I've considered several hex sizes before. Today I will think about 30-mile hexes.
Look at this map (source):
The hexes are about 31-miles each (31 miles across, with sides about 17.32 miles).
Good enough so they can fit all major cities and the shape of Italy is still recognizable.
You'd need to add several random villages and things (ruins, caves, castles, lairs, etc.) to each "empty" hex.
The whole country could be described in 150 hexes or so - sounds reasonable to run an entire campaign., maybe giving at least one page to each hex. And EVERY hex could have one or two interesting features.
At this size, I think you could just give the map to your players. If your setting is anything like medieval Italy, it wouldn't be hard to know the general direction of Verona or Genova.
Rome fits in an hex, but does not FILL it.
You lose some interesting detail; the map doesn't show you Venezia (Venice) as an island, nor the Lago di Garda (the largest lake in Italy - with an area of 143 square miles, it would fill one or two 6-mile hexes).
According to google maps, you can cross the entire country (from Bova Marina to to Milano, for example) on foot in 302 hours (1310 km, 814 miles).
Apparently, "Google Maps uses average walking speed of 5km/h to calculate walking times" - which is 3.1 MPH.
This is NOT a straight line, and while there are many more roads in modern days, ancient Rome had several, as you can see in this interesting site:
OSE says "the number of miles a character can travel in a day is determined by dividing their base movement rate by five. For example, a character whose base movement rate is 120’ could travel up to 24 miles in a day."
Of course, if you travel 24 miles a day, you might as well use 24-mile hexes (although maintained roads will increase travel speed by 50%).
Anyway, that is 34 days to cross Italy on foot.
This will probably result in around a dozen encounters - most of them avoidable or uneventful.
Most expeditions will NOT require you to cross the entire country, of course.
What I'm thinking is that hex travel requires a huge map to be meaningful.
And MAYBE it requires RE-USING hexes. Getting lost, searching several hexes for a landmark, etc.
In my current campaign, the hex map only made sense when the PCs went exploring beyond the limits of the know regions, where there are no more cities or roads.
Herein lies an important distinction others have mentioned: do you want a map for EXPLORATION or TRAVEL?
Maybe these should be distinct procedures.
Another thing to consider is "Medieval Europe x Old West USA", and which influenced D&D hexcrawling the most.
I reckon Europe is too dense for most D&D settings. Mapping the USA would require more than 120,000 6-mile hexes, or around 5,000 30-mile hexes (Europe is of a similar size, but in the 1400s-1500s the population of Europe was more than 10-20 times bigger).
Maybe you should consider this BEFORE choosing hex size...
For now, I'll say that big hexes look better for travelling, and you can always sub-divide them as needed when PCs go exploring (or settling in) a particular area.
at the moment I am using 12 mile hexes after being used to 6 mile ones. I havent noticed too much change, really. The downside of 30 mile hexes is that its hard to establish a relationship with "travel in one day"; which with 12 miles is "one hex"
ReplyDeletewhat i mean is that you could split the 30 mile hex in half towards 15 or 12 and still have a consistent "big grain" with the benefits of not having to "halve" travel in an hex
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's reasonable. Even with some obstacles and encumbrance you would be "stuck" in a 12-mile hex for a day.
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