How to Get the Most Variety Out of the Basic HQ dice

[cornixt]

I also only use the original whites....because they're the only ones I own.

I think this is where most people stand, and where they always will.

I saw an increasing number of rules that involved coloured dice and figured that I wouldn't make too much effort to read them since I don't have those dice. Then I thought about how people might not have actually considered that different dice aren't even needed to solve their issues with granularity and differentiation between items. Sure, they are nice and easy to use, but they are not needed and will severely limit their audience.

Maybe someone will do the math to work out how to convert a coloured die of a particular type into a white die with a reroll, or similar.

[knightkrawler]

I know Flint started it. And his rulebook is a full-fledged roll-playing game. Case in point.
Anderas, which complicated rules are you referring to?

[Count Mohawk]

I also only use the original whites....because they're the only ones I own.

I think this is where most people stand, and where they always will.

This is probably the most important sentence in the thread so far. The subset of HQ afficiandos who have either the money to buy colorful dice or the time to construct low-quality proxies thereof is relatively small. I've been working on and off on a bunch of stuff for my series of Quest Packs, and because I like colorful dice, I've been putting them in here and there on various cards, rules and so forth. However, there's not much point in me posting any of that here if only a few people have the equipment to actually play with my stuff. Ergo, I am now considering producing two parallel sets of cards: one for people who have colorful dice, and one for people who don't.

Maybe someone will do the math to work out how to convert a coloured die of a particular type into a white die with a reroll, or similar.

I'm busy right now, ask Anderas. You can proxy the black dice for attacking by allowing players to reroll all black shields, though.

[slev]

The easy way would be to create a D6 chart for each colour. The referencing would slow the game down but whatever.

Coloured blank dice are cheap & easy to get. You can use coloured dot stickers on them for effects.

[Anderas]

Anderas, which complicated rules are you referring to?

Things like
"Roll three dice, discard the highest and reroll another".
"If you roll a black shield, count it as Skull"
"If you roll a black shield, reroll all the dice"
"Count and then reroll all skulls. Repeat until no Skull is rolled"
--> All this stuff which, i admit, i don't know if it appears in your rules. But was mentioned in this Thread. Which is great, by the way - some of the Ideas even I, the calculation freak with a passion for having new complicated things to calculate, didn't have until now.


I have a 2 years old daughter. I CAN teach her: Take one green and two white and roll them. (she can count to five). It's as easy as using a smartphone. (she can do that). I CANNOT teach her: If there is this symbol do that, if there is that other symbol multiply, if there is the third symbol count 3 extra.

Well, not today. Maybe in half a year, i can do that stuff with her.
It just shows: One rule is more complicated than the other.

It is not overly complicated for us Silverbacks, i admit. But even if you teach the complete set of rules to some adult who has never played it, it's a lot to start with, so every bit less is a good bit.
Then, for many today's people, Heroquest is already quite a long game. (sad but true) Each reroll or repetetive action makes the game longer - so shorten the procedures is always good. Instead of three whites/reroll one of them, better give the Hero 4 whites. All the colored dices give you the free choice of doing a lot without long procedures.

I admit, the guy from Altona selling them is taking a lot of money for them. And that not everybody has them, is a real drawback if someone wants to share his colored rules with white dice players. But apart from that, IF you have them, they are wonderful.

[knightkrawler]

Things like
"Roll three dice, discard the highest and reroll another".
"If you roll a black shield, count it as Skull"
"If you roll a black shield, reroll all the dice"
"Count and then reroll all skulls. Repeat until no Skull is rolled"
--> All this stuff which, i admit, i don't know if it appears in your rules.

Oh, you mean that. It doesn't. Appear in my rules.
These days I go pretty much vanilla with fancy new linguistic cream. And a cherry on top.
I try to keep these modifications in the probabilities, like "you have to re-roll a monster shield to negate a monster's skull for your Defend".

[whitebeard]

Am I the only anal-retentive nostalgic person here, who uses the original dice exclusively JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME and against all bloated argumentation for where colored dice would in fact come in handy? I'm not sorry that I think this way. It's as simple as it gets to keep one kind of combat dice and that's that. Every other die has to be assigned in type and number, sometimes several for one roll. I can't even grasp the concept that this is in any way "simple".
Slev, I like your rules and you know it. But the colored dice are the one feature that is just too much for me to handle. There it goes too many steps away from vanilla HQ and rewriting the rules myself I have never found myself even close to considering colored dice.

+1. But I can't be nostalgic because I did not actually own the game 25 years ago. The thing I REALLY like about HeroQuest is the lack of leveling and progression beyond the gathering of occasional artifacts. This is not only simpler, it seems more plausible (assuming you are not a complete novice when you start adventuring with your character), and you don't have issues with needing ever bigger and badder monsters. The whole system just works and it is amazing in it's scope and simplicity.

