Hex Crawls

[squeen]

Melan has tackled the Great Serpent in his blog!

[BLOG] Hex-crawls: A Simple Guide

A slice of the Wilderlands Irony: no longer just a diet rich in ferrous metals. Old-school gaming is now officially old, having lasted way l...

beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com

With a bit of help like this, I've started to understand what people mean by hex-crawls, but there is still something at the heart of it that rubs me the wrong way. I mean, in our campaign, the vast majority of play has been outdoors traveling from one location to another---mostly on roads, but also through some wilderness. All sorts of crazy stuff happens on the way: some random but most keyed. Lots of locations are only partially fleshed out until the PCs arrivial is immenent (like in the next game or 2 or 3).

Sounds kinda hex-y but what I dislike is:

• discrete hex grid movement --- like a video game
• the horrible hex-coordinate system for marking keyed locations
• too much randomness (seems lazy)

Honestly, my dislike is mainly the last bit. Anything with even the mild ordor of DM-is-trying-to-avoid-prep smells like poop to me. As with anything heavily random, computers do it better. Because @rredmond is quick to remind me: there's-no-wrong-way-to-play, I'll temper that with: whatever.


It's a cool article and the best part of the article IMO was:

What about three-hex/seven-hex/hex-flower wildernesses?

Nah.

Melan has played and authored a lot. It's great he's been sharing what he's learned since rediscovering old-school A/D&D.

 

[Palindromedary]

It's a great post, as would be expected from Melan. As for your dislikes, I see what you mean and they're not unusual complaints, but I often think that what is needed with a hexcrawl is the acknowledgement that it's a fundamentally different scale and mode of play, and then expectations adjusted to match. For example.

With a bit of help like this, I've started to understand what people mean by hex-crawls, but there is still something at the heart of it that rubs me the wrong way. I mean, in our campaign, the vast majority of play has been outdoors travelling from one location to another---mostly on roads, but also through some wilderness. All sorts of crazy stuff happens on the way: some random but most keyed. Lots of locations are only partially fleshed out until the PCs arrival is imminent (like in the next game or 2 or 3).

Sounds kinda hex-y but what I dislike is:

• discrete hex grid movement --- like a video game

True, but recall that it's more accurate to say "like a wargame", and that video games took this from wargaming/RPGs, not the other way around. Additionally, you're looking at something that at its heart is no different than the basic operating mode of the dungeon crawl, with its discrete 10-ft squares on a map and 10-minute highly artificial chunks of time, which are just as vulnerable to a "video-gamey" charge if one is inclined to do so. Myself, I don't think there's any reason to accept one and not the other, or to consider the fact that video gaming later drew on something.

• the horrible hex-coordinate system for marking keyed locations

This one feels a bit arbitrary, and I don't really know why it would be a bother in any case. "Room 7, 5th floor" is fine, but "Hex 097.111" is strange? This is pure aesthetics and you should push past it.

• too much randomness (seems lazy)

Honestly, my dislike is mainly the last bit. Anything with even the mild odor of DM-is-trying-to-avoid-prep smells like poop to me.

It's not trying to avoid prep, it's trying to accurately communicate a higher-level scale (where "level" in this case is referring to the idea that you're "zooming out" more and taking in a larger sweep of things). The larger your canvas, the greater the room there is for variety: variety of encounter types, of terrain, of scale. The advantage to a hexcrawl is that you can conceivably run into a lot more things of a lot greater variety. I see this as a feature, not a bug: New York is different than New Jersey is different than Washington; Nottingham to Manchester to Leeds to York; whatever.

You do need to work to keep things reasonably cohesive. Terrain features should be of a relatively consistent batch, and you should decide the major forces in the area ahead of time so that something doesn't pop up mid-game that would logically throw off your entire ecosystem/setting were it to have always been there (although even that can work: a migrating horde-type feature where a thousand orcs wanders into the area, or something is gated in/awakens from an ancient slumber, are perfectly plausible).

You can already get a remarkable amount of diversity in a dungeon, with its chambers-and-floors discrete construction style. Just consider a hexcrawl the same sort of setup, but with a larger canvas and thus greater tolerance for variance. It's greatly freeing, and yet holds together just fine if you put in some groundwork ahead of time to lay in roads, major landscape features, and define the big factions and base terrain types. I've had whole campaign bits come out of random hex features, and it's been a blast.

