Against the Ogre Horde 2024 Remake Edition Suggestions

[Kurgan]

CHAOS/DREAD TOKENS...
The problem with removing the "Chaos Spell Tokens" and replace them with "standard" Dread Spell Cards is that in ATOH instead of each boss bad guy having one use of a variety of spells, he gets multiple uses of each of several Spells. The tokens are much more useful for this fact... otherwise you are introducing a less handy way to calculate how many uses he has left (or else requiring the printing of multiple cards of each, so you're asking for 15 cards instead of 15 tokens). The exchange of tokens here is similar to how the "Sky Orb" in MOTM was supposed to work.

Additionally, some of these tokens require the target of the spell to do something as well, so being able to easily hand the hero player the token so he can see the effect is a handy feature as well (granted you can do this with a card, but both can have one in hand).

As mentioned Rise of the Dread Moon re-introduces token use into HQ in a big way... reputation tokens, lunar charms, disguises... so to me it fits fine with the new system and having even more tokens (such as for the big potions which otherwise were just something you wrote down on a character sheet and crossed off when used) would enhance the game to me.

RULE CHANGES...
The game goes back and forth through different mechanics. Why did we go "backwards" using Equipment cards when we already had the Armory board? Why did we lose the Character boards and go back to having "standard" size cards? (even though the cards have gotten bigger over time... NA cards are bigger than EU cards and remake cards the biggest of all). I'm fine with it either way but I'm just saying the original treatment of the evil chaos tokens fits just fine with current HQ.

I don't agree that you MUST discard the Giant Healing Potions when the ATOH campaign is over, I was making suggestions for those who worry that it would somehow harm the difficulty of the next campaign if you had some left and want some excuse to get rid of them. I'd say the best part there is that you are required to hand them over and are compensated with gold. I guess the issue there would be they could use that gold to buy some other potions (possibly also healing potions).


GAPS...
My point about gaps is simply echoing what the designers themselves have been saying about their own game. Obviously they are trying to sell a product that is fully functional and fairly easy for most (non-hardcore gamers) to understand, pickup and play out of the box for those who buy it, without having to write your own game. But when weird circumstances come up, there's already a rule... Zargon is to use his experience and imagination to make the best decision he can in that game! I think the AH team should certainly evaluate any quirks that come up in the conversion process, but I don't expect them to have a 100 page book detailing their ruling on every possible errata (and it's not incumbent upon Zargon to have a lifeline to twitter/x or discord to answer every possible question that players will come up with on the fly in the middle of a game either).

What if Zargon doesn't have any "experience"? Well, with these expansions, we're already assuming the level of experience of the 14 game system quests, at minimum (even if some choose to start off GMing at a later point, they can't stop you). Even if you've just played as a hero at this point, you have still been able to observe how Zargon (whether a human player or the rudimentary AI of the companion app) runs the game and this will influence how you do stuff (or how not to do it!).

When it comes to an item from one expansion possibly causing some anomaly in another expansion, should they bother to address it? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. It's natural to wonder if you can use the Elf spells in other packs or the Mercenaries from Frozen Horror in mage of the mirror. So answering what happens if an Elven Chainmail wearer falls into a Pit of Darkness, or someone uses the Rabbit boots on them makes a certain amount of sense. Some of it though is so easy to guess, I don't blame them leaving it out. Those who are unsatisfied will go online and hash it out with us and make their own decision in the end.

Up to this point AH has committed themselves to preserve as much of the nostalgia of the legacy game as they are legally allowed to do (barring some aesthetic choices). This means that they fill "fix" things they think are broken, but preserve what they can from the old game. So Pits of Darkness will still be there, but how they work is anyone's guess. A few lines of clarification wouldn't take up that much space in the quest book, I wouldn't think, but I wouldn't expect pages of exceptions and edge cases being laid out.

