Dear old'uns, teach me your olden ways! How does one design and run a hex crawl? I want to run one on the next playtest, I want it to be a pure sandbox and to allow my players to go wherever and do what ever and to let the dice fall where they fall but I don't know how to design one or run one, my last hex crawl sandbox I participated as a player was twenty years ago when I was eight...
I ran one once. They're great for sandboxy type adventures. What I did was start with a basic set of random encounter tables and some random events that could happen depending on terrain etc. and then as I mapped I got more specific, marking areas where dungeons might be hidden or particular scenarios that might occur when the PCs wander there. Since hexing is abstract its also great for tracking progress through a dungeon or overland. I simply say one hex is about day's journey. Hexographer | World/Starmap/Wilderness Map Creation Software Has an really free version of their program that allows for a lot of detail.
