How do you run a roleplaying game? It’s a question that has as many answers as there are games to run. If you find yourself running RPGs, you’ll fall into patterns. Certain games will appeal to you because of the way you like to run RPGs. For me those are games like Blades in the Dark, Agon, and Inspectres. All reward heavy improvisation but that doesn’t mean that no preparation is required.
I’ve always struggled with how to prepare games. I make notes, but often not the right ones. I go back to players to remind myself of actions, plot, and other details that have slipped my mind. Recently I’ve been experimenting with a technique I’ve called Hexplotting, inspired by a post on Guy Milner’s blog Burn After Running.
Guy’s idea was to take the hex map exploration of early fantasy games, and apply it to the actual plot of your session. I’ve taken this idea and run with it, creating a template that I’ve used to run Eat the Reich and Slugblaster. I plan to keep using it when I can apply it. Although Guy was applying this idea to one-shots, I have found it useful for campaign sessions.
The current template can be found below in a couple of different formats.
The core idea of the hexplot is to kick off with a dilemma, a choice with two paths that lead into the first two hexes. It is a great way to kick off a session and something I have taken from the way Agon presents the starting situation on an island. From there the plot expands then contracts, funneling the players towards your finale. As Guy lays out in his post this means you avoid the ‘appearance’ of railroading while keeping everything in your head.
I’ve expanded on this idea. Each hexplot has setup details and the kick-off dilemma at the top of the sheet. This is basically ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘What is happening?’. The space for NPCs is the ‘Who is involved’ and the threats are details of what you want to throw at the players. It’s an overview of your whole session.
As you get into the session itself, each hex provides detail on what happens next. A location to give you the prompt as to where this is happening. A space for the problems that the characters are going to face, that will likely refer to some of the NPCs and threats that you have in your overview. At the bottom of the template is a space for notes you might want to make and anything you need to address in the downtime between sessions.
So how can you use this? The way I’ve described so far is how I started out: dilemma into two choices, to three, reduce choices, funnel to finale. As I’ve played around with my template I have found other ways to use it.
I recently ran a game of Eat the Reichand used the Hexplot to summarise each of the 3 sections. I laid out the hexes with what I thought was going to be adjacent to each other, combining elements of hexcrawls and my hexplot. This was a great way to summarise all the info I need to reference quickly. You can find that preparation here.
Although each hex has an entry for location, that doesn’t mean we have to change location when we move between them. For instance you might have a chase that leads to a location. You can have two hexes leading off that chase describing the problems of the characters depending on if they get there ahead of their pursuers or not.
Unlike hexes in a crawl, the sections of your hexplot don’t necessarily need to be directly connected to each other. Characters might move sideways to jump from one bit of a plot to another.
Like this:
The way I have been using hexplots, is that they help me structure my session prep and give me useful notes I can refer to on one page. Even in something more sandbox like Blades in the Dark or Slugblaster I feel that a light amount of prep helps me concentrate on the moment to moment play. When I need to think about where we go next, I can refer to the hexplot and present the players with a new set of choices.
This template I present is aimed at a 2 hourish session, but you could easily expand it out for more information. Add hexes on the side for an optional bit of story. With a bit of tech and some more work you could even nest hexplots inside hexplots for some sort of campaign overview!
I don’t think this idea is revelatory or that I will win a Nobel peace prize for services to gaming. I’ve just found the structure really helps me to feel not overwhelmed by prepping sessions. I hope it helps you with yours, and I would love to hear about anyone who uses this idea in their games.