The first in a series of posts whereby I discuss the merits of the old school hexcrawl.
In new school era games (3e, 3.5, 4e, etc.) when PCs are expected to travel long distances to get to their next destination, it might be typical for a DM to say "after a week long travel you all arrive at 'destination x,' subtract a week's rations," for the sake of "moving the story along." That's fine and dandy and all, and maybe the players want that at times, but let's face it, in a world of medieval/weird/apocalyptic fantasy, "getting there" is half the battle. That's the difference between the old school game and the new school era, video game centric scaled "encounters" in modern RPGs. In the old school, it's not always about the destination, but more about the journey. After all, in a fantastic setting peopled with monsters and magic, all kind of things can happen when the PCs are moving through the wilderness, even if they take a populated and well traveled road.
In my present game, it won't be long before the party gets a clue to what will likely be their next destination, should they follow that path of course. They could certainly choose to ignore it, but most likely they won't. As such, the journey will take them almost a month, on horseback, even if they take the main road. In a world of fantasy, a lot can happen in a month's time. So, in essence, they'll be doing some hexcrawling for a while. Maybe even a few entire game sessions. A lot can happen on the way to town.
Hexcrawling has been covered in great detail all over the OSR blogging world. There is already a wealth of information on the subject. While some may argue semantics, at its heart hexcrawling is similar to dungeon crawling, except the "crawl" takes place above ground, often in wild, and relative uncivilized lands where lots of interesting things might happen. It becomes even more dangerous at times than the dungeon crawl, with the probability of getting lost, running out of food, or encountering creatures and people well above the level of the party.
If handled properly, a wilderness hexcrawl can be an exciting and engaging part of your campaign that will be just as enjoyable (maybe even moreso) than the "story" you have presented them with. So, here is my take on the hexcrawl, some pointers on how to make it engaging, and keep your players' interest in the game.
First, the basic elements of what you need for a hexcrawl are pretty much considered universal.
- A numbered hexmap of the area (preferably with hexes representing 5 or 6 miles...I like to use 6 miles) with various land and terrain features like hills, plains, scrublands, marshes, forests, mountains, radioactive volcanoes, or whatever suits your flavor.
- Populate the hexmap with some interesting locations/events the PCs will discover if they enter the hex. Basically you're creating a key corresponding to the number of the hex you want the feature to be located in. Obviously, at first you want to focus on the immediate areas around the hex your party will start from. There is no need to fully flesh out some ancient ruin 20 hexes away which your PCs might never encounter. Keep focused on what's immediately ahead of you for the time being, as it will save you hours of unnecessary prep time. When you're initially doing this, just make small notes about the features, and worry about fleshing out major details, drawing dungeon maps, etc. until later on. In some cases, you're just going to have to wing it.
- Create random encounter tables. Depending on the terrain or area, you might roll for an encounter 3 times a day or 6 times. This is usually up to the DM to determine, although there are guides for such. The 2e DMG has a table which gives the encounter chance, number of encounters to roll per day and what not based on the terrain type the PCs are passing through. Random encounter tables can be simple with say only 6 options if triggered, or as complex as 100. This is up to you. Obviously the less time you spend on the encounter tables, the less diverse the random encounters will be.
Traveling over long distances for PCs can be tedious. It's up to the DM to keep things entertaining and engaging for the players. Random encounters or hex features designed for your party to find should be engaging for some reason. Perhaps the PCs will discover a village in the next hex they travel to. But let's say that village is cursed, and its citizens can't leave the village. The PCs can investigate and maybe find the source of the curse lies in a barrow just outside of town. Perhaps they'll be led to free the village from the curse at the rumor of some hidden treasure in the barrow.
These types of encounters can lead to little mini-adventures on their own, and can make the hexcrawl something the players will remember and actually WANT to be engaged in. What you want to avoid is dragging out a pointless journey with uninteresting events i.e. "you travel for half a day, you're attacked by goblins (roll out stupid pointless combat), you take up watch for the night, you encounter some wolves (roll out stupid combat), you wake up and head out again," wash, rinse and repeat...boring. Make the journey count, and make it interesting.
The Lord of the Rings was 80% hex crawl and 20% mass combat. The Mines of Moria were not really a dungeon... more of a maze with a couple of more-or-less planned encounters.
ReplyDeleteMost people ignore wilderness because the were explicitly trained to do so in their basic sets. It warms my heart that Gary created a playable square-crawl for B2 anyway....
The expert set really is all about the wilderness campaign, but I think most teenagers back in the day were mainly keen on new levels, spells, and monsters. I think the Isle of Dread is supposed to be the last "okay, you arrive" moment for new campaigners.... The island is contained enough that it gives you time to get the hang of the new play style before you turn the players loose in an entire world....
