Hexcrawling and its Fundamental Use in Old School DnD Part 2

Second in my series on the hexcrawl campaign in DnD.  See the first post here.

So, most people know that the premise of the hexcrawl is pretty much a central and fundamental factor in a "sandbox" style campaign.  The sandbox being, a world within which your PCs are free to explore, plunder, and do with as they wish at their own discretion.  Now, I could go on in another entire direction here discussing the elements of the sandbox as a whole, but right now I'm just focusing on the fundamentals of a hexcrawl and the basic elements to start one.

There are hundreds of posts on forums and blogs that go into much greater detail into the fine art of designing a hexcrawl and world building than what I will offer up here.  Rob Conley, for example, has a fantastic series of posts going in depth on world building and designing your hexcrawl campaign worlds.  Even if you don't plan on using his method, I'd still highly recommend having a read through because there is a ton of valuable information in those posts.  There are others as well to be sure, and chances are if you're reading this, you have your own ideas of the best ways to go about designing a hexcrawl.  By no means is the method I am suggesting, or the advice I am offering the ONLY way to design such, it's just MY way of doing so.  It works for me.  Maybe it will work for you as well.

As I noted in my first entry, the first step is to draw a map.  Sounds pretty simple.  If you're like me, however, designing great maps can be frustrating.  I've drawn hundreds over the years, and never seem satisfied with the results.  There are all sorts of theories that go behind world building and terrain placement relative to regions, etc.  I'm just going to keep things simple for this exercise.  You might opt to sketch out a rough drawing of your map on a scrap piece of paper beforehand, or maybe you just want to wing it.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages.  I'm going to focus on designing the hexcrawl using the least amount of effort initially.  If you're like me, you already have a busy life, and while designing campaign worlds is a great way to spend your time as a hobby, you don't want to spend countless hours on world building and writing up histories and details about far away and distant lands your PCs might never encounter.  One basic rule of campaign design for me: focus on the immediate areas/regions my PCs will be engaged in prior to each session.

So, let's get right down to business then.  The first step is to get the initial hex map ready for where you're going to start the campaign.  You can either print a blank one out and draw in the details yourself, or use a program like hexographer to do it on the computer. In this exercise I'm going to just use hexographer.  Now, mind you, it will take some time playing around with this to get the full use of the program, but the free version is an excellent utility for mapmaking and comes highly recommended.

In the first step, we'll start out very basic here.  Enough to get your wheels turning and start getting you ready for that first session.  Whether you printed off a map, or are using hexographer, or any other utility, you always want to start your mapping for the campaign from the center most hex.  This way, as your players explore in whatever directions they might choose, you have plenty of room to go in and add features to your already existing map.

To make things simple, let's simply start out with 7 hexes, with each hex equal to 6 miles.  One center hex, and 6 surrounding hexes.

7 starting hexes

 In the above picture we have the central hex with the 6 surrounding hexes with grassland hills, a light forest, and a forested hills, with a river, which forks, running down the center.  Now, that we've placed our basic terrain features we need to determine what exactly are in these hexes that our adventurers are going to want to explore?  So, let's start by adding 4 basic features to the map.  A starting village (in the center hex), a ruin, a tower, and a monster lair.  Fairly basic components just to give you the idea.

Our original hexes with some areas for the PCs to explore

In the center hex, we have the village of Windholm, which sits along the river, as well as a set of ruins not far away, a monster lair in the forested hills, and a tower of some sort in the grassy hills to the south.  So already you have 4 areas for your PCs to explore, although they'll certainly focus on the 3 areas most ripe for adventure outside the starting village.  Jot down the hex number on a piece of paper, or word document and write a brief description of that hex's details.  For example:

04.04 Windholm - Small fishing village located along the Southling River.  Population 80.  Ruled by a town council of elders led by Sumerus Halfhand (LG hf9)

Of course, the above is simply an example.  You want to write out as much detail as possible in your notes.  You might want to consider drawing a map of the village, or just doing a short write-up of the major locations your PCs are likely to encounter (inns, taverns, etc.) and the NPCs they are likely to interact with.  No need to get too crazy with the details though.  It doesn't matter if Farmer Goldenwheat has a bag of 10 silver pieces hidden under a hay pile in the barn.  These things are simply filler and can be made up in the game as you go.  Focus on the important stuff, and go from there.

In the next post, I'll talk about fleshing out the areas for your party to explore, getting them to learn about the areas, and a bit about traveling to them.

