Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[Davane]

I wrote a novel-length response, but decided it would be better to just sum up my main points. I don't mean to hate on you or anything you said, and I am not trying to tell you how to have fun, believe me.

What makes you think that I don't like novel-length responses?

0) I have never said, nor do I believe, that the NA version of HeroQuest is the "one" or "definitive" or "ultimate" "only" or "final" version of the game. I think it would be silly to say the same thing about the EU version, even if it was released first. I think there's room for these different versions to exist side by side today, just as they have for 3+ decades, and that won't change when the Remake comes out this fall and any future releases. It won't die until fans stop playing and creating content for it.

I am torn on this for a number of reasons: A) Half the fun of any sort of nerdy "edition war" is debating which version is definitive or the best, bearing in mind that in the end, most people just house rule everything anyway; B) Discussion over which edition is best is never a reason to fall out - we are united by more than what divides us as a community. However, C is pulling strongly at my heart - HQ wouldn't exist without GW, and neither would AHQ. GW designed the mechanics, provided the world lore, and created the miniatures. I feel that it is a great disservice to not consider the UK version as the defining version of HQ - just because MB marketed HQ without GW in the US. Nostalgia aside, if HQ was released now, with a global economy, GW's involvement in HQ wouldn't be so easily overlooked, and the argument that HQ isn't set in the Warhammer World wouldn't even be an issue. Likewise, AHQ would probably have received a much bigger market share in the US, and have gotten more love than it did.

This isn't nostalgia, so much as it is cultural appropriation. Your version of HQ, the one you remember and fight for, didn't feature the Warhammer World or GW, because MB didn't market it alongside the Warhammer World or GW. However, in the UK, GW DID market HQ alongside MB, and got shafted for it. Such are the dangers of collab works. But that doesn't mean people should ignore the fact that GW created HQ in the Warhammer World, just because it was overlooked - especially now that Hasbro are doing a remake. This is just as important as if, no matter what Hasbro say, you are still going to call Dread Warriors Chaos Warriors, and you are still going to think that Abominations are really Fimir.

I'm not bothered at what people do at their own tables, because that's all part of the game, but for those interested in sticking to the Lore, and many are, it's important to know where that Lore comes from. If you can dismiss a map on the back of an official expansion as not being official, let alone one as iconic as THAT specific version of the Old World map, then there's no point anybody even attempting to prove to you that HQ is set in the Warhammer World, because you'll simply ignore it anyway. That map wasn't just some tatty sketch, but a renowned piece of artwork depicting the Old World, that had been in existence for some time. The Empire had been fleshed out by GW several years BEFORE HQ was released in the UK for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP).

I get the feeling that the majority of these points are going to come back to this main principle, hence I decided to give this an extensive reply, but I will try and provide more specific arguments below where relevant.

1) Hero Quest is not Warhammer. They are two different things. It's not Battlemasters or Dragonstrike or Dungeons and Dragons or Heroscape or Fantasy Battle either.

Warhammer is currently a brand and an IP, but as a mythos and setting, it has existed a lot longer than that. The Warhammer World has existed in some form from the early 80's, and only became known as the Warhammer World as GW moved to secure their brand. Virtually EVERY GW game in the Warhammer brand has existed in some form or another before being formally called Warhammer. Warhammer 40,000 was originally known as Rogue Trooper, and the catalogue of GW games before they became so Warhammer-centric is kind of staggering. You argue that HQ is not Warhammer, but GW had been working on precursors to HQ for some time, since they started making games themselves. The simple fact is that the early 90's were a time of significant change for GW, and whilst it's easy to argue that HQ is not Warhammer NOW, back then, it would have been a LOT harder to make that argument, especially in the UK.

2) Clearly there is some inspiration from Warhammer mixed in, and not surprising consider who worked on it, but it was a collaborative effort. There's less of it in the version I grew up with.

Collaboratively, GW worked on the lore, the rules, and the miniatures. They routinely provided content sold to MB for HQ. It's worth noting that all the 1st edition UK content stated that HeroQuest was a GW trademark used with permission. Don't know who made this error, as it was corrected in later editions, which may imply that someone overlooked something in the contract, or GW and MB split after the collab.

3) It has never been officially declared that Warhammer and HeroQuest are the same. The closest statement was a line in a couple of novels (that we never read) which state it is "loosely" based on the same world.

GW stated that HQ and AHQ were designed to exist in the same world, allowing you to continue your adventures. GW also said that AHQ was definitely set in the Old World. Simple inference can demonstrate that GW has strongly implied that GW was implying that HQ was also set in the Old World.

Maybe this implication is what drove GW and MB to split, because in the UK, HQ and AHQ were seen as competing products, and fans of GW clearly favoured AHQ which outsold HQ amongst hobbyists (not children in general). As much as GW peddled HQ, they were hampered by licensing agreements, and it seems like something happened between the release of HQ and the release of Kellar's Keep in the UK, which changed the relationship between GW and HB. It's mostly speculation, because without seeing the actual contract between GW and MB, we can never be sure.

