Westmarch Crawl Format

I've been going through all my 6-mile hexes and assigning each a wandering monster table, an adventure and a wonder. The one-mile hexes are numbered 1-30 so we can randomly determine where in the hex various features reside - just in case it's important later, which it might be. 

Each hex (Except for the castle hex) ought to be an adventure site of its own, and many of them will be suitable to return to over and over. 

As the several players explore and level up, I will suggest to them that their characters ought to fortify areas out in the world as staging areas. There will be towns and villages; some will be adventure sites in their own right and some will be neutral or friendly. By fortifying these areas, the characters will be able to travel farther as well as tame the land. If they have to return to 0800 every day, they won't be able to go much farther than the first adjacent hex.

This will also prepare the people for their new lords, who will (hopefully?) be PCs. 

Here are the charts we use to determine 1) what the encounter is about and 2) what the Special will be. You can see that the Special gets hoarier as the land gets wilder. 

Here we have the Landmark generator. It's very complicated. I'm sure there is an easier way to do it but this is the procedure I will use when we start. Landmarks are not going to come up all that often, but when they do, they should be true and interesting landmarks and not something generic. 

Finally, here is the hex worksheet itself. One per page, all the info you need to generate encounters, and a diagram of the hex so I can draw in the features as they pop up. 

You will see that each hex has a dominant terrain type. In this case "Settled." It also has an N number. In this case, N = 1. That refers to how often we check for an encounter. For this particular hex, we would only check which exploring, but for other hexes we would check while traveling through. 

(Recall that overland travel requires N checks per hex on 1d6, checked upon hex entry; exploring a hex requires one check per hour, with 1-N on 1d10 resulting in an encounter.)

This particular hex has no adventure in it. I don't want the players stopping here - this is safe home territory. 

Question for the penny groundlings: shall we give the several characters a chance to get lost, or shall we forego that part of the crawl? It seems punitive to me tbh. 

Different Hexes Taste Different

In the Westmarch sandbox, I've decided each hex will have a short encounter table with only four monsters plus a Faction entry (based on nearby power centers) and a Special entry (based on the terrain, population, and unique features.)

At the start, I'll only be building 

• 12 or so of these little encounter tables, 
• plus the subtables we talked about yesterday (largely unedited from that post),
• plus a Behavior table to help me flesh out the encounter. 

Why only four monsters on the encounter table? I want to be able to make a strong theme for each hex and then beat the players over the head with it, so that they are immediately aware of "oh, we're in a new area." 

The Scrybwood is going to be strongly faerie-flavored. The Durkwood will be strongly pig-flavored. The Ironwood will be dense with ents and ent clues. The Forest of Regrets will be filled with elfs and their allies. 

etc. 

If I have only four entries, I can make one be the main creature type, one be a subsidiary of it (dire boar and wereboar for instance,) have one boss-fight type (wyvern, stone giant, bandit army) and one undead or lycan type. This way, hex taste will be reinforced with many of the encounters. 

When the character of the hex changes, I will substitute one or more of the listings. When the party kills the green dragon in hex 0204, I'll replace it with a family of hippogriffs or an army of orcs or something. 

Each entry will have the (number appearing) of (creature name) and (lair %.) Probably something I would be willing to fudge for the purposes of verisimilitude, but not to "fix" it for the players. 

So here's that Behaviors table: 

So with this table, I can roll the entity encountered, what that entity is doing, and what problem it might have. These will just be suggestions, but suggestions that will prevent the "Orc-And-Pie" problem popping up with every encounter.

Special Nested Encounter Tables

 In the Westmarch sandbox I’m building, each hex will have a unique, very short encounter table. There will be four listings for monsters, plus a Faction, plus a Special. That makes for a 1d6 table. 

A Message For You, Rudy

I think the Specials should be hex features: some landmarks, some wondrous locales, and some towns and villages. That means there have to be different charts for more-civilized and less-civilized regions. 

I already use three levels of civilization for my domain rules so I’ll use the same ones here: civilized, borderlands and wilderlands. So I will have three subtables for the Special result, SC, SB and SW or S1, S2 and S3 (haven’t decided yet.) The correct subtable will be indicated on the appropriate main table. 

