Ye Olde Inn

Q - Do you think a Modular System of House Rules would be an advantage for us as HQ players?

A - I do think a modular system would be beneficial but I feel the forum would better benefit from numerous House Rule Modules. When I say House Rule Modules I'm thinking, versions, so correct me if I'm wrong. Someplace on the forum you could present various modules starting with a Standard Module which could contain inclusions to the game without modification of its original rules (Keeping the game as untainted as possible). Other modules could support their own special design with each module explaining that version's changes. I don't recommend a 'Forum Representative' module because such a thing could impact Ye Olde Inn's professional credibility if for any reason it isn't well balanced and since contributions to that module would be coming in from an array of people, there will be lots of disagreements and lots of vulnerability to imbalance. You could introduce different modules and players could contribute ideas to each, then the overseer of each module could approve ideas and officially include them within the modules. The Official modules could be listed in its own location so no one can reply or modify it except Ye Olde Inn's staff while ideas from players could be contained within another location.

Idea modules could include but are not limited to...

Standard Hero Quest Module - Supportive of content that works in conjunction with Hero Quests original rules and play. Suggested content needs to be stand alone (self balanced). Examples would be new characters that are equally as powerful as standard HQ characters, new Treasure, Artifact and other such cards. I realize the forum already contains lots of custom content but combined as one module, all that content would lead to many imbalances. This module would basically be the 'We approve these elements to be used with the Hero Quest System' listing. In many ways, this would be the forums main module. It'd show precisely how well Ye Olde Inn can differentiate and provide custom content without perverting the game. As such, this module would need to be handled by an experienced and capable GM.

Hero Quest, Childrens version - Supportive elements for a more simplified version of Hero Quest suitable for interested children of a much younger age. I got the idea for this when I noticed my kids huddling around to watch me play Hero Quest. They became engrossed and watched silently so I got an urge to include them in on the fun. I started by asking them what they thought I should do and eventually developed a game they could participate in. I had so much fun including my kids in on this version and as they grow older, they follow me to the original Hero Quest Module.

Hero Quest, the Gathering - Supportive elements for a strategy based card game version of Hero Quest. So much fun here, so much fun. A version of this could even be made so the board game and card game work together in that while playing the board game version, Heroes could obtain things for the card game and vice versa.

Monopoly Hero Quest - Clearly, a Hero Quest themed game of monopoly that includes a small scale battle system and such.

And so on and so forth.

Jafazo wrote:Q - Do you think a Modular System of House Rules would be an advantage for us as HQ players?

A - I do think a modular system would be beneficial but I feel the forum would better benefit from numerous House Rule Modules. When I say House Rule Modules I'm thinking, versions, so correct me if I'm wrong. Someplace on the forum you could present various modules starting with a Standard Module which could contain inclusions to the game without modification of its original rules (Keeping the game as untainted as possible). Other modules could support their own special design with each module explaining that version's changes....

Read the first pages of this thread to get at what was intended--I believe it was more of a standard module in your classification. Pay particular attention to what Big Bene had to say, as it was mainly his brainchild. It's far down my to-do list, but someday I may get around to linking various non-modular houserules from forum members using the modular system outline from this thread. It would present a cohesive reference of individual houserules (often incompatible with each other, so not modular), but I'd need a lot of spare time to get it underway and it would require updating to keep it current. Torilen may also take up the project again in some fashion should enough interest be forthcoming.

Though work on the modular system fell by the wayside, others are developing their own systems of houserules. Go to the Adventurer's Guild Forum and check out Altdorf Chronicles and HeroQuest Prime for some dedicated examples. Many of knightkrawler's houserules have also been posted in the HeroQuest Additions>Rules forum. I'm sure you can find many more forum member houserule sets at various levels of completion there.

Jafazo wrote:Hero Quest, Childrens version - Supportive elements for a more simplified version of Hero Quest suitable for interested children of a much younger age. I got the idea for this when I noticed my kids huddling around to watch me play Hero Quest. They became engrossed and watched silently so I got an urge to include them in on the fun. I started by asking them what they thought I should do and eventually developed a game they could participate in. I had so much fun including my kids in on this version and as they grow older, they follow me to the original Hero Quest Module.

Interesting. How old are/were your kids when you started this? Can you give some examples of modification?

Hero Quest, Childrens version - Supportive elements for a more simplified version of Hero Quest suitable for interested children of a much younger age. I got the idea for this when I noticed my kids huddling around to watch me play Hero Quest. They became engrossed and watched silently so I got an urge to include them in on the fun. I started by asking them what they thought I should do and eventually developed a game they could participate in. I had so much fun including my kids in on this version and as they grow older, they follow me to the original Hero Quest Module.

As my kid is 22 months, i would be most interested in the kid's version, too.

Daedalus wrote:I'm sure you can find many more forum member houserule sets at various levels of completion there.

This gives me a stab into the heart. I wish I had more time or ioncentive to actually get creative for the two hours a day I have.
I'm so fraggled up lazy.

You and I both. It's a hobby, not a job. You'll get it done. At least, that's what I tell myself about my own rules.

Never spotted this thread before... Going to need to read up on it when I get the chance

knightkrawler wrote:I'm so fraggled up lazy.

