by Our legendary member Kurgan, performed time ago an great live interview with Doug Hopkins, better known as "Wandering Monster" in social media, performed during GenCon 2024 event in Indianapolis. At the time of interview, Doug was the principal game designer of HeroQuest remake's products.
The interview with Doug Hopkins can be found in Kurgan's YouTube channel XSC3-HeroQuestFans here, however, he gave me permission to transcript it on this post for eternity. Nevertheless, of course I encourage you to watch the full video if you are interested in listening to Doug.
On behalf of all members of Ye Olde Inn, Thanks a lot to Kurgan for generating this great valuable piece of history!
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INTERVIEW WITH DOUG HOPKINS "WANDERING MONSTER" by our Ye Olde Inn member Kurgan, performed the 7th of August 2024 for his YouTube channel, @HeroQuestFans
- Kurgan from HeroQuestFans (K): All right, we're back, Gen Con Day 3 sitting down with the man himself, Doug Hopkins, and Doug I got a lot of tough questions for you, but some fair questions I hope, and we had kind of a a pre-interview, and he shared with us the fact that there's more than he wants to talk about. We are not talking to Chris Nadeau, today we are talking to Doug Hopkins. They are different people despite what others may think, he has his own things to share.
Doug Hopkins "Wandering Monster" (DH): We have been confused as the same person.
K: Apparently, yes, all right, so why don't you just start off, tell us what your official title or role is at Hasbro Avalon Hill?
DH: Hail Heroes, I'm Doug Hopkins, and I'm a game designer for Avalon Hill which is a part of Hasbro.
K: Excellent, all right. Well, let's get right into the questions. A lot of Hero Quest fans are asking a lot of things and I think one of the questions I'm just going to start out, just generally speaking, why is it that you can't tell us about projects that haven't been approved or completed yet?
DH: Well, you know, I think like part of having a product is building anticipation and the surprise of the announcement of what's to come, right? so we can break that new strategically and in format, so that multiple people can get it simultaneously rather than leaving some places out.
K: That makes me think of another question that's not on here, which is about leaks. I suppose there's a difference between something that you purposely put out there to build anticipation versus something that wasn't supposed to be revealed. What do you do... well, I suppose you can't really tell us what's a leak and what isn't...
DH: Hasbro doesn't really comment on leaks, so I would think like you shouldn't really trust anything said by not official sources.
K: It's just a rumor until it's confirmed.
DH: Rumor until it's not.
K: Yep, fair enough, very good, and we have many questions, so that actually eliminates a lot of questions that we had here about Crypt of Perpetual Darkness, Wizards of Morcar. Japanese Hero Quest... things that I think people want, and what what would you tell those people? would you tell them to just, yeah not care about that? or do you guys want to hear about this? are you tired of hearing about it?
DH: No, not tired at all. We care if you care, and we listen like I think we've got a great track record of listening to you. I feel like you do listen, you keep telling us what you want, you might not always get what you want, but we do try to like work your desires into our products for sure.
K: Very good, and I think some of these questions... we had a great interview with Patrick [O'Rourke] earlier and he helped me understand a lot of the marketing stuff which was great just like last year, and I think there's definitely something you have to say about.
DH: Well, with any like any wizard, there's a good wizard or an evil wizard, so just I'm not saying Patrick's the evil wizard, but I'm not saying that he's the evil wizard so...
K: Very good, okay, a lot of these questions were answered already by the reveals at Gen Con here, about the dice and the new expansions, new content... what about these Ogre Horde's ranged Goblins? why were they called 'Archers'? was that because of the original? or what was the deal there? because you're a design guy, so these are the kind of things that matter to you, and I suppose no decision is made just for no reason, right?
DH: For sure, because of that general term that you could always kind of like sub in something and have it be an Archer? which kind of signifies a ranged attacker? but you're right, usually people kind of like associate archery with bows, that's fair, that's totally fair that is the case, but I wanted a term that seemed a little bit more flavorful than ranged, like I don't want to say like Ranged Goblins or Ranged Skeletons, but yet when I'm thinking about the model of Hero Quest, I hear people often say that they want their Hero Quest models to be Hero Quest models, right? so I don't want to provide a model that you can just go by off the shelf.
