The Inn's Modular System for House Rules

[whitebeard]

Voting seems to be closed / I don't recall voting.

One of the things I REALLY like about HQ is that is has NO leveling. HQ proves that getting better at playing the game and adding enhanced equipment is all you really need to have fun. In fact I've considered effectively removing leveling from other games which use it. One of my next projects for Rangers of Shadow Deep is to define my Ranger's entire career path (which abilities, stats, and skills he will add when) right at character creation. Then when an adventure calls for a certain LEVEL, I just grab that version (plus all of his current equipment and any accumulated permanent injuries), roll for my companion's bonuses based on my level and go from there!

[iKarith]

The voting all took place back in 2011.

I don't know if those guys ever really got anywhere with their effort (as a couple of years people were still trying to organize something like it, I'm guessing no), so my first goal is a more modern writeup of the existing HQ rules with less verbiage and more clarity.

(Yeah, I just said less verbiage. I do know how…)

If that's all folks want to use, it should be easily available as HTML for viewing, saving, or printing, or as a printable booklet the way drathe's got the originals now.

The first thing I intend to add support for is very minor—the expanded board with double-wide corridors. Mostly what that needs is some new tiles for expansions and guidelines for where to put doors on the larger central room. A second rule we discussed waybackwhen keeps a single entity from blocking a door, and the two together put an end to the phallic meat shield experienced players tend to form by US rules.

I've also got some interest in the Heroes-only rules found in B1FF's Dungeoncrawl and Mice and Mystics—two games that are effectively (and pretty proudly) both HeroQuest with a couple homebrew rules. (I hope I still have Dungeoncrawl—I think I still had yumi when I downloaded that, and yumi is … 5 computers ago and like 9 tumors ago. *shrug*

*digdigdig* I do!

-rwxr-xr-x 1 tjcarter tjcarter 14M Aug 18 2010 'Dungeon Crawl Game System.pdf'
-rw-r--r-- 1 tjcarter tjcarter 13M Apr 22 2013 DungeonCrawl.zip

Right, both games have a mechanic (and fairly similar) that renders an Evil Wizard Player unnecessary, or gives that player more ways to screw with the heroes. It changes how traps work of course, kinda has to. But who doesn't know where every trap in the base questbook is by now?

Any homebrew should be clearly marked as an optional rule and list what's required to play with it and explain how it works with the base game so that you can use it or not. My intent was maybe less ambitious than the rest of the group here had in mind since I really wanted to keep it fairly lean and aim for heavily playtested optional rules that have widespread appeal. Which means I probably won't be adding a Dexterity score to each hero and adapting MicroLite-style saving throws, despite the fact that I think they'd be really easy to do and would like the option to have a rules-light roleplay option based around HQ and perhaps some shenario expansions beyond the traditional board.

Great fun, but I'm not convinced it belongs in the project I intended to work on all those ages ago when I dropped out of HQ stuff due to chemo side effects and other life things happening.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

One of the things I REALLY like about HQ is that is has NO leveling. HQ proves that getting better at playing the game and adding enhanced equipment is all you really need to have fun

I agree. I love the idea that there is no levelling/advancement just improvement through equipment acquisition in HeroQuest. However I'm not sure that it was implemented particularly well :horror:

For example Wizards 1/4 of the party don't really have any advancement through equipment, the Barbarian the ultimate fighting machine starts the game with 3 Attack Dice with only a single upgrade available to 4 Attack Dice so he is already almost out of options.

[iKarith]

Heroquest reflects the reality and age of the game somewhat. It's 30 years old, made by company trying to get some of that D&D action who didn't know the first thing about that D&D thing they wanted some of, etc. And we love it, because for many of us, it was either how we got started, or a fun, light way to play a game in the settings we loved that "normal people" could get into.

We know what its flaws are: The magic is heavily unbalanced. Yet somehow despite this, the wizard manages to be the crappy 3rd party controller you give your little brother to play. (Sorry little brothers!) The movement rule, nothing more needs saying. Mind points feel unimplemented. Why are there cards for everything that don't need it? Why is almost everything killed in a single hit, if you manage to hit them? Why can't you take a fallen comrade's equipment or treasure and use them to help you survive? If they're your ally, they'd want you to survive. If they're a competitor, all the more reason to kill the thing that killed them and then loot their lifeless corpse and laugh all the way back to the staircase! Why does the Evil Wizard need a privacy screen when there's nothing to be kept secret and most maps use most/all of the furniture, many to most of the monsters, etc. and dice rolls are done in the open and resolved immediately.

A modern game would have several critters with multiple body points rather than just the occasional boss, and would come with wound counters. Probably the heroes would use them too. The cards for all the equipment would be kept, and there'd be enough cards for all the heroes who can use equipment to have it. Saving your character for the next game would be a matter of putting your board/cards/counters into a baggie or Deck Box or something.

There'd probably be some kind of MP system and ways to recover it. There'd probably be more kinds of dice and the heavy armor would let you roll something with at least one double-shield and for a proficient warrior to roll at least one die with one double-skull on it. The wizard might be able to lessen or resist a magical attack (and there'd be more of those!)

And we can create all of those things … it's just, the resulting game won't be HeroQuest, even if it's played with HeroQuest minis, board, etc. If we did create it, I don't know what we'd call it. Advanced HeroQuest is taken.

[j_dean80]

I disagree with almost all of the so called “flaws” you named.

[whitebeard]

One of the things I REALLY like about HQ is that is has NO leveling. HQ proves that getting better at playing the game and adding enhanced equipment is all you really need to have fun

I agree. I love the idea that there is no levelling/advancement just improvement through equipment acquisition in HeroQuest. However I'm not sure that it was implemented particularly well :horror:

For example Wizards 1/4 of the party don't really have any advancement through equipment, the Barbarian the ultimate fighting machine starts the game with 3 Attack Dice with only a single upgrade available to 4 Attack Dice so he is already almost out of options.

