#Hexcrawl

[macguffinandco]

We're thrilled to see @ratwavegamehouse fight their way to funding Transgender Deathmatch Legend II with ripped-up knuckles and bloody lips. If you haven't heard of it, TDL2 is a badmouthed, hexcrawling, aggressively queer card-based beat-em-up TTRPG about trans wrestlers in the city of Slamchester. And boy aren't those some familiar names on a future stretch goal. :)

Go pile-drive this hyperviolent queer hexcrawl into the concrete with even more support! The next goal funds a zine of kickass playable characters written by some very talented friends, and Jonny and Sasha get to add two freaks to the roster at the £4500 stretch goal. Cheers and mayhem!

[franciscolemos]

Some OSR style hexes I made just for fun.

[ostrichmonkey-games]

First draft of the little practice micro-region Riverlands hexcrawl! The goal with this exercise was literally just to practice making and keying hexes. Thinking about the "level design" of it all, so to speak. No intention of using any of this for the final versions, but bits and pieces could pop up again!

I think I'll polish it up a little bit and toss it into the downloads of the current Riverlands zine, as a little bonus freebie.

And here's the transcription:

Prototype Hex-set

Region overive

Encounter table

Minor settlement

Biomes: tangle and minor waterway

Immediate landmarks

Fogswood: slightly haunted village

Abandoned Shrine: overgrown and untended

Marshfields: dense tangle, hard to navigate in anything but small crafts

The Trudge: slow moving waterway, clogged with plant growth, fish, and freshwater crustaceans

F1

Terrain: Marshland and minor waterway

The Trudge: Minor waterway. A slow moving, sluggish stream that meanders through the dense marshes. Overgrown reeds and other vegetation make travel by anything except small boats take twice as long. [F1, F2, F4, F5]

Trudge Encountres

Noxious algae bloom. Poisons the water the next 1/4 day stretch. May be carefully harvested and prepared for medicinal properties.

Wishmonger set up on an anchored flat-bottomed punt.

Angry swarm of marsh bees.

Riverside shrine to a local god of: 1. Rain. 2. Herons. 3. Travel. 4. Fishing. 5. Brew. 6. Floods.

Traderfolk clearly from foreign lands, their boat is entangled in a rotten mat of vegetation.

Hitchhiker covered in talismans and good luck charms. Secretly a traveling spy for the Kingfigher's Court.

Note: all of the above is in addition to the Marsh/Tangle encounters.

F1

Hidden: Overgrown wreck of a barge. Skeletal remains burried in silt and reeds. Sealed sarcophagus with talismans plastered across the top.

What's inside? This deadfall god-wood hewn coffin is miraculously sealed and watertight. Braking the seals requires a talented breaker or enough foolish drive. It is difficult, but not impossible.

F2: Fogswood

A small community built on the banks of the Trudge. Sleepy and unbothered.

Rice paddies

Ancient standing stone: Inscrutable megalith at the center of town. Surrounded by guttered candles and small offerings. Said to have been dragged here from deep within the Forest over 1,000 years ago.

Stoneside Inn: Within a stone's toss of the megalith. Small, ramshackle, but cozy enough for a night.

Spear fishers: Gather daily in the early hours before venturing into the Trudge for their catch. Can be hired as guides and have a confident knowledge of the surrounding terrain. Won't venture more than four hexes from home.

Wishmonger's Lodge: Small hut occupied by the local wishmonger. Specializes in woven-reed charms. 4/6 chance they are in residence, otherwise they are out peddling their wares.

Market. Most bustling at midweek, but never empty. Mix of local craftsmen and traveling merchants from up and down the Trudge.

Note: Include a short list of significant NPCs - name and minimal description.

F3: Abandoned Shrine -> Hidden

An old shrine dedicated to a local deity, their domains long forgotten. Nearly completely overgrown and fallen into disrepair. A scant few locals attempt to keep it clear, but fight a losing battle or a scant few locals remember the shrine, but are too elderly to manage the upkeep or No one remembers it at all.

The deity, while sluggish and dormant, has grown resentful of the locals for forgetting about it.

F3: Biome

A dense overgrown marshland cut off from the Trudge.

Rumored to be used as a hideout for pirates.

Giant mosquitos.

F4

Hidden: Band of "highwaymen" that try to extort travelers on a particularly lazy turn of the Trudge. Mostly harmless, made up of youths unhappy with the slower pace of life in the area. Led by a slightly older, charismatic asshole.

Have a stash of some coin and worthless "treasures".

Jump at exciting opportunities.

F5

Hidden: Kingfisher's Pool, a small pond nearly impossible to see from the bands of the Trudge. The calls of kingfishers ring out.

Secret: On nights of the dead moon, glimpses of the Kingfisher's Throne can be seen reflected in the pool.