What I did for my campaign hexcrawl was pre-construct a massive list of hex features with two subcategories: terrain type and power level. I placed a few that I felt people would know about / would generate rumours ahead of time. The rest I left to be random. Then I simply decided as the party moved into an area if the area was exceptionally dangerous or not (which would be communicated ahead of time with a little research/time spent in the area, unless of course the group struck out to there with no advance prep, in which case it would be on them). And yes, in one hex there might be a magic stream and in the other a tomb of an ancient orc warlord and in another the home of a wolf demigod, and yes they have no connection to one another, but neither I nor my group would expect that. If anything, connecting all of this would come across as very weird: we're talking many miles between them. Connections at such a scale are going to be artificial/the exception: you'd need to justify them, rather than set them as the default. In this regard, the randomness is a feature: you're getting the sense that you're exploring a wide world, with all sorts of strangeness out there. Done right, it feels like a sprawling landscape of adventure, rather than a madhouse.

 

[Osrnoob]

I run Hexcrawls 100% ask away. I don't show the hex map so my players dont feel anything you describe.

Also players as foreign / explorers is key.

I also would note you saying random. Rangoon might be there but what important is the thats 1 #1 dog. #2 now its a lair world at play, call back discover now a tool for players.

Strict time records

Random as tool not forever. Random creates

Also good

 

[squeen]

Good rebuttal!

Sure, it's like a wargame (Gygax played it on the Wilderness Survival game board IIRC) --- but it's like a hundred turn-based/grid-ed computer games I played in the 1980s (Seven Cities of Gold keeps coming to mind for some odd reason).

I think the key for me is that "yes" it is a different mini-game...especially if the players see the hex-structure, then the whole mechanism is exposed and all sense of immersive reality is lost. Then the hex can be much more apparent and "physical" than the 10-ft grid in a dungeon which is just used for distance-calculations and travel. Again, I have a hex on my outdoor map, but it's doesn't translate into "movement costs point" or "effort to penetrate a hex" or "chance of getting lost" it's just a convient grid. Outdoor (as in a dungeon) time and distance determines events....and moving half-hexes (or whatever) is fine.

I understand using randomness to provide an illusion of infinite detail...but I think it gets old fast. I prefer randomness to create the illusion of a dynamic environment instead, but I prefer a (largely) predetermined and fixed environment. If you need a jolt of random tables for content inspirations, then reach for it...but far better to mentally submerge yourself in the world (inbetween play sessions) and brain-storm what logically fits in that space---or just what would be the most different and fun to insert there (and what would be the consequences). Hex crawls seems the antithesis of intelligent design---a purely chaotic universe?

So again: it's a different game...and it just has almost no appeal to me.

And those hex coordinates just plain suck!! Just key the thing like a dungeon, with proper numbers (or letters) at the points of interest. Do you have tiny little two-part numbers in every 10-ft square in a dungeon? Yuck!

 

[Osrnoob]

I want to ask Bryce why last decade he liked Hexcrawls in his reviews and now considers them lacking as adequate adventure material for the DM?

 

[TerribleSorcery]

I understand using randomness to provide an illusion of infinite detail...but I think it gets old fast. I prefer randomness to create the illusion of a dynamic environment instead, but I prefer a (largely) predetermined and fixed environment. If you need a jolt of random tables for content inspirations, then reach for it...but far better to mentally submerge yourself in the world (inbetween play sessions) and brain-storm what logically fits in that space---or just what would be the most different and fun to insert there (and what would be the consequences). Hex crawls seems the antithesis of intelligent design---a purely chaotic universe?

I don't understand this complaint at all. If you don't like randomly-generated stuff or random tables for inspiration, don't use them - I didn't for my first wilderness hexcrawl game. Why hold that against the game structure itself?

 

[squeen]

Hex crawls---as presented by Melan in the article---come off to me as mechanical:

1. choose one of six directions
2. roll dice for
   1. weather
   2. ability to penetrate the neighboring hex
   3. chance of finding something
   4. etc.
3. rise and repeat, ad nauseam

I guess I just prefer a map with predetermined locations and some sort of intelligent design overlaid. That little mechanic for: "surprise me with what's in this hex (which is exactly like every other hex except for a different terrain icon)" just turns my imagination switch off. It's just endless chaos.

One might say: But I've quasi-keyed this little hex with a random blurb of interest!