K: Even though people do that, I get what you're saying.
DH: Of course, yeah, but they do it, and I see it all the time, so I'm like what's going to make a Hero Quest model, and I'm like "oh, wouldn't it be fun if these Goblins had a boomerang? or throw like it seems very kind of like trixy?" so like I wanted them to have something that looks like it could inflict damage at ranged, but not be just everything has bows because we gave bows to the Skeletons, we gave bows to the Orcs...
K: I mean you've got your long bow, your crossbow, your short bow, but then what else? sling, I don't know...
DH: Yeah, then we're just lumped into bows forever, so I try to think about like what kind of tech level that creature has, so if you notice our Orcs've got a high tech level, right? they've got plate mail armor, they've got like high armor and spikes on it. Zargon has outfitted those Orcs well, the Goblins have more makeshift things, so I'm like what would be fun, kind of like things that they might make, like they might construct and that's like it kind of be fun to do little like molotov cocktails, or something like that, little grenades, or potions on fire, alchemist fire, and how about a boomerang? like it just felt more in line with that model.
K: Well, when you say that... I know we got many other questions get through in little time, but I think the designs were more appealing than the Archers like because that when I see a Goblin with a grenade, that suggests to me "oh, it should have some type of area of effect, or it's affected by...", so it encourages me to be creative rather than just accept what's on the page and say "well, yeah, it's just a Goblin but he attacks at a distance".
DH: This is exactly... as soon as I saw it, I was like "oh, yeah, I don't want to add necessarily because that was like an easy rule to add". If Zargon needs to be a little bit more challenging, swap out and make it smart, make it a range creature. I didn't want to have to also add new powers onto that too. When I saw people who said "oh, they should have had an explosive attack", so I'm...
K: The boomerang comes back...
DH: Or the boomerang comes back, yeah, and maybe you can like toss it through someone, and bring it back. I'm like that's great, that's you did it, that's what the spirit of Hero Quest is sandbox, so we gave you the thing, that's great for most people who just need something quick and you used your creativity to make it something greater, that's what the fans have been doing for 30 years.
K: And I feel like, I said this before the interview, that I hear a continuity with what Chris and Tess were saying last year, the same way is you want us to expand, you don't just want to we just read it off the page, and for some people that's enough, but for a lot of people it's like "I can go the next step, I see where this is going, I can take it further".
DH: Yeah, that's what makes Hero Quest great, like it's a simple rule set, it's very accessible, but you can just pour your heart into it.
K: Yes, sir, okay, so moving on, a lot of these are answered... We have different colored dice, what would you ever consider doing, like an omnibus style, like all the Quest Packs in one bound book, like call it Loretome or something, fans have done that, do you think there's any need for doing something like that organizational wise?
DH: Yeah, I've seen that on social, I definitely think it's an interesting idea, but we're a small team, so if we do that... that would be the products we would put out for that season because it would require a lot work, we would have to go tinkering with it to make sure that it was something that everyone wanted, so I have to ask myself "is that better than a new expansion?" and I don't have the answer, that's why you all have to let us know what you want on social. When you say what you want, we listen and we can point to it, and that's what we call insights, right? so when we make decisions on what we're going to put out, we base them on insights, so keep telling us what you want.
K: So it's better to say "I want this" than when is coming out because the answer is "well, I don't know unless we think there's a demand" and it's something we can do.
DH: That's pretty fair.
K: All right, great. We had a question earlier... we were talking about the fact that on the Avalon Hill Discord you answer a lot of questions, but the other questions you pass on, so do you ever feel like when the fans do something, like the fans answer the question for you don't have to say anything? or do you feel like you need to like get in there, and say "no, no, no, that's your way of doing it, but we have our intended way that we want you to do it"? is there a conflict?
DH: We have so many knowledgeable fans that chime in and give the correct answer a lot of times, yeah. I won't pipe in because like you don't even need an official answer on every rules question, right?
K: I agree actually, but a lot of people wonder.
DH: I know, but again it comes to our time, so if we're there answering every rules question, then we're not doing something else, so when I see someone else who have really articulately, "oh I butchered that word, but you know what I meant", answered the question that's fine.