We all have our moments and make sure it doesn't become habitual, that's when the real problems start.

Anderas wrote:

Hero Quest, Childrens version - Supportive elements for a more simplified version of Hero Quest suitable for interested children of a much younger age. I got the idea for this when I noticed my kids huddling around to watch me play Hero Quest. They became engrossed and watched silently so I got an urge to include them in on the fun. I started by asking them what they thought I should do and eventually developed a game they could participate in. I had so much fun including my kids in on this version and as they grow older, they follow me to the original Hero Quest Module.

As my kid is 22 months, i would be most interested in the kid's version, too.

This is an interesting idea. Has anything more been done for it? Might I propose a couple of ideas to make HQ playable for younger children...

Halving the size of the board. Some children have good attention spans, but some games go for a long time, I think halving the board would help keep things simple.

Having a single dice system for attack and defend. You either hit or get hit, or you don't and it's one point each time you hit. Maybe some tougher monsters can bring in two dice both for the heroes and the monster just to make it a bit more fun.

A single trap maximum per room or hallway.

Maybe a 'campfire' option that allows them to play for 45 mins and then require their heroes to rest for a while before resuming play.

I've mauled around the idea of advancement for years, and I'll share my conclusions with the forum as my first post on this board.

There are two ways to approach the topic: Skill advancement, and Level advancement.

After careful consideration, I decided that a leveling approach would be best, as one can control, and grade what statistics are improved, how fast, and when. It limits the player's choices some, but maintains simplicity, and allows Zargon to determine the relative strength of a character, so he can set the appropriate challenge.

Okay, now that we've decided to use leveling, how do you award experience. Experience is a function of GOLD. Its cost the next level x 1000 to move to the next level. Essentially the character is paying for training. So, 2000 gold to get from level 1 to level 2. 3000 gold to get from level 2 to level 3, and so on.

What improves:

Attacks. Improved attacks allow the character to add an additional die to their attack. A staff would do 2 die. A short sword 3 die, the broadswoard 4 die, and so on. Regardless of improvement, the attack can not be more than twice a weapon's base attack, thus capping the broadsword at 6 dice.

The Barbarian and the Dwarf improve every two levels.
The elf improves every 3 levels.
The Wizard improves every four levels.

The barbarian and dwarf can learn to attack twice in a round starting at 7th level. The elf at 9th level.

Spellcasting. Each type of spell sets represent a single spell college. Fire, Earth, Air,Water to start, then Protection, Detection, Darkness, and Necromancy. The wizard starts knowing 3 spell colleges at 1st level, and then learns one new college every 2 levels there after. i.e. 1 at 3rd, 1 at 5th, 1 at 7th and so on.

The elf knows 1 spell college to start, and learns a new college every 3 levels thereafter. One at 4th, one at 7th, one at 10th, and so on.

Well, that's my basic concept. Thanks for reading.

Come back from the dead, oh ancient thread!

The question of skill vs. level advancement is always a puzzle because HQ really only has Body and Mind points for stats, and the only other things we can manipulate are movement (which is already pretty random and weird), attack, and defense dice.

Most attempts to mod the rules related to combat seem to change up the 3-2-1 dice to have different odds.

Everybody's got a different idea what to do with movement.

Way back when the thread started, there was a discussion about core rules and optional rules enhance or supplement the core rules, but should hopefully not change them in such a way that breaks other rules. I mean, in your own game, go nuts! But we were talking about collecting the rules that we've tested and find working into a simple, straightforward, and easy to explain new rule set.Stick with the base rules and it should be hopefully easier to follow than the original rules. Change it up and you should know exactly what you're getting.

There's a little bit of a problem with a supplement for the core rules. There's effectively three slightly different versions of the rules. That's where I've started.

I direct those interested to https://gitlab.com/hq-homebrew/rules where as of this writing, I have the text of the UK first edition rules in HTML. Sadly Gitlab does not render the HTML the way it does Markdown, but Markdown was just causing too many problems if I wanted to maintain the style of the UK booklet.

This booklet doesn't OCR, and even if it did, drathe's scans are not nearly high enough resolution to try it. I typed every word in there. If you want to look for typos not in the original, please do. I pan to branch off for the later version of the UK rules, then do the American ones from scratch because they're fundamentally different.

Once we have the text of all three though, we can synthesize a set of rules, possibly with a couple of options even at the core rule level. UK rules make for more cutthroat gameplay and … that can be a lot of fun.

From there, we can begin modifying rules.

If you want to help, I can assist with that. At the moment you should probably know at least what HTML looks like. I can help with the whole scary git thingy. It's gonna be fairly dormant for a few days before I can start on the later UK release. I put several hours into that (it's hard to read!) and editing in changes isn't going to be any faster. If someone wants to step in, feel free!

Oh, it wants me to add a README, a LICENSE, a CONTRIBUTING, etc. Yeah, um, at the moment all of this is pretty much one giant Copyright infringement. Hasbro might decide they care, since they're reprinting the game. I'm not comfortable adding things that might garner attention outside our little hole in the Internet until it begins to morph into what we hope it'll become. In no way am I trying to deprive Hasbro of our money. Quite the opposite, I hope to give people more reason to give them some so we'll get more expansions!