West Marches

Plot twist - the person with a sword is a chick. It's from a series of breddy gud sketches.

Fuck

Saw the long hair, yeah. I have a bunch of them. They're amazing inspiration. I also do the same for simon stålenhag's art.

Starting from level 1 is pretty good if you want to make your players feel the grinding fear of the unknown

That's useful, thanks.

Have you tried lvl 1 with 0D&D?
Now THAT is scary shit, regardless of the game you play. Hell, if you are not wise enough as a player, you gonna just die regardless of how good your rolls are.
West Marches works wonders on 0D&D

I'd love to do something like this, but I'm so awful at the maps. I can never figure out how to make them varied and spooky/weird while still feeling like they flow logically into one another.

In the previous thread there were links to net depositories of maps - you can just pick one of many maps made for such game

Sure, but I'd prefer one that was personally tailored to what I want than one someone else made for themselves, so I was wondering if there were any tips/tricks for that.

Random map in hexographer, just set what tiles you want in general and then generate maps unit you get what suits you

My point (poorly made) in the original post is that things like that are too generic. A random map tells me nothing except "swamp, forest, mountain". I'm asking how I can make a world varied with the right level of weirdness and spookiness required to feel like a cool or dangerous place to explore without just being totally random and disconnected.

The beauty of map making for a West Marches game is that the players never get an omniscient view of your map (unless they get access to some sort of powerful scrying artifact that let's them look at the map for a second or two.

Mine is alright, but otherwise I don't give a damn.

...

OP from previous thread here. I wasn't asking for players, I have no time for another campaign, I just wanted to see what other people were doing in similar games. Got what I came for, thanks a lot folks.

I think you are complaining too much and not using existing assets enough.

Okay, now it's clear I'm not explaining myself well enough. Where are you even getting that from? All I said was I wanted to make my own shit, but to have it be varied and not generic. Random generation and pre-existing maps aren't going to do that for me. I'm looking for tips on how to make interesting regions to populate the map, NOT how to make hex maps.

>So the question is - how do you handle start in your games? Do you even try to make West Marches with lvl 1 characters?

If you're using any variety of old-school D&D it's very hard to jump straight into the hexcrawl or overworld crawl. Old school D&D wilderness encounters usually triple the group size at the very least, which makes traveling in the wilderness very dangerous.

Usually, the expected progression is that players start at a settlement near some early dungeon, possibly a multi-level one (city sewers, keep near goblin lair, etc.), which grants them a starting adventure site to gain XP and level up before going deep into the wilds.

If this is a "megadungeon", you can gate off access to the lower levels via the use of keys/ancient codes/magic macguffins that the players need to progress, incentivizing them to explore the region to get deeper into the megadungeon.

If you're using a more modern variant of D&D or don't like the idea of gold-for-xp, or want the wilderness action to happen right away, or just simply want to give players more choice than sticking to the starter dungeon; then the usual idea is to design your campaign world in such a way that things get progressively more dangerous the farther adventurers get from civilized regions. Sticking to roads will probably only result in minor encounters that a level 1 party could survive, but going deeper into wilderness gets progressively more dangerous (but also more rewarding).

The way it is suggested that you start a West Marches campaign is by giving the players a treasure map and letting them run loose in your world. One of the guiding principles of the WM campaign is that nothing exciting happens in the town, you probably don't want to give your players a starting adventure in the city if you expect them to explore your hexcrawl. It's all about training your players and expectations. And there really are no roads or "civilized" regions, this isn't just a hexcrawl and it should not be designed the same as one since principally it isn't strictly one.

>to get deeper into the megadungeon.
This never goes well.

I mean I get your general idea and all, but I've been playing 0D&D for past... I think 5 years. And there is one thing I've learned from it for sure - you don't want to go deeper. You want to get up as soon as you can't any longer carry loot, rest, restock and... find different place to explore.
Even if you are eventually high-level adventurer, there are places when going deeper in megadungeon is equal to making new character.

