Going from point A to point B. Hexcrawl.
For the procedure each watch runs, see Hexcrawl FlowHexcrawl Flow. For roll thresholds, resource costs, and travel speeds, see the Hexcrawl ReferenceHexcrawl Reference sheet.

Map

• Hex map with keyed locations.
• Terrain types: Clear, Moderate and Hard.
• General description plus points of interest per hex.
• Encounter tables.

Hex map and keyed locations

The wilderness is divided into hexagonal tiles. Each hex is 6 miles across (~10 km). Every hex has a coordinate, so a journey has a measurable distance — "three hexes north" means about 18 miles.

The GM keys hexes by writing 2–4 sentences describing what's there: what's visible, what's hidden, what's dangerous. Most hexes in the starting region are keyed; unkeyed hexes are just terrain until the party enters them.

Keyed hexes fall into two tiers:

• Major location — a destination players hear about through rumors and plan expeditions to reach (a ruined tower, a dwarven tomb, an ogre's lair).
• Minor feature — a smaller discovery players may stumble on while traveling (an abandoned camp, a stone circle, a viewpoint).

Terrain types

Terrain determines travel speed, navigation difficulty, and what encounters happen. There are three categories:

• Clear — plains, grassland, open ground. Easy going. No navigation rolls.
• Moderate — forests, hills, deserts. Slows travel. Navigation roll required (lost on 1).
• Hard — swamps, jungles, mountains. Punishing. Navigation roll required (lost on 1–2). Some mounts cannot enter.

Roads are a feature overlaid on any terrain, marked in the hex key. A hex with a road is traversable as if it were Clear along the road's line.

Travel speed across each terrain type is on the speed reference card.

General description and points of interest

Each keyed hex has a general description — the look, feel, and anything immediately obvious on entering — and a list of points of interest the party can choose to engage with.

When the party enters a hex, the GM gives the general description and reads the available POIs: a column of smoke, a strange cairn, a cave mouth in the cliffside, an abandoned camp off the trail. These are the hooks the party reacts to.

What lies inside each POI may be in plain sight, hidden (uncovered by poking around), or secret (gated behind a clue, trigger, or specific action) — but the player-facing interface is the same: pick a POI, declare an Explore action, find out what's there.

Encounter tables

The map is divided into regions. A region is a cluster of 19 hexes — one central hex surrounded by two rings of neighbours. Each region has its own random encounter table.

Each region has a eight-entry random encounter table, rolled on each watch. The base chance is 1-in-6, raised sometimes to 2-in-6. The night watch always adds +1 to the encounter chance. If an encounter with an intelligent creature happens, continue to 4. Encounter.

Time-tracking

Each day is divided into four watches, each roughly four hours long (the night being the longest):

The first three are travel watches — the party can Move or Stay. The night watch is mandatory Camp: the party rests, rotates a guard, consumes rations and wood. The exploration turn runs once per watch — see the flow reference card.

Time matters: rations and wood are spent at night camp, torches burn down during exploration, and factions move while the party is away.

Player roles

Hexcrawl runs better when each player has a job during travel. Four roles cover what the party needs to do every watch. Assign them at Session Zero and rotate between expeditions if people want a change — but keep them stable inside a single session to avoid confusion.

• Caller — declares the party's direction and decisions each watch. The Caller is the party's voice when it talks to the GM. They don't decide alone; they speak the group's intent.
• Mapper — draws the party's map as they explore, hex by hex. Records terrain, landmarks, dangers, and which hexes the party has fully crossed (needed for fast travel). The map they build over weeks becomes the campaign's most treasured artefact.
• Quartermaster — tracks rations, torches, wood, and any other consumables. Reports supply levels when the GM asks. Decides each Move watch whether to forage for wood or rations.
• Chronicler — writes a short expedition report after each session, and maintains the rumor log (which rumors are pending, confirmed, false, or stale). Keeps the group's memory in writing so nothing important slips between sessions.

The watch procedure

Each watch begins with the Caller declaring what the party does. There are three top-level choices: Move, Stay, or Fast travel. The night watch is always Camp.

Move

The Caller declares direction and pace. The party advances toward the destination.

1. Determine watches needed. Clear terrain = 1 watch/hex. Moderate = 2. Hard = 3. Roads downgrade the terrain to Clear along the road's line.
2. Navigation roll — only if the terrain is Moderate or Hard and the party has no guide. Lost on 1 (Moderate) or 1–2 (Hard).
3. Encounter roll — 1d6 against the region's threshold (1-in-6, or 2-in-6 in dangerous regions).
4. Forage roll — the Quartermaster picks one:
   • Wood: 3-in-6 chance, yields 1 wood.
   • Rations: 1-in-6 chance, yields 1 ration.
5. GM describes the watch: what's seen, what happens, hex progress.

A hex isn't crossed until all its required watches are spent on it. If the party turns around mid-hex, they back out at the same cost they came in.

Stay

The party doesn't change hexes this watch. The Caller picks one Stay action.

Common to all Stay actions: no navigation roll. The encounter roll still happens at the region's normal threshold.

The action determines what else happens:

• Camp — pure downtime. No resource cost, no forage, no other roll. Counts toward the day's heal eligibility (see Rest & recover).
• Hunt — actively pursue game. Roll n-in-6 where n is the number of PCs in the party, +1 if a PC has a relevant class proficiency, +1 for favourable terrain (players can propose; GM decides), capped at 5-in-6. On a hit, gain 1d6 rations. Hunt yields food only — no wood. Does not count toward heal.
• Explore — investigate a point of interest in the current hex. The party shifts from wilderness exploration to 3. Dungeon Exploration, thinking in 10-minute turns until they're done. When they finish, total time spent translates back to watches by common sense: a short poke (under ~1 hour) folds into the current watch and travel continues without extra cost; a significant chunk (2+ hours) rounds up to a full watch; multi-watch ventures spend watches as they go. Travel resumes from there. Does not count toward heal.

Fast travel

Skip the watch-by-watch procedure when moving through familiar ground. Can only be done on hexes the party has fully crossed before.

The Caller declares the destination and the road route. Then:

1. Count hexes. 1 hex = 1 watch, 3 watches = 1 day. Round up to whole days.
2. Encounter rolls. Once per day: 2-in-6 normally, 3-in-6 if any part of the day passes through Moderate or Hard region. Use that region's encounter table.
3. Forage rolls: Once per day, as normal.
4. Resource costs. Apply night camp costs per night spent on the road (see below).
5. GM describes the journey in a paragraph. The party arrives.

If an encounter triggers, pick the watch where it lands and run it normally. Once it resolves, fast travel resumes and the party continues to their destination.

Night camp (mandatory)

The night watch is always Camp. One keeper at a time stays on watch while the others sleep, rotating through the night.

• −1 ration per PC, plus −1 per hireling and per mount that needs feeding.
• −3 wood/torches for the campfire.
• Encounter roll at the region's threshold +1 (so 2-in-6 normal regions, 3-in-6 dangerous).
• Counts as the day's third Camp watch for heal eligibility.

Rest & recover

If the party Camps for all three travel watches plus the mandatory night camp, and no combat occurs during any of them, each character recovers 1d3 HP at the end of the day. This is the only reliable way to heal in the wild — a day of pure rest is sometimes the right call.

A single fight breaks heal eligibility for that day.