Wilderness Exploration in D&D 

I started to incorporate some of your ideas at my table and both me and my players are having a lot of fun! Thanks for the amazing content and keep `em coming!

I love that you are outlining the barebone procedures as per the rulebooks. One of the reasons why I love old school D&D is that I can add my own procedures which don't overburden the system or play, I've been thinking a lot about hexcrawls and my journey on really solidly formulating my own theory of best play started with the famous article on the Alexandrian (which is largely 5e oriented) and eventually I moved to something closer to 0E like yourself. I think that wilderness regions need stat blocks, and brief ones that can fit on one side of a 3x5 card. Sure, regions do not have to have homogeneity in terrain type if using a 6+ mile hex but should have a dominant terrain type as our dividing wilderness into regions is typically contingent on this and even political boundaries are often built along the path of least resistance (rivers and mountains serving as excellent natural barriers to the creep of borders.) A region stat block should have: 1. Name of region 2. If the region is broadly wilderness, borderlands or civilized (and a table for dungeon restock, which is shorter the more wild the land is) 3. Features (Phrases you can use in tandem to hex terrain to give the region its vibes, hazards and boons that exist as a trait that can make actions possible, impossible, easier or harder, this can be mitigated by equipment which would really promote the player character prep phase of the adventuring day and really gives marching orders more dynamism, this also helps with preconfiguring encounter scenes.) I also am running Castles and Crusades these days, so I also use their terrain and obstacle DC ranges by type/severity and apply this die roll actions in their siege engine mechanic. 4. Encounter table used (I've always preferred the 2e 2d10 bell curve distribution table over the BECMI by terrain type, but YMMV and this wouldn't be necessary in B/X if you like the latter, I like the former because I can scale wilderness regions by their adjacency like dungeon floors like I'm running a primitive MUD/MMO) 5. Encounter tilt table (My usual encounter procedure also includes a creature motivation table with scaling die type as intelligence of creature grows, so a mindless creature uses a d4 for needs like food, rest, whereas an intelligent creature would use a d12, with scaling motivations like 12 being "seeking spiritual/philosophical meaning". The tilt is just a way to reinforce big themes/problems/world states that the players can remove/alter while having random encounters and in tandem/like the motivation table this creates a variety of choice in play beyond FIGHT, RUN, PARLAY. I also REALLY like this because it forces me to be creative on the fly while still giving me a firm foundation and reinforcing the greater world state. A regional tilt can be things like "exhausted iron mine, dysjunction in the weave due to the magical shenanigans of local wizard tower, planar rupture to/from the elemental plane of fire, famine, etc". So if we rolled a result of "bandit (creature) seeking food (motivation) dysjunction in the weave due to the magical shenanigans of local wizard tower (tilt)" would force me to come up with something wacky on the the fly. In this case I've already figured out what's going on with the tilt as I've already figured out what's going on with the tower and what it's immediate effects are. In this case I would consider the epiphenomenon and do a bit of abductive reasoning to create a scene. Maybe the bandits are starving because all of the substantial fauna have fled from the magical tremors caused by the wizard tower, then I reason what sort of mechanics come into play, penalties to attacks? Bonuses to PC parley? Possible situation of mutual aid between the bandits and players? The options are endless and the simple 1D4 ELF, FLEEING *roll on table again* WINTER TROLL, MAGICAL COLD/SNOWSTORM encountered in an area with FEATURES such as ENDLESS BOGS, TALUS CAVES, can create hours of roleplaying scenarios where the players drag the (1) unconscious elf that broke the ice as they fell into one of these bogs frozen and covered by powder snow while they were fleeing a winter troll that will arrive in say 1d3 turns. The players find succor in a talus cave, where they will outfit such a cave with the equipment they brought-turning it into a warm and dry area, dress the wounds of the elf and nurse them back to health. Maybe that elf becomes a follower because players have a lead on the magical cold/snowstorm (or maybe the elf has one on a successful roll under their INT score?) Or maybe I will roll again on the motivation table to explain exactly WHY the elf was exploring the region to begin with. Will the troll find the players back to their makeshift lair? The "story" (or more accurately, the situation) is created first, the mechanics merely follow so they do not need to be delineated!

This video brought me back to 1976 and trying to explain D&D to someone who thought we were running around in the woods with fake swords. And a lot of people did back then. Just listening brings back a very intense feeling of nostalgia! Sitting in someone's faux wood paneled basement, with bags of chips and sodas, we had to organize our marching order, worry about getting lost, and move across an unknown world mapping hexes. We used those original books and our own homebrewed additions, but it was 90% of what you are describing. And I did try to explain just that, though I was very young and not as articulate as you, so my friends or family members who didn't play D&D glazed over after one minute. It's amazing that now gamers are out there rediscovering the style of play we did in our basements way back then. You are a prophet my friend!