In the related topic on WOM I could imagine people expecting that the Mercenaries section will be discarded in favor of the Mercenary stuff laid out in Frozen Horror, but that's not a given. It doesn't have to be that it would be exactly the same as from that later pack. With regard to being able to disarm sprung Pit (but not Pits of Darkness) and Fallen Block traps, perhaps they could introduce a new kind of Toolkit like the boards you nail over the pit from Legacy of Sorasil, or a Pick Axe or Blasting powder? Maybe the Pick Axe wears out and the others have a built-in "use limit" on how many traps can be repaired in this way, requiring you to buy another (compare to the "Re-Agent Kit" from ROTDM).

So yes, I agree we should argue about it and we should tell AH what we think is best, and they will make their decision and the fans playing will make their decision. I'm not giving AH an excuse NOT to explain things, and I don't think they're doing that either. Hence I would expect clarifications of some kind in ATOH/WOM remakes, not just a straight up reprint (a la Game System/KK/ROTWL/Frozen Horror). They know by now that the fans do have opinions, and popular homebrews and that there are "issues" in these old sets. They also understand that there are long standing, contradictory fan fixes to some of these things, so I think they are also trying to avoid stepping on toes in some of those cases by making a definitive ruling. Yet in other areas they seem perfectly free to state an "unpopular" decision as definitive (see Crossbow or Courage decisions). Nothing is truly finally definitive in HeroQuest of course, even if it's "canon" or "official"...

[customized]

Holy smokes, just from looking at this thread there is clearly a lot going on in that expansion. I'm going to read the rulebook and check it out.

Are there "spoilers" in there? Not that there's too much overarching story. Also, I may or may not be Zargon/Morcar when we play.

It's always been one of those unattainable things that I never fully examined due to it's rarity.

I was going to do a print at home version, but if a remaster version is coming out, I might just wait for that. I definitely have more HQ than I can keep up with right now, with all the extra quest packs that have come out since the relaunch.

[Kurgan]

The "spoilers" would be in the quests themselves, like any other book. Not much is really ruined in this thread because the basic plot is revealed right at the start of the book.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

CHAOS/DREAD TOKENS...
The problem with removing the "Chaos Spell Tokens" and replace them with "standard" Dread Spell Cards is that in ATOH instead of each boss bad guy having one use of a variety of spells, he gets multiple uses of each of several Spells. The tokens are much more useful for this fact... otherwise you are introducing a less handy way to calculate how many uses he has left (or else requiring the printing of multiple cards of each, so you're asking for 15 cards instead of 15 tokens). The exchange of tokens here is similar to how the "Sky Orb" in MOTM was supposed to work.

Second Edition has a total of 48 spells (21 hero, 27 chaos and I presume NA edition has similar quantities, but I have never counted them) all of which use a single common system - represented by a card, "load" between quests, each spell is unique (cannot load 9 genies), capacity linked to MP, once per quest / discard after use and so on EXCEPT the 3 spells from AtOH where they appear to use a different spell system altogether - represented by tokens, non-unique spells, multi-use and so on - this makes no sense to me at all, I have no issue with multi-use magic items, or any other multi-use items from using a token system, but spells clearly aren't multi-use any where else in the system either before, during or after AtOH (WOM spells work using the same common system after AtOH and hero spells work using the same common system during AtOH) but if you break the fundamental principles behind the common spell system in the way that these 3 spells do, then you are opening yourself up to a load of confusion...a Wizard player might well start to wonder why, if spells aren't single use and unique, which was previously the case, then presumably he could "load" 9 Genie Spell tokens prior to each quest...? No, why not?

If you wanted Festral to be able to re-use some of his spells, then just get him to wear the Ring of Power and grant that the ability to recover cast spells on a roll of a or similar, the item already exists in the Quest and the Heroes don't get to take it with them so this seems like a simple tweak, rather than introducing a whole new system that doesn't replace the old one but sits alongside it sustained presumably by some form of paradox engine.

Incidentally this new system also has a flaw in it, even if taken in isolation, in that the description of the spells and spell token use in the opening section of the Quest Book, describes the use of the Mind Lock spell token as a counter, a number of them placed on the relevant Character Board to track how long the effects last (same for Dominate although that only lasts for the turn it is cast on, so that seems pointless), whereas the Mind Blast describes the use of the Mind Blast tokens to track the number of uses of the spell for the caster, by giving them one token per use and discarding one each time one is used. So far so good, however later in the quest book, in the quest notes, the following appears:

Festral knows all three of the Chaos Sorcerer spells and has three tokens for each spell

Xenloth is able to use the Mind Lock spell and the Mind Blast spell. He has 5 tokens for each spell.

