Travel and hex-crawling, part one

I've mentioned wilderness already, in The forest: trees, plants, herbs and more.
But when we talk about wilderness in OSR, we talk about hex crawling.
There is so much about hex-crawling, so many materials, different approaches, a lot of reasonable advice and many complaints, that it became a scary subject, for me - one that already could be scary enough if you compare a regional map with a dungeon map.
I'll try to present some of what I collected so far... but please remember that this is a collection of links and not an attempt to define a single, unique way to "do it right".


The first link is by Michael S. and it already acknoledges that this can be a difficult subject. It's approach, though, seems effective enough.
Try to prepare a lot of hexes and encountes, following your favourite/chosen procedure(s), in advance. Prepare the major and minor encounters, the day and night encounters, and plan ahead according to the players' plans.
The key, here: ask your players where they will go in the next session(s), so that you can prepare your materials. It's simple and smart.

HOW I DO WILDERNESS ENCOUNTERS

by Michael S

It's a popular question I see asked a lot on the forums and reddit - "How do you do wilderness travel/encounters?" "How do you do hex crawls?"

It's understandable, with a wide open outdoors map looking a lot more overwhelming to prepare for, compared to a dungeon map.

[...]

Part 1 - putting down a key. I use Welsh Piper's general approach of that each hex can have a "major" encounter/landmark and several "minor" encounters/landmarks.

[...]

Part 2 - pre-game prep. Part of the contract I have with my tabletop players is that I need to know a week in advance of their general plans for the game. That allows me to do some in-depth prep

[...] So once I know their general mission, I look at the map and their expected route. I start with "day 1" of their travel for that game. For my map, the heroes have different travel rates if they're mounted, on foot, on a road or in country.

[...] I repeat this for the entire trip. So now I have a list of what they will hit/not hit on their journey. And I know how many hexes they run through, and I'll figure out how long this all takes.

[...] Now I have a "script" of sorts of what the players will run into and when that will happen.

[...] I plan out for the entire trip or mission that they've laid out. It might take them a few sessions to do this, but it's easier for me to do it as much as once.

[...]

Part 3 - at the table.  OK, so we're playing the game.

[...]

And that's really about it.

[...]

They do have to track resources, of course and I'll remind them of that when they hit points where they stop.

[...]

Questions that I anticipate

What if the players change their mission or go off the script? What if they get lost?

Well, they understand that if they change the plan, I may need to "take a break" in order to figure out what happens [...]

What if they're truly "crawling" around a wilderness to explore?

Then I do the same exact thing, but on a hex by hex, day by day basis. It does slow things down a bit more, because I'm repeating this for each day [...]

What about weather?

Ah, I didn't want to muddy the waters with weather, but yes, weather can be an encounter. I use weather charts that lay out each day's weather 

[...]

https://chgowiz-games.blogspot.com/2019/03/how-i-do-wilderness-encounters.html

As you can see in the article, if the players go off-track, you can take your time to generate new content while at the table. Relax, nobody expects you to come up with something original, special, perfect, for every hex on a moment's notice.
Just follow your procedure(s) and do, on the fly, what you would to as game-prep in advance.


In his post, Michael S links to Welsh Piper's blog. There are a couple of posts related to hex crawling, and this first outlines a procedure on how to assign a terrain type to each hex.
The instructions are a little confusing at first, but reading the examples clarifies stuff. I would definitely prefer to prepare the map in advance, though, and not on the fly. So this sounds good for generating a random map, but only if you prepare in advance.

Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 1)
by Erin D. Smale
In my quest for rapid campaign development, I came across an elegant idea called Six sided gaming: Hex magic on Greywulf’s Microlite d20 site. [...]
Defining the campaign by its adventures—instead of the other way round—is a great time-saver and perfect for the busy GM. With Greywulf’s kind permission, I’ve expanded the concept into a slightly different approach.
[...]
The Hex Map
The underlying goal of Hex-based Campaign Design is to create a playable setting with as little effort as possible, so I recommend starting with a small map. 
[...]
Choose Climate

The first task is to determine climate. This affects the precise terrain you place in the next step.

[...]

Assign Hex Terrain

Terrain placement does not rely on a random function, since it’s too easy to end up with unrealistic results (e.g., swamps next to deserts or mountains next to plains). Besides, who wants to roll dice for each hex anyway? Instead, I assign a primary terrain type to each atlas hex, then fill in the remaining sub-hexes with related terrain types. This lets you place terrain sensibly, but with the benefit of some speed.

[...]

Scaling Up
The atlas hex on your map is 25 miles wide, which matches the hex scale on the Atlas template. When mapping on the atlas level, populate each hex with the primary terrain of each atlas hex on your sub-hex map.
[...]
https://www.welshpiper.com/hex-based-campaign-design-part-1/


In the second post of this series, Erin D. Smale goes into the main interactive feature of an hex: the (possible) encounter(s). The article is worth reading because it contains a list of very nice examples of potential encounters to place in an hex.

Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 2)

by Erin D. Smale
[...] Encounters
For our purposes, an encounter is any feature that has the potential to challenge the PCs or serve as the basis for adventure. There are two types of encounters:
- Major – large or multi-layered encounters, often the focus of the region; for the PCs, interactions with these require careful thought and planning
- Minor – small or fairly straight-forward encounters; these represent diversionary challenges for the PCs or opportunities to detail the campaign for the GM

[...]

Major Encounters

When a major encounter is indicated, roll 1d6 to determine its identity. Place the encounter in any whole sub-hex within the atlas hex and note the hex number to record its location. Recall that there is never more than one major encounter in a single atlas hex.

1. Settlement – a town or city that supports a significant population

2. Fortress – a large, fortified holding owned by a noble or self-styled lord, always with an armed garrison and (usually) a small population of civilians

[...]

Minor Encounters

Roll 1d20 on the following list for each minor encounter indicated. Distribute minor encounters throughout the hex as you see fit. As with major encounters, note the hex number of each to record its location.

1. Settlement – a village or hamlet with a small to moderate population

2. Fort – a small fortified holding owned by a noble, military leader, fighting order, or adventurer

3. Ruin – the remains of a single structure whose original purpose was (d6: 1-2 tomb, 3 holding, 4-5 other structure, 6 dwelling; 60% chance it’s a shipwreck if located in a water hex)

4. Monster – the lair of a common or uncommon creature

[...]

https://www.welshpiper.com/hex-based-campaign-design-part-2/


The next post contains a long list of travel rules for a campaign by Meandering Banter.
It's a very interesting post because it's quite long, but contains a lot (everything?) you need to run an interesting hex-crawl. It covers terrains, weather and encounters - as the previous links - but introduces also concepts like travel speed, foraging, scouting and exploring, and so on.

North-West Marches - Travel Rules
by Meandering Banter
Hex generation
For each newly viewed hex, roll on the following table twice and combine the results. If you roll doubles then the location is a much larger Zone:
1. Plains (no zone)
2. Dry (Desert)
3. Forest (Jungle)
[...] Zones are an unspecified size, but usually span four or more hexes.
[...]
Travel
Parties can travel two hexes per day (once in the morning, once in the afternoon), modified by the options below. Some options also change the results of the Exploration table (all caps)
Forage starts at Wisdom-4 each morning.
If you didn't roll it yesterday, or it feels right, roll once on Weather (see below). [...]
Options:
+1 if you Rush, -4 Forage, changing 6. FEATURE into 6. HAZARD (if this is a new hex) or RESOURCE DRAIN (if this is a familiar hex) and losing Surprise [...]
Modifiers (max of +1 per hex, additional bonus removes exploration die):
+1 if everyone is mounted [...]
[...]
Foraging:
Each traveller rolls at the end of the day. If you roll under, then you found one ration while travelling. If everyone fails, you are out of water for the next day. No food within X hexes of town (X = 0, increases with development), no water in deserts. If you roll under half, find an extra 1d4 rations. If you roll a crit, find an extra 4 rations, or a Strange Herb (link to be added).
[...]
Exploration
Every time you enter a hex, roll 1d6:
1. ENCOUNTER
2. TRACES

3. WEATHER

4. RESOURCE DRAIN

5. HAZARD

6. FEATURE

[...]

https://meanderingbanter.blogspot.com/2019/01/north-west-marches-travel-rules.html

Design notes:
- There is no unique, single way to run an hex-crawl in the wilderness; find your own way and please let others run it in their own, unique way
- One way to prepare an hex-crawl, is to prepare in advance
- If you prepare in advance, ask your players where they will go in the next session(s), and prepare the hexes, the encounters, even the weather, in advance
- The same procedures that you use to generate content in advance, can be followed (with a bit of patience) on the fly, at the table
- Two important topics on how to define an hex are its terrain type and its weather (although sometimes weather can be seen as an "encounter" rather than a static feature)
- Also note that generating terrain types randomly requires some effort to enforce a decent consistency across hexes (also, weather and terrain type are somehow linked)
- More importantly, an hex could (should?) contain an encounter; you may want to divide them into major encounters (something very meaningful or related to major NPCs, major story-lines in your campaign) and minor encounters (less meaningful, not just fillers but simply all that stuff that makes the campaing world "real")
- Additional rules for a wilderness hex-crawl should contain the travel speed (i.e. one or two hexes per day; modified positively by mounts, roads, pushing ahead harder than usual, modified negatively by harsh conditions, encumberment, or hunting/foraging, or exploring to find notable or interesting locations)
- In fact, to be complete, an hex-crawl system should include rules for eating up resources and for collecting new ones, plus rules for specific locations (and how to find them), or other random/minor locations (random dungeons? specific adventures? treasures? monsters?)