Ye Olde Inn

Was re-reading the first ('89) and second ('90) edition EU rules of play and I can see how people would read this and think it was intended that the number of cards limited stock of these items. I don't like it, but it does make some interesting changes to the type of balance I was thinking about (combine this with the EU's lack of starting weapons, replaced by base attack values that vary from character to character). First and second edition thus would have had different numbers of Shields and Helmets.

The EU edition also doesn't feature any "selling back" rule (only the Potion of Alchemy card that could be found once per quest from the Treasure Deck... use it or lose it, since Potions can't normally be carried from one quest to another). Would "lost" equipment go back into the deck and become available again for sale?

It was much more clear in the Japanese edition that cards were intended to limit supply. Clearly the North American edition did not have this limitation, the Armory showed you what was for sale and there was no limit to the supply (though not much point in buying two of the same weapon for one character except as a backup, since there was no special dual wielding rule).

I know I've rejected "realism" as the ultimate arbiter of truth to guide these adventures, but there's only one shield left in the whole Empire? Still, playing within these parameters would be interesting... see the next post for more!

And as Mr X (on HeroQuestFans discord) reminded me, here's the missing piece to the puzzle and why I was both right (and wrong):

The Adventure Design Kit (1990) explains the use of the "new" character sheet that modifies the previous implied rules, that cards don't limit supply was the intention. So here was an official rule revision from the original designers put forth quite quickly, and apparently well known and accepted by the community, whether they owned it or not.

Similar to how it was shown to me that Mind Points being reduced to zero was intended to mean the Hero dies in both EU editions... but actual examples were always specifically clarified in each expansion with a different result... no Mind Points can be lost by default in the original 14 quests, The Maze from first edition or in the Dark Company in Master Edition. It's one of those things that could fit on some kind of rules FAQ. Hardcore fans of these editions knew this already, but I'm just now putting it all together for myself!

The way I read it, its seems like an overly munchkin-y interpretation to assume the equipment cards limited the amount of equipment available. No where does it mention this. The paragraph does mention you grab the card you want and make the changes on your sheet, but after you write down the changes there is really no need to have the card anymore. Also some quests have equipment you can find in the quest. It doesn’t make sense that a particular item isn’t available anymore because you found one in a cave.

Having said that, I can definitely see where the confusion comes from: the varying number of equipment cards, the wording in the quest notes and sometimes spell cards (take a shield card from the deck, discard the equipment card, etc.) seem to imply you should have the cards in your possession. It doesn’t help the original character sheets never had a specific place to write down weapons and armor. I think the mention of the equipment cards and the new character sheets in the Adventure Design Kit were an attempt to clarify what the game designers originally intended.

Kurgan,

I don't think it is a case of you necessarily being right and/or wrong I think that much of the confusion arises from an unstated difference between editions.

Much of the "evidence" (and I use that term is the loosest possible sense) FOR cards limiting availability comes from the First Edition and in the Second Edition some changes were made that could suggest an intention to move away from that position, but as usual it was half-hearted, and the Adventure Design Kit pretty much confirms that new approach. I suspect that if the same crew had produced a third edition in 1991/2 then it would have been more Equipment Card as reference / Armoury style approach with equipment listed on your sheet and hopefully the specific references to cards in Quest Notes, Rules and so on would have been tidied up.

For example, SirRick, if I break your last post into sections you can see how some of the confusion disappears when you split First Edition sources from later sources

First Edition Sources

SirRick wrote:the varying number of equipment cards, the wording in the quest notes and sometimes spell cards (take a shield card from the deck, discard the equipment card, etc.) seem to imply you should have the cards in your possession. ...the original character sheets never had a specific place to write down weapons and armor..

Later Sources

SirRick wrote:The paragraph does mention you grab the card you want and make the changes on your sheet, but after you write down the changes there is really no need to have the card anymore.