Which implies that the spell tokens for Mind Lock and Dominate are used to track the number of uses of that spell by the caster (same as Mind Blast) but the opening text explains the use of those tokens differently.

If Xenloth, starting with all 5 Mind Lock tokens, casts the spell once (discarding 1 token, retaining 4 tokens), and scores 4 "hits" then he is supposed to place his 4 counters onto the character board of the victim, so he presumably cannot cast this spell on his next turn as he has no tokens remaining.

Rules, updates, clarifications and quest specific exceptions

They could even allow Traps & Secret doors to be searched in a single action, whether as an optional "Playtest" rule or as an implementation for "this quest book campaign only." It has the potential to speed up gameplay slightly anyway. Granted, the Wandering Monk hero was given this as a special ability he can do once (until his "Styles" refresh which happens after he no longer sees monsters).

Quest or Quest Pack Specific Exceptions are absolutely fine with me, but they need to come with some explanation as to why they are different in this scenario...the normal rule is x, but this doesn't apply in this situation because...instead use y ...the example you gave earlier in the "EU" edition around Mind Points being reduced to zero is a great example, the normal rule is simple MP=0=Dead and is consistently applied, the one exception is the poison gas breath attack that knocks you out rather than killing you is clearly an exception because the poison gas breath attack of that monster is unique. Another example is quests were traps are harder to find than the standard, why? because they are better constructed, better hidden traps than usual - fine.

But for a hero to suddenly be able to use the tool kit to remove pits or fallen blocks in this expansion, but not be able to do that prior to or after this expansion, with the same tool kit, why? To be able to combine a search for traps and secret doors in this expansion, but not prior to or after, why? Have the laws of physics in the HQ world temporarily changed? I guess things are different "up north" after all (UK-specific joke)

Rules should be in the rulebook (clue is in the name) and if you want to modify or clarify the rules after your initial publication, then create and host an online living rulebook (and you could include errata pages for Quest Maps and Notes) that contains the latest edition of the rules and leave the quest books for quest specific things

Quality of Rules
I have no issue with Zargon having the final say, at the table, when weird, wonderful and rare edge-cases occur on the fly (apart from the minor issue that Zargon is a character, it is the EWP that actually gets the final say), but we are not "at the table" now, and this is supposed to be a safety net. However the presence of a safety net doesn't mean that a tightrope walker should never bother to practice his performance and neither should designers publish half-baked rules and just leave them for the EWP to sort out. Many of the biggest and longest debates on this site - use/duration of courage, crossbow on diagonals, crossbow with shield, loads of examples around searching and disarming, line of sight and monster placement in corridors, monsters jumping pits, LOS around pits, furniture blocking LOS, furniture blocking movement, disarming chest and door traps, pass through rock spell ... these are far from being weird and wonderful, rare edge cases they are core parts of the game!

There is also a false dichotomy, often repeated here, that a rulebook either

1) needs to be brief but not comprehensive
OR
2) comprehensive and a massive tome

But that simply is NOT the case. Yes some games have rulebooks that could be published through subscriptions like the Encyclopaedia Britannica and other have pamphlets but that is more down to the complexity of the game and how comprehensive the rulebook needs to be, rather than the quality of the rulebook, a multi-volume compendium for a complex game, might still have as many holes in it as the HQ rules do and so might a pamphlet, if the quality is low enough. Handling (or preventing) exceptions and confusion doesn't automatically mean a longer rulebook - look at the Pts of Darkness discussion ongoing on another topic at the moment, the original rules (complicated, confusing and full of exceptions) take up 12 lines in the Quest Book, my suggested modification is only a single line "works as Pit Trap but roll 3 combat dice for damage instead of the normal lose 1BP", and there is much unnecessary repetition in the existing rulebook.

