Rescue of Sir Ragnar: The anti-climax ??

[Zenithfleet]

Replying to Kurgan first, Bareheaded next.

Also, upon further checking it seems I exaggerated Kellar's Keep a little in my last post. It's mainly the first five quests of that pack that are painfully linear. The last five are more like base game maps (albeit with more monsters).

Interesting perspective. I was balking at the start of your "wall of text" spell, thinking you didn't know anything, but now I'm thinking about it. The quests I wrote recently were all very linear. Building replayability into the quests (instead of just playing them with new people or moving on to other quests) is a different take on the whole thing. How different are the quest layouts in the NA edition from the EU editions? I'm aware of some different monster placement in a few quests, and a few differences in the notes, but I'm not aware of other significant differences (though the ability to remove fallen block traps would open up new possibilities for certain quests).

I've been reading through and comparing the layouts of KK and RotWL in the EU vs NA editions. They're mostly the same basic maps, but the NA occasionally tweaks something like changing the position of a door, or adding an extra secret. The NA generally has more traps and more monsters too. Sometimes reuse of a map caused problems e.g. with treasure chests--the EU rules assumed you had to move to a chest and open it, so the map would have pit traps next to them and things like that, which the NA maps kept even though those pits are now pointless.

When I was a kid, that is often how we played... one kid was Zargon, the other controlled 4 heroes. We had a good time and didn't know any different.

For some reason it never occurred to me, as a kid, to play with fewer than 4 heroes if we had fewer than 4 players. The EU game makes this reasonable, if challenging. Just the Barbarian venturing alone into a dungeon can work, or a pair of heroes. The rulebook suggests doing this if you want to but notes that it will make the game harder. I don't think we ever tried it, though.

If we were playing two-player, then one person would control all the heroes like you did. The trouble is that the EU game was set up on the assumption players would compete to some degree, get in each other's way, try to reach gold first and maybe even come to blows/spells. If everyone cooperates, then the EU game becomes too easy in the basic quests. And if one player is controlling all four heroes, you have perfect cooperation.

It would be much less of a problem in the NA ruleset because the game assumes everyone will be cooperating anyway and the difficulty has been increased to compensate.

In one old interview I think Stephen Baker did admit that the game was easy when the players worked together. I don't know for sure, but I always thought that he was most heavily involved in the European versions of the game and the North American ones were refined by others, but I don't have proof of that or names to drop as to who did what.
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Yes, that's the Games International interview (issue 9). Incidentally, issue 8 has a review of HQ (and a hilarious panning of Space Hulk, which is a brilliant game that they hated for some reason.)

Now for Bareheaded, who is rolling an awful lot of shields and making good counterpoints.

A quest with an alternative route, a short dead end path, a little ‘maze’ like setup for the first 2-3 rooms, a shortcut perhaps hidden behind a secret door, a couple of side room with a bonus, for example is sufficient to make it feel exploratory, open and non-linear without introducing the problems associated with very non-linear quests.

I can certainly think of some versions of 'non-linearity' that would become tedious. For instance, suppose everyone starts in the middle room and the objective is in one of the four corners, with four separate pathways going directly to the corners in an X shape. That would be a recipe for discontent. Either players stick together and try each of the corners in turn, with lots of dull backtracking if they pick the wrong one (and they probably will) ... or they split up and only one finds the objective, with the others too far away to rush back and join in the fun.

However, a good non-linear HQ quest tends to provide enough interconnections and loops that you can 'go around the block' to reach the objective if you need to, rather than backtracking.

For a family game to work it has to be relatively short, probably 60-90 minutes max, towards the lower end for younger players, towards the upper end for the bigger kids (including myself in that, generously), 6 hour marathon games might be great for university students but not so great for family games. There are physiological reasons why films for example are typically around the 90 minute mark and even sport, football (soccer) is probably the most popular game on earth, also lasts 90 minutes and if you design a quest with 6 paths, only 1 being the one that leads to the objective then depending on luck the player may choose the 1 path the first time and result in a much shorter game than intended, maybe 45 minutes plus a little longer wandering around aimless to pad the game out post-objective, or their luck could go the other way and they could try all 5 other paths before they hit the objective room and end up with a 3-hour slog (with parents glancing at watches through and muttering comments about being tired in the morning…). As a kid playing with family, we generally only played the one Quest in a session, but a couple of years later playing with a group of teenagers we generally had 3-hour sessions and covered a couple of Quest back to back. Again, I’m not saying that you can’t make a longer Quest, or a double quest, especially as a grand finale, but that is the exception to the rule and needs to be billed as such, so the time can be planned in.

