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Basically, I've been studying more about hexcrawl / hexmaps

I started off listing the types of biomes I would like to feature, and how movement would work on them:
>Plains, desert (arid) & beaches - 3h / hex
>Forest, hills - 4h / hex
>Jungle, swamp - 6h / hex
>Mountains - 8h / hex
This is assuming a party can normally walk 8h a day (so it means that in one day they can cover 2 forest tiles, almost 3 plains tiles or a single mountain tile)

I also created a little system to generate maps. Pic related is a sample (might actually use), which I started off at the X (the concept is that players are part of a shipwreck, X is the main camp)

For coast line:
>Picked a random place to start the top land tile
>Rolled a D8 from there to see where the land goes
>1-2 southwest
>3-4 south
>5-6 southeast
>7-8 repeat previous

I then filled the ocean w/ a different D8 (island requires 8, -2 for each island tile nearby)

At last, biome placement used a D6 & a D12
>D6 would copy the biome of a adjacent tile, if available (so if a tile is surrounded by 3 jungle tiles, it has at least 50% to also be a jungle tile)
>D12 would set the biome, if the D6 roll "failed"

The options were:
>1-3: plains (light green)
>4-5: forest ("regular" green)
>6-7: jungle (darkest green)
>8: swamp
>9: desert (arid)
>10: water (lake, unless connected to the sea)
>11: hill
>12: mountain

The only exception is that desert could not be adjacent to forest/jungle/swamp, so whenever that would happen it would result in the tile being Plains instead (plains being a buffer basically)

Thoughts?

>>97313206
>>D6 would copy the biome of a adjacent tile, if available (so if a tile is surrounded by 3 jungle tiles, it has at least 50% to also be a jungle tile)
I don't understand this part.
I am VERY interested in a hexcrawl generator method that only uses dice, and also creates normal-looking distributions of land of different types. Personally, I like the idea of starting at the center, picking a random land type, then going in a "spiral" outward from there, expanding it slowly, biasing the roll toward the most recent land type, but then I think that would produce spiral-patterned strips of biome.

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>>97313453
>I am VERY interested in a hexcrawl generator method that only uses dice, and also creates normal-looking distributions of land of different types
Please bear in mind I literally just put this together, so its only ~2 hours of work and definitely could use improvement

This tile generation has 3 main steps

>1. Pick a tile to generate the biome
If you are pre-generating multiple tiles, I recommend picking the tile w/ most adjacent tiles already set

Otherwise, if doing on the run (during a session for example), just use the file the players are going to

>2. Roll a D6 for adjacency check
Using pic related, you're going to check for adjacency. For example, if you roll a 1, you're going to look at the hex below/south to the one you're generating. If you roll a 5, you're checking the tile northwest of it, etc

If the adjacent tile (from the D6 roll) already has a biome set, you simply copy that tile's biome. Then you skip step 3

Otherwise, if the adjacent tile you checked w/ the D6 is either unknown or ocean, you go to step 3

The whole point of this is to avoid a totally fragmented map, and instead generate chunk of similar biomes. If you want *more* adjacency factor, you could potentially tinker with how this works. But I think its overall an important step

>3. Roll the D12 for random biome
This one can be really whatever you want, you can set a biome table and roll any die for it. I like using any die that's not a D6 so I can roll it together with the D6 when generating multiple tiles (and I simply ignore its result if the adjacency check on step 2 happens)

>Personally, I like the idea of starting at the center
I didn't think of spirals, but it would probably work just fine. However, note that since I drew the coastline beforehand, I didn't add ocean as biome option. If you're starting from total scratch, I guess you would add ocean as biome AND consider it for adjacency check

I will tinker with that idea and see what works best

>>97313680
Ahh gotcha so it's a 2 step process. Roll to see which adjacent biome to copy, and if you roll a blank, you just generate it straight from the table. Now I get it.
>I didn't think of spirals
It could be anything. Try different methods. I just think that with a system like this the path you take matters because the "current" of your movement is gonna be reflected in the fact that the existing biomes heavily influence the future ones.

Like, if you went down a column, up the next, down the next, etc left to right, I think the leftmost column would be very random (only 1 in 6 chance to copy what's above it) then the next would become more regular (2 to 3 hexes out of 6 that might be copied) and then it will continue as such. But since it's not just blindly copying the most recent one (or biasing it heavily toward that, such as a d20 table that is (1-10 previous hex, 11-20 is a mix of random biomes) would create these long "streaks" of a single biome. But checking for all adjacency probably will help make it more consistent.

But that first column will still be super random. I don't know if a spiral progression fixes this.

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Lately I've been tinkering w/ encounter tables and danger of traveling, will post more later

>>97313879
>so it's a 2 step process. Roll to see which adjacent biome to copy, and if you roll a blank, you just generate it straight from the table
Basically yeah

I think what's important here is to keep it fairly simple. You can definitely make an algorithm/set of rules that is more robust/intelligent, but that might make it a lot harder to run on the fly. Even though I posted a sample on >>97313206, I'm greatly considering only defining a few first files and generate the rest on the run. That way, even as a DM I can enjoy the exploration part of the game and the thrill of finding new things. But for that, it should be something that I can easily to mid-session

(though someome w/ experience for this kind of game, please do let me know if this is a bad idea)

PS: I'm also considering adding an additional die, a D20, and make it that whenever I roll a D20 that spot becomes a point of interest (so that it pushes me to create more content)

>I just think that with a system like this the path you take matters because the "current" of your movement is gonna be reflected in the fact that the existing biomes heavily influence the future ones
Yes, for sure the order of creation/movement matters, which is not much realistically but might be ok during gameplay. Though I also get that it is weird

>But that first column will still be super random. I don't know if a spiral progression fixes this
To be fair, I think I kinda also did it spiral-y. I started off the coast, but then I wouldn't go west through columns, but actually through layers. Effectively, it was basically doing a spiral but cut in half since the ocean part was already defined

>>97308471
>>97313206
There are a few good hex crawl map makers out there you want something completely random. I also one time saw and used an idea where you rolled different color dice, see where they land, and then make a map based on where they landed alongside what number. Blue for water, green for forest, brown for mountain, etc.


I also recommend incorporating tables from even other games. It expands the variety and a lot of encounters can be converted easily. I really like the without number stuff for general encounters and silent legions for cults. I heard cults of cthulhu is ok as well, but is no where near as extensive as it should be.

>>97315422
>There are a few good hex crawl map makers out there you want something completely random
I decided to make my own generation method to:
>I find it easier to create it than using someone else's (since I have control of exact how complex I want it to be/not be)
>I wanted specific biomes (most have snowy biomes but I wanted a tropical place with no snow)

>I also one time saw and used an idea where you rolled different color dice
How does that work exactly?

I mean I get the color-biome relationship, just not sure how the actual rules for it

I do like using colored dice, and I might put together a dice set just for this (such as using specific colors)

>I also recommend incorporating tables from even other games
Yeah, I will definitely check of table resources

Right now I'm thinking about putting a table together for the TYPE of event, which would ignore biome but instead be slightly based on tile frequency (the more traveled the tile is, the less likely it is to feature some stuff but more likely to feature other

I will post more about it soon

>>97315422
Also, before I forget

Any experience in generating biomes/map on the run (during session) vs generating beforehand?

I like the idea of generating during session, but I'm afraid it might take too much time / be complex

>>97308471
It works well for AD&D but later editions of DND exploration isn't really anything that the party needs to prep for. However, my party insisted to stick with 5e so here's how I organized are ongoing West Marches style campaign (it isn't fully a West Marches campaign, but many elements of it are incorporated as the table is fairly rotational and the best solution to ensure regular playtime was to have this style of campaign):
>everyone starts at Level 0
>No money, no gear, no abilites/spells
>Only racial + background feats
>Completing 1 assignment is instant Level 1
Now, in order to get spells and stuff in my games, the player needs to work towards them. This often means training under a knight, getting a magical tutor, meeting with druids to learn spells, and so on. We don't use XP points, but a system of merit+milestone+meeting class level thresholds (e.g., a Wizard needs to master the "known spells at level 1" before he can have a chance to reach Level 2).
Yes, my games are a lot more difficult and challening, but my players enjoy the system. There is also a lot of danger in this style of game, and I have a system set up where players are allowed to create up to 3 characters, with characters passively training if they aren't going on missions. The caveat is that they are not gaining loot, and their experience is slower. But if their "main character" dies or something, they have a replacement to pick from.