[lestodante]

Since they seem to be declining the idea to combine WOM and ATOH into one pack

Of course, why selling two questpacks for the cost of one?
The Ogre pack was a good questpack, it wasn't broken as the BQP or EQP were, so I don't think it needs an extreme revision.
Of course few add ons will surely make it fresher, especially if they wish to appeal people that is still in love with the classic version of the game.

Potion tokens, it's an unnecessary thing for me, you can take note of the potions on the characer sheet as you do for other potions.

Maybe the "Ogre Grog" that appeared in the Alchemist cards of Rise of the Dread Moon could have some place here as a joke?

if they will allow interaction beetween the packs, the Ogre Grog may be used to corrupt an Ogre (c'mon Ogre, let me pass, we are friends, I'll give you a grog).

Allowing the Dwarf or another hero with a Toolkit ONLY in these quests to remove a sprung Pit Trap (not Pit of Darkness) or Fallen Block Trap even after the fact, would eliminate some of the problems with heroes being unintentionally trapped forever (but not dead).

Being trapped forever is just another way to die in HeroQuest. It can happen with Pass Through Rock, now also with the falling rock trap. I don't see a problem.
Also they could make a hero find the Ring of Return which was not available in the Eur version. A wise Wizard may pass through the rocks and reach the trapped hero and then use the ring to go back to the stairway tile. Simpler solution I think.

Variable Ogre Body Points. These could be handled a number of ways.

We have a post for this. Mant people and I revised Ogre stats already as nobody seems to appeciate this system. A good solution is to leave variable BP only for the Ogre warriors, but not for the other 3; also the Chieftain and the Lord already have their BP specified in the questbook. This will preserve the random BP for the standard warrior ogres but will avoid an ogre champion to be killed after 1 hit.

New cards. At minimum I would say that an Alchemist Shop should be added.

sure but I would make it different from the KK or WL shop. A Pass Through Rock potion may be useful here although it will kill the chance of being trapped forever by a falling rock trap (c'mon, it is a cool way to die)
A restore mind potion could also be useful against the Chaos spells in this pack.
I would not feature items from previous questpacks as the rabbit boots again. I find it boring. New pack, new stuff. Maybe similar, but different.

New Plastics. In addition to the (dark blue) Ogre Lord, Chieftan and Champion, there would be four Ogre Warriors. As much as I am bored by gray figures at this point (they look like unpainted figures, like it or not) I would say there should still be RED Ogres. But maybe the Red ones could be Ogre Mercenaries?

They should be brown and blue as in the original pack. I guess they would leave the colors unchanged to not disappoint fans.
As for Ogre mercenaries... hmmmm it is odd, I would say no to this. We have already a lot of mercenary from previous packs.

I would expect Entrance and Exit Doors here of course too and a plastic "Ogre Throne." Would there be room for other "Ogre Furniture"? Perhaps oversized and crude looking with new symbols adorning them? Maybe some fancy dice?

Ok for the doors and the throne. More furnitures, do we really need? I'd prefer a lower cost for the pack. Same for the dice. Unless they have different faces, I don't need them, we have enough dice and there are a lot of color variants on the web for people that wish a different color for each player.

The really large Outdoor tile has a tendency to flex and bend. Perhaps making it of a thicker or stiffer card this time could help prevent that? Or just make it sturdy enough that you can bend it back without damage...

Unnecessary. New version already features a ticker cardboard than the vintage version. Anyway people should learn to take care of their items even if it's just a game. And a pack with easily damageable components is an opportunity for hasbro to sell another copy of their questpack.

New good guy spells. Perhaps some "mental" spells for the good guys would be nice here, similar to the mentalist type Elf spells included in MOTM but maybe open to both the Wizard AND Elf this time. Some say that Dwarf stuff should go here but other than an excuse to toss in a female Dwarf hero (why not in a future Dwarf pack?) I can't think of why. Perhaps some other "red" figure here to go with the new cards? Every new character type would have its own character card of course.

I don't think adding new spells may be a good idea for this questpack. Maybe a couple of new artifacts that can be used limited time is a better choice. Each expansion should have their own related stuff to make it unique.

