Hexcrawl High: John Denver didn’t sing any songs about kingdom building mechanics

So we started the current campaign back in the first week of September. In the nine weeks since we’ve had six sessions. Which is probably pretty good considering the general scheduling complications endemic to adult roleplaying i.e. roleplaying games played by adults not sexy times pretending you’re a broken down car and your girlfriend is pervasive rust. Anyhow, in the last session the players hit level five and thus entered what D&D 5th edition loosely considers “Tier 2”. Continue reading…

Hexcrawl High: They say that he got crazy once

Well it’s been a month since I last posted about the D&D campaign I’m currently playing. In that month we had two more sessions and then unfortunately the archenemy of adult hobbies, scheduling, reared its ugly head. But we’re resuming play this Thursday. Assuming we can play regularly then I think by the end of October we may be ready to transition to the “second stage” of the campaign I had planned. But now I’m not sure if we will. Continue reading…

Hexcrawl High: The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

Fuck how I hate that clear blue mountain lake. I cannot figure out what to do with it. The worst thing is that every time I try to brainstorm something about it it ends up going all Innsmouth on me. Look, I love Lovecraftian pastiche as much as the next person. But I think I go to that well too often. It’s a spice goddammit. Anyhow, this was supposed to be about my plan for the campaign’s first session, not the problems of populating fantasy lakes. Continue reading…

Hexcrawl High: It keeps changing fast

Location, location, location. Not just a real estate agent’s mantra or a vehicle for Channel 4 to try to ensnare their viewers with Kirstie Allsopp’s sultry appeal but also the topic for this post. As I mentioned in my last post I’m working on encounter tables and I’ve been flip flopping like a fish trying to escape the belly ripping attentions of an inbred good’ol’boy. Continue reading…

Hexcrawl High: He saw everything as far as you can see

So much like God when creating the world I had reached the stage in my campaign prep where I needed to populate the hexcrawl with people, animals and the admixtures of the two ubiquitous in every fantasy setting. This is the step I’m currently on, even though we rolled up the characters for the campaign yesterday I still don’t have everything in this step nailed down. Which means I’ve got about five days to bang the rest out in the shed. No worries. Continue reading…

Hexcrawl High: Might say he found the key for every hex

So as per my previous post I’d decided to go with a hexcrawl for my next D&D campaign (I’ve also clearly decided to run with the Rocky Mountain High thing as well). But as I also mentioned, I’ve never played or run a hexcrawl before so I was going into this largely blind. So as with every problem in modern life I turned to the internet for the answer. How could that possibly go wrong? Continue reading…