Ye Olde Inn

In various places I've read that in the European Edition, the Equipment is limited by the number of Equipment Cards. Thus, there is only one Longsword and one Crossbow to be had by all the players. I've yet to come across this rule in the European Manual and it seems unlikely that this is the case given the Elf and Dwarf begin with 2 Attack Dice for their Shortswords. However, I'm curious to know what a game of HeroQuest, running through the full Game System would be like with the Heroes only being able to purchase one of each piece of Equipment from the Armoury. There can be duplicates as some weapons and armour are discovered as treasure throughout the Quests. Still, I'd like to try limiting the Armoury some day. Unfortunately, my HeroQuest gaming has been nil for the last couple months and I've been unable to start a new group (been trying for a year now), so chances are slim.

That is indeed the case in the UK edition. The characters have a certain number of attack and defence dice based on their starting character boards, but these are not explicitly linked to any form of equipment (no mention of shortswords etc). The only way to adjust these dice is buy or find equipment - and one knows who has the equipment by who holds the equipment card, effectively limiting the armory to the number of cards. The effect is to make the game harder by limiting the ways of improving your character, but this is balanced against the lower monster body points in the European edition. Almost eveyone I know scraps the rule and writes the equipment on the back of the sheets however!

I always considered that the equipement cards don't belong to players.
It's just a "demo" with illustration, price, effect of the item and all heroes could buy a long sword for instance.
The card was just a kind of reference sheet. It makes non sense into a village/town to not buy many shields helmets etc
That's what the french rule book says I believe...

But you do have 2 shields,2 helmets and 2 short swords all in one set of cards, so it suggests that's all you're allowed. But like polymathis says, everyone justs writes the equipment on the back of their sheets and forgets the cards anyway.

Ah, but that's just the first edition that has 2 shields and such. The later versions have only one of each in the equipment deck. I don't see why they couldn't each have one, but I would like to try having a limited armoury at least once, just to see how it goes.