K: I think recently you did that with one of my questions, somebody else answered it and you were just like "yep, he got it".
DH: Yes, it's exactly right. Sometimes I'll chime in and say they got it, but like I don't want to like make that a precedent of like that I'm going to do that every time, right? like some people really express our vision just so succinctly. What I like to do is if I missed something or if I see something being misinterpreted by a lot of people, then I'll chime in and say "okay, maybe we could have been better at writing the rule", so I'm going to jump in here and clarify.
K: Like the Borin's Armor or some of the things... the Monk like. I feel like for me it's like who am I to tell Doug that he's wrong about his own idea, like that doesn't make any sense, but I think the way I see it, and a lot of people see it is well. Did you mean to say this because I'm going to change it to whatever I want anyway, but I want to know what you intended, so I know what I'm changing if I'm going to change it, or maybe it's great all as it is.
DH: Yeah, and then sometimes like a personality will leap to a conclusion, and then that conclusion will come popular, but even then I still think the wisdom of our community kind of brings them back to reality, and again if they didn't, maybe that I would look at our design and say "oh, we could have written that better, let me clarify", but sometimes on the other hand people jump to conclusions because they would prefer it one way.
K: That is very true and I always come back to this. I know it's not about me, but I yelled at [Avalon] Bill about Courage and he didn't deserve it, and I apologized to him in person, but I see that is now clarified in First Light, so I can fully accept that is how you guys want Courage to be used, it's one attack and if the line of sight is broken, it's nerfed, but if I want to play it the way it was in second edition, I'm going to do that, and that's okay, but when I'm at your table, I'm going to do it the way you say and you intend.
DH: Yeah, we talk about we don't release things and tell you all to make up the rules for them. We want to give you the rules for them, right? no one wants to write no rules, yeah.
K: This isn't Calvin Ball, if you get that reference.
DH: Oh, no I don't.
K: But Calvin and Hobs... he's a little kid, changes the rules, so that he always wins.
DH: Oh, Calvin Ball! yeah, right. We want to give you the rules that we think they should be.
K: But it's a coherent system.
DH: But yeah, you're the Game Master and are empowered to do whatever you want and what play you want, however your group wants to play every game, has a social contract. I like that and I like to kill the Wizard, that's everyone in playing with me knows it and works as a group to protect that Wizard, or if someone's low on life, you know what I mean like.
K: I knowledge would have really helped a few days ago.
DH: I did really try to kill Kurgan in a game...
K: Yeah, we had a great time playing. This guy was having a ball, he was running around back and forth, he was doing victory laps. It was is wonderful to see.
DH: Yeah other than writing Hero Quest rules, I also roll black shields on defense all the time.
K: Yeah, if you put your thumb a certain way no it's...
DH: Yeah, you can roll it if you just kind of like give it a little twist as you roll it every time black shields.
K: I hate dice towers, but I can see why people use them, great.
DH: What are we talking about next?
K: Okay, so we got a lot of things crossed out here... so we had this Black Friday Armory. It was posted on the Avalon Hill Discord, it had discount prices, but then the Helmet actually went up in price, this is like an Easter egg? or what was going on with that? because we didn't get an Armory board in the game, we have the equipment deck and it was kind of a throwback to the old Armory.
DH: Maybe that Helmet was one of those rare wooden non-metal helmets immune to the Rust spell.
K: Very nice, very nice...
DH: Say that we do everything as a team, so we did that as a team, but also sometimes we make mistakes as a team, however those mistakes are just genius wooden Helmets, you heard it here.
K: Well, a great painter once said they're only happy accidents, not mistakes. Okay, well, we have this situation, I think you've heard by now... some fans in Spain have complained that the expansions available in Spanish like they sell out, and they don't get replenished, and we've been told through their customer service that it's because Hasbro Spain is independent. I suppose this is a marketing thing and you can't really answer...
DH: I can't. I'm a designer, so like if you have questions about the design of the game. Sometimes the models or the art I might be able to answer the story, but that is clearly in the realm of one of my many team members, and again this is a team game except for Zargon, but also making the game was a team game, so I'm just a lowly explorer here.
K: Sure, and we don't blame you for this not at all, and I think when I've talked with Patrick about this, it's like it's one of those things they're working on, but it just until it happens or who knows.