4) The NA version and the EU version grew up side by side, they were both official, both have nostalgic, ancient fanbases who still love the product today. In NA, we didn't have the maps "tying it to the Warhammer world...loosely."

Wrong. The NA version was released one year after the UK version. It may not seem like a lot, but a year is a long time for companies to fall out and collabs to break down. It's quite clear that by the time Kellar's Keep was released, the collab between GW and MB was over, and MB emerged with the rights to HeroQuest, whilst GW retained the Warhammer World.

5) You're nostalgic for the version of Hero Quest you grew up with (just like I am for mine), but that doesn't mean other fans can't be nostalgic for their DIFFERENT (but equal) separate continuity Hero Quest versions.

Nostalgia is one thing, but the would with HQ is a little bit more than just nostalgia. There are two version of the UK edition, because something happened between GW and MB, between the release of the 1st edition and the next. Something that I fear will be completely written out of history if not preserved.

Personally, I don't care that your game is or isn't set in the Warhammer World, but many people's games are, and the reprint will see an interesting rewrite of the HQ lore. It would serve if, in discussions of lore, we weren't still begging the question of whether HQ was intended to be set in the Warhammer World or not. Rather, it would make MORE sense to note whether sources are from primary HQ sources, or from secondary Warhammer sources that might not be relevant to people's campaigns. Especially given how many of the fan expansions here happen to be based on aspects of Warhammer Lore...

6) This is fiction, fantasy entertainment. "Canon" is irrelevant unless you're using it as some kind of guide to ensure continuity in your series of writings. They aren't making new Hero Quest adventures anymore (well, until next year). The writers of Heroquest are YOU AND ME because that's how the game was made, it was supposed to continue however you wanted after you defeated the included quests. All fantasy fiction is loosely based on real life in some sense, but unlike reality, we can mold fantasy to our hearts content (just can't profit off of it unless we hold the right papers!).

Canon isn't as irrelevant as you think it is, because it's entire purpose is to provide wider consistency within a body of work. That means the discussions don't just apply to your writings, but serve to see if your additions fit with the existing material. If it doesn't, people want to know HOW and WHY it doesn't, simply so they know whether to ignore it or amend it as appropriate. This is because many undertake knowledge gathering of any specific mythos as if it was an academic endeavour, and not everyone wants to work out everything over, from scratch when others have already done that work before.

It's like the effort Busby went to to unify the official content with his quest, Tears of Times Passed. He includes a timeline which gives greater context to this quest and it's purpose, as well as how to play the official content in a sensible order. This has meant that I DON'T have to build such a timeline from scratch for MY campaign. If YOU want to do something different, then go ahead, but that doesn't make canon irrelevant in general. No matter how many house rules people use, they still want a consistent set of rules so they know they are playing broadly the same game, if only so they can see what's different between their version and others.

7) Even if Stephen Baker himself, or Hasbro the current owners, or even if somehow GW got involved again and made a decision to "unify" the canon, if you, me, or any other fans didnt' like it, we would IGNORE it and go back to the "tradition" we liked, the one we grew up with.

8) Our imaginations allow us to make up whatever we want about this "world." The official stuff is vague enough and different enough that there is no need to fight about it or try to get everyone on the same side.

9) If you love Warhammer, play Warhammer. Use all your favorite Warhammer stuff in Hero Quest. Hasbro doesn't care, I don't care. Enjoy! I don't see the big deal, because that's just not the version I grew up with, and since I didn't play Warhammer (I knew plenty of people in college that did) I don't care to expend the effort to try to learn it all and make it "fit" somehow on my own.

10) We're all going to do what we want to do anyway and have fun on our own terms, no matter what Hasbro does with this IP.

Going to lump these all together, because the summation of most of your argument seems to be "I don't need it, so why bother?" The problem is that there's more than you out there in the HQ community, and if you don't need it, then it's okay to move right along. If we had this whole "Why bother?" attitude, the Inn wouldn't be here today. We need to look at what's important, and what's easier, for people. Is it easier for you to ignore references to Warhammer that you find irrelevant, than it is for me to add them in with the existing Warhammer references?

Personally though, I think the fact that we both is what makes us passionate about HQ in the first place. How we express that might differ, but the passion doesn't, and that alone is enough to make people bother. Whether how I bother is relevant to you and how you bother is debatable.

Re: point 9, I was working on the impression that you MIGHT be interested in learning more about Warhammer and GW, especially seeing as you didn't have the UK experience like I did, which I feel puts a whole new perspective on HQ. If that doesn't interest you, then don't worry about it - move along or talk about something else. I won't take offence!

