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.