While reading through the Throne of Night 3pp adventure path, something finally clicked for me. A way to make even just traveling through a hexmap meaningful, while keeping hexmap region creation quick and easy. A lot of this is taking their mushroom jungle and applying its principles to any region. Please let me know what you think - I have been unable to find anything similar on the interwebs after a few days of searching.
1. Decide what special environment makes it worth setting up a special region. Draw a regional boundary (maybe a rough oval?)on hexpaper. Include around a hundred hexes inside the boundary. Mark 2-4 entrance/exits to the region - other ways in and out should be generally impassible. Areas outside the region are not necessarily hex-based.
2. Make a short random encounter list (10 or 12 entries) - 25% natural/weather hazards, 10% per local intelligent species, 10% per local predator/herd animal/other resource creature. 5% for a species whose home is outside your region but nearby. These encounters are not necessarily combat, but can be, based on number 3, below.
3. Each intelligent species should have a faction score towards you. Low end is kill on sight, high end is allied. How you treat them in random encounters and at their home affects this score. Appropriate gifts or helping them against their enemies are good. Killing them is bad.
4. Most creatures on the random encounter list, and all of the intelligent species have a nest/lair/village/what have you. Mark one (with a letter) for each one somewhere on the hexmap. Wiping one out means only a few more individuals will be met in random encounters before they are deleted from the random encounter list. Should have a basic detail map for each one, I think - leave the hexmap when you enter a detail map.
5. Scatter a handful of other sites of interest across the hexmap.
6. done. No need to populate every hex, no need for any rolls except a single random encounter roll. PCs deal with region-wide conditions, random encounter rolls that are relevant and interactive, and the occasional (GM-only) marked hex that contains an interesting place, animal nest, village, etc. Clues to marked hexes may be obtained by more interaction with random encounter creatures.
Example: Dark Sun like region - thrown together in a few minutes using this system.
Very high temperatures during the day, very low temperatures at night.
Random encounters on a d20:
1-5 storm (roll 1d6: 1=choking dust, 2=wind carrying sharp sand, 3=dehydrating wind, 4=harmless heat lightning, 5=furnace wind, 6=?)
6-7 1d6+3 rust monsters (gotta make metal scarce)
8-9 1d6 salt elementals/mephits (gotta make water scarce)
10-11 1d6+1 elf runners
12-13 Press gang. 3d6 slavers.
14-15 1d4+2 halfling cannibals
16 1d4 Thri-Kreen hunters
17-18 ?
19 ?
20 ?
Mark halflng, elf, press gang, rust monster, and salt elemental home hexes. These home hexes will have a few hundred individuals each, minimum. Village in a tiny jungle hex for halflings, camp for elves, city of Tyr for press gang. Infested hole in the ground for rust monsters. Thri-Kreen don't get a home hex since they are from outside the region, as evidenced by the 5% chance of meeting them.
Halfling, elf, and press gang each have a faction score towards you - elves start neutral, halfling and press gang attack on sight.
This system seems made to be automated - manually it would take too long to "populate" hexes the party might never visit.
This system seems made to be automated - manually it would take too long to "populate" hexes the party might never visit.
Yes, although some people tend to enjoy it. This way avoids that completely, as most hexes, 75% or more, never need to be populated. It also keeps the story tighter, as everything is interconnected instead of having each hex populated with its own miniature world.