Nested Special tables 

Table SC Civilized

1 town

2 village

3 village 

4 landmark

(Cities are always placed)

Table SB Borderlands

1 village

2 village

3 landmark

4 landmark

5 wandering merchant

6 wonder

Table SW Wilderlands

1 homestead

2 fort (landmark)

3 demihuman village 

4 wonder

5 wonder

6 landmark 

In any individual hex, there is a maximum of one wonder to discover. Once that hex’s wonder is discovered, that listing becomes a landmark instead. 

Time, Place and Action

Bryce at Ten Foot Pole makes an excellent point today about how each hex in a hexcrawl needs a situation. It’s not just (place + time); there has to be action as well. 

He got this across to me in a fun way: hexes are mini-adventures. Or, another way to think about it is that each hex is an episode of an ongoing TV series. 

So far on my hex map, I have defined each each hex with:

1) an evocative name

2) its own (short) random encounter table

3) possible factions, based on nearby power centers (and a chance per the table for one of them to pop up to make mischief of one kind or another)

Now I will add:

4) a short OSR challenge that will pop up, if the several players decide to stop traveling and start exploring. 

Bammo! Instant episode. Possibly good for a single session, depending. But even if it’s solved fast, there is a lot more going on in each hex. 

Wilderness Overland Travel versus Wilderness Exploration

This is probably stupid and obvious to you but it's just become crystalized in my mind: Travel is not the same as exploration and therefore requires different procedures. 

This hot nugget hit me over the head with a steel chair when I was making up the Ref panel for my hexcrawl campaign. I made this chart, and I like it:

The last two columns are for rolling for encounters. I'm going to try it like this. 

If the party are moving overland, then they have N checks on a 1d6 every time they enter a hex. Any result of '1' results in an encounter. That encounter triggers 1d8-1 hours after they enter a hex, but always while they are in that hex. 

If the party have stopped in a hex to explore, they have an N in 10 chance to have an encounter every hour. I think this is better because it will speed things along a little. 

Again, traveling: 

• throw 1d6 N times upon entering a new hex.
• a 1 result generates an encounter.
• each of the encounters will happen 1d8-1 hours after they enter, but always before they enter the next one.

Again, exploring: 

• throw a 1d10 each hour. 
• a result of N or less generates an encounter during that hour.

Also note that I am using movement points per hex instead of miles per day, and N hews closely (but not perfectly) to the number of movement points necessary to cross. This makes more costly hexes to travel potentially more dangerous too, which I think is the way it should be.

What do you think?

Hexcrawl Single-Hex Worksheet

I made this. It scratches the itches I need scratched for sandbox info. Here are links to the .doc file and the .pdf.

 

Octagon Crawl

PROTIP: Weird headlines draw eyeballs. 

I’m working on my Westmarch campaign sandbox now, building simple and flavorful generative content for each hex. Of course much of that is from the random tables. 

My random encounter tables will have four listings for monster encounters, one marked FACTION, and one marked SPECIAL. These each lead to other subtables. 

FACTION will give me a chance to bring names NPCs into the picture to give the players a feel about the geopolitics, give quest hooks, and maybe make friends or enemies. I will almost always know which faction(s) are in the region.

SPECIAL is a landmark (wonder or natural feature), a settlement, or a merchant. 

The idea is that the first 2/3 of the table gives hyper-local flavor and the last 1/3 is broader details of the world and logistical support. 

On its own this suggests a heck of a lot of wandering tables, but I don’t need to make them all up ahead of time. The several players are only going to chew through a few hexes a night in any particular direction and I suspect there will be a lot of times when they stay in one hex. Furthermore, each only has four entries (with four auxiliary entries to use if the first ones don’t make sense.) it’ll be more formatting hassle than anything.  

New Spell: Demonic Attorney

Demonic Attorney

Level: 6
Duration: Special

Range: Special

Summons a demon to advocate for one person of your choice, in one matter of your choice. Gains favorable result 2-11 on 2d6. 

Each time spell is used, caster must give "something dear" to the demon as negotiated between them. This payment is due regardless of results. If he cannot pay the demon's asking price within thirty days of the spell, the demon has the absolute right to take the caster's soul instead. 

