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View Full Version : All about the Hexcrawl!



Ozreth
2011-01-15, 05:18 AM
SO after quite some time of trying to figure out how to replicate long journeys across land without throwing in some skill checks and a random encounter and then saying "you have made it across the forest", I have discovered the hexcrawl! Don't know how I never learned about this technique before.

Anyways, after doing some research I've got one simple question. In a game like 3.5 (or 4e) that almost always uses miniatures and battle mats to represent character and battles, how do I use the individual hexes?

This is what I have gathered: I should have a set of area maps with roads and encounters drawn out and ready for every single hex, sort of treating the forest or whatever it is like a dungeon with individual rooms. This seems like it could get tedious for 30 miles though.

So what do you do? Also, any other tips or techniques you want to drop in would be appreciated. And any other's who are interested in the topic should ask whatever comes to mind.

Thanks! : )

Tvtyrant
2011-01-15, 05:23 AM
I have done the same thing before myself, and the big issue is that it makes the world seem excruciatingly hostile. How are farmers supposed to exist in a world where every section of forest and every meadow are filled with monsters?

The best way to do it is to make certain sections like this, and have them named for the dangers in them. So say a Swamp of Hags were lots of hags live and worship a Hag-Queen. Every single inch of that swamp is hostile and dungeon like, and traversing it to get to the queen is the dungeon crawl.

Ozreth
2011-01-15, 10:59 AM
Good call. I was planning on having the majority of the hexes not contain any monster encounters but encounters of other types (puzzles, mazes, traps, conversations with locals, foraging, or even nothing at all).

So if this is the case it seems that I would just be redrawing the entire map with smaller "dungeon-like" areas for every single hex. OR is it best to randomize a lot of it since players won't even go through every hex you create?