This will be a detailed look at the actual process of running a hexcrawl at the gaming table: How I organize my tools, what I’m thinking about during the game, the decisions I make (and why I make them), how I play with and exploit the tools, and so forth.
I’m not entirely sure how useful this will be, but I’m hoping it will provide some useful insight and practical advice into using 5E Hexcrawls.
THE FOUR DOCUMENTS
What I’ve found over the years is that no two campaigns ever use exactly the same methods of documentation, but when I’m running a hexcrawl I generally find that I’m maintaining four “documents”:
- THE HEX MAP. Printed off on a single 8.5” x 11” piece of paper that I can lay flat on the table in front of me.
- THE BINDER. This contains the campaign key. It includes background information (historical epochs, current civilizations, custom terrain types, environmental conditions, etc.), random encounter tables, and the hex key.
- THE FOLDER. Each document in this folder details a single location. As described in Designing the Hexcrawl, any location that requires more than a single page to describe gets bumped out of the hex key and placed in its own document. (This keeps the hex key clean and easy to use; it also makes it easier to organize and use these larger adventures.) Each adventure location is labeled with and sorted by its hex number for easy access when needed.
- CAMPAIGN STATUS SHEET. This document is updated and reprinted for each session. It’s responsible for keeping the campaign in motion. In my Thracian Hexcrawl, for example, the campaign status sheet included: A list of current events in Caerdheim and Maernath (the two cities serving as home base for the PCs); a list of empty complexes (which I reference when I make a once-per-session check to see if they’ve been reinhabited); the current rumor table; details about the various businesses being run by the PCs; and the master loyalty/morale table for PC hirelings. I talk about campaign status sheets in more detail over here.
STATUS QUO PREP
The heart of the hexcrawl, of course, is the hex key itself (along with the folder of detailed locations). And because the promise of the hexcrawl is that the PCs can go anywhere they want, it takes a lot of front-loaded prep to get this material ready for the first session of play.
The up-side, though, is that once all that prep is finished, a hexcrawl campaign based around wilderness exploration becomes incredibly prep-light: I typically spend no more than 10-15 minutes getting ready for each session, because all I’m really doing is jotting down a few notes to keep my documentation up to date with what happened in the last session.
What makes this work is that the content of each hex is designed in a state of “status quo” until the PCs touch it. Once the PCs start touching stuff, of course, the ripples can start spreading very fast and very far. However, in the absence of continued PC interaction, things in the campaign world will generally trend back towards a new status quo.
This status quo method generally only works if you have robust, default structures for delivering scenario hooks. In the case of the hexcrawl, of course, I do: Both the rumor tables and the hexcrawl structure itself will drive PCs towards new scenarios. (If all else fails in a hexcrawl, of course, the PCs can always choose a direction and start walking to find something interesting to do.)
The advantage of the status quo method is that it minimizes the amount of work you have to do as a GM. (Keeping 100+ hexes up in the air and active at all times would require a ridiculous amount of effort.) It also minimizes the amount of prep work which is wasted. (If you’re constantly generating background events that the PCs are unaware of and not interacting with, that’s all wasted effort.)
In practical terms, it means that you prep for each session consists of “touching base” on a half dozen or perhaps a dozen “active” hexes. That might mean:
- Updating the adversary roster
- Updating the key to reflect PC actions (although if you keep good notes during play, this is often perfunctory)
- Repopulating an empty location (using your random encounter tables or following your inspiration)
In addition to whatever tasks are necessary around the PCs’ home base.
A key thing to keep in mind throughout this process is that “status quo” doesn’t mean “boring.” It also doesn’t mean that literally nothing is happening at a given location. For example, the status quo for a camp of goblin slavers isn’t “the goblins all sit around.” The status quo is that there’s a steady flow of slaves passing through the camp and being sold.
For a deeper discussion of this, check out Status Quo Design.
SETUP
An hour or so before the game is scheduled to start, I’ll set up the table.
I sit at one end of a long dining room table. I place a TV tray to the left of my chair and another TV tray to the right of my chair. Then I pull out the box that I keep all my hexcrawl material in.
On the TV tray to my right, I place the Binder that contains the campaign key and the Folder that contains the documents detailing individual locations.
There’s a second folder that contains my GM Screen. I use a moduler screen, that allows me to insert reference sheets. (The reference sheets consist of the watch checklist and all supporting material, like terrain modifiers.) This folder also contains several copies of my GM Hexcrawl Worksheet, and I pull one of those out and place it on the table in front of me.
