Last post, I briefly mentioned some reasons why I dislike randomly generated dungeons. I think they can be fun, just not my favorite.
I feel random wilderness is a lot worse.
Theoretically, you could run a "no prep"* hexcrawl, deciding randomly upon entering an hex if you're in a forest or desert, and if you see ruins or nothing.
BTW, "no prep" is the idea that you can run adventures with no preparation - by using random tables, improvising on the spot, using other procedures to generate adventures/situations, etc. This issue deserves a post of its own in the future, but I think this "random wilderness" idea illustrates why I think "no prep" is a bad idea if it requires random terrains.
One problem with random terrain is that even the best tables I've seen (the ones who default to a "next hex is similar to this one" rule) cannot create a simple, coherent map like this:
Now, think of how many random hexes you need to run a campaign. Sure, you could set the entire campaign in a single hex, but Outdoor Survival - the original hex map - uses more than a thousand and is representative of an area much smaller than the US.
If you draw a big mountain range, and maybe add another small mountain range, and decide for yourself which way is the ocean... you have created a map that looks more believable and saved yourself more than a thousand rolls.
There are other reasons to set the mountains and the ocean before the PCs start travelling:
- Mountains can usually be seem from several hexes away. It would be absurd to walk from a plain to a "sudden" mountain in a clear day.
- Most people in history have at least a vague idea to which way is the sea.
- Mountains and seas function as natural barriers to your sandbox - crossing them requires more preparation than walking over plains.
- Once you have mountains and seas, rivers are very easy to figure out. Draw rivers like trees, with a trunk that ends in the ocean and several branches (tributaries) towards mountains.
The red lines represent the tallest mountains: rivers do not cross them.
Notice that the presence of a second, significantly smaller mountain range to the east makes the mapo more interesting.
You might say that US topography is too simple, but it is like that over most of the world.
South America is similar. Russia has basically sea to the north, mountains to the south and east. Asia has many mountains but the Himalayas can be used as the primary delimitation between various regions (and the source of many rivers).
Etc.
I'm not saying you need to establish every hill and every trade route. Maybe you can even generate vegetation randomly as you go (although forests and deserts are related to rivers and mountains). I'm just saying having a good outline is incredibly useful - and easy.
Letting PCs wander around with no preexisting terrain has other problems. For example, why there are no map in this land - and what happens when the PCs find a map in random treasure? How can there be significant rumors of goblins "in the North" if the DM" doesn't know what lies in the north?
But anyway, this is about drawing maps - and I reckon the easiest way to do that is simply:
- Separate land from sea.
- Put a big range of tall mountains to a random direction.
- Add a smaller mountain range, with hills etc.
- Rivers are easy to draw once you have that.
Additional reading:
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