When a piece of media rockets to the epic status that a show like WandaVision has, you can almost hear the collective sound of Dungeon Masters around the world clapping their hands together at once whilst wickedly rubbing them together as they begin to scheme. That’s the magic of D&D, right? The ability to go “this thing is cool!” and turn it into something to unleash upon your players? So if you’ve been patiently watching along like us and have wondered how to pull something like that off, here are some tips for how you can take the concept of the show and make a WandaVision style “Hex” work for your table and setting.
Light spoilers ahead!
Before you begin
There’s typically no one-size-fits-all approach in D&D, and that’s something to embrace- especially when you’re already going outside the box. So, before you sit down to craft your own WandaVision Hex module, there are a few things to consider to make sure you’re approaching it in a way that’ll work for your table.
- Session Zero: We’ve talked before about the ways to make the most of your Session Zero, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything includes a section on ways to structure it. But a concept like this is a perfect example of how useful they can be in practice. Why? Well, consider for a moment how much Wanda Maximoff’s personal trauma plays into the worldbuilding of the TV series. This works okay when the audience can have distance from a show, but maybe a bit tougher with the personal connections players have with their own characters and in-game experiences. It doesn’t matter how cool your idea is if someone can’t have fun with it, so draw from those Session Zeroes to see if it may behoove you to think of a different reason why the events of the story are happening. (More on that later)
- Let’s Talk About Anachronicity: The sitcom parody elements of WandaVision’s Hex work so well within the narrative because they fit the idealized version of American small-town life that the Scarlet Witch may have seen growing up. It might not translate so well to say, Faerun, Theros, or Wildemount. This distinction also may not matter to your players. It’s good to think ahead of time about if a widely anachronistic tone like a sitcom episode would play for your group or if you may need to sub in something else. It could be a character’s favorite pulp adventure novels, recreations of elaborate stage productions from a city like Waterdeep, or fables and fairy tales adapted to reflect the realm of your game like many of Geralt’s more episodic adventures in Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher books. There are plenty of ways to represent journeys into a fiction idealized reality that don’t have to include any modern technology.
- An Awareness That You Are Not Jac Schaeffer: Though it is theoretically possible that the showrunner of WandaVision is reading this, she is not the target audience. And I say that not as a quality judgment, I’m sure you’re great! I say that to free you of the burden of feeling like you have to live up to the task of developing a massively ambitious TV series that helps introduce the most profitable franchise in the world into a lucrative streaming service. You are instead just trying to have a great session with your pals, roll some dice, and be clever. So breathe and have fun with it!
Building Your Fantasy World’s Fantasy World
Now that you’re all set to begin putting together your own Hex, let’s plop that Dungeon Master hat on your head and start thinking about how to actually build the darn thing. Let’s talk about how you’ll actually construct your Hex: how your players can interact with it, who will actually populate the darn thing, and most importantly, how it’ll fit into your overall game and story.
What Episode is This?
How your Hex will fit into your story is probably the most important element, so that’s where we’ll start. This could be the difference between these sessions being a familiar thing that your players will recognize, appreciate, and say “oh yeah, cool!” about, and the kind of story that they’ll remember and talk about for years to come. So what are some ways you could tie it into the story you’ve already been collectively telling?
- Fetch Quest: If your players have already been on a series of fetch quests looking for magic items, the Hex could serve as the unique challenge they have to solve in order to unlock their quarry. A powerfully enchanted item infused with Illusion magic, perhaps, could be bending reality around it. The characters will need to break the enchantment on themselves in order to claim it. Think about moments in films like Labyrinth when Jennifer Connelly is drawn into visions of a masquerade ball that attempt to make her forget her quest to reach David Bowie’s castle. If your group has already fought a few “zone bosses” during their quest this could be a nice change of pace.