DH: Yeah, when I get the opportunity to bother Patrick, I bother him about things that I need are important to the development of the game. That's not something that has entered my perview at all, tell us.
K: About the companion app, I know we complain about it endlessly, but it does serve an important function, there's a lot of people who don't have a group to play with, or they just want to test things out. I was thinking it collects anonymous statistics, and if you look at my statistics you're going to be like "what the heck is he doing? why is he sending twelve Skeletons into a room with the Bone Wand?" that makes no sense, so some people are afraid that it's going to go away in 2026 and we just won't be able to play it, and then why does it take so long for certain things to get added to the app? is that just because there's only a few people working on it? is that's a small team again?
DH: Yeah, we're small teams. The app takes a great deal of work.
K: I believe that.
DH: Yeah, I will say that to my knowledge it's not going anywhere, so maybe they're prioritizing getting games into the app instead of updating the legal information, I don't have an answer. I will say that I love the app, I love the team who works on the app, they do so much to help us because they get our Quests and they have to program them, and a lot of times they highlight things that are potential issues that we could fix before it makes it to retail. They also do a lot of their own special art by themselves and...
K: Yeah, that art is pretty cool.
DH: Yeah, so props to that app team, again to my knowledge, it's not going anywhere and I hope it never does.
K: One of the things that I commented on with the app over the years is the fact that Zargon isn't evil enough, like he doesn't have enough nasty things to do, the Heroes and you guys did add the back week and the double Wandering Monsters and all that crazy stuff. I think there's definitely people that want more of that, should we ask for it?
DH: Yeah, ask for it. I'm sure they would love to do more, but they have a lot on their plate, don't they?
K: That's true, yeah, yeah.
DH: It's a great amount of work, so we'll have to see what the future brings for that.
K: And I would say I'm beginning to see now that I've seen more of the app, because at first I didn't I like, why do I even need this, I play with people, but I'm beginning to see every new Quest Pack has new rules, new optional rules, and the app has to interpret that somehow, so they have to program that all, I assume from scratch.
DH: That's right, all right.
K: Okay, tell us about this, Against the Ogre Horde tournament rules... I think I don't know if you ever look at La Guarida de Morcar, it's a Spanish channel.
DH: Oh, yeah.
K: Cristóbal referred to it as Kill Team Hero Quest Edition to this tournament, so are we going to have officially sanctioned Hero Quest tournaments? what's going on with that?
DH: I'm so glad you asked. I will say I have to lead with I have no knowledge of any officially sanctioned Hero Quest tournament. If that's in the works, we haven't announced it yet.
K: Underground sanction tournaments...
DH: I will say though that I'm really glad you asked that question because that was a really big source of pride for me. We added that with you all in mind, we thought let's give them something that they can create content with, and I have seen people creating content with that, and that really warms my heart. I'm like "yes, they're getting it, they're seeing that we're giving them things". I see the tournaments that people are running on some social media outlets. When I went to Italy, I saw the fan group there running their own tournaments, and I'll just point out they they didn't run the tournaments how I wrote them. I wrote them so that they would be fair for the Heroes and the Heroes would win, right? hopefully by the skin of their teeth, but they rewrote them to be more fun in a tournament environment, and again that's just the strength of Hero Quest, make it what you need, and I loved seeing them execute that in Con environment. We put things in our expansions for you. Another good call out is Jungles of Delthrak, that choose your own adventure system was for you, so that you could talk about the choices you made, and why you made them, what ending did you get, why did you make those choices, why did you go left instead of right. I want you to talk about those things and share your stories with your fellow Hero Quest fans, and now you have this like new way that you can sandbox. Maybe it inspires you to do your own choose your own adventure Quests and talk about those.
K: I guess I don't do enough of that, I mean, when I do a game we record our sessions, and so I think well it speaks for itself, but who's going to watch the three-hour game, so sometimes like one of our players Jace like he will say "oh, the brave Dwarf did this, but he was unable to", and so someone might hear that and go "oh, I want to see how that is" and I know that. It's maybe not as exciting as maybe some other people have done, but I have used the Arena rules, so I start... we started playing to Crypt of Perpetual Darkness, and it started in a Tavern, so he decided to make it a tavern brawl where the town guard loyal to Zargon comes in, and starts attacking the Heroes, and so they have to fight this huge mob of mercenaries, so and it was tricky, it was hard for me to keep track of like because it was a different way of playing keep track of "okay, have I activated this guy?", well, I got to make sure the token is somehow balanced in the right place, and but I think we had fun doing it, it was something new.