Tavern Game: Rot Grub Roulette

Within the lower quarters of Blackspire it is not uncommon to find patrons of the local taverns engaged in one of the more strange of games, and one of the most dangerous; rot grub roulette.  Two players sit opposite one another, blindfolded, their left forearms exposed, with their right arm tied to the chair behind their backs.  The mediator takes 6 small wooden cylindrical containers and shuffles them back and forth on the table.  Within 5 of the small wooden containers are pairs of harmless maggots.  One of them, however, contains a pair of burrowing rot grubs. 

Each round the two men place bets and the mediator dumps the contents of one container onto one player's forearm.  The player, not knowing if he has been exposed to the rot grub or not, must wait 5 full minutes with onlookers jeering and howling along.  This process is repeated between the players with the stakes getting higher each round as one more wooden container with harmless maggots is taken away making the probability of being exposed to a grub even higher.

No onlooker may attempt to prevent a rot grub from burrowing if exposed, nor douse the player's arm with fire.  If a player manages to free his right arm and do this himself, he is immediately taken outside, beaten and cast aside as a useless craven (if the beating he suffers does not kill him.)  Indeed it is often said that it is better to die from the rot grub than to feel the merciless beating of an angry drunk Blackspire mob.

The game ends when one man decides to quit, losing all his earnings, or one man dies. 

Thursday Links from the OSRsphere - Feb. 10th, 2011

Time again for some links from around the OSR blogosphere. Enjoy.

Tenkar's Tavern - Spotlight - Sacrosanct Games $1 Old School Adventures 4 OSR adventure modules on sale for $1 each.

Risus Monkey - Monkey Maps Vol. 1  A PDF file collection of RM's first 100 dungeon geomorphs.

A Character for Every Game - d12 Pages of Awesome – Dyson’s Dodecahedron Issue 2!  A great little PDF zine created by Dyson Logos. Great stuff.

The Caffeinated Symposium - My Short-Lived Conan Campaign  A great essay on crafting and running a sandbox city based campaign. While focusing on the d20 Conan RPG as the platform, the guidance can be applied to any RPG system.

Swords Against the Outer Dark - The Science is the Dice We all know Gamescience dice are the de facto dice for old schoolery. Find out why here.

Gothridge Manor - Creating an NPC Tim discusses how he goes about designing an NPC, getting them involved with the party, and developing adventure hooks around them.

World Map: The Land of Numendyr

I'm in the process of writing a novel, or at least attempting it anyway, and in an effort to save myself hours of rewriting later, I felt it best to start out doing some world building first.  Of course, that involved designing a map of the world in which my tale will be set.  I'm currently working out the histories of the world, in a broad sense, to lead up to the point in which my novel will begin.

This is a map of the land of Numendyr, and yes, I suppose the design is very "Tolkieny," but I tried to be as original as possible in the names and places of the realms.  The style of the map is the only thing closely resembling the Tolkien high-fantasy mold.  There are no elves, dwarves, or hobbits in these lands, and magic is virtually dead.  Instead I have three human realms, the oldest organized kingdom of Coranthya, the free holds of Erderan, and a young, but growing empire called Anderos.  All three regions have been at war, and at peace, with one another at various times in their history.

I used Photoshop to create the map itself, and designed the brushes used to create the mountains, hills, and forests using sketches scanned in from my sketchbook, which gives it a very hand-drawn feel, I think.  The whole process took me a couple of weeks, working here or there.  I probably spent a total of about 10 hours on it altogether.

Click for high resolution view

The Land of Numendyr by Rob Chandler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at rwchandler.blogspot.com.

Designing the City Campaign: Part 2

In part one of this series, I discussed some basics on creating and designing the city based campaign.  I mentioned some of the key ideas you might want to think about when developing the city for your campaign.  Now, there is something to be said about pre-made supplements, maps, and the like.  These can be great tools for establishing a city based campaign, but this series is geared more towards the home brew system, and building it all from the ground up.  Continuing on, we'll use an example of a city I've developed using some of the brainstorming processes I outlined in part one.  At this point, the city is still only a very rough idea, but in the end, the result should be a fantastic and entertaining center to begin your campaign.

So, by doing some simple brainstorming I've concluded the following facts about my city:

Crestfall:

1. Large sized wooden and stone walled city (pop. 75,000) with a vareity of friendly human races, but primarily made up of humans and halflings, with a few half-elves and even fewer elves and dwarves.

2. The city is situated on the coast line of a sea.

3. The ruler of the city is a former adventurer.  He acts as merely a figurehead.  The true power in the city rests with his council, a group composed of wealthy and influential citizens, or nobles, within the city.  All of them answer to the king of the land.

4. The city's economy revolves around its trading vessels and ports which provide repairs to traveling ships and rest for travelers, shipment warehouses for merchant companies to ship various goods from across the region abroad, and a strong fishing trade.