Again, that's not my cup of tea. That's the sort of this I do as a last resort for the campaign when PCs wander afar. I'm not particularly good at creating anything but very surface-level detail on-the-spot, and it also tends to be very predictable content (or tropish). I need time to ruminate in order to create anything new, complex, or interesting (sometimes with randomness injected!), but I doubt I would ever want to be a hex-crawl player either.

​

I guess what it comes down to is this:

Do you think hex-crawling is a fundamentally different experience than "regular" D&D? ​

If so, tell me what the difference is and maybe I can put my finger on the joy-suck.

If not, then I guess I have no cause to grumble, because I like regular D&D and the way you are hex-crawling in a 100% compatible way---which I tend to think of as an outdoor point-crawl, and much closer to typical dungeon-play.

What I think is the difference is this: Hex crawls are exploratory --- the contents are ultimately random. Not so with point-crawls: the randomness, like wandering monsters, just keeps the environment dynamic. Therefore (if I'm not mistaken), point-crawls require more prep.

I wouldn't enjoy a primarily randomly-generated dungeon either. (e.g. geomorphs?)

 

[TerribleSorcery]

What I think is the difference is this: Hex crawls are exploratory --- the contents are ultimately random. Not so with point-crawls: the randomness, like wandering monsters, just keeps the environment dynamic. Therefore (if I'm not mistaken), point-crawls require more prep.

You seem to think that hexcrawling is a fundamentally different experience from regular D&D.

Can you fill your pointcrawl with randomly generated content and go explore it? Of course.
Can you stock your hexcrawl with lovingly crafted, high-prep material? Sure can, I've done it and it takes fucking forever.
How would you even know whether a dungeon was made using geomorphs, or drawn up by me while listening to Settembrini podcasts at 2AM after a couple or three IPAs? The geomorph one would probably look better on the page!

The method of getting to the content is called the structure. That doesn't necessarily dictate the content itself. You'll note in Melan's post that he completely glosses over the initial step of filling your hexcrawl with things you have created yourself - he just assumes you'll do that, then suggests random generation afterwards. He also points out that this is the initial state of the map, and more depth & detail can be added as you go along. A random roll may indicate a 'lair,' but it is still up to the DM to turn that result into something interesting and playable. When would that ever not be the case?

Melan shows his players his hexmap. If I didn't show you mine, how would you know I was using one?

 

[squeen]

You are telling me that hex-crawl are identical to point crawls?

Honestly, that takes me back to step-one and I am just confused again.

It's OK. I'm used to it.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

Hexcrawl

As part of my essay on game structures in roleplaying games, I specifically discussed the basic structure of the hexcrawl:(1) Draw a hexmap. In general, the terrain of each hex is given as a v

thealexandrian.net

 

[EOTB]

Squeen, when I read your posts and mentions of randomness, it seems to me (unless I'm misinterpreting) that you're interpreting hex crawls as randomly generating the contents during play? And not creating the contents in prep? But then you acknowledge the "little blurbs" which obviously exist prior to play so I am not understanding entirely.

For my prep process I have to get off the blank page as quickly as possible. My secret sauce doesn't start flowing until I have something to work with. So I randomly generate everything and then start working with the chaos, as you put it. I don't know if you're familiar with Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design, but his essay on the Jabberwocky poem also fits this stage of hex crawl design also, IMO.

So I take the randomness, shape it a bit more, and I have a large setting that varies between 30%-100% "in focus" - how detailed it is. Everything gets detailed to the point I can use it to make the world move, and some gets a lot more detailed than that. All I need to make the world move is a little blurb.

As for random procedure when exploring, sure, it's "gamey". I don't think immersion is that fragile though. One can dip from high gamey-ness to low gamey-ness, and the immersion will happen whenever players can latch onto information that fires their imagination. If you presume that only happens in low gamey-ness environments, for everyone, that's not really the case. For a lot of people it takes high-gamey info to get them in gear, and an immersive state, because its information delivered in the package that allows them to understand the overall situation. Someone can't immerse if they don't have their questions answered. That means people who don't have a lot of questions immerse easier than those who do have a lot of questions. But those with many questions are also most efficiently served by gamey procedures.

 

[squeen]

I imagine the little blurbs existing like random entries in a table -- just like the Tome of Adventure Design or the Nocturnal Table --- both of which are wonderful tools to jump start the creative process in a hurry.