I think it's great that you love GW and Warhammer. I've seen some of their character designs and some of them look absolutely awesome and if I had more money to burn and time I'd probably get some of them. Otherwise are just not to my taste at all. Not everybody shares your love of it, maybe I'm alone in that. I wouldn't assume that anyone who loves HQ must automatically love WHF as well.

So maybe something exists in WHF, or works a certain way in WHF, that doesn't impose that standard onto HQ at all. It will never even come up, unless A) you do it yourself in your own creation or B) Hasbro puts it into one of their new products (which as a fan, you don't HAVE to buy, and you can still mod it to something else!). So if you're writing a quest, it doesn't have to conform to some map, especially not one in another version of the game you never heard of until decades after you put the game into mothballs.

PS: I was 11 when you got Hero Quest, and we started playing it the year after you did. I visited the Inn around '02. No street cred battles needed here.

Peace!

It's not so much about loving GW and Warhammer, as it is about loving the history of UK tabletop gaming, and how integral GW was as part of that. The GW we see now is vastly different from the GW we saw from back in the day, and HQ is part of the transition of GW, and a pivotal part of their story. Nostalgia-wise, it's the golden hey-day of GW when they actually made games, and not everything was so focused on Warhammer miniatures gaming. I was never the target demographic for Warhammer, since I didn't have the money nor the space to have entire model armies, so the boxed games were better for me. It's a bit like someone talking about the golden age of comic books or pulp fiction.

You might want to dig back through the archives at some of GW's older stuff, if only to get an idea of just how much they've changed. Their earlier stuff may appeal to you more than their modern material, as there was clearly a different aesthetic brought about by a different breed of artists than today. Les Edwards was a GW artist, and did many pieces for GW, and helped establish the aesthetic of the Warhammer World over the decades...

[Davane]

For your sake, Davane, I hope they don't put any maps in the new Quest book(s), just because it probably wouldn't look like the one you remember. Then you can more easily insert whatever you want into that blank space! But we both know, you'll do that anyway... as would I!

Heys, I almost resent that! I'm still figuring out when is the best time to put Rise of the Chaos God into my HQ campaign, and that looks NOTHING like the Warhammer World...

Doesn't mean I don't want convincing reasons why a party of heroes would suddenly trust an Orc Bard that has no issue slaughtering other Orcs... If it's a new culture of Orcs, then I want to hear more about it! Still, WHQ had a Chaos Warrior as a hero, but I guess if you aren't literate and ignore the star of Chaos Undivided on their Armour, they could just seem like another Plate-clad Murder Hobo!

[Kurgan]

Book length replies are my specialty, but are they any good to read, that's the trick...

Wrong. The NA version was released one year after the UK version. It may not seem like a lot, but a year is a long time for companies to fall out and collabs to break down. It's quite clear that by the time Kellar's Keep was released, the collab between GW and MB was over, and MB emerged with the rights to HeroQuest, whilst GW retained the Warhammer World.

That seems nitpicky to me. Games don't just appears out of nowhere and then disappear the next moment. They get released, they exist, and people play them. The copy you purchase doesn't burst into flame the moment the company decides to go in a different direction or stop printing new copies to sell. So "you know what I mean" when I say the game known as "Hero Quest" existed in multiple different iterations for many years. Otherwise we would say "Hero Quest... there is no such thing, this is a game that will be released in Fall 2021." If this were a subscription based online game and Hasbro could just force all the servers to patch to a new version or take them down, that would be one thing, but physical games exist. They can even exist if all the copies fell apart into nothing, so long as the knowledge of how to run them still existed, they could be recreated from that data.

Once physical games are released, they are out there, period. Even if all companies were to fold, and all creators die or renounce their work, our fandom would still exist, hence, we're not beholden to their control.

This is another reason why I say this "canon" is irrelevant. It would be one thing if Hasbro (or whomever) was holding some kind of well-regulated tournament in which there were entry requirements as to what rules and edition(s) were permitted. That would mean "professional" players would be "forced" to adopt a certain standard in order to participate (though it wouldn't eliminate casual games with different rules and features... consider how the existence of professional leagues like the NFL or NBA don't stop the existence of pickup games of basketball or football among amateurs).

Aside from this scenario, sure, if Hasbro wanted to sue somebody into the ground for infringing on their copyright, they could do it, but they aren't able to invade people's homes and snatch away their antique game systems or wag their finger and say "no, sorry that didn't happen, take it back!" It would be really goofy to see a company to do anything close to that, like demanding that all players use the term "The Demon King" for the game master instead of Morcar or Zargon.

So in the final analysis, who does "canon" matter to? It matters to players, but only to varying degrees. Your desire to incorporate material you feel "ought to" be part of the world, or you think "rightfully belongs" (I'm putting words in your mouth), is just that. Another player has a different idea. Yeah, it's more fun to argue and say "my way is best."

