HQ - HEROES & VILLAINS (knightkrawler's full rule set)

[knightkrawler]

Rejoice, for 'tis done. For now.
Read, think, find, improve, present, discuss, you know the drill.

I want every snippet of feedback and questions and game reports in this here thread.
This is and will always be a work in progress, so shoot.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jgj0kzsys9w38oh/AAA_VEHx6vMv4HKRX7IiOWTFa?dl=0
This is my first time using dropbox, so please tell me if anything doesn't work, like downloading or browsing the files and folders or whatever.

Anderas and Dean Laxer, thanks for kicking my butt for learning how to photoshop the cards.
Count Mohawk et al., thank you for providing HQModern with the icons. An absolute turning point in possibilities!
Flint, thanks for allowing me to host your board.
Sajungzak, thanks for putting up with the work and allowing me to host your re-sized tiles.
Goblin-King and others, thank you for making great art and allowing anyone to use it.
Thanks to everyone who has ever put any effort in feedback. More important than you'd think.
Thanks to Slev and others for the inspiration to actually do this monster.
Daedalus, thanks for helping sharpen my grip on language and other countless indirect contributions over the years.
Thanks to everyone ever discussing anything HeroQuest, especially the ambiguities and houserules and such.

[knightkrawler]

Has anybody downloaded?
I'd like to know if everything works out fine.

[Gold Bearer]

I have but I haven't had time to give it the attention it deserves between making cards for pbp, testing Lurch Brick's eldar attack expansion for his space crusade cpu game, training and other 'life' stuff. I'll let you know.

[knightkrawler]

Please do. I'm here about the oohs and aahs, too.

[knightkrawler]

BUMP

I'm working on the second questbook, the storyline involving Ulag and Grak.
Next, the Witch-Lord trilogy and then a small series of individual quests to sprinkle in between.
Questbooks will each be short, between 3 and 5 quests, to accomodate for a game night each,
switching back and forth between storylines.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Every bit of feedback is appreciated and necessary. Even if it's negative or preliminary.
You don't wanna read it because of the sheer volume of everything? That's feedback. Please give that to me.
Don't have time now to read it, but have downloaded? That's feedback. Please give it.
You saw the thread and hate me and don't wanna give me feedback? That's feedback. Give it.
It's not that hard to do.
Question that will make me realize you want a shortcut without reading everything? Ask it. Not that hard.

We thrive on commenting on each other's projects, don't we? It's the purpose of a forum.

[Count Mohawk]

I'd been meaning to get around to critiquing this, but I've been busy this past month and am likely to remain so for some time. Nonetheless, I did manage to squeeze in some time to read through the preliminary Questbook. It's formatted pretty well, although it could use some color amidst all the grayscale iconography. (This is true of every Quest Book, though)
One question presents itsef after today's quick read: What's a Mongrel - is that your term for the Fimir?
Also, I have appreciation that you buffed Verag! My stance on vanilla Gargoyles is well known, I'm sure.

[knightkrawler]

Aaah, the Mongrel.
Yeah, there's no picture material for now to know which villain's which.

Goblin replaces Goblin, but only 1 AD plus MAM (Movement - Action - Movement)
I use Red Box models which are tiny. Size and my love for MAM made these changes happen.

Orc replaces Fimir statwise
I use Confrontaion Orcs, which are rather bulky, a little bigger than the original Fimirs

Mongrel (regular human-sized Beastman) replaces the old Orc statwise
I use minis from a wide range for these. They are smaller than the Orcs and I would have rewritten quests anyway, hence the switching of stats with the Orcs/old Fimir.
As soon as I finally get my hands on a variety of different beautiful Fimir minis that actually fit my style, they'll get a lot of love in terms of storline and questbook.
Thantos, I hope your friendly-neighborhood-sculptor is still on.

Knights of all kinds of houses (painting fun!) replace Chaos Warriors.
The Chaos concept is gone in my world, in comes a heavy influence from Game of Thrones with lords and their schemes and their warriors.