But if I (as a player) could in any way suss out that that's ALL that was happening, then I would which lose interest. I suppose I believe in (as a DM) and want (as a player) some some of permanency at the core---something premeditated. Something cool. Something that holds together on a grander scope. Solely riffing off blurbs are insufficient for me. At a minimum, there needs to be some real secrets to discover...with clue scattered far and wide. A meaning to D&D life.

But the moment my brain (as a D&D player OR even a computer game player) detects that I am just up against a random number generator...I usually lose interest pretty quickly. That's the moment immersion breaks for me: when I perceive the full mechanic laid out bare and and I come to know that it's just me vs. pure chance. I want to find a "magic sword", not a 5% better sword---even if they are the same thing.

If this clarifies things: I love the Ultima's, but grew bored pretty quickly of Wizardry. The difference? Grand design.

Also, gambling has no hold on my psyche.

Now both of you are saying that moving through wilderness by hexes doesn't preclude having real solid structure beneath them. Then I have no quibble with that mode of play. I keep telling y'all, that how I/we been playing for years. I've been told by other proponents of hex-crawls in the past, that that's NOT hex-crawl...that's point-crawl. Maybe so! Then hexes are just a grid and not a different mode of play.

As for things starting blurry and becoming more focused --- I'm all in on that too. It's impossibly to prep an entire world all up front. But I do try to stay a few session ahead of the action, and then I also cross-link the heck out of things so that over the years, there is true depth.

Maybe I am preaching to the choir, and that's exactly what everyone does too.

 

[EOTB]

I'm not really familiar with point crawls, but my limited understanding is the process is backwards from what I'm describing - a few places are thought up and then a map is made to hold them. If I were to start with the places and just draw a map, I think both the places and the map I would end up with would be different than when I start with the blank map and work my way towards the places on it.

But as I said, I've never really looked closely at point crawls because I'm not in the market for a process to get wilderness areas ready for play - so I could be waaaay off base here.

 

[squeen]

That's what I used to think of point-crawl as too. It's all clear as mud now.

Thanks internet!

 

[Osrnoob]

If art reflects life
If life is random
Or random as the mind is capable of fathoming?
But if people figured that out
How would we have plans
Without plans what of my future
What of the future of my children
Should I work
Does free will matter
Do we have control
Any of us
You?
Me?
My loved ones
If all I see is random
Should I work
If there is no work
Nah nan Nam
come over
We just need the time and the place
We need to find the space
What is space
People
Places
Spaces
If random what is a box
Can I exist in it
Outside of it
Can I percieve the box
Would I even see it
Do I know what I see
Memory is a trap
Self fufilling? Of what, random
Do I want or do others
Who wants and how would I know
Or see the desire of
Shape?

 

[The1True]

For my prep process I have to get off the blank page as quickly as possible. My secret sauce doesn't start flowing until I have something to work with. So I randomly generate everything and then start working with the chaos, as you put it.

EOTB hits it out of the park again.

As for random procedure when exploring, sure, it's "gamey". I don't think immersion is that fragile though. One can dip from high gamey-ness to low gamey-ness, and the immersion will happen whenever players can latch onto information that fires their imagination. If you presume that only happens in low gamey-ness environments, for everyone, that's not really the case. For a lot of people it takes high-gamey info to get them in gear, and an immersive state, because its information delivered in the package that allows them to understand the overall situation. Someone can't immerse if they don't have their questions answered. That means people who don't have a lot of questions immerse easier than those who do have a lot of questions. But those with many questions are also most efficiently served by gamey procedures.

God damn this good! Could I trouble you for an example clarifying that last sentence?

If this clarifies things: I love the Ultima's, but grew bored pretty quickly of Wizardry. The difference? Grand design.

I'm guessing you despise looters like Diablo and Torchlight. Rogue-style games. I hate gambling for money as well, but I can let myself go with these games. Drinking a beer and mindlessly grinding mobs for a legendary drop long after I have finished the central plot is somehow relaxing.

So we've first of all established, like all the other play systems in D&D, wilderness exploration has a variety of styles, which is as Squeen mentioned, muddying the conversation. There's people who only have a hex map on the DM's side, leaving the players to discern a freeform, organic world. Others enjoy clearing the fog of war, hex-by-hex as in X1. Some use a node structure to set up a Point or Path Crawl. There's more, but that's what I've got off the top of my head. Each has its benefits and drawbacks that make them appealing to some but not other DM's and players.

