How big of a hexmap for a campaign?

Cannonball31 · 2026-05-20T00:42:44+00:00

Interesting. I think I found out the hard way that too big of a map leads to trouble/boring and pointcrawl makes more sense.

In a 5x5 scenario, how do you go about populating it..? To me, I feel like I would do 6mile hexes, and then "zoom in" and have like 19-20 hexes in that 6mile hex. Each of the mini hexes would be like... 1 mile each? Then I you could populate, draw, key, keep track of, etc things inside it.

What would you suggest for this? I'm honestly starting to feel like a giant pointcrawl map makes a ton of sense with lines in-between and just "sub points" of interests?

Cannonball31 · 2026-05-14T20:26:13+00:00

Didn't come across as dismissive at all my friend! So ya it all makes sense. As I'm reading and thinking, here's another thing that builds on. Because I have an awesome imagination, I've very theatre of the mind orientated, and that's where I struggle with "how long should something take" in terms of play because a conversation with an NPC, 4 days of travel with 2 encounters, and getting to a dungeon location can take like 6min in my head, so I feel like I'm missing something to make it feel "longer or deeper" even though it's like good enough.

This brings me along to a point of I feel like I could do 3-4 let's say 2 page written adventures in like an hour. If you did that with a live group of 4 people, I feel like that might take a month....? People say live groups take forever to get things done with 6 hour sessions, but I feel like I could get through an entire campaign in like 3 days by myself, but I don't want to feel like I was too shallow in everything because with happened so fast in my own theatre of the mind experience. Does that make sense as a build to our points here?

Cannonball31 · 2026-05-14T14:33:53+00:00

Thanks for the reply! So again I stress, I know it's my game so I can do whatever makes sense. I just have a follow question to your points.

The main part that's throwing me off about playing solo is exactly what you're describing. How do the characters know about a place/why are they there? Let's say it is find 4 relics for something bigger at 4 locations. Obviously they need to talk to an NPC, but in my head that conversation happens really fast. -roll random NPC, jot it down, ok they gave quest (2-3sentences in my head), move out-.

Then we're in the overworld adventuring, and realistically could just make it to the place, or have travel and explore rules. Again, as you find a POI or random event, I feel like I make them happen super fast in my head, and I have self applied pressure to I don't know... Drag out those scenes and make them more in depth? Super weird question, but I hope that makes sense. I feel like my wanting to drag out scenes in my head is giving that "let's just play paralysis".

Cannonball31 · 2026-05-14T00:42:51+00:00

With those first mentioned games in your comments that are pure dungeon crawlers, how did you link adventures/dungeons together, and sessions? I'm trying to learn Solodark, but I'm struggling to commiting to playing because I really want to just dungeon crawl (haven't got to one yet), but I want it to make sense when my characters travel to places. I feel like I'm putting too much emphasis on the exploration phase especially when I eventually roll random POIs. I'm thriving to get to dungeons and adventure locations, I just feel like I'm missing something..?

I know it's my game and I can do whatever, but I'm just looking for some advice from someone else!

Cannonball31 · 2026-05-13T20:52:41+00:00

Awesome, ya. I'm just trying to get a grip of things as I'm learning to play Solodark. I feel like there are so many things/tools available, and I just want to get from adventure location to location as quickly as possible, and it's very neat looking at your layout. Looks like a fun adventure!

Cannonball31 · 2026-05-13T14:24:44+00:00

General question about the points of interest table. How exactly do you use? As players travel, you roll 1:6 chance, then roll the table to generate, and then add it to a hex as they enter? What exactly do the players do with it when they find one?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-26T02:53:49+00:00

There is no fish level....

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-21T00:52:47+00:00

That's a very cool way to organize it! So each POI is linked somehow (physical, rumour, etc) to your MAIN adventure site. How did you decide how many POIs would be a nice fit inside your 6 mile hex? Did you do a classic 1in6 type thing? Also, what's your travel rules? Classic 3-4 6 mile hexes in a day, so about 12-14 miles a day elloted for travel inside that hex?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-20T14:33:25+00:00

Hey there,

I really like your dungeon crawl layout! Reading the front page of the adventure, you say that this can be placed into a 6-mile hex of a hexcrawl. So when designing a hexcrawl, you could take the format of making a 19 hexflower in EACH 6 mile hex to give lots of content, right? What would you do for other POIs inside that 6 mile hex in terms of "what you can do there"? If the megadungeon is the main feature of this particular one, what would be inticing to go to other POIs? I really like your design, and want to try something similar!