5. The city itself is divided up into 4 districts each separated by wooden walls and gate entrances: The docks (situated along the docks and harbors of the city), the market district (the hub of business in the city and situated in its center), the upper district (home of the city's wealthy citizens, the ruler, and his council), and the south district (most of the poor peasants occupy this area.  Wood and stone houses are squeezed tightly together along winding rutted streets.  Also, home to the city's crime element)

6. The law as it applies to adventurers: Adventurers wishing to conduct their operations within the city must register with the city hall.  Weapons are not allowed at all within the upper district, and must remain sheathed within the other districts (althouth this is rarely enforced in the south district).  Adventurers calling the city home are forced to pay a tribute to the city of 5% of their earnings.

Alright, so now that I have some very basic ideas written down, I can start developing things further.  I will start with creating a few places of interest within the city.  Note, these will be brief descriptions as examples, but the more detailed your descriptions of these key places are, the better.

Magrem's Marvels and Delights

This two-story stone structure is located within the market district of the city of Crestfall.  The wooden sign out front shows an image of a wizard riding the back of a griffin.  The shop itself lies on the first floor.  It is dark and dusty, with items and books scattered about haphazardly and in seemingly no order at all.  Old Magrem sits behind the counter at the rear of the shop, usually hunched over a tome.  His shop serves many mages, and within he has many volumes on mythical creatures and spellcraft, various recipes for potions, magical scrolls, and spell components.  Despite the dank and cluttered appearance, Magrem's Marvels and Delights is one of the most popular shops for sorcerers in the land.  Magrem himself is a retired adventurer of older years.  He lives on the second floor above his shop.  It is rumored that he has a vast assortment of magical items in his personal possession and he keeps his apartment heavily warded.  Some say he has a transdimensional door which allows him to travel to various places in the land although these destinations are known only to Magrem himself.

The Harpy's Haven Inn

Located in the Docks District, the Harpy's Haven Inn serves many travelers and merchants entering the harbors of Crestfall.  The large, two story wooden structure is dimly lit and usually smoke filled.  The common room holds a large fireplace in its back corner.  Patrons enjoy a fine assortment of fish and other creatures of the sea prepared in various sauces with a fine assortment of ales and wines to choose from.  The inn is owned by one Esmelra Ravenpeake.  She is a tall, brunette beauty of middle years.  In addition to the fine meals, patrons are also offered the services of the inns many prostitutes at a fairly reasonable price. Because of the crowd it usually draws, the inn is usually guarded by four large human bouncers.  They are watchful of the patrons and protective of the prostitutes within.  Any abuse is not tolerated and those causing disturbances are quickly thrown out.  It is rumored that Esmelra is actually leader of the secretive thieve's guild although the city council has never been able to prove it.  Some say that behind the stones of her fireplace there is a secret entrance to a hidden area in the inn's basement said to be the meeting place of the ranking members of the guild.

These are two examples of important places within the city.  Once you start developing these locales, you'll find they provide nearly endless possibilities for adventure hooks.  In the next part, I'll focus on some of the more notable NPC's of my city and their influence within.  In the future I'll discuss the guilds and organizations, creating a map for the city, and fleshing out adventure hooks to get a campaign started.

Designing the City Campaign: Part 1

This is the first in a series of posts in which I will explore how to go about developing a city or urban based campaign for D&D, however most of this information could apply to OD&D, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, or various other old school, and even new school games.  This series will focus on designing the city campaign from the ground up; that is, designing the city itself and populating it with NPCs, locales, and making it all come to life.

So, before we move any further, let's define what a city campaign is exactly.  The city campaign is one in which the majority of the players' adventures take place in, or around, a particular city, or cities.  Before determining if you're going to run a city campaign, meet with your players and discuss the idea with them.  The city campaign isn't for everyone, and the last thing you want is a player upset because he feels "restricted" to adventuring within a city's walls.  If the players know beforehand, they can create their characters in a fashion more suitable for adventuring in an urban environment.

Before you set down to design your city, you must first determine what kind of city it will be.  Will it be a large metropolis (pop. of 100,000 or more), a large city (pop. of around 50,000-90,000), or a smaller city (pop. of around 10,000-40,000)?  What kind of races inhabit the city?  Where will it be located?  Perhaps at the foothill of a mountain or on the shore of a large river?  Maybe it will be a port city or one that rests on the border of a kingdom?  City placement is important, especially in building your world.  Cities tend to develop where it makes the most sense; either along a large trade route, on the coast, etc.  Think about where the city is located, and what impact it has on the world overall outside the city gates.