I'm with (I think it was whitbeard) who said embrace ambiguity. Even authorial intent is less important here, other than for curiosity or historical scholarly purposes. Hence why when a well respected creator of a successful franchise says "well I always intended everyone in the story to be a little person" (George Lucas), nobody has to accept that, because what we were given on screen is very different.

If I had grown up playing Hero Quest in Japan... this thing we're calling "Rise of the Chaos God" would BE Heroquest for me. The other versions would seem odd, even interesting, but they would be someone else's nostalgia pit. I like that we gather together as a community to share experiences. So EU players can finally experience the Frozen Horror and the Mage of the Mirror... while others who might think they lack the "true spirit" of Warhammer, might drop them on the ground like a hot potato. As an NA player I can enjoy the Ogre Horde and Wizards of Morcar and the Dark Company. That's cool, when back in the day, unless you were traveling internationally and happened to come across the different material, you'd be nonethewiser.

Warhammer is just a different game. When I write my quests, I don't worry about fitting everything into the WHF mythos or ask myself "what would Games Workshop think of this?" Maybe you do, and more power to you.

What is "canon" in Hero Quest? Maybe you'd want it to be the EU 2nd edition of the game. But what about later editions? Those don't count? I don't see how you can get around the logical existence of those other "official" versions. When you play, you have a choice to make... what edition are you going to play? Or are you going to play some kind of hybrid? But I would say at the very base it's what's in front of you. Maybe Sigmar(tm) the deified hero exists in your copy. Or maybe he doesn't. But the rulebook doesn't actually say. So even if you were trying to respect the "intent" or "wishes" of a particular set of designers, it seems even they are encouraging you to freely make that choice. I was amused at the threads discussing the many names of the Heroes. How many quartets of Elves, Dwarves, Barbarians and Wizards did Mentor recruit in the fight against Morcar? We know about Rogar and company, but the story unfolds the way you play it. If they create some separate interpretation of the lore in some novel, that doesn't dictate how the games actually go, and since a game is meant to be played, and doesn't have a pre-scripted outcome, that's the whole thing! Maps are just window dressing.. the gameplay doesn't change whether they are there or not. If you're hard up for ideas and you want to go with the "it must be found in Warhammer" route, that could be a source of inspiration. But we've seen how people have reached into other places too, like the D&D world, or Tolkien, or Skyrim or the Legend of Zelda. I made up a bunch of stuff myself for my own sessions (based on real history, comic books, and stuff we made up in childhood).

The basic game gives you some sample names but asks you to NAME the characters. Hence there's no single "canonical" name for them. And so it goes. I consider a map to be more of a decoration, a suggestion of a larger world. It's like how in Star Wars there was no real "backstory" developed, just a few basic elements outlined ("clone wars" happened, Empire took over the Republic, Jedi were wiped out, Darth Vader turned to evil), and it took later movies and stories to be written (from scratch) to create the "canon" explanation (and fans quibbled about how well they lived up to expectations and introduced other incongruities).

I am skeptical that Hasbro will hire writers to create a 10 page detailed description of the world we're meant to embrace. Like I said, if they did, they would only disappoint those who think it should have been different or wasn't as cool as it could be.

[Kurgan]

When I was a kid we only knew one "Hero Quest." When you mentioned that term, we thought of the board game produced in 1990 with Zargon as the white bearded bad guy sending orcs and mummies after the four valiant Heroes while they risked it all for reward and fame. A decade later, I learned that multiple variations on this theme existed. Hence, when I play today, I have to pick one, or make my own blend...

Do Warhammer players stop and say "wait a minute... are you sure we can do that? This might contradict something in Hero Quest!" I doubt they do, if they ever did... When I was growing up, Hero Quest was introduced for kids (it was a family game, but clearly targeted at young boys) and Warhammer was seen as an adult game... for college age and higher for those with lots of free time (and money to spend building terrain maps and painting huge armies of miniatures.... a rather expensive hobby, the poor folk played D&D that only required a few books and dice).

For your sake, Davane, I hope they don't put any maps in the new Quest book(s), just because it probably wouldn't look like the one you remember. Then you can more easily insert whatever you want into that blank space! But we both know, you'll do that anyway... as would I!

Heys, I almost resent that! I'm still figuring out when is the best time to put Rise of the Chaos God into my HQ campaign, and that looks NOTHING like the Warhammer World...

Doesn't mean I don't want convincing reasons why a party of heroes would suddenly trust an Orc Bard that has no issue slaughtering other Orcs... If it's a new culture of Orcs, then I want to hear more about it! Still, WHQ had a Chaos Warrior as a hero, but I guess if you aren't literate and ignore the star of Chaos Undivided on their Armour, they could just seem like another Plate-clad Murder Hobo!

In my gaming sessions the "Japan" campaign is going on simultaneously with the "mainland" (continental?) campaign. One set of Heroes (the original four) are fighting the Ogre Horde, while the Legacy of Sorasil inspired heroes are going on missions in the eastern islands.