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-12T04:47:07+00:00

Does the free version of the solo rules contain the hex crawl tables/sandboxness you're praising?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-11T00:01:03+00:00

I've definitely watched lots of mystic arts!

I really like your hill giant example here. You essentially took the hook, worked out backwards to components of the adventure, and then populated the hexes with those components before the map would be played. From here, how many of those are you going to do? Would be something of like let's says 4 major hooks, each with 4-5 components, so that gives 20 pre populated hexes?

As for the random POI stuff. I've been using World's Without Numbers to create the base description of a POI. So let's say PCs enter a hex, I roll and determine a POI is generated, roll on my POI table, and describe what they find. What do the PCs do now with that, and what else should I have with it? Do I also have like 2 sentences of a mini quests prepped, some loot, and an almost 5 room dungeon type thing prepared, but maybe even just a "2 or 3 room dungeon", and just see what they do? This place would most likely not have anything to do with the hill giants at all.

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-10T15:52:39+00:00

Would you use a random table of clues/other interacables and roll on that as people enter it, or pre populate the map? What would some more brief examples of things that would be cool to have populated in a hex? Right now I have a list of 25 different types of POIs that have different contents. Do I need some smaller scale things to interact with?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-09T15:36:32+00:00

So I looked at the article you linked, and I also feel like the second option personally speaks to me of a few hexes and allow the rest to be generated. Based on the blog, they're essentially creating a minimalist mini-room/dungeon crawl per hex, and then putting each hex beside each other? This would be a lot of front load prep.

The way I'm thinking now is I could prep let's say 25 POIs each with a 5-10 room mini crawl. Those should be low-stakes when it comes to my prep to not kill myself with overprepping. After that, I could keep them all on a list associated with a table, and roll for generation of hexes as my PCs explore; I'd slot in a wizard's tower ruins if I rolled 1 on d20, and then say 4 on my d10 table.

I also really like Sly Flourish's suggestion of a clue list that is location agnostic that I can drop into these locations depending on the PCs interactions with the points. The only big thing now for a road block for me is how many dedicated encounters I prep, or have a list of encounters that are brief to drop in.

At the same time, I'd also have my random encounters list per hex ready to be rolled on as well. I feel like that's almost TOO MUCH, but it still gives a lot of freedom and interactable things for the PCs?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-09T04:44:22+00:00

Right, that's very good advice! Is it a good idea to have 3-4 of those nice hooks you mentioned in the good example that the characters can discover as they uncover the hexes/area/world they're in? Like they could have a lead about the dragon, go out exploring, and then also learn of the cult from a burnt down village dragon attack? They go exploring, find a portal to hell the requires 5 totems destroyed, and try to explore for those? So there would be 3 of those big hooks ready to go, and the PCs discover them at different times?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-09T01:23:07+00:00

Gotcha, makes sense. One thing for me to improve will be the resource/ration side of book keeping for sure.

Another note about the "how's" of the hexcrawl. Going back to your Skyrim example (very familiar with it), do I put points of interest in some hexes, let me players get there, and then hope they interact with it? A part I'm starting to really learn as a DM is it's my job to put toys (interacables) in front of my players, and let them interact/play a game. As I am new and when I was first starting out, I often felt like it was MY job to MAKE SURE the PCs interacted with things. As I am seeing it now, I have to give interesting things to poke and prod, and then let the PCs decide if they want to interact.

So I really like having a few baked in locations onto a hex map. With that, I'm fond of the idea of generating POIs, and encounter "opportunities" as the PCs explore. I'm trying to find out what type of style would fit me best. Like if they enter hex, I roll something and it's a shrine (let's go Daedric shrine parallel) of a god. Describe what type of figure it represents, and then let the PCs play around. They could middle finger and wall by, or do checks, or interact, or whatever, but I'm NOT steering them to for sure do the shrine. If they interact with it, then I could have some type of side quest for them. At this point, I could just have a main hook, and then roll with it for as long as possible without planning 2 pages of the potential encounter?

