Secrets of the Adventure Design Kit (1991)

[Kurgan]

A rumor briefly began on our discord that somehow there was a secret message or additional instructions or diagrams within the box of the ADK. It has now been debunked. All that you see is either on the outside of the box or in one of the materials.

The original ADK kit included several full page (black and white, matching the EU style) sticker sheets including "champion" stickers meant to be placed on the new character sheets... a pad of large full pad re-designed character sheets... a quest booklet (with the usual semi-gloss paper inside) with instructions and 5 blanks for use in your own adventures. The back of the booklet includes instructions to use the new character sheet to work around the "cards limit supply" rule of the Equipment deck in the first and second editions (a rule that the NA and remake editions abandoned entirely from the get-go).

No plastic miniatures, no dice, no tiles, no cards...

Thanks to a generous Ebayer who shared these images with me (since I don't own it myself).

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[Kurgan]

As you can see from the images above, the inside of the box is as bare as your average breakfast cereal box. No hidden messages or secret panels. The rumor was that it was similar to the inside lid of the HQ game system box including more details about "plague of zombies." Now the true thing is that Plague of Zombies was shown on the back cover of the ADK, but that some editions of the ADK in other languages have slightly different details. The quest is unfinished, and of course Phoenix had his own "finished" version, and more recently some modders got Stephen Baker's modern comments about how HE would finish it. I've played it, it's a very hard quest (under Baker's version).

One owner of the ADK has noted that the shiny/glossy paper is hard to erase, and can be hard to write on. It's worth mentioning that the EU sets wanted you to write on the quest books (note the "check boxes" for tracking body points for Ogres and boss monsters in the Dark Company and Wizards of Morcar). The regular matte paper used in the NA edition was much easier to write on (hope you used pencil!).

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[Kurgan]

There is a sample within the ADK that uses more mummies than exist in the core box (2). Of course that and plague of zombies kind of assume you own Return of the Witch Lord... a pack that was released in 1989 in Europe (1991 in the US).

Another mystery that some have spoken on in the past... ARE MORCAR AND MENTOR THE SAME PERSON??? A letter presumably from Morcar to the player shows the "M" seal! Mentor always signed his statements in the other EU (and Japanese) editions with the "M" ! It's proven! Or is it... look at the image below, the seals are different.

I think here the explanation is that both "Mentor" and "Morcar" start with "M." The seal is replaced in the new edition with the two symbols for Zargon and Mentor which are on the opposite sides of the "mystery" tile and not easily confused with one another on sight, one being a kind of "eye" the other being a "skull".

Mentor on the left, Morcar on the right.

ADK_MentorvsMorcar.jpg

[lestodante]

...Another mystery that some have spoken on in the past... ARE MORCAR AND MENTOR THE SAME PERSON??? A letter presumably from Morcar to the player shows the "M" seal!...

I think here the explanation is that both "Mentor" and "Morcar" start with "M." The seal is replaced in the new edition with the two symbols for Zargon and Mentor which are on the opposite sides of the "mystery" tile and not easily confused with one another on sight, one being a kind of "eye" the other being a "skull".

Mentor on the left, Morcar on the right.

I've always thought that "M" stands for Morcar's seal, that's why it is different from Mentor seal. This pack is directed to all the evil wizard players, so they can create new content to threaten the heroes and the Empire. In other questpacks the message was from Mentor to the heroes, in this pack it is from Morcar to all Morcar players ("...and you, Warlord of Chaos,...").
This was unfortunately a poor pack in my opinion, they could have added lot of new cards, if not even extra figures, to really expand the game. I just save it for the box artwork, nothing more.
As for the hidden message or diagram, the only one I can think of could be hidden in the cover artwork. If you see it from afar (or by slightly closing your eyes) the picture background may represent a skull.
Anyway the center of the room is featuring a symbol which is very close to the tile from Against the Ogre Horde pack.

adk_Skull.jpg

[lestodante]

One owner of the ADK has noted that the shiny/glossy paper is hard to erase, and can be hard to write on. It's worth mentioning that the EU sets wanted you to write on the quest books (note the "check boxes" for tracking body points for Ogres and boss monsters in the Dark Company and Wizards of Morcar). The regular matte paper used in the NA edition was much easier to write on (hope you used pencil!).

Luckily, my dad was working in an office and he photocopied the blank map from the Game-System questbook in several copies, so many I still had some of those copies after 30 years and in 1989 I was a good boy who never wrote on the original material, neither with a pencil.