Now, the map is centered around a vast unexplored region. There is a plot-narrative, but the party isn't bound to it although they are working towards the "main quest" if you would all along they're taking side quests, exploring, and so forth. I have a pool of 11 players, we hae been playing for 5 months. So far, 9 player characters have died. Their bodies are persistent, so other players can loot their corpses and stuff. The players have banded together and created an adventurers guild. They pool potions, spell scrolls, knowledge, gold, armor, etc

>>97315816
My players are responsible for mapping the region (of course I have a "main map" I consult, but it's interesting to see cartopgraphy in action). They're also responsible for sharing news with each other, leaving notes for each other, and so forth. I don't hand hold my players and I find they enjoy that. Those that complained or wanted to power game have long ago quit our game and we have more fun this way. Some of the more senior players have become local legends, (highest is a level 6 at the moment and he has become the Baron of a village, responsible for its upkeep and well-being).

As more of the island is explored, the party is constantly updating their notes and shared info. They also pick up dungeons where another group left off. The other group is responsible for marking traps, potentially dangerous areas, and so forth. This has led to a pretty dynamic game overall. I'm curious to see how it develops this month particularly as they are closing in on the 2nd of 5 princes.

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OP here

I just created a demo of my encounter table. This would be a multiple-table system, as this is the initial table that define what *KIND* of encounter it is, while future tables would probably define things like type of monster and situation (aggressive, passive, wandering, etc)

The concept here is that I roll 2d6, and add to it a bonus equal the number of times that tile has already been crossed. Thus, the first time visiting a tile is a flat 2d6, while second time is 2d6+1, and so on. Note that it goes only up to +5, as I assume that after 5 times nothing will be found there

Here is the table:
>2 - a major settlement
>3 - a minor settlement
>4 - a small landmark (like an obelisk or a fountain of youth)
>5 - a trap or challenge (either monster-made or natural like quicksand)
>6 - a cavern, dungeon or any sort of place you can get into
>7 - a wandering beast/animal
>8 - a band of intelligent monsters/mobs
>9 - left overs (an abandoned camp, a corpse, a sword in the mud, etc)
>10+ nothing is found

I'm slightly concern that only 16% chance of finding nothing on the first go could become tiresome, but the idea is that the more you go somewhere the less likely you're to find something. For instance, a place already well traveled (+5) has 83% chance of finding nothing, a very small chance of finding a wandering beast, and no chance to find a major settlement (for obvious reasons)

I will probably put up list of ideas for each of those entries, but with this base table I should be able to improve for first session

>>97308471
Remember that for WM campaigns the whole point is sacrificing certain things like travel procedure and plot throughlines in order to circumvent the issue of player attendance.
You still do exploration of course, but don't make your players sit through travel unless something really calls for it.
Same thing goes for finishing sessions in dungeons, your games have to start and end in your hub. Don't worry about player locations and return journeys or anything like that, that's irrelevant shit for WM games. Focus on the world and the effects the players are having on it.

>>97315816
>>97315838
>we hae been playing for 5 months
>highest is a level 6 at the moment
How many sessions have you ran?

Legit question, I want to inquiry more about character progression

>my party insisted to stick with 5e
I'm not a super fan of 5e (or D&D for that reason, though I like 4e to some extend). However, I plan to run this on my LGS so I think using a system familiar to people is a reasonable advantage. Also, I'm already having to create/research a lot of things for the West March portion of the game, so keeping the rest vanilla makes my life easier for now

>everyone starts at Level 0
I loathe that idea greatly. I can't help to visibly roll my eyes whenever someone suggests that. Not sure why people keep having that idea

Regarding the rest, it seems that it is roughly D&D at this point, since there's so many house rules. Though I would love to create my own system from scratch sometime, as mentioned for now I would like to keep it D&D. Only thing I might take a similar route is experience, where I might make it based on exploration goals and have a little system for it. I'm also considering having experience penalty for deaths but also you keep a big % of the XP when dying:
>on death, player rolls a new character but keeps a big % (normally I do 100%, but might do less for West Marches, like 90%)
>however, that session's XP is reduced for each party member death
>death loss is mostly loot & character boons
That way, players are rewarded for playing, but punished for letting their party down (I read that a lot of west marches gets really competitive, I want to try to tone that down)

>My players are responsible for mapping the region
I like that idea in theory, very much, but I think that would be better for a more disciplined party. For a LGS where I would have little control who's playing each time, I think I rather just keep 1 main map (which also makes my life easier)

>>97315928
>whole point is sacrificing certain things
Ok but...
>travel procedure
I thought travel procedure was an important part of it?? Please correct if I'm wrong, but I'm investing on it more than I usually do

One of the things I want w/ this campaign is to force player's proactiveness, so I'm hoping by creating a clear & simple travel procedure rules, my players will be more active in choosing their path. For instance, I plan to explicitly tell them how much travel time each biome costs, so they might eventually decide to go around a swamp because its easier to travel through plains

Isn't that part of the point?

>but don't make your players sit through travel unless something really calls for it
I definitely want to reduce unnecessary/irrelevant travel bookkeeping. Hence why I decided that a tile that is well traveled has no chance of yielding encounters (even though realistically things could still happen there, I want to make everyone's life easier)

The way I'm thinking about doing it might be a bit slower to discover new places, but will probably be faster once tiles are discovered/known territories

>Same thing goes for finishing sessions in dungeons, your games have to start and end in your hub
>Don't worry about player locations and return journeys or anything like that
So basically one meta rule I've long decided is that, by end of session, players are teleported to base. Not actually teleported, but I simply won't stress about the return home

The idea is that I'm playing on a LGS w/ strict schedule. Thus, I figure that any time I take resolving the return home trip, is time from the actual play that new exciting things could be happening

My idea is thus that we play from 7pm - 11pm. If at any moment past 10:30pm a scene is ended, players automatically return home. No matter where they are. If they are in the middle of a dungeon right before the treasure chamber, they still go back empty handed, and would need to return there to finish the dungeon

>>97316013
>I decided that a tile that is well traveled has no chance of yielding encounters (even though realistically things could still happen there, I want to make everyone's life easier)
>but I simply won't stress about the return home
Basically this yeah. I would go as far as to say any hex that doesn't have an explicit reason to have random encounters simply shouldn't have them. You're just going to get bogged down in encounters that they are going to percieve as nuisance while on their way to their objective. You could abstract it with rolls if you wanted too.
Or atleast if you do plan on random encounters, weave it into the campaign then ditch it afterwards
>highway men are at large
>orc raiding parties
>travelling merchant
>murderer on the loose
>stampeding herd

>>97316114
>I would go as far as to say any hex that doesn't have an explicit reason to have random encounters simply shouldn't have them
Hmmm

Probably not exactly what you have in mind, but I'm thinking that maybe grasslands/plains should go straight from "undiscovered" to "familiar", and quickly become a "free" tile to travel. I feel like that makes sense, as compared to other biomes, its a lot less likely to run into something unknown in an open field you've already traveled by

I will rethink the mechanic with that in mind, but I will definitely communicate that w/ my players to make sure they know plains are a good place to travel

> You're just going to get bogged down in encounters that they are going to percieve as nuisance while on their way to their objective
I definitely worry about that, and I want to get the right balance between the thrill & dangers of exploration/unknown, vs not getting bogged down by mindless bureaucracy. If it ever gets too much, I might change the system later on to reduce encounters

>Or atleast if you do plan on random encounters, weave it into the campaign then ditch it afterwards
I plan on doing those as well occasionally, though I think there's a certain appeal to truly random encounters. But I agree that it shouldn't come to a point that every tile is a slogfest of boring procedure

Any other suggestions?

>>97316285
Sounds like you've got a good plan of action anon. Good luck!
You should make a thread to show off what's happened in your game after a session or two. Myself and a few anons would enjoy it.

>>97315491
>>97315422
It works by rolling a set of different colored dice of random sides. You see where htye land, and then draw a loose guideline of the map based on that. You yourself pick the colors of dice you want representing what landmark. It is kind of meant more for continents or large sections being generated, but it can be applied to other things. The face the dice lands on determines how big or how small the landmark is. if stuff lands nearby, than add it up. After the loose guidelines are made, then you try to make a hex map based on it the loose drawing. It does not really have strict rules, but I do recommend you yourself being the one to determine where certain major cities or towns are.

>Roll a 4? Make the spot 4 spaces wide for that particular colors biome.
>A ton of similar color things roll near eachothwer, make a huge landmark area with a huge history behind it. Fill it with some smaller stuff and adventure sites yourself or even using a similar method.

