Hex Crawls

[robertsconley]

Good post @robertsconley

Thanks and appreciate the compliment.

I like the "what can we see obviously from where I am" part, and "not being an asshole DM"

While I am focusing on "Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms" a map and setting gazetteer product. I also nearing the first draft of my Majestic Fantasy RPG. One aspect is expanding the chapters I wrote on rulings and running a campaign in the Basic Rules. Because I like to yak about this stuff on forums and social media. I find it easier to share the chapters out of the Basic Set directly. As you will see my philosophy of "not being an asshole DM" run throughout my advice.

When to make a ruling.
This started me as watching people struggling to wrap their minds around the concept of "rulings not rules". So I responded by breaking the process down and how they can build it back up to fit their ideas.

https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/When%20to%20make%20a%20Ruling.pdf

The World Outside of the Dungeon
The latest iteration of what got me started blogging, writing, and publishing.

https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/The%20World%20Outside%20of%20the%20Dungeon.pdf

What I didn't do as a result of the page count is give much in the way of specific aides. Which the full Majestic Fantasy RPG rules will have. My focus is on not trying to match the scope of what Matt Finch, and Kevin Crawford do. But rather lay out what I do and more importantly the reasons why. My hope is by commenting on this that people can learn how to build things up to produce something that fits the way they like to do things. Based on past experience people will cherry-pick elements from my stuff to incorporate into their campaign and differs what different people pick.

 

[The Heretic]

But when you peg travel at 24-30 miles per day, and you want the sort of travel times you see in the ancient and medieval world, then the world needs to get bigger to accommodate it. And now it is ingrained; when he was designing Eberron, Keith Baker had to fight with WotC to make the continents smaller, with limited success.

What would be a more realistic mileage per day?

Your comment about Eberron is enlightening. I remember reading a forum comment (either in Dungeon/Dragon or somewhere online) where someone complained about how unrealistic the distances were and that the 'world war' that occurred would've been between nations without the population density necessary to conduct said war.

 

[Yora]

I created a travel time system that primarily is tailored to be easy to use. There's only unencumbered, encumbered, and heavily encumbered speed and regular or difficult terrain. To make things easy to use, all the six possible travel rates come out to exact multiples of 6 miles per day:

Unencumbered: 36 miles / 18 miles
Encumbered: 24 miles / 12 miles
Heavily Encumbered: 12 miles / 6 miles

Yes, 36 miles per day for multiple days on end is a pretty considerable feat of endurance. But that only happens when travelling with a light load, which characters usually don't do for long journeys, so I am not particularly bothered by that. Maybe a Kaendorian mile is shorter than a US mile. Distances in RPGs are narrative fiction anyway. What I want to play the game smoothly is to just count 6-mile-hexes without having to do calculations with fractions.

 

[Beoric]

What would be a more realistic mileage per day?

That's a good question which I haven't had to face yet. I was thinking of playing it by ear, shaving travel speed by a convenient in-rules number when not on good roads (say -0.5 mph).

I also don't like to think in terms of miles per day, because I have lots of ways to use up the PCs' day. In the morning, what are you doing to strike camp? Do you take the time to conceal your camp? What stops do you make on the way, if any? At the end of the day, what are you looking for in a campsite, and how early do you break off to start looking for one? Don't forget, you need time to set up camp, find a water source, and find stuff to burn for a fire. Remember, if your sleeping situations sucks and you don't get a decent meal, you won't recover as many hit points. Are you splitting up to forage for whatever you need, or doing it as a group? Because if you do it as a group its going to take longer. Do you need time at the end of the day for training, learning new spells, etc? Do you have horses or pack animals that need time to graze, or require time to groom?

All that campwork, and any encounters or obstacles along the way, counts towards the amount of activity the PCs can do in a day, so if you have fatigue rules that kick in after 8 hours of activity, it can shorten your travel day significantly.

Also, Katharine Kerr's article in Dragon 94; "An Army Travels on its Stomache", is a good resource.

However, like I have mentioned before, my players rarely give me a change to test all of this. I wouldn't call it playtested, and can't yet make any generalizations about how it averages out for daily travel rates and whether it ends up being realistic. But maybe 5-6 hours of actual travel time per day, depending on the choices they make?

EDIT: I would probably also look at some historical examples of exploration, like Lewis and Clark, and see how they progressed.

Most VTTs and/or hex-mapping software already does this.

Make the map in the software and don't add the hex grid layer. You now have a hex map without a grid. If you don't want the terrain breaks to look like hexes by default (i.e., it's not hard to tell there's a hex involved when the forest borders are all straight lines and angles). then you just make a normal map.

Take your hex-gridless map, whether still in "hex form" or not in hex form, and print it out for use at the table, or, export it for use in VTT.

If for table play you're done, as far as "no hexes player map"

In VTT, make a hex grid layer but put it on a DM-only setting, same as a "trap layer" "module-esque dungeon map symbols layer" or whatever. The players don't see it, but you can check a box or push a button and see the map with it overlaid.

Yes, I just haven't had a chance to try it on the fly yet.

 

[Avi]

DM maps vs Players Maps I use CC3+ for my maps then change them to BW and hide bits...
X

X

 

[robertsconley]

I use that B&W annual quite a bit

It is a pretty darn useful symbol set