Friday, May 17, 2019

Finally Fifty: Five More Forest Hexes for Your Friday

Finally reached the half-century mark!

These Forest Hexes as part of my ongoing Wilderness Hexes project (browse the hexes tag on this blog for more).

This time we have:

  • A small stream that needs crossing
  • A Green Grotto chock-full of surprises
  • Treant Adolescents!
  • The Forest's very own Genius Loci
  • And a treacherous wooden bridge!

Fifty is a great milestone to finally hit, and I can't believe I've managed to stick with it this long given my easily distracted nature :)

As always, I welcome any feedback or stories about how these work out for your table! Might celebrate by researching some POD options (cue trumpets & tuckets), so I'd love any information or options anyone is willing to share about that whole can of worms!

11 comments:

  1. Apart from some typos, it looks great!
    I was a bit slow to read entries whose first halves are merged into one (like the skeleton under the bridge), but in all fairness it might be because I'm waiting for dinner to be ready.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, proof-reading is something I need to start doing more frequently. I'm a little too reliant on spell checkers these days, and they often don't find all the weird words/homophones. :)

      For those merged entries, would some inner border lines possibly help make them a little easier to parse? Most of the table formatting here is really mostly a placeholder at this stage.

      Love your blog! That link list you put together recently was incredible!

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    2. If you'd like, I can annotate the PDFs with comments, strikeouts, and such.

      Possibly; I'd need to compare them, I think.

      Thank you ^^ I couldn't have done it without so many creative people sharing their stuff on their blogs, though.

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    3. That would be an absolutely wonderful help if you have the chance, Ynas!

      I did find a few stray spelling errors on the first entry here that I've corrected/updated/re-posted (along with adding those horizontal lines to the "multi-tables," to see if they help at all), but sometimes its just too easy for the author to gloss over them because they "know what they're reading" so to speak :). A fresh set of eyes without the preconceived "mental auto-complete" is always going to be better than my editing endeavors.

      I've been hemming and hawing over having some of my players help with this, because y'know: SPOILERS. :)

      These are all labelled as "Draft Versions" because I'm quite certain there are all sorts of issues that have potentially crept into some of them (I do type them out in relatively quick creative bursts to try to capture what I perceive to be an interesting idea then and there). The ruthless brevity enforced by the page/table size certainly doesn't help with this, as I sometimes have to surgically slice up some entries to make things fit better.

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  2. Oh wow, this is a level of detail I would never have time to go down do - presumably one of those resources that can be used forever once it's completed though. Keep up the good work!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Tom! I think I did the math once, and there's a lot of possible combinations for each one (especially the sub-sub-tables). When you multiply that by the number of hexes, it gets truly crazy :).

      That's what makes it a little tricky sometimes honestly (I want all the options to at least "make sense together" without too much tweaking, but still leave plenty of room for "weird combos"). I'm also a fan of "linking things together" for some recurring themes and to create a sense of a "living world." That part usually waits until the end though, when I have everything numbered and proofed :).

      I hope it sees some use and helps out any DM's in need of a quick site/situation/location for their games. I try to keep some of the entries more mundane, but also include a lot of the "hyper-fantastical" in others just to accommodate different styles. Roll or Choose is what I always say :).

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    2. Linking together random elements in a meaningful way is always tricky, I think you have the right idea. Roll or Choose is my favourite option always; if you have strong feelings or an idea go for it, roll if not and embrace the chaos.

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  3. This is fantastic. I'm so happy you are doing these - the tone is perfect for my campaign and the content always good so it's truly playable straight from the page.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Olav! I'm glad that the tone here is working for someone. I think most have a little bit of variety (some entries are definitely more "high magic" while others err on the more prosaic/mundane) to accommodate some different styles.

      "Playable straight from the page" is definitely what I'm going for as far as the utility here. I wanted to make something that could support preparation work by populating hexes in advance, but also serve as a resource to help a "stumped" or "didn't have time to prep" DM throw something together that could make for an entertaining hour or so of gaming. Some of the entries though could end up taking quite longer in terms of table-time to explore/resolve though if the players get sucked in to interacting with the sandbox :)

      Delete
  4. a POD? nay, a kickstarter for an offset-printed edition, an oversized hardcover

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't make me blush :).

      I'd love to do something with a higher print quality than what's currently available by POD, but I'm not sure I'm ready for Crowdfunding. I'd only do that if it was done, and that's still gonna be a bit. I'd dearly love something landscape format, possibly top-bound...and spiral (while chintzy) might actually be a better option for something more "workbook" format.

      Happy to hear from anyone who's trod these paths before of course. I know nothing about the process of printing things outside of what's available at my local copy shop :).

      Delete

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