Movement variants?

[DullandRusty]

Hello all. Does anyone use variants of movement rules? Some in my group hate rolling for it, so as much as it pains me to do so, i am toying with implimenting a system where you can either roll your normal movement dice or move a set amount. The roll has higher potential but also risk to not go anywhere, while the set movement is slow and steady. Now, the set movement needs to be lower than the average 2 dice roll amount and it needs to be low enough where they can't just outrun monsters. The question is, what is a good baseline set movement? 5 spaces, 4 spaces, something else? I want to encourage them to roll, but also not hamper them like crazy if thye want to move a set amount.
Also, if wearing plate, the set maount would be reduced as well.

Any thoughts?
I prefer the rolling for movement, but lets face it. If the group hates it, it means they are less likely to play. Thus, i hate the idea of not playing more than the idea of changing the movement rules and as such am toying with mixing it up.

[mitchiemasha]

Welllllll!!!!!!

Regulars here know my opinion on this. If they hate rolling to move, play a different game. For me this is an integral part of the HEROQUEST. There's a huge race element, especially if you limit rooms to 1 search. Whenever our group plays (not recently) they do work together as a strong team but the competitiveness is still extremely high, kills, finds etc. If people don't play this way or enjoy that, HQ is quite bland (did i write that) but as we do play like that, it's amazing. They add in the extras between themselves to make it fun, you shouldn't have to encourage it.

Many times I've mentioned the comical aspect of a Goblin with Move Attack Move being chased down by a stumbling Dwarf. Especially if the slippery little bugger is an Goblin Archer. If movement is fixed, all players know for sure just how far to move. Removing roll to move totally destroys this aspect of the game, no surprises, no excitement.

Fixed movement games work if there are more action choices (Space Hulk), now, how far you move is reduced by different actions. There's no fun in moving, 1,2,3,4,5,6, every turn and rolling to KILL. Might as well remove the board and place the heroes in front of a different monster each turn. There's 0 point in counting squares (Zombicide) and use zones.

If you haven't implemented the other ideas that improve on the game HeroQuest really is too basic for gamers. All the other ideas work together to enforce the original idea. It is the best game ever... but it is the starter set.

If they don't want to roll to move, play a light version of D&D. Don't make people pointlessly count squares, it's literally the worst idea, unless it varies due to a dice roll, the best idea.

[Weltenlaeufer]

Interesting....I was thinking about the roll or not thing the other day. Thanks Mitchiemasha...this really makes sense. Gonna keep rollin

[mitchiemasha]

There's another variant where a hero rolls one dice and adds that to their fixed stat, it works well with the base game but breaks a lot of other extras I use, like HAZARD: double 1's and the ability of an artefact to split movement when rolling a double. They could be reworked but I don't like changing the original game, just adding to it via twists... The best idea for movement is d8's for speedy agile heroes and d4's for slow, clumsy or bulky ones. The original characters are still d6's but we can introduce quest artefacts such as SWIFT BOOTS, a d6 Hero finding these now rolls d8's. We're not changing the original rule, just adding that extra spice through discovery within a quest, exactly as the original game evolves, staying true to the spirit of HeroQuest.

[cornixt]

I dumped all the 2D6 movement rolls on the monsters and gave my heroes fixed movement. I don't think we need to stick to annoyingly unpredictable mechanisms for your actions that are as simple as walking across a tiled floor.

[lestodante]

If all your players don't want to roll then give them a fixed stat: the Elf in my opinion should be the fastest (9 squares) then the barbarian (wih 8) and the Wizard (the young one, with 7 squares) and the slowest is obviously the Dwarf (with only 6 squares).
If they want to roll they can reach 12, or 2 also.

[The Admiral]

I have to say that we have always played with rolling the dice (since 1990), but it doesn't sit well with me when all monsters and henchmen move around with assured confidence. It can really spoil a game when a character consistently rolls awful movement.

I don't like the set movement with a rolling option. You will only ever use the option if you couldn't get where you wanted in the first place, and so rolling low would not be a negative impact as you couldn't have got into position anyway with your set move.

I would advocate that a player should decide on an individual basis how their character is going to play for the duration of a quest. I will continue with my dice rolling because it is just so natural to me now that doing otherwise would not seem right.

[mitchiemasha]

I dumped all the 2D6 movement rolls on the monsters and gave my heroes fixed movement. I don't think we need to stick to annoyingly unpredictable mechanisms for your actions that are as simple as walking across a tiled floor.

That's as close to a TROLL comment as possibly can be, lol! No way can that work well, unless you play by yourself. You've switched each Hero from rolling 1 set of 2 movement dice each turn (a matter of seconds for each player), to the EW wizard rolling many, seriously off setting turn time ratio. It gives Hero players even less to do and the EW more, they have to wait as you roll for all those monsters. It also reduces the variance between badies, potentially making slow monsters fast, fast monsters slow, strong monsters randomly become OP and weak monsters useless!

AND... monsters live in dark dingy places, it's their home, lair, they know where they are, the ones that don't really "know", the undead, pretty much stumble about the place, they're slow, which with the high stats of the mummy, fits perfectly, easier to avoid... Especially if you give them paralysis, if the Hero is lucky, he'll be too far away for the mummy to reach.

It's not unpredictable, the average roll is 7 (pretty much the fixed stat choice), 2 is quite rare, and so is tripping on a flag stone, 12 is quite rare, and so is getting perfect footing as you leap heroically into battle. What makes 12 even rarer is, when you roll it, you probably wont need it. What we're really looking at is 5-10 but it's rolling the 4,3 or 2 that gives the EW that RARE chance to attack, VERY IMPORTANT! Not ANNOYING!!! The low rolls also add to improve the CHAOS DECK or CHAOS TOKENS mod many like to add.

Stephen probably thought about it for a good while, I've thought about it too but it didn't end up that way for good reasons. It totally changes the game and would be perfect for solo play, possibly even dual play (1 playing 4 Heroes vs EW) or some unique one off quests.

Fixed movement works a lot better when it's action points, you have several action points to spend within your turn, HeroQuest doesn't have enough actions for that, if it had facing, crouching etc, a more complex game, it would work well... otherwise it's makes a beautifully simple game, BORING!

[cornixt]

That's as close to a TROLL comment as possibly can be, lol!

This subject is your trigger, you get so passionate about it every time it comes up, it's funny.

In my system, not every monster rolls a straight 2D6 (most don't, but I don't see much point in going into detail since you are so outraged). And I played with my young kids, so doing most things was pretty normal in every game anyway. I think it evens things out more, since there are so many times when there are zero monsters around and the EW has no turns so has to wait for them to explore while doing nothing themselves. Nearly all monster movement stays within a single room, so it's barely worth rolling in the first place since it is nearly always 2-4 squares. Hero movement is up and down corridors and backtracking through rooms - if anything you are wasting game time with boring mundane easy actions having to be rolled for over and over.

[Pancho]

Potential compromise - You could allow set movement for Heroes only when there are no monsters on the board (or in their table quarter or whatever). I can see why folks get annoyed having to roll when there is no action on the board, but having predictable movement in the face of the enemy takes a lot of fun out of the game and potentially breaks it.

I could say more but I don’t want to be accused of being a TROLL!!