Hex-mapping!

I finally got into hexmaps. So like everyone who comes late to things, it's time to act like I have unique insights. I'm going to analyse some hexmaps and think about how that might inform my own.

I was inspired by James Chip's recent hexmap which did something that I, personally, had never seen in a hex-map before: it captures the landscape. That's going to be my final thought for this post so I'll come back to it. 

First though, let me reveal my matrix of hex-maps! I love making these for some reason. 

This image shows to scales: from abstract to scaled, and iconic to evocative. The examples given below, and all the full hexmaps, have been publicly shared.

The terms

Iconic hexmaps use icons: symbols that have little no inherent meaning on the hex-map but refer to something that has significance in the game-world, often described in a key or list. The images are often formulaic and general.

Evocative hexmaps are those that have meaning primarily from the use of imagery in the hex-map itself. They may be very specific and not generalisable. 

Abstract hexmaps are those that do not try to accurately represent distances within and between hexes in a way that maps directly to a measurable "reality" in the game-world. 

Scaled are those where the hex map is aiming to accurately represent the real space of the game-world. In this way the specific distances across and between hexes are given. 

Obviously these terms do not cover all of a hexmap, nor are they exactly mutually exclusive: a map may be both iconic and evocative simultaneously. 

Let's look at some maps, starting those which are less suited naturally to my tastes: the iconic and scaled. 

Welshpiper

This is my main example of the iconic-scaled style. I think for me I would struggle to ever use this as it prompts my imagination so little. Now the tables and hex descriptions might be excellent and evocative, but on its own it feels very "flat". I would feel for me too much like the game was happening in the mathematically defined hexes, rather than in a rich landscape. 

Dunkelmoor

Here I think we get a nice development on the iconic style in that, while mostly presenting icons there are evocative elements within it. The little hanged man in number 2, for example, gives me a fair bit to work with for the game. Though we can see that most of the images are basically just pretty icons: the mountains for example are just icons of mountains. 

There is a similar inclusion of the scale as with the first example. 

I think I still find this map a little shallow compared to some of the ones we are going to look at, but I think with this I personally could generate something more interesting than our first one. 

Skullfungus

I'm going to look at two from Skullfungus. The first matches quite closely with dunkelmoor. 

It is mostly iconic, though for my taste the images are perhaps a little more evocative, particularly where they tie into pre-existing tales such as the sword in the stone or the whicker man. It also does not have the explicit scaled aspect, which for my money, makes the map as a whole more flexible in usage as it allows me to be more interpretive with the space and the landscape.  

This flexibility is ramped in this one also by Skullfungus. 

Here there is no discernable scale at all and no attempt to visualise the space between the things in the hexes at all. You could almost present these different images in a list and just say "these things are here". 

For me, that would be a positive as it would allow me to think a bit more about the space between them and the landscape (though that is just flat water in this case). 

In terms of the iconic-evocative scale, I think this one perhaps goes a little too far into the evocative. There are only a few images that refer to any kind of trop or generic information (say the ruined church and graveyard), though it wouldn't be too hard to imagine the meaning of each hex. 

Evils of Illmire

This is my favourite of these ones. The hexes strike a nice balance of the iconic and evocative for me. There is enough detail in the images to help me invision the scenes that might play out in those spaces, but I can still rely on fairly generic understandings. Hex 4 is a good example - there is some kind of temple that must be filled with snakey-cthulhuish cultists. The hex both evokes this in its imagery and gives me generic iconic elements. 

Technically this one does have a scale attached to it in the book. However, I feel that this is just there for conventions sake. The hexes do not all conform to a standard size. This is most noticeable in the hexes of the top right. They present the landscape in the distance. with 8 covering as much ground as at least 17 and 14 combined. The distances aren't totally abstract, nor are they totally scaled, allowing for a sense of interpretation and the landscape between many of them (though the mountains still shoot iconically from a perfectly flat plain). 

James Chip

This brings me on to James Chip's drawing, which is the one that got me into looking at other hexmaps and creating my own. 

Here with icons that also have elements of the evocative and iconic. For me, each one is so evocative of that space that my imagination immediately jumpts into wanting to decide what the stories and people of each hex. 

There is also a wonderful blurring of the abstract and scaled in that there is no clearly delineated scale but there is relation between the hexes. This is most obvious in the body of water that exists on the bottom and right of the map. If we take two at the bottom left we can quite simply see that the sae shore that the jetty is on, if I go on a little further i'll get to a campfire. If I turn "up" the map, i'll get to some farmland and beyond that a sundial. There is no specific scale between these images but there is a definable landscape captured here. 

It is this final idea that brought the hexmap to life. This one is organisationally clear but it avoids what I think nearly all the others do: they treat the world as flat. The things that exist in it are simply objects that break up a broad featureless plain which is the "neutral state".

My own game, the Wyrd Lands RPG is really focused on the environment. This has lead me to an experiment that I have part of below. 

This is very much a work in progress, but I think it brings together some of the elements I am going for. The hexes are capturing visions of a landscape, and have enough visual detail in them to be evocative of the space (I need to figure out how big they need to be to do this well). 

Around the hexes I am going to draw a rough landscape map, showing the full space around them, but I hope you can already see that the hexes at the top are 'going up hill'.

Thanks for reading, if you have any comments, suggestions or arguments to make I would be happy to hear them. 

Next time i'll be writing about something about what is "the game-world" after a chat with  Revenant's Quill on Roleplaying and 'the model'.

 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/265720/Fungithrill--A-Twitter-Hexmap