It's been quite a while since I've written anything here. But there's always something going on in my head. (Be afraid. Be very afraid!) Here's one of the things I've been pondering.
I've mentioned the online map generator Perilous Shores before. It is a really useful tool then and I really like it. Well, it keeps getting better. Watabou, it's creator, keeps adding features that improve it and make it more flexible. He also has several different generators including a village generator, a city generator and a one page dungeon generator. All of which have options to customize and/or modify the output.
One of the really cool improvements to Perilous Shores is that Watabou connected the other generators to the map maker. So, if you want to instantly create a village that is on the map, you right click the village and you have the option to have the village generator create it. The same for adventure sites and the One Page Dungeon generator.
This got me to thinking. If you wanted to create a hexcrawl but were feeling lazy you could use the generators to get a head start. In fact, if you combine it with other generators for NPCs and monsters you could create an entire hexcrawl pretty quickly.
Here's a short example:
This is the bare-bone beginnings for the Island of Storms hexcrawl using Watabou's generators.
First, I generate a map. I'm going to make this a small map just for sake of example.
This entire map was created by the map maker, including names. I did modify it. As generated, it had a city but no adventure sites. Being a small, isolated island, I didn't want it to have a city so I deleted it, leaving only the village of Crimson Gate. I also added the two adventure sites so there would be places for characters to explore. This is all menu driven so it's simple to do.
Next I created a players map. I would only do this if I wanted the players to know the geography of the area. The generator makes it easy to modify the map to hide the adventure sites and other features.
Second, I'll create the map of the village.
Then on to the adventure sites.
The information is automatically generated with the dungeon. And it can be formatted in a couple of different ways. This is just the default style. However, if you want complete control over stocking the dungeon or want to use a different generator you can hide the descriptions and just have numbers.
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Now the second dungeon.
The integration of the generators isn't perfect as you can tell by the description of the Haunted Vault. It does not lie in the bend of a river.
It took me about ten minutes to put all of this together. Now, I'll need to come up with some NPCs, stock the dungeons, create a wandering monster table for the island and I'm set to go. Or as I mentioned, find generators to do this for me. They are out there.