Hexcrawl Procedures Supplement

Creating game materials? Monsters, spells, classes, adventures? This is the place!
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CptClyde
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Hexcrawl Procedures Supplement

Post by CptClyde »

I have been in a huge hexcrawl/dungeoncrawl kick for the last couple years (which actually led me to BFRPG) and have compiled and refined some procedures along the way. being a middle-aged dad there is no longer time for preping for my players so this random hexcrawl style of play has preserved my ability to keep playing. And I'm thinking about sharing the fun. Would a set of BFRPG specific hexcrawl "steps/procedures" be of use to the community?
It would serve as base for newcomers (newcrawlers) to see how this style of play looks and jsut how fun it can be. I see a lot of especially younger players asking about procedures on reddit.

ToDo: Would be nice to have these tables/rule-snippets formatted into a GM screen layout

Examples of play using these procedures (just solo play for now):
BFRPG Hexcrawl Adventures

THREAD INDEX:
- Adventuring log templates
- GM screen/Cheat-sheet (tables only)
- Proposed cover Art
- Additional Art
- Party Sheet
Attachments
BFRPG-Hexcrawl-Adventures-r20.pdf
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BFRPG-Hexcrawl-Adventures-r20.odt
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BFRPG-Hexcrawl-Adventures-r18.odt
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BFRPG-Hexcrawl-Adventures-r18.pdf
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Last edited by CptClyde on Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:18 am, edited 37 times in total.
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toddlyons
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by toddlyons »

Hi bud,

I've been looking forward to reading this since you mentioned it.

- I have to say that as a player currently in an AD&D 2e campaign where the DM writes between 25 to 75 pages of additional story each week between games, I really really love the idea of a zero-prep/minimally scripted tool. It's pretty interesting sometimes to just let the players, their character attributes and the situations create something spontaneous as you go.

- I'm in the same boat with 3 kids, playing in a weekly game with other dads. We just lost a player today, actually. So a resilient design would scratch a real itch.

- I've seen some YouTubers make attempt to adapt BFRPG for solo play. I really enjoy the BFRPG module / GURPS mechanics thing you're currently doing and would appreciate anything that uses the BFRPG mechanics.

My eyes are a bit tired from the text to whitespace ratio, so I'm going to read further after some rest. Content wise, this already looks like a good draft. Formatting can come later.
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Bumblepig
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by Bumblepig »

I'm glad you posted this, because I've heard the term hexcrawl 1000 times without having any real definition (I think the term came into use during my 30 year sabbatical from RPGs).
My point of reference is the Isle of Dread (or Monkey Isle if you like), where the players are given a map with a huge blank space to explore. But in those cases, the general terrain type isn't rolled for, since a GM has a complete map of the blank places. Also, the encounters aren't purely random, as some have preset, keyed encounters in the GM materials.
So is would your hexcrawl supplement also be applied in a hybrid case like I've described, or is it a totally different animal?
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CptClyde
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by CptClyde »

My presented procedures were devised to facilitate zero game prep for my purposes. And then if time permitted, I could also pre-plan out areas of map, dungeons, plots, encounters etc. The idea was to NOT REQUIRE any prep, but certainly allow for as much pre-planning as desired. Any randomly generated outcome can (and should) be overriden by GM inspiration. And the beauty of an OSR compatible game like BFRPG is the wealth of adventure modules you could literally just drop into your hexcrawl at anytime.
My good friend uses these procedures to write his adventures, rolling on my random charts when needing inspiration.
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Muze
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by Muze »

Really love this . Can't wait to see the other 20%. Don't know if it would be any use to you but i thought i would put my little 2 page hexcrawl procedures in here for people to pull from as well. Hope I'm not being to forward including it.
Hexcrawl proceedure.odt
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toddlyons
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by toddlyons »

CptClyde wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:01 pm It would probably benefit by splitting up into 3 supplements: Hexcrawl, Dungeoncrawl, Strongholds & Domains.
Perhaps not 3 supplements, but 3 distinctly marked major sections within the final formatted document. If they are split apart, some of the generally applicable mechanics will have to be repeated in each document.
CptClyde wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:01 pm EDIT: Would also be nice to have these rules formated into a GM screen layout
Anything that your own playtesting demonstrates to be handy would probably be appreciated by other GMs.
CptClyde wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:01 pm Also, I as time frees up I will be uploading exampels of play using these procedures to my youtube channel (probably just solo play for now).
This will be the most persuasive tool, I think. I know I enjoyed being able to flip though the Randos2Heroes generation documents you linked in your character creation video while I watched you rolling them up.