I remove the Hex Map from the binder and also place that on the table in front of me.
Next, the Rulebooks. I place those on the TV tray to my left. If I have additional copies for the players, I’ll place those in the middle of the table.
I also have a folder of Player Supplies, which are also placed in the middle of the table:
- Blank paper (including graph paper and hex paper)
- Blank character sheets (for an open table; I’ll also remove these once we start playing to reduce clutter)
- Communal maps (which have been drawn by the players and shared with the group)
Also in the campaign box are the Characters. I have a folder for living characters in the campaign and another folder for dead characters. These stay in the box: I generally don’t need to reference them during play, so it’s best to keep them out of the way.
I print out a copy of the Campaign Status Sheet for the current session and also place it on the table in front of me.
Finally, I’ll grab my dice bag and lay out the Dice I need: 2d4, 8d6, 6d8, 2d10, 2d12, 6d20.
- 8d6 for fireballs and lightning bolts.
- 6d8 so that I can roll an entire day’s worth of encounter checks in a single go.
- 6d20 because I can simultaneously roll an entire mob’s attack rolls. (These are generally in three pairs of matching colors, so that I can easily group them for mixed types.)
(See Random GM Tip: Fistfuls of Dice for more advice on rolling and reading lots of dice at the same time.)
“Repopulating an empty location” links to the article of adversary rooster. Is that intended?
I’ve been running a wilderness exploration game for over a year now (started as a hexcrawl, but the scale of travel I wanted gradually turned it into a pointcrawl).
You’ve mentioned repopulating dungeons in some articles, and while doing that with monsters seems pretty straightforward, I’m wondering if you do that for treasure too. That feels harder to justify, beyond pocket change brought by new monsters. Treasure hunting is the focus of my game, so while I’ve gotten a lot of reuse out of the overworld map, the dungeons never get revisited once they’re been picked over, so I haven’t bothered restocking them.
What kinds of reuse do your dungeons get? Do you restock them with treasure as well as monsters?
@kalyptein: You have provoked the brain worms and now you must suffer ^_^
I think restocking a dungeon should also remix it in some way. Either whoever or whatever moves in there or the passage of time should change the layout. A cave-in (caused by activity at another nearby adventure site) has cut off a familiar path and opened a new one, allowing nastier subterranean beasties to infest the place. A cult has decided to hit the bigtime and remodelled a dungeon to balance their fell shui. Maybe a young dragon manipulated the party into clearing out the place and has since begun building their nascent hoard deep within, using their small army of kobolds to dig out new tunnels and chambers.
When adventurers clear out a lair, every monster, malcontent, and authority figure within a reasonable radius should hear about it and have an opinion on it. Unless the party claims the dungeon and rehabilitates it themselves, or helps someone else do it (say, the local villagers or nobility), someone or something will start squatting there all over again. Rumour tables and, uh, environmental storytelling encounters are my go-to method for communicating these changes. Wicked chanting has replaced the guttural snarls once heard from deep within the cave. A dragon passes overhead in silhouette, nearly beaning a gawker with a brick as they look up. It looks like it’s carrying a whole sack of them to that tower on the hill you cleared out all those weeks ago.
Revisiting old stomping grounds is fun for players precisely because of the mix of familiar and unfamiliar elements. Many of the monsters may be new, but they might still have allies among, or at least knowledge of, other denizens that could help. If the players know about the swinging blade trap and the cultists don’t, it makes them feel smart when they lure the baddies into it. Observant players may notice new construction, especially if they’re a dwarf or some kind of expert, leading to new treasure or vantage points. Give them a reason to keep and pore over their old maps. Even if the layout doesn’t change per se, a different environmental aspect can breathe new life into an old map. Flooding is great for this, since it’s both tricky to traverse and opens up opportunities for vertical exploration. Maybe all the shafts in a dungeon’s ceiling were the work of a beholder, and the players were only able to explore the bottom level(s) before the once-in-a-century flood granted access to fabulous new treasure and its dread guardians D:
Hell, there may well be treasure they clearly missed the first time they came through. That’ll make them want to explore old sites even without all the tricks I’ve vomited up here! I know I’ve seen people use the something old/new/borrowed/blue method for stocking dungeons before, and it fits well for restocking things, too. A familiar element, an unfamiliar element, something the party’s seen before but transplanted from another location, and something emotional about the new circumstances.
I hope this is half as useful as it was fun to think about.
