Hexed lands

I’m nearly finished with the free version of Witches of the Wenderweald. Close enough to commit to a release date: June 30

Over the next month, I’ll be sharing pieces of the game as I finish them. Today: the hex map and the rules for exploring it.

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When I started designing Witches of the Wenderweald, I knew I wanted exploration to feel different. These lands are hexed, maybe even alive.

A lot of RPG maps are beautiful. Few are designed to be played.

Likewise, much RPG travel boils down to the same routine: point at a destination, describe a few trees, roll for a random encounter, then arrive. Or worse, the journey disappears beneath a wave of the GM’s hand.

As a hiker, I’ve never understood that. My horse certainly wouldn’t either.

You don’t walk through ten miles of wilderness and come away with nothing. You notice strange tracks. Ruined foundations. Animal bones where they shouldn’t be. You get lost, then find something unexpected while trying to get un-lost.

I wanted the Wenderweald to feel like that.

I wanted every hex on the map to be worth exploring.

So I gave every hex a rule.

I don’t like travel systems that require pages of math to simulate a day’s march. I go hiking to escape math and ride to stop thinking.

So my core travel rules are simple.

• Choose a path

• Test Wit

• Move one or two hexes

• Roll to discover what lies ahead

When you’re done moving, the strangeness of the Wenderweald creeps in fast. The terrain is already decided by the map. You’re rolling to see how it’s behaving today, this week, this season…

The decisions — the true game of it all — come in when each hex changes as you pass through it. It can change on the same journey, making “There And Back Again” not so simple.

Familiar landmarks are overrun with strange fauna. New clues may twist old stones. Witch runes might force navigation tests.

In the marshes around Gideon’s Reach, every hex holds a hazard. Sucking mud, strangling roots, witch runes, hunting pits.

Players don’t need a giant survival subsystem. They only need to know what could happen if they stay here or go there.

That possibility of hazard is what forces meaningful choices for players. Sucking mud can be mitigated. Witch runes…who knows.

The possibility of danger is what creates meaningful choices. Do you stay on the road? Do you cut through the marsh to save time? Do you press deeper looking for clues? The terrain itself becomes part of the adventure. And it won’t be the same when you come back through.

The hex map is tilted, stretched, and absent the nuts and bolts one might expect in a conventional RPG map. Here’s where it gets controversial:

Who cares.

That’s right: 6 miles? 1 league? -2 movement in bad going — who cares.

The land itself isn’t static. The cartographers aren’t (and can’t be) reliable. The Wenderweald reveals what it will. You’re just here to survive it.

As you explore the land, you’ll find new landmarks that change over time. Draw them on the map, carve them into the page, write in (figurative) blood.

This type of map is designed to be a story engine.

One hex might contain: a clue, a hazard, a strange encounter, or indeed all of them and worse. Every hex is built to force a difficult choice on the players.

This won’t go up on the wall as a tapestry — it’s not meant to. Instead, the map of the Wenderweald will be tucked away close to the breast and pored over under the rain by dim light as one realizes the Sun King ruins aren’t how they remember them…they’re a mile off and crowded with flowers that stink like corpses.

When you’re done with it, the map becomes a collection of adventures instead of the empty space between them.

This mad project is coming soon — June 30 — and that’s thanks to the good folks supporting me here and over on Discord.

You can join me over there to see my process and get free playtest materials as I develop them.

Watch for the Wenderweald watching.

—Odinson