What the Hex?! Intro to Hex Crawls Part 1 - Web DM 

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This video gave me a Hexistential crisis.

That intro pun was devastating, I don't think there is any saving throw that will let me keep my sanity.

0:08 That joke was so bad that everyone including your own party draws their weapons, roll Initiative.

Oh dear god when he said "A sudden and quick sand storm" I imagined a "Quicksand storm" Now that is the stuff of freaking nightmares!

Being the 4th of July, i turned this video on as i bbq and decided to take a drink every time the said the word Hex.... it’s gonna be a rough night

Most Hexellent, seriously it’s very awesome about learning this D&D tool.

'Points of interest connected to character backstory/motivation.' Hex crawl or not this has become a mantra for everything I make over time. It's not just an area *I* thought would be cool, there's something for the players. That random NPC always knows something if pressed, the monster lair has a clue to something. I don't put them behind the paywalls of an investigation check anymore and have found that really helpful in keeping the players wanting to adventure. Great stuff again guys! Thank you.

Let's talk about Hex, baby! Let's talk about D and D! Let's talk about all the movement, All the cover, That could be! Let's talk about Hex! Let's talk a-bout Hex!

Warlocks gonna be overpowered on these maps. Hex bonuses everywhere!

Pruitt's face when Jim said "it's not a FUCKING IDENTITY" was glorious

The opening to this- a thousand times yes, its not a campaign type- its a gameplay system

A great way to increase the variability and get the most out of localized hex maps is having roaming events such as apex predators, or herds, or travelling merchants/brigands who each have overlapping sets/patterns of hexes they roam and you roll to see where they are within a certain period. This encourages players to investigate different events and combinations or avoid them, excising repetition and vapid encounters while still enjoying the variability and clarity hex maps bring.

Absolutely a campaign based on music by The Sword. Back in High School one of our DMs ran a campaign based on Iron Maiden songs.

I loved that Avatar reference. That desert library episode is one of my all-time favorites.

It seems all the good hex puns have been Hexhausted.

I've always wanted to do a hex crawl campaign/adventure themed around the party being a group of explorers in relatively uncharted lands.

Thought this was going to be about the spell. My brain must not have registered the thumbnail.

I would play the shit out of a campaign centered around "The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee!" What a masterful song. ❤

You mad geniuses have done outdone yourselves again with that thumbnail

So happy to hear Gloryhammer sung by Pruitt, All hail the Unicorn invasion!

When you were both singing Gloryhammer, it made me so happy to see that you guys actually enjoy some amount of metal. You guys were already amazing, but that takes the cake. You guys are awesome, never change.

I need a bard/warlock to give me that Hexual Healing.

I miss the old days when everything used hexes for everything, even regular battles. AD&D had advanced combat rules for hexes and we used them all. It was so cool, made much more sense than squares and I really would like to use them again

That rendition of 'Unicorn Invasion of Dundee' just made my little Scottish Morning. Thank you

Oh you know that if the Gloryhammer albums weren't based off their own D&D Campaigns, they'd be all over someone writing a series of modules based off their albums. They'd probably love it to be done regardless. A real challenge would be trying to adapt the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard albums into modules, although that might depend on how dedicated you are to the idea of the Gizzverse.

A fun example of a Hex Crawl is the old Isle of Dread.

I love the work you guys do, it's definitely made me a better player/dm. I've only been playing for a little over a year and and I love how 5e works, but you guys reference other editions so often and I feel like it helps bring more to the table. If you guys could do a video expanding on what other editions offer I would absolutely love that. Thanks for all the hard work guys!

I am so happy that you mentioned Outdoor Survival! we played it when it came out, and it was rough, but then in later years we repurposed the map in a number of different game mash ups we made up on our own

She was a hex machine, she kept her motor clean, she was the hex damn woman that ive ever seen.

Never heard of “hex crawling” until now. Can’t wait to see what my group thinks! Thanks guys.

I'm running my group through Pathfinder's Ironfang Invasion adventure path right now. This was super helpful. Great video as always!

I'm so happy that you guys talked about this. Not because I wanted to run a hex game/exploration but because no one is talking about this pillar of play. If you're looking for another video I'd love to see you guys talk about exploration as options and as the 1/3 of the game that it is. Search exploration on RU-vid and there's hardly any videos discussing the topic

The Nile flows North... into the Mediterranean Sea. Rivers always flow from high to low (i.e. into the sea). Remember: the southern part of Egypt was called 'Upper Egypt'!

