A WEST MARCHES PRIMER

The West Marches concept was made popular by Ben Robbins, designer of the popular game Microscope and Matthew Coleville made a great video on West Marches.

West Marches is a player driven style of gaming, not to far from a hexcrawl. Players set the schedule and goals of a session. And sessions may have a different cast of players over time and allows for larger sized groups.

There is no regular game time. Game sessions are scheduled by the players with the GM.

There is no regular party. Games have players drawn from a pool of people. You pick what expeditions to go own and which parties to join or form one of your own. This mostly happens via Discord conversations then scheduled to the expedition calendar.

No plot. The players decide where to go and what to do in advance. It is a sandbox game.

Game sessions start and end in town or a PC controlled stronghold.

Session reports are always shared.

There is a shared world map, that's likely unreliable.

All discoveries are placed on the shared map, which players can use to decide where they want to explore.

This is not a PvP. This is an exploration focused experience. We play to find answers.