Fair point. The issue of widely 'swingy' timing is an important one for a family game.

However I think that, again, good HQ non-linear maps don't involve too much of this, because those '5 or so paths' will loop around and join up again at some point--generally at the objective room or exit door. An O shape rather than an X shape.

And problems like back-tracking or retracing your steps

Again a little of this is fine and to be encouraged, but having to sweep the whole dungeon again, search and researching the whole length to find a key that you need to open the final door or a secret door that you missed and can’t achieve the objective without it, makes for a long drawn out session, less punchy, less fun.

I have to admit that this can be a problem. The original Doom (on the PC), for instance, had nonlinear mazelike maps. Great fun while you were running around blasting demons with your shotgun. But in practice, many Doom levels had a boring fourth act, when you'd wiped the map clear of monsters but still had no idea where the exit was. You'd have to spend another half hour scouring the empty level for switches you missed to open the way to the end.

This sort of thing may be another reason why first-person shooter games moved more toward a 'cinematic corridor' of set-pieces rather than non-linear mazes. It's easier to control and curate the player's experience that way, just as with a fairground ride.

But the trade-off is that players can often sense when they're being theatrically played to, instead of being allowed to genuinely go off and do their own thing. The freedom to miss something, and spend an annoying extra while looking for it, is one of the things that comes with player freedom to explore. At the very least they'll remember to search more diligently next time. It's one of the things that a game can do that a movie or book generally can't.

(Interestingly, HQ generally avoided requirements to find keys for exit doors, and that sort of thing. I wonder if the designers were worried about the precise problem you point out. Another reason could be that because the game was designed to be played competitively if necessary, giving only one player the ability to 'get to the end' with a key would have been a problem.)

Similarly, as video games have become more widely played by the general public they've tended to become easier. If a game is too frustrating, then some players will give up. But without frustration and challenge, you don't get the real satisfaction of finally overcoming an obstacle or tough boss. You end up with the cliche of 'every participant gets a medal'. It's risk versus reward, but for the game programmers! The designers have to decide whether to risk some players getting fed up, in order to provide the rewards to players who persevere and succeed.

I want to reiterate, though, that 'mostly linear but well disguised' generally works fine as a way to make quests for HQ.

I don’t know how you managed to get hold of Against the Ogre Horde as a kid, we just had the trinity GS, KK and ROTWL and never even realised that there was such a thing as Against the Ogre Horde.

I don't know either! I think it was widely available in Australia for some reason (with the sturdy top-opening box of our local releases too). I'm pretty sure I got it before Kellar's Keep. I was pleased to have AtOH as it was a total surprise--I had no idea it existed until I unwrapped the birthday present--but I was also crestfallen, since really wanted Return of the Witch Lord and never got to play it for about twenty years. *insert world's smallest violin here*

Australia didn't get Wizards of Morcar, though.

I’ve never really been massively into video games, maybe too much time playing board games like HeroQuest, but have played a few over the years but I don’t really have the knowledge or experience required to appreciate your comments on that topic, but would point you in the direction of this excellent post about game design in the Legend of Zelda

Oh, sorry about that. I saw you bring up Zelda on your other thread and assumed you'd get the various references I was making.

One reservation I have about using Zelda as an example (and indeed the other games I mentioned) is that they're solo experiences. Only one player does all the exploring, fighting, etc. A multiplayer game like HQ may need other design choices. Otherwise you risk only one player taking the lead and exploring while the others tag along. That's why I admire the non-linear, O-shaped layout of many EU base game quests and the lower density/difficulty of monsters. It lets each player wander off on their own if they want to, as if playing their own mini-Zelda dungeon--but eventually loop around back to where they need to be, instead of getting stuck kilometres away down a dead end.

Incidentally, I'm fond of 'The Trial' because it's designed like a kind of one-shot demo scenario. If you only play ONE game of Heroquest, 'The Trial' is a good one, because it showcases all the monsters and all the furniture, and provides a high level of challenge--while not involving anything complicated like traps or secret doors (in the EU version). I don't really treat it as part of a proper campaign myself.

Interesting I never liked “The Trial” (although “The Maze” that it replaced was even worse, so it that sense only it was an improvement) for some of the same reasons that you like it. True if you only ever play one game of HeroQuest then perhaps the Trial from a showcase point of view (but why would anyone ever only play one game of HeroQuest!), but for me it was another example of the rules and the quests not ‘lining up’ (this issue may have been caused by timing where some Quests were written to earlier draft versions of the rules or even later ones that didn’t make the final cut but weren’t then reviewed and updated properly, perhaps).

