All Things Solo

Since this is the relevant part of Exploration series, Obstacle Creation is our subject. You can create your own Solo Adventure with just an empty hex map and random tables. Hex-Crawling let's you simulate harsh survival conditions in old games. Or you can play it as a lighthearted RPG adventure.

# Out of an Empty Shape

Hexagon.png
Masterpiece drawing of hex thingy

A hex grid is like a six sided dice that can lead you to randomized directions, each contain a place. Scaling is done by different measurements for different types of hexes. You decide it for your measurement system and apply to each hex type (terrain, settlement, room). i.e: 1 terrain hex = 40 miles = 1 day of ride.

# Hidden Potential

Hex-map.jpg
A Potential Fantasy World

"A bowl is more useful when it is empty." -Laozi

Empty Hexes are not just shapes, they are possibilities and potential of our creation. They are not just hexagons with a picture of a town to buy a sword.

That town, Shipton, has witnessed soul crushing destruction in wartime, and bitter relief of rebuilding in peace time. For that common sword, miners risked their lives, workers carried its essence in sweat and blood, and the town smith Harkon poured his heart into it in his shop.

Ontologically speaking, a hex can fit a whole universe in it, if you want. Imagine Real World is in one hex, Forgotten Realms is in another, and in the next is Star Wars universe. Your character can jump from one to the other if that's your wish. What can stop you? Who cares about what random tables dictate. They are still necessary and useful but our content generator is our imagination.

# Places to Visit

A hex can represent any type of environment. Terrain, cities, towns, buildings, rooms. But I won't go into detail about the places.

I will tell you about G.U.A.R.D.S briefly, in case you want to quickly create a fully functioning town. It doesn't have to be in a fantasy setting. These are what a functioning town needs:

"G"overnment Buildings,
"U"nderworld Activities,
"A"ltars,
"R"esources,
"D"efenses,
"S"ocial Hubs.



## Obstacle Creation

"I'm going on an adventure!" -Bilbo Baggins.

Obstacles are the main subject of this entry. With Fog of War in mind, in its most basic form,

1. Roll for hex type tables (terrain, settlement, building, room),
2. Then roll content tables to see what's in them,
3. React to their contents in respective ways,
4. Resolve socializing / combat / traps if any,
5. Move on to an adjacent hex,
6. Repeat.

But it gets stale by over-repetition. The missing ingredient is the content that is related to YOU and YOUR character. The story that YOU will create and KISS.

By "obstacles" I mean EVERYTHING in or out of the hex. If you see anything as an obstacle, they become an obstacle. Just like in life.

• Does that shining settlement look so tempting to stay? CONTRAST: It is ruled by a merchant guild of mummy lords. Command is one of their spells, mind you. :>
• Did you roll for a boring room with debris? Look around you in real life, what is it missing that you want? Translate it into a game object and add it under the debris. Your PC will know what to do with it. If not, it might crack a smile.
• Is a character in your fav series or a person in real life evil? The object of your desire is protected by them in the room. Translate them into your setting and roll for initiative!

Who cares about fake gold. Real gold is creating your heart's content. Use whatever is available or cool to you. Your imagination is naturally free, no need to restrict it.


# Imagining Dragons

Everyone uses tables for random combat encounters and they only give you stats of a monster -maybe with a picture and flavor text. They are useful, but not without your touch. "Fight -> Kill -> Loot" Cycle without a purpose eventually turns into a tiresome routine. Especially when you lose the battle.

A villainous monster is not what numbers or its picture mean to you -the player. A monster is what being a real world tank's target means to you FOR your character. Mechanics versus Imagination. I'm on the imagination side but Keith Ammann has a genius solution: Both!

• Survival Instincts,
• Intelligence and Wisdom,
• Physical Abilities,
• Solo vs horde mentality,
• Advantages & Disadvantages,
• Action Economy,
• Alignment,
• And even flavor text.

These are what translate simple numbers and words into lively monsters that react realistically in your game. And knowing this method is not meta-game, it's enrichment. You still have a character to play. Whoever they are, they have their own limitations. And these will create meaningful obstacles for you.

It's in his short blog entry: https://www.themonstersknow.com/why-these-tactics/

Don't think this method is just for D&D. Once you grasp the fundamentals, you can relate them to any monster stats from any setting. It's all hidden in the meaning of these descriptive words and how you turn them into combat tactics.

Lastly, if you find a special monster in any way, make up a personalized reason to smoke it for your character. This depends on your character or even you -the player and your goals. Remember the goal and contrast/conflict with it (play the monster and look at your character in its pov). The reason will emerge from it, naturally.


# More Ways To Create Obstacles

• OPPOSE: If the table says "small village" turn it into a Megalopolis or whatever you want, but only concentrate on what you need in it at a time. Remember, GUARDS.

• COMBINE: A room with an altar + garden with a blood pool + terrain with lava? Now if you banish the (missing ingredient) ghosts in the altar, a lava pool will pour out of it in wrath and fill the room! Remember story mechanics? I just created CONFLICT (ghosts) and CONSEQUENCES (lava) of my character's actions.
• Ask yourself what MISSING element creates conflict in this combo? What consequences would be more exciting? Tie them together. Freeform Association is king (with place / monster lists) and practice makes perfect.

• EXPERIMENT: Relate, add, subtract, multiply, divide, mutate...
  
  • Is it a 1d4 vampire encounter? Now it's Vampires vs. "Blood" golems (relate). Let them fight. You'll figure out WHYs and HOWs during your prospection, eating fantasy pop-corn.
  • Is it a huge watch tower? Nope, it's ruins of a tower (subtract) with soldiers (add) on guard duty within. Because they have to defend a forward fort against a zombie horde (multiply).
  • Is the encounter boring because you only have 2 goblins? (Divide) and scatter them with a CONSEQUENCE: they'll come back when you least expect it. Roll d4 every 1 ingame hour/encounter to see if it'll happen. If you roll 4, welp! (turn the best number in a dice into obstacle. d20 -> 20 = Hazard!)
  • You rolled icy terrain? You can't even put it on top of an ice cream cone. Mutate it. Add patches of earth (frozen soil) or fire (burning ice or methane clathrate). Maybe there are happy little trees that try to survive in there.
  
  

This entry is dedicated to EyebeeLurkin. Thanks for inspiring me.

• My Demo Play: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...Playtest-Notes
• Fast Mapping with Image Brushes (LOS Included): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt2t-YcvCt0 7 min.

# RESOURCES

• Points of Interest by Saagael: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/1225/view to pin map icons to your hex grids. Icon pics below. Save idea taken from Trenloe's post.
  
  • [Final Fantasy 14 icons](https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Dictionary_of_Icons)
  • [Guild Wars 2 map icons](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Map_icons)
  • [Elder Scrolls Online map icons](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Maps) Cleanest ones.
  • Right click the page > save page as > Web Page, Complete > Save (in Firefox)
  
  
• Decked Out by Saagael: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/910/view to use cards to introduce random encounters.
• Basic Card Decks by Trenloe: https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/97/view to use basic cards with Decked out.
• Shadow Dark Hex-Crawl Rules (Preview): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/prod...-rules-preview
• Laerun's Solo Player Hexploration with ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-vIDKY931L-solo-hexploration EDIT: BUT there is a limit for ChatGPT and when you reach it, it asks you to get Plus.
• Web-based Hex map gen: https://hextml.playest.net/
• FGU: IF you're already subscribed to FGU Art Pack, there is an Upcoming new feature called "Monster Dolls" where you crate pics of monsters with mix-and-match method by using art assets.