I think the mention of the equipment cards and the new character sheets in the Adventure Design Kit were an attempt to clarify what the game designers originally intended.

Regarding that last sentence, it could be a clarification of their original intentions (maybe they forgot to put a weapons and armour section on the original character sheet or accidentally ordered extra equipment cards, it could equally have been a change in position.

My area of interest here isn't so much the history, although that can be interesting too, it is more around the two different approaches, "Equipment Availability Limited by Cards" versus "Equipment Cards as Reference" and which one of the two is better in terms of the usual HQ criteria, simplicity, ease of use, minimal book-keeping, gameplay experience, which results in a more efficient "fun-engine". Some people assume that if the game moved from one approach in its first incarnation to a different approach in later editions that presumably means that play testing and feedback favoured the latter but you mustn't forget that for a commercial enterprise, production costs is a big consideration and that may have been the driving force behind this different approach.

I'm in agreement that they probably changed their mind about various things over time. It's like pointing out that the EU rules say losing all your mind points means you're dead, and then every instance of that possibly happening in an actual adventure they clarify (so what was the point of the general rule? it was a placeholder, I guess that you could use in your own original adventures, at best).

We can guess that they were probably thinking one thing but wrote another in other places, or kind of assumed something but never really clarified it and then later agreed that they never really said that (like the "walking up to chests to open them" thing which some quest designs betray is what the designer was thinking even if the written rules never state that).

For knowledgeable HeroQuest players in the EU, physical Equipment cards don't limit supply... unless you want them to. For Japanese players, that's just always the way the game was played and at least that version explicitly says so. No one worried about it in the NA edition because we had an Armory board. Nobody thought there was just ever one Tool Kit or one Staff and once that was purchased nobody else could have it.

I'm glad the remake, when re-introducing the Equipment deck concept (which they continued to refer to as the "Armory") included a clarification that cards don't limit stock of items. But for those who want that to be the case, nothing stopping them from implementing that rule, though whether that would really improve the game in some way is a matter of opinion. At least in the Japanese game, there's only one Crossbow... but there's only one Hero who can use the crossbow (the Elf). Where it adds any challenge is in the number of available Healing Potions that can be purchased (the ones in the Treasure deck are stronger than the ones you can purchase between quests with gold).

By limiting the stock, that Zargon is asking the heroes to fight over the one best piece of armor or the one best weapon, I guess. It certainly isn't anymore realistic (in a whole Kingdom there is noone willing to sell more than one sword or suit of armor?). I presume those same people would agree that if someHOW the armor or sword was lost, that it would then become available to be purchased again, otherwise it would be even more ridiculous. More challenging, but not more historically plausible.

In HeroQuest, as in all games, there is an important distinction between the two levels that are involved in the game.

The first is the “player” level which involves actual real people rolling dice, moving plastic figures around a cardboard board.

The second is the “character” or in-game level which involves Thorogrim the Dwarf traipsing through a dungeon killing goblins and finding treasure.

Whilst I’m aware that I am probably stating the obvious here, but it is useful to keep this split in mind during discussions about rules and game mechanisms.

And there is a clear split between the two, a “fourth wall” if you like that should never be breached. Breaches in this split reveal themselves in what is often referred to as “meta-gaming” (I think meta-gaming actually has a broader meaning, but in this context, I’m referring to the negative aspects of meta-gaming)

For example, players moving the Wizard into a corner of a room and the other Heroes into positions surrounding the Wizard so that he can search, and if a Wandering Monster card is drawn the WM cannot be placed adjacent to him and cannot therefore attack.

At a “player” level this makes sense, players know the rules (and the rules determine HOW a situation is handled), the search mechanism and the drawing of a treasure card but makes absolutely no sense at a “character/in-game” level, where characters make decisions on WHAT (not HOW) they do, why would the Wizard make a conscious decision to move himself into a corner, the other Heroes make a conscious decision to place themselves around this corner, and then the Wizard perform a search of the whole room whilst somehow remaining tucked into his pocket of safety.

