Hexcrawl & Jackie Chan

Sooo, my last year a friend GMed a campaign of Kevin Crowford’s “Scarlet Heroes” just for me. There is a short summary of our play:

  1. He prepared a hexagonal map of tropical, far-east-inspired island.
  2. He asked me about uncomfortable stuff I would prefer to avoid in play (we decided to avoid spiders and sexual violence) and things that interested us (eastern culture, especially spirituality).
  3. He presented me the backdrop of the “Scarlet Heroes” setting (well, the one from the quickstart).
  4. He presented me with the details about the island and it’s situation (two main factions of ghouls on the west and lizardmen on east, there were also a floating city based on floating basket homes of Iraque, run by secret pirate-council who paid tribute to ghouls so they will let them be).
  5. I prepared a character, mage slave-pirate Yubei.
  6. We talked it out and decided Yubei’s owner ship get sunken by (magic?) storm. Yubei got bought by one of powerful women with ambition to become a part of the council but for now she get excluded and lived between floating city and ghoul’s ruins. We decided I got sold like two weeks ago and have much freedom as my new patroness hadn’t a clear goal for me yet.
  7. I decided my goal will be to buy out other enslaved people from my past crew.
  8. We played a day from Yubei’s life and I discovered my past crew-members are mostly waiting in cells to be given as a tribute to the ghouls. One of them get sold to powerful demonologist, gossiped to be a part of the council. I also befriend some drunkards, get some info, almost got robbed and asked my patroness if she could buy out my friends and what can I do for such a favor. She asked me to find a palace of an ogre in the jungle and we ended our first session with me getting my first quest.
  9. During me exploring the island my friend made sure to describe each hex with som details, eastern or tropical detail and landmark. It wasn’t dry “you go west and nothing happens”. It was vivid in details (the island and the city alike).
  10. Characters I met were likable, troubled (even my patroness and powerful demonologist) and fun to interact with.
  11. He rolled for random encounters and tweak them to match the story so far or take consequences from my decisions. On second session I was lucky to suprisingly meet the ogre (or got ambushed by him) and later in the campaign two thugs turned out to be the assasins mind-controlled by my lizardmen I conflicted few sessions before.
  12. We didn’t shy from using the game. We were rolling quite much, to check the situation, to check my understanding and awareness, to defy death (great mechanic of “Scarlet Heroes” as it’d been written for solo or 1 on 1 play). We always respected the rolls and sometimes I got surprised, sometimes I had some clues I could figure out as a player and sometimes Yubei discovered the trap on time.
  13. My friend were very transparent with his decisions and also he made sure that I understand Yubei’s situation. We backed a bit many times, especially at the beginning of the campaign – for me it was first time sandboxing as a player and we didn’t play before either. I’m really grateful for the insight as it made my decisions furhter into the game clear and informed. There were some instances I didn’t catch the risk of my actions or the context and moving this step back and talking it out worked greate. I’m a bit too acustomed to modern lack of interest in fiction and lazy play so it was really great to play with someone who threats fiction seriously. I’m also quite shocked why people shy away from stopping the game or revoke parts when it is obvious the decision was accidental or context badly understood…
  14. After a few sessions (when we naturally swich more into intrigues between powerful people of the city) my friend prepared a square map of the floating city, where each square represented separate district.
  15. During play we both stayed engaged for the whole 15-sessions campaign. We also did some research when we feel like it would enchance the play – what does people wear here? What swords and armors they use? What they believe and how they pray? What does local fauna look like? Great stuff! Long time since I played in such vivid and plastic envirounment.
  16. We also reach an agreement about the visual style or the tone of our play – it was like karate-comedy with Jackie Chan, but more gritty – many action based fights where we used the environment in funny ways but no wire-fu or roof-jumping (well, my magic-missles looked like jade knifes appearing from thin air). It was so fun to jump, throw, grapple, punch and kick all that opponents. “Scarlet Heroes” fray dice worked so well for this! They are like additional damage die to use each turn and we just described it as my jade knifes, kicks, deflecting enemies attacks and throwing parts of the scenery (boiling water, plates etc.).
  17. I had a chance to see how leveling and game mechanics works. I switched from wizard to warrior but keep few handy spells like painted vermilion eyes (“Scarlet Heroes” version of “charm person”). I also made a major havoc in the city, killed an underground boss and sold her secrets. Made nemies from some powerful people (and lizardmen). Made a magical pact with ghouls. It was a-ma-zing! Really a blast!
  18. Before leaving the island (my character bribed the assasins to not kill him but had been made to leave the island) we alsa had this very satisfactory scene where my patroness walked into the city with me as her guard, showing off I’m alive and diring council meeting using me to threat council memebers into obedience. I had a final fight with pirate queen that paid for killing me and (despite demonologist help) I got her! Demonologist stopped fighting when she dropped dead – “there is no reason for us to continue”. I was reallly glad my friend came up with this scene to let me made my last big move before leaving. It made sense in the fiction, but I’m trying to keep this post short.
  19. After the game I really felt sad that Yubei left all that incredible people. After 15 sessions the island reallly felt like home.

“Scarlet Heroes” worked well for this campaign but it’s my friend and the techniques he used I wanted to praise here. The level of communication and shared understanding between us were so great! It was one of my favourite campaigns last year and despite me being quite unsure about my english I decided to share it with you.

We started interested in more eastern fantasy and cultural understanding plus my wanting to try hexcrawling and what happend exceeded all my expectations.

