One of the biggest flaws of HeroQuest (in all editions as far as I know) is the Doorway Problem.
You know how it goes: the Morcar/Zargon player sets up an interesting room full of furniture and monsters artfully positioned in an interesting pattern, requiring the players to think about who goes where to fight what. At least, that seems to be how the designers intended each new room to work.
But what do players actually do? Stand outside the door and let their toughest character fight one monster at a time. Next room, repeat. Sigh.
Even as a kid I found this a bit tedious. Hardly anyone actually ENTERED a room to fight the monsters, as the powers of Chaos intended. In reality, it would probably be better in terms of maximising attack dice to all rush in and attack different monsters instead of leaving it to the Barbarian or Dwarf to do all the work ... but in my experience, players tend to take the 'safe' option of the doorway chokepoint. (If your players play differently, I'd be very interested to hear about it!)
I know plenty of people have come up with various house rules for this, or just accepted it as a basic flaw in the HQ game design. I played around with all kinds of ideas, such as being pulled into the room by the monsters and things like that. In the end, though, my own solution is pretty simple. I haven't tested it yet, though.
(The following wording uses the classic EU rules language rather than the NA style.)
At the start of the evil wizard player's turn, if there is at least one monster miniature on the board, the evil wizard player may roll 2 red dice. If the result is a double 1, he may place the wandering monster indicated in the Quest Notes in a vacant square adjacent to any character. If there is no adjacent space, he may place the wandering monster in any vacant space visible to the characters. The new monster can then move and attack as normal during the evil wizard player's turn.
Now you may well ask - why does this only happen if there is at least one monster on the board? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
No indeed, sirs and madams!
Usually I've seen this kind of rule used as a 'time pressure' rule to keep the game moving and give the Morcar/Zargon player something to do when there are no monsters. And similar rules are used, very effectively, in other dungeon crawlers such as Games Workshop's later Warhammer Quest. (Anyone who has played WHQ will know the terror of rolling a 1 at the start of the turn ...)
But I've never seen a need for the 'time pressure' in HeroQuest for two reasons.
Firstly, the M/Z player always does have something to do: keep an eye on the Quest Book and update the board with doors, furniture, traps, etc. as the players move around.
Secondly, HeroQuest isn't a game of constant tension and haste. It's a game of exploration. That's half the fun. Hurrying the players along isn't the goal of the game, in my opinion.
(I should also note that in the classic EU version the Treasure deck is deadlier, and you're not supposed to keep potions found on cards between Quests, which limits the amount of treasure-farming you can safely do even if you hang around searching and searching ad nauseum.)
However, the one instance when you do want to give the players a kick up the pants is when they're standing outside the door to a roomful of monsters and refusing to come in. Under the standard rules, it's a stalemate until one side or the other gets bored and charges (usually Morcar/Zargon).
Because of this, I think the time pressure is needed ONLY when there are monsters around. If the players insist on staying outside the room, the Morcar/Zargon player will roll for a wandering monster, and eventually one will show up. And then another ... and another ... until the players finally realise that the best defence is a good offence, and move ahead into the room.
As a bonus, this rule gives Morcar/Zargon something else to do with the monsters rather than mindlessly attack. If you can keep at least one monster model alive on the board--maybe by fleeing past the players and running somewhere safe--then you get to keep rolling for the wandering monster every turn. The players may decide to backtrack and hunt down the survivor, or continue on, now under self-imposed time pressure.
Thematically, you could think of this as a 'noisy monsters' rule. When monsters are on the board, they know the players are around, and they're bellowing for reinforcements and raising the alarm--so wandering monsters might show up. When no monsters are on the board, it's quiet and safe (unless you draw the wrong treasure card, of course ...)
However, this is all theoretical and I haven't tried it out. What do you think? Will it work to solve the Doorway Problem? Is there a better way to do it? Is there even a problem to solve in the first place, or do your players never act like this?
(And would statues like unactivated Gargoyles also count as 'monsters on the board'?)
I can't remember who it was, though. They were using it when no monsters are on the board, instead of when they 