And on top of that some of the Heroes who are as we speak holding up in the Ogre headquarters, are simultaneously going on solo missions in the frozen north and the elven lands. Now I could just say "we're just playing a game, forget about everything except what is happening right now" but I thought it would be cool to play them as if there was some kind of continuity between them. We get to play so rarely, I've even figured that when you accomplish something with a character one place, it crosses over into another (not always, but often). So if my brother was playing as the Barbarian and found an artifact, and later my friend played, he'd have it already. Some would disagree with this approach, but I make sure to make it plenty challenging for whomever is playing (and if they want the fun of starting from scratch I'm not going to begrudge it). After all, maybe you want to be the first one to fight the Elven bracers or kill the Witch Lord then that's how we'll do it.

But for my run as Zargon, Mentor is sending people back in time, and other times it's a flash back, but all of the quests (except then one where everybody fails) I try to tie together somehow.

One player had their character die a few times. I could have just "followed the rules" by making them start from scratch with a new name, etc. but instead I came up with alternative scenarios. One Wizard got himself killed... I had him become a Zombi, that the other Heroes had to track down and try to cure with an antidote. I had a Barbarian who died be found barely alive by some villagers who ransomed him from an Ogre that had dragged him off to be eaten, and allowed to start the mission from a different angle with some different gear. An elf who perished, I had Mentor send another Elf through a time portal before the first one's death to try prevent it. I didn't have to do that, but it was fun trying to fit it all together somehow, that no matter how fantastical, felt like it might be plausible in this universe. So I don't begrudge anyone's fun trying to harmonize or rationalize sources or come up with connections where none actually officially existed. If you die in the past, what happens? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Maybe there really are "many worlds" in this particular universe...?

In the Mirror Universe, Morcar is the good guy, and Mentor was the one who turned to evil. After killing off the Chaos gods, Morcar finds the cosmic bridge to "our" world and attempts to stop his evil counterpart from the path of self destruction. Meanwhile, E.T. was having tea with Yoda in his favorite Jawa bar...

[Davane]

My point, Kurgan, is that the UK and US editions were released a year apart, and in that year, the split between GW and MB led to MB (and now Hasbro) trying to distance themselves from that GW legacy. I believe that legacy shouldn't be removed, but instead should be remembered, if not embraced.

Is HQ set in the Warhammer World? I would argue that it is - but there's nothing stopping you from changing the Warhammer World to fit what you want to play. Some people like canon, some people don't. HQ's involvement in the Warhammer World gave certain assumptions that meant there was no need to question them. That way, the focus can be spent on the adventures and the stories within, not on world building, because the world already exists.

You want to create a new island for HQ, that's perfectly fine. You want to add another Dwarf Hold to the World's Edge Mountains, go right ahead. Want inspiration for a new quest pack? Crack open any sourcebook from Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and there's a wealth of content that already exists, ripe for exploiting.

You can play HQ without a world, after all, most of the story is outside of the quests anyway, so it doesn't really matter if it's part of the Warhammer World or not. Play however you want to. You can set HQ in Faerun for all I care - it's your game. I'm not talking about how HQ should be played. That's up to you - do what's fun.

But many discussions about HQ are not about PLAYING HQ. They are almost academic in their nature, looking at what the storyline is, it's real world history (GW/MB collab, GW history of designing the Old World, Gaming around the world back in the early 90's), as well as the internal history of the setting.

Looking academically at the history of HQ, it was intentionally linked with the Warhammer World. Evidence, use of names, species, and so forth, supports this. The conclusions has to be, that HQ was set in the Warhammer World, and as such many people will play it as such. But just as many don't. For those that DO, the concern is exactly how Hasbro intends to divorce HQ from the Warhammer World, or if it's just going to create new stuff.

The HQ reprint reminds me of when GW reprinted Space Hulk or Blood Bowl. There's plenty of people requesting that they come back into print, but most already have the original content. Therefore, the real demand isn't to reprint these products, but to provide support and extra content for it. THAT'S where the money is.

Thing is, we don't know what Hasbro intends to do with this reprint. Are they just going to release all the old stuff, or is there going to be anything new besides the stretch goals? Is there going to be a new entry to the canon?

The biggest concern about HQ is exactly how it will be changed by new stuff, and will the Warhammer World still be compatible for those that want to use it?

However, most of this is academic, because at the end of the day, it's still HQ, which is a dungeon system where heroes fight monsters in a location created by the Evil Wizard, and everything storywise is wrapped outside of it. It's all semantics, because it doesn't really matter what that story wrapping actually is, because the core of HQ is still going to be that dungeon, fighting monsters.