Running a limited magical item economy in a 5e WM game, starting an NPC with a few relatively mundane +1 equipment, sold at twice their price. But once an item is purchased, it's gone for good. But players can also sell magical equipment they find for half of the normal cost.

There's always the combination West Marches/Megadungeon structure. The Town is safe. The dungeon is either beneath it or nearby, and probably (like Arneson's Blackmoor dungeon, which IIRC had elves guarding the entrance and taking a percentage of your loot) under a castle that's well-defended and stops nasties coming up. You go into the dungeon for a bit, you go into the wilds for a bit, you bounce back and forth. Find references to locations in one place in the other, and if you can't progress with whatever thing you're working in in the wild you've got a complete change of pace available.

Eh, that's why you find shortcuts and entrances that'll take you directly in to the lower floors. Lets you get in quick strikes and objective raids while fully rested and without having to go through the previous floors.

Almost done with this.

I was gonna make another map making thread for this style but holy shit does it take forever.

So where are you going to place the base of operations/main town for your players?

On the coast, inland by a river, middle of the woods?

This map isn't for me, actually. I'm making it for an user.

But, if I were to answer the question, I'd run this like a Virginia-Company-settling-the-new-world type thing.

There be a settlement in the river mouth in the southern center of the map, where the river meets the sea. And maybe another settlement, a mining town, upriver from that one on the lake to the North East.

Contact has been made with a tribe of wild elves north of the mining town

Players would arrive at the port, maybe as an established group working as representatives of some adventurer's guild from the mainland.

They'd have a quest to start things off. There's goblins and kobolds raiding the farmstead to the west and they need to be taken care of.

Also, version 4 of the map.

Holy shit...

I've got a questions for y'all.

I'm not sure which of these versions is better.

Version A has darker greens for lower elevations. Easier to see, but might be confused for forest when I start adding vegetation.

Version B has lighter greens/whites for lower elevations. Harder to see but easier to determine forests when I start adding those in.

Which is better?

As a guy who "ordered" this:

Right now A is much more clear. With B it's just not as clear. But then again, right now it's a clear map, so I don't even know where it will go. But as for now - A

Alternatively, a B' version, where there is bigger contrast used for the "lowlands", so there is much less contrast with blue rivers

But like I've said, as for now - definitely A. Maps should be first of all practical and easy to read

I'm gonna be running a West Marches game loose based on the premise of Malifaux
>portal opens up
>people are dragged through
>start out in a destroyed ruined scarred by the magical fallout
>way do?

Any suggestions on cool geological inclusions? Spitball all ideas; ruins, dungeons, flora and fauna.

How's the topography? Anything you want changed or adjusted? (within reason)

Do you want me to add forests, swamps, grassland or anything like that?

I'm working on adding forests and shit now.

The topography is perfectly fine

I would significantly cut down the amount of trees and focused them around the "top mountains", the logic being - moisture capture, so the woodland stayed.

Bog only in the delta, if at all, MAYBE around the area where the two rivers connects, but also rather avoidable.
I was rather thinking to have a large metropolitan ruins in the area where the river hits the sea. That would made a lot of sense from the point of urban development. After all, the scale is (with the 5000x5000 size) 10px=1km

Damn, forgot about the picture

Also, I would rather prefer a "sparse" forest markings rather than making them dense or completely uniform, if that's not too much to ask

Asuming the map is right now "top is north" oriented, the wind is blowing north-north east. Anything north the mountains next to "river crossing" should be a dryland, aside the small area next to rivers.

Fuck! The wind blows TOWARD North-North East

To sum up:
Red is woodland
Blue is dryland
Arrow has own description

And the mountain area between the large north dryland and riverside woodland next to river crossing should be obviously dry too, the more up north, the more dry

You got it. I'll make the forest designations sparse trees rather than opaque clumps.

I dig that you've thought about wind direction and stuff like that, makes my job easier.

It would be a massive waste of potential to not include wind direction when having such marvelously folded terrain.

Bampereiro

'ing

I'm going to key one of my hexes to have a crashed UFO...

youtu.be/FRLg0CnWnOg

Pretty sure that 5e has rules for plasma cannons.