Fix unmarked Treasure Chests (via another thread)

why a treasure chest can't be empty? A hero may chose to enter a room and struggle to fight against a set of Ogres because he saw a treasure chest in their room, just to realize it's empty after the battle.

Write a proper Epilogue. There was not much of an ending written here, so that would be fitting.

they should write something that connect this questpack to the WoM pack as its intro was fitting as an epilogue to the ATOH pack too.

Monster Cards for the four types of Ogres (and more if they add "Ogre Mercenaries").

Of course, they should and I guess they would do. But no mercenaries please...

[Kurgan]

The old principle "if it ain't broke don't fix it" would apply here. So what is Avalon Hill (and the wider community) thinking about the Chaos/Dread Spell Tokens in ATOH... is this "broken"?

I don't see the problem introducing a unique rule or mechanic that appears only in one quest pack. People who buy the pack will be able to figure it out, because whatever it is, it is an exception to everything that came before and its explained right there in adventures that were built around it. HeroQuest players are used to doing this already with the "one off" nature of so many quests already. Look through the original 14 (and to a lesser extent ROTWL and KK). Each quest has some "gimmick" (I use that term to refer to some riff on the basic rules, some unique feature) that isn't the same as the others. Zargon sets the tone and everyone follows suit. Nobody worries or wonders if the next quest is going to have it the same way. The Mythic books (and ROTDM) introduce some gimmicks that last for more than one quest. To me that's just the usual principle of adaptation. You've heard it said that this is the rule, well now this particular quest, or this particular quest pack, changes it, or this particular card changes it, etc.

To me this is similar to how people seem overly worried when there's a similar concept in more than one quest book that behaves differently in that one. The easiest "fix" (if ever one was needed) is simply to adjust the name or appearance to differentiate them. Hence you have two different potions of speed, or different types of pits, etc.

I think the desire to remove confusion (which is a good desire) is outweighed by paying tribute to what was a perfectly serviceable feature of the original version in this case.

I hear what is being said about the lack of "counters" for so many other things. There's a Fimir that has three uses of the Rust spell. How is Zargon supposed to keep track of that? Or the Elven Cloak of Passage (a treasure card find), Ancient Staff, Fire Ring, and a few others that escape my memory, are items that can be used a fixed number of times before expiring. No mechanism is given for how to keep track. What are people to do? I think most people can figure out some simple way. Some suggest using a spare red die and turning the number over on top of the card or something (some prefer this as a body point counter for monsters rather than the NA mandated way of stacking skull tiles underneath the monster figure, vs. the written tracker used in the EU edition for the rarer multi-point monsters). But another simple way is you write on your character sheet something like "A. Staff: " and put a hatch mark next to it, when it reaches the limit, you strike through it (turn the card over, if you have it). Or you could draw three boxes next to it with your pencil and check off each one as it is used. It's up to you! Zargon remembers, but this is just a way for the players to better organize themselves so they know what to do when its' their turn again.

I suppose when ROTDM came out there were those who didn't like the new token system (which doesn't exist in any other expansion). Why would you need a physical token to represent a lunar charm? You can just write that down on your character sheet. Or you could have it be a physical card instead of a cardboard chit, after all. Or why have a reputation token? Same thing. The designers felt that it was something they wanted to do and so they did it. You can look at it negatively and say it's different therefore it doesn't fit, or you can point out that tokens have been used before (like this and the Sky Orb, though granted in that case it was a bit botched because there's no default way to lose Mind Points in the Elf Quest Pack, meaning you wouldn't actually use the Sky Orb until your next adventure, but it's use was very simple to understand). You could argue that like having cards instead of purely using the imagination, it's a tactile way to play that many people enjoy (though it adds to table clutter, it's also a way to add to the game's visual appeal, like having a fancy designer chess set instead of a basic one as preferred by tournament players). It's more an aesthetic choice, but it does present an easy way to keep track of something. Tokens being used as counters in a board game seems like a common enough convention. I guess they could give you little plastic bits to serve the same purpose, like skulls or rats, but those would be easier to lose... I honestly don't know which is cheaper to mass produce, cards or tokens.

