I was wrong about cards limiting equipment in the original.?

[Daedalus]

What of the spear and shield found in the Game System Quests? (Or for that matter, other equipment found in the expansions.) If those cards are already purchased, do you just record the equipment anyway, or is the searching Hero denied his reward since no more copies of that card are available? I'd think the former, but this would erode the individuality aspect of Heroes created with specific loadouts.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Gold Yield for the Gathering Storm (Game System) campaign

In terms of the "gold yield" for the Gathering Storm campaign, I've done these same calculations a few times with different variables and broadly you are correct in that depending on the exact circumstances, cards drawn, hero deaths and rule versions a party of adventurers are likely to have pretty much cleaned out the equipment deck by the end of that campaign. However my conclusion here is almost the opposite of yours, I don't see that as a problem that needs fixing with rust spells or a similar mechanism, I see that as being intentional, highly unlikely to be a coincidence, so I suspect the intention was that the Equipment Cards provided with the base game were supposed to be sufficient to cover the Quests provided and that future expansions were going to come with additional Equipment Cards however by the time it came to these expansions other factors, like possibly production costs, removed the option of including additional cards (which is also why these expansions introduced additional monster types that didn't have monster cards and so on). My solution here is to homebrew additional Equipment Cards for KK and RotWL (and beyond) so that the party can continue to advance.

Starting Weapons & Equipment Cards

In terms of starting weapons, I have tweaked some of the equipment a little, including the shortsword so that it gives 2AD without any diagonal ability (and reduced the cost to 100gc), so that covers both the starting weapon for the Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf (included in their character card, if you want to consider it that way) and the single physical equipment card provided, that can be purchased as an "upgrade" by the Wizard. The Wizard starts with a 1AD adjacent only weapon, which you could consider him to be unarmed but I prefer thinking of him being armed with a Dagger (only a complete idiot would venture into a dungeon unarmed!), but bear in mind that the throwable Dagger is a NA invention, I wouldn't consider the Wizard to be proficient with throwing weapons as the "theme" of the Wizard is that his expertise and training is around magic and not mundane combat.

Chaos Spells

Whilst "chaos spells" were introduced from the start in the NA edition, do consider that the classic edition, when considered as a whole has 48 spells (strictly speaking 47 distinct spells as Lightning Bolt appears twice) the vast majority of which can be used by various "Monster" spellcasters which are the equivalent of the "Chaos Spells" just without that label, so as we are now free to view the classic edition as a whole (no new official expansions for last few decades and none planned!), I have backported many of these spells for use in earlier campaigns, so for example at my table The Witch Lord is his second appearance in the Gathering Storm campaign and his appearance in Return of the Witch Lord campaign has access to all six Necromantic spells, Grak from Legacy of the Orc Warlord is now an Orc Shaman and has access to three of the Orc Shaman spells and so on.

Character Sheet

This is an interesting one, and as you say we'll probably never know for sure but there are two strange features for me here.

The first one is that the character sheet (finalised in March '89, so early relative to the other parts of the game, and the same one is used for 1st and 2nd edition, until the Adventure Design Kit) only covers five elements Name, Character, Mind, Body, Tasks Completed which suggests to me that these were the only elements in the remit given to the designers of the character sheet and that the rules telling you to write other things of your character sheet like equipment summaries and gold card values were later additions to the rules and the character sheet wasn't revised. Fair enough, these things happen.

The second is that these presumably later changes to the rules telling you to write other things of your character sheet like equipment summaries and gold card values are entirely unnecessary. There is no need to write equipment summaries on your character sheet (in the space that isn't provided) as you have them on the equipment card in front of you, neither is there any need to write the value of gold treasure cards onto your character sheet (in the space that isn't provided) before discarding them (or returning them to the deck) because in neither version is there any need to discard/return these cards to the deck, so you could just keep them in front of you.

I feel that this kind of discrepancy may have been caused by the two conflicting influences between MB on the one hand with their board game experience (track things through physical cards, counters etc) and GW on the other hand with their RPG experience (write stuff on your character sheet) and my personal preference for HeroQuest at least is more towards the former.

