Awesome Hexcrawl

A curated list of hexcrawl resources

Inspired by the awesome list thing.

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Table of Contents

• Other lists
• Design
  • World building
  • Sandbox
  • Hexcrawl mechanics
  • Hexcrawl settings
• Mapping
• Random/Procedural generation
  • Procedural generation
  • Random Tables
• Tools
• Reddit communities
• Related Awesome lists

Other Lists

Other curated resources lists related to hexcrawls.

• Hexcrawl, sandbox & randomness - Exhaustive list of articles and blogs about hexcrawl, sandbox and randomness.
• Hexcrawl Resources, (ars phantasia) - List of resources helpful when thinking about how to design a hexcrawl.
• Hexcrawl - Unsorted Resources -
• Hexcrawl Resources I Have Known And Loved, Reddit post - Another list of resources on Reddit OSR Community.

Design

Articles and documents about hexcrawl generation and game rules.

World building

• Welsh Piper’s hexcrawl guide Part 1 | Part 2 - Hex-based Campaign Design.
• Welsh Piper’s Low-fantasy Populations - Realistic populations in low-fantasy settings. Also has an online generator.
• How to make a Fantasy Sandbox | PDF - Detailed guide of 28 posts about creating a fantasy sandbox.
• The Gygax 75 Challenge | Background and challenges list - Article about how to get your own D&D campaign world started.

Sandbox

• Bat in the Attic - A decade of articles about sandbox.
• My Axioms of Sandbox Campaigns
• Getting There is Half the Fun (The Angry GM)

Hexcrawl mechanics

• An Introduction to Hexcrawls
• Hex-crawls: A Simple Guide - Restating the idea of a great, simple game structure: the hex-crawl.
• Hexcrawl, The Alexandrian - Guide of 12 posts about hexcrawl mechanics.
• Hex-clearing procedures, The Alexandrian - Survey of the extant hex-clearing procedures in old school D&D
• Hex crawling - Guide of 12 posts about hexcrawl mechanics.
• The Hex Crawl - Article about how design and integrate points of interest in a hex map.
• Hex crawl hazards - Wilderness encounter tables that are more than just monsters.
• Hex Flower Game Engines
• Overland Travel and Hexcrawls
• A guide to Hexcrawling, Part 1

How much stuff fits into a 6-mile hex:

• In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex | The Ergonomic 3 Mile Hex - Arguments for the advantages of a 6-mile / 3-mile hex scale over rival hex scales.
• Scale & Sublimation.
• OSR: Siena's 6-Mile Hex - In the real world, every medieval city had satellite towns within walking distance.

Hexcrawl settings

Hexcrawl settings and adventures.

• Blackmarsh Setting - A hexcrawl setting completely under the Open Game License.
• Dragonsfoot Modules - FREE, Quality adventure modules.
• Lýthia.com HârnWorld - Fan community of HârnWorld. HârnWorld setting is one of the most detailed fantasy worlds ever created.
• One Page Dungeon Contest - Hundreds of creative dungeons that are perfectly suited for dropping in a hexcrawl.
• The Isles of Mist – A free hexcrawl adventure - Island based hex crawl. Begins with a short primer on how to run a hex crawl campaign.
• Lots of Crowdsourced Hexcrawls
• Kingmaker Rewrite
• Massive Community Hexcrawl (Coins andScrolls) - A post-apocalyptic science fantasy wastelandcrawl build with the contribution of 42 different people.
• Five Crowdsourced hexcrawl maps
• One Hundred Wilderness Hexes | d4 Caltrops Hexes tag - From d4 Caltrops blog.

Mapping

Webs and articles about hex mapping.

• More Mapping with Hexes - How to manage a hex map when making a hexcrawl setting.
• Welsh Piper’s May the Hex Be With You
• Welsh Piper’s hex mapping articles - Articles about hex mapping.
• Trollsmyth: Hex Mapping (20 part series) - The articles goes through the process of building and using a hex map, integrating it with creating and running a campaign ...
• Wikipedia Hex Map
• Hexagonal Grids (RedBlogGames) - A guide that cover various ways to make hexagonal grids, with code in some programming languages.
• The Cartographers Guild (Hex map tag) - Forum created by and for map makers and aficionados.
• Map tutorials - A list of the map tutorials so far... Geomorph Series about hex mapping.

Random/Procedural generation

Resources about random and procedural generation.

Random tables

• d4 Caltrops Random Tables

Procedural generation

• Building Dynamic RPG Sandboxes Part 1 | Part 2 - Tricks to provide dynamism to sandboxes
• Hexmancer - Simple system for procedurally generating hexcrawl terrain and features.
• Making maps with noise functions
• Here Dragons Abound - Blog where the author explores procedural generation and display of fantasy maps.

Tools

Great tools for designing and building hexcrawls.

• Worldographer: (aka Hexographer 2) - Make hex maps from scratch in minutes or let the program auto-generate a map you can quickly customize ...
• Hextml - A webapp to make hex maps.
• GM Friend - A webapp to make hex maps with a random map generator.
• Welsh Piper’s hex templates - Hex templates in different scales: atlas, regional, local ...
• Autarch hex templates - Hex region templates from the Adventurer Conqueror King System.
• REVIEW: Old School Encounters Reference | Download PDF - Useful not just for designing adventures, but also for world building in general.

Reddit communities

List of subreddits where hexcrawl topics are welcome.

• HexCrawl - A subreddit to discuss HexCrawl-like RPG mechanics.
• OSR - News and discussion of Old School Renaissance topics.
• D&D Maps - A catalog for user created maps and links to maps by other artists suitable for use in any D&D campaign, adventure, or encounter.
• FantasyMaps - Sharing and requesting fantasy maps!
• MapMaking - A community for people that enjoy creating maps- both grounded in history and the grand realms of fantasy.

Related Awesome lists

• Awesome D&D - A curated list of awesome D&D Resources.
• Awesome Free Tabletop RPGs - A curated list of Awesome free and/or open source tabletop RPGs.
• Awesome Tabletop RPG - Tabletop RPG Tools, materials and projects.
• Awesome Fantasy - Fantasy literature worth reading.