>>97308471
>No Fixed Schedule: Sessions occur when players organize themselves, often on a voluntary basis.
>GM/Player Responsibility Split: Players handle scheduling and session reports, reducing GM burnout from logistical burdens.
This sounds unusual. How does that work out in practice? Seems like it would be even more floundering and nothing happening because now you have to also match up randomly with the GM's schedule.

>>97308471
I've replaced hexcrawls, by en large for a sort of journey system that uses point crawls. I'm a system designer and really struggled with an overwhelming problem with Hexcrawls. The sheer amount of choices mean that there's a lot of "wasted" prep. Hexcrawlers have gotten through this with one or a combination of two choices: random tables (good, but sometimes less robust), fully completed maps (with fully keyed maps and references for each key)- resulting in a ton of wasted prep.

I like location based pointcrawls. You want to go from X to Y on the map? No problem, now I can plan for a few encounters to set on your path (including what happens when you get lost). This works for undiscovered territory.

Overall, it's been very satisfying. I also recommend getting the INTENDED ROUTE planned out the session prior to running your crawl. This helps with planning.

>>97316825
>I'm a system designer and really struggled with an overwhelming problem with Hexcrawls.
Skill issue.
Minimal keying takes a small amount of time.
Well designed tables save large amounts of time.
You are correct in finding the pointcrawl for the type of game you want to run though, you want a crafted story so you made a track with a few branches. Works for what you want but isn't a problem with hexcrawls so much as how they're not suited to the style of game you want to run.

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>>97316315
>Sounds like you've got a good plan of action anon
Working on it!

>You should make a thread to show off what's happened in your game after a session or two. Myself and a few anons would enjoy it
Hoping to have first session next Tuesday (if my LGS authorize it), though it might take a couple of sessions to really see what is working and what is not

>>97316114
>I would go as far as to say any hex that doesn't have an explicit reason to have random encounters simply shouldn't have them
On the subject of simplification...

I've read that many hexcrawlers/west marches have navigation checks, potentially adding chance of the party to get lost. From what I read the idea is that they would get lost but not know it, which I thought was not practical since I would have to manage a separated map for "where they really are". However, I saw an youtuber that suggested that getting lost could be simply deviating 1 hex to left/right from their intended path, but telling the party right away about it

However, as I digested what we talked about on this thread... came the question: is it too much bookkeeping to add navigation rolls?

I'm already concerned about rolling for encounters every tile... but if there are also navigation rolls, things would definitely get bogged down. Not sure if the occasional getting lost is worth being part of the procedure. In fact, maybe it should be considered an encounter/event? Rather than something that can always happens

Thoughts? Should I have procedure for navigation/getting lost, or should I just let players have full control of their hex travel?

>>97316546
I see

Though I understand the idea behind it, I feel like at that point I might as well just draw my maps free style (which is what I traditionally have done)

I think my goal with the procedural map is to also experience the exploration together with players, by leaving the entire generation of landmass/biome to dice rolls. I think that would be fun for a change!

>>97316564
>This sounds unusual. How does that work out in practice?
DESU I have no idea. This is the part of the West Marches model I find most impractical

To a point I think that taking responsibility off the DM is great, but the thing about scheduling and letting player schedule I think is some impractical vibe. Sure, could work at certain situations... but 90%+ of the cases a regular schedule should be way better. The game already have the concept of not needing the exact same party/player group each time, so that already completely takes the major disadvantage of fixed schedule (people cancelling)

My plan is simple:
>Games will be every other Tuesday
>Fixed number of player seats (4 to 6, haven't decided yet)
>People sign up for that week's session and go

They often say it "eases" scheduling for the DM by having players do it... but as the DM, there's nothing easier to me than having a fixed day of the week and not having to worry who will show up and who won't. At an ideal scenario I wouldn't even manage the player list... I would just show up and play with however is there. But the flexibility of scheduling sounds silly/unnecessary

That's really the only core part of the west marches that I don't understand

>>97316825
OP here

Typically I agree w/ you, what you described is what I generally do as a DM. However, I really want to try the actual hexcrawl, because I think it could be a fun thing to experiment. For that I'm really leaning towards tables, because as >>97316868 mentioned, it seems to be the way to avoid over preparation and help improv

>>97317532
I've run hexcrawling with navigation rolls and encounter rolls, its not a big deal if you keep the rolls simple and roll them all at the same time.
I told the party they were lost and where they ended up for simplicity's sake although contemplated adding how long it takes for them to figure out they're lost based on how badly they roll.
Also depends on if you're giving the players a hex map, the hex map or letting them make a map on blank paper. While its feasible to have players make a second map for when they're lost and try reconfiguring the maps after I'm not sure they'll want to actually do that.

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>>97317647
>Also depends on if you're giving the players (...) the hex map
Yes, I plan to have the players use the official hex map (I want to avoid as much as possible myself having to manage a second "true" map)

>I've run hexcrawling with navigation rolls and encounter rolls
Care to elaborate it more?

For instance, considering that players declared the movement as pic related, going from the black X to the red X passing through 4 tiles (swamp, grassland, jungle, jungle). How would you make the navigation rolls and encounter rolls?

That's the part I'm most concerned about, and I don't want to have it too troublesome

>>97317671
I made the navigation roll for each hex, X:D8 adjusted by terrain, guide quality, etc. with 1:8 being the base line for getting lost. I didn't want it to be too frequent but happen occasionally. They would deviate off course by a hex determined by rolling 1D6 and I rerolled if it was where they were aiming initially.
Encounter rolls per hex or time period is fairly standard. I went with per hex 1:6 adjusted by contextual factors. If it was off from encounter by one I rolled an encounter but gave the players a hint description of what sort of creatures it was in the area.
I didn't give them the full hex map though so it makes your setup different and I think you're measuring just time rather than distance and time.
If you want the players to be able to map out a full rout and then roll for details it gets weirder because now you have to figure out which hex the encounter happens in and when they got lost along the way. Also if the different hex terrains have different encounter tables.

This one's more aimed at OSR but I found it useful going over procedures and tracking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC-h1haFSIA

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>>97308471

When 5e first came out, I had an ongoing West Marches style campaign set in a 4E Nentir Vale with a bunch of home brew stuff added.

I collected a large stack of those One Page Dungeon contest entries,tied some to hexes, kept some as random exploration encounters, and let players choose where they wanted to go each session.
I took notes after each session and wrote the effects of the players actions into the living world.
>Since the PCs raided the abandoned temple and stole an evil artifact, small bands of holy warriors are now roaming the Vale, seeking to destroy it.
>The PCs abandoned a party of NPCs in the tunnels beneath the collapsed tavern, and neglected to explore the north Cavern, where a demon was trapped in a ring of salt. Now, those NPCs run the White Circle Trading Coster, and are buying up lands in the Vale.

It worked out well.My players really enjoyed the autonomy of exploring wherever they pleased,and their adventures having a lasting effect on the setting made the games feel richer.

Tips.
DM makes the setting, players drive the story.
Make actions have logical consequences.
Anything simple can be refined and expanded upon. Anything complex will bog you down.

>>97308471
West Marches is really a style that solves a specific social problem of many players with varying schedules and one or a few GMs.

The self-direction is different from a hexcrawl, and trying to do that outside of scheduling problem West Marches was trying to solve introduces more headaches than help.

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OP here

Talked to the guy from my LGS yesterday, first session will be on Jan 20

I might also have a test run of this thing with friends (veteran players) beforehand, just to be safe

>>97317746
>Encounter rolls per hex or time period is fairly standard
So, originally I was planning to check for encounter each hex, but yesterday I saw a guide recommending it once a (in-game) day. Made me rethink and I'm not considering maybe check every other hex?

What your experience on checking every hex? Is it too much?

The ratio I was going for was also not 1:6. As described here >>97315852, the original ratio would actually be 5:6 (5 out of 6 hex), though the chance of "mob" encounters is only 30% (the rest being encountering things of interest, terrain challenges, etc). Also, important to note that out of those 30% of mob encounters, a substantial of those would not result in combat, since I would then roll for aggressiveness and situation (ambush, being ambushed, avoidable, dragon is asleep, etc)

Also, the table I put together works in a way that the more the players go to a hex, the less likely it is to yield encounters. The 5:6 ratio is for first time on the hex, and the odds substantially reduces as they get familiar with the area

>>97317842
I watched this last night and it was VERY insightful. Not only for hex crawl, but there were also some gems for general DMing in there as well

Thx!

