Ye Olde Inn

I downloaded and printed the remastered Wizards of Zargon/Morcar quest book and I was a little disappointed by the lack of variety and story. Basically, Morcar has hired four magical hit men to kill the heroes. You enter each evil wizard's lair one by one and try to defeat them...if you can survive long enough to reach the center room. Once you've done that four times, the wizards are magically reseurrected and now you have to fight them them all at once...and they start where? In the center room of course. Once they're finally defeated...well, they're defeated. No award ceremony, no kudos from Mentor, no medal for Chewbacca.

Maybe this plays better than it sounds, but after reading through the quests I wasn't inspired to run them. If the evil wizards were bought in to destroy the heroes, why are they just sitting around in their hideouts waiting for the heroes to fight their way in? It's a bit like Dr. Evil ("Ah, Mr. Powers, welcome to my hollowed-out volcano.").

By comparison, the Elf and Barbaian packs offer much more variety and a better story, even if they too have their share of flaws due to the apparent lack of playtesting.

From the sounds of it, none of these were playtested.

But yea, the uk ones don't have endings, though techancly the ogre kingdom one does since the begining of wizards is the ending to ogres. And so does dark company kinda since mentor appears and teleports the heros out at the end.

I think it was because the game was dying so they rushed to get them out.

HQ is a living game, a game system open for the GMs to make their own quests. The five quests of wizards of morcar is a proof that the original quests are only as an example of how to play the game and how to create your own quests. Another proof of that is the Adventure Design Kit. They want to teach you how to play and that’s the reason why it still lives.

About the four wizards, each of them can fit very well to every quest. As bosses or in heavy encounters. And sometimes when I want to put a wizard in my quests I took their spells mixed with chaos spells and I draw three cards at random… These spells are full of great ideas. For example, the Fear spell could be a great skill for a custom monster, or the effects of “strands of binding” where the hero can’t move or attack until he destroys it against 2 body points and 4 defense is a very good and balanced idea for a special web attack of a giant spider.

Of course it could be nice if there were more quests, but as an expansion it is great.

Patroclus wrote:HQ is a living game, a game system open for the GMs to make their own quests. The five quests of wizards of morcar is a proof that the original quests are only as an example of how to play the game and how to create your own quests. Another proof of that is the Adventure Design Kit. They want to teach you how to play and that’s the reason why it still lives.

Word.

Its a long time ago since I played the wizards of Morcar.
But If I remember correctly, I had a feeling of.... WOW so much additional items/rules/... and on the other hand...
no use for all those things.

And like already suggested... its just a platform and example to create your own quests.
But the items etc werent included in the Design Kit.

Also in my opinion it was way too hard.
I remember to have played the basic quests, the kellars keep and return of... with the same heroes before starting the Wizards of Morcar expansion.
So the heroes already we're equipped and upgraded. Even than, including the use of mercenaries... it was hard to defeat the whole questpack.

Conclusion:
I liked the items, the wizards and everything.
But hated the quests. Too little and not very good at all.

A missed chance

Never played it, but I gotta agree with you the opening plot is meh. And no fluff and reward at the end? Clearly there are missing elements here. If I get around to playing it, I plan to reserve the new spell cards as spellbook rewards at the end of the fifth Quest. And since those two chests in the central room need a purpose, I think I'll fill them with re-embursement coins for mercenary costs if the Heroes' reserves are low.

they should have made 10 quests in my opinion. 2 per wizard, so you can ease into the story better, and gain more equipment/potions etc. to make your chances for survival better, plus 1 quest where the wizards are resurrected/gathered before the final quest where you have to kill all 4 of them.

Idea for an alternative questbook perhaps?

Sjeng wrote:they should have made 10 quests in my opinion. 2 per wizard, so you can ease into the story better, and gain more equipment/potions etc. to make your chances for survival better, plus 1 quest where the wizards are resurrected/gathered before the final quest where you have to kill all 4 of them.

Idea for an alternative questbook perhaps?

I'm planning on using Fanrax the Malicious (the Necromancer) as one of the main bosses in The Chronicles of Sir Ragnar. I'm sure we could find room for the other 3 wizards to make an appearance or be heavily involved in the storyline.

I'm currently playing this through. I agree that there should be more quests like in Barbarian and Elf packs+ the plot could be a bit more.. longer /more complex. But there is still loads of good stuff included and the quest pack's great HQ stuff anyway. I'm spicing it up with some small additions like Spell Scrolls, potions etc.

Which is interesting, there is no Epilogue in the Quest book. WHY? Every other book has.
Which is even more interesting, in this HQ page http://www.freewebs.com/heroquestrevised/downloads.htm
you find a Quest Book set with 12 chapters where WoZ is included. With an EPILOGUE!! is that unofficial or what? it's on page 60.

The Road Warrior wrote:I'm planning on using Fanrax the Malicious (the Necromancer) as one of the main bosses in The Chronicles of Sir Ragnar. I'm sure we could find room for the other 3 wizards to make an appearance or be heavily involved in the storyline.

I've included Grawshak the Orc Shaman in my Escape from Ulag quests