On the one hand for the EA Second Edition Rules of Play the decision was made to go with an Introductory version of the rules for the first quest before bringing in the Full rules for the second quest onwards. Now I understand entirely this idea of introducing the new players to the rules gently, although I wouldn’t have chosen to split the rules in this way personally*, but to make that decision and then combine that with a first Quest in which you introduce pretty much every piece of furniture and type of monster really goes against the ‘toe in the water’ approach of the rule book.

*the issue with the way that they did this means that The Trial was designed to be played with the Introductory rules only, so just move and attack, no traps, no searching, no spell casting, so fine for the Barbarian, but the Dwarf was perhaps limited to 80% of his range of abilities, the Elf 50% and the Wizard 20%, being able to only move and fight when your character is crap at fighting, is an off-putting start for a Wizard player.

'The Trial' is an odd one because, I think, it was made for the NA edition first, and then back-ported into the 2nd edition EU. I can't be sure that's what happened, as both editions were released in the same year I believe, but that's what I've heard. If that's true, then it wasn't originally meant to be played without search rules or spell cards. It's amusing that the 2nd ed EU plonked it in but didn't change any of the later quests as far as I know.

I agree that the lack of spells in the EU 'The Trial' can be really off-putting for the Elf and especially the Wizard due to their physical weakness. We loathed playing the Wizard for a long time purely because he makes such a bad impression as a weakling in 'The Trial', even though he's actually quite powerful when he has spells to call on. The simplest solution is just to let players take spells in 'The Trial'.

It's sort of amusing that the Gargoyle Verag is totally unlike any other Gargoyle (until Bellthor in RotWL) - not only named, but apparently in charge of other monsters, instead of being a random statue created to guard things. It gives the wrong impression of what Gargoyles are supposed to be, thematically.

As for playing only one game, well, a lot of boardgames only get one chance to impress you. If you don't like your first play then you may refuse to play it again. Just as you don't want the game to outlast its welcome, you don't want it to take an hour or so before it 'gets good'. It's got to grab you from the get-go.

To use another video game analogy (sorry), 'The Trial' is like a demo, or the attract mode that plays on an arcade machine when nobody is using it. Kids get to put ALL the cool furniture from the box onto the board, and fight ALL the cool monsters (GARGOYLE!!!), and find treasure. "That was really cool! Let's play another game of HQ!"

But there are no tricky bits like traps or secret doors to worry about. (Or spells, though as you note that causes survivability problems.) It's still a toe in the water approach. All that furniture does nothing but look pretty and take up space (except the chests and doors). All the monsters are fought in the same way--they just move different numbers of squares and roll different numbers of dice. There are no puzzles or curveballs to worry about, and the boss monster is in the centre room where a kid would expect to find him.

Hah ... I suppose you could say 'The Trial' gives the illusion of depth and complexity, while actually being incredibly simple and shallow.

It's also arguably tuned to be very difficult because it's a one-off. Can you beat Verag or will you all die in the attempt? It's like a mini-movie with a dramatic ending.

GW's later Warhammer Quest takes a similar approach. You can either pull the box off the shelf and play a one-off game, or play it as a series of games. But because it has to provide a tough and exciting challenge in a single session (for those only playing once), the first quest is a massive speedbump for anyone trying to get a campaign going. Most heroes die in their first WHQ dungeon crawl.

I see you’ve posted elsewhere about PMs gold, which I always refer to as “The Long Walk” a classic example of the type of long drawn out Quest that isn’t welcome in a family game session, so I’ll post about that there, but I will just say that if you are after a ‘real’ experience in a Quest then PMs Gold has that in spades, in no other Quest does the characters experience of dragging heavy chests down endless empty passageways, so closely align with the players experience of dragging themselves through the long and uneventful last portion of this Quest.

Well, we just used to skip the pointless homeward trek and end the quest in the centre room. But you have a point that it's pretty good as a drudgery simulator.

[Kurgan]

Replying to Kurgan...

I've been reading through and comparing the layouts of KK and RotWL in the EU vs NA editions. They're mostly the same basic maps, but the NA occasionally tweaks something like changing the position of a door, or adding an extra secret. The NA generally has more traps and more monsters too. Sometimes reuse of a map caused problems e.g. with treasure chests--the EU rules assumed you had to move to a chest and open it, so the map would have pit traps next to them and things like that, which the NA maps kept even though those pits are now pointless.