I just think that if the tokens in ROTDM were well received (I've seen very few complaints myself) this opens another area for them to continue that system rather than feeling obligated to change it to meet some assumption that it needs to be changed.

I would be kind of shocked if they included little detachable "heroclix" style dials to put on the Ogres in this one. But going that route they could also introduce ones for the heroes or magicians too. Maybe the number represents remaining body points, or another could represent remaining mind points, or remaining spell instances. Who knows! But that's probably more expensive than just using a token or saying keep track of it yourself on paper (the most boring method).

[Kurgan]

I'm not going to bother quoting every line here, but some points that stood out from the latest responses (thanks guys):

A suggestion to make it more "flavorful" (lore) would be to say in this pack you can purchase a number of "board kits" to nail over the top of pit traps (thanks "Legacy of Sorasil") and "blasting powder" to blow apart stone blocks (maybe it's only strong enough to blast "loose" rock, rather than just any stone block).

The problem with my suggestion is that IF you're playing the version of the campaign where you don't allow shopping between quests, how are the Heroes going to know how many they need at the beginning of the adventure (unless Zargon offers via the shop sequences the exact amount they will need, in stock, which would be kind of weird)? Here if you re-introduce some kind of "hideout" like in ROTDM (and you have more room to play around in with an extra 3 quests), you could have places to acquire these tools, which will be used up and thus not needed in future quests (unless you stockpile them more than needed, I suppose good for you, or you could sell them back to get some more gold, or Zargon could just be generous).

My point in bringing this up is that the "trapped forever" danger was INCREASED by the conversion of ATOH to NA rules, not the difficulty that was present in the original (plus it's a weird "slowly die of starvation after everyone else has left the quest I guess" kind of death rather than the usual crushed inside solid rock outcome).

Good point about Mind Lock and other spells working differently (uses of the spell vs. duration), but I don't think that hurts my larger point. If the tokens were replaced with standard cards, how does that system work any better?

I guess you could say that the new game doesn't use the large character boards for characters anymore but standard size cards (the EU boards were even taller than the NA ones), but not a big deal there as you can still stack them if you run out of surface area.

I never thought about using the Ring of Return that way, lestodante, that's actually a fine idea. It's probably long since used up by this point, but several Artifacts are found more than once in your journey... (The Ring of Return has..... Returned!)

Regarding Ogre colors, I know there are black variants out there (not just for Ogres but every figure in the game) and also gray variants (very rare) and swaps (Chieftan/Lord/Champion in red), but the Ogre Warriors I own (both the one I found solo on ebay and the complete set sans box I bought from a Euro player on BGG) were red, a very close shade of red to the heroes (granted, the heroes also came in different shades of red, mostly based on region). Never saw any "brown" ones (if by "brown" we are matching the plastic colors of the "wooden" furniture or rats). Gray is simply the most "boring" shade, and as we know, not everyone is willing to paint their figures, even though gray is associated in HeroQuest with "powerful character" generally. I'm not saying I'd be against such a color choice, just so its more chocolate (and less "poop").

They've shown us with ROTDM their willingness to step outside some of the previously established color conventions, so anything is possible. I think just making them a different shade than "hero" red, but still red, would be good (unless, again they are going to add "mercenary" Ogre variants, in which case make those heroic red, and the bad guy versions maybe a darker red, maybe purple? but there should be some big red guys in the box one way or another, not just a big mass of gray please!).

Regarding dice, of course people can always fancy up their dice already, but I'm thinking here AH wanting to get some of that money... and already people have been getting bent out of shape about the GenCon dice not being immediately widely available outside of that pre-ordering scenario.

"Ogre Riches: If we forgot to put a note saying what's in the Treasure Chest, just assume that the first hero searching for treasure finds 200 gold coins."

[Bareheaded Warrior]

The issue with the Mind Lock spell tokens isn't a general issue around token or card use, it is a specific issue with using the same 5 tokens to both track the number of uses of a spell that a spell caster has remaining (which could be 5) AND the number of turns that an affected hero is "under the influence", which could be up to 4 per casting/hero.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't have any issue with quest or quest book specific exceptions to rules (provided it is clear which rule are quest specific and which are general rule changes).