How is your city's government structured?  I personally recommend the independent city-state, but there are a variety of options here.  Perhaps the city is part of a larger kingdom ruled by a malevolent tyrant.  Maybe it's run by a cabal of mages or priests, or a merchant's guild.  This is an important aspect of designing your city because it offers the possibility of creating great adventure hooks for the PCs down the road.  Think about the ruling structure and how that will relate to the characters involved in the campaign.

All cities thrive on trade.  Trade is the key to civilization in the fantasy setting.  What types of goods and/or services does your city provide?  Is your city located near the base of a mountain?  Perhaps your city's primary trade is equipment crafted from ore taken from the mines outside the city?  Perhaps your city is an even greater hub for the neighboring cities around it.  Maybe merchants flock to the city's gates to sell wares from all across the lands in your vast city markets.  Maybe your city is home to the only known sorcery academy in the region and is the center of your economy.  Once you've sorted through some of these things, the picture of your city should start coming into place.  You'll be surprised at how the creative juices start flowing when you jot down just a few ideas on paper.

Most fantasy cities are divided up into different sections.  These wards and burroughs serve as a way to divide the city's lower, middle, and upper class members.  If your city is along a coast, you'll want to establish a dock ward and think of the various ways to describe it.  Maybe the dock ward is the hub of your city's industry and thus patrolled regularly by the city watch, or maybe it's a harbor for fugitives, pirates, and other villains.  Merchant or business districts are also important, as this is where most of the city's industry will take place.  These districts should contain various specialty shops which can't be found anywhere else.  This is a city, after all.  Be creative in how you divide up your city and how you determine the comings and goings within.

At this point, you'll want to consider some basic laws particular to your city.  For example, will adventurers be required to peace string their weapons upon entering?  Will they be required to register and pay taxes within the city as "adventurers?" What is the punishment for a bar room brawl?  How is your city policed?  Are the constables or city watch corrupt?  

These are some basic ideas to get you started on fleshing out a quality city campaign.  In the next few posts in this series, I'll detail how I go about filling these cities with interesting places and people, designing maps of the city, and creating some adventure hooks that your players can sink their teeth into.

World Building: A Work in Progress Part 1

Note, that this series of posts won't necessarily involve creating a world for the purposes of gaming.  Rather, this will focus on my own personal steps in developing the world for my novel and various short stories.  The world, while possible to be used for gaming, is not designed with the traditional races of elves, dwarves, halflings, and the like.  There is a strong emphasis on the medieval structure as a background of the world as in most fantasy settings, but these archetypes do not exist in my world.

Before really delving into my novel writing, and in an effort to save countless hours in rewriting, I decided it best to first establish my own world in which these stories take place.  Before doing so, I had to ask myself a few questions.  How would magic be used in this world?  What kind of races and beings occupy its forests and hollows?  How is religion used?  What kinds of governments are in place?  What does the world look like?

These were all very important questions to be sure, but where to actually start?  It can be overwhelming creating your own world, after all.  For me, it began with a map.  I pulled out a piece of paper and started drawing the map beginning with the outline of the land mass.  After this, I penciled in the mountains, forests, and streams.  Next, I populated the area with cities and villages, not naming them at this point, just placing dots on the map in places where it would make sense to have a city; along the coast, beside a river, etc.  Then I penciled in roads to connect them all.  It's amazing how inspiration can strike, when using this method.  As I was drawing the cities and connecting the roads it began to dawn on me exactly how I would answer the other questions which had been posed.

I divided this particular map I drew into three distinct lands.  From there I focused on what type of governments would be in place in each.  Would they be feudal in nature, or a series of connected city-states with their own independent governments?  As I completed the map, I then began naming the cities.  In some instances the names were based on the regions the cities and structures lay in.  I then began naming the land features.  Within only a few hours I had, at the very least, something to begin working with.

The map itself, is merely a framework.  It's a skeleton of a larger project being the world itself.  The map is simply the beginning not the end.  I believe by the time I'm finished establishing the histories and background of my world, I will probably have drawn and re-drawn this map several times. 

I'm not planning on posting the map right now simply because its little more than a sketch at this point.  When the world building is complete, I will create a high quality finalized map, or at least attempt to, and post it here on the blog.  I'm also intending to use the Obsidian Portal site to serve as a wiki for my world since it has the tools in place to serve such a purpose, despite the fact it might not be intended for it.

I'm sure quite a few of you readers of mine, being avid gamers and dungeon masters, have crafted your own worlds be it for role playing games, or for your own projects.  How have you gone about it?  What are some techniques you used and what worked easiest for you?  Did you also begin with a map first, or did you carefully craft out the histories of your world before putting pencil to paper to sketch out the realms?

In my next post in this series, I'll discuss outlining out the basic history, developing a calendar, and rules for the use of magic.