I realized that I wrote my last article “How to Prep 600 Hexes Without Losing Your Shit” without ever explaining what a hexcrawl is. If you’re already familiar with this style of play, feel free to skip this article. But if you’re new or just want a refresher, here’s my personal definition:
A hexcrawl is a TTRPG format where adventurers explore the countryside to discover what’s there, including scary monsters, valuable treasures, and nefarious plots.
Contrast this with a traditional, plot-driven adventure where there’s a mission or conflict to resolve. While players may visit different locations, they do so with a specific purpose in mind. They interact with the content of each location until their goal is achieved, and then they move on to the next location.
A hexcrawl is all about exploration and discovery. You wander around a map, discover what’s in each location, interact with it as much or as little as you choose, and repeat. This may not sound like much, but it’s the basic gameplay loop of Baldur’s Gate 3. The unknown is inherently interesting. It’s a mystery, and who can resist a good mystery?
Why Hexes?
Simply put, hexagons are the bestagons. They tesselate, which means they will completely fill a plane without leaving any gaps. Squares and triangles do the same thing, but a grid of hexagons has an important property that the other shapes do not: the distance from the center of one hexagon to the center of any neighbor is the same, no matter the direction. Contrast that to a regular grid of squares where a diagonal move is about 1.5 times the distance of a horizontal or vertical move.
Plus hexagons just look cool.
Strengths of the Hexcrawl
There are several advantages to this style of play.
Player Agency
A hexcrawl not only allows players to move in six directions (with each move covering the same distance), but it also gives the players agency to decide how much to engage with in a given location.
Don’t feel like saving a town from grell incursions? Move along.
Want to find out what’s behind that ancient stone door with the Dragon Empire markings? Be my guest.
In a more plot-driven game, there’s an implicit social contract that the players will engage with what the GM has prepared. You can go off-book—and players often do—but if you ignore the mcguffin, then you’re probably not going to have a very enjoyable session.
With a hexcrawl, how each session unfolds is up to the players. Want to hang out at the fort? I’ve prepared dozens of NPCs. Want to head off into the unknown? I’ve got content there, too. Want to delve into that mysterious ruin you uncovered three sessions ago? It’s ready to go.
That may sound like a lot of work for the GM, but in the “Criticisms” section below, I’ll explain how it’s actually less work than a traditional plot-driven game.
Exploring the Unknown
Why did we climb Mt. Everest, or go to the moon? To find out what’s there.
Discovery, exploration, and curiosity about the unknown are all parts of human nature. Hexcrawls put this mystery front and center. Traditional plot-driven adventures may include mysterious elements, but the focus is always on resolving the conflict of the plot, not venturing into the unknown.
Open Tables
A traditional plot-driven adventure assumes that the same players and characters are going to show up each session, which is not always feasible. People are busy, and they juggle multiple commitments. TTRPGs are just one part of their hectic lives.
An open table acknowledges this fact. It’s a game that’s set up for people to attend as they’re able, rather than assuming regular attendance. This format does require some structural changes and concessions, such as requiring characters to return to a base of operations at the end of each session, rather than just ending in media res, cliffhanger style. However, it’s much easier to make these changes with a hexcrawl format than with a traditional plot-driven format.
Misconceptions about Hexcrawls
The biggest misconception is that they lack plots. In fact, they often generate multiple plots rather than the singular plot in the traditional format.
As I mentioned above, players are free to choose how much they want to get involved with a particular plot in a hexcrawl. For example, the heroes approach a new town only to find it besieged by a dragon. They can
- Turn around and walk away—no engagement with that plot.
- Save the town before hitting the road again, which would be a small level of engagement.
- Drive the dragon off and promise the kind townsfolk that they’ll defeat the dragon once and for all, only to discover that the dragon is actually being controlled by the Evil League of Necromancers, and now they have to fight said Evil League. That’s a much deeper level of engagement.
In each case the players get to decide the depth of their engagement. They could even uncover the connection to the Evil League and decide that’s enough for them.
Meanwhile, the dwarves on the other side of the mountains just dug up a balrog that now threatens the entire countryside. Will the heroes face that threat? Again, the decision and the level of engagement is left up to the players.
Criticisms
People in our hobby are critical of hexcrawls for a few reasons.
That Sounds Like a Lot of Work
I’m not gonna lie, there’s a lot to prep for a good hexcrawl. But the same is true for any good session, regardless of the format. In my experience with plot-driven adventures, I often spent 8 hours a week getting ready for a two-hour session. With a hexcrawl, I can prep a whole region in about 12 hours, and that’s enough content to drive 5 four-hour sessions. That works out to less than 40 minutes of prep per hour of play, compared to 4 hours of prep per hour of play with the traditional format.
In terms of juice-to-squeeze, the advantage is clearly on the side of hexcrawls.
Just like players have other commitments outside of the game, so do GMs. Over the summer, I had a lot going on and did basically zero prep for my Barrun Khil campaign. Even without constant attention, it ran perfectly for three months. I just showed up to each session, used the content I’d prepared earlier in the year, and it was no different than if I’d spent the prior week prepping. Even better, I wasn’t scrambling each week to fit prep into my busy schedule or canceling sessions because I didn’t have time, and the players could not tell the difference.
Zero prep. For three months. Tell me the last time you were able to do that with the traditional format
In much the same way that the players can choose how much or how little they want to engage with your content, as the GM, you can choose what to prep and when without worrying whether you have enough material for the next session.
Not What You See on YouTube
It’s impossible to overstate how important actual-play podcasts and YouTube series have been to the explosive growth of the hobby in recent years. The downside is that they tend to present a single style of play, a single way to GM, and a single type of experience. It can create false expectations even for a traditional adventure. Not every GM is Matt Mercer or Brendan Lee Mulligan.
If a player comes to the table expecting that YouTube kind of game, they’re going to be thrown for a loop when you hit them with a hexcrawl. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I have two players who came in with no experience beyond watching Dungeons & Drag Queens, and they’re two of the most engaged players at the table. They’ve taken to the hexcrawl like fish to water. Another one of my players had more experience but had never heard of a hexcrawl. He just stared at the map of mostly blank (unexplored) hexes with eyes like dinner plates, murmuring, “That’s so cool.”
Final Thoughts
Hexcrawls are a tradition as old as the hobby itself. They have their strengths and weaknesses, just like the more traditional plot-driven adventure format does. There’s no right or wrong way to play a TTRPG, as long as everyone is having fun. But hopefully this article has whet your palette for more hexcrawl content. If you’re eager to learn more, I recommend watching this video while you wait for upcoming blog posts.