Another aspect of this to keep in mind, and which is finally relevant to this thread, is that the “character/in-game” level only exists from the start of a Quest and ceases to exist at the end of a Quest. Put it another way, we only ever see Thorogrim our Dwarf from the moment he enters the dungeon (and his player places the figure on the spiral stairway tile) to the moment he exits the dungeon (and his player removes the figure from the spiral stairway tile).

This means that the whole “Between Quests” part of game existing only at the player level and consists of such activities as, rubbing out the body point tracker on the character sheet, selecting the desired equipment card, crossing out gold and writing in a corresponding lesser amount, and so on.
Nowhere within the HeroQuest rules does it state, or need to state, that Thorogrim the Dwarf has exited the dungeon, travelled to a nearby settlement, located a suitable shop, engaged in small talk with the proprietor, and handed over gold, following a protracted haggling session, in exchange for a shiny battle axe. Some games choose to bring this into the “character/in-game” level but HQ does not.

Players are obviously free to invent any such narrative that they wish to, to rationalise this part of the game, but keep in mind that this is stuff made up by players and is NOT part of the game.

So, when comments like the one below crop up (and they regularly do), bear in mind that these are perceived flaws in any narrative that you yourself have invented and added to the game and are now complaining about.

Kurgan wrote: By limiting the stock, that Zargon is asking the heroes to fight over the one best piece of armor or the one best weapon, I guess. It certainly isn't anymore realistic (in a whole Kingdom there is noone willing to sell more than one sword or suit of armor?).

And many similar comments like “how does the Hero get the opportunity to travel to the nearest settlement and buy stuff in between quests that are linked together when he never leaves the dungeon”.

By retaining or restoring the “Equipment Limited by Card Quantity” mechanism, you are doing simply that and just that alone, retaining or restoring the “Equipment Limited by Card Quantity” mechanism. Zargon and the heroes are characters in the game, we are discussing a game mechanism that takes place outside of that context. If you wish to create a better narrative, feel free, maybe Amazon wasn’t invented in the HeroQuest world and they can’t just browse the stock of every store in the whole Kingdom, the moment they step out of the dungeon, maybe as they travel between Quests they don’t pass a settlement, on this occasion and just have to settle for trading with a wandering pedlar with limited stock, maybe they just trip over as they are moving between quests and happen to stumble onto a battle axe and when they get up and dust themselves off they realise that they have inexplicable lost 450 gold coins…

At one level (the “player” level) the answer is simple, player chooses the equipment card that he wants, takes it, deducts the appropriate figure from the gold value on the character sheet – job done.

If player wish to invent the other level (the “character/in-game” level) and apply it to this exchange, they can of course do so, but then they take the burden onto their own shoulders of creating a narrative that fits, and have no right to complain about the rules of the game if they struggle to manage that burden! “If you are playing linked quests then you can’t purchase equipment between quests because that doesn’t make sense/isn’t realistic.” Yes, you can, the rules cover this situation quite happily at a “player” level and make no attempt to include this within the “in-game” level it remains abstract and simple.

Equipment Limited by Card Quantity

Lecture over, now let’s consider whether there is any merit in retaining/restoring the “Equipment Limited by Card Quantity” mechanism.

1. One advantage to this mechanism is that it removes the need to have space on your character sheet to record equipment that you have and removes the “book-keeping” involved in having to write it down (and later cross it out), this means that character sheets can be kept small and save table space (in fact I have gone further and the character is pretty much only used "Between Quests" as a permanent record of the character and rarely needed within the Quest at all)

2. Another advantage is standardisation (or possibly modularisation) in that, for example, applying this mechanism and supplying only 2 identical Equipment Cards with the title of “Potion of Healing” and a description of the effects, the cost and so on would mean that you would only need to include in Quest notes an indication that chest A contains a Potion of Healing so give the player the card, which removes all the variants and inconsistencies around whether a particular Potion of Healing restores 2BP, 4BP, D6BP, all your BP as it just does what it says on the tin , sorry, card.

