When doing a hexcrawl, how much content do you want in a hex?
Just the basic "terrain + check if there's a feature" or do you go more in-depth than that?
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When doing a hexcrawl, how much content do you want in a hex?
I’ve considered holding off populating hexes with big features until a party lands in an area I feel comfortable designating it’s location (as in, land on any of these hexes and I spawn the POI)
I don't understand
He’s describing fog of war.
Doesn't seem that way to me.
>land on any of these hexes and I spawn the POI
Sounds like there's some hidden triggers? Like if the players land on hex Y then, and only then, will the feature in hex X appear? Some shit like that?
Makes no sense to me.
No he's not.
He's saying that points of interest literally don't exist on his map until he wants the players to find them. Which is cheating.
Depends entirely on the size of the hexes, compounded by map's dimension. Also, what said.
I still don't understand what that post means
0-1 obvious feature (mountain, town, grove, monastery) - publicly known and/or visible from distance
0-3 hidden features (cave, hermit, noteworthy tree, shrine) - discoverable by chance or by getting directions from someone
>0-1
>0-3
what did he mean by this
I think he means each hex should have between zero and three random things in it that you can find
Which seems kind of overkill to me, unless the hexes are very large (like 20 miles across, which some maps do in fact use)
Oh, I see. That makes sense.
>Which seems kind of overkill to me
I disagree. A maximum of 1 big obvious feature and a maximum of 3 tiny features like some cave or shrine sounds pretty reasonable to me
>Overkill
I assume that's what the 0s are for.
Empty desert obviously would not have 4 POIs, but a tile with a town might also have less obvious stuff like a witch hut, a thieves' den and an old cemetery. A tile with a mountain might have a cave or monastery. A forest might have a glade or a spring. So on.
The thing that concerns me is that I don't think it is realistic to expect any player group to continue searching a hex after they find one point of interest in it. I know I wouldn't.
I think you can fix this problem with a combination of two steps.
1) Before starting, just straight up tell them there are sometimes more than one point of interest per hex, and that they might miss out if they metagame and go "well there must be nothing else here" the moment they find something important.
2) Give them leads and hints about the other points of interest so they don't feel like they're searching around in futility looking for something interesting. Make it easy to at least get to the start of finding something interesting and let them do the rest.
or 3) searching a hex discovers all features in it
Sometimes the flow of things prevents this. You happen upon one thing at a time in order, and an encounter of some sort begins. The players would then need to keep searching. But I agree, I think if the players make it clear they're actively "searching" the hex, there's no reason they won't find whatever points of interest are there unless they are specifically hidden in a way that makes them difficult to detect.
Hm... Is it too nonsensical to reveal all features at once, and then roll for encounters only if they decide to visit each one?
I don't know about nonsensical, but I've never done it that way. Usually for each hex the players have to frick around a little and do something before whatever point of interest is there is revealed, unless it's just something completely unmissable like a city. Maybe if they got a good vantage point, like the top of a hill, and could see most of what was in the hex and spot it from a long distance, but if that's not the case I would probably have them explain what they're doing trying to find something that's there if they're searching, or just narrate the activity in that hex until they reach the first point of interest.
>5 mile hexes so you can just see into all adjacent hexes on a flat plane to describe terrain in surrounding areas and players can decide where to go
>While keying, make biome general descriptions word chart/use d30 sandbox list for at hand easy descriptions of hexes as needed
>Key hexes on 1D10
>1-5 Empty, which doesn't mean nothing is there, roll description as needed.
>6-7 Monster Lair
>8 Dungeon, can be modules or whatever
>9 Special Location with trap like characteristics like a cursed cannon with a demon trapped in it.
>10 Special Location with beneficial characteristics like a roadside saint's shrine.
>Bonk 1d3 small civilized settlements as needed onto the map at least 3 hexes from anything else, link with roads if appropriate
>Starting town and starting dungeon goes in the middle or a corner depending
I tried having something in every hex but shit got too crowded and was a lot of effort that seemed unnecessary. The open space mixed with general biome descriptions leaves room for random encounters and such.
>5 mile hexes so you can just see into all adjacent hexes
Distance to the horizon is on average 3 miles but depends on elevation.
You look from the middle out in all directions. Thus
>so you can just see into all adjacent hexes
necessarily effected by localization context like elevation.
>You look from the middle out in all directions.
>so you can just see into all adjacent hexes
>necessarily effected by localization context like elevation.
