Ask the Alexandrian #24: Small Hexcrawls

Kandahar asks: Can you run hexcrawls in a very small location? For example, I have a a single valley I want my players to explore. I made a map in Worldographer, but I used 2-mile hexes. I don’t think it’s reasonable to impose very slow travel. Even if this is densely populated, is there any way I can run this properly? The Alexandrian hexcrawl uses a player-unknown 12-mile hexes because I’ve found huge advantages to using this as a default structure. But there are lots of reasons for why you might want to make different choices. For example, in my remix of Desccent Into Avernus, I used a 60-mile hex for the Avernian hexcrawl, partly because I wanted vast, empty spaces and partly because the PCs are expected to be using fast-moving war machines. So you can absolutely use a hexcrawl for a smaller location. But there will be specific challenges you’ll want to think about. First, as you note, travel speed will not constrain the PCs’ exploration range to a reasonable number of hexes.…