The Power of Names on a Map

Whatever do you think of this? 

A moderate amount of prep. 

Driving around in the city looking at the street signs and the Google map, it’s clear that before the advent of the car, place names referred to much smaller areas. Inside a city the size of providence (175k) there are 39 neighborhoods or something stupid like that. 

So I have decided, just decided right this minute, that I am going to give a place name to literally every hex on the board. 

This will help establish flavor and make the world seem bigger than it is. Every time the several players cross into a hex and meet someone local, we can say “this is Durkwood” or “this is Elm Grove” or whatever. 

I’ve kinda decided to use about 35 different random encounter tables anyway - one for every two or three areas. Might need more. Why not continue down this delicious path? 

After crossing through lands x, y, z, a, b, c, the several players will feel a much greater sense of accomplishment than “you cross three hexes today. They are forests.”

Additionally, settled areas have a village every one or two miles. Borderlands have a settlement every five to ten miles. So those will have to be on the encounter tables too, in some fashion. Probably nested tables.

Lore Interlude: Bob the Recker I

MARCH 28 998 PY

CRAGSTONE

MORNING

Bob the Recker, 1st level fighting-man, stood before a peddler. A dwarf, a guildie, member of the Sea Clans. The dwarf had a white beard. He was grooming a tame brown bear. 

"Veteran?"

"Yes."

"Of the War?"

"Yes."

"Headin' to Otter?"

"That's right. The Ord of Otter. Next barony to the southeast."

The dwarf thinks a minute and pulls on his pipe. "Two gold coin a day and rations. Bring a sword, and a horse if you got one. We're leaving at dawn. Two days in Glenden Wood, two days through the villages. Rest Sundays. Then we get there and you're on your own again."

They shook hands and Bob prepared his meager things for the journey. Perhaps he could catch up to the traveling ascetic Honosius and talk about the expedition to the Sea of Calm. His hand smelled like bear sweat.

Cyfandil Session 5

GAME DATE: March 27 2023
CAMPAIGN DATE: March 27 998 PY

This update talks about Session 5 which happened on Monday, March 27, 2023 at the library. Alyson and I were there early so she bent my ear about what Bob wants to know: the identity of that weird priest she heard about from Hoogan he Peddler.

Bob got all up in the mug of Sgt Shanks over beating on some drunkards. Then Bob went into the Church of Aluvia and spoke with Father Gobault. Gobault sent him to the Church of Aubereon.

The several characters were astonished by the literal poofing in of a new man, a Cleric whose name I forget. That cleric did us a solid by scanning Grimm the pet ogre for evilness, and finding none.

I think the most likely outcome for the townsfolk is to shun the powerful Athena, but we will let the dice tell me and I'll roll with it as it comes up on a NPC-by-NPC basis. 

Grimm's luxurious back hair

There's a lot more lore coming. We learned a lot. 

Then they all

•        went into the dungeon,
•        fought a slime,
•        lit some stuff on fire,
•        learned that Grimm sneaks out of the dungeon at night and eats children,
•        got hit by a spell of weakness so-called, and
•        found a golden key.

Next week they say they want to explore the cave section, but also check the room where they torched the slime.

Some other things they want:

•        Orc Hand wants to learn about orcs
•        Athena wants to learn about her magic mirror
•        Bob wants to learn about the pirates and this mysterious priest and wants a lot of other     things
•       Nathan wants to buy rations and a house (he should have played a hobbit)
•       This new guy wants to fit in and be good.

PROPS: Don for managing Emmy and keeping track of all the lore

PROPS: Don again for the amazing map

SLOPS: Scott for leaving his dice at home, that dingus

ADDITIONAL PROPS: The library for letting us act like goofballs

Elevator Pitch for the The Ongoing Cyfandil Campaign

 The handbill on the wall of the Brass Dragon reads, 

The Lore of Cyfandil, Session 4

 

Map of Cragstone

March 27, 998 PY

 

I have had the opportunity to meet with our adventurers and learn something of their histories. Nathan the Wizard, is of the school of the blue. His occupation is Gong-jack. Age 18, height 5’ 11”. Nathan dresses well, fixing his robe with a leather belt, buckled with a jewel encrusted clasp. He has shaggy brown hair, a neatly trimmed goatee, and a narrow brimmed hat.