Assuming very flat terrain and good visibility, assuming a person of 6 ft in height, 3 miles is the approximate distance to the horizon. But that's rare, terrain isn't usually under these conditions surrounding elevations are usually going to make it less unless you can get up to a higher elevation.
>assuming you can adjust visibility for context like height as already mentioned
But assuming you can read is a bit much at this point.
>But assuming you can read is a bit much at this point.
At this point assuming you have any comprehension of distance at all is a bit of a stretch I doubt you've ever even walked five miles. Standing in a five mile hex and claiming to sight in to all adjacent five mile hexes tells me exactly that you have no idea what you're claiming to know.
lmao rural leaf innnawoods
you're a fricking moron
I doubt you've ever left your mom's basement.
You can always find high ground, see where you want to go, adapt from there.
Not him but you're moronic
>going to high places to see farther is moronic
keeps getting better
>You can always find high ground, see where you want to go, adapt from there.
Taking 5 mile hexes and lacking any other clues to indicate civilization such as roads it's more than feasible to hide settlements from line of sight within a hex. I live in what can be classed as a small town there is a hamlet about 1.5 miles away rooftop obstruction withstanding that area can not be seen from any point within the perimeter of the town. As another example there's a village 3 miles away, just north of my house 350 feet away is a slope that leads to a cliff, the top of which is approximately 620 ft off the ground. From the top this village can not be seen. Why? Because there's more to take in to account than just obtaining best point of elevation. There are these things called ridge lines and contours that all outdoor natural environments have which make it impossible to see beyond certain points and that is just one 5 mile hex. Claiming all round vision of a hex and its accompanying six adjacent is absurd and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of natural environment. Tbh you sound like a larping nu-osr urbanite hipster who can't grasp distance and terrain applied to non prefabricated environments.
You need an abstraction for gameplay you arrogant piece of shit. 5 mile hex is the largest hex that plausibly allows you to see what's in the next hex, and being able to see into the neighboring hexes is the goal, it's a fricking goalm in and of itself. "Maybe your vision is blocked by slopes" b***h, maybe you can choke on a dog's dick and die.
I agree, hexes are an useful abstraction for gameplay.
However this abstraction _usually_ doesn't play nice with the rest of the system which measures movements in miles (instead of hexes) and when including terrain, encumbrance and mount modifiers you're likely to end up having to count miles within the hex, missing the entire point of the abstraction in the first place. This gets worse when you have mismatched scales or try to correct the hex sizes on your map.
Now since it is an abstraction after all, why make it big enough so that you can't see nearby hexes realistically? As shown before you can put a lot of content in a mere 6 miles, and the advice of how much content to put in a hex is less related to how big it is and more about pacing and player expectations. Most of the time you'll see 6 mile hexes with one or two features, nothing you couldn't explain being in a smaller scale hex.
Don't forget, it doesn't also work well when the game also measures shit in squares instead of miles...
Just use squares, players are allowed to reach any of the surrounding 8 squares in the same time span, you get traditional compass square movement.
instead of hexes rather than miles*
Brain farts.
nvm, you made it even dumber with the next post
good job
>However this abstraction _usually_ doesn't play nice with the rest of the system which measures movements in miles (instead of hexes) and when including terrain, encumbrance and mount modifiers you're likely to end up having to count miles within the hex, missing the entire point of the abstraction in the first place. This gets worse when you have mismatched scales or try to correct the hex sizes on your map.
This is one of the most nogames statements in the thread.
It works fine without having to describe the trajectory through the hex, assuming it isn't a straight line because travel almost never is.
You're an idiot who likes making lots of words to sound smart.
>and being able to see into the neighboring hexes is the goal
No it isn't, where did you pick up this false impression? It has nothing to do with seeing in to neighboring hexes. Their purpose is as a DM's tool to approximate at a glance how far the adventuring party can travel in a given time.
Not even sure what you're moronic point is now. You can't see far sometimes, you can see farther at height sometimes.
Roughly from the middle you can see into everything else if its basically flat, as you're travelling through the hex you move around and see the surrounding areas.
Its cute you think you know frick about shit though.
>Not even sure what you're moronic point is now.
Let's drag you in because you aren't going to slip the net. My point was a refutation of your dumb and ignorant see all adjacent hexes assertion.
>you can see into everything else if its basically flat,
Dumb.
Nothing is 'basically flat' in natural terrain. Have you ever been outdoors?
>If the hexes are 5 miles, that means it's 2.5 miles from the center to any edge, which means the adjacent hexes are within the horizon.
As above the same answer to your previous post, you just don't get it at all.
>As above the same answer to your previous post, you just don't get it at all.
