What is a point crawl?
A point crawl is a way to represent a game world as a network of locations connected by paths. Unlike a traditional hex map where each cell represents physical distance, a point crawl focuses only on the places that matter and the connections between them.
The concept gained traction in TTRPG online communities from the 2010s onward, largely as an alternative to hex crawls — which many GMs found too cumbersome to manage mid-session.
Why it's simpler
With a hex map, you need to track the exact position of the party hex by hex, manage travel time to the kilometre, and check whether each hex contains a random encounter.
With a point crawl, you ask the right questions:
- Where are the players? They're at a specific location, not halfway between two hexes.
- Where can they go? Only the directly connected locations.
- How long does it take? A simple duration (a few hours, a day) per path.
The result: less maths, more play.
Basic structure
A point crawl has two building blocks:
Locations (points)
Each location is somewhere interesting — a village, a ruin, a mountain pass, an enchanted forest. You don't need to describe all the space between locations, only what happens on the paths that connect them.
Paths
A path connects two locations. It can have a travel duration, a short description, and one or two possible events. That's it.
A concrete example
Picture a region centred on a trading town:
- Town of Valdric — starting point
- Ashwood Forest — half a day north
- Sorcerer's Tower — deep in the forest
- Village of Brenne — east, via a hill track
- Ruins of Elthamar — north-east, reachable from Brenne or the Forest
Players know exactly where they can go from each location. You know exactly what to prepare. Nobody gets lost in a spreadsheet.
Works with any system
The point crawl technique is system-agnostic. Whether you run Pathfinder, D&D, Forbidden Lands, Cairn, or a home-brew hack, it works. The only thing that changes is what you put inside your locations and paths.
That's what Point Crawl Maker helps you build — quickly, cleanly, and in a format you can pull up on any device at the table.