 

Athena should not be judged by her diminutive size. While a mere 3’ tall, Athena is an accomplished wizard, as the tale I am soon to tell will relate. Athena has a broad brimmed hat, with its peaked crown drapping over the brim, covering Athena’s left eye. Her hat is decorated with a small sapphire, that hangs from a thin silver chain of the hat’s brim. Athena is also of the school of the blue. She has an owl for a companion.

 

About Bob the Recker, also known as “The Dude of Death,” I now know quite a bit. He is 6’ 2”, a hulky build with a massive helmet formed of a creature’s skull. The skull bears a crack, which for Bob is a reminder of the war he fought with Orc Hands and the betrayal he met with on the battlefield. Bob, despite his fierce appearance, loves cats. He has a cat named Berry the Robber. Bob wears a cape emblazoned with a raging fire from which emerges a figure, sword raised, taunting would-be foes.

 

4 years ago, during the season of war, Bob was battling alongside Orc Hands when he stepped on a land mine. Orc Hands, assuming his friend dead abandoned him. Bob has only faint memories of this betrayal. After the war Bob was interned at a mental hospital. The explosion from the mine had disfigured Bob’s face, giving him the look of one possessed. Bob, tormented by rage nearly went mad. He has since taken to wearing a helmet that hides his face. 

 

The helmet is made of the skull of a beast he had hunted with Orc Hands before the war. Bob remembers little of this. Bob remembers little of anything. Even Bob’s real name is uncertain, although he suspects it is Harold Humperwart, a man from Glendale. Bob dimly remembers his time in Glendale. After having left the mental hospital he returned home, but was harassed by a local priest who accussed him of being possessed by evil spirits. Without memories or friends, Bob felt little attachment to Glendale and so left for Cragstone, where he had went to school and met Orc Hands. Bob is the last person of his clan.

 

Returning to the present day. Bob, Orc Hands, and Athena have returned to the crypt of Thorsten, this time accompanied by Nathan and Nathan’s porter, Little John. Orc Hands hired a link boy, 7-year-old Little Liam.

 

There was an ill omen on the eve of their return to the crypt. A fierce hailstorm raged, and in March no less. Upon entering the tomb, the spell trap was once again sprung although most of the party, save Orc Hands and the hirelings, were able to avoid it. 

 

Bob took the lead and urged the party on a new path, this time straight. The door was stuck, but Bob kicked it open. Ever alert, Bob spied a secret door in the next room. A panel in that room was loose and was able to slide sideways. The next room was quite expansive, a long hall way with stairs descending down to an open area flanked by two large frescoes-one of a wizard and the other of a knight. Further down was another flight of stairs leading back up. Athena studied the painting of the knight, who looked to be laying in a tomb. She could find no secret doors or switches on the painting, nor any secret meaning or message in the painting itself. They proceeded further and discovered a chest at the top of the stairs. They did not have time to open the chest though, for as soon as they discovered it they heard commotion from their companions, Nathan and Orc Hands, who had stayed behind.

Nathan and Orc Hands did not follow their companions into the secret passage, but instead ventured into an adjacent room, which opened out into a large, high-ceilinged, room filled with frescoes. Pillars filed down the center of the room in two columns, extending beyond eye sight. About 35 feet ahead could be made out a hulking form, an ogre. Feeling outmatched and unprepared Nathan and Orc Hands flee. They rush out of the room and press shut the door behind them. In their haste they realize they had forgot little Liam. A scream followed by a crunching of bones is heard behind them. 

Bob and Athena hear the scream and rush to their companions’ aid. Orc Hands and Nathan are able to run into the secret passage before being attacked by the Ogre. Bob sees that Orc Hands is now face to face with the ogre. Orc Hands swings his sword and misses. Bob fires a shot with his crossbow that strikes the target. Athena and Nathan both effectively cast a spell. Athena casts beguilement and Nathan casts nimbus, rendering the ogre charmed and blind.

Athena approaches the ogre, discovering it is a female named Grim. Athena, while disturbed at the death of Little Liam at Grim’s hands is overjoyed to have such a large and powerful new companion. Grim asks to be cured of her blindness and says that she is willing to part with two gold nuggets if the wizards can return her sight. The party agrees and informs Grim that she will have her sight restored within an hour. 

