Comments for The Welsh Piper

Comment on Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 2) by Erin D. Smale

Erin D. Smale — Thu, 16 May 2013 01:17:40 +0000

@Arne : Glad you find them useful, and flattered that they have a role in your pending hexcrawl. To that end, I'm (slowly) writing an expansion on the topic, fleshing out the major and minor encounters (check the Minocra tag for preliminary work on the major encounters). I struggled with the OSR for a long time, but eventually came to really like S&W Core. It's a good balance of rules and flexibility between White Box and S&W Complete. YMMV, but I think the way it handles random encounters and treasure lends itself really well to hex crawling.

Comment on Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 2) by Arne

Arne — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:17:56 +0000

Erin, thanks a lot for the amazing articles in hex-campaigning!

I developed some interest in the OSR lately and your postings played a vital part in convincing myself to go and start preparing a game of hexcrawling. I am still experimenting, but chances are I might use your system verbatim, most likely with Swords & Wizardry.

Comment on Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 2) by Erin D. Smale

Erin D. Smale — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:37:07 +0000

@Jeff Miller : Link is fixed - thanks for the heads up.

Comment on Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 2) by Jeff Miller

Jeff Miller — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:06:07 +0000

Greywulf’s “Hex Magic” wasn’t at the link, but is apparently still available as a PDF on the Microlite20 site: http://microlite20.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/M20-campaigns.pdf

Comment on Strange Money and Old Economies by drs

drs — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 06:36:23 +0000

The Karameikos Gazetteer had a nice take on starting class/wealth. It kept the standard starting wealth, but interpreted this based on one’s rolled or chosen class: for a poor background, it might represent a family’s desperate effort to push one child ahead in life (or, I’d add, some found hoard, or prize money). For a wealthy background it would be just what every child got without strain. (The book also had a social custom of sending youth into the world to prove themselves, to justify not being able to run back for more money.)

Comment on Medieval Demographics Online by drs

drs — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 06:07:27 +0000

A useful calibration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_population_density_based_on_food_growing_capacity
gives modern densities by total land, and by arable land. Not directly useful for medieval purposes, since modern numbers ride on fertilizers made with fossil fuel energy (huge), extensive irrigation and aquifer mining (though those can be pre-modern), modern crop breeds (possible with magic or post-apoc setup), pesticides (magic?), mechanized harvesting (though that probably reduces labor more than increases productivity per land… some say proper intensive farming is more productive than modern farms, if you have thed skilled labor for it.) Fertilizer is probably the big one — and was preceded by guano, so you may have to go back to 1840 to find world population numbers. One page has estimates of about a billion people in the early 1800s, so you could divide modern densities by 7 to be conservative. Though how much fertilizer are poor countries affording?

Anyway, even without such adjustment, the Wikipedia table shows the variation in density per arable land due to climate and the variation in amount of a country that’s arable. Then there’s what you put the land to use for: the US could have far more people per arable land, but we have cattle and other livestock instead, including horses back before the car.

Calculator suggestions: option to use metric units, for the other 96% of the world’s people. Option to enter a density directly, if someone feels the menu range isn’t good enough.

Comment on Hex Templates by Erin D. Smale

Erin D. Smale — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:13:05 +0000

@Nick : Unzip the download file. Inside, there's a set of "HXM" files for atlas, regional, and subhex templates. Open any of these in Hexographer as a new map and have at it.

Comment on Hex Templates by Nick

Nick — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 23:53:09 +0000

This maybe a foolish question, but how can I use these templates with Hexographer? I really would like to utilize these, but I can’t seem to be able to load them. Thanks

Comment on Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 1) by Hex Basics Part II: Getting Started « Hex Crawl

Hex Basics Part II: Getting Started « Hex Crawl — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 02:10:49 +0000

[...] the first post of the series, I referenced Welsh Piper’s wonderful series on generating a hex-based map. For those of you who haven’t read it, the [...]

Comment on Hex-based Campaign Design (Part 1) by Hex Basics Part 1: Why Hex Maps? « Hex Crawl

Hex Basics Part 1: Why Hex Maps? « Hex Crawl — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 00:48:23 +0000

[...] prep-lite DMing work. There are plenty of great guides out there on creating and stocking hex maps (Welsh Piper’s method is what I typically use), but the most important part is in how you organize it. Each [...]

Comment on Mid-size Campaigns (Part 3) by Nagual

Nagual — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:17:32 +0000

If you identify a special type of site/dungeon you wish to have present at multiple locations on your map (e.g. demonic manifestation, magical zone, floating wizard tower), build a template to represent these. Collect all the recurring elements you think will typically be found within and immediately surround these sites. Terrain effects, traps, spell effects, monsters (organised by CR), whatever. Any time you come across an interesting game effect, just include it in the appropriate template(s). Don’t forget to include brief descriptions of the locations most significant attributes. You now have a instant dungeon/site of interest template which you can use to quickly create themed locations.

Comment on Mid-size Campaigns (Part 3) by Erin D. Smale

Erin D. Smale — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:54:51 +0000

@Nagual : Glad to hear this is helpful. I'd be interested to see what you come up with - feel free to share your results in the Member Sites forum - along with any suggestions to make this approach better.