Design Talk - An Ode to Sector Crawls
Ever since I first read the article Game Structure: Sector Crawl, posted by Justin Alexander on his blog, The Alexandrian, I’ve been using this mechanic at almost all of my games.
Honestly, it’s a solid mechanic that has helped me a lot in situations where my players explore absolutely vast locations (something I tend to do quite often).
I remember when I first started GMing, and the ideas I had about giving my players the chance to explore massive environments like the ones in the games that got me into the hobby. I remember trying to narrate their exploration of a huge abandoned city or some gigantic ruins. I also remember how I failed to pull off those grand plans for exploration.
I wish I had known how to do a Sector Crawl back then.
Sector Crawl: RuÃns of the People of the Sun and Moon
Now I know. I don’t do it exactly the way the article suggested (I end up mixing it in a bit with how Point Crawls works—another awesome system), but I know.
The result was that I was able to fulfill those earlier desires to make the world of my games more expansive and dynamic, without wasting time on nonsense—something this system does very well.