More than any other channel, you have made me adopt BX for my group. We're starting our campaign soon based on B1 and B2 and a village called Larm from Labyrinth Lord. I like the procedural approach you cover in your videos, and this one on hex crawls spells it out so clearly. Thank you, Daniel.

Dude this is one of my most ravenously devoured topics; I feel like I can never get enough advice about this. I'm really excited to hear yours! Man I really gotta get around to your discord too.

I want to try and run some hex crawling, but I have almost no experience. Advice of this sort is very valuable for me, so I don't fumble around in the dark quite as much. Thank you Sir.

I, like you, am the "equipment guy". And when doing some kind of expedition I make a list of equipment/supplies and figure out the expenses and then I tell the rest of the party how much they each need to chip in and if there is anything special that they want. And being that I'm doing the work and my character is usually a Thief, well I pad the bill a little bit. Sort of a fee for doing the planning. Because if I didn't do the planning then these guys would be sleeping outside in a rainstorm while my character slept in his cozy tent.

Have seen a lot of your videos now. This is one of very few channels about TTRPG I can enjoy! Helpful experience and reminding's.... instead of bs talk. Pointing out what really to focus on. Even I know a bunch of the details, its nice to hear and remember, because in game its way to easy to forget the essentials and how much they have to offer usually. And I have to admit: Overland travel... I`m bad presenting it, always have been and pace it mostly. Will put special afford in this part from now on. Thanks for the great work dude! Just a pity we`ll never meet at the table!

Dolmenwood has expansive hexcrawling rules. The setting isn't something I thought I'd like much, but after 2 of their modules, our group loves it.

Hi Danial, I'm a fan of your work (youtube and podcasts). I'm preparing a b/x campaign. This is what i had in mind for a procedure for wilderness exploration. Did i miss anything? morning -note the date -any healing or exhaustion? -what Spells are prepared for that day? -weather conditions roll -players planned direction of travel? / travel speed/ marching order? -foraging? / hunting? / forced march? -getting lost roll -wandering monster roll(s) evening - find shelter from the elements? (may affect healing and spell prep) -note rations consumed (or not consumed) for that day -update players map -pc's set the watch for the night night -wandering monster roll(s)

This is great information as always. I haven't had an opportunity to play any of the OSR games, only 5th edition. I love the idea in old school games of tracking equipment, hexcrawls, dungeon, crawls, etc. I love the idea of integrating this into my game and of all the videos I've seen on this. This is the one that spells out practical application and a viable way. Good work as always

For me the wilderness is either the adventure or part of it, ie the space between locations (dungeons or towns), so I think of it as a hexcrawl to explore the wilderness itself or a point crawl along the paths between other places. One is slower and the other faster, the procedures work for it all really, so any campaign may be the dungeon delve after starting at a town then point crawl to the hex where obe explores to find that dungeon. For me it is this building blocks style that lets the GM organize pieces and encounters to the theme but let players have choices flowing from choices, a good balance of prep versus improv.

I wanted to say that I love the demeanor and attitude you bring to these videos. It's very inclusive, friendly, approachable, etc.

I didn't realize how much fun wilderness exploration was until I started playing old school games. Before I got into White Box and other clones the only wilderness exploration experience I had was with Tomb of Horrors for 5e and the mechanics and classes completely negated everything that makes the wilderness interesting. I like adding extra steps for myself as a DM, like rolling for man-made or natural landmarks, towns that might not be on the maps etc. I find it really pushes that feeling of discovery.

Mate i just wanna let you know that binging your content lately. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Great video Daniel! I love your channels. Your Actual play has inspired me to take up solo gaming with OSE. Thanks dude.

Great video! Thanks for the link to your actual play ~ have to add that to the queue 🙂

Great video! The variety of encounters from hostile, friendly, or even just environmental you can have in the wilderness add so much flavour and opportunity for unexpected adventure. Even in a more "modern" system, random encounter tables and reaction rolls enhance the experience

Perfect! Just about to start Isle of Dread (goodmans update but played with DCC)

Thanks

Regarding the trickiness of representing the party being lost...if you simply describe things to the players and let them make their own map, you don't have to worry about managing it. Sure, it can be confusing to them, but that's part of the fun of exploring. It helps if the party is expecting certain landmarks, like a river, that they don't encounter.