For want of an edit feature, I’ll brainstorm some ideas for how and why more significant treasure may accompany new dungeon denizens. If I didn’t communicate it directly enough in my previous post, most of these new arrivals would act opportunistically. Free real estate is hard to turn down. For those specifically seeking seclusion, though, it’s also useful that the site is now thought of as ‘cleared’, as other adventurers and treasure hunters are less likely to turn up.
*Instead of burying the lede like last time, here it is upfront: make the party believe they missed treasure the first time. If they know full well they left something behind with plans to pick it up later, move it or change the route they have to take somehow. A lot can change even in a couple of days in a volatile environment like a wilderness dungeon. If they’re blissfully unaware, pull them back in with another hook and spring it on them then. Once they realise they’ve missed stuff once, they’ll want to revisit earlier sites all on their own.
*Young dragons need somewhere to put their burgeoning hoards, and older dragons might need to spread their stuff around out of necessity (too much stuff, or specific storage requirements) or paranoia (backup lairs might be worth splitting the hoard for pragmatic dragons).
*Smugglers always need out-of-the-way spots to stash their loot. Other kinds of criminals are just as likely to need to move large stacks of cash and assets around outside polite society. A fun variant could be a debauched noble’s pleasure cave, filled with all the stuff they’ve stolen from their people in a secluded location useful for more… private entertainment.
*Natural disasters or other cataclysms may literally shake the place up enough to unearth heretofore undisturbed rooms within the site, or access to entirely new sites. Even in the latter case, new elements will filter through to the old dungeon. The flooded beholder cave I mentioned before fits this category, as does any tomb that was only a false antechamber before the REAL burial site, or an outpost that was built atop the strata of a long-forgotten undercity.
*Certain treasures may only work or can only be stored in conditions present in the old dungeon. I alluded to this before with dragon hoards, but it’s worth highlighting as a reason why treasures may get moved around. An unholy confluence of leylines makes this spot perfect for the cult’s ritual, and they’re ever so grateful to the party for clearing out all the monsters. They might even assume the adventurers are allies and offer them an invitation to the party that ends the world!
*The restocked dungeon may not have much new treasure itself, but could lead to other adventures directly related to it. If the party reconsecrated an ancient shrine, for example, it may once again become a site of pilgrimage. Bandits and monsters might move in to prey on these travellers before the route can be properly protected. What will the party do when their eventual haul clearly includes items that once belonged to these innocent people?
*As a player, I love turning old dungeons into strongholds. That being said, you can’t convert every place you clear, and you aren’t the only adventurers around. Make your players hate a rival adventuring party even more by having them move into a place the party fought hard to clear, especially if they wanted the site themselves and didn’t move fast enough. Will they try to evict them? If the rivals weren’t already evil, will the power go to their heads and turn them into tyrants that must be stopped? Did the party dodge a bullet when the rivals accidentally release an ancient evil that enslaves them and corrupts the land? Go wild!
*Monsters can sometimes be treasure in themselves. Did a nest of fire beetles spring up in the absence of the giant centipedes on the first floor? Great, now your low-level party can go harvest their heat glands and sell them for beer money. If they’re smart, they’ll make sure they don’t kill all of them and return regularly to their secret spot whenever they need a bit of cash. The presence of certain monsters might prompt the growth of unusual plant life, or otherwise affect the environment in some profitable way. Players should consider how the ecosystem they’ve helped create can be converted into coin.
*More intelligent denizens can be bargained with. A savvy and unscrupulous party might broker a deal between an evil art collector and a newly arrived medusa, receiving a fee every time they facilitate the creation of another ‘uncannily lifelike’ statue. More savoury endeavours might include trading in religious artifacts for a higher price than usual to the deacon of that shrine they helped out earlier, or providing resources the new occupants need to keep the place running. Captive audiences tend to be especially willing to part with their gold.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk on restocking dungeon treasure <3
It’s a small thing, but I love the mention of tv trays. Back when I ran games in person I’d use them for convenient ‘wrap-around’ table space just like you do.
A simple but good reason to have the players revisit a dungeon is dropping a hook of: a merchant caravan with a couple of thousand gold got raided by a mixed band of monsters. They headed in the direction of the lair they cleared out a while ago and now the merchant will give the adventurers the tip off and let the players have the treasure as long as they murder the miscreants. Because adventuring is harder work than mercantilism.
Then if they find something else that must have been missed that should make them want to revisit later on.