At my table we track Body points through counters* issued at the start of the game which can be lost (and restored), equipment using the cards, gold treasure using the cards etc, so there is no need to write anything on your character sheet during play at all. The character sheet is used only "Between Quests" as a permanent record of your character and their "journey", quests completed, and on the reverse any wealth remaining after rewards minus purchases, and I used to jot down any cards like equipment or quest treasure that the character had at the end of the dungeon, ready for me to reissue at the start of the next one (although I now just use A6 pouches to store the character board, sheet, cards, counters etc in for each character)

*I don't track Mind points as I have reworked that system entirely (which is cool, but isn't relevant here)

And Daedalus in answer to your question, neither option. If a quest note state that the heroes find a Spear but they have purchased the Spear so the card is no longer available I'd just direct them to draw a treasure card, as if there was no quest note (I don't give out equipment in my own quests partly to avoid this exact situation and partly because it denies player choice - we didn't buy a Spear because we didn't want one, now we found a Spear, we still don't want it, and I would have preferred some gold to put towards a broadsword)

[Kurgan]

What of the spear and shield found in the Game System Quests? (Or for that matter, other equipment found in the expansions.) If those cards are already purchased, do you just record the equipment anyway, or is the searching Hero denied his reward since no more copies of that card are available? I'd think the former, but this would erode the individuality aspect of Heroes created with specific loadouts.

A good point.

Does it say to record on their sheet? If so, I'd treat it as an extra piece of equipment, even if someone already has purchased it and is holding the card.

Things get a little uncertain once you roll into expansions. Is the person playing the expansion using the 1st edition or 2nd edition rules? Or have they purchased ADK and are using the "write it all down, don't worry about cards" suggestion with either of these rulesets?

EDIT: Checking... EU KK has one quest (Warrior Halls) where an equipment card is drawn, so no issue there. I had forgotten that the term "long sword" is used to describe the miniature to use for the special Orc bosses (I always thought of it as the "large sword" or "notched sword"; I think the first is NA terminology and the latter is fan term, someone can check me on that).

Also reminded of how useful Fire magic is in EU ROTWL compared to some other questbooks... but no equipment finds noted.

Yes, it does say in Lair of the Orc Warlord (both editions) that the hero WILL find a spear, and that he MAY take the card from the Equipment pack (there's only one spear in there, regardless of edition). Reading it literally I would say that means he can only have the spear if it's already unclaimed. Morcar can make the call of course. It doesn't mention anything about writing it down so I guess they weren't assuming anyone had it. If you grab it away from another hero, that's going to lead to a PvP fight! ADK owners would know just to write it down, no problem. He can look at the card and then return it.

[Kurgan]

For your next main system example... Bastion of Chaos says a shield is found. The wording is different here. Taken literally it sounds like the hero may steal it from another hero who already has it! (fight! fight! fight!)

Interesting wording here about the Armoury, as if the hero immediately is told what it is, and then only finds that he can take a spear if he searches. Of course narratively it doesn't make as much sense that in context the hero is meant to steal from his fellow. But it would be funny! I think context would imply here that probably he wasn't intended to just steal it, but there you go...

I like how Legacy of the Orc Warlord gives the hero who finds the confiscated equipment the option to keep everything instead of doling it back out... more fighting! (of course now he has an advantage over them, though he can't use the spells if he's not a spell user). The last part if taken literally implies that the Elf COULD keep all the magic AND use it... and the Wizard if he's the one being greedy, would have extra magic too!

The Japanese system has at least one adventure where the Magician (Wizard) gets ALL the spells (while the Elf gets to use the legendary freeze bow).

[Bareheaded Warrior]

And Daedalus in answer to your question, neither option. If a quest note state that the heroes find a Spear but they have purchased the Spear so the card is no longer available I'd just direct them to draw a treasure card, as if there was no quest note (I don't give out equipment in my own quests partly to avoid this exact situation and partly because it denies player choice - we didn't buy a Spear because we didn't want one, now we found a Spear, we still don't want it, and I would have preferred some gold to put towards a broadsword)

Kurgan, as I said above, if a Quest Note states "if a Hero searches for treasure then he will find <specific equipment card>. That player may take <specific equipment card> from the Equipment cards/pack/deck." If the <specific equipment card> is no longer in the Equipment pack/deck then the player cannot take it from the Equipment pack/deck, so in this instance, fulfilling the instruction in the Quest Note isn't possible/valid so the EWP directs the player to draw a Treasure Card instead, as if there wasn't a quest note. Simple, no stealing from other players or PVP required.

[Daedalus]

That's a fair way to resolve it that nicely keeps the loadout intact. I personally like equipment finds for their unique feel and quick power bumps, but sometimes they are simply redundant. At least the resale rule of the NA system retains some of the value of found equipment and partly explains its inclusion. Of course, that top-heavy type of game isn't what your after.

[Kurgan]

And Daedalus in answer to your question, neither option. If a quest note state that the heroes find a Spear but they have purchased the Spear so the card is no longer available I'd just direct them to draw a treasure card, as if there was no quest note (I don't give out equipment in my own quests partly to avoid this exact situation and partly because it denies player choice - we didn't buy a Spear because we didn't want one, now we found a Spear, we still don't want it, and I would have preferred some gold to put towards a broadsword)

Kurgan, as I said above, if a Quest Note states "if a Hero searches for treasure then he will find <specific equipment card>. That player may take <specific equipment card> from the Equipment cards/pack/deck." If the <specific equipment card> is no longer in the Equipment pack/deck then the player cannot take it from the Equipment pack/deck, so in this instance, fulfilling the instruction in the Quest Note isn't possible/valid so the EWP directs the player to draw a Treasure Card instead, as if there wasn't a quest note. Simple, no stealing from other players or PVP required.

