Squares vs. Hexs (and a dice/chance question)

Chance has its place in the majority of games. However, roll-and-move is usually a very bad starting place, mechanics-wise. Not because it -can't- be used well, but because it very, VERY rarely is. Instead, it is most frequently used in mainstream "designs", not because it provides interesting or variable play, but for the reason you stated- people are used to hideously dumbed-down games targeted at children, so they pop out another "roll, move, flip a card and see what happens" for every major license, and hope that people's familiarity with the mechanic and license sells the game, rather than whether that mechanic is right for the game or provides a good experience. That's not game design, that's product design. It sure does sell more units, but I definitely wouldn't say it's beneficial to the genre.

Like truekid said, movement that is entirely chance, like a single D6 roll, will not be well received in the hobby gamer community. Your suggestion of a set number of movement points to use each round is a simple solution. If you want a bit of chance in movement you might add a die roll to a base number of movements. For example movement might be 4 spaces + D4. It is probably better to modify a D6 to have two blank sides, two 1 sides, a 2 and a 3 and add your roll from that to a movement of 4 (or 5, or whatever you choose as the minimum).

I am having trouble picturing your game board. The square vs hex question seems like a valid question if you have a map players are moving across and choosing their direction (like chess or most wargames). Your description though, "...detours sending them back to the starting point..." sounds more like "Snakes and Ladders" or "Life" where players are moving along a path. If that is the case then it doesn't matter if you choose squares or hexes, and you might as well stick with squares as they are more familiar to that genre of games.

Back to movement die rolls, if your game really is more like Snakes and Ladders and the dice just tells them how far to go along the track, then your single D6 roll makes more sense. People are use to it in that kind of game. To make it more strategic though you could let them divide their movement across pawns (i.e. if you roll a 5 then one pawn could move two spaces and another three spaces). Even with that modification, don't expect much enthusiasm from hobby board gamers for a track following game. You might though make it big among popular or kids board gamers.

The set of all achievable places in a given turn on a hex board are more round: On a rectangular board, when you move by N in any direction including diagonally you may get to any field lying in a rectangle. Without diagonal moves it's another rectangle, just rotated by 45 degrees. On a hex board you get a hexagon, which feels much better.

On a rectangular board with the rule that you need 2 points for a normal move and 3 points for a diagonal move, you end up with an octagon. This could work nicely with the standard die: Having a base movement of 1 to 8 according to the unit type and rolling 1 to 6 sums up to 2 to 14, thus allowing you to move by 1 to 7 fields horizontally or vertically. For me, it's still way too random, but somebody else may like it.

Question for all: Is there a game using 2 points for a normal move and 3 points for a diagonal move?

Note that there is some distortion of distances even with hexes. Here is some image I created when discussing this a long time ago on bgg: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/744117/pelni

As for games with squares that have increased cost when moving diagonally, the only one I can remember is The Big Push (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13979/the-big-push), but I'm sure there are more.

There have also been wargames using dice for movement. I can't remember one using "roll-to-move" in a traditional sense (like described above) but Joe Miranda designed a number of games that use some variation of forcing the player to roll before moving each unit (or group of units) and look up on a table what happens, so you can have somewhat historic effects like units being forced to move towards closest enemy, run away, or stay still. Here are some example games:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/3230/wars-of-the-imperial-a...

What bothers me often about squares are the somewhat odd effects from moving along diagonals, in particular when used to move between enemy units. I know that is not always allowed. Something to consider. It can look odd if the enemy front is along a diagonal and you can simply cross it by moving diagonally between units. Same problem as area maps that have areas meeting at a corner (which is generally avoided by map designers and gamers).

On the other hand with hexes and wargames there is a well-known problem that it is easier to defend along the "hex grain" than other ways, since that allows the enemy to attack each defending unit from 2 hexes, while the other direction each can be attacked from 3. With squares there are similar effects, and they can be even worse, but it depends on if attacks can be diagonal or not. How important this is depends on the combat system and perhaps terrain.

Recommend you have a look around on different map and movement systems. Many game rulebooks are available online, and so are many good reviews. Have a look on bgg and web-grognard (www.grognard.com). No point reinventing wheels when you can borrow from existing systems.

Not sure if either of these ideas will work, but you could consider a draft or a "draw many, keep some" system. A draft would look something like everyone draws four cards, keeps one and passes the rest to their left, then picks one and passes the rest to the left, then picks one and discards the last card. Everyone gets two "hero" cards, with this example ( if you want more in the end, just start with more). This gives everyone some choice about their traits. Everyone knows something about what cards are in play which perhaps you don't want (i.e. If I see the "psychic" card, but pass it on, I know someone else might have taken that card).

Another approach to give more choice is having players draw two cards more than you want them to keep and then they must discarding two cards of their choice before the game starts.

Those are my two quick thoughts.

Picking your cards might be more suitable for beginning players, since they can first familiarise themselves with that class and the game in general, before expanding to different classes and techniques.

But you should be careful not to throw them into the deep end. It might be frustrating, having to choose from 15 different classes when you haven't a clue what either of them does or how to properly use them.