This was an amazing video! Can't wait for part 2, and now I really want to run a hex crawl.

I'd like to play in one of Jim's Hex Dungeons.

This video taught me about The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee.

A new WebDM video? I can barely contain my Hexitement!

I love how you now have explained your land between two Rivers map

I feel there is related topic to explore here - hexes in combat. Sometimes all you need is imagination, sometimes a rough sketch by hand is sufficient, but there is something to be said for the certainty that hexes bring you. A good combat map with hexes can really add to combat because you can really understand distance, location and strategic options. For certain playstyles (like say a spear fighter who specializes in defending his team, using reach, AOOs, and other enemy manipulation) wheter you use a system that allows for this detail can be almost a make or break for if this works well, and especially for if it feels good and fun. Otherwise combat can turn into "I hit the closest enemy" for several rounds, especially for basic melee types. But obviously the more rigorous the combat framework the more risk of slowing down the game so you need to know when to apply it and how to prep the time-consuming stuff.

WOOP! WEST TEXAS!! GREATEST HEX CRAWL OF ALL TIME!!!

I’ve just started a new hombrew campaign and wasn’t sure how to do travel between towns but this video was extremely useful and insightful.

Timing on this video was perfect. I am just starting ToA and my players will be doing the hex crawl. I have never run one so we will see how it goes. I do have lots of unique stuff planned for their adventure though.

Great vid guys! As an add.... Matt Colville just posted a video on Dead Empires that really ties well with Jim's ideas on building a world about needing "places to visit" in your world. Having remnants of previous empires when powerful artifacts were created and lost or buried with their monarch, or powerful hero is a great way to identify what is in your world, and can be good, evil, back and forth, currently good, currently evil ,etc, etc.

Pruitt singing is always the light in my day.

I've been looking at the hex-map for greyhawk (1 E AD&D), and I must say it got me into making my own maps into hex maps. I'm that worldbuilding mania who looks up videos on how to factor in plate tectonics when deciding where mountain ranges and canions occur, and so I'm far from heing my maps, as I'm still in plate tectonics stage (I am learning how to make the plates movement direction beliavable, by accounting for the movement of magma), but when the time comes, I'm gonna add those sweet six mile hexes.

Group started a homebrew hexcrawl a couple months ago. So far it’s been a lot better vehicle than a mega-dungeon. I’m sure the DM loves the structure, allowing him to treat each hexagon as a unique scenario. I know the first iterations of D&D urges players to use the Outdoor game

Congratulations gentlemen. I've been playing D&D, Cyberpunk, and other ttrpg's for 40 years. I'd never heard the term or seen anything like the Hex crawl before. Learning has occurred. Interesting.

It's nice to see the full map of the land between two rivers

I just want to say that i really love your channel and you made start a group, Ur great

I'm glad I'm not the only one who really wanted to make a Warp Riders based campaign

This is exactly the kind of stuff i was looking for!

I ran a hex crawl for a bunch of 5e noobs (and all 5e-only players are noobs because they haven't seen enough different types of rules and flow yet) a couple years ago in order for them to do a wilderness journey from the town to find a hermit's house in the woods. The hook was they had found this scroll that they couldn't read, and one of their allies in the town told them that this hermit would be able to interpret the ancient language. I made a map, laid it out in front of them as if they knew the overall layout of the land, without necessarily being able to navigate through the woods. So I made a simplified crawl where it took one hour game time to move one hex (one mile). (I make them count time because they have bills to pay at the end of each month so that gold is useful and they feel more a part of the world.) Each hex they had to make a Survival skill check (fail = lost, if lost roll d6 to see what hex they land on, but don't let them know they are lost), and they had to roll on the Events Table that I made (no event, encounter with goblins that were moving into the area or wolves, dryads or sprites, or find something that is evidence of the goblins, weather change, etc.). I put one set encounter (triggered when they reached the river and cliff, so i could drop it on them anytime) that forced them to cross the river and scale the cliff before either the wolf pack (infinite spawn) chasing them or the two goblins at the top of the cliff shot them with arrows (i.e., an encounter with two independent monster sets, each with its own objective). Before we started, I explained how it worked and we did a couple rounds, and one of them looked up and asked, ''Did you make this? This is awesome!" I think it is important for a DM to be able to present different kinds of games at each session, and be able to customize the rules for each one. You're right that not every traveling bit requires a hex crawl. You need variety. The hermit said, "I can guide you through the woods and avoid all the monsters." So now they don't need a hex crawl, just count the time, throw in the encounters (if any) and move them along.