2/6 chance of a Kingfisher cultist meeting at the pool at night.

[brinefathomcaves]

Aug 8: Weather on the Sunless Sea

To determine the weather on the Sunless Sea, use the weather flower above. Start at the hex marked by the star, then roll 1d6 at the start of each subsequent day and move one hex in that direction. The new hex determines that day’s weather. Note it, because it will be the basis for the following day’s roll. If a roll would take you off an edge of the hex, move to the hex on the exact opposite side of the flower.

A ship can avoid inclement weather by changing course. If it does so, use the same weather hex as the previous day, and roll again as normal the following day.

Weather Descriptions

Clear: Cloudy and dim (as is normal on the Sunless Sea)

Rainy: Light to moderate rain.

Rain of Fish: Every creature on deck takes bludgeoning damage. Possible damage to sails, railings, and decks. Unlike other weather, a rain of fish appears suddenly on an otherwise-clear day and lasts for 15-20 minutes.

Rain Storm: Heavy rain and wind. Navigation checks are made with Disadvantage.

Thunder Storm: Heavy rain and wind with thunder and lightning. Navigation checks are made with Disadvantage, small chance of ship catching fire.

Magic Storm: A thunderstorm infused with magic. Roll on the Magical Storms table below.

Dead Day: No wind for 24 hours. Otherwise clear.

Fog: Navigation checks are made with Disadvantage. Experienced Sunless Sea sailors are reluctant to sail into fog for fear they might be magical.

Magic Fog: A patch of the magical fog that surrounds the sea. A ship that sails into it is teleported to a random hex 1d3 hexes away. 

Magical Storms (d4)

The effects of magical storms are in addition to the normal effect of a thunderstorm.

Illusionary terrain makes reliable navigation impossible. The ship travels in a random direction rather than its intended course.

Giant hands composed of water rise from the sea and grab the unwary. Each hour, each creature on deck must make a Dexterity Save or be pulled overboard.

Parts of the sea are transformed into ice, rocks, slime, blood, and worse. Possible damage to the hull, and the ship’s speed is halved while in the storm.

The storm’s magic brings objects to life. 1d6 Large or smaller objects on deck become animated objects and attack the nearest non-construct creature.

(non-key rambling under the cut)

This one was made by me (too few weather flowers include rains of fish, in my humble opinion), but hex flowers as a concept were created by Goblin's Henchman.

[tbonechessor]

Hey! who here likes OSR and Hexcrawls cuz I'm looking to run a "Wolves upon the coast" game westmarches style! Meaning its a drop-in and play and try to do at least one little adventure per session.

[malcolmschmitz]

Have you ever wanted to run a globetrotting adventure in D&D, but weren't sure how to model exploration in game? You might want to look into the hexcrawl-- one of D&D's most elegant, and most overlooked, game mechanics.

I've started writing articles for TheGamer-- if you like my writing, my thoughts on tabletop, or D&D as a whole, come check this out!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Heyo, I run a lot of sandbox hexcrawl campaigns, and I was wondering if there was any setting-neutral fantasy generators I could use to help build them on the fly - especially ones that can add settlements and the like as people explore?

THEME: Hexcrawl Generators

Hello friend. When it comes to hex crawls, I understand that pre-written worlds are different from hex-crawl generators. Pre-written hex crawls can be modular, but the setting usually pretty pre-established. On the other hand, there’s plenty of world-generating games that can be pretty setting-agnostic and rather focus on providing oracles to make discovery exciting and somewhat unpredictable. So let’s tackle some of each piece of your list, and maybe we’ll find something that works!

The Undying Sands and Bottled Sea, by Games Omnivorous.

The Undying Sands is a weird desert setting in a weird format. Heavily inspired by Antiquity  and sprinkled with sci-fi elements from Mad Max and Jodorowsky’s Dune, the Undying Sands is a lost decaying civilization. Its glorious past long gone, the Sands are now a wasteland of sorts, dotted with crumbling ruins, antiquated temples, lost technology, and pristine natural wonders beyond the reach of most.

The Bottled Sea is an alternate dimension, where ships and sailors from across history are sucked inadvertently into, through strange wormholes and foul circumstance. Locked in a timeless state, the Sea is a flooded realm of buoyant wastes, coral-reefs of multiversal debris, floating wrecks, and makeshift technology, littered with sunken vestiges of a world that was or could yet be. Four factions with competing agendas vie for control over the Harborage, a suspended port city of rubble and ruin in the very centre of the endless waters.

Both of these games are modular hex tiles, so the lore is pre-written, but because the tiles are drawn randomly, nobody knows where they’ll be heading next until they get there! The games come with a GM screen full of helpful tips and information, and there will be special dungeons and encounters on certain tiles. The designers also have expansions for both of these games available in pamphlet form on their website. This can provide the random generation you’re looking for, as long as you are excited about the setting provided.

