Moosecrawl

A set of general purpose hexcrawling rules and procedures by Moose

I usually use these procedures with OSR systems, namely The Nightmares Underneath or Whitehack. That said, they can be pretty easily attached to any game where overland travel matters and isn’t satisfactorily covered - I’ve used them in a 5e game without much hassle.
I am not particularly interested in “perfect” simulation, so the rules here are pretty lightweight and abstracted. I also tend to play with pre-prepared maps - there is no reason I can think of this wouldn’t work with a randomly generated map, but the procedures for generating one will need to be found elsewhere.
A personal goal in making and using this: The rules here ought to be freely referenceable by anyone at the table, with concealed information existing diegetically within the game rather than on a rules and procedure level - but it also ought not to intrude so much that every player has to take on additional bookkeeping.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
The players can cover 12 miles in 8 hours at a pace that wont exhaust them. The default hex size is 12 miles, allowing you to split a day of travel into 3 periods of 8 hours. This can be doubled at the cost of intense exhaustion on arrival or by someone whose entire life is built around the maintenance of their physical fitness at the task of overland travel.
Traveling to a new hex under normal conditions with no takes an 8 hour period.
Camping in a hex long enough to benefit from a rest takes an 8 hour period.
Thoroughly exploring a hex takes an 8 hour period.

INCREASING/DECREASING TRAVEL TIME
Various conditions can increase or decrease the amount of time needed to travel a single hex. Make a 9-segmented track. When working with a physical or digital hex grid, it might be easiest to build this into the map by ensuring you have a row of 9 consecutive spaces that don’t have other uses. Divide it into 3 groups of 3 spaces, and place a token in the center. As conditions change for the travelers, move the token forwards or backwards along the track accordingly. If it is in the Faster section of the track, double the rate at which the party can travel across hexes. If it is in the Slower section, halve the rate instead. These conditions apply to travel alone - anything that speeds or slows the time in which a party can rest or thoroughly explore a hex will have to be established separately.



Full traveling group is mounted: +3
Travel by river current: +3 (only available on rivers, of course, and does not stack with mounts or land vehicles)
Water vehicle without current: +2
Party is traveling by wagon or equivalent vehicle: +2 (party must forgo the speed bonus of individual mounts to use this - probably confers other advantages such as storage space)
Well-maintained roads: +1
Active detrimental weather (mild): -1 (strong winds and/or precipitation)
Active detrimental weather (severe): -2 (gale winds, snow or sand storm, smoke in the air)
Loose or soft terrain: -1 (mud, snow, loose dirt or gravel, sand)
Treacherous terrain: -2 (deep swampy mud, large dunes of sand, snowdrifts)
Traveler is overburdened: -2
Dense foliage: -1
Steep inclines: -1
Exhaustion: If a party travels for 3 time periods without resting, -1 for each additional period spent traveling.


INFORMATION AND EXPLORATION

When the party travels to a new hex:
Give them an overview of what the terrain is like, what the weather is, and any other conditions that directly relate to the travel time - that way, the travel rate track bookkeeping can be taken care of right away.
Tell them honestly about any large scale notable features in the area - structures, camps, caves, etc. Also touch on what obviously lives here. Be pretty open about what they are and what is going on around them - players that lack clear or interesting information are often players who default to safe decisions and don’t try interesting things. Take a moment to answer questions.
Make sure you know what shouldn’t be obvious. Hidden things can be good, but for something to be hidden from the players, there ought to be something actively hiding it. A living community will be noticeable in various ways, and it probably takes special circumstances in the weather or deliberate effort on the part of its citizens to hide it. A large predator might conceal itself from sight, but signs that it lives here shouldn’t be completely hidden. When there is a location genuinely hidden from sight by weather, geography, or effort, consider letting characters skilled in tracking and finding things in the local environment recognize that there are places here that they can’t see or reach without a dedicated search.

When the party spends a time period resting within a hex:
It’s appropriate for more information about their immediate geography and ecology to come to light - though unlike spending a period exploring, hidden information stays hidden.
Easily accessible resources should be able to be recognized and gathered.

When the party spends a time period exploring within a hex:
Ask them what they are interested in exploring, and reveal lightly hidden information associated with it.
Bring them into contact with local people and creatures. When using an encounter table, it may be appropriate to roll more than once, for both direct and indirect encounters or to see various beings interacting.
Give the opportunity to expend some effort on getting more specific details, hard to acquire resources, etc that can be found in the area. Will vary by system and player focus

NAVIGATION
Under most circumstances, the players will have a pretty good idea of where they are going and will accurately make their way to the hex they intend to. The exceptions should be particularly tense situations, where the players are being actively pursued, they are in actively dangerous weather conditions, or the landscape around them is remarkably inhospitable and alien to them. When this happens:
If the players have an intended hex destination, they should state it. Roll a d6.
1. The players remain wandering the same hex off course.
2. The players end up in the hex one space clockwise of where they intended.
3. The players end up in the hex two spaces clockwise of where they intended.
4. The players end up in the hex one space counterclockwise of where they intended.
5. The players end up in the hex two spaces counterclockwise of where they intended.
6. The players end up in the intended hex.

It might be reasonable under the right circumstances to lower the dice to a d4 and remove the two space options, if terrain or the like limits how far of course the players might drift.

If the players are wandering truly aimlessly, roll a d6 and assign directions as follows:


Art, Assets, ETC. used in this document:
Hex Kit by Cecil Howe, in which the example hexes were assembled.
World Champ Hex Pack, which provided the rad watercolor tiles.
Art by Evlyn Moreau, available on her Patreon.