Canon is useful because it helps guide you where to look for more inspiration if you are lost, and helps you focus on key questions of your campaign because certain questions are already answered. You don't need to examine the motives of the Orcs in the quest - because in the Warhammer World, Orcs are spawned from fungi in the Badlands with the instinct to fight. There's nothing stopping you from examining the motives of the Orcs, especially if they behave oddly (an Orc Bard? WTF?) but it gives you base to work from so you can focus the game and the story on what's important - which is normally killing Monsters in Dungeons for Loot. Why doesn't come into it - because if you don't want to kill Monsters in Dungeons for Loot, why are you even playing HQ?

[j_dean80]

My big ? mark is about the transfer of Fimir to Abominations. There’s a Quest where a Fimir casts a Rust Spell. Looking at the Abomination model, it just doesn’t spell out “intelligent design” to me. As in, does it have the mental capability to cast a spell? It looks more like a mindless beast like “Creature from the Black Lagoon”.

[torilen]

I'm just jumping in here in the middle of something, because a specific comment stood out to me as I skimmed through.
So, if this has been said, or is off current topic, sorry.

In reference to canon material: This really does not matter for a HQ style game, except where there is going to be a
continuing storyline or plot in the game and in sequel game packs. Example - the original HQ pack, and the kellar's
keep and return of the witch lord expansions. But even with this...and it has been a while since I have read the
expansions, so I may be wrong...the storyline ended with RotWL pack, right? So canon material would only apply
to those three gamepacks.

Canon material matters much more when there is a full world involved in the game, and there will be multiple
adventures released, and what happens in the adventures changes the world. And then, the writers and designers
would have to: 1 - release the adventures, wait for a while, and then make up an ending to the storyline
and simply write a change to the world, or 2 - play the adventures through themselves and use their own game
sessions as the "official" storyline for the change in the world, or 3 - have gaming groups send in notes for their
game sessions and then the writers/designers pick what looks best to them and use that for the "official" canon
material.

This, of course, would matter if there are going to be written stories/books for the gaming world.

Otherwise, canon material does not matter. Take our fan material, for example. There has been a sort of
canonization of some of the particular older fan-made questbooks, packs that everyone talks about and
pushes as necessary reading for HQ gaming. Local legends questpack comes to mind as an example. Me
personally, I use the main questpack, and the four expansions, and whatever I have added to the game
as my own personal canon, since there is nothing "official". If I didn't write SO MUCH of my own stuff, I
would probably look to certain material here as canon...items from those fans who have been here forever
and who have added a lot to the game.

[Pancho]

Torilen,

The storyline didn’t end with KK and RotWL. It continued with Against the Ogre Horde, which references the previous adventures, and then Wizards of Morcar, which in turn references back to the Ogre pack directly.

The two American packs don’t reference Ogres or Wizards, so I guess they can’t be proven to continue the story in a strict sense, but they still do reasonably well in an informal sense.

[Kurgan]

So Davane, you're admitting that changes in canon can happen because of "behind the scenes" stuff involving marketing and legal issues, right? That doesn't seem controversial.

One constant in these forums is that there is no single vision of how Hero Quest ought to be, everybody's idea is slightly different. And while there are debates on here and exchanges, ultimately there's a mutual respect and tolerance of different visions. Nobody's fandom is being doubted, everybody just has different things they like about the game and different ideas about how to "make it better." I think it's great that this isn't a bunch of old jaded gamers trying to keep the past going because they can't enjoy new things, it's simply keeping alive something they enjoy, which was always based around creating your own content from the very start... a game which itself was based on modifications of existing properties and spin offs of previous ideas.

I'm not so much arguing that these artificial ways in which the canon was shaped "should" be honored. I go back and forth between wanting to always support "author's intention" and giving nostalgia its due for the product presented as is to the public and allowed to garner a following.

I'm not nostalgic about "Morcar" or "Skaven" or "the Warhammer world" because that wasn't part of the game I played and came to love. I can appreciate those things now, seeing the history and parallel development of the game in different territory. So I have no problem with scenarios involving "chaos gods" and so forth.

This touches on the other point of what parts of the Hasbro Remake people here like or dislike. I am not "upset" about "Dread Warriors/Abominations" because it's taking out "Warhammer" from the mythos, and that somehow I feel this is disrespectful to Games Workshop which "ought" to have their mark on HQ preserved. Rather, it's because it's (to me) an unnecessary change from the "thing I loved" that I wanted to see released again. I can appreciate the new designs for what they are and I can UNDERSTAND the reasons why things were changed.

