Stocking the AD&D Wilderness

So you are wondering how to prepare for a game with total player autonomy? There isn't much you can do except get a good set of systems in place that help you improvise. Be fluent with the random tables and monster manuals, wilderness travel rules, dungeon generator, and read a lot of pulp - this will cover most bases. To make things easier, pre-rolling random encounters, (those MM encounters with big numbers and high level NPCs take a while to roll up at the table) as recommended by Bdubs, is a good use of time.

Terrain (Using DMG Appendix B p173)

However, sometimes you have a wilderness area your players go to frequently enough that it's worth spending a bit of time developing. Now, you could "pretend" to run a party through each hex and roll for your usual terrain and encounters, then the % in lair, etc. and if you're running players through totally un-keyed areas, mid-session, this is the way to go. But there is another way, using concepts from Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign.

This post combines the DMG and FFC to give a way of stocking wilderness consistent with the wilderness generation method laid out by Gary in the DMG, and the lair probabilities + monster distribution laid out by Dave. The general gist is that Dave decided how many lairs actually exist in the wilderness (about 2% of wilderness square miles are lairs) and for each 100 square mile area he would roll a d6. 1-5 meant there were that many lairs in the space, and a 6 meant the hex was empty (of lairs, though it could still have ruins, settlements, etc). He also detailed how much of the monster population is at the lair, and where the rest of them are in what proportions (this gives you scouting parties, war bands, patrols, etc.)

Habitats, Ruins, & Castles (DMG p173, p182-183)

This can be extrapolated to whatever hex scale you like (see the linked blog post for calculations). I see it more useful on the smaller scales (such as a 5 or 6 mile hex) since that is more likely the scale you would use for finer wilderness exploration/lair hunting. Using just a 30 mile hex works fine but I don't have a good way to manage finding things within it without great abstraction/hand-waving. On the contrary, a much finer scale seems too finicky/localised to be broadly useful except in solitaire-domain cases (DMG p93 "Territory Development"). I opt for a 5 mile since it divides nicely with the standard 30 mile campaign hex as well as the wilderness movement rates (DMG p58 "Outdoor Movement").

The entire process is quite swift - in an hour or two you can have a good chunk of wilderness terrain determined, with the lairs inside it, ruins, inhabitants, etc.

Now, to reconcile it with the DMG encounter tables when the PCs are exploring (obviously you still want that chance for a random dragon or other whacky encounter), I would simply make another encounter table such as:

d12: 1-7 = occupant encounter

        8-12 = truly random wilderness encounter (from the tables in the various monster books/DMG)

You could adjust this probability based on how active the occupants are, how big the lairs are, etc. Perhaps even include adjacent hex occupants as an option.

If the players land an occupant encounter, you would then roll % in lair to see if they actually stumbled upon its lair. Otherwise, it's one of the patrols/external parties.

Now, this preparation can really set the stage for inter-monster conflict at mass combat scales - simply refer to their alignment, lair size, and, a good rule of thumb for their radius of influence, is their movement in miles (so a 12" movement = 12 mile radius around the lair). It's possible you could pepper your encounter chart with evidence of conflicts, campsites, etc.  (rather than just running into the monster itself).

A final note - Arneson also included rules for managing migrations, population growth, and conflict within the lair (all as a function of TIME), as well as his own wilderness generation method. The First Fantasy Campaign is worth reading, for in many ways it is a missing link, and can provide great utility and insight into how to run a BrOSR D&D campaign.

Lairs, Ruins, Terrain, and Inhabitants - messy, but useful...

Creating a Digital Campaign Map

 So I detest using technology at the table and strive to handwrite/draw everything. But the reality is, the hex paper I draw on gets printed out, and I'm definitely not going to draw my own hex-paper. Thus, I have finally conceded to transfer the campaign map to a digital format using Worldographer.

Pen & paper is a lot easier for doing things up on the fly, and for rough sketches. Since I know the terrain of the current play area (having used the random wilderness terrain from DMG p173) I can create a map that will at least not change too much. If it does, I can easily modify the file and re-print it. I wouldn't have bothered doing this at the start of the campaign (well, actually, if I did I would reference this post for how to quickly stock an area using the DMG with some dynamic implications)

This is the original map I made for the campaign, without much detail (1 hex = 30 miles)

It worked great. Though I don't have a nice way to key hex maps.

For what it's worth, the sections on that map are an indication of how much space is covered by the same hex paper at a smaller map scale. This way I can map at a local scale in sections. That is a lot of work to do by hand... Though I don't see great utility in a smaller division than 5 miles anyway (except where you may be mapping out a domain and 200yd hexes are useful for miniatures battles)

I revised this map once, making it neater and using smaller hexes, which is what I have been using so far. But now, I have the general campaign area digitally mapped (this is incomplete - just focusing on geography and settlements to start with):

The beauty of Worldographer is that you can hide/include map features easily, include hex numbers, etc. So while the map could get very cluttered, with a few check-boxes you can have a bare map with just terrain (or whatever). The way I would do this pen & paper would be to photocopy the world map in stages.

Now, there are lots of nifty features in this software. I don't use them (such as GM only items, fog of war, etc. which would be good if you gave players maps. I don't). But one that is noteworthy is the level system for map scales. The above map is at "World Scale". I can go down to "Continent", then "Kingdom", then "Province". Technically the above should be "Continent" but it doesn't bother me - you can retroactively increase map size anyway.

When I ran the first session, I only had a little area near Underland mapped (admittedly I had a 5 mile hex mapped out at 1 hex = 1 mile of that locale). The rest were "ideas" that have developed over time as needed. There are certainly things that are useful to pre-roll/prepare, such as high-level NPCs, big random encounters, monster lairs and the like, but you can still wing those as well using the tables in the DMG.

Do you need a nice digital map to play? Not in the slightest. Does it make things feel a bit more structured and provide utility, thus saving time once it is established? Yes.