Hexcrawl Tool, by Horoscope Zine.

This is a simple tool to help you hexcrawl.

When it comes to finding something that is truly setting-agnostic, this tool is probably what you’re looking for. The tool provides two different ways to determine what lies in the next hex, and uses a simple oracle to tell you what kinds of terrain you’ll be walking into. You can use ideas from other world building games to flesh it out, or even hack it using oracles such as the Hey What’s That Planet oracle from junkgolem, or point-crawl adventures such as The Gardens of Ynn, by Dying Stylishly games. 

The creator has a number of their own system-neutral sandboxes and dungeons, so you can also browse their shop for ideas!

Gen:Hex by marchcrow.

Gen:Hex is a two-page sheet that has several tables to help you generate exotic locales, storied cities, fascinating NPCs and more - on the go! Fits nicely in the back of an A5 journal. Can be used for solo RPG play or collaborative. The parts aren't interlocking so you can use what helps you propel your story forward. 

This is perhaps the best-fitting oracle for some of the above hex map generators, allowing you to fill in the gaps that you’ll find with some of the other generators on this list. It’s two pages of tables with lists of encounters, landscapes, features, troubles and more. 

Hex Kit, by Cone of Negative Energy.

Hex Kit is a multi-platform desktop application for building hex maps to be used with table top role playing games. Rather than being bogged down by features and complications, Hex Kit is built to be intuitive and quick to use with an emphasis on art.

This is an application, rather than a game, so it’s probably more useful for making your hex look uniform in some way after you generate it. The application comes with a number of basic tools, but the creator’s storefront has a number of additional tiles that you can import, and you can get additional hexes from other creators, such as the HPS Cartography Kit, and The Tiles of Xark, by Highland Paranormal Society.

These tools don’t come with oracles for the hexes - it’s up to you to decide what each hex means. If you want to see something that makes use of this application (and you want some random tables), you can check out Hexception, a mega-hexcrawl by kumada1.

If you bought the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality back in 2020, you already own Hex Kit and HPS Cartography Kit!

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Wonderfall, by Catscratcher Studio. (Technically solo but has great generators for locations, encounters, people and quests.)

[labyrinthlurker]

Currently Soloing: The Dark of Swordfish Islands. Hands down one the best settings/adventures/format ever made. Using Maze Rats by Questing Beast (Ben Milton) as the core rule set,

[fishrpg]

Coming this June on FishRPG...

The random table of genres has chosen cyberpunk as the theme for June. One of the writing projects that has been kicking around in my head for a few years ago is a novel based in a cyberpunk city, but I've been putting it off because the specific premise required a detailed understanding of the city's infrastructure and construction before I could actually write the story (which, funnily enough, came to me in a very vivid dream). So I'm using June as an excuse to finally put some details to this fictional city. I'm still trying to figure out how I'll structure the posts this month, but I'm looking forward to having a series of posts I can look back for my writing.

Hope you enjoy reading about capitalism killing the world!

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Image credit is a piece of concept art for the original Blade Runner by Syd Mead

[aohendo]

Have I gotten distracted from writing?

Yes.

Am I enjoying myself?

Also yes.

Board game pieces y’all. Great times

[tkilian]

Hexcrawling

[macguffinandco]

Everyone loves a beach episode! So we assume everyone will also love a beach hex-crawl adventure. Botany Beach is our system-neutral hex-crawling one-shot, dropping tomorrow on a MacGuffin & Co patreon page near you!

[basilisika]

i made a magical girl supplement, with 6 classes, 18 items, and a hexcrawl for the game bastards. !

find it here!

[cleverartcollection]

Valentyne, Knight of Hell and the PC of my friend, who will be playing in a hexcrawl alongside Percy

Details and flats:

[brinefathomcaves]

Brinefathom Caves Level 4, Week 9

Tombstone Island (7, 0) The Brimstone Caverns under it

The Dead Volcano (12, 7)

The Lonely Marshes (14, 2)

Isle of the Stones (16, 13)

The Ruined Temple (19, 16)

[drakeanddice]

Encounter decks. Vague but evocative prompts (with a picklist of details? With attached qualifying questions?) of various suits, shuffled together and dealt into an array for hexcrawl exploration. Like, each hex is an arrangement of dealt cards that you move through. Might be hazards, might be cool discoveries, might be resources to aid in your journey.

There is juice here. I can feel it. I'm going to drill down.

It's an overengineered, baroque, Drakensteined encounter table, no question. Harder to write, too. But the idea of deckbuilding a hexcrawl region on the fly holds just a little something that I can't help but imagine would be fun as hell at the table.

Really just trying to fall in love with hexes again. Point-crawls are the superior frame for exploration as it stands now.