Now we are still playing together, this time we play Brian St.Claire-King’s “Tibet” and it is also a great experience for both of us (or so I hope). Maybe I will have also something to write about that after we end!

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2 responses to “Hexcrawl & Jackie Chan”

  1. Your description of play is a fantastic example of situational authorities and content, including how through play they evolve into an actual rather than promised or textual setting. Itโ€™s also a great example of how to present and learn a given system. Iโ€™m not sure what to specify as itโ€™s all of a piece due to the partsโ€™ mutual reinforcements. Dyson Logos recently created a lovely set of maps called the Autumn Lands, and when I use them, these exact methods are what I plan to do.

    Iโ€™d like to see your experience celebrated even more, examining and learning about the shift in Yubei from being basically a slave who does missions into something of a mover and player on his own.

    The rest of this comment is extremely not nice, due to no real fault of your own, or really anything at all to do with the excellent play-experience. Itโ€™s about terms, which have been fed to you by the hobby subculture. Iโ€™ll take this opportunity to address these terms, which Iโ€™m no longer willing to indulge in whatโ€™s supposed to be intelligent conversation.

    Hexcrawl

    The practice is a fine thing with a long history, but this term โ€“ entirely modern โ€“ is intellectually lazy at best.

    The device itself is merely a map as with any and so many maps, and its topic regarding the geography of overland travel is not special (e.g., a dungeon map, a social map). Itโ€™s also merely a reference method, which any map has to have, whether itโ€™s spatial division via one shape or another (you could use Escher lizards as well as hexes), coordinates, or even just a key for labeled items or areas. Of course it works, because maps work, but in either of these things, it has no qualities of unique interest.

    As with so many of the bullshit terms inculcated by the OSR, it appropriates good procedural play [in this case, derived from B/X and prior influences, a โ€œsituation checkโ€ upon entry] into some highly specific subset โ€“ in this case, overland travel โ€“ and claims that this exact subset has unique qualities. Itโ€™s talismanic, ignorant of the deviceโ€™s actual utility, associated instead with irrelevant details.

    Sandbox

    This is some bullshit. In Monday Lab: Kittybox, I was being super nice, which Iโ€™m no longer inclined to be. At least โ€œhexcrawlโ€ is about a real thing, whereas this is an empty term โ€“ for which the most analytical person I know regarding these things is forced to admit, โ€œWell, itโ€™s anything but an absolutely non-adjustable linear progression from point A to be B in physical space.โ€ As if any play did that, and furthermore, as if the resulting diversity could be captured in any category. Itโ€™s like calling all avians besides the spotted macaw a โ€œzorkโ€ as if non-spotted macaw were a singular and separated thing that needs a name (the technical term here is paraphyly) โ€ฆ and even worse, when in fact there is no such thing as a spotted macaw. This is the trick of being incompetent at being stupid.

    As a result, the term serves but one purpose, that of empty promotion, much like anti-oxidant labeling which strongly implies youth and health in the absence of evidence. In that Monday lab, I mentioned that Iโ€™ve seen people call play โ€œsandboxโ€ just because the dungeon has two entrances. Since then, Iโ€™ve endured a session of this horrid thing called Dusk City Outlaws which is the most egregious gaudy railroaded non-play imaginable, and its promotion is festooned with claims of sandbox-ness simply because the organizer gets a different starting draw each time itโ€™s played.

    What youโ€™re really talking about in this case is extremely good play which you might find surprising to know is exactly whatโ€™s presented in Sorcerer & Sword, as well as being implied by dozens of early role-playing play-materials, and intrinsic to (of all things) the Dallas role-playing game. In other words, a remarkable diversity of systems, topics, arrangements of authorities, and degrees of preparation. To understand whatโ€™s good about it is important, and labeling it with this kind of emptiness โ€“ forgive the pun โ€“ diverts the mind into a fake identity snarl and throws sand into the potential understanding.

    • Wow, that’s really food for tought/eye-opening! I totally see what you mean about sandbox and hexcrawl being this empty labels we (I/people) use alle the time.

      Surely the things I enjoyed the most was how both of us (me and my friend) listended to each other, checked our understanding when needed and react to it in that sincere way. Things just made sense for both of us and there were no competition. We were both genuinly interested in what will happen next. Nothing like this gotcha play I sometimes hear about nor railroading Yubei into predetermined directions. The number of interesting things going around escalated quickly but I never had a feeling it’s out of place or too crush me. It felt vivid and interesting, and made my decisions matter a lot.

      Oh, also, after working out this understanding of gritty karate movie, it was super fluent for us to narrate the combat scenes! We get this tangible feeling what can be done and what is too out of place. It was extra fun to use all that things around us during fights. I remember like some characters tryed to pin Yubei down with spears and he stepped on trebble to move the point down to counterattack, or when his head got pushed into a pile of garbage and he dragged like a broken ceramic plate to stick into the neck of character holding him. I grew up watching Jackie Chan movies so it really pushed the right buttons for me.

      Regarding Yubei’s growth/shift from slave to city-figure, I will try to write another post about it! It’s mostly about getting involved with people of the island. I felt they were like real human beings and I cared for them and tried to help them with their problems. At no point I felt like being stereotypical murder hobo, it wouldn’t be… fair? Moral? I like playing my appropriate self, as I saw Paul calls it in “Ink That Bleeds”. From the start it had been like for Yubei to find a new home for himself and don’t fire the bridges.

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