Monsters & Mazes

 " This thing all things devours; Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats mountain down." Time is a very important aspect of the #hexplore24 project. It starts with the concept of 1:1 time.  One actual day = one game day. In other words, there are 365 days and you play one day per day. But what does that mean? I get asked that a lot, and it is way simpler than you might think. Let's start with a comparison. In the Dungeon23 Challenge the goal was to produce a 365 room megadungeon. Sounds bonkers, doesn't it. The caveat was that all you needed to do was build one room per day. No more, no less. As of this writing, I've created 333 rooms (randomly determined) ...one room per day for the past 333 days. The same basic concept for Hexplore24, instead of one room per day...you play a single day in the game world per day. Still sounds too daunting? In the Dungeon23 Challenge there were tons of

  Setting: The game is set in a frontier region on the edge of civilization. There’s a convenient fortified town that marked the farthest outpost of civilization and law, but beyond that is sketchy wilderness. All the PCs are would-be adventurers based in this town. Adventuring is not a common or safe profession, so the player characters are the only ones interested in risking their lives in the wilderness in hopes of making a fortune (NPCs adventurers are few and far between). Between sorties into the wilds PCs rest up, trade info and plan their next foray in the cheery taproom of the local tavern. PCs get to explore anywhere they want, the only rule being that going back to civilization is off-limits — there are no adventures in the civilized lands, just peaceful retirement. The environment is dangerous. Very dangerous. PCs have to work together or they are going to get creamed. They also have to think and pick their battles — since they can go anywhere, there is nothing stopping the

The viral #dungeon23 challenge put forth by Sean McCoy https://seanmccoy.substack.com/p/dungeon23 is coming to an end as of December 31st. For myself and many others it has been apart of our daily lives, one room at a time. It’s gonna feel a little weird on the 1st when that aspect of my morning ritual goes away.  Like I’ve forgotten something, but can’t put a finger on what it was. So, I’ve decided to cobble together a few ideas for a project that will replace #dungeon23. I’m calling it #hexplore24 and I’ll give a “brief" outline of what that’ll entail.  The gist: 1) Exploration of an unknown territory. Grab your favorite hexcrawl generator!! 2) 1:1 time. One actual day = one game day. In other words, there are 366 days and you play one day per day. 3) No mindless “plot following”. There is no regular pre-scripted story. It is a sandbox game. There is no mysterious old man sending the characters on quests. No overarching plot, just an overarching environment. If this sounds