THE SPIRIT QUEEN'S TORMENT discussion

[j_dean80]

I'll just say, in Warhammer, there are lots of instances that find Orcs on opposing sides and different tribes fighting against each other. Yet both tribes would still fight against humans. There definitely could be Orcs opposed to Zargon for whatever reason.

[Markus Darwath]

Yes, there are some people who think in the manner that you are criticizing, but to be blunt, dignifying their absurdity with your outrage is counter-productive at best. Those types are well practiced at distorting facts to fit their ridiculous agendas, and we would do well not to stoop to their level. Twits, from the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness all the way to members of the KKK, are most easily robbed of their impact simply by ignoring them as being beneath any concern or contempt.

What the hell are you going on about? I agree that Hasbro has gone a bit woke and lost its mind along with every other major corporation with an agenda. People with sanity just want to live by the truth. I think someone was just making a point that we don't need to be so inclusive to orcs because orcs aren't real.

I agree with the three points you make here. I'll try to reiterate what I was saying more succinctly. Wokeism and racism are both stupid. They are the kind of stupid that craves attention and therefore loves to bait rational people into responding to their nonsense. Protesting against it grants them the attention they crave and encourages the perpetuation and growth of said nonsense. I think there's a better chance of making them shut up and go away if they suddenly had no audience. The best form of protest is to ignore the extremists, refuse to engage them, and generally treat them as persona non-grata.

Do what you wish as story master, I'm just saying an orc bard is inconsistent with medieval orc lore. It's a bit silly and D&Dish and that what happens when Hasbro enlists D&D players to make new quests and characters. The generic nature of HeroQuest has been a bit sidelined when all new heroes are now diverse races built into classes. The original Dwarf and Elf were stereotypical models of a warrior from their respective races, but it's grown a little convoluted now with a Rogue and Explorer being of those races leaving two of our beloved original heroes as just that: classless stereotypes.

I'm going to commit what many will see as heresy, and state that I personally find D&D to be the superior game overall. HQ is what one pulls out when there hasn't been time for proper game prep and you just want to take a break with something light and easy. The "Lore" is pretty much just a loose, clunky explanation for why the heroes are there and what they're doing. The only reason I use the quest books at all is because it's easy and avoids the work of world-building for what, in the end, is a board game. As such, I like the mechanics (once built an opposed-roll combat system for D&D, but it was too slow in game play) and I love the abundant miniatures assets that come in HQ and it's expansions. But let's face it, most of the 'story' behind the classic HQ world is less than deep and rich. Having Zargon, Mentor and LoreTome as important names just kind of screams "low effort."

I think you start drawing the line, at least in HeroQuest, when the line becomes inconsistent with the HeroQuest story.

Again, I pretty much view the "HeroQuest story" with all its cheesiness and inconsistencies to be something that is best hand-waved and not pondered too deeply. In fairness, I feel the same way about D&D's default setting as well. I am absolutely not in love, or even like, with the Forgotten Realms and really wish that through the decades the core rules of D&D had remained fully setting agnostic and anything that could be construed as setting specific had been restricted to separate resource publications.

[wallydubbs]

I agree with the three points you make here. I'll try to reiterate what I was saying more succinctly. Wokeism and racism are both stupid. They are the kind of stupid that craves attention and therefore loves to bait rational people into responding to their nonsense. Protesting against it grants them the attention they crave and encourages the perpetuation and growth of said nonsense. I think there's a better chance of making them shut up and go away if they suddenly had no audience. The best form of protest is to ignore the extremists, refuse to engage them, and generally treat them as persona non-grata.

My apologies, sir. When you mentioned the KKK I thought you were taking the racist stance. Racism wasn't really an issue anymore until BLM started. I'm relieved to know you still have your wits about you.

I'm going to commit what many will see as heresy, and state that I personally find D&D to be the superior game overall. HQ is what one pulls out when there hasn't been time for proper game prep and you just want to take a break with something light and easy. The "Lore" is pretty much just a loose, clunky explanation for why the heroes are there and what they're doing. The only reason I use the quest books at all is because it's easy and avoids the work of world-building for what, in the end, is a board game. As such, I like the mechanics (once built an opposed-roll combat system for D&D, but it was too slow in game play) and I love the abundant miniatures assets that come in HQ and it's expansions. But let's face it, most of the 'story' behind the classic HQ world is less than deep and rich. Having Zargon, Mentor and LoreTome as important names just kind of screams "low effort."

Yes, indeed sir, that is a bit of heresy, however I'll respect you for being forthcoming with horrific opinions. For some D&D is too complicated and too long for some gamers to get behind. Though I have little doubts that for a dedicated group D&D can be superior and a lot of fun. But not everybody is eligible for D&D because it takes too long to learn and not everybody has the time for such a long game.

Again, I pretty much view the "HeroQuest story" with all its cheesiness and inconsistencies to be something that is best hand-waved and not pondered too deeply. In fairness, I feel the same way about D&D's default setting as well. I am absolutely not in love, or even like, with the Forgotten Realms and really wish that through the decades the core rules of D&D had remained fully setting agnostic and anything that could be construed as setting specific had been restricted to separate resource publications.