Undead basically stayed as they were.

Golem replaces Gargoyle, simply to accomodate for that awesome Earth Elemental figure from Rackham I chose.
I buffed the stats up because of its size.

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I decided to put up these pdf's printer-freindly and legally sound, which means I do have a version of the rulebook for myself with B&W art sprinkled here and there.
If you want that version, you'll get it via e-Mail. There's no-sale disclaimers everywhere, so that should be that in terms of my trust toward anyone I send these versions to.

Some cover art will be done by Dean Laxer, an artist friend of mine.

[Anderas]

Indeed there is one negative feedback I can give on the size of the rules.
They are complicated written to accommodate for your apparently complicated players. That made them a fight to read in itself. OK so far as it fits your players.

What sucked the motivation out of me was that I found a copy paste failure there. It literally meant I had to take on the fight to read the rules two times, when you were just using Ctrl c and Ctrl v. Here I would wish for some intelligent shortcutting, like an introductory sentence that the following rule is for mind points and body points likewise. Saves a lot of difficult reading.
After that one, I must confess that I didn't find the time to read anymore.

Another way to have all the necessary text would be to copy and paste, but to mark the changes somehow so that a reader doesn't have to work through this two times.

For the length of your play nights, I am wondering a bit about the number of three to five quests per evening you are repeatedly giving. In my experience, the second quest is still good but the third quest is already exhausting. So I stop latest at the second quest on the same day.
But that second point is a thing you need to know about your group - if they like it long then make it long.

[cornixt]

I've only read the rules so far.

Things I don't like: Dealing with treasure seems overly complicated. Two searches and two decks? Plus separate furniture searches with their own deck? If you want to give money to someone then a third is discarded? Not only is that quite a lot, it is an awkward amount. People will have to do awkward math to work out how much to give in order that the recipient gets X amount. Plus it doesn't really make sense in-game, are they both standing over a drain and drop some of it?

Things I like: Trying to keep a consistent number of heroes - it's really the best way to keep quests balanced. It seems that the heroes can take their turns in any order, which I like, but this isn't actually spelled out other than that you need to keep track of who has already had their turn.

[knightkrawler]

Things I don't like: Dealing with treasure seems overly complicated. Two searches and two decks? Plus separate furniture searches with their own deck? If you want to give money to someone then a third is discarded? Not only is that quite a lot, it is an awkward amount. People will have to do awkward math to work out how much to give in order that the recipient gets X amount. Plus it doesn't really make sense in-game, are they both standing over a drain and drop some of it?

The treasure decks haven't been printed yet, so this needs some playtesting on my side with the cards done. The thing about these searches is the risk/reward proportion. I want the heroes to do that second search, but 4 searches as in the original EU rules is just too much.

If you want to give money to someone then a third is discarded? Not only is that quite a lot, it is an awkward amount.

This is something I'm still pondering about myself, so feedback is crucial. I certainly get what you mean, but the mechanic does make sense. It forces every hero to take at least some risk. If giving money to the next hero doesn't cost them anything, then the Wizard could just decide to never ever take risks. He's got 15 spells, I made him stronger, but I also want him to be fun to play for someone who likes to take risks. I do know it seems awkward, though.
But there's a big difference between the function of a game mechanic and its realism/naturalism. There was a rule in EU 1st edition that you couldn't move into the same square twice a turn, so that a hero couldn't flee from a room just opened. He had to go in and take up the fight. Unrealistic. But it did make sense in conjunction with all the other game props (1 square wide doors, the combat system, and so forth).
Games are made to be very abstract, and this rule of mine stretches that concept, I'll give you that. But then again, it's just a mechanic. I could make it a fourth or so, but everything but half would be an awkward amount. My treasure finds don't yield round sums, I'll have to add, rather it's all awkward sums, not just sums divisible with 25. Maybe it makes more sense once you know that.