Why would you think I'm the same anon, if I responded to the original post in the chain after 7 hours of ongoing discussion? I'm an entirely new anon joining in, because the original anon's idea has merit.
Regardless; your ongoing argument also justifies not being able to see/know the terrain of the hex you're actually in, either, and yet its common abstraction to say that a given hex is wholly mountainous, or wholly hilly, or wholly flat plains, etc, with a few distinguishing features sprinkled about. If you're focusing on realism, there's no way for players to know, nor no reason for the DM to say, that the characters have entered a hilly hex without first surveying its entirety; they could have just entered the one area with a few hills, and the rest of the hex is as flat as glass.
Yes, real life terrain is highly varied and the actual horizon circle on a cartographic map more resembles a sea urchin, but the general abstraction assumes that the party is moving and observing their surroundings simultaneously as they march, thus constantly changing their view point, and thus the general rule of "you can see up to 3 miles away on flat ground" would generally hold.
If you wanted a more granular system, you could easily justify that you cannot see out of forested or valley'd hexes, you can only see the type of terrain in adjacent hexes from flat or hilly regions, and that you could see terrain up to two (or more!) hexes away in mountainous terrain, subject to which side of the mountains you entered on and which way you're going.
TL;DR: the suggestion of 5 mile hexes allowing the party to see the type of terrain in adjacent hexes is not unreasonable, as they will have a variety of vantage points as they move through the hex.
>the suggestion of 5 mile hexes allowing the party to see the type of terrain in adjacent hexes is not unreasonable,
Except I'll stress this again that was not and has never been the suggestion until this thread where someone literally just pulled that out of their ass. The intended function as always has been as an at glance gauge of how far can be traveled in an allotted time.
If the hexes are 5 miles, that means it's 2.5 miles from the center to any edge, which means the adjacent hexes are within the horizon.
>how much content do you want in a hex?
I have never done a hexcrawl, but my gamer's intuition tells me the correct way must be rolling on a big random chart of "shit that happens" where many of the options are "actually, nothing happens", and you'd have several different such charts for each different area so that some of them can be more hostile than others or just have different flavor random things going on.
What you said is very valid but it's just for events, hexes also need terrain and for something to be there that you can decide to visit or not to visit
overt feature: terrain type only
covert feature: I roll on a POI table ONLY IF the party spends time to explore the hex.
>When doing a hexcrawl, how much content do you want in a hex?
You will find people who have absolute certain opinions on this, and they often tend towards fewer features rather than more, but having run one of these my view is you want a lot. After all, if you expect your players to devote serious game time to the crawl and buy into it as the primary mode of play, it needs to deliver a constant stream of content to make it worthwhile. Otherwise they're going to get bored and look to the familiar dungeoncrawl or plot railroad to get the gameplay they want.
I go with two features per hex (a mix of small-scale items and larger more world-shaking stuff), plus random encounters.
Most hexes absolutely should not contain a feature. Hexcrawling is about the *travel*, not a continuous theme park of BINGBINGWAHOO. Look at Judges Guild's Wilderlands maps for a set of examples of perfect density. This "feature in every other hex, two features per hex" shit is absolute zero-attention-span zoomoid trash.
can you show an example? Not sure if google is showing me correct images and good examples
Sorry about the low quality Anon, tried to upload one of the maps in large format but I keep getting an Upload Failed error. Maybe because it's a TIF file?
Anyway, here's JG Map #1: City-State and Environs. I hope you can make sense of the settlements even in this fuzzy scan, and beyond those there are about 20 each of ruins/strange features and monster lairs placed on this map (but not marked, the listings just have hex numbers for those), and that's it. Five-mile hexes, 52x34.
Oh yeah, and each island is also separately keyed as a location.
thank you
Despite all this talk about zoomer trash, I think you would like the map of Forbidden Lands.
If it's for travel, then why is the standard such a huge size? You could fit the entirety of Skyrim's map (Or Oblivion's since they are similarly sized) in a 6 mile hex.
Sure, these fictional spaces are more content dense for the sake of gameplay but that's still a huge amount of land to work with! Not to mention there's multiple biomes, (rather small) cities, dungeons and other features crammed all into one hex.
Feels like you're wasting that space if you make each hex so big. Most of the time the 6 mile hex size is merely for the sake of tradition and "compatibility".
Thank you anon for providing some perspective. Most OSR grogs don't seem to have this point of reference and simply take the "Can see 3 miles out" to the table.
Remember when we all shat on skyrim?
Man, we didn't know how good we had it.
