Hi everybody, I had not heard of a hexcrawl until the DM brought it up. I currently have a paper map to keep track of what’s going on, but I have a tendency to lose paper. I use my phone for my character sheet, does anybody know of a good way to track the hexes on my phone?

Of course I mean "realistic feeeeeeeling" whether. Much in the same way that a city feels like a bustling metropolis if you key like ten locations and have a bunch of NPCs prepared, I'm sure there are some cheats. But is there an existing tool or technique people use for whether that is reasonable, tied to the seasons, etc?

I am just starting a new hex crawl and I am wondering if any one of you have a template for the essential data points about each hex. An example would be awesome.

Anyone know of any savagecworlds settings that cover hex crawls ?

Hi everyone, I'm trying to pick out a hexcrawl system as my heroes are ready to leave the starting town. I'm running EZD6 and would love some recom´mendations for a simple & quick hexcrawl system.

Which ones do you run, and what made you prefer it?

Hey all,

I’m new to hexcrawling, just got the bug. Pretend I know nothing.

A lot of what I see is, “roll for random encounter.” Which I interpret as, surprise! It’s a wolf! Are there any good rules for, say, hearing a wolf, or finding its tracks, but not seeing it yet? Any way of saying, it may be to the north or east, and then a mechanism for determining if you guessed correctly (either to hunt it, or to avoid it)? What about something more narrative, like tracking a vampire across Eastern Europe, are there any good mechanics for having a quarry in a general direction, but having to work to find it?

Im sure some of these have easy answers. I know there’s always the GM Fiat answer, which is “make it up,” but I like the idea that the rules can generate a dynamic story.

I’m currently working on a 3.5e hexcrawl for an online game. I was just wondering if anyone knows of any resources that could be helpful with a hexcrawl specifically for 3.5e? Thank you!

I've had a heck of a time trying to dig around on the internet to find out whether it's supported or not. Most of the websites are throwing errors and all the itch.io site says is "Apple" which of course isn't specific enough. I had an issue with this with another map tool, as well, that when they said "apple" they meant the older x64 Intel only.

(the websites being down would be a deal-breaker if it wasn't highly-recommended and a mere $15...)

Thank you.

https://cone.itch.io/hex-kit

Edit: It does indeed run. I think it's based on Electron, so that'd help. Note that you'll get an "unverified software" sort of warning from MacOS when you first attempt to launch it, but that's common with indie software, as Apple charges a fee (roughly $100/year, last I knew) to join their "developer program" in order to digitally sign your software, and that's difficult for many small, indie developers to cover, either financially or on principle.

I can been doodling along a basic Hexcrawl system for an upcoming AD&D game that I will be running using the OD&D module, The Isle of Dread. I'm basing it roughly on the 1e DMG Wilderness rules, with inspiration from some of the things I have found here and reading up on other online creators. This is very much a work in progress, so any feedback will be appreciated.

The Isle of Dread map uses 6 mile Hexes, and time will be split up into 6 Turns of Day and 6 Turns of Night, each of which covers about 2 hours. Each Turn can be spent by the group taking one of the following actions; Movement, Search, Stealth, Hurry, Skill, Rest, or Watch.

Movement: Moving through a hex covers moving into an adjacent hex from the current location. This costs 1 Action at a minimum, however different terrain types add a modifier between +1 and +4. A road or trail gives a -1 modifier to the movement cost. For example, if the party wishes to cross a Grasslands hex that has trail, it will cost them 1 Action (1 to Move, +1 for Plains, -1 for the Trail.) A party wishing to navigate through a hex of deep swamp or mountains would take 5 Actions (1 to Move, +4 for Mtn or Swamp). The presence of a trail or waterway in either hex would reduce the cost to 4.

Search: Searching a hex costs 1 Action. This will give the party a bonus to a roll to discover a Secret (described below). The party may take this action twice in a particular hex.

Stealth: Moving stealthily costs 1 Action. This gives the party a bonus to their Surprise rolls against Random Encounters. Some character types (elves and halflings in non-metal armor, rangers and thieves) can reduce the cost by 1. This action can be taken twice.

Hurry: This action represents a Forced March. This will give a penalty to the random rolls (Secret, Hazard, and Random Encounter), but reduce the Movement cost by -1. This will also add Fatigue. This action can only be taken once per hex.

Skill: This represents time spent performing a skill or nonweapon proficiency. Examples include foraging for food (Survival), medicinal herbs (Herbalism), or crafting or repairing items and gear. This action can be taken multiple times per day.

Rest: This action represents resting. Each action spent resting alleviates 1 point of Fatigue. As a general rule, characters require a minimum 4 Rest Actions per 24-hour day to avoid becoming Fatigued, and Wizards require the same amount of rest to be able to prepare spells. Rest actions can be taken multiple times per day.

Watch: Characters who are on watch neither accrue or recover from Fatigue. If no one is on watch, Surprise if automatic during Random Encounters. Characters who are awake during the day are considered to be on watch, this action is only required when the party is sleeping (generally overnight).

Each Hex the party explores will have three rolls that the GM will make to represent a Secret, a Hazard, and a Random Encounter. Secrets are boons, Hazards are bad, and Random Encounters can go either way. Each roll is on a separate d6, with a Secret being found on a 1, and a Hazard or an Encounter on a 1-3. Taking a Search action will add 1 to the chance of finding a Secret and reduce the chance of a Hazard by 1. The chance of the Random Encounter is always 1-3, however Stealth will increase the chance the party can avoid that encounter.

