I'm digging this so far. I was looking at the WOIN system a while ago, but I have so many games I already don't play that it would just be added to the pile lol.
I've been reading through Scarlet Heroes and they have solo Wilderness rules for hex maps that involves rolling a d8 (I think?) and then counting around the hex to extend the current terrain into the adjacent hex on that side. I'm curious how well this would play out in practice: "realistic" terrain transitions or something more sporadic.
I've not used hex maps before, but I've been considering starting up a campaign and giving them a try as an overlay of the world map. Do most rules specificy a scale for hexes / hex travel, or is there a generally accepted scale, like most grid maps are either 5 or 10 ft per square?
Great write-up! I look forward to reading more. I've been hesitant to dig into Palladium (the character sheet was overwhelming, as I've mostly stuck to "rules light" games so far), but I'm super intrigued by it due to all the races like Wolfen and I've heard the other source books are excellent. I suppose I could just cherry pick out of it as you've done here, too, though!
Cool. I really, really want to do a solo hexcrawl but struggling to find the motivation at the moment. Think I need to work something out as simple as possible with few moving parts.
The idea of exploring an area is something that really appeals to me but I just need to work out a system that works for me. I think I just get a kind of rulebook fatigue with too much stuff to flip back and forth through.
Spencer Salyer Here is a map from my Scarlet Heroes random hexcrawl to show how the terrain gets generated. SH recommends 6mile hexes, which are useful both for the way movement rates work in OSR games and for the fact that the human eye can see ~3miles overland.
Depending on what you're doing, different scales are more useful. The old Greyhawk map showed a whole contnent, and had (I think) 30 mile hexes. I made a small wilderness map with 4.5 mile hexes since it was mostly forest and the PCs would be moving at a reduced rate. And I have a very tiny sandbox with 15x37 (sized for my laptop sceen) 2km hexes. https://plus.google.com/photos/...
Gerard Nerval, that was the obvious answer, I suppose!
I did some searching and also came across this tool to randomize an entire hex map world complete with place names. A single click spits out som pretty impressive stuff (I'm also considering this from a programmer perspective). Or, you can manually fiddle with stuff. Neat!
I've also been trying to overlay a hex grid on an actual topo map in Photoshop, but it's not working out very well so far. Is there a tool out there to automate this process (ie. generate a hex map over top of an image file)?
I'm digging this so far. I was looking at the WOIN system a while ago, but I have so many games I already don't play that it would just be added to the pile lol.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading through Scarlet Heroes and they have solo Wilderness rules for hex maps that involves rolling a d8 (I think?) and then counting around the hex to extend the current terrain into the adjacent hex on that side. I'm curious how well this would play out in practice: "realistic" terrain transitions or something more sporadic.
ReplyDeleteI've not used hex maps before, but I've been considering starting up a campaign and giving them a try as an overlay of the world map. Do most rules specificy a scale for hexes / hex travel, or is there a generally accepted scale, like most grid maps are either 5 or 10 ft per square?
Great write-up! I look forward to reading more. I've been hesitant to dig into Palladium (the character sheet was overwhelming, as I've mostly stuck to "rules light" games so far), but I'm super intrigued by it due to all the races like Wolfen and I've heard the other source books are excellent. I suppose I could just cherry pick out of it as you've done here, too, though!
Cool. I really, really want to do a solo hexcrawl but struggling to find the motivation at the moment. Think I need to work something out as simple as possible with few moving parts.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of exploring an area is something that really appeals to me but I just need to work out a system that works for me. I think I just get a kind of rulebook fatigue with too much stuff to flip back and forth through.
Spencer Salyer Here is a map from my Scarlet Heroes random hexcrawl to show how the terrain gets generated. SH recommends 6mile hexes, which are useful both for the way movement rates work in OSR games and for the fact that the human eye can see ~3miles overland.
ReplyDeleteDepending on what you're doing, different scales are more useful. The old Greyhawk map showed a whole contnent, and had (I think) 30 mile hexes. I made a small wilderness map with 4.5 mile hexes since it was mostly forest and the PCs would be moving at a reduced rate. And I have a very tiny sandbox with 15x37 (sized for my laptop sceen) 2km hexes.
https://plus.google.com/photos/...
Gerard Nerval thanks for sharing. What software are you using here for plotting the map?
ReplyDeleteSpencer Salyer It's Hexographer.
ReplyDeletehexographer.com - Hexographer
Gerard Nerval, that was the obvious answer, I suppose!
ReplyDeleteI did some searching and also came across this tool to randomize an entire hex map world complete with place names. A single click spits out som pretty impressive stuff (I'm also considering this from a programmer perspective). Or, you can manually fiddle with stuff. Neat!
Apologies if it's been shared here before, I'm just now learning the hex map "landscape" (chuckles) Thanks for your help.
dmmuse.com - DMMuse - D&D Random Generators
I've also been trying to overlay a hex grid on an actual topo map in Photoshop, but it's not working out very well so far. Is there a tool out there to automate this process (ie. generate a hex map over top of an image file)?
ReplyDelete