As you can see from the images above, the inside of the box is as bare as your average breakfast cereal box. No hidden messages or secret panels. The rumor was that it was similar to the inside lid of the HQ game system box including more details about "plague of zombies." Now the true thing is that Plague of Zombies was shown on the back cover of the ADK, but that some editions of the ADK in other languages have slightly different details. The quest is unfinished, and of course Phoenix had his own "finished" version, and more recently some modders got Stephen Baker's modern comments about how HE would finish it. I've played it, it's a very hard quest (under Baker's version).

Yes, there are several versions of this quest. The German version of the box seems to have different notes from the English one. There is a post on the Inn here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3495

[Kurgan]

Oh like they could have included "blank" template type cards in the box. Maybe stickers for the artwork that you could attach to the cards... that would have been cool. Blank tiles that you could have painted? Super awesome if they had done that back in the day.

I still appreciate that modern Avalon Hill has at least paid tribute to the "Adventure Design Kit" and that gave us hope when they did that, that the other European stuff wouldn't be lost forever and ignored. Same thing with bringing back "traitorous" Sir Ragnar plot line, and of course ATOH (and we hope, one day, Wizards of Morcar in retail!).

Of course going back to the beginning of the remake, they included Holy Water, Bracers, Handaxe, and Potion of Speed, which they didn't have to, in tribute to the EU original.

I just wish they'd bring back the "Armory Board" officially, even if it's not strictly necessary (and harder to "keep current" with all the expansions coming out, though to be fair, new equipment is rarely added, except in the forms of potions which already have their place in the Alchemist Shop).

Basically I'd want to see a large armory board (add the wand, rapier, and bandolier, that's it, right?) and an "Alchemist's shop" board that has all the potions from ROTDM's Alchemy Deck + Holy Water and the JoD potions (3 unique ones) and that would be complete (if I'm counting them correctly).

Back to the blank Map... we were not so good/smart. We wrote on it IN PEN. Then we used WhiteOut ("liquid paper") to cover it over, redrew the grid lines (without a ruler or guide) also in pen, and then wrote over it in pencil. It was a mess. But I was intrigued in modern times to try to see what we originally wrote on it. We had photocopies of the redrawn grid by the plenty, heh. That was before discovering the Inn where you could print your own clean map templates.

I also love that this (remaster) exists!

[HispaZargon]

A rumor briefly began on our discord that somehow there was a secret message or additional instructions or diagrams within the box of the ADK. It has now been debunked. All that you see is either on the outside of the box or in one of the materials.

Well... a proof that imagination of people has no limits. I would be extremely surprised that this kind of thing had not been discovered yet since 30 years ago... however sometimes happens, that's true.

There is a sample within the ADK that uses more mummies than exist in the core box (2). Of course that and plague of zombies kind of assume you own Return of the Witch Lord... a pack that was released in 1989 in Europe (1991 in the US).

Another mystery that some have spoken on in the past... ARE MORCAR AND MENTOR THE SAME PERSON??? A letter presumably from Morcar to the player shows the "M" seal! Mentor always signed his statements in the other EU (and Japanese) editions with the "M" ! It's proven! Or is it... look at the image below, the seals are different.

I think here the explanation is that both "Mentor" and "Morcar" start with "M." The seal is replaced in the new edition with the two symbols for Zargon and Mentor which are on the opposite sides of the "mystery" tile and not easily confused with one another on sight, one being a kind of "eye" the other being a "skull".

Mentor on the left, Morcar on the right.

ADK_MentorvsMorcar.jpg

Don't forget the other official picture we know showing a Mentor's seal... I am talking about the one shown in the famous big Wall Chart:

Mentor_Shield_Wall_Chart.JPG

[Kurgan]

Matches the other instances...

[Daedalus]

Warlord and Warlord of Chaos are titles that Ring of Sorcerer, Wizard of Morcar or Orc Warlord. Which gets me to thinking . . . in-game, it seeems that Morcar is addressing a monster.

Ulag, the Orc Warlord, has improved Orc stats: AD +1, DD +3, Mv +2, MP+1, (BP same as all monsters). A Chaos Warlord similarly based off of an EU Chaos Warrior (and a step higher than a Doomguard) might look like this:

Att: 5, Def: 6*, Mov: 8, BP: 1, MP: 4
* Roll at least 1 Black Shield to defend against any number of Skulls rolled by an attacker.

The NA Chaos Warlord might look like this:

Att: 5, Def: 6, Mov: 9, BP: 4, MP: 4

https://imgur.com/a/cDg3AbX