I think D&D is still better at it: you dont have the pressure to control everything, which in turn opens the possibility of a sandbox and freedom of choice for the players. This makes any plots you actually want to use a nice story to be explored and played with, instead of a fragile railroad that must be protected against the player's actions. And, underneath all of it, you feel that you are in a fair fight against the odds, with no helding hands by the GM. This is, for me, what makes the OSR distinct and OD&D the king of rpgs.

I'm not saying that it is the only way, though. I am sure that mission-based games could be systematized too. The core could look like a mission generator that would... (just brainstorming);

a) generate quests appropiate for the PCs and tone of the game; maybe even let them choose between various missions; each one with some definite "end state", whether succesful or not.
b) generate as many details of the whole quest as possible, prioritizing the spots that the game wants to show or test. Some games might allow or even encourage player's input on what is going to appear
c) a mechanic that determines how does your character and/or the world change after the quest is done or failed. This can take the shape of leveling up, something more or something else (game-world progress based on character actions is something that is rarely coded in rules, and I make this note for myself in order to explore this in the future)

DnD 5e and many allegedly OSR hacks such as Knave, Maze Rats, etc also fall in the second type of games. The case of Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition is specially painful as the game is 300+ pages long and manages to cover neither mechanics for the game loop nor a setting, beyond the implied on the monster manual. Its just rules and rules and rules but no real structure behind it. (I frankly cannot understand how people manages to play it without handwaving 90% of it). 

I have loved, still love and even made some ultra light rpgs (I use to collect all PDFs I can find); but after this revelation I realized that most of them make no attempt to provide gameplay beyond Character Creation + Combat + Skill checks. Which again, can be good and can work with a GM wanting to do all the rest, but now I feel as a designer that focusing the same amount of rules in mechanically enabling a specific biorhythm is much more interesting. You can change or adapt the resolution system of any game and make it work much the same (for example, the 2d6 hacks of D&D or using point buy vs random generation) and while the chances of success/defeat could vary, the nature of the campaign would not. 

This is why I think the term CORE RULES suits better my idea (the rules that enable the intended biorhythm and create game) than the idea of conflict resolution rules: A core is something deep that cannot be changed without changing the whole thing in the process. 

To close this post, I will run over some games (no particular order or reason) and see which of their mechanics are centered on bringing the game forward, which in my opinion is their most important rule:

Everyone Is John uses the other players actions as the current player's obstacles, so the game is actually generated by your friends. The core rules are those that focus on switching the control of John. Conga Mummies is a boardgame version of this approach.

Ghost Lines has got a very nice mission based generator that activates once the PCs get side jobs. The actual ghosts are generated collectivelly by asking questions to the players. It also features an astonishing collection of missions, ghosts, employeers, city events, implied setting, etc for a game so small, Definitely an inspiration to have as reference. Check out this fan-made variation using chtulhu dark's resolution system to further prove my point that the core rules of a game are not related to action checks, but for content generation. Some other games like Lasers and Feelings also uses a random mission maker but doesnt really create a solid framework beyond an oracular prompt.

Lady Blackbird, by the same author as above, uses a really cool way of unlocking character abilities: You all play named, premade characters; and advance in power by advancing your personal plot towards certain points, so it makes gamist fucks like me to advance the plot whether you like it or not, making also things change for the world and everybody.

Ryuutama has a clunky and weirdly complex unique way of handling most things (stamina, travel, magic), with the GM ability to influence the outcomes of the party in the shape of a ryuujin (dragon spirit guide more or less) being a really, really cool and original thing. But none of them answer once the pcs ask: "What now?". The game has prepared for that with another sub-section: The collective city and world builder guide, and the adventure writing guide (basically guidelines on how to write an "episode" of which the PCs will be part). 

Apocalypse World and its derivatives use the list of fronts, which trigger sometimes on failed moves, and a set of principles which act as a subjective proxy for "genre fairness" (evidently we are all human and might interpret principles differently). While this can certainly work, it becomes much more streamlined and concise on small PBTA games such as Sagas of the Icelanders than in more generic like Dungeon World, as the moves they invoke on a failure tend to be more specific and carry more narrative weight. Check World of Apocalypse for an actual flowchart of the game pace.

Into the Odd (full edition) has a similar approach to B/X, but with advancement being earned each mission (the game defines a mission as "going out and returning with something worth showing"). Curiously, the One page edition of ITO has a very cool dungeon and random encounter generators that can completely map your first quest; and might serve as a base to build new generators for the next ones.

And, making a callback to a recent entry, Pokethulu might pull you in for the very sake of catching new pokethulhus, (much like the original game, that is what I call faithful adapting), so as long as a monster exists and the PCs want to catch it, you only have to put it somewhere on the map, then put more trouble on the way. Still, in my opinion its a game that would really benefit of having random encounter tables, proper hexcrawl rules adapted to pokemon travelling speeds and capabilities (like flight, swim, run, dimension bending or others, really, this could be awesome) and little more power granularity between monsters. But maybe I will take care of it someday. I guess that their creators never thought that somebody would ever take so seriuously what they believed to be a joke game!