3. Another advantage is that the mechanism becomes self-balancing, using the same example as above, a potion of healing in a chest, when the Evil Wizard player checks the quest notes that indicate he should give the player a Potion of Healing Equipment Card, but then checks the deck to discover that they have all been either bought and given out already and have not been used, then sadly the chest turns out to be empty. This simple mechanism means that for groups that are “having an easy time of the game” (perhaps through a good run of luck, experienced players, good tactics, good teamwork or whatever) the game automatically gets a little more difficult and obviously the opposite is also true, those that are struggling get a boon.

In terms of how many copies of each equipment card should be available, I would suggest for the same of simplicity assuming for the moment only one copy of each card, and then we can “argue upwards” on a case-by-case basis.

For example, under the “polished second edition” rules, the Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf all have a shortsword as their starting weapon so…

Shortsword = Quantity 3

Many of our debates on this forum circle around encouraging the use of throwing weapons, for fun and as a gold sink, and rules around recovery so in the spirit of this I would suggest…

Throwing/Hand Axe = Quantity 2
Throwing Knife/Dagger = Quantity 3

Several pre-published Quests involved simultaneously giving out 2 Potions of Healing in close proximity and on occasion even in a single chest so…

Potion of Healing = Quantity 2

Armour obviously needs some thought and so on…more to follow as this post is long enough already!

Kurgan wrote:I know I've rejected "realism" as the ultimate arbiter of truth to guide these adventures, but there's only one shield left in the whole Empire?

Scout men-at-arms bought all of the available shields unfortunately!

I appreciated the "lecture." Instead of simulating everything in the world of the game, some things are taken out for the sake of simplicity, leaving you with the parts you want to do, because those are what you need to create the fun little experience. I see they were dealing with two desires, to have it so you held a card for each object you had in the game, and the fact that they could only print so many cards. So they probably intended to limit supply but then decided it worked better just to have people write it down. When it comes to monsters they still limit supply by the number of plastic figures you have, which has the added perk of encouraging you to buy more expansions to get that side benefit. Looking back at this development though I can appreciate how the Character Sheet changed to give space to write down more things whereas before it was mostly mostly a doodle pad (like a traditional score card in other games) to becoming an active inventory. Then this leaves the Wizard as the standard character with a pile of cards in front of him.*

To me it's similar to the (non)rule that you can't roll more than the number of dice that come with the game. It's a logical inference but not actually how the game was intended to be played.

Realism is often brought in as an after the fact rationalization for why a particular rule is in place. Often it doesn't really work though. So yes, there's nothing wrong per se with making it so that a particular weapon can only be used by one character or something if you want to. To me if you "need a reason" you can just say it's more challenging, or it's too easy so you changed it. "I don't like it because..." and realism gets chosen so quick or often, but then it backfires. Arbitrary game rules can be fine. I like to make excuses for the stuff too, but I'm going for what to me is the perfect balance between my nostalgia for playing the game, a little challenge, and the surprise of the unexpected which may not be the same as others.

It would be interesting to try to reconstruct what HeroQuest gameplay was like at earlier stages, even if it has evolved into what we see now (and continues to evolve in various fan quarters). Maybe something more like Advanced HeroQuest or late 80's D&D...

*having a big pile of cards in front of you feels awesome (and that's more familiar for EU players), but it also gets cluttered, so it's both a blessing and a curse in a game like this! So you can do what you like in the new version a little easier...

Kurgan wrote:But what that does mean is between 3 heroes that can use them, there is only one set of Plate Armour, one Chainmail. So if you all three want to wear armor you have to wait for Borin's Armour to be found. There is only one shield for three heroes, one Battle Axe, etc.

