So if I understand this right, Hex Crawl is more for S&S "What's over that hill" style of gaming, in which the players go and create their own adventures, whereas a lot of people see this as aimless and less structured compared to the more common 'Adventure Coupon ' style of game that LoTR et al. brings with dungeons and dangers.

OK, I think I get it.  Thank you.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1045146Likewise, the incentive structure of the game (where xp is pinged off of treasure, which is easier to find if you are invading an opponent's dungeon home) doesn't really explain why you the Players are supposed to want to go do this (other than curiosity or boredom). Certainly by the time of BECMI and 2e (the two I started with in '83 and '89, respectively), a whole lot of this emergent play was removed from the wording of the game, and the way I knew about a portion of the game being 'go out into the wilderness and stir up some trouble'-style play was because that was the plot of the Isle of Dread module.

There's also a reason why you had a starting dungeon detailed in the Basic DM's book and X1 bundled in with the Expert box

As for Savage World, I'll defer to those who know it better than me; I'll just note that the fact that domain management and dimension-hopping were level-constrained also plays a part in how BECMI unfolded.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045230So if I understand this right, Hex Crawl is more for S&S "What's over that hill" style of gaming, in which the players go and create their own adventures, whereas a lot of people see this as aimless and less structured compared to the more common 'Adventure Coupon ' style of game that LoTR et al. brings with dungeons and dangers.

OK, I think I get it.  Thank you.

Well, OD&D dungeons weren't adventure-couponed, they were/are campaign settings with a strong exploration element. PCs are assumed to be self motivated explorers. But unlike hex crawls there is a lot of inbuilt structure, with the dungeon level = the threat/reward level, and a standard cadence of play where one delve into the dungeon = one play session. And unlike in many hex crawls the density of adventure! is high enough that the players can be sure of finding something interesting.

Quote from: S'mon;1045264PCs are assumed to be self motivated explorers.

Indeed, I have always found it rather annoying when this is overlooked: it got to a point when reviewers of modules and writers of articles were stubbornly inisisting that PCs were, as default, unmotivated, rather than curious fortune seekers. I remember some players demanding "What is my character's motivation?" like some drama queen diva talking to a film director.

As a consequence the "hooks" became a convoluted interweaving of the scenarios plot into half a dozen PC backstories before the noobs get a foot out of the tavern. In fact, the hooks became effectively railroads  because the DM has made sure that his character is "highly motivated" to the point of being compelled to do the adventure. Ironically and bizzarely, this leads to the player being dragged around by the character's will rather than the other way around.

In order to prevent this tail wagging the dog, a good trick I learned over at Welsh Piper is to get six modules and dot them around the starting location at various travel distances: an abandoned keep, a series of caves, a spooky forest, an ancient ruin, a village full of wierdos, a tower that glows at night, etc. The DM then writes six clues, one for each location, on six  pieces of paper in a box, (a map, a key, the testimony of an eye witness, a diary, an old legend from the village elder, a dream) and each player takes one out at random. Then the first session each PC relates his or her clue/lead (with as much "roleplaying" as fits your groups play-style) and then the players/PCs discuss which lead they wish to follow first.

This does mean the DM finding/writing six modules all at once instead of one after the other, but they don't have to be huge modues, either. In fact small, one-session long mdules work well. Moreover, there are enough free modules these days on Basic Fantasy and OBS for a few bucks, PWYW or Free that it does not take a lot. At the end of the day, the PCs will get around to them and if they don't you can use that in the next campaign.

An even better way to do this is to buy the wonderful Further Afield by Flatland Games (part of the Beyond the Wall series) and try out the "collaborative sandbox".

We are on our third collaborative campaign and I can honestly say that it has been the one of the most most exciting things for me in an RPG for as long as I can remember.

Quote from: S'mon;1045264Well, OD&D dungeons weren't adventure-couponed, they were/are campaign settings with a strong exploration element. PCs are assumed to be self motivated explorers. But unlike hex crawls there is a lot of inbuilt structure, with the dungeon level = the threat/reward level, and a standard cadence of play where one delve into the dungeon = one play session. And unlike in many hex crawls the density of adventure! is high enough that the players can be sure of finding something interesting.

