This second session had things work more smoothly, I was happy with how it played out. As before, I was working off a single page print-off of all the tables, double column, minimal borders and using that with an overloaded encounter die.
I used an overloaded encounter die so there were both 'encounter, positive' and 'encounter, negative' possibilities plus 'locality' and 'percept' options. Fatigue and expiry results did not require anything from these tables.
1. Setback
2. Fatigue/delay
3. Expiration
4. Locality
5. Percept
6. Advantage
Setup
The party was continuing to try and evacuate a large column of freed prisoners through a swamp. Play picked up with the party catching up with the column of refugees they had let be escorted on ahead by some other adventurers they hired. Approx 175 people in the column, rested but with no food, with four hours left until sundown. Session Report: Yaksha's Hexfill Method (part two)
With our heroes back leading the column, they entered the next hex and rolled a 4 (locality) so then I had them roll a d20 on the 'scene-setting/sites' - this got me a "scavengers defending a feast" and they were faced with a half dozen big crocodiles gnawing on a newly found hippo that got stuck in the mud and died. The crocs were not interested in getting out of the way and the adventurers decided not to burn the time to divert around them - a lot of Gusts, shouting at the bask of crocs with Speak with Animals and offers to cook up the Hippo for them were enough to back them off enough for party to get to butchering and tossing the meat out to them. A hard hour spent carving up the hippo saw the rest of the column past.
Next hex was a 5 (percept) followed by a d10+d4 on the encounter table to see what spoor they picked up - a scouting party from the realm next door. Some significant poking about and trying to read a very well obscured trail as the column passed took them nearly up to sundown.
Next hex took them into where they hoped to find a tabaxi village and another roll of 4 (locality) had that happen. This was a previously marked sub-hex so no further reference to tables needed. The deeply condescending yet welcoming tabaxi took in the refugees for the night and after significant gift exchanges, the party went ahead the next day to path-break into the territory of the harpy coven.
With a tabaxi scout attached I had them rolled the encounter die with advantage - getting a 6 (Advantage) then followed by a d10+d4 on the encounter table to see what type of thing went their way; this was a group of travellers for the frontier - officials and soldiers - and the 6 result meant they were all too hot and fed-up to pay any head to our heroes but their tramped down trail provided swift passage in the direction our heroes were going.
Another 6 (Advantage) at the next sub-hex, entering a marked-up part of the map had them find the 'great tabaxi hunter' who found things the harpies wanted, with one of the senior harpies present. Our heroes swift traded rust-monster antennae to the harpy for safe passage then split the party. One group headed onwards into the marked up map and one headed back to get the column moving.
The tabaxi scout, offended during negotiations with the 'great hunter' tabaxi no longer provided advantage and a 1 (Setback) was rolled - I figured given this was crossing back where the soldiers had just been, this was going to be rear-guard. They had not cared about people going the other way but were not happy about people trailing their group. Bluffing that they were authorised message-carriers - complete with legitimate mail (though bound for a completely different direction) got them past.
I skipped rolling for getting to the tabaxi village; the tabaxi getting home within their own subhex seemed to not warrant a roll. Once the column was rolling they set out again and got a 4 (locality) followed by a d20 roll and got a 'stuck caravan' - a dozen soldiers, a drover and a pair of donkeys with a foundered wagon full of stuff from the same group seen before. With many, many hands available the column helped the wagon out and got a few bundles that 'fell off' as payment.
A 2 (Fatigue/delay) saw them stumbling around the swamps as day began to fade trying to find where the great tabaxi hunter dwelt before finally finding them and realising they had no means to shelter all the people and deciding to take their directions and press on to a cottage of apprentices of the harpy coven - part of the marked map and the end of my using the hex-fill tables.
The rest of the session entailed getting the column sheltered at the apprentices cottage while the split party found and returned from a local reagent market, followed by the next day deciding to pull a direct run home - five hexes as the crow flies.
They remembered just in time to avoid a sub-hex of dangerous hippos, diverting past some paid-off harpy cliff perches, along the crush scar of some long-ago fall from the cliffs, past the shrine to the Giving Mud, around the village sky-burial gounds and home to celebrations and carousing.
Session report ends
I felt this second time around built some fluency - it was interesting criss-crossing the same point a few times and getting different results which turned into slightly different riffs on the same event.
I got the most use out of encounters and sites, less from jobs and bounties this time because people kept moving but they were useful in the last session as 'more unlocked' about a place they were staying put at.
What was particularly cool about this second session was I did zero prep. Unpacked nothing from the prior session, just rocked up and deployed the hex-fill table, picked right up from where things were before and it worked like a charm.
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