DH: Aagain you rais a good point about the tavern, like there's another piece that I keep seeing people "oh, we put the tavern off to the side and that's where our heroes are between quests, right?" I see people using the tavern like that and I love it and that was an inspiration behind Rise of the Dread Moon that we put the The Hideout in.
K: I like the hideouts.
DH: Yeah, and you see that we put like little things for the Heroes on the floor on The Hideout because I'm like maybe they'll use hideouts in their game. When I see you using things creatively it inspires me to give you more things like that, and again I'll jump into another example from Jungles, I see you painting that little picture above the fireplace and above the Mage of the Mirror fireplace putting your own craft into it.
K: Oh, and the treasure pile you were pointing that out to me earlier the blank frame.
DH: Yeah, the blank frame is there, so that you can add your special touch to it what's in your jungle, I want to see it when I go to on social and I see you posting your little touches to our miniatures. I'm like I need to do more of that for our fans because they like it, and that gives you something really interesting to share.
K: Oh, yeah, do people send you stuff that they made, oh I suppose well what do you do when some fan says "hey, I created this cool like mod, let me show it to you".
DH: Yeah, I try not to look at homebrew stuff because then people think that I borrow their idea, so when you talk to me don't tell me how to do things, tell me what you like, and then I'll figure out how to do it, so yeah, I try to keep I don't want to poison my well over here, and or make anyone feel like I'm borrowing from them.
K: Stealing... you stole my idea.
DH: Dang it you knew.
K: Well, so do you ever hold off on doing something officially because you see the fans have already done it? or does that make you more want to create your own version of that?
DH: Yeah, if everyone was saying that they liked a theme, then I would call that an insight and say like "oh, I should do it officially".
K: Like we really want to put Alchemy in the game.
DH: A lot of people seem to like the Alchemy if you want. I actually love the Alchemy back, so and never really like registered with me that equipment like things might have an equipment bag can be a potion, so I just put things that you can consume on the Alchemy back, you can expect that in the future I think.
K: Ah, very nice, very nice. I think people were asking about standalone stuff, but I suppose that falls into the category of things that aren't announced yet. Keep asking for it and if there's a way, you'll guys do it with your limited resources.
DH: Just a reminder, we have limited time, so things that you ask for, you have to ask yourself would most people want than more expansions.
K: I seem to remember this was some time ago Chris [Nadeau] answering a question, people were saying "well, I want more Elf themed dice" and he said "well, would you rather have that? or would you rather have more figures? what are we going to spend our time on?" and that answer made sense, but then I also see down the line we eventually did get other dice, so it sometimes it just takes more time like "okay, we'll make it up to you", and the Guardian Knight we got it.
DH: Yeah, or what's right for the like I really wanted to put a board in the Jungles expansion. I know people wanted that a jungle board.
K: A themed board.
DH: Yeah, but at for the price point of a jungle, I would eat up my budget for other cool stuff, so I was like I could put bigger jungle tiles, but then keep lots of models, right? so that it had to be a choice that like what I thought like most people would want in their expansion, and now that you've seen First Light, you can see that we've got a new board in there because we don't have all the models, so I had room to do that, so with keeping the price points down I have to be...
K: Which we appreciate.
DH: I have to be a little selective about what I choose to put in. It's hard, sometimes it doesn't make everyone happy, but I really like making the models, so I want to do a lot of those.
K: You were telling me earlier about the process that you go through. Do you have time to talk about that process, going from like CU because I was looking at Nikki Do's website, someone pointed this out to me and said "hey, she's still working on it and look what it says here", "Commissioned by Doug Hopkins", I was like "oh, is that how it works? like when you need a character, you just have a person you go to?
