Hex by hex sandboxing

[rounser]

Here's an idea for bottom-up sandbox worldbuilding.

Using Arr-Kelaan Hexmapper, create a map which is nothing but sea hexes.

Add a single hex of another type to begin an island (e.g. a town, plains, hills, forest etc.), number it, and detail it in some way - anything from a simple description, an encounter, a lair, or even an entire city or dungeon. You then have permission to add another hex. Number that, and detail that in some way before adding another.

Repeat until you have an island...then a continent...then a world. Or you may find that an island or two is all you need to run a campaign. It's also a world which is very oriented towards D&D gameplay, because wherever the PCs go there will be something interesting to interact with, and that's the essence of a sandbox.

Although bottom-up worldbuilding is not new, I've a feeling that this disciplined approach to it might be. Additionally, you have an incentive to keep detailing hexes (unless you cheat and break the rules by painting them in en masse), because you get to watch your world grow.

 

[Woas]

Going along with this, you know what I'd love? Some sword & sorcery, medieval fantasy -esque Travelller planetary system creation tools that could go along with this hex by hex 'world' building.

 

[Mark]

I think a workable compromise to this approach might be to create a world that is geologically sound then use the above methodology to do the detailing, beginning at a point that could be the starting point for a campaign then working outward, perhaps in an ever-increasing spiral pattern.

 

[Asmor]

I actually came up with a system a while back for generating a world like this.

The idea is that you'd generate a few hexes around the party, and then whenever they explore you generate out further. Each hex was basically a day's travel (walking) or so.

There were a few different types of terrain (water, plains, forest, mountain, swamp, desert) and each one had its own table. Whenever you had to generate the contents of a hex, you'd randomly pick from its filled in adjacent hexes a "parent" and then roll on the parent's table. It was made such that about half the time, depending on the type of terrain, you'd roll the same thing, so in that way it was possible to generate large clumps of forest or plains.

 

[Treebore]

I would just rather pull out all of my Judges Guild Wilderlands material. ITs the original hex by hex sandbox.

Now if I didn't have all of this, or didn't want to buy it at noble knight, using that program and doing it myself would probably be fun.

 

[ArghMark]

the warhammer fantasy Border Princes book I like a lot. Its kinda similar to this but you basically roll a percentage, and thats how many squares of a certain land type you get. After you generate the map, you randomly get ancient evils, orc lairs, villages, towns, local lords, and all of the interesting encounters within. All randomly rolled, its awesome.

The problem with every hex being interesting is that I'd never get past hex 10.

 

[jdrakeh]

Although bottom-up worldbuilding is not new, I've a feeling that this disciplined approach to it might be. Additionally, you have an incentive to keep detailing hexes (unless you cheat and break the rules by painting them in en masse), because you get to watch your world grow.

Actually, I built my first two campaign worlds like this*, though not because I innovated the process — my first DM told me that this was how he created his first couple of campaign worlds circa 1983.

*Minus the software, of course.

 

[nnms]

I hate joining yahoo groups. Is this the same software?
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HexMapper

 

[jdrakeh]

I hate joining yahoo groups. Is this the same software?

Nope. AKS HexMapper uses custom tiles to create maps. The Yahoo group has a few tile sets modeled on old school (TSR) overland maps in several scales. Here is a map that I recently rendered in AKS Hex Mapper with lettering added in PhotoShop:

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It's a rough draft, so be kind (I've since changed almost all of the lettering and names).

 

[nnms]

Nope. AKS HexMapper uses custom tiles to create maps. The Yahoo group has a few tile sets modeled on old school (TSR) overland maps in several scales.

That's neat. I just realized I Dundjini does hex maps, so I think I'm going to go that route as I may as well get my money's worth out of it and I've hardly used it.

It's a rough draft, so be kind (I've since changed almost all of the lettering and names).

I like it. It totally has an awesome old school vibe.