What I don't understand is why the entire HeroQuest magic system to date, the Vancian spellcasting paradigm, in which characters must memorize or prepare spells between quests, and can only cast each such prepared spell once, that is common to every quest and every spell before and after this quest pack* for all spellcasters whether Hero or Monster, suddenly and temporarily changes, for monster spell casters only but not hero spellcasters who have to keep to the standard magic system.

*There is one other example of this with Fimir and 3 rust spells but I consistently object to that too

It would be rather like saying that the laws of physics don't apply in a specific questbook, to monsters only, but still apply to heroes because...no reason they just don't.

[Kurgan]

What I don't understand is why the entire HeroQuest magic system to date, the Vancian spellcasting paradigm, in which characters must memorize or prepare spells between quests, and can only cast each such prepared spell once, that is common to every quest and every spell before and after this quest pack* for all spellcasters whether Hero or Monster, suddenly and temporarily changes, for monster spell casters only but not hero spellcasters who have to keep to the standard magic system.

The spells in HeroQuest function more like physical devices that take time to recharge after use (which some special objects can speed up, such as certain potions or artifacts or even multiply their effect). Some of them are even transferable at will (Spell Scrolls).

I'm sure with enough imagination one could try to explain how the old D&D system might make sense of Quest 3 (or similar instances), but I don't have a problem with it. Very soon we're likely to see the return of the those Mythic heroes (created by AH's own Doug Hopkins) with their regenerating spell options.

Since monsters typically don't persist from one quest to another, their spell system is a lot simpler. The card is more for organizational utility, as it might as well be an inherent ability of the monster. Still, it provides a nice little aesthetic to complement the action like "whoa, this guy has powers that rival our own!" Zargon is the one that has to "worry" about the new magic system in this one, so I find it even less objectionable that it's different, for that very reason. The tokens provide a different little tangible way to represent the interplay between the Dread Sorcerer and his would-be victim.

It would be rather like saying that the laws of physics don't apply in a specific questbook, to monsters only, but still apply to heroes because...no reason they just don't.

That is the easiest excuse in the world to pull if one wishes. "Due to the magical nature of this dungeon, all X, Y, Z, will now be A, E, I, O, and U."

The 14 quests, if they taught us nothing else, was to give us a taste of the many ways one could imaginatively re-use the same assets into a totally new play experience. The heroes are always warned at the outset (or the first instance) that there's a new mechanic afoot. So whether it's teleporting doors, magical darkness, or falling blocks that don't behave like falling blocks normally do, or monsters that have different abilities despite their appearance, all things are possible. But I get the appeal of wanting to dress them up as something brand new if you fear your audience might forget to use their imagination (not just that, but it serves your dual purpose of wanting to cram extra plastic and artwork into the box to sell).

I hope they do listen to us, but I hope they listen more closely to the European fans and how they reacted to this stuff back then until now. I would give more weight to their "vote" if it were me making the decisions over there on what to rewrite, at AH. I never said I would have had a problem with them adjusting the number of tokens a particular boss had of whatever. But they'll be deciding whether its worth disappointing those who liked the old system vs. those who wanted a change (and how close they would get to whatever fan changes proved most popular if AH looks to those for inspiration for their own system). Their guiding principle is to keep what worked and what was liked, change what wasn't working, that wasn't liked, if they can do better.

I know there's a bad taste left behind from the "HQ 25th Anniversary/GameZone TseuQuest" debacle, but those cards actually had little dials within them that you could use to adjust the value on the physical card. Not sure how much cost that would add to print, but they could add something like that I suppose, though it still doesn't quite have the same tactile quality as the tokens, just a basic flat counter.

[lestodante]

The old principle "if it ain't broke don't fix it" would apply here. So what is Avalon Hill (and the wider community) thinking about the Chaos/Dread Spell Tokens in ATOH... is this "broken"?