If there are any civilians in the area, I hope they stay clear

The existence of the UFO/scouting party will be the only thing exempt from my "ecosystem"

If you have the time, this is a really good resource for RPGs.
youtu.be/Bi7fiDANm2w

Reminds me of a megadungeon our GM once made. Deeper levels included stuff like ruins caused by nuclear war, alien spaceships, demon dimensions, time loops... it was probably the pulpiest game I've ever played

B-bamp

Portals are a good way of doing West Marches. My ~~cosmology~~ has a bunch of moon-sized worlds as other planes, accessible via portal, and the wizards are hiring scouts and planning to build permanent portals to some for settlement purposes.

Also, if you tech up a bit, you can run trains through permanent portals.

but, er, your question. Hyperactive tectonic plates? Not as in constant earthquakes, but as in moving relatively fast, so every year the town moves a mile closer to oblivion and there's a long chain of settlements as people keep moving and building new ones before the old ones disappear under the crust. Which is also optionally the city of brass or hell or something. Or mountains, so land gets pushed up and up closer to the plane of air or completely out of the atmosphere.

Mountains reaching vacuum is cool. Plateaus of vacuum are cooler, especially if you have crude suits and tunnels.

And craters in the vacuum plateau that are deep enough to have their own atmosphere, of course.

>Hyperactive tectonic plates? Not as in constant earthquakes, but as in moving relatively fast, so every year the town moves a mile closer to oblivion and there's a long chain of settlements as people keep moving and building new ones before the old ones disappear under the crust. Which is also optionally the city of brass or hell or something. Or mountains, so land gets pushed up and up closer to the plane of air or completely out of the atmosphere.
This sounds like a shitty justification to have fuckload of ruins and ghost towns all over the place

I'd assume most settlements would be built to be salvageable after a hundred years or so of inhabitation, and it would effectively put a cap on the age and number of ruins, because the... let's say east is all fresh land, with the frontier having druids or whatever trying to make it appropriate for life more quickly?

It's a silly idea, but I like it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_World

>In the novel, an entire city and its residents travel slowly across an alien planet on railway tracks. The city's engineers must work to lay fresh track for the city, and pick up the old track as it moves.
Reminds me of this. It's pretty interesting, but I never thought about using it in a game.

That's one of the things I was thinking of, although I haven't read it - just heard it mentioned a lot in relation to Greg Egan's new book.

Do not attempt to adapt Greg Egan's worldbuilding to your fantasy games, only madness lies that way.

Well, if you're looking for ideas, I think it might be worth a read. I liked it a lot when I read it years ago, although I'm not really sure how plausible/usable in an RPG it is.

>Inverted World
That was one, fucked-up read

Just about done with this. I'll be making some final adjustments and once it's done I'll make multiple versions with and without hex grids for you.

I know this is gonna sound stupid right now and picky, but could you "mix" those woodlands? As in - adding pines between those? Especially closer to the ranges?

If not, it's fine, since it's already hell of a job, but that would be a nice final touch

Like adding pine trees to the trees already there or replacing the tress with pines? I can do either no problem. They're symbol sets so if I change one it changes them all.

Adding to those already there some pines.

What soft are you using for this, anyway? GIMP? Or is this 'shopped?

Ok, I've circled where I would like to have pine "concentration" (area where they dominate, all forests should be mixed, those in red circles simply represent thicker and predominately pine woodland)

Also, if you could trim down the amount of river marshes to areas in yellow circles?

Of course I had to forget to circle the marsh where the two main river crosses, but it should stay as it is now.

Illustrator. I normally use photoshop but for this style it's all vector.

I'll get on it. I've got some rendering work for a client that needs doing so it may be a few hours before I can get back to this.

Fuck it, now it's good. Yellow circles - all marshes that stay or should be added. Marshland that is currently outside circles should be removed

No hurry, really. It's a blitz speed anyway

Bampito

Bampeiro

Bumpin Donuts?