The Wizard progresses okay in the base game. Cloak, ring, staff, wand. Assuming you don't let the Elf keep these, the Wizard is decked out in artifacts. More importantly the player learns to play him better... always cast Stone Skin on your first turn.

Leveling means you have to write crap down. And it's always "level up and the monsters level-up too." What's the point? HQ shows you can reasonbly develop a hero with just a few cards. Want your batbarian to be an assassin? Just create a weapon type, give him a piece of custom equiptment, and dream about one day finding boots of silence or a cloak of invisibilty. Even then, these items are more thematic than they are overpowering. This is the way.

[iKarith]

I disagree with almost all of the so called “flaws” you named.

And that is why a set of rules that "fixed" them would not be HeroQuest anymore.

The two sets of UK rules are different in a couple of ways, and the US rules are different in even more. The project I've undertaken is methodical in nature:

• Produce a copy of each set of rules in an easy editable format for each of the three rules variants.
• Take a copy of each and arrange the rules into a common format, but with each variant being slightly different. It's important to get this right for all three sets of rules, because it'll be the basis of…
• Producing "diff" files (logical more than strictly mechanical) containing exactly what's changed from version to version.
• Merging the three common-format rules into one "big" (not so big actually) file containing all three sets, concisely laid out. Here are the rules for X. First edition has this change. US has that change.
• Filling out the concise, combined rule set with the variant rules, to produce a new rule book in a format that allows you to add optional/homebrew/house rules to it.

This feels like the slow way to do it, but really it's taken long enough already with people trying to jump to the end state so they can start shoving their homebrew rules into something coherent.

It's important to me at least that the official rules be maintained as what they are. People can go nuts modifying the game to add a few features or to totally revamp everything. In fact they already have, and will probably continue to do it. That's fine, but I'd like to provide a foundation first so that someone who doesn't have years of history (30 years of history?) with the game can pick it up, ask a few questions about which official variant is in use, and play the original game by any of those rules in under 15 minutes. Less if they're at all familiar with the genre or games that contain some element of strategy and resource management.

I'd also like to give people who want a mostly vanilla experience the chance to do that with playtested variants. As I said, a lot of people consider roll to move to be a problem. Lots of solutions to that. Some eliminate it, some try to hybridize it. If the community can agree on a couple of these, they can be added as options, but they will never replace the original core rule, unless the players agree that it should.

I intend to stop well short of the kinds of major overhauls that are basically some other game with the option to use HQ board, minis, and furniture. Maybe what I'm doing will provide an outline for people working on such games, but they probably really do want their own rule sets. (I have some designs on a more dungeon-crawl-focused microlight variant myself, although I DO like the HQ combat dice mechanic more than something D20-based for a quick romp to go kill some orcs and goblins…)

Leveling means you have to write crap down. And it's always "level up and the monsters level-up too." What's the point?

That's one of the major reasons I'm not so interested in a level system per-se. The design of HQ is that a suitably skilled pack of players should be able to take a set of fresh base stat players and rock a megamonster quest like The Dark Company. Yeah, it's kind of meant for the player who's done everything else, probably with the character who's done everything else, but the lack of advancement for player or monsters means that if you know how to play, you'll play well.

Granted, the kinds of changes I personally like to the base Heroquest game are the ones that make the cookie cutter single file line, meat shield in front to block any door no longer effective.

[whitebeard]

Granted, the kinds of changes I personally like to the base Heroquest game are the ones that make the cookie cutter single file line, meat shield in front to block any door no longer effective.

Sounds like you just need to play better quests which periodically punish the players for playing like this. HQ already lets you add custom rules in the quests, mix it up and anticipate this style of play.

[j_dean80]

Granted, the kinds of changes I personally like to the base Heroquest game are the ones that make the cookie cutter single file line, meat shield in front to block any door no longer effective.

Sounds like you just need to play better quests which periodically punish the players for playing like this. HQ already lets you add custom rules in the quests, mix it up and anticipate this style of play.

Like a secret door the monsters can open behind the Heroes. That doesn’t break the rules and fixes the so called problem.

The majority of people who tried to change the movement ended up coming back over to the original. It’s simple and just flat out works.

Anyone who says the Wizard is broken, just doesn’t know how to play him correctly. If played right, he should end the Quest with pretty much every spell used up and can be a very strong asset to the team throughout the Quest.

I’ve been playing vanilla NA rules for years and it still works and is still fun. It is up to the Quests to change things up and keep it interesting and balanced.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

by whitebeard » Today, 1:43 am

The Wizard progresses okay in the base game. Cloak, ring, staff, wand. Assuming you don't let the Elf keep these, the Wizard is decked out in artifacts. More importantly the player learns to play him better... always cast Stone Skin on your first turn.

Leveling means you have to write crap down.

Agreed, all the Heroes can advance through players learning to play them better (and working together better) and can advance via Quest Treasures but the primary advancement is better weapons and armour which are not available to the Wizard, I feel that he needs a different route.

I also want to minimise having to write crap down

iKarith

I agree Mind Points feel unimplemented or at least only partially implemented and the Magic system cries out for something, I'm just not sure exactly what, but I have experimented with multiple house rules around movement and over many generations have come back to using it just as it is, it works.

The US edition uses an armoury and records them on the character sheet, thus reducing the cards and US some Monsters have more than 1 BP.

You CAN take a fallen comrade's equipment or treasure and use them to help you survive.

And the privacy screen is to hide the Quest Map and notes and provides a quick reference

I agree the game has flaws, nothing is perfect, but I don't agree with some of the flaws you have listed.