I read that in a hex map each hex represents roughly 95 square miles, edge to opposite edge is 10 miles, corner to corner along same edge is 6 miles, and corner to opposite corner is 12 miles.

Great videos usual! Thanks guys!

right when I get my hex map this comes out, hell ya

I'm about to start running Tomb of Annihilation, and this video was very helpful to me :) I'm going to take time out of our session 0 to talk about the hex crawling, as well as random encounters.

I surely didn't hexpect that pun at the beginning And neither did Pruitt Hexcellent intro as always, guys

A whole episode about hexes?! How hexciting!

Wisdom save vs that intro was failed

A great way that I use hexes (hex crawl) is to not let the players know they exist. They may travel for two days (2hexes) and decide to head toward a distant forest or the foothills. But when they hit THAT group of hexes on my map is when random encounters and clues to that regions points of interest are revealed. Just don't fall down the rabbit hole as discussed in this video! Nice topic and video dudes. 😊

Pathfinder has a great campaign with hex crawl called Kingmaker.

Love the vid guys. Talk more about 1st and 2nd edition methods of play

I know this is a old video but Forbidden lands is now available and hits the sweet spot.

i feel like this is good info even if you aren't using hex crawl. i've been looking for good ways to make my games more interesting when my party is traveling and this helped a lot

For tomb of annihilation, I used the resting rules from Adventures in Middle Earth, where you can only short rest while in an unsafe area. It made early levels a lot more tense, but once they got access to tiny hut all bets are off.

This is my absolute favorite style of play as I am a very self-directed kind of player. I will say for those interested in this style that are currently using 5e to consider a few of my house rules & recommendations that make this style of play funner: Nerf goodberry and the spell light (make both of those spells consume their material components or consider making light a level 1 spell). The reason for this is that a hex-crawl is very much about resource management and that extra layer of resource management is only fun if there's an actual scarcity. Torches & light are to dungeons as rations are to overland travel. Tracking light is easy, find an OSR light tracking sheet (or spin down a d6) and basically fill in 1 of the 6 boxes when a party spends a "turn" (10 minutes) looking for secret doors (1 turn per 10" length) investigating a room or killing and looting a monster. Consider bumping your forage DC's to the next highest slot and only allowing one party check per adventuring day, in addition to this, they should only be able to find 1d6 pounds of forage OR a source of potable water (if they aren't using one as a landmark for travel.) The Outlander background feature allows the character to add her WIS modifier to forage instead of automatically finding food. Split your day into 6, 4 hour chunks. The 5e rules as written allow up to 8 hours of travel before potentially incurring travel before a CON check, let them travel an additional 4 hour chunk but only do a CON check after they've traveled for 4 hours or they have reached a destination. When creating a random encounter chart, do so for each of your regions to make them distinct from one another and make sure you put NAMED & POWERFUL creatures (preferably with lairs, goals, relations, etc) on the ends of your tables as they are statistically less likely to be rolled. I use a 2d6 table with my mythical monster on the end, for an added layer of simulation I would recommend a -2 mod for "wild lands", no modifier for "borderlands" and a +2 for "civilized lands" with your NPC encounters on the top of the list (being more statistically likely to be rolled in civilized lands). You should also have a result on your monster table for "Dungeon monsters up to 1d20 miles", you guessed it, roll a d20 and choose a dungeon within the resulting miles. Have three "funnels" to run a random encounter through to give rise to that emergent play, I have written a *monster*, *disposition* (for both bestial & intelligent creatures) & *activity* table that I roll my stuff through and I have had many really memorable nights of gaming because of it. (Like players getting really excited, spending 2 hours nursing a mortally wounded NPC in a cavern that became a beloved fixture in my game that started as a *1d4 elf*) If you ever find yourself dreading prep, GIVE THE PARTY TONS OF PLOT HOOKS (maps, rumors, etc) & FIND OUT WHAT THE PARTY WANTS TO DO OUTSIDE OF PLAY. Seriously. You don't even have to prep all of the adventures beforehand and this works really well with all kinds of player styles as it gives the group a tangible GOAL to work towards but try not to overburden them with too many time sensitive tasks. Don't worry about gamey "doomsday" clock mechanics, I literally have a .doc called "consequences" where I will recall at least 1 major party action after play and come up with three consequences that may come from their actions that I can use later for plot hooks and encounters. For the love of GOD, don't fill your hexcrawl with 70+ room dungeons. That's what I did, it was really stupid and a total waste of time, 5-20 rooms is ample with 10 or so being a golden standard. Lairs are also hella tight, a lair is just a 1-3 chamber cavern (usually) with 1-2 exits (usually one hidden from the outside) and a hearth/treasure room. Wild & solitary animals have lairs and it's usually a good idea to have a result that includes a lair on your "activity" table. And last point on dungeons, you should totally give them their own 1d3 tables for "dawn, day, dusk & night" (you can adjudicate) under its "dungeon features" that reflects the monsters life-cycles & affects their roster. I check for encounters every "turn", loud noise made and every adjacent room for random encounters and I usually use a 5-6 out of 10 (d10) chance, with my dungeons being kind of tiny & I scratch off killed dudes on my dungeon roster (a dungeon has 30 goblins in it for example.) This list no by no means exhaustive. I MAY HAVE A SLIGHT PROBLEM WITH HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS GAME.

