Ye Olde Inn

Grids in stone floors are easy: Just make cracks in the stone (bricks, blocks, tiles, whatever) have cracks and grout lines that DO line up, as well as those that don't. The ones that do … are the grid.

Caverns … These tend to be more tunnel-like, which probably helps with defining spaces a bit. Grids not so much, but clear spaces for determining what's adjacent, etc. should be doable.

Wooden plank floors would look stupid with a grid … but you can make sure the lines between planks are a little more defined at regular intervals creating gridlines in one direction. In the other, make sure your planks all end on grid boundaries and … oh, just put nail holes in where they don't.

I can't come up with a reasonable "implied" grid for things that are neither man-made nor feature things like rocks… I suppose I could just draw a grid, there, done. But for everything else I can kinda make it looks like the grid isn't out of place…

Anyone stumble across a clever solution?

This topic has been discussed somewhere else on here, though perhaps not with a dedicated thread. Thanks for starting one.

The stone floor tiles are exceedingly elegant in that the movement grid is fully integrated and requires no immersion breaking modifications. Doing this in other environments is difficult and invariably results in the overlay of a grid YUCK!

The trick here is to slightly skew your geometries towards right angle deviations and integrate pattern changes, color changes, abrupt but natural looking boundaries, and shadows to make the grid appear. In 3D you can also incorporate subtle elevation changes to further assist.

Examples:
- Prominent rocks and puddles on the ground take on a take on a more triangular or square shape to define a corner / edges.
- Grass patterns shift. Some are trampled, others are blowing in another direction. Plant type changes changing color and leaf shape. Scortch marks, dead patches, weeds and roots, mushrooms and flower clusters all add up to form a subtle but unmistakable grid.
- Light patches and shadows. An elevation change / crown can give you a long edge.
- Dropped equipment and tools, can form an occasional boundary
- Ruins have nice square edges.
- Exposed tree roots in one square, dirt in the next. Roots can abruptly change direction like they encountered a barrier and define an edge.
- leaf piles and color of leaves.. and areas showing no leaves should make a good grid.
- patterns in swampy water can mimic a grid.
- in a cavern changes in lighting, rock type (texture and color).

I had wanted to try this in 3D for an outdoor setting. Elevation and pattern shifts would definine most of the grid and paint would do the rest of the work. But I play Rangers of Shadow Deep now for my outside the dungeon fix. Someday...

If you have no other excuse to differentiate squares and feel outright grid lines would be jarring and unnatural, you can always use dirt patches, piles of bones or other debris, light and shadow to do the trick in a creative way, though it will take more time to implement. Great idea above about the roots, vines or other vegetation forming the "boundaries!" Water "patterns" is a great idea too.
Dropped ropes or chains might conveniently work too. Different weathering patterns, scratches, blood spills or rocks can also do the trick.

Wood - parquet flooring!

Grass - mowed/plowed in squares (saw this solution in an old "learn about chess" book from my childhood, also reminiscent of the "Space Harrier" games).
Could also be patterns of light and shadow, like from cloud cover if you really want to be subtle.

Cavern - thin lines of stalagmites, cleverly placed cobwebs, little "streams" of water? It's stone, so cracks work here too as well as veins of minerals.

Dirt - cracks, foot or animal tracks/wagon marks... critter scat, even traced lines cut into the dirt (sometimes people draw lines in the dirt too!).

Metal - grooves, rust patterns, riveted plates, etc.

Also you could draw grids using blood trails (gross!), ooze/tar/lava, oil, water drips, candle wax, etc.

What you want to try to avoid is a grid that is just superimposed where a lot of the squares you can't actually walk on due to architecture, or a grid on top of a grid (I've seen those too, repurposed from other games I guess).

Blood Bowl has a simple cross. It gives up on trying to imply a grid, and goes for minimum interference. I think some dungeon-crawling expansions have that system too. I like it:

I imagined Blood Bowl being played on an American football style field (a la "Mutant League Football"), but there you go... and the "crosses" could be rendered variously as flowers, starfish, spiders, rock formations, crystals, blood splatters, stalagmites, skulls, etc. if you really wanted to make them seem more thematic.

They don't even have to be crosses if they're going to be obviously there. Could be dots in that case, although as the resident low vision guy, I appreciate that crosses are hard to lose in the terrain. It's just that so often those can be avoided. in dirt or dirt/grass patches, or most anything else. (To be fair it's hard to do on anything else but painted 2D water too…)

DragonStrike boards has a nice tiled grass in my opinion.
We discussed it here: Chaos Pit / Stone Bridge (remake from Ogre Horde)

Looks cool, although patterned water (or rocks in the water, foam, etc) could look better than water squares, keeping with the theme.

lestodante wrote:DragonStrike boards has a nice tiled grass in my opinion.
We discussed it here: Chaos Pit / Stone Bridge (remake from Ogre Horde)

That wasn't how I remembered it looking, but … actually you're right, I have the same on my board so yeah they did accomplish it. It doesn't look "natural", but nothing except manmade stone blocks and bricks are going to. It does work though, and it's kind of what I had in mind.