My players have had their best nights when they've run off my reservation and I've been forced to improvise, frequently cribbing off a list of short, procedurally generated seeds. Presenting a blank hex map with maybe some visible boundaries (like shores or mountain ranges) creates a diverting mini-game, allowing players to point at things and say "I want to go there. I want to see what that is." This can be a LOT of fun. Maybe your players hate that. Know your audience. Know yourself. If you're uncomfortable improvising, stick to a structured style of play like a Point Crawl, for sure!

Or see the desire of
Shape?

Jesus christ noob. you complete me. I'm telling my wife tonight.

 

[squeen]

I'm guessing you despise looters like Diablo and Torchlight. Rogue-style games. I hate gambling for money as well, but I can let myself go with these games. Drinking a beer and mindlessly grinding mobs for a legendary drop long after I have finished the central plot is somehow relaxing.

Oh no, just the opposite! I don't know if you recall but my avatar was from nethack or awhile (we knew it as hack back in 1980 on the IBM 8086, rogue came later---the B/X to hack's AD&D...slightly more user friendly).

Hack had a good mix of random + structure in my estimation. There was the general idea that you were suppose to go down to level (26?) to fetch the wizard's amulet and then return it to the surface to win. But there was also the structure of all the secrets you needed to wring out of the environment to be successful: writing Elberbeth to rest, how to deal with shop keepers, which magic items you needed to find.

But there was no railroad-y plot. You explored. You experimented and you discovered. Best of all, what you discovered helped you next time you played---which was very important because of its high lethality.

The same applied to Ultima I/II/III: you died a lot, but what you learned about the world accumulated, so there was real progression. If you ever get a chance to play Ultima II, take it! It is the best realization of the OD&D/AD&D play-style wrapped in a time bubble. Lots of hack and slash, but even more talking to folks and piecing together a world-spanning puzzle from clues with almost no hand holding! Very lethal, but eventually you learn the lay of the land and start to succeed---based on PLAYER skill. No timer. Nothing forcing you in any direction and a huge world to explore (across multiple times!). Brilliant.

You see how those two things go together, right? If it's not just about looting and character-building (and there is some rhyme and reason to the world), then losing a character is not a full reset. The real player is YOU stomping about in various incarnations and probing/exploring the world.

Now make the world full-on random. Kinda destroys the real game, doesn't it?

@Osrnoob : I love the poem too. Original? If so, you got talent kid.

 

[EOTB]

Could I trouble you for an example clarifying that last sentence?

Consider people who prefer theater of the mind; something I often hear them say is something to the effect of "everyone imagines the scene a little differently". This is a feature to them, as one item they're looking for out of an RPG is something that fires their imagination of the scene. Whether or not that's the same as the DM sees the scene is of lesser importance; whether or not the choices they make at a given time are optimal for the situation at hand is of lesser importance; they're mainly concerned with keeping the movie going in their head. What is important is that there's enough symmetry between the DM and player scenes to move forward; there's a point where the value curve of additional information useful to equalizing the scene between DM and player reverses in value, because it interrupts the imagination taking over, and the player isn't strongly an if/then type of player - their decision wouldn't vary with additional information; they want enough information to confirm that the heroic axe charge is plausible because that's what they'd enjoy imagining at this time (if it's a valid choice).

But now consider people who prefer D&D-as-game (and everything that follows doubles in importance to them if they also know the DM is someone preferring D&D-as-game). Firstly, imagining the "scene", as it were, is mostly something that happens after the session is over. During the session the desired flow state is reacting in real time to present circumstances with the decision that allows them to respond with the action which resolves the situation the fastest at the least cost and most favorable outcome, so that the most options are retained for the next situation they'll face.

Here, the player is indifferent to whether a heroic ax charge is their action vs something else such as standing ground and opening with bowfire. But they want to choose which would be most effective.

So take a gamey exploration procedure that periodically and quickly relays gamey information such as whether you are currently in a plains hex with rain, or a hills hex with fair weather. The former would tend toward an axe charge; the latter would tend toward moving to high ground and getting out bows. To the extent that the gamey player would like to immerse into this scene specifically, having that gamey information continuously relayed as they go allows them to pivot to their action choice immediately. If its unknown to the player they have to start asking 20 questions to feel comfortable with the choice (or in the absence of such information, feel like they're just flipping a coin). And to a large extent, a DM who makes up something on the spot only in response to someone raising the question isn't satisfying to this type of player either. Then it feels as someone condescending to add in a complication they'd otherwise not care to bother with.