DH: Sometimes, so the answer is "sometimes and not always", so without getting into like the structure of our team, or how it works, I will say that I have a lot of input into the initial model designs because they have to match the design of the game design, right? when I see a model it has to be like "oh, that thing could spit poison at me", so we need make it look like a spit poison.
K: And I suppose you have to be careful that you're not stepping on toes, and like Wizards of the Coast, or something that somebody else has already done, that's not too similar.
DH: I don't spend a lot of time looking at all those other things, and again I don't want to taint the process, I can't taint the well.
K: So that makes a certain amount of sense, yeah, okay, it was really great to see Stephen Baker and all his involvement, I think at the start a lot of us thought "oh, they just brought him in as a one-off, just like they brought in Joe to get the D&D players to notice us, and they brought in Stephen to say 'hey'", but the fact that he continued on and continued to have influence, even though he's a freelance vendor, I mean he's not obligated to stick around and do stuff. We really appreciate the fact that he has been involved, but I suppose we don't know the future, we don't know if he's going to continue to be involved. Didn't he have something to do with First Light, or...?
DH: Yeah, he wrote the Quests for First Light, so like part of this is like who's going to be authentic to that expansion? we got Levi for the jungle, he was doing a lot of jungle work, a lot of times we go to Stephen because he just makes it feel so Hero Quest, so we will look at what we want to do with the story and the theme of an expansion, and say who's the best person to do it. A lot of times it's Stephen, it's not fan service for you, it's just that's what makes the most authentic product.
K: And I suppose the rest of you can see the way he does it without saying "oh, I'm going to copy it", you're not a cover band, you're learning from each other, he's learning from you guys because we know a little bit about the history of Stephen Baker meeting with... I think it was Mike Gray, like going over from the European to the North American version, and then Japan had their own people, and it's like every little version of Hero Quest has its own development, so you guys are putting your stamp on it, you're taking some things from the old world and bringing it into the new, so I think that's really great, and when I've heard from him he seems very humble about like he's not like upset with you guys because you're changing things, because if he was that way he wouldn't have survived because it's been that way all through the process, so I really appreciate the fact that he contributed, and I hope that he does more and I think a lot of people hope that he will come, in even though we're not expecting him to do it all.
DH: Yeah, I mean Stephen is so humble, he's so talented, he's so easy to work with. I love working with him, so like I want to use him for our game, it's for sure, it's no-brainer, but on the other hand we also want to see some new ideas too, so I'll give you I try to give you a mix.
K: Yeah, last year when, I didn't know who... Tess Hogan was, and she's like "oh, yeah that was me, I like what that was you, oh", I'm looking at the person right here, that's involved in Rise of the Dread Moon and all that, and then I asked her some question "okay, well, why did you do it like this?" and she's like "well, actually that was Doug", and I was like "oh, okay", so it's starting to dawn on me that, yes, of course this is a collaborative process, this is not like the AER theory of film making, where it's like George Lucas had this vision, he just influenced everything it's like, no there was editors, there's people that suggested things, there was artists.
DH: Yeah, narrative designers that help us craft story, they can sometimes give us insights on how things can be better, like they're not just editors, they are involved throughout the whole process, we have engineers that help us make the best models and products, we've got marketers and product managers and all that stuff, but like the core team working on it, we're a band of Heroes, a small band of Heroes, and we work very closely, and often to deliver something we all believe in and love, and play together at the office, and we hope that comes through in the product and you all love it too.
K: Do you ever have contact with people from the old teams back in the day, or people just kind of moved on?
DH: I think we're at the point where we're up, and running, and doing our own thing, and we call people in when we need their expertise.
K: So the torch has been passed.
DH: It's time to pass the torch.
K: All right, and we would love to hear about future releases, but I know that we've covered that.
DH: Was the torch thing about zorelle or...?
K: Oh, no, no, no.
DH: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
K: Okay, people definitely want to see more of like the male and female Heroes. I feel like we've been getting a lot of that, and that's great... I don't even care about this anymore, but the mobile app I think would it ever be ported to the PC, or it's just always going to be an Android or Apple product?
DH: There has to be enough demand for it, right? so again if the app team is working on that, what are they not working on, we give them a lot to work on, so...