>>97318040
>4E Nentir Vale with a bunch of home brew stuff added
Ah, the 4E. Non-ironically, that might have been my favorite D&D edition

>I collected a large stack of those One Page Dungeon contest entries
I should probably get started on hoarding resources. Though I'm focusing on the overall system atm, and assuming that I will be adding more resources/tables as I go (so instead of prepping for individual sessions, I would prep by making my resources more robust)

>I took notes after each session and wrote the effects of the players actions into the living world
I definitely want to do that. I'm not focusing too much on it atm since nothing has happened yet, but I plan to link as much things as I can from previous session into future ones

>their adventures having a lasting effect on the setting made the games feel richer
One thing I've been considering is that, since the concept of my game will be exploring a region for the first time (kinda like the discovery of Americas), I was planning on letting players name places as well. Like, if they encounter a river, I might let them vote for a name of that river. I'm though between actively let they have full control of the naming voting, or make it a submission format where players submit name ideas to me (probably anonymously), and I pick my favorite. The reason for me picking is to avoid dumb names

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>>97319551
>The self-direction is different from a hexcrawl, and trying to do that outside of scheduling problem West Marches
Care to explain?

So, I think there are 2 factors for the "scheduling situation" addressed by the standard West Marches format:
>1. players interchanging between sessions
>2. players taking action on scheduling sessions
To me, the first point is VERY practical. By having players being interchangeable, I don't need to think of other people's schedule, and neither people need to worry about commitment before joining a session. Especially considering it will be a "public" campaign in a LGS, I think this is very handy. Note that at extreme, I wouldn't even need to announce the sessions/control the player list

The second point though is what I think is pointless. First of all, another pillar of the West Marches is making DM's life/prepping easier... and to me, having flexible schedule is HARDER than having a fixed day. With a fixed day, I have my life/routine planned around it (eg: I will run the session every other Tuesday, with however is available/joined the player list for that week). But being open for players putting together groups and scheduling other times seems like a nightmare

So what I really think is weird is how much emphasis videos & guides put in the second aspect

Does that make sense?

Am I missing anything?

>>97321765

Another thing I like to have in my games/settings is to have multiple factions that have their own goals,,and are actively pursuing them. That way, it's easier to think of how any given actions affect the setting. Its also easy to just let the players decide how to engage, instead of railroading.Ex: There's an exploratory mercantile company from a foreign land that wants to expand its operations in the area. There's a barbarian tribe that wants to maintain their territory. There's a tribe of orcs ravaging the periphery. There's an ancient temple complex full of treasure but also evil. Who will the players choose to support, or will they just adventure and loot as they seee fit. How will each faction respond to those actions?

>>97321780

I agree. Pick a time and place to host the game, let people know, anyone who shows up gets to play. Anyone who doesn't make it, their PC sits the session out.

Another few things I did in my game;

1) Any player could introduces a new pc at any session( we srarted at lvl 3). That pc joined the cast of adventurers hanging around Fallcrest. When you played an adventure, you could pick any one of your PCs to be your guy. However, PCs only gained xp for sessions they actually played. This was a way to let players try out new builds, but also reward players who stuck with characters. Made for some fun mixed parties.

2) I balanced absolutely nothing. I hate leveled encounters and the whole idea of Challenge Rating. If the hex contained an Ancient Black Dragon, and your party of 3rd level chucklefucks wanted to have a go, you totally can. I'll run the session as it is and the dice will decide your fate. If your party gets wiped, it becomes part of the lore, and your new PCs can swear to avenge their friends.... someday.

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>>97322003
>Another thing I like to have in my games/settings is to have multiple factions that have their own goals
Yes, I plan on doing that. Though the setting won't have major factions (its more of a wild/undiscovered region)

>How will each faction respond to those actions?
But overall, I want the campaign to be very responsive to players action. Ideally, I want to take at least one thing from each session that can come into play into a future session

>>97322074
>anyone who shows up gets to play. Anyone who doesn't make it, their PC sits the session out
The idea is that this campaign will be open to the LGS, I'm assuming that each session will feature 2~3 new players and/or players that were not on the previous session. Since its West Marches, each session starts and ends in the safe haven, so if a player is not present, their PC is simply hanging out at the haven

>Anyone who doesn't make it
I don't even think of it as "making it" or "missing the session", the idea is really that anyone can join any session (without future commitment). So it won't even have an official/permanent group

>( we srarted at lvl 3)
How did that work out for you?

I really like the idea of starting at level 3 given that level 1s are SUPER squishy, but:
>in my experience, D&D players have a fetish with starting on level 1
>i'm also concerned about complexity for players new to D&D

>I balanced absolutely nothing
I disagree to some extend. I to tend to make things a bit meta on my games - for instance, I plan to be explicit on the level of a given hex/dungeon, so players know their risk. I don't, however, promise that things there will be for that given level - I have made a table that centers at the level, but it can deviate

I expect a somewhat deadly campaign, especially early on when the party is weak, doesn't know the usual monsters and is reckless. After that, I'm hoping things will settle

>>97308471
I've been involved in a few games like that and gm'ed one that was very succesful.

Getting a good setting for it is a bit tricky. I took inspiration from Monster Hunter World and had the pc's be part of a doomed expedition to a new continent. So home base was the makeshift settlement that the settlers had made on the coast and a big part of the campaign was making contact with and attempting to make peace with various races on the continent.

All starter pc's were human, since they were from a human only continent, and funnily enough, due to the player-driven exploration, their biggest allies in the new world ended up being goblins and orcs, because they managed to make early contact with them, trade weapons with them and forge a relatively stable relationship.

>>97322140

>How did that work out for you?

Starting at level 3 worked fine. I played with a core group of friends, some of whom were experienced ttrpg players, and they wanted to try out multiple different builds and backgrounds, as 5e was new at the time.

With the balance thing, I found that players were more engaged and more creative when they understood that games were not auto leveled in their favour.

All this is group dependent, though. What works for a group of emotionally mature close friends may not necessarily work for a rotating table of strangers.

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>>97322208
>had the pc's be part of a doomed expedition to a new continent. So home base was the makeshift settlement that the settlers had made on the coast and a big part of the campaign was making contact with and attempting to make peace with various races on the continent.
Please tell me all about it, cause this is EXACTLY the premise I'm going for

The concept is that players are part of a ship crew that gets hit by a storm, the party flees on a longboat and ends up at the coast. The first "quest" is finding the rest of the survivors - which would be the makeshift settlement on the coast that turns into permanent camp/safe haven. After that, its a sandbox to go exploring into the continent

So in a nutshell, exactly what you described!

Thoughts? Suggestions? Wanna share ideas of cool things/elements/mobs/etc that I can steal?

I'm all ears!

>All starter pc's were human
How did that goes with the players? I was considering doing that (enforcing a main race), though I considered using Elves instead of humans. Though I'm still not deadset on this part yet

>>97322282
>Starting at level 3 worked fine. I played with a core group of friends
>All this is group dependent, though. What works for a group of emotionally mature close friends may not necessarily work for a rotating table of strangers

So yeah, that's my concern

I'm thinking that for a West March campaign, a level 3 start is a great idea, for many reasons:
>PCs are less squishy and can take on more stuff before long rest
>dying/changing PCs is less punitive
>more exciting things can happen
>environment needs to be less updated (I feel like level 1~2 challenges gets quickly out-leveled)

I however still have the concerns of complexity for new players

I might research a bit more on the topic. Unfortunately, the guy from the LGS asked to not advertise the campaign until next week (to not clash with next week's one shot), so I don't even know player attendance and how experience they would be

Also, in case you have an opinion: what your thoughts on players creating their own PCs vs choosing from a character list created by the DM?

I feel like especially for a LGS situation, a character list could be very practical (though I'm not super happy about the trouble of creating it)

>>97321736
>So, originally I was planning to check for encounter each hex, but yesterday I saw a guide recommending it once a (in-game) day. Made me rethink and I'm not considering maybe check every other hex?
This is strongly based on what sort of game you're running. If you want the hex crawl to be more of an osr style game, rolling more frequently based on time and biome works well, but will increase encounters so there will be more combat, but also just more encounters in general that aren't combat, have reaction rolls and require you as the gm to put more together and the players to track more information. The information is lighter but there's more of it. I find them more satisfying to play and run but its not always a thing people like.
If you want the idea of a hex crawl because hexes look cool, or encounters are more involved to put together for your system, rolling less frequently is probably a better bet, or if you're more towards the pointcrawl anon's idea of a game. Not a thing I like but feasible.