Thanks. Isn't this part (having to move adjacent to a treasure chest) some kind of brain bug? I know a lot of people insist that's how they played as kids, but the rules don't actually say you have to do this. The only version that says this is how it works is in the Japanese rules. Search a room for treasure, and you find the treasure. I think at a certain point I reasoned people were thinking Searching "tells you what the treasure is" and then walking up to the chest lets you physically "pick it up" (as a free action when you're adjacent to it), but where is that in the rules? The only quest I can remember that puts a pit trap adjacent to a chest was the NA edition of Lair of the Orc Warlord (the EU edition put the trap ON the chest, hence the NA edition was an error... notice the chest wasn't even marked, and this error was repeated in the remake with no explanation). Searching for traps would reveal all of the room's traps, whether next to the chest or on it, and searching for treasure would trigger the furniture trap. This is why I would consider a room with a treasure chest and the trap next to the chest as an error (most infamously this occurred in the 2nd BQP quest which puts a row of spear traps in front of the chest; the designers discussed putting monsters in the room to prevent searching for traps but ultimately it went nowhere because you can't find treasure while monsters are present anyway and why would a person walk up to the chest without searching? I guess they were probably thinking the hero wouldn't have thought to buy a toolkit yet and so they could try to jump the traps to reach the chest... but again, why would they need to move close to it in the first place? only if they are trying to reach a monster who was just standing there which seems suspicious!).

Since I didn't trust my memory, I went back through Kellar's Keep and the only time they deliberately put pits next to a Pit Trap (as opposed to just putting them inside the doorway which is the oldest trick in the book, treasure chest or not) is on the very first quest, which to me just says "hey, remember you don't have to do that" (the chest is empty!). The proper mechanic is to use a furniture trap.

For some reason it never occurred to me, as a kid, to play with fewer than 4 heroes if we had fewer than 4 players. The EU game makes this reasonable, if challenging. Just the Barbarian venturing alone into a dungeon can work, or a pair of heroes. The rulebook suggests doing this if you want to but notes that it will make the game harder. I don't think we ever tried it, though.

We never did this until my Twitter streaming days as an experiment (if I recall correctly, it started with adding two heroes to the Barbarian Solo quests). As kids we always played with four heroes, because the book recommended it (and we wanted all the help we could get!).

If we were playing two-player, then one person would control all the heroes like you did. The trouble is that the EU game was set up on the assumption players would compete to some degree, get in each other's way, try to reach gold first and maybe even come to blows/spells. If everyone cooperates, then the EU game becomes too easy in the basic quests. And if one player is controlling all four heroes, you have perfect cooperation.

I don't see the problem here, that's just what it is. A player that controls four heroes also has to manage more, his turns will take longer and any mistakes he makes impact the entire group. Sometimes a player will not care so much about an individual hero because it's like he has "four lives" (then again in a group, a player may not want their own hero to die and be "selfish" instead of a team player to that end). To me the "heroes can hurt each other" aspect of the original HeroQuest versions was more like how in arcade beat 'em ups the players could damage each other. It wasn't so they'd have a deathmatch every map and kill each other, but as an occasional "friendly fire" warning so they were forced to develop a strategy if they hoped to win. Baker admitted as much, that he figured a lot of 8-9 year old boys would be competitive so it would add to the challenge, but once they bonded as a group and worked together they were ensured of victory. If they did this from the start the game would be a lot easier. Having the game be very difficult seems to have been the task taken up by later expansion writers (a common trope in the world of video games as well, sequels to popular games in those early decades tended be punishing in terms of overcompensation, often the detriment of its long-term success, but not always, see "Ms. Pac-Man," then again a lot of the "easiness" of these video games were based on exploiting glitches or memorization of patterns).

Yes, that's the Games International interview (issue 9). Incidentally, issue 8 has a review of HQ (and a hilarious panning of Space Hulk, which is a brilliant game that they hated for some reason.)

Space Hulk kind of outshone them all even if it never became a pop culture meme. I'm shocked no moves have been made to revamp it, but then again I guess that already happened in 2014. I have still never played it (games like this look daunting to me for some reason, I should probably just try one someday).

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Just engaging in a little community policing here...

I've cut and pasted a chunk of the responses above into this thread Dungeon Design: Creating Your Own Quests as they are about dungeon design in general and will post a response there, this thread is (was supposed to be) judging by the title specific to The Rescue of Sir Ragnar and there is another one for Prince Magnus's Gold somewhere else.