- Boss Fight Prep: Instead of being a substitution for a big boss fight, your Hex could instead be a supplement for it. The reality-bending nature of the scenario is a unique and interesting way to have the players research their nemesis without simply pouring over piles of books at the local archives or shaking down the locals for the deets. If you know some juicy info about your particular BBEG’s dark and mysterious past that could play into their plans to defeat them, this could be your chance to unpack that without it feeling like just an info dump.
- A Character’s Story: This one seems to most naturally extend from what WandaVision the series is actually doing. If you’re DMing a very character-driven campaign, you may find yourself shifting between adventures that focus or spotlight different player characters and their journeys at a time. This could operate similar to a fetch quest of the thing you were fetching all along is the friends you’ve made along the way.
- It’s a Trap!: Probably the easiest one to pull off setup-wise. Your adventurers simply took a wrong turn at the wrong time. Now they’re stuck in a Hex, leaving poor Jimmy Woo outside confused and holding a business card. In this case, what you really have here could be viewed as a puzzle taken to a narrative extreme or some sort of mind dungeon crawl.
Who Are You People?
One of the really exciting things that a Hex module can do for your campaign is it provides such a unique opportunity to completely mix things up with your characters. Maybe you’re coming to the end of a long chapter of the campaign, maybe you need a break from the overall narrative and this weird little Hex tale is the perfect in-character vacation. So what are some ways you can toy with your player paradigm a bit to fit this unique concept? Here’s some ideas to ponder.
- Inside the Hex: Are your player characters caught inside the Hex like the citizens of Westview, New Jersey? If so, perhaps their characters could play characters of their own within it. You can approach this in a couple of different ways. You could provide your players with a basic concept and a few bullet points and trust them to improvise this new concept for a little bit. Or you could feed them just enough info to craft their own concept for their character’s role within the “sitcom.” Maybe one of them really wants to play the wisecracking neighbor and will run with that. (Note: this is also a fun roleplaying move to use for long flashback scenes outside of WandaVision Hexes as well. Assigning temporary roles to your different players during another PC’s backstory allows for the personalization of a one-on-one while leaving the rest of the table feeling included.)
- Responsible for the Hex: This is an extension and enhancement of the previous concept, one that assumes that a player character is the Wanda Maximoff of the story and the Hex is created around them. This could be something they are aware is happening, which may require some pre-session collaboration and discussion, or something they are not, in which case you could set it up similarly to the previous style and slow-burn their involvement with reveals as you go. This is where working with your players to create fleshed-out characters in your adventures can really pay off. Not unlike the Boss Fight prep concept above, this is how a characters’ cards can get laid all out on the table rather than making the player spout it off as an exposition monologue at an inn.
- Investigating the Hex: Perhaps your characters aren’t actually caught up in the Hex but rather they come upon it and need to solve the mystery of it as outside observers. In this scenario, the PCs function much more like the SWORD agents outside. This option might appeal to groups that would love the idea of indulging in something outside the box like this but might be less interested in the more complex roleplaying styles some of the other options require. Or this might just be the option your table would find cooler. There are still ways to have high stakes in this scenario, perhaps the characters need to be equipped with a magic item or enchantment that prevents them from being affected by the Hex when inside its altered reality, and with a ticking clock before it can no longer protect them.
Shared Franchise
So those are some ways that you can fit a Hex within the confines of your own story, here are just a few quick suggestions for ways you can use the flavor of existing campaigns or settings to anchor it within a D&D narrative.
- TashaVision: Who needs the Scarlet Witch when D&D has its own famous spellslinger right here? Perhaps Iggwilv is up to a scheme that the players will need to intervene on, or perhaps the Hex itself is contained within Tasha’s actual Cauldron of Everything.
- Stranger Things Have Happened: The events within the Hex could be the result of a powerful Mindflayer at work.
- The Barovian Accords: The existential horror elements of the citizens stuck within the Hex feel like they’d be right at home for a Curse of Strahd side quest.
- Infernal Machinations: Avernus is a great opportunity to provide some mind-bending situations for your players. And The Good Place taught us that a seemingly suburban paradise makes for the perfect hell.