 

Athena and Bob return to the long hallway and open the chest they had left earlier, discovering a coat of Mithral chain mail armor as well as a mirror that looks to be magical. The adventurers agree that Bob will have the chain mail, Athena will take the magic mirror, and Nathan and Orc Hands will each take a gold nugget. 

 

The adventurers, mourning the loss of Little Liam, return to Cragstone. Exhausted, they forgo investigating their treasure. A funeral for Little Liam will need to be arranged. Athena’s mirror also needs to be investigated. Orc Hands met with the librarian, Minthada, to learn more about Orcishness, an affliction he has long been curious about. Orc Hands discovers there is a settlement of the afflicted in Rithwic. As he is leaving the library he is given a slip of paper with a cryptic message, “A Focusing Stone is about the size of a fiun skull. I wonder if there is a connection?” Orc Hands is resolved to look into the matter, believing that if he discovers a connection he may receive a reward from the librarian.

Becoming Orcish

This post originally appeared on March 9th, 2019.

Orcs are not a race. Orcishness is an affliction that will sometimes happen upon groups of people. It spreads like a strange disease, but many of its sufferers do not care to be cured.

What happens when you're Orcish:

 

Positives: 

Gain Darkvision to 6"

Gain a 1d6 melee attack barehanded

Fight and Save as a Fighting-Man of your level

Speak a cool new language

Really please the ladies without even trying very hard

 

Negatives:

Become completely incurious. Lose all casting abilities 

Get -1 to all rolls in daylight or bright lighting

 

Mixed Bag:

Your stats are set to S 16, I 5, W 5, D No Change, Co 16, Ch 5. So if you depend on mental stats, you're doomed.

 

How to become Orcish: Spend a week with a community of Orcish people. After the week, Save vs. Poison. If you fail, you will start to become Orcish. You cannot choose to automatically fail this Save. You will become quite strong and vigorous, then slow and stupid, then turn greenish and your teeth will protrude. You will forget your old personality and prefer orcishness in most cases.

 

How to stop being Orcish: Spend 70 GPs per character level and live for one month with a religious order. They will lock you up and cure you, much in the same manner as they could cure someone suffering from lycanthropy. Alternately, allow an apothecary and four strong men to heal you over the course of the month - it does not require clerical magic per se. Rates and success vary.

Hack Any Situation

Pretty girls are constantly coming up to me and asking how I handle unusual actions when I referee RPGs. You guys know how it is. So I’m jotting this post off and putting a QR code on my business card so I don’t have to keep explaining it between impromptu makeout sessions. 

First, mechanics. 

Mechanically, two great hacks I use to fill in the gaps are a 1d6 and 2d6 tables. High stats get a +1 and low stats get a -1. 

I handle binary results (eg did they break the door down or not) on 1d6. 1-2 is a success but that range is modified by stats, tools, circumstances. 

By delineating 2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12 we get a good feel for how some ongoing action is going on. 2 is complete failure, 12 is instant success, and then you get a range of the good and bad. 

And now for the refereeing discretion I’ve long been known for:

As for many things, you don’t really need to ask the dice. I presume these figures represent Adventurous Men, and that they are broadly competent in the things Adventurous Men might do. Rather than “can you climb the wall,” the questions are how do you climb it, and then to determine how long it should take. Like that. 

I now return you to my normal heavy petting and I suggest you return to whatever it is you do when is cool guys are kissing a pretty girl. 

Shield Shenanigans

Shields Shall Be Splintered! is a combat maneuver available to figures who wield a shield as a class feature and are actually wielding one at that moment. 

Rather than permit a particular successful melee or missile attack, the player may choose to give up the figure’s shield - to allow it to be destroyed in exchange for not taking that instance of damage and effect. 

The player may choose this action after damage is rolled. 

He may not use this action against a spell, spell-like ability or an attack that deals no damage. 

In the case of a magic shield, using this action reduces the magical plus of the shield by one for 24 hours. A magical shield stripped of its pluses will splinter normally. 

nb: A canny player may have his main figure hire a shield bearer who can hold an additional shield or two for him in order to Splinter more often. 