If the Games workshop relationship changed in the 1 year between HQ's release in the UK and North America, I can't say. I have never researched this topic and rely upon the reports of people in these forums, honestly. I don't care that much to learn. But the fact remains, regardless of what happened behind the scenes, is that over here we got a certain product, played that for years and that was "Hero Quest" to us, just as the other territories got theirs. The attitude that somehow we "should" or "ought" to impose the "original vision" of Hero Quest on the whole world... that is better than imposing some other vision on the whole world? I'm not actually in favor of the idea that "Hasbro Remake" is the one and only canon of Hero Quest. If we're going to insist on "canon" this is where the problem comes in. Who has the "authority" to "define canon"? It's the owners of the property, isn't it? Because they can say "sorry UK players, Fimirs and Chaos Warriors don't exist... this is not set in the Warhammer world" and they can also say "sorry NA players, that guy was Mentor all along, also these certain elements from the European version, which you never knew about in your childhood, are part of the gameplay now." So in that sense EVERYBODY's Hero Quest is "changing." Not because you can no longer enjoy the classic versions (nothing stops that), but the general public, unless they are informed by us fans, or are curious enough to learn, will probably underestimate the extent of the changes and not appreciate what came before.

I certainly don't appreciate the Warhammer stuff. It's simply a novelty to me, not "how it ought to be." Someone, using a critical eye, could bash transformers and say it's a ripoff series. It's just a rehash of some old toys to try to sell them again to a new generation of kids who doesn't remember the originals. But it became famous in its own right. And like so many franchises that have been remade, you have different generations of iterations of the product that are different. So to some people that is "Convoy" to others it's "Optimus Prime." Some people want the Dinobots to be blue and silver, others want them to be red and gold.

Authorial intent may not always coincide with who owns the legal rights. George Lucas can say whatever he wants about Star Wars, but the product that exists is what exists. He changed his own movies a half a dozen times as "special editions" and tried to get people to embrace those over the originals (some did, some didn't). Then he sold it and all the creative control was given to other people (and now I've heard he works sort of as an advisor in a very limited capacity with some friendly directors who work on the new franchise, but his role is minimal).

Stephen Baker seems to me, to be a kind of guest writer, a collaborator or advisor this time, rather than like some kind of head creative director or designer. So his opinions may be respected by fans, but Hero Quest for many is no longer just what he wanted, or anybody else who worked on the original project(s). So there's good and bad in that. What ultimately matters to PLAYERS like me is what the product is like. The history of its development, the economics and politics are more a simple curiosity. It's too bad the collaboration didn't last. For better or for worse, we got what we got.

The EU versions of the game I think had some cool things that us NA players never got. Now modification of the game is part of the game, and was intended from the start, so it's easy to take that official material from other versions, seasoned to taste, and incorporate them into your own sessions. It will be the same way with the Remake.

And decades from now, if anyone still cares about the 2021 version, who knows, maybe people who grew up with that version will love that one the best and will incorporate new material into theirs as well.

From an economic standpoint, I can understand if they don't do localizations this time. To me then the idea of incorporating nostalgic material from the other versions makes sense. Yes, in a way the NA version seems "more complete" or "more refined" but in other ways it is missing some key things. Here I'm talking about the thing as a whole... so the EU version is all the expansions released for that territory, and the NA version has its own expansions. You've got different rules, and you've got equipment cards vs. armory, and a few extra artifacts, but apart from variations in the art, it's basically the same thing. The expansions and some of the window dressing are where the differences come up that we've been talking about. Some "little things" are really important to certain people.

Hence, you won't please everybody with this Remake. People who want to buy it but don't like this or that will have to make their own versions or "deal." It's a lot easier with a customizable board game with a built in modding fan base, as opposed to say, Star Wars where certain fans will make "edits" of the movies to portray the version they want to see the best, with nobody agreeing completely on which changes or edits are best.

I think it would be cool if somehow, legally, Games Workshop, even if they couldn't work directly with Hasbro to create the ultimate "remake" tripping all our nostalgia triggers, could at some later time, release something that could be used to smooth that out for hardcore fans. But it looks like at this point, that doesn't exist. At best you'll get side projects like Warhammer Quest or the aborted Anniversary gamezone project that people can cannibalize for ideas to make the remake "more like what they wanted."

The best advice, short of a well written letter to Hasbro (CC: Gamesworkshop?) is to just DO IT YOURSELF. If it's good, it will attract others, and while it may never be as big as something official they could put out, it will create a niche community that you can be proud of.

PS: I was gifted a box of Warhammer 40k Orks not so long ago. I still don't have a use for them on the gaming table (been wracking my brain for one... capture the flag?), so they're just a side painting project. But these don't have to be acknowledged as part of my HQ games, other stuff can exist that isn't part of this. There, I created my own fan "canon." Pretty easy. But since I can change it and play with it any way I want to, what is the point? Is someone going to start complaining during "Grim's Crag" that there should have been Orks with guns in those passages?

[Kurgan]

One doesn't have to be a fan or player of Warhammer fantasy to be a fan or player of Hero Quest.

Torilen,

The storyline didn’t end with KK and RotWL. It continued with Against the Ogre Horde, which references the previous adventures, and then Wizards of Morcar, which in turn references back to the Ogre pack directly.