I'm just thinking how a greedy kid would think about it... the "Equipment cards" on his partner's pile! After all it doesn't say "deck" like the pile everyone draws from.

[dragon5145]

Gold Yield for the Gathering Storm (Game System) campaign

In terms of the "gold yield" for the Gathering Storm campaign, I've done these same calculations a few times with different variables and broadly you are correct in that depending on the exact circumstances, cards drawn, hero deaths and rule versions a party of adventurers are likely to have pretty much cleaned out the equipment deck by the end of that campaign. However my conclusion here is almost the opposite of yours, I don't see that as a problem that needs fixing with rust spells or a similar mechanism, I see that as being intentional, highly unlikely to be a coincidence, so I suspect the intention was that the Equipment Cards provided with the base game were supposed to be sufficient to cover the Quests provided and that future expansions were going to come with additional Equipment Cards however by the time it came to these expansions other factors, like possibly production costs, removed the option of including additional cards (which is also why these expansions introduced additional monster types that didn't have monster cards and so on). My solution here is to homebrew additional Equipment Cards for KK and RotWL (and beyond) so that the party can continue to advance.

Starting Weapons & Equipment Cards

In terms of starting weapons, I have tweaked some of the equipment a little, including the shortsword so that it gives 2AD without any diagonal ability (and reduced the cost to 100gc), so that covers both the starting weapon for the Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf (included in their character card, if you want to consider it that way) and the single physical equipment card provided, that can be purchased as an "upgrade" by the Wizard. The Wizard starts with a 1AD adjacent only weapon, which you could consider him to be unarmed but I prefer thinking of him being armed with a Dagger (only a complete idiot would venture into a dungeon unarmed!), but bear in mind that the throwable Dagger is a NA invention, I wouldn't consider the Wizard to be proficient with throwing weapons as the "theme" of the Wizard is that his expertise and training is around magic and not mundane combat.

Chaos Spells

Whilst "chaos spells" were introduced from the start in the NA edition, do consider that the classic edition, when considered as a whole has 48 spells (strictly speaking 47 distinct spells as Lightning Bolt appears twice) the vast majority of which can be used by various "Monster" spellcasters which are the equivalent of the "Chaos Spells" just without that label, so as we are now free to view the classic edition as a whole (no new official expansions for last few decades and none planned!), I have backported many of these spells for use in earlier campaigns, so for example at my table The Witch Lord is his second appearance in the Gathering Storm campaign and his appearance in Return of the Witch Lord campaign has access to all six Necromantic spells, Grak from Legacy of the Orc Warlord is now an Orc Shaman and has access to three of the Orc Shaman spells and so on.

Character Sheet

This is an interesting one, and as you say we'll probably never know for sure but there are two strange features for me here.

The first one is that the character sheet (finalised in March '89, so early relative to the other parts of the game, and the same one is used for 1st and 2nd edition, until the Adventure Design Kit) only covers five elements Name, Character, Mind, Body, Tasks Completed which suggests to me that these were the only elements in the remit given to the designers of the character sheet and that the rules telling you to write other things of your character sheet like equipment summaries and gold card values were later additions to the rules and the character sheet wasn't revised. Fair enough, these things happen.

The second is that these presumably later changes to the rules telling you to write other things of your character sheet like equipment summaries and gold card values are entirely unnecessary. There is no need to write equipment summaries on your character sheet (in the space that isn't provided) as you have them on the equipment card in front of you, neither is there any need to write the value of gold treasure cards onto your character sheet (in the space that isn't provided) before discarding them (or returning them to the deck) because in neither version is there any need to discard/return these cards to the deck, so you could just keep them in front of you.

I feel that this kind of discrepancy may have been caused by the two conflicting influences between MB on the one hand with their board game experience (track things through physical cards, counters etc) and GW on the other hand with their RPG experience (write stuff on your character sheet) and my personal preference for HeroQuest at least is more towards the former.