Things I like: Trying to keep a consistent number of heroes - it's really the best way to keep quests balanced. It seems that the heroes can take their turns in any order, which I like, but this isn't actually spelled out other than that you need to keep track of who has already had their turn.

There are some variants for dealing with turn order spelled out in the Optional Rules.

Indeed there is one negative feedback I can give on the size of the rules.
They are complicated written to accommodate for your apparently complicated players. That made them a fight to read in itself. OK so far as it fits your players.

What sucked the motivation out of me was that I found a copy paste failure there. It literally meant I had to take on the fight to read the rules two times, when you were just using Ctrl c and Ctrl v. Here I would wish for some intelligent shortcutting, like an introductory sentence that the following rule is for mind points and body points likewise. Saves a lot of difficult reading.
After that one, I must confess that I didn't find the time to read anymore.
Another way to have all the necessary text would be to copy and paste, but to mark the changes somehow so that a reader doesn't have to work through this two times.

My players are not complicated, but they are non-boardgamers. A body of game rules should never assume preexisting knowledge or conventions taken over from other games, in my opinion.
The whole body of HQHV was written with absolute non-gamers in mind. People who never play games except if I can convince them to embark on this journey. And that has held true for everyone I've ever played with, surprisingly. I simply do not know any boardgamers in my area. To admit you play boardgames here is like a grown man admitting he watches Gilmore Girls (which I do, with a vengeance, by the way).
It also has to be said, that with an EWP like HeroQuest has, only that one person has to know the rules by heart. He/She is the one to learn the rules and then explain them as the group plays along. Hence the first quest pack (thanks to Jacob Busby for The Arena). Morcar knows his stuff, takes the players on a journey and explains the rules to them until they know them, too. That's really the point of the way I've written them. After everyone knows how to deal with any given situation they are there for reference and clearing up. And that they should do very very concisely. It was the first order of the day when I started this to eliminate all ambiguity from original HQ. Right there's the gamemaster function of Morcar.
That's why the words are many. But as you'll notice, much of it is basically vanilla HQ explained more complicatedly (but also more concisely) and has to read just once as a full text body (ideally), and then referred to once in a while, because essentially, most of the mechanics are how many of us have always played them intuitively, although the original wording might have been ambiguous. Think of all the interpretations of spell effects. These interpretations are to go away, as fas as I'm concerned.

I will certainly think about rewording the BP/MP stuff. I think I tried it before and it was awkward, so I left them seperated. But marking the differences might be a good idea. Will have to see if boldening and italizing helps visually. Thanks for the tip.

As a sidenote, I find reading the rules of original HeroQuest in all versions infuriating. That's because I find so many sources for interpretation, loopholes for players, wording mistakes, unclear circumstance combinations, etc pp... My whole reason for writing HQHV in the first place. And I've seen far longer HQ revision rulebooks that people seem to think are great, but delve into RPG too deeply, taking the charm from the game in essence.
I'll live with my putting its wording in a straightjacket.

For the length of your play nights, I am wondering a bit about the number of three to five quests per evening you are repeatedly giving. In my experience, the second quest is still good but the third quest is already exhausting. So I stop latest at the second quest on the same day.
But that second point is a thing you need to know about your group - if they like it long then make it long.

I'll be able to play rarely, but for long nights. That might of course not float everyone's boat, but I see no problem in playing a questbook of 4 quests in two days. Certainly makes sense. I walked the thin line here between the feel of a real campaign and the need to break up the 10 quest-expansions where you had to find into a storyline time and time again. I don't like the length of KK and RotWL in the least.
In cases where I offer a questpack of 3 quests and you only manage 2 on day 1 and you know for sure, you'll manage 2 on the next date as well, then there's the questpacks consisting of individual quests that are not connected by a common storyline. These questpacks will be marked or called differently, as well as Solo Quests, if I ever find the creativity to write those.

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Guys, thanks for the words, I really appreciate that.