https://daimon-games.blogspot.com/2019/10/travel-and-hex-crawling-part-one.html
In this new post, we start by looking at an article by Signs in the Wilderness. It's a list of elements to consider in a list of rules for hex-crawling and traveling in the wilderness. The previous analysis of hex-crawling articles already mentioned some of these topics:
- travel distance/speed, and various mounts/vehicles
- chances of getting lost
- rules/chances for injuries, sickness, exhaustion, perhaps morale (and modifiers)
- rules for food and water, and foraging
- terrain type and weather
- encumberment
- dealing with generic dangers and with setting-specific dangers
- scouting, exploring, tracking (and avoid being followed), using traps
- making camp, recovering from various conditions
Wilderness rules, a wishlist
by Signs in the Wilderness
I'm looking for a good set of wilderness travel rules. The setting of Signs in the Wilderness is a wide, poorly-explored country, where settlements are rare and scattered. Travel itself is the framework for adventure. [...]
So what would a perfect set of wilderness travel rules look like? They would:
1. cover the most typical situations for this genre of adventure,
2. yet be flexible or general enough to apply to unexpected situations as needed,
3. and not take too much time, brainpower, or paper.
[...]
There's a long list of situations that I'd love to see covered. [...] But if I could have it my way, the rules would be great for:
Travel itself
Start with a day's travel:
- How far do you get?
- Do you get lost?
[...]
For each of those, a few conditions should matter:
- How are you traveling (on foot, by canoe, etc.)?
- What kind of terrain are you traveling through?
[...]
Dealing with obstacles
I'd like rules for obstacles to be general purpose
- losing your gear and having to search downstream
- being swept away yourself to be buffeted against rocks
[...]
Doing things along the way:
- foraging for food/water
- noticing things along the way: animal activity, smoke from distant campfires
- tracking, following a trail of footprints and other signs
[...]
Making camp
- rest, recovering health/morale, based on how good the camp conditions are
- who/what notices your encampment, based on how well concealed it is, fire, noise, etc.
[...]
From the same author, Signs in the Wilderness - who has many useful posts about wilderness - here we have an article about the weather. Read the complete article at the link: all its suggestions are useful and some are original enough to give inspiration also to expect GMs.
It helped me to expand the list of useful tips about weather:
- Weather presents hard choices: push forward or seek shelter?
- Mention the weather every day, even when it's harmless- Don't change the weather just to mess with the party
- Show what bad weather can do to someone else first
The last tip is especially useful: first of all it helps you to communicate to the players what they might expect in similar weather conditions, and does not require them to be experts of wilderness travel in real life, to face it in your game. Mention conditions or dangers covered by your rules, so that they'll know what to expect.
Also, even if they do not encouter the same weather conditions again, it will be another point reinforcing the sense of wilderness dangers.
Weather for wilderness travelers
by Signs in the Wilderness
Weather makes for hard choices. Do we push onwards into the icy rain, or do we spend the night in this barn? Do we risk driving the livestock in the blazing heat, or do we stay here and fight the sharp-tooth raiders?
Because it's so ordinary, and because it's often not dangerous at all, it's easy to overlook. (I know I've run games where weather never really mattered.) But if used well, weather can make for a very interesting challenge.A few tips:
- Mention the weather every day.
- Don't change the weather just to mess with the party.
- Show what bad weather can do to someone else first.
Cold
The obvious danger is cold itself: frostbite and hypothermia do plenty of damage, but a well-equipped adventuring party surely remembered to bring warm clothing.
Hiking in the cold, you'll find your body requires more food than you expected, just to keep itself warm.
[...]
Snow
Beyond the dangers of cold, snow presents its own challenges. If it's sunny while there's snow on the ground, the dazzling white can burn your eyes, resulting in snow blindness.
Snow makes footprints easy to see, but if it's still snowing, those footprints will be covered up quickly
[...]
Rain
The wetter it is, the more likely everyone is to get drenched, along with all their inventory. Wet gunpowder is no good to anyone. Waterproof containers exist for a reason.
To get a good night's sleep, you'll need to dry off. Shelter from the rain, some warmth, and a change of clothes
[...]
Fog
Thick fog is ominous for a reason: you can't see what's out there and you can't hear as well, sounds being deadened by the fog.
[...]
Heat
Heatstroke is a common killer. Your body can only get so hot before it shuts down, and physical exertion pushes you towards that limit. You'll need to drink plenty of water in the heat
[...]
Another link which expands from the basic "Show what bad weather can do to someone else first", is next (of course, same author).