 

[Beoric]

I never get to run hexcrawls, my players will never leave the damned road.

For my prep process I have to get off the blank page as quickly as possible. My secret sauce doesn't start flowing until I have something to work with. So I randomly generate everything and then start working with the chaos, as you put it.

This is how I do things, exactly.

I also spend a lot of time thinking about possible scenarios before they are randomly generated. For example, I have read and re-read the bandits/brigands entry in the MM many times, and have a lot of potential personalities and tensions already in mind, so when a particular configuration of bandit camp is randomly generated, that configuration will suggest to me how the camp operates.

The 1e MM is particularly brilliant that way for groups of humans and humanoids, but I also do this for any entry I stick on a random encounter table. What sorts of things do these monsters care about, why would they be in a particular type of terrain, and how are they likely to respond when the encounter the party? I try to have those ideas in my head before I randomly generate content during a session.

For a lot of people it takes high-gamey info to get them in gear, and an immersive state, because its information delivered in the package that allows them to understand the overall situation. Someone can't immerse if they don't have their questions answered. That means people who don't have a lot of questions immerse easier than those who do have a lot of questions. But those with many questions are also most efficiently served by gamey procedures.

This is totally me as a player. I need to understand the environment my character is experiencing so that I can make decisions in character. That can be done in a mostly narrative fashion if the DM is good at narration AND at calculating odds (which necessary if the narration of the odds of success is to accurately depict the actual odds of success). Accurate description makes the game world more real to me.

In a sense, this is also me in real life. I don't need anyone to tell me what I see, hear and smell, but I do need to accurately understand my environment in order to make good decisions.

This also informs how I narrate, which I try to do from the character's perspective, even if the player is looking at a map. Creatures or objects to your left or right, and right in front of you or within/outside of charging distance/bowshot; your odds are even, or poor, or fair, or good, or risky, or dismal, or excellent; your opponent is heavily armoured or lightly armored or unarmoured, their guard stance reveals a degree of competence or incompetence, after you have fought them for a round or two you can tell if you are evenly matched, or if one of you outclasses the other, and they may be fresh or tired or completely spent. If there appears to be confusion I will use numbers or even sketch a diagram (although drawing is not my strong suit). I often point to areas on a map as I talk. This is one of the reasons that boxed text is completely useless to me.

I'm not really familiar with point crawls, but my limited understanding is the process is backwards from what I'm describing - a few places are thought up and then a map is made to hold them. If I were to start with the places and just draw a map, I think both the places and the map I would end up with would be different than when I start with the blank map and work my way towards the places on it.

But as I said, I've never really looked closely at point crawls because I'm not in the market for a process to get wilderness areas ready for play - so I could be waaaay off base here.

I point crawl is basically a dungeon where the defined paths - roads, rivers, or obvious routes to known landmarks - are the equivalent of dungeon corridors. Since my players rarely stray from the path, making wilderness exploration unlikely and a waste of prep time, I tend to make point crawls; although ideally I will have a method of quickly procedurally generating content if they do go off-road.

 

[EOTB]

I read the MM for the same reason; little bits that jump out at you. I chain email ideas to myself that spark while reading the particulars of an entry.

Putting together the OSRIC Fantasy Grounds mods was extremely valuable to me in a similar way - doing so made apparent (painfully at times) all the chained tables that are referenced-but-not-highlighted. Little notes such as leveled "men" rolling on the NPC magic items tables buried in the urban encounter tables, for instance. Now I automatically think about what magic items the brigands have, generate them, and then that opens up an entirely new angle to what's going on right from the get-go (instead of treasure being generated "last", which was how I used to routinely do things).

I point crawl is basically a dungeon where the defined paths - roads, rivers, or obvious routes to known landmarks - are the equivalent of dungeon corridors. Since my players rarely stray from the path, making wilderness exploration unlikely and a waste of prep time, I tend to make point crawls; although ideally I will have a method of quickly procedurally generating content if they do go off-road.

Ah, OK. So the idea of point crawls is more along the lines of wilderness as scenery then? The group essentially agreeing to explore where the points are.

It would reduce prep time if the group is mainly interested in the points, I suppose.