This style of game sounds hella interesting and I'm toying with my own setting

I'm worried it's a pipe dream that only exists on gaming blogs and I'll never get to play one though.

West Marches is just lazy GMing.

So it's good?

fucking Witches

Well once I've finished mine I'll be looking for players. Keep an eye out in here as I'll post here first.
>lazy GMing
>building an entire world to be explored
>littering it with lots of encounters, scenery, factions, etc etc
If by lazy you mean it is easier than prepping for each session then yea. But it's kinda like batch booking; all the prep is done beforehand and when you go to cook, it's just taking what's already is and adding a little spice

I tried it once online but the place I was recruiting didn't really have enough interest so it ended up being a single party thing.

I truncated the map by making it a wedge shape, mountains on one side, water on the other, blithe disregard for geography all around.

The setup was that the PCs lived on a peninsula that'd been cut off from the rest of the world by an immortal orc warlord's stronghold for centuries, and when he finally died and the stronghold was taken over the land on the other side had been completely trashed by the orcs (they hadn't done the same to the peninsula because hmmrrmmhrm) and there were only scattered ruins and battlefields.

It only lasted a few sessions, the lack of players really undid what makes west marches good.

----------------------------

Here's a question though. I set mine up the way I did to explain why there's nothing in the Marches: The homebase is a chokepoint leading into a wilderness that civilization hasn't touched in centuries.

It seems like Hexcrawl assumes a central location which makes me wonder, how do you do your central settlement without other settlements around? Is everybody else dead? Do the PCs portal into an abandoned fortress and take it over?

>PCs portal to an abandoned fortress
This is the basis I'm building mine off of. The first session is gonna start in media res with the players kicking in the door to a cult's lair. Cue dramatic battle that during the course of interrupts the ritual the cultists were performing. Magical blast and a tear is ripped open and the players/cultists are all pulled through.

When they awaken, they're gonna be in a heavily destroyed fortress, the surrounding area barren from obvious magical scarring. From there, it's whatever they want to do, although I'm going to make it very obvious from day one that A) they're a lot weaker in this realm (reset to level 1-3ish) and B) this world is excessively lethal (the reason the cultists are there, to act as "oh shit son, did you see that?")

As they explore and build, they'll discover that this world had seen a steady decline in magic, as it leeched out into the other worlds it started bleeding into. This had two major ramifications. 1. The !not GoO and other creatures of this world feel into hibernation, the magical energy they used (basically like a magical form of photosynthesis) no longer enough to sustain them while active. 2. It was now connected to multiple worlds, and as such became a form of quarantine zone for them. Any time a magical malfunction happened in one of these other worlds, the resulting backlash of magic would be contained, transported to this world and released as a sort of bug from the leeching effect.

From a lore perspective this means that every time one of these happens, it releases the energy explosively into the world, reinvigorating the world with a chunk of magic, waking things, causing changes, ect depending on the level of magical backlash. Also means that there will be a variety of enemies, creatures, themes, etc etc. The PCs interrupted what was to be a successful ritual to drain the world of its entire essence to make the cultist acsend into godhood, form their own pantheon and rebuild the world in their image. As such, this has been one of the biggest chunks of magic to be released into this world, and the result is seeing a lot of things waking up, revitalising what was a sleep world.

From a GM perspective this means I can A) include all sorts of cultures, enemies (both natural and supernatural), groups, flora and fauna, ect B) litter the map with all manners of ruins without any real constraining barriers like "logic" and C) means that even if I set the world to define borders, the fact it's connected to other worlds and changes depending on what happens in those means I can edit the map to completely change the campaign and stay thematically in line or even cross the barriers into other worlds, giving the campaign astounding length and depth.

>Hexcrawling
>lazy
Literally pick one

>how do you do your central settlement without other settlements around?
There could be a lone road/trail, or maybe you can get there with a boat. In any case, it does feel like it assumes some sort of recolonization effort, and that the town is the first one in the area.

Here is the final product.

I'm gonna sit on it for an hour or so, double check it to make sure there are no mistakes then make a few versions, each with and without hex gridding.