Gloryhammer's first album would make an amazing campaign. Make this happen!

This episode was very inspiring for me creatively. I had considered doing something like this for my CoS game, but being an inexperienced DM, I stayed away from it. For my next campaign, I'm absolutely going to give it try with my players. An excellent point you brought up was that a hex crawl is the perfect place to use those pages and pages of pdfs to fill up the world. Lord knows I have way too many 'one-shot dungeons/encounters' pdfs, why not throw one of them in a hex?

Since I tend to run sandbox style games, hexcrawling is just sort of the normal mode of our games. A lot of the info here was very useful.

A large portion of my first homebrew campaign was based off of Warp Riders. I can only imagine how many modules Dio has inspired.

My PCs have been travelling from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep for about months irl, 32 days in game. (Forty days total) Before they left, I set up all of the adventures, locations, NPCs and all I have had to do is detail work before a session and deal with their decisions and backstories. Everyone is having fun! Playing HotDQ and I could not imagine this trip with n0t much happening.

I am a DM in a large West Marches game and Hex Crawling is a huge part of that style of game. Travel is based on terrain and various travel speeds (on foot, mounted etc) and every hex the DM rolls for random encounters. You definitely need some robust encounter tables but it makes the wilderness feel wild and adventuring dangerous. If travel was just hand waved it would not feel like a wilderness exploration at all.

Holy Shit, Jim Davis is a divination wizard. 15:44 "That Humble Bundle you got earlier this year..." I am prepping a hex-crawl for my party and he just reminded me that I bought a humble bundle from free league for the Tales from the Loop pdfs but they came bundled with another pdf "Symbaroum" which I only read a little of but it will be perfect for the area that I am trying to map out for a hex-crawl.

10/10 Angus Mcfife would be proud that the tale of Dundee has spread to Web DM. Now I want your rendition of Questlords of Inverness Ride to the Galactic Fortress. Gloryhammer made me want to run a starjammer campaign.

love a great hex crawl :) good vid.. very Hexellent. OG Isle of Dread ftw

i can hardly wait for part 2 of this, need moar information on hexcrawls. (and you guys' particular thoughts on it.)

Thank you thank you thank you for reinforcing that these are *tools* not an *identity*. Awesome.

Good episode. Gloryhammer and the Sword got you a subscriber 🤘

It really adds a Hextra layer to the game.

9:45 1,849 hexes, to be precise

There is an add on tool for paint.net that creates a hex grid over an image. I use this for both self created maps as well as pre-rendered maps. It makes an excellent tool if you want to create a hex map from something that wasn't originally created with hexes. I typically use hexes for travel, although often times just to figure how long a trip will take.

Hail Hexalted Ones! How you run the game, which tools you use, and even which edition you play, is entirely down to personal preference.

For my metric friends, I will mention that 6 american miles is the same as 9656 m, which is close wnought to one metric mile (10km). This means that slow pace is three metric miles, normal is four, and fast is five. Make your hexes metric miles my friends.