At my table we track Body points through counters* issued at the start of the game which can be lost (and restored), equipment using the cards, gold treasure using the cards etc, so there is no need to write anything on your character sheet during play at all. The character sheet is used only "Between Quests" as a permanent record of your character and their "journey", quests completed, and on the reverse any wealth remaining after rewards minus purchases, and I used to jot down any cards like equipment or quest treasure that the character had at the end of the dungeon, ready for me to reissue at the start of the next one (although I now just use A6 pouches to store the character board, sheet, cards, counters etc in for each character)

*I don't track Mind points as I have reworked that system entirely (which is cool, but isn't relevant here)

And Daedalus in answer to your question, neither option. If a quest note state that the heroes find a Spear but they have purchased the Spear so the card is no longer available I'd just direct them to draw a treasure card, as if there was no quest note (I don't give out equipment in my own quests partly to avoid this exact situation and partly because it denies player choice - we didn't buy a Spear because we didn't want one, now we found a Spear, we still don't want it, and I would have preferred some gold to put towards a broadsword)

ON GOLD YIELDS
BH your right, there isn't really a problem that needs "fixing" with the rust spell, my earlier statement was more from surprise at how quickly the armory would be emptied, when cards limit supply. Your also correct this was probably as intended, however it's also possible that the built in recycle method,losing the spear or hand axe when thrown, was not used nearly as much as the developers thought it would. Similar to how early players played more cooperatively than even the developers apparently thought they would. This might explain why the spear can also be found in an early quest, devs figuring it would eventually thrown an recycled. Technically even rust isn't available in A Gathering Storm in the NA version, while in the base game system no monsters are said to be capable of using it in quest notes which dictate what spells Zargon can use, so no rust. Unless I missed one somewhere.

ON CHARACTER SHEETS
I have to disagree with one small thing you've written here. There is a need to write down the gold and jewel values on the character sheet at least in 1st "premiere" edition, since the rules clearly state the values be recorded then the card returned to the bottom of the treasure deck, only potions are held till used then returned to bottom of treasure deck.

[Kurgan]

What these discussions have taught me is that while it was a popular theory spread around online that HeroQuest as a game "evolved" through each new edition into some kind of "final form" the original designers always intended, that seems invalidated now. Each edition was basically its own game (and yet, always easy to modify, and the ambiguities people just made their decisions about and went with it). Yes, you could say there were refinements and clarifications in 2nd edition from 1st, but some things were just outright changed. Whether one likes the changes or not is a matter of preference. I think it is great that the expansions were made without regard for which version you were playing, just assuming you would adapt from whatever rules you were using.

The first edition sold a ton of copies as well, so it's not like people didn't know the game existed until the expansions came out (two of them were released before the 2nd edition came out, and one the same year!).

Many myths busted!

While the internet was pretty new for most people back in those days, there were other ways that info was shared, such as in fanzines, so it wasn't that everyone was just limited to their own circle of friends at school or whatever to share their interpretations of the rules. People wrote letters to Milton Bradley (Hasbro) and asked questions, and they got responses back too.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

On Gold Yield

surprise at how quickly the armory would be emptied, when cards limit supply.

Let me put this another way. When the original box set was created, finalised and published, it contained sufficient components; figures, monster cards, treasure cards (and most pertinent to this topic) equipment cards and so on, to cover the quests provided in the box. I don’t find this surprising, in fact, I would have been surprised and indeed disappointed if this wasn’t the case and there weren’t enough components to play the quests provided.

I’m sure at this point they were hoping that should the game prove popular (and boy did it!) they would get the opportunity to create expansion packs that would include sufficient components to cover the quests provided in those expansions; new monster figures, new monster cards, new treasure cards, new equipment cards and so on.

However, when the game did indeed prove popular and they got the green light to proceed with two expansions, they were met with the reality of the beast named “budgetary constraints” so compromises had to be made.

This is probably why both Kellar’s Keep and Return of the Witch Lord both contained only more of the same figures, but no new figures (for example for the poor Death Mist just a lowly cardboard tile) and no new cards at all, no new treasure, quest treasure or, crucially for this topic, no new equipment cards for the characters to spend their hard earned gold on.

This is why I have taken it upon myself to produce a deck of 64 cards (this seems to be a batch size limitation, at least back in the day) to fill this gap, containing new monster cards, quest treasure cards and equipment cards for use with these two expansion packs, Kellar’s Keep and Return of the Witch Lord named Gear Up
Note: As of posting this project is still a work in progress…

On Character Sheets

I agree that you are instructed to write down the details on your character sheet (no section is provided) and to return the card to the deck (in the 1st edition) or discard it (in the 2nd edition), my point was that there isn’t any NEED to include (from a designer point of view), or follow (from a player point of view), these instructions. The reason is that the game works exactly the same*, if, instead of writing the details on your character sheet and returning the card to the bottom of the deck (1st edition) or discarding it (2nd edition), you simply retain the card until the end of the quest and then total them up (and return them to the deck for the next game)

*The same except that it reduces the amount of admin that needs to happen in game, which aligns to one of the principles of HQ of reducing “admin”.