So far, I'm appreciating the level of thought you've put in. The reading gets easier on page 3+ with the additional whitespace and tables and such, though I like that you're referencing Core Rules pages from the opening page.

Qs & Cs:
- On page 3, does 1xp / 1gp donation mean 1xp per 1gp (to each PC)?

- I like the "tips" where you remind the reader that it's OK to deviate from die results.

- Page 4: I got a bit confused with the two tables under DUNGEON: Random Area or Level and (no title) Common Area Feature. How often should someone be rolling on these?

- In the caves or dungeons, does the 6 mile hex get replaced with a secondary map with 5 or 10" graph paper blocks, or...?

- Page 7 switches back to random terrain, which confused me a bit, so perhaps the content needs to be re-ordered to keep each environment together.

In conclusion, I'm really impressed with this as a first draft. Excellent stuff.
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CptClyde
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by CptClyde »

Muze wrote: Fri Oct 23, 2020 1:58 pm Really love this . Can't wait to see the other 20%. Don't know if it would be any use to you but i thought i would put my little 2 page hexcrawl procedures in here for people to pull from as well. Hope I'm not being to forward including it.Hexcrawl proceedure.odt
This looks great too thanks, I could possibly lift some ideas from it thanks.
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CptClyde
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by CptClyde »

toddlyons wrote: Fri Oct 23, 2020 2:18 pm In conclusion, I'm really impressed with this as a first draft. Excellent stuff.
Thank you toddlyons, have/will address the mentioned items.
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Bumblepig
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by Bumblepig »

CptClyde wrote: Fri Oct 23, 2020 7:23 am My presented procedures were devised to facilitate zero game prep for my purposes. And then if time permitted, I could also pre-plan out areas of map, dungeons, plots, encounters etc. The idea was to NOT REQUIRE any prep, but certainly allow for as much pre-planning as desired. Any randomly generated outcome can (and should) be overriden by GM inspiration. And the beauty of an OSR compatible game like BFRPG is the wealth of adventure modules you could literally just drop into your hexcrawl at anytime.
My good friend uses these procedures to write his adventures, rolling on my random charts when needing inspiration.
Great, this is how I was hoping it might be implemented.
It'll be a great resource across the board, but I can see it being especially popular among Solo players (of which BF seems to have quite a few).
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Solomoriah
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by Solomoriah »

I've looked at both submissions here, and while I'm pleased to see this getting some attention, I don't think I could really use either one as is. I suggest you two get together and build one comprehensive supplement, converting the bullet-point format into more standard paragraph format, and upload it here. When we have a version that's a bit more readable (sorry guys), I'd be happy to see it get the standard formatting and would post the result on the Downloads page.

Oh, and start using release numbers in your filenames. There should never, ever be two copies of the supplement on anyone else's hard drive (other than yours, or mine after we get into editing and layout) that have different content but the exact same filename.
My personal site: www.gonnerman.org
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CptClyde
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by CptClyde »

Alright so it seems there is interest in this material so I sunk another couple hours into getting my notes added and better organized. Addressed all mentioned issues and uploaded new version (revision1).

I sadly will not be adding any additional material from Muze's document currently as I have not play tested them and cannot vouch for them at the moment.

I am going to have a hard/slow time converting all this info into paragraph format for BFRPG template so if anyone is interesting in helping-with/doing that I'd love you forever. I would like to transition over to creating demonstration videos with my time as soon as possible.
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toddlyons
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Re: Hexcrawl procedures?

Post by toddlyons »

CptClyde wrote: Fri Oct 23, 2020 11:42 pm if anyone is interesting in helping-with/doing that I'd love you forever.
I'll see what I can do, at least as far as writing the points into paragraphs.
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