After the base system, I'm adopting some common sense additions/changes. Most of it individualizes the characters more, to prevent the Elf, Dwarf, and Barbarian from maxing out their equipment and all "looking the same". Examples include: heroes must spend one action to switch weapons, except the elf (bow to sword when not encumbered by a shield). This makes the elf the archer and pretty much nobody else. Only the Barbarian can use a Great Sword (4D diagonal). Elf cannot use the Axe. Any other player can shoot over the dwarf if they are standing in an adjacent square. The dwarf can wear plate armor with no penalty. The wizard will find additional spell books...

I will introduce more "role playing" in the form of free form requests when performing actions. But that's it.

I just don't see a need for more types of dice (a few extra white ones is great though). Any truly special equipment or events can be covered by the amazing suggestions in this thread.

Again, amazing thread. Thank you!

[Big Bene]

I'm not posting to take side in the discussion if it's preferable to stick with the original dice or to use variants. I think that's pretty much a question of personal taste (although of course I have my thoughts on it, will perhaps write another post later).

But if you want to write a cutsom quest or houserule (or a complete set of rules of your own) and to use the colored dice or other special dice, this does not necessarily mean to restrict your audience.
There are ways to include the functionality of the colored dice without the need to actually buy them. This may in some cases contradict the "priciple of simplicity" - I just wanted to point out the possibilities there are.

- Emulate the colored dice with other dice
Everybody will have some normal d6 at home. These have six different, clearly distinguished sides, so you can "map" the sides of every six sided die to them.
For example take the classic combat dice:

D6	1	2	3	4	5	6
Combat Die	Bl S	Wh S	Wh S	Skl	Skl	Skl

Now the black die:

D6	1	2	3	4	5	6
Black Die	Bl S	Wh S	Skl	Skl	Skl	Skl

It's helpful that normal D6 are numbered and that people think in numbers. You don't have to include a table in your quest description. Just describe it like "low numbers 1-2 are defence, 1 for monsters, 2 for heroes, high numbers 4-6 are hit". Most people will memorize this relatively easy.

- Emulate the colored dice without dice
This is probably the king's way when including special dice in your quest.
Custom quests and rules are normally published in paper-equivalent form - mostly in the form of a digital document (like PDF), but intended to be printed on paper (perhaps in the near future everybody will have a 3D printer available, but at the moment paper is the medium).
It's not uncommon to include special material to be used with the quest. Many quests pubished at the Inn have custom cards coming with them. Room overlays are more seldom, but still there are some. I once started to make a quest with paper minis for some special characters (never finished this, however).

So it would be legit to include a substitute for the colored dice in a printable form.
There are at least two ways to do so: cards (the elegant way) and spinners (the playful way).

Cards
You can always generate random numbers by drawing cards instead of rolling dice. Six cards would be enough for the issue at hand, but a larger deck would be more practical to handle and shuffle. Drawing cards is a great way to make the distribution of random numbers more reliable - in the end, when you draw all cards, you will have the exact probability distribution of results. You can of course also have true random results by putting the drawn cards back and reshuffle. If you have a deck of 30-50 cards (normal amount) with skulls, white and black shields, and perhaps double symbols, this will be more than enough to make several stacks to simulate all colored dice there are.

Spinners
Spinners are a simple way to cheaply and easily make random generators. Include a hexagon shape in your quest or rule that the user can cut out, stick a match through the middle, and then spin it like a pegtop. It will eventually land on one side, the opposing side pointing upwards. Print the symbols you want in the six triangle sections of the hexagon.

[Tott]

You could easily add special effects much like that using just the normal dice.

Sword of Power: Roll 3 dice in an attack. If you roll a skull on all dice the attack cannot be defended against.

I see what your trying here but again, the wording is critical... if you a roll a skull on ALL dice. what happens if you've drunk a heroic brew or had courage cast on you?
what's the statistical probability that 3 skulls get rolled on three dice, what is it on 4 dice? is that a deliberate difference or not?

[Goblin-King]

Well then you'd have to consider if you think you can roll three skulls on three dice or if it's better to just add extra dice from brew/courage to deal with the current situation.
For this particular weapon I don't really see a problem; it's still a good weapon even if it's special ability most likely won't trigger if you are buffed.

But you are right... Every piece of equipment needs to consider stuff like Heroic Brew and Courage. But I'm more concerned if it becomes broken OP, than if it wastes potential.
A weapon like "Roll 2 dice in an attack. Each skull counts as two skulls" would become exponentially overpowered the more you got buffed.