I think they used the token to not produce cards. It seems the standard was 64 cards per deck for their European production.
64 cards in the game system (EUR) and 64 for Wizards of Morcar with a lot of extra mercenaries to (I guess) fill the deck and reach the required number. 64 cards in space crusade as well.
(Battle Masters arrived later and were using a different format so it is possible the same sheet were used but due to the larger size of the cards it could contain only 59).
So I am pretty sure the Ogre Horde was missing a deck of cards because they didn't have enough stuff to reach 64. That's also why they decided to print the Ogre cards on the back of the questbook. Same situation for the US release of KK and ROTWL and a STRICT number of 30 for the hero packs (BQP, EQP and other two of them).
This is an old problem and Hasbro can now produce packs with less cards, so I guess we will have real monster cards for the Ogres and the ex Chaos Tokens will be converted into Dread Spell cards with specific notes on the questbook (he can cast Command 4 times for example).

It is possible they used tokens to indicate the possess of some items they thought were more important. The Sky Orb for example, the main token is unuseful, we would need only the 4 tokens (when you discard the 4th , you discard also the main one and the card) but soon the hero will realize it is not useful in the questpack where it is found! If you look at the unpunched tiles sheet, you'll see there is not enough space to place 5 extra tokens for the Ancient Staff (unless we remove the main Sky Orb token). So they did a choice. Millandriell, the Prospector and the Moonsilver Flask got their token, while the Ancient Staff didn't. It is part of the "broken" part of the questpack that we already known.

I don't see the problem introducing a unique rule or mechanic that appears only in one quest pack. People who buy the pack will be able to figure it out, because whatever it is, it is an exception to everything that came before and its explained right there in adventures that were built around it.

Agree! And this will also make a pack more different, so that people may like a pack more or less than others not only because of the content and the storyline but also for the new mechanics (they introduced a lot of new stuff with the Dread Moon but whosay you will find again people that is ready to offer a refuge to the heroes? It may be an exclusive of that quest pack.

Zargon sets the tone and everyone follows suit. Nobody worries or wonders if the next quest is going to have it the same way. The Mythic books (and ROTDM) introduce some gimmicks that last for more than one quest. To me that's just the usual principle of adaptation. You've heard it said that this is the rule, well now this particular quest, or this particular quest pack, changes it, or this particular card changes it, etc.

Exactly. People is still discussing about the multiple attack feature of the Polar Warbear. They should have limited it to that monster only and the problem were solved once and for all. An exclusive rule for THAT questpack and linked to THAT monster only. You may forget it after completing the BQP (unless the Polar Warbear will be featured in a new pack). We've seen different Magical Darkness in different quests; they are related to the pack or quest where you meet this threath. The more the rules, the more the chance to go in contrast with other questpacks. And it will be easier for everyone to create new content, without caring of all the existing rules.

To me this is similar to how people seem overly worried when there's a similar concept in more than one quest book that behaves differently in that one. The easiest "fix" (if ever one was needed) is simply to adjust the name or appearance to differentiate them. Hence you have two different potions of speed, or different types of pits, etc.

Exactl; and similar but different Rust or Lightining Bolt spells too (WoZ maybe?).


I hear what is being said about the lack of "counters" for so many other things. There's a Fimir that has three uses of the Rust spell. How is Zargon supposed to keep track of that? Or the Elven Cloak of Passage (a treasure card find), Ancient Staff, Fire Ring, and a few others that escape my memory, are items that can be used a fixed number of times before expiring. No mechanism is given for how to keep track. What are people to do?
Pen a piece of paper is the best solution for me. But some peple is even creating tokens for the gold coins, for the potions... Everything that is not really necessary can be produced and sold serapately in limited box set by Hasbro (GenCon dice is an example) but better not to incvrease the weight of the questpack box or its cost for stuff that many people may consider unnecessary.

I suppose when ROTDM came out there were those who didn't like the new token system (which doesn't exist in any other expansion). Why would you need a physical token to represent a lunar charm? You can just write that down on your character sheet. Or you could have it be a physical card instead of a cardboard chit, after all. Or why have a reputation token? Same thing. The designers felt that it was something they wanted to do and so they did it.

Possibly because they mean a change of STATUS for the character. As for the RANK tokens in Space Crusade, you may write it on a paper but seeing it on its slot represents a STATUS reached by your character. It is cool and a matter of visual appeal as you sayd.