For me, hex-crawl outdoor campaigning is the best way for newer DMs to try out (and hopefully embrace) the old-school style of random generation play. Random generation in a dungeon crawl is easy enough to do, but can create logistical problems when incompatible creatures start stacking up and the DM needs to make sense of it (“Okay, so the otyugh has been living next to that group of pixies all this time because… ummm…”). In a hex crawl, every hex is its own environment, so that the contrast between encounters can be as much a defining trademark of the locale as the encounters themselves. If the dice show a gnoll attack one day and an orc ambush the following day, you get to decide whether the orcs and gnolls are allies or enemies. If enemies, maybe the PCs can use the conflict along this disputed border that the dice have just de facto created to their own advantage. And so on.
ReplyDeleteI’m always a huge fan of letting the details of random encounters define the story. An example from a recent v3.x-campaign updating of “Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun” was when the dice in that adventure’s awesome wilderness component turned up ogres twice in three days. The party broke off combat the first time, so when the ogres came up again, i decided on the spur of the moment that these were the same ogres — no longer a random encounter but a pair of recurring foes actively pursuing the party out of sheer spite. It created a great and unexpected sense of tension as the PCs searched for the location of the temple, making them worry not only about what lie ahead but about what might be coming up behind them.
Scott, I think the ogre thing is an awesome example of how the hexcrawl can make the world come to life for the players. Random generation in the game can really help the DM in ways he might not have expected in the campaign. Your ogres are a great example of this.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree completely about the hex being its own environment and how the areas and places have an impact on the overall story.
I never played the Forgotten Temple module, but I loved the wilderness map for it.
"In new school era games (3e, 3.5, 4e, etc.) when PCs are expected to travel long distances to get to their next destination, it might be typical for a DM to say "after a week long travel you all arrive at 'destination x,' subtract a week's rations," for the sake of "moving the story along."
ReplyDeleteIm not sure where this comes from, or if you've ever played 3e with the same group of people you normally play with. Would YOUR group play 3e this way? Dosen't sound like it,so what makes you assume the rest of us do? I'm sure at least half of the old school crowd play the way you describe, just as their are many people who play 3e that hex crawl etc.
A lot of people who say these things about 3e don't seem to have read the beginning parts of the DMG or the early modules. Sure the game play chagned over the years, but at its inception 3e wasn't too far off from 2e AD&D.
Ozreth, notice I said "it might be typical." Key word there being "might." The point of the statement was how the idea of moving through and exploring the wilderness environment was a staple in early editions of the game, and became more of a hassle in newer iterations when it's more important for them to move on to the next planned encounter in the railroady module.
DeleteAside from that, the point of the article isn't to argue or debate about new school vs old school, but to provide beginner advice to GMs who are interested in developing hex crawls. I couldn't care less what edition anyone plays, and I have argued before that just because someone plays newer versions of the game doesn't mean that these sort of old school approaches are impossible.
DeleteI know, but it seems that most people who aren't trying to argue or debate start their posts with some sort of subtle bait, even when they don't mean to. And hexcrawling wasn't a staple in old school games either, it was more prominent, but definitely not a staple. A couple of supplements came with a grid and other than that it was hardly talked about or explained. I don't think it was until a few years ago when the OSR started to really hit its stride that people looked back at the hexcrawl and started to make it something it never was, just like we seem to do with all of the older elements.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I love 2e and C&C and play both, so I'm on board with you. I'm just tired of the exaggerated old schoolisms and overblown nostalgia : p
Well, I most certainly wasn't trying to bait anyone. I'd say in the earliest iterations of the game, when it was all about getting to the dungeon, the "hexcrawl" was not as important, but it most certainly was staple in AD&D. Or at least overland movement in the wilderness was. The "hexcrawl" is really just adventurers randomly exploring the wilderness, but even overland movement from point A to point B had the potential danger of the wilderness be it handled with hex grids or some other method.
DeleteI don't think people in the OSR are trying to make things something they never were. Even in the 1e DMG, movement via hexes and random encounters was a core part of the game. I'm sitting here with the page turned to it as I speak (pg. 47 if you, or any other reader might care to know.) So, yes it was most definitely a staple method.
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DeleteMeh, many people in the OSR would also say that miniatures and a grid weren't a staple, but that very DMG has like half a page devoted to both. I dunno, I take it all with a grain of salt : )
ReplyDeleteEverybody was young back then and were either leaving out half the rules or creating and entirely new game off the top of their heads : p