Howard Andrew Jones
A FreshHell to Contend With
While discussing the Nod36 review, I mentioned a few favorite hexcrawls, and Evardsmalltentacle asked how I combined The Runewild and products from Rosethrone.
The simplest way to explain is that I use the Runewild pretty much as written (although I run it via Beyond the Wall rather than 5E) and then pop in pieces of various Rosethrone adventures into appropriate hexes.
So, for example, as I started the Runewild campaign, the orders given to the player was to head to the settlement of Widderspire, but to check on the old watchtowers along the southwestern border. The Runewild book has only one existing tower in the hexes, but one of the Rosethrone products had an additional abandoned tower, and a wandering giant hunting gnolls, and a woodkeeper trying to break a curse. I dropped those elements into some empty hexes along the Runewild border. They worked beautifully.
I will probably continue to combine elements of Rosethrone with Runewild as I wish, because they actually blend quite well.
I'm not entirely sure the way I'm running this is the way many people run hexcrawls. I have only one primary player, and she's much less interested in looting and fighting than she is in exploring and interacting and solving problems. That actually works quite well for the Runewild, since the default is that characters are Runewardens, bringing law and order to the farflung settlements and roads. With one player, and this kind of setup, this hexcrawl is a little more of the "building an epic story" situation than it is a "whatever happens, happens" situation. EXCEPT that now that the player is IN the Runewild and the campaign has begun, she chooses which way she's going to go, which threads she follows, which mysteries she solves, etc.
I'm not really tracking experience. I'm just raising her level every now and then. We're having fun and are in no hurry to turn the character into a superpowered killer.
The simplest way to explain is that I use the Runewild pretty much as written (although I run it via Beyond the Wall rather than 5E) and then pop in pieces of various Rosethrone adventures into appropriate hexes.
So, for example, as I started the Runewild campaign, the orders given to the player was to head to the settlement of Widderspire, but to check on the old watchtowers along the southwestern border. The Runewild book has only one existing tower in the hexes, but one of the Rosethrone products had an additional abandoned tower, and a wandering giant hunting gnolls, and a woodkeeper trying to break a curse. I dropped those elements into some empty hexes along the Runewild border. They worked beautifully.
I will probably continue to combine elements of Rosethrone with Runewild as I wish, because they actually blend quite well.
I'm not entirely sure the way I'm running this is the way many people run hexcrawls. I have only one primary player, and she's much less interested in looting and fighting than she is in exploring and interacting and solving problems. That actually works quite well for the Runewild, since the default is that characters are Runewardens, bringing law and order to the farflung settlements and roads. With one player, and this kind of setup, this hexcrawl is a little more of the "building an epic story" situation than it is a "whatever happens, happens" situation. EXCEPT that now that the player is IN the Runewild and the campaign has begun, she chooses which way she's going to go, which threads she follows, which mysteries she solves, etc.
I'm not really tracking experience. I'm just raising her level every now and then. We're having fun and are in no hurry to turn the character into a superpowered killer.
They are interesting.