I acknowledge that HeroQuest is a tad bit cheesy and a lot of it's popularity is based on nostalgia. I still find it a fun play despite the simplicity of the quests. Hasbro has been adding newer mechanics as of late to add a bit of complexity, however by comparison to D&D there's not contest. For those of us who don't have the time to get behind D&D, HeroQuest is good enough.

[Kurgan]

I get what you're saying, but Tolkien also had plenty of evil men in his Middle Earth stories, not just evil orcs for humans to fight against. He didn't seem to have evil elves though (unless they devolved into the original orcs... or was it evil men? changing his mind and/or deliberate contradictions in the backstory to give it more of a ring of an ancient book of legends and myths re-discovered). You wanna know how I got these scars...? I guess there weren't evil Dwarves either as such, just some that got a little too carried away in their quest for gold and vengeance. (Please note, I have NOT read the entire 22 volume "History of Middle Earth" I've barely skimmed the Silmarillion, and I'm most of the way through my read through of LOTR including the appendicies and partway into the Hobbit... some of my memory may be fogged by other media adaptations to be sure on these finer points).

I had never heard of Teos Abadia but when his name was first mentioned in connection with this project immediately some people were saying he was terrible (citing his work in D&D). I'm still not familiar with his D&D work, my only experience of the man is like one or two videos he did where he was talking about stuff (storytelling and collaborative gaming I believe) and his personal appearance on here to correct one of his own mistakes in one of the quests (the infamous "missing door") and not just on social media, which was cool. Whatever his crimes or sins elsewhere he doesn't seem to have screwed up too badly here, even if his work isn't blowing people away with how amazing it is (compared to other HQ expansions). But, people wanted the Mythic content and now they're getting it, all except most of Joe's stuff by now (a few CoPD inspired tokens appearing in Jungles of Delthrak out in September).

D&D can be anything you want it to be, same with HeroQuest. D&D isn't just one thing anymore, but it started out as some text and some dice, right? HeroQuest was a board game with physical assets that you were expected to manipulate in so many ways and write your own stuff. D&D has had many iterations of board games and miniature type games too. Both have been video games. Just that D&D had a decade more of a head start to ingrain itself in a generation of teenagers (and went through a half dozen versions to cause splintering communities and arguments over what was best) vs HeroQuest which was clearly aimed at 9 and 10 year olds and was discontinued within 5 years so became a nostalgic collectible until now (with a single unified version that essentially "officially" replaced the mostly regionally isolated different editions). But at its base either one can literally be anything you want, it doesn't just start with the base rules and build off of that (although most start there).

The point of D&D seems to be to fill in every possible gap.. until you write your own adventures. HeroQuest is to give you a general, generic, simplistic line because you're expected to fill in the details as the need arises (although you can of course play it without that, but if you start wracking your brain about where the heroes sleep and night and how they go to the bathroom with that armor on, maybe you're trying too hard? or maybe that's the fun for you, so go for it...).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my impression (having still not yet played it) is that SQT has less going for it than some of the other official expansions out there even with all the fixes of the retail version. However like all of HQ it has virtually limitless potential. It CAN all fit within a kind of Warhammer Fantasy inspired classic HeroQuest milieu if you want it to. It can also become a D&D campaign if you want it to be. Or it can just be what it is out of the box with no changes easily enough (with the Game System required of course). But that's the beauty of it... those who just want an "out of the box" experience can have that, and those who want to use it as a tool and sandbox for their imagination, there's plenty there for you to chew on, remix, and be inspired by... maybe not as much as some of the newer fancier boxies with the many colored figures and alternate rulesets, but still, it's there (the only question remaining is it worth your $ price? if I didn't already have it, I'd probably buy other expansions before it, I admit)

[Vorimir]

While the main group (corr game characters) are playing POT we are also playing it as a secondary quest with a secondary group (Roge, Druid, Knight and Warlock) as a link between MOTM and ROTM.

I can only say the background is a pain for a old schooler like me and I had to change and modify a lot of things (no good orcs or orc bard) but Quest are at least playabe.

[wallydubbs]

Should Holy Water and the Spirit Blade have the same effects on the Spirit Queen as it does Undead?

[Kurgan]

If the character is not labeled as undead and doesn't have zero mind points, then I would say "no" but of course as always Zargon can do whatever he likes.

This goes back to long discussions had about whether Holy Water should impact the Witch Lord. The EU edition first included HW and didn't make any provision for it to harm the WL (who only had 1 BP in those editions) but only worked on regular undead monsters. AH's remake and new expansions indicate (via ROTDM) that a zero mind point creature is destroyed by HW, so that's how I would treat it. It's up to you whether you say the item is wasted or warn them that it will do no damage to this character before they actually use it. You could say maybe it kills some nearby undead minion instead, if there is one... (I'm not looking at the map at the moment).