A Hexploration Procedure

You’ve hiked a rocky terrain for hours looking for a safe way down into a valley. A series of stacked boulders now provide that opportunity. You may carefully leap down the boulders, being absolutely precise for a slip could mean a terrible injury. Alternatively, you may continue searching for another descent, but night is approaching, and another day to get into the valley would cost you valuable time and resources.

When I think of wilderness exploration, I am reminded of my hiking and camping trips. I like going light with only the necessary items, meaning that I must ration my viands and use my tools carefully. I have also often taken these trips alone meaning that I must balance exploration and risk (climbing over boulders, going into caves, etc.). While I lean on the side of safety, I have always been intrigued by dramatic stories of exploration like Against the Ice, and Kon-Tiki, among others. Of course, I would avoid such life-threatening positions as sailing across the Pacific Ocean on a wooden raft or trekking Greenland’s arctic regions, but I do sometimes wish I could get such a thrill.

I would consider myself someone that enjoys exploration, discovery, and challenge in TTRPGs. Through them I have explored fantasy worlds full of new environments and challenges that I could not explore in real life. So, if I want to sail across the ocean or trek the arctic, I can simply play it. Worldbuilding is one way that I tap into those experiences by creating environments, creatures, and societies that stimulate my exploratory brain. The other side is experiencing this world and its intricacies by running the actual game.

It should not be surprising then why I developed a hex-map packed with fantasy-themed oddities and secrets. I’ve previously explained how hexes helped me develop such a setting. At the same time, the hex-map was intended to facilitate exploration and discovery. Here, I will discuss the procedure we use for Hexploration.

Follow the river or go bushwhacking?

HEXPLORATION GOALS

Similar to what may be experienced in real life, I wanted a procedure that makes wilderness exploration a balancing act between pushing and staying safe. Therefore, this procedure relies on resource management, mapping, time tracking, and danger. These foundational goals helped me shape the procedure.

Managing resources: Ideally, you would carry everything you could ever need for a wilderness expedition, and bring every ounce of treasure you find out there, however, that is simply impossible. This is the first decision-making step: what to carry and how much. You must think ahead because resources are finite, either in quantity or condition, and using them is a choice of managing risk and rewards. On the other hand, you need to bring back what you set out to find. To keep things simple, we use strength-based encumbrance slots and roll for item durability after every major use (1-in-6).

• Starving: Food is a common denominator, so what happens when food is depleted? First, I had to define the condition. Starving: starting the day without consuming a ration. Then, consider its effect. Certainly, hiking miles through difficult terrain with a heavy pack while on an empty stomach is challenging and the longer one goes the worse it becomes. Since we are using DCC as the base system, starving would be modeled as a penalty on the dice chain. For every day of starvation a PC’s action die would be reduced one step (d20 > d16 > d14 … and so on). This has compounding complications since actions, such as foraging and combat, will become progressively more difficult. In such a case, the party must decide to look for food or press on.

Mapping: Successful explorations require conscious planning to avoid obstacles and optimize travel time. The best way to find a good path is to know the land. I opted for player mapping so that players may explore and understand the environment at their own pace.

• Player Mapping: This one is simple: at every hex they visit, I provide them with a description and they keep track as desired. For ease, I provided a blank hex-map and they have been filling it with icons, similar to what I did. Finer details are kept in their own journals. Now, when they travel, the map helps them chart a course: e.g., avoid the killer bees or follow a river.

Time Tracking: Exploring takes time (a lot, in fact), and that can factor into other aspects of the game, such as managing resources. On my end, I keep track of days for several purposes: i) the most obvious is food usage, but also ii) I can keep track of faction goals or other world events in the background; iii) I can integrate character goals or events into the game, e.g., your sword will take a week to be repaired, and iv) I can keep track of the seasons, which modify travel conditions.

Danger: The wilderness is dangerous, but only if you are mortal. I think that fully recovering after a night’s sleep is pretty ridiculous, and it would effectively negate the risk of exploration. Therefore, we are playing with modified HP recovery rules: a character recovers 1 HP per day. Coupled with random encounter checks, it makes resting in the wilderness a meaningful choice.

An abandoned temple may contain treasure, but also hostile creatures.

HEXPLORATION RULES

With my foundational goals laid, I then devised their implementation. I wanted this to be a procedure because players must be able to understand and anticipate potential outcomes in order to make meaningful decisions. The procedure we are using is as follows:

1. Consume rations at the beginning of the day.
2. Perform Hexploration actions.
3. End day.

Now for the explanations:

1. Consuming Rations: A party may stock up on rations, using one per day in a very structured way. For this game, however, I wanted to integrate elements of survivalism, such as foraging and hunting while traveling. In a Mutant Crawl Classics (MCC) game I played online, the GM used a mechanic of ration dice, and I liked the approach. Essentially, a player rolls their respective ration die and either keeps or loses the ration based on the result. In our case, ratio dice follow the lower tail of the dice chain (d3, d4, and d5) and a character loses a ration on a roll of 1, with variations based on weather or terrain. In the winter or in the desert, for example, food is harder to find so a character loses a ration on a result of 1 or 2.

