Two small observations re: the Middle-earth Hexcrawl project

On the matter of writing empty hexes

I've already talked about my approach to writing Tolkien content, here. I've learned that I need to create actionable, discrete details--not just replicate an encyclopedia entry. Beyond that, as I've been working on this daily writing prompt, I've been forced to confront how I feel about hexcrawls as a medium.

Middle-earth is big. Even the Shire has some sprawling "empty" spaces on the map. It can be challenging to fill those! As far as we know, they're just one 12-mile chunk of the Far Downs or an unnamed section of a forest. 

But 12-mile sections of wilderness are big spaces! No area of the wild would be truly empty. These places would all have their own local landmarks, resources, dangers, hidden secrets, etc. However, coming up with unique, interesting stuff for each hex without any prompt can be difficult.

Writing localized encounter tables has been my solution to fill "empty" hexes. It is easier for me to imagine interesting discrete details--beavers felling trees or wandering shepherdesses--than it is to make empty cliffs and forests interactable. As the party travels, these empty spaces suddenly crackle with a localized event. If they travel back and forth, there and back again, they might crackle a lot!

If I ever get a chance to playtest, I'll see how successful this method is.

On writing overland movement rules

If we use the fellowship's journey-over-time as a model, how far can a party travel in a single day? What can we extrapolate out from that pattern? I already talked about right sizing travel distances in a Lord of the Rings game, here. 

Another factor that I'm considering is imagining the upper end of what is possible. The rules need to be able to model what the book characters actually did, even if difficult. 

The three hunters in The Two Towers traveled 45 leagues in 3 days. That's 135 miles, traveling 45 miles a day.

Let's look at the Dolmenwood travel rules. An unencumbered traveler whose encounter speed is 40 ft has 8 travel points / 12 travel points on a forced march. That will let them move through six 6-mile hexes of hilly terrain in a day: 36 miles. 

From the Dolmenwood Player's Book

That's about right. On the AT, a 20-mile day is a big day. A 30-mile day is impressive and unsustainable.

If we allow that Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas got buffs to their speed that gave them an encounter movement rate of 50, they would have 10 travel points / 15 on a forced march. That would allow them to practically do the ultramarathon of the three hunters--assuming the rules allow them to do a forced march three days in a row. 

So we can use these rules as a baseline for starting to write overland movement rules. 

• Unencumbered, accomplished travelers can travel 20 miles/day, like a good AT through hiker. 
• With forced marches, they can travel even further. Forced marches should deal Endurance damage. Those with more Endurance can do them more often.
• Heroic characters can get buffs to their base speed that allow them to travel even farther, for the true upper limit of (demi)human accomplishments.