Agreed, and to make things worse, early wilderness exploration campaigns were unbalanced on purpose. Look at the OD&D rulebooks and you'll note that an encounter with orcs (for example) is 30-300 of them, or in other words you might encounter a warband or an army. This was to encourage folks to play such that the path to the dungeon might be somewhat "safe" but the main wilderness areas were certainly not, so enter at your own peril.

The first non-dungeon fatality I had was when a character and his henchmen wandered into the "Pass of the Knife" and got totally overrun by orcs. Taught me that you don't go out alone into the wilderness.

Quote from: Luca;1045231There's also a reason why you had a starting dungeon detailed in the Basic DM's book and X1 bundled in with the Expert box

I'm not clear how you are using the smiley, but you are in fact 100% correct. The dungeon and then X1 helped us understand the assumed 'what you do with this game' that the wording of the game rules no longer well explained.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045316An even better way to do this is to buy the wonderful Further Afield by Flatland Games (part of the Beyond the Wall series) and try out the "collaborative sandbox".

We are on our third collaborative campaign and I can honestly say that it has been the one of the most most exciting things for me in an RPG for as long as I can remember.

Could not agree more. BtW has been a godsend. Turned my group of teen players into dedicated sandboxers in a way I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to do if we were playing with the RC.

So what makes Dungeons Crawl different than a Hex Crawl?  Is it that a Hex crawl is so much more open, less focused?  A dungeon is close by, with a sign saying 'I've GOT TREASURE!  AND DANGER!', but a Hex Crawl may be a little meandering, because the Hex itself doesn't have any loot, but it has places IN IT that do.  It's finding those places that make it less interesting, as opposed to having an easy to reach location like a Dungeon.

Am I making sense?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045440So what makes Dungeons Crawl different than a Hex Crawl?  Is it that a Hex crawl is so much more open, less focused?  A dungeon is close by, with a sign saying 'I've GOT TREASURE!  AND DANGER!', but a Hex Crawl may be a little meandering, because the Hex itself doesn't have any loot, but it has places IN IT that do.  It's finding those places that make it less interesting, as opposed to having an easy to reach location like a Dungeon.

Am I making sense?

Yes, that's my feeling.

I think the "above ground dungeon" approach works better than hexes, where tracks & paths replace corridors, clearings replace dungeon rooms - like the start of Horror on the Hill, or some Fighting Fantasy gamebooks like Forest of Doom. But of course you only get one level, the surface, where a dungeon stacks lots and lots descending indefinitely.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045440So what makes Dungeons Crawl different than a Hex Crawl?  Is it that a Hex crawl is so much more open, less focused?  A dungeon is close by, with a sign saying 'I've GOT TREASURE!  AND DANGER!', but a Hex Crawl may be a little meandering, because the Hex itself doesn't have any loot, but it has places IN IT that do.  It's finding those places that make it less interesting, as opposed to having an easy to reach location like a Dungeon.

Am I making sense?

Yes, I think that's a pretty accurate picture.

Quote from: S'mon;1045460I think the "above ground dungeon" approach works better than hexes, where tracks & paths replace corridors, clearings replace dungeon rooms - like the start of Horror on the Hill, or some Fighting Fantasy gamebooks like Forest of Doom. But of course you only get one level, the surface, where a dungeon stacks lots and lots descending indefinitely.

I'm fond of the difference that having no walls does to the experience.  The monsters (or PCs, or NPCs, etc.) can literally just go...elsewhere... if they want. Therefore it has to be desire for the things in your above-ground dungeon (the trails, the people, the resources, control of the trails) that the want that keeps them there. It's a different dynamic.

As I ran a variety of SW games for teens for my library RPG program, about the ONLY BECMI feature I would adapt for SW isn't really a BECMI feature.  It's a PbtA feature.  Playbooks.  I would design playbooks for my game.

Here's why.  I found new players could grasp the basic mechanics for SW very easily.  What I found they were terrible at was advancement.  The number of choices just led to full on choice paralysis and most of the kids tended to go for the low hanging fruit – raising Attributes or skills.  Some didn't even bother with XP.

The benefit to the class structure here is obvious: advancement is hardwired into the game.  When you hit an EXP milestone, your class tells you what new features you get.  There is no guesswork, no dead-ends, no bad choices.  You just tick them off and get back to the game.