Shieldmate

Two and only two figures with shields can stand abreast and Mate their shields, granting each other an additional +1 AC. 

BONUS: Henchmen Shall Be Splintered!

A PC figure which is adjacent to one of his followers (such as a porter, link-boy, or mercenary,) the player may sacrifice that NPC just like the figure’s own shield. 

Cyfandil Session 4

Lolol THE JOYS OF EMERGENT GAMEPLAY

The way Charm Person works in my game is, the charmed person takes up a Retainer slot. They check to break the charm periodically, the period based on their INT. It only works against man-types (humanoids up to 4 +1 HD - ogres are right at the top of that power curve.)

Meet Grimm

Hilariously, one of our wizards, Athena, is cursed to live as a midget. She is 3’ 11” tall, and she just charm personed an 8’ tall ogre. They will have to check to see if the charm is broken in… 30 days. 

Until then, talk about an odd couple! 

This is the kind of plot that you just couldn’t write. It can only come as a result of weird game loops; the story emerges from actual play. 

The Lore of Cyfandil, Session 3

March 26, 998 PY 

A fortnight past the town of Cragstone held its annual festival, the Feast of the Annunciation. Unbeknownst to me, and—I dare say— most other citizens of Cragstone, there was discovered that day a secret passage below the plinth of the statue of Thorsten Cragstone. 

 

A band of adventurers, three in number, set out to explore this newfound passage. Two of these adventurers—fighting men both—known as “Bob the Recker” and “Orc-Hands” were classmates in our local academy for youth. Each 19 years, accomplished in military matters, and experienced in battle. A third, named Athena, a professed user of magic, also 19, accompanied them. There was to be a fourth to the band, a certain wizard by the name of Nathan, but he was struck with a fierce illness and was unable to attend.

 

While the two fighting men are known to the people of Cragstone, having gained some renown through their prowess on the battlefield as well as their near perpetual feuding, the background of our magic users, Athena and Nathan, is less clear. 

 

It was apparent from the outset that this was to be no ordinary adventure. Upon entering the crypt, two of the adventurers reported experiencing gloom, which they attributed to a kind of trap or spell set at the entrance to the dungeon. This appeared to be only a minor inconvenience, they took no heed, and proceeded on. The entranceway offered three passages– one right, one left, and one proceeding straight ahead. They chose the left passage. Moving left they encountered a long hallway. Bob the Recker thought it best to scare off any would-be attackers and let out a mighty shout. A squat creature, somewhat reptilian or insect-like in appearance approached them.

 

Orc-Hands charged the creature and missed. The creature was discovered to have an oozing liquid that could be excreted from its tail. This liquid was ejected onto Orc Hand's sword causing the sword to quickly rust, rendering it useless. Athena commenced to attack the creature, although she too was repelled, her dagger reduced to rust.

 

Our once brave company at this began to fret. Athena, in a flash of inspiration, decided to toss a day’s ration of iron to the creature. The trick worked and the beast quickly went to feast on the morsel. Given an opportunity to strike Bob took out his bow and loosed an arrow into the beast wounding, but not defeating it. Aroused, the beast struck again, this time turning Orc Hand's dagger to rust. Two out of our three adventurers three were now disarmed. There was no need to worry though, for Bob’s second arrow struck true and took down the beast.

 

The crew, disarmed and thankful to be alive, resolved to retreat for the day and return when better equipped. Orc-Hands skewered the beast on a ten-foot pole he had brought with him and with that the crew left the dungeon. Emerging into the light of day they were met by a crowd that had gathered in the square. What is this? They are being cheered and praised as champions.

 

Among the crowd was a knowledgeable man about town, Magnus Goodbody, who offered them 100 gold pieces for the carcass of the beast. Goodbody recognized the creature immediately, identifying it as a “rust monster” (actually, as it so happens, this is quite a common creature in the known dungeons of Cyfandil). Our adventurers, surprised at their good fortune, took their gold pieces and went to town, exploring the various shops for merchandise so they might restock and prepare for another adventure in the tomb of Thorsten Cragstone.

 

Servant of Lore,

Ser Thomas Perscors