Today, I’m focusing on the town’s immediate environs and how I can turn a loose sense of place—northern frontier with fortified outpost—into a concrete, usable hexcrawl.
Building a New Campaign, Part 4: The Drowned Lands
Building a New Campaign, Part 2: the Starting Town
Part One Every West Marches campaign needs its own Keep on the Borderlands: a place where sessions begin and end, where plans are made, and where rumours circulate. Above all, it needs to be a safe location with useful, player-facing options. It is not an adventure site in itself; adventures always happen elsewhere. In this … Continue reading Building a New Campaign, Part 2: the Starting Town
13th Age: The Best RPG I’ve Never Played (Review)
Back in January, there was an exceptionally good-value Megabundle for 13th Age where I picked up 19 PDFs for less than $40 (£34). It’s a game I’ve known about (and admired) for some time but never really devoted much attention to. Following the OGL debacle, I’ve been keen to diversify the RPGs I play and … Continue reading 13th Age: The Best RPG I’ve Never Played (Review)
How To Make A Compelling Backstory
Do you need a character backstory? Here are the questions that are worth answering.
How big are your hexes, anyway?
I thought I’d take a break from world-building this week to share a little post about hex mapping. Hexes are useful in roleplaying games because they allow you to travel equidistantly in more than four directions. This is not true of a traditional square grid, where diagonal movement is considerably farther than orthogonal movement. The … Continue reading How big are your hexes, anyway?