In this two-part article, I share tips from my ongoing sandbox campaign which uses a hexcrawl for overland travel and exploration. The first part contains tips about preparing a hexcrawl, while the second part focuses on running a hexcrawl.

Hexcrawls are a means not an end

There’s no such thing as a hexcrawl campaign in D&D. Hexcrawling is a method to track overland travel by dividing a map into hexagonal plots and tracking the characters’ progress across that map. And that alone cannot be the driver of a campaign. Hexcrawls are useful, but they are a tool for running a campaign, they are not a campaign in themselves.

For a campaign, we need character motivation, and “travel across the land” is not a motivation. Hexcrawls work best Make sure the characters have a motivation which drives them to explore the land. Here are five possible motivations to set during a session zero for an exploration-driven campaign which will feature a hexcrawl procedure:

1. Find hidden artifacts scattered across the land
2. Build a reputation for the party by helping the locals across the land
3. Hunt down villains or monsters who are hiding somewhere in the land.
4. Protect settlements across the land from an ongoing threat.
5. Rescue NPCs trapped in remote locations across the land.

And, of course, for our campaign, we need “the land” that is mentioned in each of these campaign hooks. Campaigns with a hexcrawl work best in a wide open landscape filled with fantasy wilderness and adventure hooks. If we expect the campaign to revolve around exploring much of the map, we better make sure the land is interesting to explore.

Preparing a hex map

To prepare for a hexcrawl campaign, we need a map. With a few simple steps in the free software GIMP, we can add hexes to any existing map. That’s the much quicker option compared to creating a hex map from scratch. Pick a fantasy map which looks like it’s filled with fantasy adventures, and drop a hex grid over it. Justin Alexander (from the Alexandrian blog) recommends 12-mile hexes to make progress across the map feel meaningful. Here’s a quick guide on adding a hex grid to a map using GIMP: Turning any map into a hex map. I used this method to drop a hex grid on top of this map of Chessenta by Mike Schley.

Preparing a hex map key

After adding hexes to a map, we need a map key where we note down the interesting locations the characters can explore as they travel across the hex map. Going with Justin Alexander’s advice, we need one location per 12-mile hex. So in a 12×10 hex map that’s already 120 hexes we need to fill. If that sounds like a lot… well, it is.

But we don’t need to have fleshed out locations and adventure hooks for each hex. Here’s how I filled 180 hexes without spending weeks and weeks prepping.

First, we can write down a few bullet points for the big landmarks and settlements on the map. An evocative name and a few descriptive aspects are enough. “Luthcheq – Mad Theocracy” is one entry in my map key. I don’t need more than that for now because the characters are still far away from the city.

Second, scour your adventure collections for content. Pick up any of your D&D adventure collections like Tales from the Yawning Portal or Adventures from the Potbellied Kobold, or even seperate the individual adventures from a book like Ruins of the Grendleroot. Then assign adventures (or the main location of each adventure) to a hex where it makes sense for the adventure location to be. For example, an adventure in a haunted pyramid is easily placed in any desert area.

When we distribute adventures like this, we’ll just note down the name and source of the adventure for finding it in the map key. In addition, I like to jot down a few bullet points for each hex so that I can drop hooks in front of players while they are in adjacent hexes.

Factions, Villains, Patrons

In addition to the map and the key, we need to define the driving forces of the campaign. This continues the theme of, “a map is not a campaign.” Who are the villains opposing the characters? Which factions are operating in the area and what are their goals? Who supports the party, who is their group patron?

In answering these questions, I like to write down the three main villains of the campaign along with a major and three minor goals for each. Then, when we prepare for sessions, we review the villains and see if any of them could make an appearance in the upcoming game.

Likewise, we can let the party choose a group patron during Session Zero. A group patron is a faction or an NPC who supports the party, gives the characters a tie-in to the world, and a reason to adventure together.

With these tools set up, we can follow the characters as they go in unknown directions across the map while still keeping a cohesive story. The characters wander about but wherever they go, they receive quests from their group patron and get drawn into the machinations of the villains.

Random Tables

Because the hexcrawl procedure is so open, random tables can help us improvise when the party goes on the road. Here’s a few tips for making random encounter tables:

• Create or pick encounter tables with wandering monsters for different terrains in the world/on the map.
• Just write down monster names in the tables. We can improvise the number of monsters according to the type of monster and the challenge we want for the characters.
• Have separate tables for monster reaction rolls, or even activities the monsters might be up to when the characters encounter them.
• Improvise the situation for the random encounter. If possible, connect the wandering monsters to the characters’ quest, their group patron, or a campaign villain.
• Use additional tables for things like weather, town events, and town attitudes.
• Don’t be a slave to the random tables. If you have a better idea than the rolled entry, go for it. If it doesn’t fit the pacing of the session, don’t use them.

Preparing to improvise a hexcrawl

What we’re really doing with these steps is preparing to improvise lots of moving parts during the game. A hexcrawl procedure means we follow wherever the payers want to go across the map. That’s why we prepare random tables, that’s why we have campaign villains and a group patron to tie things together.

In the next article, we’re looking at how to put this prep to use and actually run a hexcrawl.