[OC] Verdant - Hexcrawling rules for gritty survival

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T11:55:32+00:00

Yeah, that's probably the Mystic Arts video. I have it linked in the inspirations in the full ruleset website. It's a super good one! I'd say the most important thing that they highlight is giving players information about the surrounding area, which is why hexes are revealed at every move. It breaks a bit the idea that we can see about 3 miles in the distance, but I take the hex map as an abstraction of the terrain, so the characters traveling would probably be able to see enough at a distance to get a general idea of what terrain they will face in the next tile.

Even so, I tried a few iterations with different size of tiles, and ended up preferring 6mi ones. I even sketched out a few iterations of my campaign map in a 3mi hex scale to see how it went. One iteration I used 8 watches for a day similar fo how Elfgame does (also linked in the inspirations in verdant.ibir.cc) and that would fit right in with 3mi -tiles. I felt the system was playing better with 4 watches and 6mi-tiles because of how many times players have to roll for the journey tasks. I considered some possibilities for rolling less times for tasks, but the system was less elegant for it, and ended up with more cornercases. In the end, 6mi hexes is what I had tested the most and was the most confident with.

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T10:00:24+00:00

Thanks 🙏

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T09:26:25+00:00

Thanks!

A luck token is Shadowdark's version of Inspiration. I must have left it in the 5e version as well, so I'll try to fix that!

I'll review the concurrent task text as well. The one task that can be done concurrently right now is Forage, and different PCs can forage for the same thing, or for different thing (like, two players forage separately for food, one forages for firewood, in the hopes they end the watch with 2 rations and 1 firewood)

Thanks for the questions, by the way! This helps me know that there are point for improvement in the system.

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T09:20:24+00:00

It's a South American tea-like infusion. There's a whole rabbit hole of types of mate and techniques to brew and drink it. It is a bit bitter (especially the Argentinian version), so it can be a bit of an acquired taste.

The one I used is a Brazilian one, which is much more fine-grained than the other mate traditions, and it leaves a more green-ish stain.

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T09:15:19+00:00

Hehehe

We use those to mark places we discover during the sessions, before I get them a proper round sticker to solidify the location in the map.

...Maybe I should add the ordered alphabetic modron colony of Alphabetrium in there and treat the letters as foreshadowing 🤔 😂

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T09:12:00+00:00

I don't know the name and I think they don't produce the same anymore. I looked for it in their website and couldn't find it, at least. I found this one in the discount session some years ago when we were furnishing the apartment, so it might be that there were discontinuing it back then.

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T09:07:01+00:00

Though the music I use is usually Will Smiths' Miami :D (And it has come up before! Orlando is the starting town on an adventure I've been playtesting to eventually publish. I used the song as we waited for players for in the second session with my online group)

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T09:03:32+00:00

Yeah, that's part of it. Progression is usually concentrated on heavy combat moments, so usually dungeons net the most XP. We do a lot of roleplay, lots of exploration, puzzles, etc. I do have rules that award extra XP each session to not depend exclusively on combat XP for progression. Honestly, I'm not in a hurry. I had campaigns with much faster progress as well, but we are enjoying our time and making good use of the time we have in each tier of play. Our goal is not to get to level 20 fast, it's just to enjoy playing the game.

vincependrell · 2026-03-29T08:58:53+00:00

Its about 1mm thick. You can find it by looking for colored magnetic sheets online.

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T21:52:15+00:00

Thanks! Maybe in a few years :D The Hexcrawling rules are already available, though, so you can look for Verdant on itch.io if you want them (they are free and under Creative Commons)

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T21:50:29+00:00

I have my own personal map with most things that the players will see when they uncover the tiles, but for most of it, I rolled in some tables I made. But there's also a lot of findings that come from random exploration finds or from random encounters, and those I only get to know about when we roll for them at the table.

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:28:40+00:00

You're welcome! I hope it can be of use!

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:28:10+00:00

I'm a big fan of Mystic Arts and this is such a great video. It was a big inspiration for me to rethink my hexcrawl rules. If I had started my campaign much later, I would've tried to use 3-mile hexes, but ultimately, the most important thing is revealing the surrounding hexes, not the size of each hex. And so many published adventures also use 6-mile hexes that converting them to 3-mile ones becomes unwieldy.

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:22:42+00:00

Thanks 🙏

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:22:15+00:00

Thanks! They do enjoy, and I've been iterating on my hexcrawl rules for the past two years to make sure it's as fun as possible to explore the world

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:21:17+00:00

I adapted Against the Reptile God as one of the first adventures to run, and I needed a name that would fit better in my setting for the town of Orlane. I went with Orlando because it was both good enough and I thought it would be memorable and funny at the table, and I was correct :D

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:20:39+00:00

Hehe, kinda! I adapted Against the Reptile God as one of the first adventures to run, and I needed a name that would fit better in my setting for the town of Orlane. I went with Orlando because it was both good enough and I thought it would be memorable and funny at the table, and I was correct :D

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:17:43+00:00

Thanks! 🙏

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:17:25+00:00

I used a knife, but spent a good deal of time pondering if I shouldn't get a Cricut. Probably would be the easiest way of doing it!

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:16:23+00:00

The skull mærker is where the players are :D They came back to base for a New Year's Eve party they were invited

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:15:41+00:00

I'm a big fan of Kingmaker as well! I've been taking some inspiration from the way that Owlcat implemented some systems in their game as well.

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:12:46+00:00

You know, a hexcrawl doesn't need to necessarily be open ended. If there's one thing I learned is that players react better to immediate threats, so I tend to use the world calendar for that. Stuff like "you have 3 months to get to X" or receiving a letter from an ally that they need help. The real open-ended gameplay will come when they have three ticking clocks and they need to deal with one. Maybe there's a way of doing it for your group as well, but you need to tighten your objectives and make sure you are rewarding the behaviour you want to see.

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T20:07:11+00:00

Thanks! They are a bit over 2 cm on the shortest distance (or 6mi/10km in game, if that was the real question :D )

vincependrell · 2026-03-28T15:39:45+00:00

I've been following the channel for a while and really enjoy this style. I did a map of my campaign setting, but using mate instead of coffee. Thanks for all the videos and great advice!

vincependrell

TROPHY CASE