2. Hexploration Actions: Each character gets two traveling actions per day. These include moving to another hex, foraging, exploring, or resting. They may all move as a party or separately to cover more ground. With each round of Hexploration actions I roll a random encounter check (1-in-6), i.e. two checks per day.

• Moving to another hex: Simple, go from one hex to another in any direction. Upon entering a hex, I provide the character with a visible feature—a unique identifier. Sometimes these are passive, such as a mountain with a side-cave that resembles an eye; they may also be active, such as a magical rift in space that has different effects if touched.
• Foraging: Dedicated efforts to find food, modified by terrain type and weather conditions. Success provides a ration die to the PC. This is a mechanical approach, but it is also possible to hunt big game for greater rewards. For example, once the party was depleted of rations in mountainous terrain during the winter. With a 4-5 day trip to base—risky business if you’re attacked by hungry creatures while famished—they opted to get rations fast. Rather than foraging in these difficult conditions, they used their time to track big game—a high risk, high reward decision. A quick roll on a random table returned a herd of mammoths. The party set up an ambush on a chokepoint and managed to take down one of the four. They got the equivalent of 7 rations—enough for the trip back to base.
• Exploring: The character carefully charts the entire hex. With this action, I provide all hidden features (if any) to the party. These could be, for example, a grove of olive trees that can be picked for rations or a hidden entrance to a dungeon. There could be good rewards out there, so it would be good to send a scouting group to explore the hex while others rest or forage. But, be careful when going alone.
• Resting: This action models tending wounds and simply letting the body recover providing 1 extra HP on top of natural recovery. Because natural HP recovers at a rate of 1 per day, active resting can be strategically important in certain situations. For a while, the party did not have a healer, and resting was essential when a party member was down on HP. In the meantime, others may spend their time exploring or foraging.

3. End day: The party decides whether to make camp or keep moving. Resting is important for naturally recovering HP and for staving off exhaustion.

• Exhaustion: It is possible to keep moving without having to rest. Maybe the party needs to reach a place before a specific day. In this situation, the party accumulates an exhaustion condition, reducing their action die by one. Exhaustion stacks with itself and with starving conditions.

Example. Day 1: party travels from base [0101] one hex to [0201] exploring it and resting. Day 2: party travels another hex to [0301], explores a dungeon, and rests. Day 3: party does a full move through [0202] back to base. 

Hexploration Quick Notes

• Resource management, time tracking, mapping, and danger create meaningful situations during Hexploration.
• Each day: roll ration die, take two hexploration actions, end day.
• Each character may perform two Hexploration actions* per day:
• Travel to an adjacent hex,
• Explore the currently occupied hex (reveals hidden features, if any),
• Rest (+1 HP recovered),
• Forage/hunt,
• others, such as scope adjacent hexes from a vantage point.

• Rations are tracked with the dice chain (d3>d4>d5) and simulate foraging/hunting while traveling. Generally, a ration is lost on a result of 1 (may be adjusted by conditions).
• The maximum ration die is a d5. Rations past d5 are considered d5.
• Starving (entering the ration roll phase without rations) causes a penalty to the action dice per day. If the action die reaches a d3, the character dies.
• Regions may impose changes to certain rolls e.g., acquiring food in places of scarcity is more difficult.
• A random encounter check is performed after each round of actions (two checks per day).
• Pushing through end day without rest incurs an exhaustion condition, reducing the action die.

*Actions may be performed as a party or independently. Splitting tasks optimizes time and resources but can be more dangerous.

On Ration Dice

It was brought to my attention that a dedicated explanation of ration dice usage would be helpful. I will touch on two points:

• Equivalency of number of rations to ration dice.
• Use of ration dice to feed a character.

Equivalency: A character may carry as many rations as wished within the limitations of encumbrance (each ration occupies one carrying slot). The number of rations determines the ration die that will be rolled on a given day. Zero rations = no roll/starving; one ration = d3; two rations = d4; three or more rations = d5. See figure for visual representation.

• Example 1: Luken the thief has 7 rations. The ration die he would roll is a d5.
• Example 2: Tlacuache (RIP) had 2 rations. He would roll a d4.

Use of Ration Dice: As aforementioned, this mechanic is meant to represent finding wild food (maybe roots, fruits, hunting a rabbit, etc.). Upon starting a day, each character rolls their respective ration die. Regardless of the result the character is fed for the day. A roll of 1 is a failure (may change based on other conditions, see starving section above), anything else is a success. A failure represents unable to eat for the day solely from wild food and having to consume a ration from personal supply. Success represents finding enough wild food to eat for the day without having to deplete personal supply.

• Example 1: Luken has 7 rations, rolling a d5. His result is a 1, meaning he must use one of his rations to feed himself for the day. Luken now has 6 rations.
• Example 2: Tlacuache had 2 rations, therefore he rolled a d4. His result is a 3, meaning that he fed himself mostly from wild food without having to dip into his personal supply. Tlacuache retains his 2 rations.
• Note that both characters were fed for the day, the only difference was the source. Failure: eat from what you’re carrying. Success: eat from the wild.