[Zenithfleet]

Replying to Kurgan...

I've been reading through and comparing the layouts of KK and RotWL in the EU vs NA editions. They're mostly the same basic maps, but the NA occasionally tweaks something like changing the position of a door, or adding an extra secret. The NA generally has more traps and more monsters too. Sometimes reuse of a map caused problems e.g. with treasure chests--the EU rules assumed you had to move to a chest and open it, so the map would have pit traps next to them and things like that, which the NA maps kept even though those pits are now pointless.

Thanks. Isn't this part (having to move adjacent to a treasure chest) some kind of brain bug? I know a lot of people insist that's how they played as kids, but the rules don't actually say you have to do this. The only version that says this is how it works is in the Japanese rules. Search a room for treasure, and you find the treasure. I think at a certain point I reasoned people were thinking Searching "tells you what the treasure is" and then walking up to the chest lets you physically "pick it up" (as a free action when you're adjacent to it), but where is that in the rules?

I beg to differ, sir! I have scientifically investigated this very topic, and I shall write yet another gigantic wall of text to demonstrate your error, sir! Have at you, sir!

But not in this thread. Will put it in the Rules forum.

The only quest I can remember that puts a pit trap adjacent to a chest was the NA edition of Lair of the Orc Warlord (the EU edition put the trap ON the chest, hence the NA edition was an error... notice the chest wasn't even marked, and this error was repeated in the remake with no explanation). Searching for traps would reveal all of the room's traps, whether next to the chest or on it, and searching for treasure would trigger the furniture trap. This is why I would consider a room with a treasure chest and the trap next to the chest as an error (most infamously this occurred in the 2nd BQP quest which puts a row of spear traps in front of the chest; the designers discussed putting monsters in the room to prevent searching for traps but ultimately it went nowhere because you can't find treasure while monsters are present anyway and why would a person walk up to the chest without searching? I guess they were probably thinking the hero wouldn't have thought to buy a toolkit yet and so they could try to jump the traps to reach the chest... but again, why would they need to move close to it in the first place? only if they are trying to reach a monster who was just standing there which seems suspicious!).

Since I didn't trust my memory, I went back through Kellar's Keep and the only time they deliberately put pits next to a Pit Trap (as opposed to just putting them inside the doorway which is the oldest trick in the book, treasure chest or not) is on the very first quest, which to me just says "hey, remember you don't have to do that" (the chest is empty!). The proper mechanic is to use a furniture trap.

You're right that traps beside chests aren't done as often in the EU game as my own memory tells me. But there are still a few:

Kellar's Keep

The Great Gate - As you point out, there are pit traps around the empty chest near the start.


Belorn's Mine - The top-left room with three chests and three pit traps. The EU version has no enemies in this room, so the space after the door is free to move onto safely. Under NA rules, a hero could step into that EU room onto the first square and search for treasure to grab everything without moving any further. In the EU version, though, he or she must actually walk over to the chests and will probably fall foul of the pit traps. At the very least he or she will need to jump them after finding them with a trap search.


The East Gate - Small 'cell' room. Empty chest with a pit and two spear traps on either side. (Though to be fair, this would also catch anyone using treasure-search rules, since they would have to move into the room to search, so it doesn't really count.)


Return of the Witch Lord

The Silent Passages - a subtle one here. In the EU map, there is a room in the upper right with two chests in it, labelled B and C. B has gold and a potion in it. C is empty and has a trap on it. It's therefore possible to move to B and open it with no penalty, or move to C and open it and get hurt, in either order. One player might go for B while another goes for C.

My understanding is that in the NA rules, that wouldn't really work. Well, it would work mechanically, but in an odd and peculiar way. The first hero to enter would do one treasure search and get the contents of both chests at once, plus triggering any traps on both chests at once. You'd simultaneously get the gold and potion from B and the dart shooting from the wall due to C. There is no way to recreate the intended effect, which is that two players can each try a different chest.

In the NA rules, having two chests in the same room, one with a trap and one without, is a bit pointless. Why not just have one chest in the room with the gold and potion in it, plus a trap on it? And that's exactly what the NA revision team did. Chest C has been moved to another room to the upper right, which is completely bare and featureless in the EU map.


Halls of the Dead - another subtle one that still works in the NA edition, but not in the same way as originally intended.

