If you have been in the TTRPG scene, even for a short while, you may have heard the term “Hexcrawl”, a method in which exploration is done on a hexgraph paper. You probably have noticed, that there are a lot of people trying to explain how it works, or propose a better method when using it. Like many things D&D related, most are overly complicated, aren’t that fun or worse yet – isn’t useful. That said, OD&D’s wilderness rules are dead simple, easy to use and useful as a tool. How much can you move in a day? 3 hexes, usually. Roll to to check encounter. Roll to check if player is lost (this shouldn’t be a secret to the players), arrived at location. This is all useful information, when traveling from point A to point B or as the book describes it “off-hand adventures” where it recommends the Outdoor Survival gameboard.

Off-hand adventures, is a very interesting choice of word. Because it implies that, the method we are all very used to for hexcrawling – moving along a map to travel a region – is actually the improvised method of adventure. That a “definitive” or “focused” adventure in the wilderness exists. You wont see this type of adventure nowadays. Specially not from pre-written adventures or from the OSR crowd either. At most, you will get a continent map, kingdom map, or region map and MAYBE with a hex overlay. This is fine, again it gives the players and referee a method to calculate travel time and fit encounters. However, we HAVE seen this type of adventure design previously, back in the TSR era. You would have a map, large scale; a dungeon, the main site of the adventure; and the area surrounding the dungeon. An example of this, a popular one too, is Keep On The Borderland. It gives the referee a town, a dungeon and the most important part, a map of the area around the Keep and the caves of chaos.

This isn’t conjecture either, I’m not guessing that this is the difference between offhand wilderness adventures and regular wilderness adventures. Because OD&D also, tells you this.

The referee must do several things in order to conduct wilderness adventure games. First, he must have a ground level map of his
dungeons, a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town or village closest to the dungeons (where adventurers will be most likely to base themselves).

So what can we do with this? The answer is quite simple really, it allows us to provide a new way to present adventures. Gygax gives us examples, even.

Exploratory journeys, such as expeditions to find land suitable for a castle or in search of some legendary treasure are handled in an entirely different manner.

Since we will be zooming in, on a hex of 5 miles and be creating a map for that wilderness area, we could handle the expedition for legendary treasures found in treasure maps, far easier and in a way that feels closer to the literary works that inspired the game. you could place encounters on this zoomed in map, such as monster lairs, hidden magic items, and useful NPCs that they could stumble upon. The framework is already set out for us in Keep On the Borderlands with other things to do and meet on the map besides the Cave of Chaos even an additional dungeon a referee could expand on. Since this is not an off-hand adventure, you may feel free to place Monster Lairs here without rolling for one, and curate the treasure they have. This format is also, perfect for quests and Geases that require searches for an item, a relic or materials.

This area map, should be hidden from the players as per OD&D

REFEREE’S MAP is a wilderness map unknown to the players. It should be for the territory around the dungeon location. When players venture into this area they should have a blank hexagon map, and as they move over each hex the referee will inform them as to what kind of terrain is in that hex

And players will have to navigate and expose the treasures they may find. It is also assumed, that this is the method they need to play in order to clear a hex and stablish a stronghold

This form of exploring will eventually enable players to know the lay of the land in their immediate area and thus be able to select a site upon which to build their castles.

In the end, OD&D proves once more, that it was a game far more nuanced and advanced than people think. Often, discarding the game as unplayable or a “framework” for one to make their own game because it is lacking. The reality is, that OD&D back in 1974 was a complete game out of the box, even more fleshed out than many games that come out today, that requires the referee to fix it.