Your table is mixing keyed locations and random encounters together, which was not a thing I was doing or would advise. Front loads too much prep, largely from a misunderstanding of how random tables work. There are tables that help with generating the hex crawl and tables that help with running it, but trying to generate it as you run is a lot more effort and tends to sputter at times.

Chance of encounter per hex being low is the idea so its exploring with possibilities rather than something every hex you have to generate and put together, which can become too much for everyone. Again, having a measure of distance and time really helps here rather than thinking of hexes only as time.

If I were going to alter encounter rate I would modify it by proximity to civilization rather than number of times players have moved through a hex.

>>97322546
>Your table is mixing keyed locations and random encounters together
Yes, because I wanted to lean on exploration not just for the players, but also for me as a DM - so I'm putting together this system/tables in a way that even I don't know what is there until players reach there. And while the table does mix keyed locations w/ random encounters, it kind separate the as well - more keyed things are on the lower numbers of the table, things more random encounter-y are on higher numbers. The idea is that I will add a modifier to the roll based on how many times the region has been visited, meaning that key locations are likely to be found on the first visit but becomes ever more unlikely as that hex gets explored

Not sure if it makes sense, not sure if it will work out, but I think looks ok to try

> trying to generate it as you run is a lot more effort
I'm 100% concerned about this - like I said, I *do* want to give it a try, but I'm also skeptical about it. So much that I kinda booked a test run w/ my regular group just so that I can test things like this before going to the public

>modify it by proximity to civilization rather than number of times
Well, there is no civilization, the closest thing to "civilization" being the safe haven where the main camp was set. Since expeditions go from there each session, the hexes close to it will soon become unlikely to yield random encounters - thus, the "proximity" factor will organically work out

>>97315852
I really like this idea. It makes complete sense that as a tile gets explored there's less and less to find there and eventually you can just shortcut moving through safe and protected territories. Gives a nice sense of progression while also incentivizing pushing out further in to more dangerous territory

>>97308471
>>97313206
The main advice I would give you is that you've fallen for one of the classic TTRPG blunders: West Marches games are not hexcrawls. I don't know where this misconception comes from but it's super common, so don't blame yourself. Your game is likely to crash and burn if you try to do it as a hexcrawl, though.

I strongly advise you to read the original blogposts and comments sections on Lamemage but the TL;DR is that Robbins used abstract travel through naturally-delineated regions on a vector map, and if you don't handle it the way he did way too much game time will be devoured by travel. The point of a West Marches game is to get out to an adventure site and back in the course of each session, the granular travel/exploration of hexcrawling is directly opposed to that goal.

>>97323348
I get what you mean, and I don't directly disagree with you. But playing on the LGS with randoms really works well with the part of interchanging PCs and starting from the same point

The part of hexcrawling making it harder to do the "i want to explore that point" part... well, you're right. It does not synergizes well. I might eventually make it so that if a player group asks for a particular dungeon, they might start the session already in there (rather than waste time with the travel/hexcrawl). I know that this beats a bit the point of the hexcrawl, but I'm excited about the explorarion part and I want to give it a try

>>97315816
>XP points
Go fuck yourself.

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Decided to simulate a few days of travel to see how it goes. Pic related is the starting map

Since its a shipwreck, the idea is to start on a hex that has at least 1 ocean hex connecting to it... and I also added a few more ocean hexes to make sure there's enough water to get there

Will post different days

>>97323191
Yep! That's the idea. I plan to only use 1 map - instead of letting players draw their own and keeping a "true" one behind DM screen, I plan on simply having one "complete" map available to everyone (complete as in, with all the information that has been discovered so far, starting w/ something like pic related)

>you can just shortcut moving through safe and protected territories
So eventually, most of the hexes next to the safe haven will fall into this category, allowing easy travel to more distant zones. Note that I will also signal explicitly to players when a hex becomes "safe"

Might sound a bit meta/unrealistic, but I'm leaning towards good/practical gameplay

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So basically, I've been tinkering with the idea that each biome having a "visibility" score, which means that it reveals that many hexes next to it:
>0 - forests & swamps (no visibility beyond the hex due to dense vegetation)
>1 - plains & deserts (small visibility due to the open fields)
>2 - hills (good visibility due to the height)
>3 - mountains (hard to climb but excellent visibility

With that in mind, given that I chose the starting point to be an open field, I would already reveal the 5 files around it. Out of those, I had 2 options:
>A: go southeast through the plains due to easy movement
>B: go northwest into the hills to check out the scene

Since this is right next to camp, I thought it made sense to go to a high ground spot and can check out the surroundings, I feel like that is something survivals stranded on a distant land would do. So I went up hill, where I ran into some wandering animal, an owlbeast perhaps since I love those (haven't nailed down tables for particular types of mobs yet)

Movement for hills is 6h (out of 8h/day), so I still had a small amount of movement. Reasonable people would go back to safe haven to return the information, but I just decided to keep going and venture into the plains downhill. There, since it is still relatively near camp, I found remains of another venture party

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On my second day of journey, I decided to go south into the second hex of plains (each plain hex is 2h of travel, or a 1/4 of a day), since mapping the surroundings of the camp seemed to make most sense. On those fields, I found some sort of obelisk/monument to what seems to be a pantheon of 5 different gods. Party probably would check for magical properties of the obelisk, but it seems to be purely religious. Nevertheless, the monument is a fairly easy landmark to find on the open field (players would probably always run into it if venturing there on the future)

That hex also revealed the surroundings, revealing the dense vegetation of the jungle south. Since jungle hexes are costy to travel (6h/hex) and have shitty visibility, I decided to go west bordering the jungle. On that hex, I found nothing! (rolled 5+6=11, and anything 10+ is nothing). Nevertheless, it also revealed that whole region was bordering a lake, which forced me to go north (since again, jungle hexes suck)

On the third plains hex, I found a bunch of nothing (rolled 10), but I also found the border of the lake, so I could keep going

On the last hex of the day (max normal travel of a day would be 4 hex, if all plains), I ran into a river that ran towards the lake; since rivers are the only proper encounter table I have, I know that the river was shallow (easier DC to cross), if it was not for all the fucking crocodiles. With the sun setting, the idea of crossing the crocodile-infested water in the dark sounded rubbish, so party sets camp for end of 2nd day

Need to go make dinner before next day

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Forgot to reveal the 3 hexes next to the ending hex from previous day, but that made me think that perhaps I might do that - since they would arrive at camp during the final hours of the day, perhaps only in the morning they would see what's up

As the sun rises, we see the open fields extend to all directions, so we decide to follow the river (once I spawn a river, I will keep going until I run into some hex that would make sense to despawn it at, like a hill or mountain - but I did roll for direction of the river)

So up river we go! Going north bordering the river (from a safe distance), we find the carcass of some sort of mammoth, being devoured by crocodiles, which makes my party less amused in the idea of crossing the river around there. From there, I can see the river runs from a forest (btw, at this point my party decided to name it River of Fangs, for all the crocs), and also that those hills I climbed on the first day extend to my northeast

Thus I decide to keep going the easy route and go north. There, I find 1d4 additional mammoth carcass, but now I can see that whatever killed it had sharp claws and wasn't a croc[/poiler]

With the forest getting denser west and another lake east, I guess I'm going up that other hill to see what is around me. Since I already moved 2 plains hex this day (2h each), I got only 4h left and the full hike is about 6h, which means I can pretty much get to the top of the hill but will still take me 2h on the next day to get out of that hex. As I find a cave around the summit that seemed to be a nice place to camp, I noticed that a band of goblin-like creatures seemed have made it their lair. Whether that results in combat or not is up to players (and skill checks), but either they camp there, or they hike a little bit into the night (risking exhaustion) to get somewhere safer to camp

I think this could have all fit a single session

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To conclude while I wait for chicken to cook (3min left):

I think (>>97324477 >>97324589 >>97324787) were a good sample of how a session would work. I'm not fixing a session into 3 in-game days, but I feel like enough happened that it would take me ~3h+ to run it (especially given that 2 mobs were encountered, and I assume half of those result in combat so at least one fight went on)

At the morning, the party see what is there around the hill they camped during the night (in case they faced the goblin-like creatures), and with that session is over and they automatically return to camp (but now, they already uncovered a lot of territories)

Note that east of that hill I rolled 5 water tiles. Since its so close to coast, I would probably assume those are ocean tiles (even though they haven't connected yet). I think a necessary part to make this style of game happen is to be able to take some liberties to make things make more sense

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After (sample) session 1, the leader of the camp (ship's captain) decided to create a watchpost on the hill north of camp (shifts of 2~3 men). The idea is to both keep watch from above in case there's danger incoming, as well as keep a bonfire lit to serve as a beacon to other people lost in the jungle or/and other ships from our fleet to locate us

This would be another example of player's actions/discoveries making impact on the story/scenario (other than naming places, which has no practical impact but I find it really cool)

>>97322671
It makes sense but at this point there isn't much the hexes are doing for you if you're going to try cramming that much into one random roll but having to do it all the time.
Hexes help you keep keyed encounters, which even when minimally organized gives you enoguh of a world vision to properly improvise as the random encounters happen.
Its at a different end of gamestuff but Perilous Wilds has a more generative exploration procedure you might be interested in but its not as well suited to hexes.
>skeptical
Me too. I think you've gotten enough advice and ideas to make something work well enough for a play test to see what is missing, what works, etc.
>no civilization
The party will need someplace that they can reliably return to. Traditionally that's the keep on the borderlands so you've more or less got it.

srsly tho key some hexes and make some factions ahead of time.