The two American packs don’t reference Ogres or Wizards, so I guess they can’t be proven to continue the story in a strict sense, but they still do reasonably well in an informal sense.

You're forgetting that Ogres featured in Mage of the Mirror. And while the Wizards of Morcar and Festral don't get mentioned, the Mercenaries are taken straight from the Men at Arms featured in Advanced Quest and WOM.

NA players never got ATOH or WOM or the Dark Company. That's too bad, they seemed cool (and we can play them now, thanks to ebay and the inn). And European players can enjoy Mage of the Mirror and the Frozen Horror. Each to their own. Even without an explicit explanation of how all the quest packs fit together, you can pretty easily figure out one that makes sense. Ogres have always been around, the Ogre Horde is just one instance where they were organized against the Empire. That doesn't stop individual Ogres from acting as mercenaries or just wandering around looking for fights and food. Did Zargon surrender once his four lieutenants were defeated? I have my doubts. Pretty much every quest pack ends with some kind of cliffhanger or suggestion that more adventures could be ahead. But WOM doesn't seem to have an epilogue (at least from the scans I've seen). Does that mean it's "the end"? Clearly not, simply leaving it blank means the adventure continues as it always has, with you creating your own stories. Zargon/Morcar is not defeated. Just as he did in the past, he'll regroup and attack again. Do the Heroes retire after that "final conflict"? Surely not! A hero's work is never done...

So who controls the Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror? I imagine the decision to release new expansions is up in the air, but why would they choose to remake those rather than the EU exclusive packs? Probably some behind the scenes stuff, right? Either way, if they only release one territory's expansions some potential buyers will feel left out. All of those packs are super rare and expensive, being fought over by collectors online, but back in the day, how well did they sell? I never saw EQP/BQP in stores (and didn't know anybody who had them), we only knew about them from the fliers in KK/ROTWL that advertised them through the mail (wish I had ordered them back then at that cheap price... but considering how tough they were, we probably would have been very frustrated to play them as kids).

The Hasbro (or were they Avalon Hill?) reps said in the Q&A that they were interested in feedback on future expansions. We're getting two brand new ones but people don't seem that excited about them (during the fund raiser people were super excited about the Stephen Baker one, but there was so little information... one intro to the return to Melar's Maze quest and the "training quest" which didn't seem to be all that... it had a pretty muted reaction). I guess you can't comment on what you don't know.

I'm all for more stuff getting released, but if they don't think they'll make their money back with the effort, I imagine they won't try very hard to get that done. They were willing to risk selling sight-unseen new material though. That makes me think there may be some rights issue with all of the existing expansions, or else they must feel that since fewer people know those than the first two universally released expansions (sorry, except you Japan) it might not get the nostalgia bucks. But then nobody was nostalgic for the "Spirit Queen's Torment" or asked for the "Prophecy of Telor" they were just intrigued by the idea of S. Baker making something new after all these years.

Edit: I looked again and Against the Ogre Horde, like Wizards of Morcar, doesn't really have an epilogue to it either (assuming the scans are accurate). It just leads you to believe that once you escape to the surface you will be helping the Empire's armies against the Horde. So possibly a lead-in to Battle Masters? ( Just kidding, I have no idea... but there's a new Ogre type unit in that game as well! Was Battlemasters released in the UK ? Was it different? I never had it. ).

Edit 2: Yes, canon matters in terms of doing a series, I agree. If the canon defines the Witchlord as being alive and having an army of undead, then that will influence you to portray him that way. But what if a quest ends with: "well, that was the last orc on the planet. Since you killed him, the Orcs are extinct forever!" ? Does that mean now you have to melt your greenskins down and never use them again? "Uh... well this quest takes place BEFORE that happened..." "that was just a dream" "using magic, some new orcs were created" it would be a stupid thing to introduce, but you could get around it so easily. "wait, the Witch Lord is dead!" "Well I guess he survived or was revived somehow" "You can't have him commanding orcs!" "Well he hired some that escaped the genocide... sorry." The Hasbro owners can use the concept of "canon" to leverage more sales if they want to, but in the end, the players will decide what they think is cool and do what they want to. If they suddenly reached an agreement with GW and they are going to leverage sales of Warhammer materials or something, I guess they could try that. One reason I didn't get into the Warhammer franchise in the first place was the rather large cost involved of being on the level with your peers. HeroQuest starts pretty modestly, and its up to you how much you spend on it but the initial investment is pretty small (especially if you saved the game you had all those years ago, instead of buying an antique off ebay). But yeah, if you want to view the EU stories are all being a strict chronology (see the many threads guessing about how it all fits together) and the NA exclusives as "side stories" or one-offs that's fine. And don't forget about the Japanese game system... You could have many canons out there, what the fans think, what the owners think and what the creators think... and of the fans, what individuals allow in their sessions.