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.

Constructing the Big Book of Stuff

The last campaign I ran ended in early 2020 because half my table were pandemic enthusiasts. I had assembled an amazing binder of stuff to use to run a game - any game that goes in any direction - completely on the fly. No thinking, no flipping through six million books. 

Then I lost that binder. 

So I’m putting together a team. Or in this case, a new binder. It looks like this right now but of course it’ll change as I get gooder at this. 

10 Dividers

1. Handouts: Bullpens, character sheets, roll up guides, spell sheets, calendars, time trackers, graph paper, unusual storeboughts sheet
2. Seasonal events and calendar - wars, omens, winter upkeep
3. Town adventures, NPCs, henchmen for hire, procedures for hiring them, rumors and hooks sheets 
4. Dungeon: the current thing (remove from binder for play?)
5. Monsters: monster manual, dungeon wandering monsters
6. Treasure including unique materials 
7. Wilderness and overland, with procedures, weather, wonders and wanderers by biome, and a supply countdown sheet. Also disease rules. 
8. One-page dungeons and modules not being played. 
9. Full spell list; spell handout sheet 
10. One-off handouts such as paladin rules, spell research procedures, and unique swords 

Treasure Is More Important Than Monsters

This article was originally published on September 4th, 2017.

One thing that I have noticed lately is that whenever folks talk about dungeon design or wilderlands stocking or whatever adventure stage they are preparing, they start with the area, then place monsters, then figure out how the monsters interact, then place traps, then place weirdness and special encounters, and only then place the treasure.  Even if a dungeon is meant to protect a great treasure, the actual placement happens at the end.

But it seems to me that the reason the characters go and face the dangers of the dungeon is to get the treasure out. One of the axioms I like to remember as both a player and as a Ref is this:

Treasure is how you win. Monsters are how you die. 

So friends, shouldn't we place the winning conditions first, and then figure out how to protect them? It's a paradigm shift that has stuck me and I will try to develop the idea further.

Races and Places

Not the map - just an example 

On the People of the Realm

One of the implicit assumptions of vanilla d&d is that the people are analogues to European Whites. I will retain that here but it bears mentioning that I even considered some alternative, which I would not have done a few years ago.

White European types will be a supermajority. This is the principality of Aluvia, a White country in a White region. There will be a very few demi-men and a very few nonwhites. The other races of Men in the world are East Asian analogues and North African analogues. There will be one G’harundim (North African type) in town. 

I don’t anticipate any racial politics between human groups unless the players force the issue, and I don’t expect they will. I’m certainly not going to broach it. It’s just flavor. Later, the players may decide to travel to the other lands and find different cultural norms and different kinds of dungeons and wilderness.

On the Shape of the Realm

Cragstone is going to be the middle town in a three-town run along the as-yet-unnamed river. There will be significant trade along the river and the road. Therefore it makes sense to put castles nearby. 

About half the six-mile hex will be farmland and half will be forest, including some dense forest. It will be hilly too, giving some verticality to the land. This helps to take the land out of the realm of a board game and into the realm of the real.  

On the Landmarks of the Realm

I’m going to put a proper castle at the confluence of two rivers a little northwest of the northern town, Rithwic. I’m going to put B2 in the next hex over. Rename everything and reskin the monsters to provide a little mystery. 

That gives the townspeople a defensible position within a day’s walk in either direction and provides sites for interesting adventuring opportunities. 

I’m also going to put a bandit “castle” (fortified house) somewhere nearby, with a charismatic Sho (East Asian) warlord and 300 men, either north or south along the trade road. Probably two hexes away, so the patrols from one of the castles will have skirmish with the bandits. Idk how much it will come into play, but imo it’s important to prepare factions for the players to encounter as well. 

Past that, there will be a ruined Septarch tower and two other dungeons in the same hex. (Septarchs are the archmages of the realm.)