>>97322330
>I feel like especially for a LGS situation, a character list could be very practical (though I'm not super happy about the trouble of creating it)
Use an online generator for that. There's likely one for whatever you're running unless its very niche.

>>97323556
I'm not saying you can't have exploration, and of course a West Marches game is great for LGS pickup games. I'm not saying they're a bad game style, if you thought that. I'm saying that *in* a game like that, hexcrawling is an unwelcome and destructive component.

Run the exploration more abstractly, your game will be all the better for it and you can still have that sense of pushing new frontiers.

>>97327130
>if you're going to try cramming that much into one random roll but having to do it all the time
Just to be clear, right now I'm doing basically 1 "encounter" roll per hex, but I do plan on having a chain of 3~4 rolls (if first rolls tells me its a wandering monster, there would be a roll to find what type of monster is, what situation it is in, etc)

>no civilization
>The party will need someplace that they can reliably return to
Yeah, the main camp will serve pretty much as a stand West Marches base of operation

>srsly tho key some hexes
I think that takes out the thrill of the procedure generation happen on the run. For me, rolling for things beforehand is essentially the same as not rolling at all (simply creating as I wish), which is what I have been doing for the last 20 years. So the idea of generating things as the party goes seems very exciting to me to run as a DM, and I feel like there's so much work that goes into being a DM that at this point I'm allowing to have some fun lol

>and make some factions ahead of time
Oh, just to be clear, it won't be 100% random... I already have an idea of the fauna in the place, and I already have an idea of the sentient races and their factions, religions, etc. I think its important to know those things from the start so I can hint them early on

For example:
>I already decided there are 2 wild "boss" in the initial area
Aa cyclops and a coatl, I will be hinting on them whenever an opportunity arrives
>Main mobe race is composed of goblin-like creatures
I call them "lizards" (makes sense in my language), but effectively they are goblins, where each tribe is led by a shaman. So that opens up to multiple factions but those are tiny factions that can be killed off
>Faction race are savage cannibal humans
I already know I want two different tribes of them, which are in war with each other, so that players have the opportunity to choose a side

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>>97327130
>>97328635
cont.

So, I don't have any of those examples tied to any hexes right now, but I'm trying to pre-prepare ideas as much as I can so that whenever I roll for something, I can pull form that. So when a "village of natives" or "a religious monument" comes up, I will that opportunity to insert the things I've planned

This is btw also why I'm leaning towards doing my own tables (even though I'm looking at resources all the time to pull information from). I want all events, monsters, mobs, etc, to fit the theme/setting I'm creating

The in-session procedural generation is really mostly for placement

>>97327148
>Use an online generator for that
For characters, I might actually. I'll probably keep the PCs pretty standard. Though I also made a poll on the LGS's group and noticed that it's most veteran D&D players... so I might just tell people to roll their characters and let the chaos reign

>>97328111
>I'm saying that *in* a game like that, hexcrawling is an unwelcome and destructive component
Yep, I understood your point, and it makes sense (sorry if my reply was rubbish, I wrote that one on my phone on my way to the gym and I'm shitty at doing things on my phone)

>Run the exploration more abstractly
I REALLY want to give hexcrawl a try. Yes, ideally it would be a lot more practical to do it on my regular group rather than on the LGS West Marches one... but the thing is, my current group is tied to a World of Darkness campaign that is unlikely to end before end of year... and I given that I already have 2 other D&D groups, if I'm trying anything new, it gotta be on the LGS group I'm putting together

Tbh if it I was up to me i would drop the World of Darkness campaign, do the hexcrawl there w/ that group (without the West Marches element), and do the West Marches on LGS without the hexcrawl (I actually already have the perfect setting for it)

But since I'm taking up yet another group, I decided to treat myself with doing all the things I want lol

>>97328675
Okay, well, just be aware that some of the stuff you want conflicts with some of the other stuff you want and they might drag each other down so you end up having less fun.

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Wanted since yesterday to go for another test expedition, so now I'm going east

Starting off with the grassland hex southeast from camp, since again plains/grassland hexes are easy travel and decent visibility, being a good way to explore the region (I wanted the mechanics to make these kind of choices meaningful). On that hex, I found nothing but wreckage from our shipwreck, including a couple of long boats, and the bodies of sailors that didn't make it being eaten by eagle-like birds. Roll some root table here

From there since the way south is blocked by a mountain, I keep heading east. On this hex I find another small tribe of the goblin-like creatures, though this time they spot us from afar and we have to face them (here, I would also probably key their lair to the mountains nearby)

Now, I can either enter the swamp (and since it costs 6h of movement and I already spent 4h out of my daily 8, I would have to camp in a fucking swamp for the night), or I can head back to camp. I feel like given the situation it might be best

On my way back to camp, I have to reroll for encounters on the hex southeast of camp, but since I've already been there, I get a +1 familiarity on that roll (which makes it less likely to find stuff). Nevertheless, I do find cave paintings alongside the mountain, depicting things from the goblin-like culture, shamans doing rituals, sacrifices, war bands, MANY wars. But eventually, I've also encountered some drawings referring to some kind of horned giant that they are very afraid and that eats them

I spend night on camp

>>97322330

>what your thoughts on players creating their own PCs vs choosing from a character list created by the DM?

I always kept a stack of pre generated characters on hand to pass out if anyone didnt make their own, or had a character die on them. I think its a handy thing to have.
I also had a rule that all chatacter builds a player used were from the PHB, OR they brought a copy of the Unearthed Arcana/splatbook they used with them. This was just to help me keep track of abilities and such. With a mixed group of strangers, I'd stick with my own pre gen characters only, just to decrease my mental load. I've done that before for intro games at convention style environments, and it worked out well. One good thing is that new players usually want to play classic/generic PCs.

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>>97328797
>some of the stuff you want conflicts with some of the other stuff you want
Actually, I might do it both ways

I'm considering doing some level of meta gaming towards dungeons and things like that. Not 100% decided on it cause its very anti-RP, but I'm tinkering with the following idea:
>dungeons are locations that can be found during hexcrawl
>upon finding a dungeon, I describe the exterior
>i also assign a level rate of the dungeon (literally saying "this dungeon is for level ~4 parties). This will be rolled randomly and would typically be 1d4 higher than the level difficulty of the hex its in
>then, I forbid players to go in there
Like, literally, just tell them "you can't go in there", no in-game reason
>Then I proceed to explain the meta aspect of dungeons: they can't be entered during hexcrawl sessions
>Instead, if a group wants to do a dungeon, they have to "book" a dungeon session (which can be on a regular Tuesday)
>Dungeon sessions start at the dungeon and end at the dungeon
>If they can't finish it, it remains unfinished and can be revisited later, though things might have changed inside depending on how they left it

I know it sounds really odd/anti-RP, but I think it would fits better the West Marches aspect of letting players pick what they want to do, and FOCUS on that thing. Plus, since the dungeon would come up at least 1 session before players can enter it, I can already start brainstorm for it, and by the time they decide to put a party together to venture into it, I will be waaay more prepared and have a way better dungeon

PS: I'm also considering having a system to elect expedition leaders, probably however signed up first for that week's session. Expedition leader has final saying on where to go, and would also be the one choosing to go into dungeons (note that during hexcrawls, party members maybe decide to not following the expedition leader and head back camp earlier if they think its safer for them)