- It’s All Therosian To Me: One of D&D’s newest settings, the Magic the Gathering import Theros hosts a litany of Ancient Greek-inspired Gods, including Phenax, whose deceptions and illusions would make a decent origin for the Hex, as would Purphoros, the God of the Forge, whose love of creation might include the pocket realities the players find themselves in.
As with all game concepts, all of this is of course just a launching board to inspire you to think of how best to include a Hex-style storyline in your game. And of course, one good mystery deserves another- Candlekeep Mysteries, D&D’s new anthology of mystery adventures, is available for preorder right now.
Have you already incorporated a major pop culture touchstone into your game? What did you do and how did your players react? Or have you even created your own D&D version of WandaVision already? Let us know in the comments!
God you sound like a miserable person.
For me, it ruins the magic if my players can look at something and say "Oh that's from Popular TV Show". It's not so interesting if it's something they already know. It's not mysterious. If they can guess your inspiration that's one thing, but I wouldn't do a "Hex" in my game at least until WandaVision is no longer the big thing.
I also agree with the people saying that your clickbait articles don't feel like good front-page content. I assume this is because everyone who wrote the good articles left?
I don’t like the new trend in articles, starting NOW!
James Haeck I already miss you.
marvel and dnd whats better
Please, please, please keep pop culture and identity politics and everything 2020's out of D&D.
What next, an article on TikTok in D&D?
#11Baldanders
You know, I like D&D, but have you considered maybe not performing horrific logical contortions to shoehorn it into every single genre and flavor-of-the-week media property?
This entire version feels like it's based on 'whatever is trending on Twitter right now'.
It's why we have books on Critical Roll, Penny Arcade, Stranger Things, Rick & Morty and some obscure Magic The Gathering setting like Theros, and not Planescape, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, etc.
Or they're softening us up for a Marvel/Disney book for D&D.
Remember when D&D was creative and made all these amazing new worlds instead of blindly jumping on every cultural bandwagon they could see?
I'd say it's equal parts "The Truman Show" and the "Witches Abroad" novel by Terry Pratchett with a sprinkle of the "government scientists research an anomaly" trope.
Pop culture can be a lot of fun for D&D.
I'm not a big fan of marvel, but I did make a huge campaign (still ongoing) for my companion, based on His Dark Materials. We opted for a one-on-one adventure for a rogue, with very limited magic. We had so much fun, emotions and cool moments!
It started as a prequel (I tried sticking to the canon as much as I could and building on stuff Pullman never narrated), and now I'm at a point where we rebuilt the world almost entirely. We ended up compiling over 120 pages of content xD.
Apart from worlds and settings, I love importing characters we like. My companion loves it every time they find a familiar face in a new environment, and got so attached to some of the cameos that one of them became a crucial part of the plot, eventually.
Wanna have a weird shady seaman in the port? Why not surprise them with a description of Count Olaf disguised as Captain Sham? You can have so much fun weaving parallels between worlds. It makes it so alive when you feel like background characters are living their own stories, and well placed references can actually give them hints on what these counterparts stories may be about.
Especially when they show up again later in the story with hints on time passing for them as well.
Wait, that's a very cool idea! It also gives me Majora's Mask vibes.
I think movies provide very cool ideas, I'm actually working on creating a humorous story based on The Hangover. I remember a Skyrim quest based on the same idea and it was a blast :D
I agree.
This article would have been better served providing alternative settings and not highlight a series that was initially panned because they waited until I believe the third episode to explain anything.
And yes it was check out comments on it only some liked the format and episode 7 had a reveal that wasn't a reveal if you knew anything about this.
Here allow me.
You wake up finding yourself in a lonely cottage near a lighthouse and a cliff overlooking a sea you have no memory of.
Heading down towards the fishing village that is the only settlement you can see you end up at the village Inn.
You encounter others who you dimly remember and they remember you.