On the Monsters of the Realm

As far as local monsters, I’m going to have new humanoid monsters that aren’t really new. They will be reskinned and renamed but retain the same ecology and society as the ones we all know from a million years of playing, but they will look different and act a little different, giving the same-but-different that people seem to enjoy. 

Drudges are cat men who breed like crazy. The least of them are 1-HP monsters. The most powerful of them cast war spells such as lightning bolts. They are like goblins. 

Tumeroks are tall grey warriors. They present kind of like romans and kind of like cavemen, and are obsessed with honor and order like Dwarves might be.

Monoguas are various colors. They have three eyes vertically in the middle of their face. Monogua eyes are prized for magic material components and potions. 

I’m going to keep ogres and trolls and minotaurs as is. Kobolds, I don’t know. I may make kobolds like Doozers. Neither benign nor malign. Into mining and building underground.

Orcish is an affliction men get, similar to lycanthropy.

I might introduce Ouphes, which are a dark mirror to elves and gnomes. They are merchants, jewelers and bankers. Nepotistic and ruthless and sour and obnoxious. Rarely, Ouphes gain character levels like men do but they should not be PCs.

I’ve been and will be super busy. Regional maps to come.

Random Encounter Tables

We are taught as beginning Referees to construct random encounter tables on a bell curve. After all, mundane encounters (with men and common humanoids) will be much more common than ones with great and dangerous beasts.

This makes logical sense, but it doesn’t make for much fun. Why always the normal stuff? Why wouldn’t you want to throw cool monsters at the players? Bandits? They can see bandits every day. Give them the cockatrice or wyvern or displacer beast or a weird old illusionist.

Random encounters are rare enough: we only check for them once every so often. When one comes up, it should have the “wow” factor that will have players retelling their encounter for years. Therefore rather than bell-curve encounter tables, we will construct straight tables.

For each terrain type or biome, write down as many kinds of odd men and monsters that you like that might dwell there. Try to think up 10-12 entries. Then arrange these men and monsters into a list by ascending threat level. We call this a progressive encounter table.

At the outskirts of the biome, just roll 1d6 to see what comes up. But as you get deeper into it, it should get more dangerous, like going deeper into a dungeon. At deeper dungeon levels, things are more dangerous. In order to simulate this ramp up in danger, add some integer to your 1d6 roll. 1d6+1, 1d6+2, 1d6+10, whatever. Call this integer your hazard level. Since you arranged your denizens in ascending-threat order, your adjusted rolls will produce more dangerous encounters without the players feeling like it’s forced.

For small hexes, like a 1-mile hex, choose a single hazard value for the whole hex. But if you’re doing a six-mile hex, it’s okay to eyeball the territory and adjust the hazard value on the fly. A forest hex near farmland and a swamp would likely have an increasing hazard gradient as the party goes from dry land into the bayou.

Monster, Activity, Complication

Random tables are good to use because they can bring the world to life. But if each time the players meet monsters, they’re always doing the same things, then the world’s verisimilitude breaks down. Why is the monster there? Is he always just waiting to be killed? Of course not! Therefore, consider constructing three-column tables.

The first column will be the monsters, as usual.

The second column will be six activities the monsters might be doing when the party encounters them. Hiding, patrolling, foraging, partying, healing a sick friend, looking to trade, on the prowl. Who knows? Just pick six obvious activities.

The third will be a complication the monster will have. Write down six things that might inconvenience a monster. Maybe it has a baby. Maybe it’s sick. Maybe it needs help with another monster. Maybe it’s being preyed upon right now by an even bigger monster!

By rolling on all three of these columns, you will have a monster, a purpose, and a complication – a ready-made interesting and vibrant encounter.

It will also give the players some information on how to shape the encounter to their advantage, and players love “fooling” the Ref. So let them  

Here’s my chart for the Barren Steppe biome:

If I roll a 4, 1, and 4, then I have Dervishes, skulking about, but they need something the party might have – and they want to trade for it. Much more interesting than just some random holy men.

Try straight, progressive, three-roll tables in your next game.