K: That is fair, I'm just thinking of logistically sitting at a table. You've got a phone in your hand versus having it on the computer, like I play virtually with my people, so it works for me to have it on the computer. Yeah there's emulators that's not ideal, not sanctioned, let's move on...
DH: I mean I'll share that insight with them. I don't know if they can action on it, but again we listen to you, tell if that's the first time I've heard this one, so next time I see the team I'll throw it out there.
K: Yeah, if this is just one person on YouTube or this is just me, well, you can ignore it, but if a lot of people want i, why not. Okay, so it's very possible to run out of character sheets, would you ever do like kind of an all menu where people can order dice if they want extra dice, I think with character sheets you can print them out, but would you ever just like allow people to just get components. I think we have examples from the classic Hero Quest days of people writing letters to Milton Bradley saying "hey, I ran out of character sheets" and they just send him a pad for $2.
DH: I love that, yeah, boy like I'm just trying to think about like how the best way to approach, that would be what team like, what the logistics like, like this needs someone, everything needs something to someone to own it, right? we don't have with our team size, I don't think we've got enough to do it to do everything everyone wants.
K: So you heard that Hasbro, they need more resource,s he didn't say that I'm just noticing.
DH: So there has to be a demand, there has to be forecasting that seems like it's out of my realm, Loretome can't reveal everything to me.
K: Fair enough. Sometimes I forget that you are the designer guy, not the everything guy... this world of Hero Quest, it was suggested in the Path of the Wandering Monk, we have the map, and I can imagine that was just to tease us and say "hey, there's a larger world". I wonder what it is, and then we just come up with our own, but what was the intention behind the little stops on the way that the Wandering Monk is going through the world? I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you.
DH: That map is the Wandering Monk marking their journey and I believe that on the Styles Techniques that the M that they those acts mark, where they learned things for their skills, for their powers there for the techniques, so like it's just a little bit of a nugget of some expertise that might be in those areas, but, yeah, to your point it also is to like get you intrigued about the map area that's like, we haven't released the full map, that's like a little hint at maybe a greater world.
DH: So if we ask for it and want it, you might release more of that map.
DH: I mean it's not impossible.
K: Or you're going to say...
DH: No, do it yourself. No, I don't do it yourself, we'll do it eventually. I think it's good even for us to know where everything is, I mean if we might even have our own map kind of in the works, that we don't share, but maybe the world needs to see our realm.
K: Yeah because I think I think there's some people who still would say "no, no, no, I've decided it's the Warhammer World from 1987", and it's going to say that world, I mean that's okay, right? I mean officially.
DH: You can always do whatever you want in your own home game, there's no Hero Quest police that is going to show up.
K: There might be a portal to the Forgotten Realms, if you wanted to.
DH: I mean, it is known that the Guardian Knight do show up at houses who violate the strict rules that we've set [Laughs]
K: Oh, man. I was going to be mean and saying "good thing, they're out of stock, but that's not true anymore, that's not true anymore because it you can buy it with Rise of the Dread Moon", so sorry... fun police are here. [Laughs]
DH: Another great example of us really, just trying to make sure that you have everything that you want to play your game.
K: I like that you're giving us the tools and what we do with them hopefully it's right, so this is not one I personally care about, but a lot of people ask it, so I'm obligated to ask you, yeah, how about an updated official Quest Pack order? where does First Light fit this?
DH: Yeah, I see this a First Light Quest, well, that's a great question, "where does First Light fit in?" First Light occurs at the same exact time as the Core, so you won't ever go from the First Light Questbook to the Core Questbook or vice versa. They're happening at the same time, so when you travel through First Light, you're experiencing all these characters, in the First Light Questbook, for the first time, like you may have experienced them in Core, so new players will experience those characters for the first time. Existing players might have a little backstory and a little extra knowledge about repeating characters you might see there, but the intent from First Light is you go from First Light into the expansions.
K: Well, so I'm not taking the same Barbarian that went all the way to Mage of the Mirror, and back to First Light this is a new Barbarian and...