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Going on in my expedition, next day we brace ourselves to go south (swamps suck due to high cost of movement and low visibility). There, we run into a another tribe of goblin-like guys. I'm a bit icky about using the same mob thrice in a roll, but I think its so next to camp (and to where I said it was their lair), that I think it makes sense. But since they are on a swamp, I will have the goblins try to ambush them*. However, if any player from first session is there, I would let them notice that the war banners carried by the shamans is the same the group from the previous day, but different from the ones they found in those hills northwest (hinting a different tribe of goblin-like guys)

*This made me realize that when putting together tables of "how you find the mobs", it should take environment in consideration and make it more likely to get ambushed on places like swamps and jungles (making it even more shittier hexes to travel)

Due to the 0 visibility score of a swamp, we go south hoping to find suitable terrain but find that the mountains extend there as well. This sucks cause now we have to either turn back or keep going. But at this point, we decide "heck, let's keep going", so we move 2h west that day until end of hex and camp somewhere less swampy near the mountains. Note that since they haven't left the hex, I'm not rolling another encounter yet

>>97328874
>I always kept a stack of pre generated characters
>I think its a handy thing to have
In practice, I 100% agree. But I'm also a lazy sod, and given all the other things I need to prep, I might not do that. I worry really more about players not having a PC to start with, while if someone die I think its ok for them to seat out of the session (given that's on the LGS, they can just leave if they want; on my regular groups I try to get the player's new PC into the campaign ASAP)

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Next day we continue onto the next swamp hex, where we find nothing other than muddy smelly water, strange noises, and an endless amount of fucking mosquitos. It takes us 6h to get to the next hex we fortunately the damn swamp ends. Two notes here:
>First, mental note to always describe moving to swamps as a shitty experience so players get the idea that it sucks to be there
>Secondly, just note that I actually rolled a desert here, but I've made a rule that deserts can never be near forest/swamp, resulting in grassland instead

Since we are finally out of the swamps and have visibility, we decide to use our last 2h of the day to get into the grassland hex and camp near the hills. On our way there, we find our first dungeon! It's a cave entrance towards the mountains, covered with more of those cave paintings of the goblin-like creatures. However, high above the entrance there's a big drawing of the horned giant eating a bunch of goblins.

Name: Den of Evil
Level: 5 (starting level 3 + 1d4)

>>97327130
Here though is an example of how I would do the keying. Previously I had decided the goblin's lair is around the mountains (originally on the north-most hex of the mountains), but as a dungeon came up during the encounter roll, I decided to shift that key entry (I would remove it from that hex) and make it the dungeon

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Dumb me was so excited about the dungeon that I forgot to post the updated map lol

Since this session has been fairly quick during those 3 days (we had 1 encounter, but everything else was either nothing, or just overall descriptive without much interaction), I'm rolling another day

At that day, we decided to go up those hills to get visibility. Hills are good to check the scene because, though the movement cost is high, it gives you 2 hex visibility (mountains give 3 but cost even more, and have a DC to climb and a DC to not get exhaustion)

On those hills, we find the next of some roc, a giant bird of prey that eats animals as well as those goblin-like guys we have been encountering. The fight can be avoided with a proper stealth check, but if bird is defeated its single egg can be looted (no idea for what lol). Plus, a few valuables can be found in its nest from the bodies of its preys

At last, we get the visibility we wanted. We enough hexes of the mountain revealed, I would ask the party how they want to name the mountain, and they choose to call it the "The Lizard Mountain" (the goblin-like creatures are called "lizards", sort of)

Now, depending how the party is faring in terms of HP, hit die and spell slots, we can either call it a day after the roc battle, or use our last 2h of the in-game day to go into the grassland southwest. Since we already saw all the hexes near it, it won't give us any new information, but due to the familiarity mechanic, it would make it easier for the next party to travel through that grassland path

Oddly enough, we find yet another dungeon!!! This is on the open field, which initially looks like a small cairn mount, but upon further inspection leads deep into the earth. On the stones around its entrance, it features runes of red, yellow and blue colors, some resembling the religious obelisk found on session 1

Name: Storm's Rest
Level: also 5

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So since I'm super hyped (and unemployed), I decided to "run" a 3rd test session!

(not sure anyone gives a fuck, but writing it down helps me take it slow & think about each step, and that process then leads to me noticing where I need to improve)

Now, I've exhausted the easier routes out of camp, and pretty much everywhere I go I will have to go through a swamp. I'm not that excited to explore east, but I do want to keep going from last session. With that in mind, I turn my eye to that forest hex next to camp, which the only adjacent hex that haven't been explored yet. Since one way or another I will have to take a high movement cost hex, I decided that's the way to go

Now, first encounter roll was band of sentient mobs. Since I've already used the goblin-like guys 3x in a row, it's time to spice things up by having the group be ambushed by some human cannibals, which by now probably have seen their camp and now the expedition has arrived on their land. Nevertheless, this won't be necessarily a combat situation - they maybe be able to talk it out and even befriend them

After the first encounter, the party would ask DM for a second encounter. Why? Because due to movement costs, going south means camping in the swamp (I'm thinking about adding a mechanic that grants exhaustion when setting camp in swamps), so the party would have another 4h slot on that day before heading south, which then can use to "re visit" the same hex (basically, patrol/scout around). On second roll, I already roll with familiarity, so it gets 11+1=12, so nothing is found

I had this idea to revisit the hex also because of the familiarity mechanic, and the fact that forest hexes can improved movement upon the "trail" milestone is reached (currently, familiarity >= 3). This means that the party can actively speed up the reconnaissance of that hex to eventually make it easier for future expeditions

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Now, for the next day, I'm unsure whether I visit the jungle hex and go southwest from there, or if I go south through the swamps. Going jungle is sort of a gamble, if I get out onto an open field life is easier. Otherwise, I might get stuck for a while in there

Thus, I think I will bite the pill and go south through the swamps. Though all hexes have the familiarity score, I'm considering maybe making the mechanics different for them. I want swamps to be the hardest hex to "tame". On the swamps, we get ambushed by more goblin-like guys (2d6+1=8), because even though they showed up a lot already, this is right next to their lair/dungeon. This ambush is a sure combat

After the swamps, I still have 2h movement left, which is enough to cross through the first grassland hex. There, we found yet another dungeon... which I don't think I will keep. In fact, this made me think that dungeons are too high on my table. I originally put them high up (6) because they may be hidden somewhere, but I will probably rearrange them after this session (so good thing I'm testing!)

For now, let's just assume they found the same dungeon entrance (I would then probably describe it with further detail/give out a bit more information)

>>97328985
>but as a dungeon came up during the encounter roll, I decided to shift that key entry (I would remove it from that hex) and make it the dungeon
Yeah, at this point its sort of bullshit and you're doing quantum ogres with extra steps to feel like you're using the cool hexes.
Keying things keeps you and the world more consistent for players, which makes it better.
You seem stuck on this one, but its what will happen, especially over time.

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Next day, we continue our journey south into the next grassland hex, finding there a wandering animal, probably a mammoth or whatever we found carcasses for one session 1. I think since its still early on in the expedition and the party already had a combat, I will make this one optional (monster is indifferent to the party)

As we go in the next hex, let's assume that the cannibals we found in the woods were somewhat neutral (no combat occurred), we exchanged gifts of some kind (warrior gave them his spare sword, bard one of his instruments, cleric some religious BS, etc), and they left. Because on this next grassland we find what seems to be a very small camp leftovers, a small firepit that has been put out, stones moved around to make for stools, etc. The footprints seem human and the size matches the cannibal group, leading us to believe their home is this way

Ranger makes a Survival check to track for them, and we find out they kept going southwest, so we go that route as well. There, we find more of those mammoth-like animals grazing around, but since I want to keep going they also seem indifferent to the party

Now, as I generated the surrounding hexes, the one next to the swamp rolled a Desert, which becomes a grassland. However, since we ARE next to a desert, I decided to treat it as one for the rest of the generation, which actually made a difference since the hex below it rolled to copy it (so I made it a desert). Btw this desert is more of an arid/badland kind of deal (not sand)

We keep following the tracks west, were we find actually, just more of those mammoth animals around. I feel like they are all around it, I assume its a great herd kinda going through the same motion as us. Also, at this point, I'm increasing the DC to track the cannibals since the beasts are stomping the tracks and making it harder

This concludes day 10 on our expedition (will roll one more day)

