Fiction that feels like a hexcrawl

13 Mar, 2024

Occasionally I run across discussions about exemplary dungeon crawls in fiction.¹ It got me thinking: are there good examples of fiction that captures the feeling of a D&D hexcrawl?

Just as one can make a distinction between 'stories where some of the action happens underground' and proper 'dungeon crawls', we can separate 'hexcrawl' narratives from the broader set of those featuring overland travel.

Here are some features specific to the D&D hexcrawling experience that I'd look for:

1. There can be a destination or goal, but the focus of the narrative should be what happens along the way.
2. The narrative should be episodic or divided into discrete encounters. The wilderness should be full of interesting locations that feel somewhat isolated from each other.²
3. The details of the encounters should be mostly independent from the overall purpose of the journey or 'meta-plot'. It should be picaresque rather than epic.
4. There should be some sense that the travelers are making meaningful decisions about what route to take, and readers/viewers should be able to track the journey. The geography traversed should be consistent.
5. There should be some emphasis on (or at least acknowledgement of) the logistics of travel.

The Platonic examples that stand out to me are Jack Vance's two Cugel stories: The Eyes of The Overworld and Cugel's Saga, each of which pretty much exemplifies principles 1-4 (though perhaps not 5 except in a few cases). Though both Cugel's journeys have the same start & end points, he regularly strategizes about where to go next, resulting in very different paths through a hodgepodge of hostile wildernesses. The chapters are episodic, usually focused around a specific obstacle or misadventure. The Dying Earth is littered with isolated villages, roadside inns, wizard's manses, and so on, and the countryside is perilously fraught with what are essentially random monster encounters. (I'd guess, given Vance's influence on early D&D, that these stories were in mind when some of the first hexcrawls were written).

Other examples I've considered so far:

1. Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit are classic overland fantasy travel narratives. It's been a while since I've read either but I'd tentatively say that The Hobbit and The Fellowship of The Ring are more hexcrawl-y whereas the later books de-emphasize 1, 2, and 3.
2. Firefly was based on a game of Traveller and hits 1, 2, 3, and 5, and maybe 4 once or twice?
3. Don Quixote -- kind of a stretch, but it arguably satisfies 1, 2, 3, and 5, with bonus points for returning to some of the same locations (i.e. maintaining a high degree of geographic consistency). But obviously, instead of peril and adventure the encounters are humorous in nature.
4. Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe definitely checks boxes 2, 4, and 5. I'd argue that too much travel is elided to really satisfy 1, and I'm not sure I understand the 'purpose of the journey' enough to have an opinion on 3.³
5. Baudolino by Umberto Eco in its later chapters turns into a dreamlike journey that sort of(?) meets 1, 2, 3, and 4 if you squint really hard.
6. Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation are both episodic and meet 1, 2, and 3, but not 4 or 5. Maybe Voyager would count?
7. Homer's Odyssey? Haven't read it in years but I think it checks boxes 1, 2, and 3 at least.
8. The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. LeGuin arguably hits 2, 4, and 5. (iirc most encounters tie back to the disappearance of magic, thus negating 3.)
9. The first season or two of Avatar: The Last Airbender has a bit of this feel to it.
10. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?
11. Blood Meridian arguably hits some of these - probably the western genre in general has quite a few stories that would fit.
12. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders upholds principles 1, 2, and 4 but not 3 (most of the encounters are with minions of the final boss, Dio, sent to impede the party's progress) or 5.
13. For the most part I don't think A Song of Ice and Fire counts, but there are sub-plots (like Briene's journeys, or some of Arya's) that might work. However, even those relatively self-contained adventures are always presented in the context of grandiose power-politics so I don't think it's really true to the spirit of a hexcrawl.
14. Moorcock's Elric books -- from the few I've read, some stories might meet 1, 2, or 3, but I don't think they pay enough attention to geography to count.
15. Xenophon's Persian Expedition?
16. Heart of Darkness? (Leaning strongly towards no, as it's a dream-like glide towards doom rather than an exploratory picaresque adventure).

Updates:

@garmr on Discord suggests:

I have an odd suggestion to add to your list, it's This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes. This is a literary novel about a sad divorced dad who is estranged from his son and spends his time wandering aimlessly around Los Angeles. Basically the whole book is random encounters, some of them "realistic" (an donut seller, a party on the beach) and some less so (a horse inexplicably stuck in a sinkhole, a woman locked in the boot of a car). In terms of content it's obviously nothing to do with D&D but the structure is bang on the same. It definitely meets your criteria 1, 2 & 3. Not really 4 or 5 though.

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