I don't do any hexcrawling (yet), but I have players who are interested. I'm specifically eying Luke Gearing's Wolves Upon the Coast.

Hey! I noticed you subscribed to my channel, so I returned the favor. B/X travel always felt boardgamey to me. But while listening to your video I realized... I was kid when we played B/X. We likely made everything feel boardgamey back then. I always liked turn based dugneon exploration. So... I might revisit turned based wildreness travel. Thanks for the idea and the nostalgia!

Your videos are well done.

As a DM I was always more lenient on PC's who made some effort to designate admin and supplies for travel, even if it was not perfect it didn't matter, they tried and I rewarded that. Those who ignored it suddenly lost hp each day when they ran out of rations or got lost because they made no attempt to find a map or research the location by questioning locals.

I do pointcrawls because I thhink the procedural part of it is easier on the GM. I try to incorporate many different routes and to adopt a random player-exclusive route they come up during play, to avoid a linear "corridor" exploration. And then I count the distance between nodes in numbers of chance random encounters rolled (which can be adjusted if the party is slowed by encumbrance or some other effect).

I use a combination of the BX style rules for travelling combined with the ideas and practices that were shown in the video game adaptation of Pathfinder's Kingmaker. In my opinion alot of the exploration rules from old school style D&D was lost with 3.0 and onward. It needs to be emphasized for sure.

Thank you for your information video

YAY! next in series. :)

great vid

I'm planning a sandbox campaign in the Silver marches in the FR, this implies a lot of overland travel, I was a bit scared by it but it helps a lot ! I don't plan to do hexcrawl, just planning travels with a ruler to see distances, like a real trek, I will see if it works or not.

I have a non-electronic simplehuman trash can. It really is well made and nice to use. But I cannot be arsed with buying their bags. I just put a small cardboard box in the bottom and I can use the regular 13 gallon bags from Costco.

Hmmm... I dunno about the getting lost thing. It might be more fun to give them a map, but not a marker. Then just describe what they see while tracking their location like you might track a monster's HP. I dunno, I don't have proper experience with this.

This sounds like a good, workable system. I tend to thirst for more realism, but playability has to come first, and this way is clearly playable. One question I would have is the effect of equipment on evasion. It seems obvious to me that it should be way easier for Sam and Frodo on foot to duck behind a rock or tree while 400 orcs pass by than if they have two pack mules and a wagon. It seems to me that for purposes of “group size” on the OSE evasion table, each horse or mule should count as an additional party member, and a cart or wagon as at least two additional members. How do you handle this? Also, what do you do about weather? I like to include it, as it makes encounters more unique: screaming winds blow arrows off target, heavy fog causes you not to see the enemy until you’re almost on top of them, etc. But rolling for weather each day is quite tedious and slows down the game. I prefer to type out a weather calendar in advance, so I don’t have to roll anything at the table, and I can just tell the players that it rains on day 5 or whatever, and mud is slowing the wagon to half speed.

I want to run this kind of game very badly, but nearly everyone I know has no interest in it. I speak from experience when I say people won't be swayed. I will send this video to them, since your Charisma score is way higher than mine

You forgot to link that fangs go out adventure

Hi Daniel awesome video! You said to roll surprise before distance,would you do the same in dungeon exploration?

I prefer the outdoor survival lost method as well. It makes the table a litlte easier to handle for the reasons you stated. Nice video Daniel.

Part of the problem is the Party wanting to explore a monster lair that they have found that you did not prep for how do you do a small dungeon on the fly

I tried running a hex crawl in 5e, but there was a ranger in the party. Getting lost or running out of food or water was off the table. The ranger class description effectively negated that aspect of the game.

I'm a amateur DM/player I have been running/playing for 22 years. I have just started running my second ever hex crawl campaign and with your advice I'm sure it will go smoother. I can't go much worse lol. I mean really what are the chances of me running two parties back to back who burn a innocent pregnant woman to death twice in a row? Please 😭🙏 tell me I don't have to go through that again....

Obligatory comment for GURPS system with D&D setting for the win.

Funny how hex crawls are not being streamed

20yr campaing which is 80% hex crawl --

I keep seeing these videos and realise just how BAD my 2e ad&d rulebooks were at explaining how to play - they are excellent errata and update compilations but they absolutely need the foundations of procedural play in BX etc to justify their existence. Without procedure from BX etc you are left with some information about speed and encounter tables - and no logical way to apply it.