Basically we can conclude that there are (at least) four ways from which game content can be brought to the table: 

1.Procedural generation

2. Taken straight from a book (such as monster manuals, using a pre-written adventure or following Pendragon's campaign straight)

3. Created communally by the table or 

4. Leave it to be created by the GM, this last one being the most used by commercial and indie rpgs alike, with more or less "guidance" from the book.

This methods of course can be mixed in different proportions for different games. I invite you to think how does your game (or a game you like) does it and post it, so we expand this list in the comments

wilderness (pointcrawls vs hexcrawls vs squarecrawls)

On my last sessions I had not hexed paper and I had no patience to draw a map hex by hex, so I made a bunch of vertical and horizontal lines and used a square grid instead.

Its not the first time I do it, and while I like the aesthetics of hexes, the truth is that squares do fine. You can assume the same size for them as you would with hexes (6 miles as the standard set by this post). You can move horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally (that takes 2 moves). It might not make much sense a priori, but hexes are not realistic either, they are a different form of abstraction. And as a gaming abstraction they work just as fine. Maybe more, as the players can verbalize their movements better in the case you don't want to share your map with them. North! South! East! West! 

I also tested something for simplifying movement that I wanted to use, which I liked a lot and will probably stay on the game:

Movement rules: 

clear terrain/road: 3 hexes (or squares, of course)/day, or 4 if using a horse.

forest: 2 hexes/day

mountain pass: 1 hex/day

* Players can use the night's rest to travel 1 extra hex instead, if there is enough visibility to allow it; but penalties for not resting might appear

* Weather conditions such as a storm will reduce the hexes travelled by one, and might increase the chance of getting lost.

* Characters who are encumbered also reduce the travelling speed by one, and if this takes your travelling speed below 1, its up to the GM to decide if it becomes 1, becomes impossible or has a X in 6 chance of being fruitful (a fail indicates that you must rest before you finish walking the hex)

* One encounter roll per day travelled, and another one for each night passed. 

Today I have also read this and this other classic links about pointcrawls and got me thinking: Hexes and squares are just 6 and 4 path-nodes after all. Why not switch to pointcrawls and embrace a new abstraction? Well, I am studying the pros and cons of the idea, and from the top of my head, here is a list of them:

* Pointcrawls dont have to be "one location away is one step", which was my main concern. Roads can be segmented on any number of steps, as Chris Kutalik points in the first link, and every road have its own chart of dangers. You will have to sleep on the ground still in a random forgotten place sometimes.

* Getting lost can still be portrayed, it might actually be easier. If the PCs get lost, they automatically end up in another "road" that starts at their last "node", at the same segment of distance. For example:

If you are at the red dot, travelling from B to C, when you get lost, you are randomly "teleported" to any of the yellow dots. If there is a terrain type associated with that road point, GM will tell you and you will or won't be able to determine if you are lost by that description. 

* Hexcrawls fail to portray impassable barriers of smaller granularity of 6 miles. If confronted by a mountain range, it will always be passable, even if with a small travelling speed. Pointcrawls on the other hand are designed for thriving with impassable barriers. Sea, Mountains, etc. 

* Pointcrawls are faster to draw. They don't have to even be scaled in the map, as the roads take care of that, so they lend much better to make maps "artistic" (see picture below).

from The Road to El Dorado

* Though it is true that a too linear pointcrawl (see picture above) removes the players agency, one with enough bifurcations or nodes prevents this completely. "A hex is just a node with 6 paths after all", as we said earlier. 

* New paths between two nodes can be unlocked during the game, which cannot be done on a hexcrawl easily (it is hard to make an area "secret" or "locked" naturally). For example, new ways can be found just as you would a secret door (you find it on a 2 in 6 by spending time searching for the trail), maybe they are found after you have been lost in there (recovering from a "get lost" roll makes you find a shortcut through the woods), attempting something that wasnt plannned (players decide to sail down a river, and at its base they find a way that goes upwards, to where they came. This one is used a lot on old Lucas Arts adventure games) or doing something in game that unlocks the path (if you help the kobolds build that tunnel, you connect the city + the sea under the mountain)

* A pointcrawl can be drawn over a preexisting, not-gridded map by deciding its points of interest. This can also visually guide you into how does the area look, or which kind/frequency of encounters does it have. For example, in this map below you can adjust encounters depending on which terrain the roads are crossing at that point.

credits: Arlin Ortiz

Of course, I'm not saying that any of this approaches are objectivelly better. All are equally valid, and one can take the one that likes best at anytime. But I think that these are enough points to prove that there is no reason to be fundamentalistic about hex-based grids, neither to say that the other approaches lack gameability. And you, dear reader, what is your personal experience? have you used this, freeform maps or any other alternative to hexes? Whats your preferred choice?