DH: And that's a great tie into this question about Quest Pack order because if you require everyone, or insinuate that everyone has to follow a Quest Pack order, you're really locking people out of something they might be interested in, or discouraging them from playing, let's say Jungle, right off the bat, and if you look at what we've been doing with our most recent expansions, like Ogre Horde and Jungles, the first Quests are kind of like the old Solo Quests were to gear up one in fire. These new Quests are to gear up multiple players, so when we're playtesting them a lot of times, we start fresh new characters in all these expansions because that encourages someone who loves the jungle, to pick up the jungle expansion, try it with their new Heroes, and I understand that there's people who want to go through in a specific order...
K: Zargon really has to work on it because we have like people with closets full of potions, how do you ever make a dent in those people?
DH: Exactly, right, yeah, so like I find that one tough to answer without telling people that they have to play the game a certain way, and I'm trying to make the game, so that people can choose to play things that excite them at any time, so there are some resources that have listed out exactly the story order, and how they suggest that thing should be, that's great. I'm saying, and actually Kurgan I think you specifically said, maybe they want us to start these Quest Packs with new Heroes at one point, and I was like he's got it, he said it, he said the thing, is anyone listening to him here? because I do, right? I know some people like Solo Quests, but I'm like Solo Quests are for two people to play, I want to give you something that you can play with everyone at your table, and get you geared up and ready to face the threats, and excitement of the thing that you want to play, that just came out maybe without having to go backwards.
K: Yeah, well, for one have broken every single one of the Solo Quests by making the Group Quests, and that's no offense to the original designers, it's just that it wasn't working for us, so that's how we made it work.
DH: I started to do that with Into the Northlands too. I was like "oh, I'm going to give that Solo character an animal companion".
K: We had a great time with that. I think it was do my montalto came in, and he happened to be the only one that showed up, and I was like "let's do the Solo Quest, yeah" and it was great and it was like "okay, whatever you find in this Quest is going to go back to the group, that's already in the middle of the... you know, he ran up the mountain to give them the supply, or you know whatever..."
DH: Yeah, I encourage you to play Hero Quest in fun and unique ways that add to the group's experience.
K: I think there's definitely a sense though that, yeah, if people are waiting too long, they're never going to get to the Quest Pack they want because they're going to get hung up on some other one that they didn't want to play, or they're going to feel like "oh, I'm so far, behind I can't just jump in the middle of the adventure", so I've done my part to try to break that, like I think it was my turn to play, and I just was like "okay, we'll just drop a Rogue right in the middle of the campaign".
DH: Well, I have to say that we played a little fun game today where I may have murdered a Hero Quest fan at the table, and I just let them pop in with a Mercenary, right? I don't want anyone leaving the table and we right on the spot, we created a little homebrew rule, the Mercenary at the start of your turn, you're a Mercenary, appears at the start door, keep playing with us, keep having fun.
K: I love that and just one last anecdote because I know you got to go... we were playing one of these games, and I won't say the name of the... I will say it, yeah, I think it was Kevin one of the staffers who's running the game, and one of the people in the group was like "I got to leave" I think was... I'm probably getting wrong, I'll edit that out... he said one of the guys in the group was like "oh, I got to leave early" and it just so happened he was the first one to get killed, so it was like there's different ways of like working that out it's like, but yeah, if it's like "oh, I lost", I got to sit this one out, but there's a way you can keep Zargon it going.
DH: Yeah, the first game we played, and I tried to kill Kurgan, I did not succeed, but I did get one of his friends, but at one point I was like I was going to take someone down, and I said "ah, maybe this was a little mean-spirited, so let's rewind a little bit, I'll Attack someone else", and I'm like that kind of... I felt like that I reduced the stakes a little bit more, so now taking you out and then having you come back as a Mercenary, or animal companion, that seems a lot more like a little bit more exciting.
K: Well, sometimes you come back as a Bard, but I was the Bard... so well, any closing thoughts before we close the book on this one?
DH: I think you mentioned that I'm speaking diplomatically when I thank the fans, but really from my heart like I haven't been a lifetime game designer, and I was always very kind of like nervous about what feedback I might get, and I always really concerned about whether people are going to like, what I do, and I have to say that Hero Quest fans are the best fans. They have not let me down once and that is the best thing about Hero Quest.
K: Amen, thank you.
DH: Thank you.
K: Appreciate it.
End of interview.
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Links to many other relevant interviews about HeroQuest are compiled in thread.