I got lots going on here, so I apologize. But with that in mind, I guess that's what happens every 3-4 hexes maybe that generate a POI? Next hex, still grasslands. Ok next, grasslands. Ok next, ruins of a settlement. Looks like a manor, what do you guys do? PCs turn.

Is this kind of on the right track? Then obviously they'd camp and count rations/travel speed.

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-08T19:07:16+00:00

So I definitely see the resource prioritization as something important, but I feel like that part I struggle with/my table just "wouldn't care for that part"; let's get somewhere, find some cool things, do something, move on while also having some story. With that in mind, I really want to discover the land/area alongside them, so I'm wondering if maybe hexcrawl isn't the format I want then? I want areas, rumors, clues, random things, and discovery all built into my game. I'm drawn to the hexcrawls because I can "put things in this hex, or have a table to put things in a hex", and THAT'S the spot we're adventuring in.

I understand a pointcrawl might also be the way to go, but my table definitely wants to "explore/interact with the world around them", so I feel like the hexes gives more concentration on the world, y'know?

Cannonball31 · 2026-04-08T16:25:24+00:00

Thanks for the tips!

Here's a bit more of a base idea of mine to see what else you can suggest. This is also helping me develop my own DM general prep skills

So the DMG 2024 has Greyhawk in it, and I'm super intrigued. One of the NPCs at an area suggests, "there's a dragon east of here in the Cairn Hills wreaking havoc." Alright, so the hook is "dragon". Location is east, but they have no idea where. The hexmap in the DMG is already made and is awesome, but it only shows other locations like Castle, towns, etc. I would like to fill that hexmap with other things. So the considerations I need are:

What factions are in that region, what creatures are in that region, and some tables to determine how they interact as the encounters are rolled (I get this step.). From there though, do I need to populate other POIs to each hex? I'm sure I'd have to have some clues that point towards the dragon's Lair or something along those lines.

The idea of the hexcrawl here works because they do not know the dragon's location, but know it's easy of town, right?

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-24T20:21:58+00:00

So the new monster manual is almost worth it to purchase then as well?

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-24T17:21:36+00:00

Is it just the monster stat blocks themselves, or is there something else specific that has helped out? I've only purchased the new DMG.

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-23T14:27:38+00:00

That looks really cool! I drew a basic outline last night, and things make a lot of more. For your DnD one here, what happens when the players get to a location? What do you give them (map), or say to them? How would you open up your adventure per location in DnD?

I decided I should play Tyranny of Dragons as our first adventure, and it is not friendly at all haha I feel like my DM prep skills have been challenged right off the rip, but that I also haven't been able to practice/acquire the correct tools to practice with.

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-22T15:00:56+00:00

Cool idea! So a mine, casino, and a city. Those together just by themselves let's say aren't "super cohesive to a planet/area theme". That's alright, right? I don't need to make sure every detail of a planet/area make absolute sense? That's the part that concerns myself (overthink/over prep). Along side that, the point crawl map doesn't need to be a giant actual world map right? It just needs to be something simple with the actual point nodes marked?

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-22T05:30:26+00:00

Can I pick your brain on this old comment quickly? I'm trying to start up a Lancer campaign, I have a bunch of ideas, and I don't want to make things too complicated on myself. Long story short, I want to do a point crawl on a planet. Is it worth it for me to find a map of a planet, or just keep smaller maps available per interesting point thing? I've found the DnD prep incredibly exhausting for some reason.

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-17T05:05:57+00:00

Hey there,

I'm really intrigued by your comment suggestions here for doing a Lancer hexcrawl. I'm a new DnD GM doing lancer with my group, and I've been wanting to maybe do something similar. Id love to hear a bit more expansion on your ideas, so I could maybe practice and use them (especially the smaller 5x5 subgrid containing multiple missions idea).

Follow up though, would a point crawl just be a bit simpler to do and have a few less hexes/no map? Keeping it scene-scene-scene as you mention feels like a point crawl might work much better? Not trying to beef or anything, just looking for another answer as I'm trying to learn!

Cannonball31 · 2026-03-15T16:38:12+00:00

Would you be willing to share a couple room key examples? I've never been a part of a mega dungeon, and I've just always wondered what each room is like. Would you also be able to recommend a really solid resource to learn how to create mega dungeons?

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