>don't you know that the maps in later Bethesda games are ludicrously shrunken?!
Yes, and? They're hardly a positive example of good map design, get back to me when you want to praise the scale of Daggerfall.
>Most of the time the 6 mile hex size is merely for the sake of tradition and "compatibility".
Wilderlands maps aren't even six-mile hexes, you dumb motherfricker.
>They're hardly a positive example of good map design
Not even a point I made. Daggerfall is pretty good though.
>Wilderlands maps aren't even six-mile hexes, you dumb motherfricker.
I said most of the time, specifically thinking about retroclones and countless other OSR systems that copy paste the 6 mile hex measure.
>Thank you anon for providing some perspective.
>Can see 3 miles out" to the table.
You're welcome and some of the time you can and even further from a point of elevation. I just wanted to highlight the point that this is far from an absolute and address the absurd assumption of being able to see in to all adjacent hexes.
You don't move in a straight line you dense motherfricker.
>then why say the middle
Because its an abstraction you should know how it works if you're so fond of the idea.
https://tao-dnd.blogspot.com/2013/03/scale-on-ground.html
>uses modern day India, one of the most overpopulated places in the world, as an example of "correct" population density
I see, I see. Now, how about you show me the version made for a world that has less than one million people on an Africa-sized continent?
Very interesting, thanks anon
>didn't read
'tard
This is actually much worse than "didn't read," in fact it's even worse than simple willful ignorance. It tries to snarkily criticize and call into question the author's supposed lack of critical thinking skills while simultaneously revealing the person who commented lacks the very thing they're criticizing. Yes, if you are generalizing the entire subcontinent of India, many places are overcrowded. But a massive land mass is bound to have examples where less densely-crowded areas exist.
Unless this person was aware of this and made this comment in jest, it's an extremely clear case of actual, genuine stupidity. Not ignorance, not laziness or carelessness... real, bonafide idiocy.
>But suppose that there were only ONE village shown. How much of the remaining shot would need to be cultivated? Answer: not much. [...] There'd be plenty of room for a party to move through it and never encounter a single human being, even if there was a village just three miles away. [...] In a hex 20 miles across, even if there were a sizeable city in it, a large party of people hunting all day could fail to find a herd of elephants, much less something small like a raiding party of half a dozen trolls.
Don't post your own blog here if you're so upset when people call you out on it being stupid.
I read it. That blog argues that a single 5-mile hex in a medieval fantasy game should contain 10+ villages/towns because modern day India, a fricking ridiculous unlivable hellhole, has that. That is a dumb and wrong argument and I'm not going to humor your moronation enough to bother explaining why.
The real question is: what's the best procedure to generate a hexmap while playing sandbox-style?
I like this one. I just override it after to fit local needs (village density, trade routes etc).
aha, neat I'll check it out
uh
anon?
Trying to make a system where you're in the Roadside Stalker zone and ride around in a vehicle and the map plays more like a Hex-based videogame where you cross lots of hexes per day and not like the small hexcrawls with maybe a dozen hexes total
Mostly tried to copy the new twilight 2k rules but I'm still having trouble making things more elegant and account for stuff like terrain that's barely passable for vehicles, using movement points instead of time but also accounting for what happens if you leave your vehicle and go on foot and a ton of other stuff I can't explain at the moment.
How many hexes should each biome be?
Question: how big are your hexes *on the grid paper that you use*?
Not talking about scale in the fantasy world (3 miles, 5 miles, etc) but size in real life.
You guys use 1-inch hexes? I even heard there's 5-hexes-per-inch but that sounds ridiculously small, how can you draw anything on those?
Roughly two hexes/inch.
Seems reasonable, yeah.
I asked because there was this notebook on Amazon that boasted about having 5 hexes per inch. And it's a product aimed at RPGs
How the hell do you use hexes that tiny??
That's roughly the scale of the included hexpaper for copying in the RC IIRC, it works fine. Just use colored pens or in a pinch draw smaller glyphs. I don't prefer it either, but that's for aesthetic reasons. A letter-size map is more practical at the table and it can have more content in the same space obviously if the hexes are smaller.
That sounds like a density I'd use for a master map, but I wouldnt use it for the session maps.
OP here: do I read all of this or is it just some bs debate
I use multiple hexmaps. Region, Building, Room.
So the world map has areas per hex, areas have "buildings" or equivilent per hex, buildings have rooms per hex.
I just follow these guidelines
https://beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/2021/11/blog-hex-crawls-simple-guide.html?m=0
Just read the first paragraph and I love it already, thanks for sharing that link, anon