Summer vacation had come. My daughter, N (age 8) wanted to play board games with me and my roommates, S and B. But we didn't really have any outside of Candy Land (too boring) and Trivial Pursuit (too hard for her). N suggested D&D, but she's not good enough at math for it yet.
Then I remembered Hero Quest. And that it was in the storage closet.
N had never heard of it, of course. But the instant I brought the battered old box out and she saw that cover image, with the Barbarian valiantly fighting off a horde of orcs, she was entranced. I could see the magic in her eyes, the same feeling I got when I first saw the game 20+ years ago, the feeling I like to imagine we all felt the first time we opened the box. We played through the first quest and she was HOOKED.
Tonight, we ran quest #6:
Legacy of the...well you know.
The heroes. I got these pre-painted in a parts lot years ago. But ever since she saw it, N has demanded to use a different Barbarian:
I'm never going to paint her.
From left to right, Ayra the Barbarian (played by N), Leonidas Mohammed Jones the Dwarf (B), Rainbow the Elf (S), and Fancypants Consuela Noooooooo the Wizard (B again).
This is my mature gaming group, y'all.
The dice from this box. Those are all the black shields on top. This game has been well-played and well-loved, but poorly-maintained.
This is how the contents have been stored in the box for the last 20 years
though only about 15 of those in my possession.
And we're off!
Which soon led to...