>>97308471
Daily reminder that the original West Marches story was a make-believe bullshit post of something that never happened, no different from Old Man Henderson.
Yet for years, retards are trying to recreate that stuff, missing the memo it never happened and the effort needed to make it work is neither worth it nor operates on princples that are "core" to WM.

tl;dr you're a spamming retard that either doesn't play or has so little gaming experience he can't handle running a campaign yet jumps for meme plays anyway

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At this point we lost track of the cannibals but we keep going where the grassland leads. There, we find 1d4 religious monuments made of stone, similar of the one we found on the first session as well as that second dungeon. By now we assume that those belong to a different culture than the goblin-like guys, and mostly likely are from the cannibals

However, the gods of hexing now gives us two options - either go south or west. Since south is where we saw the desert, I'm leaning to avoid that region so I will go west instead. There, we are able to pick up the cannibal's trail with a decent Survival check, but I rolled a 4 so I assume that regardless of bonuses I would fail. Still, this points that we are heading the "right way"

Now, succeeding on that Survival check would have made my decision a lot easier, given that the path west expands to two different hexes. Since camp is north, I will head north to kinda connect with what we already know. On that hex, we find another wandering beast - but since we "disconnected" from the herd and we are near a lake, I'm thinking about something water-friendly. Thus, I decided to roll a giant crocodile, very much aggressive if given the chance to be so

We still have 2h left on our day. Depending how last spoiler went, we either call it a day or we keep going. I will obviously keep going cause all of this is imaginary and I don't have low HP/spell slots. Here, I rolled another wandering beast, and since I was out of ideas, I decided to roll visibility first to see what's around. As I got another mountain hex, I decided the party would be attacked by another roc - which could be a deadly lesson if they decided to push it after a fight with the croc

End of day 11, session 3

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>>97329304
>Yeah, at this point its sort of bullshit and you're doing quantum ogres
Not really. The hex generation, especially on the spot, is giving me ideas of encounters I wouldn't originally think of. Plus, I'm finding the idea of now knowing what is ahead very interesting as a DM

I think the quantum ogres situation often arrives from DMing planning what is ahead, and the players going another route. Here, I have a rough idea of what COULD be around, and depending where they go and what hexes are there, I put something together. Not sure if you read the test sessions I've been posting, but a lot of things happened and I didn't plan ahead any of them

>Keying things keeps you and the world more consistent for players, which makes it better
I think theoretically, if you're good at improv (to an infinite amount), it doesn't make a difference. The gap therefore is limited by the DM's improv ability (I assume that any real human would improv worse than pre, by default). Nevertheless, the test session have been fairly consistent, a lot of things were created, factions, etc, that once have spawned, become more consistent. I think I will probably lean towards a "what could be there" method instead of just full random encounters

The test experience is going great so far. I'm running a real test drive of this next week w/ my core group, hopefully that will make things more tangible (and highlight any weak spots in the concept)

>>97329472
Its spot on for you. Its going to work less well at the table with players. You're stuck on it, so you're going to do it and at this point that's all there really is. You might notice the problems or you might gloss over them because you're stuck on it. Either way go run the game, it'll be mostly fine probably anyway, or not, only one way to find out.

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>>97329372
>the original West Marches story was a make-believe bullshit
I didn't know that but I also didn't care. I didn't read the original post, I followed guides and advices from other sources, and then I took what I liked about it and ditched the rest. For instance, it being BS would explain that scheduling part (players would schedule the sessions themselves and then tell the DM), which to me seems VERY impractical

To be fair, a good chunk of it is actually very similar to how I've ran games in the past (like the part about rotating characters, which is something that I would do for a LGS regardless of ever hearing about it). So really, the only part I'm taking from it is the "each session starts and ends on the safe haven/hometown", which again does seem like a good rule for a LGS situation where I have no control if I ever will see those people, let alone if they will be on the next session

>you're a spamming retard that either doesn't play or has so little gaming experience
I mean... have you read the thread? The whole thread is about me explicitly saying I never tried this, so not for a single moment I'm saying any of this works. In fact, I'm so skeptical myself I'm running test runs by myself (I've never done this before), and I even scheduled a test group...

>can't handle running a campaign
I actually am already running 2 atm. I run a World of Darkness campaign w/ my core group, and a D&D very standard campaign w/ a splinter from that group. I'm also a player on a 3rd group that happens every 2 months (seems weird but we're going into the 4th year of the campaign, without canceling a single session)

So yeah, I do play. The fact that I have other campaigns out there is EXACTLY why I don't want the burden of a 3rd one (note I also plan on reusing a good chunk of the resources onto my regular D&D campaign)

>>97329484
>You're stuck on it, so you're going to do it and at this point that's all there really is
Yep, that's true

Nevertheless, there's still room to improve on the idea before the first session, so I'm all ears for advice, suggestions, recommendations, etc. Note that as you mentioned, "drop the idea" is not really an advice that I would be likely to heed to at this point

>it'll be mostly fine probably anyway
Most games are IMO, typically when it goes bad its just "meh" and then people are not really that interested for future sessions and the campaign dies out

> or not, only one way to find out
This is also an important point... I'm TOTALLY fine with this not working out. I kinda committed running a group in my LGS, which I wasn't really that excited for until this idea clicked. So if it wasn't for this idea, I would either have to go back on my commitment, or kind half-ass it. But with this shiny new toy of WM+hexcrawl, it will keep my hyped for first session, and if it ends up crashing and burning, I can just tell the manager at the LGS it didn't work out and get myself out of the commitment (I feel like after giving it a try, I'm already off the hook regardless of how it goes)

Just to be clear, I'm not setting it out to go wrong, much to the contrary. But I feel like this is a good opportunity to take a risk

So, any more recommendations I might be able to implement/go for?

>>97308471
Lol you're trying to teach yourself calculus without even knowing how to do algebra.

Just play regular D&D until you have done enough research, dummy.

And the fact that you don't have the agency to tell us your own thoughts on what West marches is and have to rely on a Google AI summary, says everything about how well this will go

What sets a West Marches campaign apart from a hex crawl?

>>97329372
>Daily reminder that the original West Marches story was a make-believe bullshit post of something that never happened, no different from Old Man Henderson.
Proof?

>>97329932
For most part, see >>97329513

>fact that you don't have the agency to tell us your own thoughts on what West marches is and have to rely on a Google AI summary
Oh, silly you. I copy-pasted the definition because I was hoping to give the thread a more neutral definition (rather than my personal take)

Just read the damn thread, bro

>>97329961
>What sets a West Marches campaign apart from a hex crawl?
For standard definition, see >>97308471 or do your own quick research

For my definition, well, as some anon pointed out (and I came to agree), West Marches is not about hexcrawl, doesn't need to be a hexcrawl and is potentially run better as not a hexcrawl (but rather something else that helps investigating points of interest, like a point crawl)

To me, the definitions would be:
>1. Focus on exploration and player-driven gameplay (rather than plot driven)
Players choose what to explore/do and go for it, rather than relying on a more structured plot (like a standard campaign)
>2. Players are not fixed and can rotate
You plan with however you got at the time; whoever is not there, simply sits out (their PC is safely ignored for that session)
>3. Every session starts and ends on a safe zone/town
This is the more unique aspect of West Marches IMO. It doesn't matter how the session ends, the new session starts off the safe zone, which also helps accommodate the 2nd point of rotating cast. Some guides I've seen mention you can make some kind of "get back home" roll if needed, but I feel like that should only done if any imminent threat is present, so avoid that taking up session time

In a nut shell, that is it. There's a whole shenenigan about players scheduling the session (rather than the DM), but I think that is BS, so I'm keeping my new group on a fixed day

>>97329961
West Marches is a way to run a game where there is no set session time and a large player pool; players arrange a group among themselves and schedule the session subject to the DM being available. As the PC group is thus liable to be different with each session, the strict rule is that the players must set out from the starting town, explore the adventure site, and return within the time slot of each session.

The map is an abstract map of regions with random encounters and dungeons within them (here is the main difference from a hexcrawl you were probably looking for), spreading out in a 180° angle from a starting town which is the last outpost of civilization, and getting more dangerous the further away from this starting town and into the wilderness the PCs explore.

Hexcrawls are a more normal campaign structure typically run for a regular fixed group and where the exploration and travel are far more granular. Hexcrawls usually do not have any depth-based or similar difficulty differentiation; instead, the standard (as in Basic D&D for example) is to wait until the PCs have achieved a certain level and the resilience that comes with it before introducing overland exploration. Hexcrawls often contain numerous towns and villages.