I like very much the idea of giving clear warnings not in terms of rules (this bridge has a X % chance of collapsing, you have Y % chance of getting sick, Z % chance of encountering a certain monster...) but in terms of events, signs, narrative clues (the bridge bends with a horrible sound, you meet someone who's sick or dying with a certain disease, you notice the bones of a big farm animal recently devoured by the monster).
The danger of this place
by Signs in the Wilderness
[...] As a GM, I like each location to have a single listed danger. There can be other dangers, like the regiment patrolling around or the spined coyotes the party just woke up, but I like to have one danger that's about the area itself, the danger of that place. [...]
Dangers like these are also helpful to give the players a sense of the world. The mine where explosive dust is a problem feels very different from the mine where all the timbers are about to collapse. The players get to learn about a problem that they can interact with, something that reacts to their actions and can be overcome by their ingenuity.
[...]
Each danger has some kind of clue, a sign of its presence. I don't like springing dangers on the party without any warning at all. [...]
[...] As a GM, I like each location to have a single listed danger. There can be other dangers, like the regiment patrolling around or the spined coyotes the party just woke up, but I like to have one danger that's about the area itself, the danger of that place. [...]
Dangers like these are also helpful to give the players a sense of the world. The mine where explosive dust is a problem feels very different from the mine where all the timbers are about to collapse. The players get to learn about a problem that they can interact with, something that reacts to their actions and can be overcome by their ingenuity.
[...]
Each danger has some kind of clue, a sign of its presence. I don't like springing dangers on the party without any warning at all. [...]
Dangers could also happen in several steps. The old bridge across the chasm won't give way all at once (assuming no one does anything stupid). [...]
What about places that don't seem to have an inherent danger? [...] if you'd like to have a certain place in the game, yet there's no immediate danger, try one of two options:
- Show evidence of a danger that already happened.
- Show signs of a danger that's yet to come.
[...]
Let's stick with the same author, and this time face different terrain types, to see what can limit a party's speed or force them to change path, trace back or face different types of danger.
In fact, in hex-crawls the different terrains usually are presented as "descriptive" (the GM describes mountains, or trees, or rivers, etc.) and perhaps affect the travel speed, but not much more. Perhaps they define the type of the encounter...
But terrain can be a difficulty, a danger in itself.
If you're traveling through wilderness the terrain itself can be the biggest obstacle.
Cracking open my old Dungeon Master's Guide, it suggests a human can travel around 24 miles a day over easy terrain, or as little as 3 miles a day over the most difficult terrain.
So what makes terrain truly difficult? Good places to travel are level, clear, and have a trail to follow, so let's take all that away.
Grass
[...] Tallgrass of the prairies easily grows 7 feet tall (2 m) which is high enough to leave you basically blind as you're traveling through it.
Pampas grass is notorious for its razor-sharp blades that can cut up anyone wading through it.
[...]
Jungle
Thick woods can be more than just trees, and dense undergrowth hides more than just the path. When you can't see where you're putting your feet, fallen logs and uneven ground might result in a broken leg.
[...]
Wetlands
Mud and mire can stretch for miles in the right conditions, making passage nearly impossible. From a distance, marshes and bogs might just look like another type of grassland, but they can have mud deep enough to sink in and disappear without a trace.
[...]
Streams
Moving water is its own kind of problem. Coming across a stream in the wilderness, far from any trail, you'll have to search for a good crossing point. [...]
Crossing has a few dangers of its own: losing your footing, getting your powder wet, getting swept downstream, not to mention bitey things in the water.
[...]
Rocks
Sharp, jagged, or loose rocks can be terrible to walk across. [...]
As bad as rocky terrain is for your feet, it can be even worse for most livestock.
[...]
Up and down
The steeper the ground gets, the more arduous of a journey it'll be (even if there's a trail).
Cliffs and escarpments can stretch hundreds of miles across the landscape, leaving no way around.
Canyons and gorges pose a similar problem, though usually with a rushing watercourse at the bottom.
[...]
The next article, by Michael Bacon, provides a simple procedure for wilderness travel. It assumes you already have a map but weather will be determined (randomly?) by the GM.
The article presents a "Wilderness Encounter Die", which includes results such as omens (traces of what might come up), nothing/safety (or local events), complete safety, encounters.
