... now with 35% more arrogance!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Last-Minute Hexcrawl: Barony Settlements

Placing settlements on the barony-scale map is going to be similar to the process used on the kingdom-scale map. There, 1d10 represents the position and size of the kingdom or barony, while 4d4 represent settlements around that central point. We can use 1d6 of one color and 4d6 of another color on this scale to define the size of the home base and the position of four settlements relative to home base.

"Home base" is a keep + village, for a barony, or a walled town, for principalities or kingdoms. The central d6 (first set/color) tells us if we should downgrade or upgrade the size of home base:

d6 rollBaronyKingdomRoad
1 or lesshamletvillageoutpost
2 to 5villagetownhamlet
6+towncityvillage

Note that there will only be one town maximum in a barony and one city maximum in a principality, and these will always be the home base. A kingdom will have at least one city, though, so if home base is a city, there will be two cities in the kingdom.

The second set of 4d6 dice rolled are interpreted as four roads leading away from home base to a hamlet at the edge of each road. The number rolled on each d6 is the number of hexes distant the hamlet is from home base; the position of the die relative to the first d6 shows the direction to that hamlet. If a 6 is rolled, that hamlet is upgraded in size to a village. Optionally, you can use the "Road" column on the table, which gives the possibility of a hamlet being downgraded to an outpost of some kind: inn, watch tower, single family farm, hermit hut.

Because this step uses only six-sided dice and the previous step does not use six-siders at all, these two steps can be combined to reduce the number of die rolls/steps.

3 comments:

  1. I truly hope you combine this into a PDF or something. I'm on a similar trek to you, and I want your take on hex crawl rules.

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    Replies
    1. I've got a couple ideas on the PDF front... but I think first I want to wrap up this version, then propose some simplifications and streamlining. I want to get that 2nd draft done before bundling it all up in a stand-alone form.

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    2. Of course, after some playtesting and such.

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