The chest C is in the Witch Lord's central chamber, where the Barbarian and Elf start chained up. The Witch Lord has approximately fifty bazillion skellies ready to pounce after the Dwarf and Wizard enter the room and free Barbie and Elvis. The gold* and equipment of the Barbie and Elf are in chest C. It's easy to get to from the entrance door.

Therefore, in the EU game, as soon as the heroes enter and B&E are free to move, they can move to the corner, open the chest, and grab their swords, armour, etc., before Morcar's turn starts and all those Skeletons and Chaos Warriors surround them. In the NA edition, however, the heroes will (I assume) have to wait until after defeating all 14 enemies in the room before they can search for treasure and get the equipment back.

*Yep, in the EU original, the Barb and Elf get their gold back in this quest ... but the Dwarf and Wizard don't. At least the NA edition is fair in its unfairness.

I haven't checked Ogre Horde or Wizards of Morcar.

Incidentally, there is quite a funny apparent error in the NA final RotWL quest involving the pit trap in the Witch Lord's room, which was probably caused by a printing error in the EU original.

Yes, that's the Games International interview (issue 9). Incidentally, issue 8 has a review of HQ (and a hilarious panning of Space Hulk, which is a brilliant game that they hated for some reason.)

Space Hulk kind of outshone them all even if it never became a pop culture meme. I'm shocked no moves have been made to revamp it, but then again I guess that already happened in 2014. I have still never played it (games like this look daunting to me for some reason, I should probably just try one someday).

It's a great game, but it's intense. Especially for the Space Marine player. You can't really relax and chat about the state of the world while casually rolling dice. You will sweat.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Can you please post it on my search thread as I’m just typing my next post on that thread on the very subject of SE treasure chest handling?

[Zenithfleet]

My great big whopping treasure chest post is here:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6417

I'll post the link on your search thread too. It's far too long to copy and paste, though.

[Kurgan]

I went right along with the "off topic." I guess to me the "problems" people had with Sir Ragnar are due to years of sophistication and age changing tastes, but in keeping with the spirit of the original quest, a few simple tweaks can make it "exciting" again for most audiences.

Yeah, I'm still confused by this "have to walk up to the chest to get what's inside" mechanic (which exists in the Japanese edition from 1991 but in my readings of the EU rules both 1st and 2nd edition I seem to have missed). And I see you're attempting just that in the thread above so I will go read it...

With the draft notes for EQP/BQP they WERE toying with the idea of having each individual piece of furniture be searchable searparately (by a solo hero... yes, meaning one hero could search a room many, many times!) but it was ultimately nixed. Traces of it are left behind as in the first Elf quest ("the chest is empty but inside the tomb you find..."). In the EU edition each room gets searched only once for treasure, right? Thus the Treasure deck is used less often, and only for the times when there is no special note. The "first hero who searches..." in the NA edition means other heroes get to search after and still get cards. Treasure chests don't have to contain anything, but in practice they always have something (even if that is "empty" in the notes). Otherwise it's a cruel trick!

At times it seems the designers are confused what ruleset they are designing for, but with the 1992 expansions at least it was a case of thinking big thoughts then running out of time and not playtesting it to see that they'd left in things that don't make much sense anymore (enter the room, search, grab everything safely and leave, traps are useless). I understand that if a quest designer makes a mistake, just like the video game programmers of old... players WILL take advantage of your mistake (unless they're bored and deliberately trying to challenge themselves... after mopping the floor with your game and showing off of course!). Not every quest has to kill all the heroes in short order and be unbeaten to be fun. Nor does every quest need to be won on the first try (but if they lose, Zargon remixes, to prevent sheer brute force memorization to win... skill and luck are always involved on the "ride").

[wallydubbs]

I just recently played this quest with a new group and they cleared out the whole right side of the board before traversing to bottom and finding Ragnar. When they found him the only room left unchecked was the one with the goblin and empty trapped chest. I added 2 more orcs when I opened the door just to up the ante.
The crew was actually relieved that they cleared out most of the board before finding Ragnar. A goblin and 2 orcs weren't too worrisome, but holding them off long enough to get
As challenging as the situation would have been to have the whole board corner the heroes, everyone did enjoy this quest and probably would have preferred the leisure sifting of rooms rather then bombarded by all monsters at once.

Unfortunately, without testing the next quest, I upped Ulag's stats to that of the Orc Shaman in Wizards of Morcar. The heroes survived, but it depleted all their healing potions in the process. I guess I'll have to go easy on them in Prince Magnus'Gold.