The concept of "Wilderness Encounter Die" is a hack of the Encounter Die, evolved in the Hazard System - see also this post of mine presenting a collection of useful links: Encounters: overload your encounter dice
The concept is simple: most of the wilderness dangers, encounters, issues and features, might be included in a single roll, if you have a map already at hand. In fact, if your terrain is known, a single Hazard Die roll could include results such as:
- Weather (improving, getting worse, becoming terrible all of a sudden)
- Terrain issues (slow terrain, harsh terrain, dangerous terrain, a natural barrier which can or cannot be crossed)
- Omen/traces which preceed an encounter
- Encounter (NPC or natural creature or monster)
- Using up resources (not just limited to food and water, but also fuel, equipment, morale, etc.)
- Dangers and incidents: injuries, sickness, exhaustion...
- Exploration events: getting lost, finding locations, finding a viewpoint or a landmark...
Besides what happens around the party (determined by the "Wilderness Encounter Die" however you may want to configure it), remember that players have their own agency. In your rules, make sure to have a list of meaningful actions (see the suggestions below) with the proper rules. These actions perhaps can be done while traveling, or instead of traveling, or with some speed reduction.
Actions will probably have a major focus on what is important for your campaign.
Wilderness/Overland Procedures
[...] Wilderness turns are used when traveling over a distance.
1. The party decides where to travel.
2. The Referee determines weather.
3. The referee determines whether the party becomes lost.
4. The referee rolls the Wilderness Encounter Die.
5. The Referee describes terrain and locations as players move through, allowing players to react and describing the results. If an encounter with a possibly hostile creature or person occurs, follow the encounter procedure
[...]
Wilderness Encounter Die
The following tables show typical results on 1D6. You may wish to use different probabilities for specific locations. [...]
1. Omen
2. Nothing (or progression of local events, if relevant.)3-5. Nothing
6. Encounter*
[...]
Omens
Each encounter has an Omen. Someone in the party sees a mark (like a footprint or a clump of hair), discovers a scent, or hears a sound originating with the relevant creature. If the party decides to investigate, they might find the creature's lair or they might find the creature out and about.
[...]
Wilderness Actions
- Explore
- Forage for Food / Forage for Herbs / Hunt
- Rest
- Scout / Track
- Travel / Navigation
[...]- 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 (first of all food and water, but also ropes, even boots and other clothing, etc.) and for collecting new ones (foraging, but also bartering with local tribes or finding civilized markets), plus rules for specific locations (and how to find them), or other random/minor locations (random dungeons? specific adventures? treasures? monsters?)
Design notes (expanded):
- In addition, consider also to add rules for getting lost (perhaps again depending on various conditions, such as having a local guide, a map, traveling in the night or harsh conditions)
- If you want to go even further on the exploration side, consider also injuries, sickness, exhaustion, perhaps morale, and you should definitely enforce strict encumberment rules to avoid having the party carrying too much- Remember rules for YOUR setting: often something very specific is more useful than something very generic. If you use gun-powder, consider the chance of it getting wet. If you use magical herbs, consider rules for finding them, but also how fast they get spoiled, etc. Anything that reinforces the sense of your setting, is good
- If the hex-crawling campaign is focused also on exploration or if you want to reinforce the sense of being in the wilderness, add rules for scouting and exploring (finding locations, perhaps drawing maps, etc.) and rules for tracking (and avoid being followed), for using traps and setting up an ambush, and similar
- Also, making camp requires probably some guidelines and/or rules: finding a good spot or setting up a solid camp should improve recovery, or having no camp at all could make the party incur in additional penalties. Rules for making camp become more important the longer you expect the party to be out in the wilderness
- Weather presents hard choices: push forward or seek shelter?
- Mention the weather every day, even when it's harmless- Don't change the weather just to mess with the party
- Show what bad weather can do to someone else first
- Give signs, narrative clues, of upcoming dangers; do not give rules to players (or not just rules). Don't say "the bridge has a 50% chance of breaking" but give warnings about the noise it makes while it bends under their weight; show signs of monsters, of diseases, of other dangers
- Terrain can be a difficulty, a danger in itself (it's not just descriptive, and not just definying speed and encounters, but can force a party to change path, to trace back, to face dangers, injuries, the chance of getting lost, of loosing mounts, and so on
- You can probably divide your rules into two subsets: one (perhaps using an Hazard System overloaded encounter die) covers the "external factors" (terrain and weather, encounters, monsters and NPCs, traces and omens, using up resources, fatigue, discoveries, etc.), while the other subset should cover the characters' actions (not what they face, but what they proactively do with their time, such as travel, track, navigate, explore, forage or hunt, etc.)
- There is a slight overlap between the two subsets of rules (i.e. you may discover a location with a roll of the Hazard Die, by chance, or actively seek for it with a Scouting/Exploring action). You may decide to remove those overlaps, or leave them there because they have different rules/different chances