I think Playbooks straddle the line between BECMI's classes and SW's open advancement perfectly by giving the player a limited number of choices that are tightly focused on the character concept.  So the new player doesn't have to worry about choice paralysis, or making the wrong choice.  And instead of having to choose from 25+ Edges, they might only be looking at a handful over the course of the game.  Yes, it doesn't provide for the dynamic open range character development, but for NEW players, I think they would make a fantastic learning tool and greatly reduce the amount of indecision I saw in my tables.

Beyond that, I don't think you really need to convert anything!  Just grab the Fantasy Companion and you are good to go.  I've looked at Hellfrost, Winterwier and Shaintar and honestly I don't think any of them add anything to the game unless you plan to play in THAT setting.

Tom

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1045230So if I understand this right, Hex Crawl is more for S&S "What's over that hill" style of gaming, in which the players go and create their own adventures, whereas a lot of people see this as aimless and less structured compared to the more common 'Adventure Coupon ' style of game that LoTR et al. brings with dungeons and dangers.

I see hex crawl as more of technique than than the overall campaign type. You use LotR as the opposite of hex crawl, but you can have a quest played out as a hex crawl. In fact, it's easy to see LotR as a hex crawl with the PCs moving across the map between various site, making choices about the route to take, and having random encounters that throw the game in new directions. The obsession with the fine details of travel and landscape make LotR a great influence for hex crawls.

Even a structured adventure path can have an adventure that consists of a hex map where the players can freely wander for a time. The Enemy Within does this with Death on the Reik. The overall campaign is episodic, mostly investigative adventures, but in Death on the Reik, the players are set loose to wander a hex map of the Reik Valley. Afterwards, the model shifts back to investigative play with Power Behind the Throne, and Something Rotten in Kislev uses a mission-based structure.

Quote from: Blusponge;1045604Just grab the Fantasy Companion and you are good to go.  I've looked at Hellfrost, Winterwier and Shaintar and honestly I don't think any of them add anything to the game unless you plan to play in THAT setting.

I agree up to a point. A magic user in BECMI begins to move away from spells which are useful just in the field and on to magic which can shape the world, while SW has magic that lasts a few rounds and has effective range of a few hundered meters: Teleport in D&D and SW are two totall different things, in fact teleport in SW is basicall a blink spell. Even Charm Person in BECMI lasts for months, while Puppet in SW lasts rounds. Heck, the Fly spell in D&D means a couple of hours flying at high speed needing no concentration you can can cover some serious ground. A Fly power in lasts a few rounds and that's it.

Now there ARE ways around this in supplements, like Shaintar and Lankhmar, but let's not kid ourselves: it's a very different mage that you are playing.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045612let's not kid ourselves: it's a very different mage that you are playing.

Oh, no doubt.  SW is firmly built on a wargame foundation and lacks a lot in terms of "utility" spells common in D&D.  And you can tinker around the edges and add that sort of utility back into the game, either by houseruling or borrowing rules from other settings.  However, the game plays well as is.  It is different.  If you are trying to play D&D with Savage Worlds, you are going to have some disappointing moments.  But you can play almost any D&D setting with Savage Worlds just fine.  They are different games.  They do different things.  They feel different.  That's a feature, not a bug.

BTW, both the SW core rules and the Fantasy Companion are due for updates in the next 12 months.  So it might be worthwhile to wait and see what sort of updates are going to be made before you jump into this.

Tom

Quote from: Blusponge;1045613They are different games.  They do different things.  They feel different.  That's a feature, not a bug.

Oh I agree absolutely. The other side of the coin would be a SW player used to his Arcane Powers regularly then finding out he starts with ONE SPELL a day.

Anyway, that news about a SW update looks interesting.

Quote from: Mike the Mage;1045614Anyway, that news about a SW update looks interesting.

It's looking like there will be major updates to the chase rules and mass combat. (Per interviews with Shane)

Based on the new Flash Gordon book, we suspect some updates with power trappings and maybe a new modifier mechanic as something separate from trappings. We also suspect some skill changes.

The fantasy book promises to be the biggest overhaul since it's really old and much of it is in the core rule book now. It's biggest use for my group has been the magic item rules.

As for utility magic, I think the no power point versions of Savage Worlds have the best utility magic since you don't have to spend points to keep a power going so they can last a long time. Things like Fly, Invisibility, out shapechange start having a lot of Utility.