Eventually after having a meal and a drink you compare notes and decide to fetch your things and start a search of the village eventually reaching the village church that despite evidence to the contrary is fine on the outside but upon entering its revealed to be a ruin along with the village.
Gaps in the collapsed walls let you see outside, but you can''t step through those areas the only exit is the front and back door both lead back to the idealized setting you woke up in.
Making queries makes no difference as the church bells start to ring and everybody but the PCs begin rushing indoors they're left confused as those who return to the inn stare outside as night literally falls as a pea soup style fog descends from the sea and smothers everything.
Those outside pass out waking up where they started that morning, those inside the inn have a uncomfortable evening before falling asleep and waking up in their beds.
Rinse and repeat as they make a careful search, but no matter what once night falls the fog covers everyone outside and those inside wait until they fall asleep waking up where they started once again.
HOWEVER once they turn their attention to the lighthouse they discover it sealed, careful exploration will reveal the entrance and exploring inside find a way to the top where the lighthouse light has been disabled.
Depending on whatever quest the DM wants completed maybe just casting the Light cantrip on it and repeating it until dawn or the continual Flame spell depending on their level.
That light keeps the darkness at bay the fog engulfs the area but as long as they remain within the light and keep it maintained eventually dawn arrives and this causes the curse or whatever it is to collapse revealing the true nature of the village revealing it has long fallen into ruin and abandoned at some point in the distant past.
Only those protected by a light source remain and as the PCs and the very few villagers who survived its to discover their home a ruin, but the nightmare they have been living with has been finally ended.
The Twist: They've been stuck inside that area for a couple of centuries there have been no live births, no aging and every so often newcomers are added to their number just never enough to overpopulate the settlement.
Congratulations if you survived this far if you use this idea could you post how your group responded afterwards?
I'm not Ruin Johnson I'm legitimately interested to see how they handle this!
Sorry just noticed this post after posting my own reply, sigh beaten to the punch glad to see I wasn't the only one to notice that!
This was a fun article to read. The first one one I've clicked on where I thought it was interesting the whole way through. Definitely a fun one for a seasoned DM.
This sounds cool for the fey wild. But rather then saying how to adapt it use it as an example.
I like the idea of this article. Looking forward to what is next
agreed but even the chase sequence article basically just said 'do what's already in the DMG and narrate the events in a cool way'
I can't wait until I can't relate to anything in pop culture and have to rail against it in the comments, too!
Great article! Makes me happy to see some love for Theros.
This.
I don't know what "WandaVision" is, and I'm not yet a DM, but this sounds just weird.
Dnd can be whatever people want. That said, I really really dislike the trend of "dnd but its rick & morty", and "dnd but its stranger things" and "dnd but its marvel" to such an extent that it starts to sour my taste for the core brand and I personally feel that it waters down the brand to tie all these licenses in to the core.
Dnd+marvel feels like a natural fit, afterc all, who hasn't thought not Thor when looking at tempest cleric, Ironman is a logical fit with armorer artificer. It breaks down, though, when you look closer: thor obviously has extra attack, so he's atv least 17lv of tempest and 5 of paladin or fighter, which is already over the 20 lv line, and he's a literal god... moon druid is a great fit for Beast Boy from DC, except that he's got 20 lvs of that, and is a competent melee combatant, so monk 6+? Oops, we're over cap again. Captain America is just a battlemaster with lucky stat rolls and high cha, or possibly just a champion fighter.
Ok, so thematically, it works a bit better. There is some great horror stuff out there to pull from. Even better pulp fiction. The trick is not to demand everything be mechanical unless your table isn't engaging with it, but then, maybe rethink your themes. I agree about the need for a session 0.
If successive reprintings and watered down licenses is the future, it makes me very sad. How many times have we had booming blade reprinted now? Bladesinger? 3? 4? If you need to reprint rules in new books to make the game work with adventurers league, then perhaps its time to re evaluate AL rules.
Can we please not have the front page become just like every cheesy D&D Youtube channel that tries to show you how to recreate whatever TV show is most popular at the moment?