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OSR/Hexcrawl wilderness, dungeons, towns etc generators?

Started by danskmacabre, August 10, 2022, 11:05:57 PM

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danskmacabre

So a question for the OSR/Hexcrawl gamers.

I've been playing around with OSE (Old School essentials) and there is some basic guidance in there for Generating Wildernesses, Dungeons, Towns and so on.
I've plenty of Encounter charts, treasure charts in those core books, but looking for more detailed Hexcrawl friendly material for generating Terrains, dungeons exploring and so on.

I guess some Judges guild stuff would be good. Any specific suggestions out there ?

Naburimannu

There are lots of good free resources online. Among posters here, Rob Conley has a well-regarded series of a dozen or more blogposts (https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html), and Melan had a nice short "you don't need much complexity" argument last fall (https://beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/2021/11/blog-hex-crawls-simple-guide.html). http://kellri.blogspot.com/ has "CDD#4 - ENCOUNTERS" which starts off as a set of random encounter tables but then has a rather full random-hex-stocking guide stretching over a hundred pages, e.g. the Ruins table: architecture, condition, structures, contents, treasure. Graves & Tombs table: conditions, guardians, age, burial type, burial chambers, grave goods, tomb treasures...

If you're looking for *products*:

* From Judges' Guild, the Ready Ref Sheets.
* Alex Macris (Autarch; also posts here) is the author behind ACKS, and wrote the Lairs & Encounters supplement, which addresses one or two specific aspects.
* Todd Leback (Third Kingdom Games) wrote "Into the Wild" and "Filling in the Blanks"; the latter is a rather complicated high-verisimilitude system for building hexcrawls, where IIRC you can end up with each six-mile hex having its own custom random encounter table based on which monsters have lairs in other hexes nearby...

Eric Diaz

My Dark Fantasy Places is PWYW.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288289/Dark-Fantasy-Places

It's a short collection of generators for villages, towns, and wilderness... I should make one for dungeons...


Chaos Factory Books  - Dark fantasy RPGs and more!

Methods & Madness - my  D&D 5e / Old School / Game design blog.

danskmacabre


VacuumJockey



dkabq

I use Todd Leback (Third Kingdom Games) "Filling in the Blanks" for my DCC campaign. As was pointed it, it can get complex, but you don't have to follow it as gospel. When I use it to populate hexes for my PCs to hex-crawl, use it to generate information that I then bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate as I see fit.

briansommers

I was hoping somebody would mention this.
It's really brilliant!

Cathode Ray

Creator of Radical High, a 1980s RPG.
DM/PM me if you're interested.

weirdguy564

I'm glad for you if you like the top selling game of the genre.  Me, I like the road less travelled, and will be the player asking we try a game you've never heard of.

Lee

There are some system-agnostic tables in the 3e version of Wilderlands of High Fantasy that I like to use.
http://www.ocfco.net/info.html <- My contact info and Odysee garbage.
http://www.dizzydragon.net <- My ol' D&D site.

Angry Goblin

Very interesting topic, thanks, I haven´t done hexcrawls for a really long time, maybe it´s
finally time to hop on it again! Great links and articles btw. 8)
Hârn is not for you.