Hexcrawl. Made interesting by focusing the players on key landmarks, then making their journey to them no laughing matter. I'm running a bit of one right now, and I kept the players engaged by giving them, in essence, a recipe. It was a riddle of things they had to boil in a Hag's cauldron to end a curse. They were engaged in finding these things, and were willing to account for food, water, and danger just to shut this Hag up. It was interspersed with homebrewed monsters that they have never seen before, magic items they've never experienced, and other Feywild nonsense. Speaking simply - I kept them on their toes. They tended to fight creatures above their pay grade (or lesser ones in great numbers), who fought like they wanted to win. Death was always an option. Tension was high a lot. But the players also have a great sense of humour, so they broke that tension with great moments of absurdity and hijinks. They're now hardened badasses with a clear goal and the will to get there. And you're right. OOTA was tedious in it's methodology. We spent more time accounting for food and seeing the same type of caverns than actually doing anything. If I hear another description of Duergar architecture I may have to drink my breakfast.

Hexcrawling is the greatest tool for solo RPGing and I run them on my channel often with a variety of systems.

this is cool, been learning to build hex crawls. and filling it with cool stuff. by rolling on a bunch of tables to inspire a cool scenario. one was a chariot underwater and a pig. then i rolled a grotto and thunder lizards combined them and boom The party is traveling thru the woods when they see a opening in small hill that is an enterence leading into a grotto. with sunlight shining thru an opening in the top of the grotto, the party see a large roundish pond of water with trees and flowers and assortment of wildlife spread all around the pond. the pond is crystal clear filled with Lilly pads and tiny fish, in the far end of the pond there is a large lilly pad with a beast sleeping on it. and under the water the party sees something shining on the bottom partially burried and a roundish wheel exposed. it is revealed to be a very large pig. which will later depending on the situation will morph into a wooly boar as it steps on top of the water with every step a thunderous burst of electricity.depending on the roll, it if is friendly and if the party feeds it, it will help them retrieve a working golden chariot and might pull the chariot if the roll was right. if neutral the boar will attack if the party if they try to take the chariot with the surprise transformation and electric abilities giving hints the closer they get to the chariot by growing tusks and as a thin stream of electricity zaps between the two tusks, they could try to bribe the boar with food to make a reroll to see its reaction changes. if hostile it will transform and attack on sight by charging on top of the water as electric thunder and static bursts emanating from it body.

Hey, We have small canyons in west Texas! Would be a cool addition to the crawl.

Hex crawling seems suitable for a solitaire game. I played that Avalon Hill game back in the 70s...pretty amazing. If you do into the mountains, you pretty much get killed after that...

I love hex

The people complaining about Tomb of Annihilation hex crawl aren't reading enough of the book. The random encounter tables are really robust. Plus the game includes multiple NPC jungle guides who can help PCs find locations.

This was a really awesome episode guys! I've got an idea/request for you guys. Could you talk about grappling at some point?

when I ran tomb of annihilation my solution was not to roll but pick my encounters, additionally I decided to add an extra goblin encampment and a ruin between Nyanzaru and the firefinger. DMs I see tend to underuse the diseases as well as players tend to ignore travelling by river. the DON'T have to fight zombie dinosaurs. they could instead track frost giants for 4 days whilst watching their backs for a 4 armed gargoyle.

At 24 miles per 8 hour adventuring day, making 3 mile hexes allows players to move 1 hex per hour, 8 hexes per day. Difficult terrain will half that, and the math does not get wonky (it will with 8 mile hexes as you proposed) as players will move one hex every two hours, and four hexes per day. Keeps the math easy.

"IT IS NOT A FUCKING IDENTITY YOU ASSUME." Too many mechanics need someone to say this. I gave a like just for that.

Best channel. 🥇

Love the videos lads, just started running Curse of Strahd, any chance you could do a video on Ravenloft and CoS? I know it's touched on the the vampire vid but would really appreciate some more details. Cheers gents!!

I decided for some outdoors travel, they'd basically be within the state of California, and that state has mountains and valleys, rivers, deserts, forests, etc. That's on the other side of the country. The initial thing was 3 days travel, two potential encounters per day. They completed those three days of travel in three hours, including getting to the destination and doing" some role playing there. Then they had a city, and they couldn't even get from one end of that city to the other end in four hours of session play. So travel is weird in D&D.

I was wondering if that "The Sword" T-Shirt refers to the band. Now I know, and yes you should make a campaign based on their music!

The trick I just kind of learned for making yourself be less obsessive and naturalistic is to remember that magic and spirits exist in D&D. Let's say you have a river flowing that you want the party to just raft down leisurely but you look at the map you made and realize "Oh wait...that river would be flowing 'up'. oh." Make up a reason why it doesn't follow the rules. "The spirit of this river is in love with the spirit atop the mountain in the distance and spends all his energy trying to run to her, making the river flow uphill with him."