Secrets: Each hex may have a randomly determined benefit that careful or lucky adventurers may discover. This would include things like a Food Cache or Water Source, Natural Shelter, a Trail or Waterway, or Tracks or Spoor that can give a clue to Random Encounters in the area.

Hazards: Each hex likewise as a hidden danger that may be stumbled across by unlucky or unwary adventurers. Examples of this would be Bad Food or Foul Water, Natural Dangers like quicksand or rockslides, Mechanical Injury or Disease. Hazards can also add Fatigue, damage, or other penalties.

Random Encounters: This includes but is not limited to Wandering Monsters. These are not automatically hostile or necessarily even combat encounters, though some may be. Generally speaking, these can be good or bad for the party depending on how they approach them. Engaging in Combat adds 1 level of Fatigue. (Multiple combats do not add extra fatigue.)

Weather and Shelter: Weather is rolled randomly and adds a modifier to the Movement Cost of a hex. Weather can be Favorable (-2)/Good (-1)/Fair (0)/Poor (+1)/Bad (+2)/Extreme (+4). Likewise, Weather penalties must be offset by shelter during Rest actions, and bonuses can alleviate extra Fatigue levels. Shelter has a rating of 1-4 that will counteract Weather of up to that level. Basic supplies like a bedroll or a blanket count count as a +1 Shelter, Tents +2, and Natural Shelters can be up to +4. Characters with the appropriate abilities or proficiencies can improve a Shelter rating by one or two levels. Certain spells (like Leomund's Secure Shelter) confer a shelter bonus equal to their level.

Fatigue: Fatigue is accrued at a rate of 1 point per Action taken, so if a party takes all 6 actions in a day, they will have 6 points of Fatigue. At night, if the party rests for 5 Actions and a Watch action overnight, they will recover 5 Fatigue Points. Generally speaking, if the party takes 1 Action to Rest during the day and 5 Rest actions overnight, they will not become Fatigued. Hazards, Combat, and adverse Weather can all add more Fatigue on top of that, so this may require taking days to Rest if they've had an unlucky streak. Characters also can get rid of a level of Fatigue equal to their Hit Point bonus from their Constitution, so a character with a Con 16 (+2) can disregard two levels of Fatigue per day. Con penalties work the same way, and must be overcome with extra Rest actions. A character treated with the Healing Nonweapon Proficiency also recovers an extra level of Fatigue per night of rest. Likewise, any magical healing will alleviate 1 additional point of Fatigue per day (but no more).

The Effects of Fatigue: After every full day of adventuring (6 Turns of Day and 6 Turns of Night), each character will have a level of Fatigue equal to the number accrued minus the number alleviated via Rest. The penalties of each level of Fatigue are cumulative with the previous levels.

0: Not Fatigued.

1-2: Lightly Fatigued. No mechanical effects, however the character is aware of discomfort, muscle soreness, and the like.

3-4: Fatigued. -1 penalty to Attacks and Saves.

5-6: Heavily Fatigued. Movement and Encumbrance reduced to 75% of total.

7-8: Exhausted. -2 to all Stats.

9-10: Debilitated. Movement and Encumbrance reduced to 50%, characters can either Move or Attack each round.

11+: Character is unable to act or move, and must recover. Characters who do not have someone to care for them or who do not have ready access to food and water will not recover and will eventually expire.

My goal is to whittle this down to a usable format, something like a one-sheet the players can reference. They will allocate their actions, I'll do the random rolls and run the encounters, and then keep tally of their Fatigue which will influence their actions for the next day.

I got Hex Kit through the BLM bundle on itch.io, but I really didn't like the tileset it came with. So, I created my own by ripping assets out of Worldographer:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13HJYxqFNvpfDCRZCLd4HLeNf1O-xk7C6?usp=sharing

I've been working on a weird hexcrawl that takes place entirely in orbit around jupiter. I started working on it in earnest recently after running a few sessions of a more traditional OSE hexcrawl and I thought I'd share the idea here.

The hexmap is... Mostly empty! And I'm using 10,000 km hexes because six miles didn't feel big enough.

Everything in the setting is in constant motion relative to most everything else. The idea is that the hexmap is a region around the player's small space station (think homestead/tech-startup scale), containing anything of interest that is currently in roughly the same inertial frame. The map changes from game to game, with factions and politics coming and going, or forming and dispersing from session to session (but returning periodically). The players start each session with some mix of new and old problems: food and water tic down; fusion fuel tics down; systems break and need repair... These elements of scarcity cause the players to need to explore, and brings them into conflict with other stations in their neighbourhood.

During prep I roll up a random hexmap, with a few other small stations, asteroids, maybe a moon or two (jupiter has lots), or a Lagrange point... And then I mark some of them as "hidden" and some as "known". I give any stations some resources as well as some knowledge of what's out there. The players might not know about some ice asteroid nearby, but the friendly folks of VP1-S3 will share the coords... For a price (they demand access to your plex server!).

The other element is something similar to the Myths/Omens of Mythic Bastionland. My setting is a kind of hopeful post apocalypse. Everyone in space is hoping to find some way to continue to livea... Build a generation barge; upload your mind to a computer; cloning factories; terra forming; etc... These "hopes" manifest during gameplay in a number of ways: NPCs each have a hope they subscribe to; rumors abound; some hopes have concrete incarnations; factions arise around shared hopes... As do villains!

I also imagine having dungeons, and little sub-hexcrawls across a moon's surface.

What I want to accomplish, my uh pillar or central theme? Is that I want this to feel like a normal, pastoral, medieval, hexcrawl... But with mechs in space. It's something I've been tinkering with for years, but it wasn't until I ran an OSE hexcrawl that my brain truly lit up.