You want a version with no topography, correct?

Sorry for being late for commentary or reaction. It looks ok, with everything in place like it should have been.

And I would need:
1) The one you've just delivered
2) The one with only land outline and water (so no topography and no trees, but marshes and rivers stay)
3) Hex-grid version of 1 and 2

The original idea was for 5000x5000 px map divided into 500x500 hexes. This one is 10000x10000 pix, but I would still need to have it 500x500 hexes, thus obviously making the hexes bigger, as 1 hex = 1 km (or at least around that size)
In short - it's slightly smaller than Wyoming and part of it is taken by sea anyway. That's also why I wanted to make the marshes smaller, as otherwise they would cover absurdly big areas.

here you go, my dude.

imgur.com/a/t6gLq

This is fucking awesome. You can't even imagine how grateful I am for all your effort and more importantly enduring my never-ending string of requests and corrections about the map.

I guess I owe you now, and a big one.

You're very welcome. Pay it forward.

>Also, if you feel like playing, inform

I feel like playing!

...Well, maybe.Depends on system, other players, the usual

It looks like people are doing some geography critique on here. I put together a quick hexmap to think about how I'd set up a game like this, but I don't know shit about geography.

How does pic related look as far as realistic terrain goes?

There'd probably be at least one more settlement somewhere but I don't know where. The light blue is moorland, I'm imagining damp, cool british-style terrain from the sea winds, up until you hit the mountains, and then rocky badlands past that.

I'm not at all an expert but I'll give you my unprofessional opinion.

The desert there most likely would be scrubland or savannah unless the predominant winds move West, but you've got moors from an Easterly wind.

You'd need mountains creating a stormwall to stop precipitation from spreading into the eastern desert. Or the desert itself needs to be at a significant enough elevation to act as a barrier for itself.

I don't think forests usually border deserts. Forest gives way to savannah then desert.

You got anything larger? It would be easier to critique with a larger area.

>How does pic related look as far as realistic terrain goes?
The major criticism I have is that it is far too small, not unless those hexes are huge. Over just how far is the transition from swamp to forest to mountains to desert? I just don't believe that sort of transition would happen in 20 miles, not with British style rain levels.

>I don't think forests usually border deserts
They might do if there was some reason why it rains on one side and not the other. Perhaps an escarpment with the desert being down in a basin? That'd allow for an interesting canyon leading down, maybe with some sort of wadi going further into the desert from its base.

Hexes are twelve miles across, seven miles on a side. If I do a hexcrawl I have to key every single hex so it's not very big at least to start out.

>so it's not very big at least to start out.

This is a good thing to remember

You don't have to complete your entire hexcrawl before starting a game. Unless your players charge straight for your 'area still loading' you should have more than enough time to keep building while the campaign is ongoing.

I think this will make things fresher for the GM, since you're finding new stuff as you go too, and not staring wistfully at distant things your players haven't reached yet.

How large do you guys like your hexes? 10 miles? 5 miles? 6 miles? Do you use sub-hexes within your hexes to differentiate locations in a hex, or how do you deal with that?
And most importantly, do you draw the worldmap up first, then superimpose the hexes? Or do you just draw the hexmap?

10 miles

There's problems with any size but smaller seems to be too much micromanaging, and 15+ miles leads to too much 'I need subhexes' or worse, 'There is only one point of interest to be found in any given 225 square miles'

Oh and no I do not use subhexes. Hexes have multiple things sure but I don't track those things with more hexes. I try to keep things very specific for inter-hex travel, but within a hex it's more an abstract combination of randomly encountering new features and knowing where to travel to find previously-discovered ones.

Obviously this is just my hot opinion and anything works, but there you go

My drawing skills are shit so I just made a map in hexographer, then GIMP edited it to not have hexes and be a little more rugged and unpredictable looking for the players, while keeping my own hex map for my own purposes.

It really helps if players don't see the hexes I think.

1 > 6 > 60
So you can use them on local/regional/continental level, as the smaller size of hexes can make the bigger one.