But the EU editions from '89 and 90 differ in other ways too. There are no "starting weapons" for example. So no dagger, no broadsword and shortswords to add to the mix, just starting stats and what you can buy later. So there's never a need for a Barbarian to buy the Broadsword (but an Elf or Dwarf might want to). The shortsword behaves differently so you might want to hang onto it later (it can attack diagonally after all and there's no longsword in this edition), etc.

It's true that in the EU version there is also no mechanic to sell back equipment

The first edition included a second copy each of the Shield and the Helmet to pad out the deck but the second edition replaced these with the Cloak of Protection and the Bracers. I think the negation of the "cards limit supply" thing was a good move. At least the Japanese edition was a little more fair by giving multiple copies of several things, and you'll notice that there are just enough of the equipment since not every character can use every item (it's not only the Wizard who has equipment limitations).

"Cards limit stock" is one of those things that a lot of HQ players online seem to LOVE (not sure if they're all EU players or just NA players who want that "rule" back). I personally don't love it, but my advice to those people is maybe do what the Japanese edition does and make more than one copy of certain cards, unless you really do want there to be more instances of players squabbling over this or that piece. And what do you do if a quest says you can find a piece of Equipment? That's just a complete subverting of this card stock rule.

Bearing in mind that HeroQuest was a collaboration between MB and GW (to a greater or lesser extent depending on whose stories you believe) it is hardly surprising that there was some creative tension between MB, producer of a thousand board games based around boards, tokens and cards, and GW, producer of a thousand games involving writing things down on character sheet and use of look up tables and of course their origins lie as distributers of DnD (and this creative tension is generally a good thing, honestly don’t think HQ would have hit that sweet spot without both parties involvement).
So we end up with something of a split-personality game in places with a Character Sheet whose only real function in the First Edition Game System is to track Body points, something that could far more easily, and probably more cheaply have been achieved with 25 body point tokens.
That said I’m keen to understand your position on the (reintroduction of) cards limit availability mechanism and the rationale behind that as you clearly see some of the draw backs of the alternative.

Kurgan wrote:Over time it can start to become unwieldy in campaign after campaign and you're gonna need to transpose the info since character sheets will get hard to read after all that erasing.

And many of your issues with “cards limit availability” appear to be less an issue with the mechanism and more an issue with the number of equipment cards on offer. The Japanese Edition, in many ways a completely different interpretation of the game but in this respect at least, an improvement and development of this same principle. Japanese edition does and make more than one copy of certain cards, but so does the First Edition if you look closely (how many Broadswords in the First Edition?)

However this could easily be rectified with more Equipment Cards and even the First Edition has effectively more Equipment Cards that a casual read would indicate. It lists 15 Equipment Cards (I think) on the contents page, which includes 2 duplicates, but if you factor it the “implicit” starting equipment of the heroes, Broadsword, 2 Generic Hand Weapons and a Dagger, that effectively adds four to that total including 2 more duplicates, and then taking into account the Quest Treasures – Borins Armour (Plate), Orcs Bane (Shortsword), Spirit Blade (Broadsword), taking us to 22 Equipment Cards including 2 Helmets, 2 Shields (and once someone has the Battle Axe then a third shield would be of limited use), 3 Body Armour (one each as the Wizard can’t use it anyway), 3 Broadswords, and a plethora of 2AD weapons, hand weapons, hand axe, shortsword, spear…maybe not perfect but in play I never really found it to be a problem, perhaps another Shield – for the earlier quests – or another Helmet (Equipment or Quest Treasure) might have helped and I thought the Wizard equipment in Second Edition was an improvement but it wouldn’t have taken many more cards to fill the gap.

That said 64 cards seems to have been some sort of batch size, but again we have the GW-MB tension, in that some quick reference material like trap data is presented on the DM’s screen (sorry EWP’s screen) GW-RPG style but other quick reference material like monster data is presented in a much more MB board game style through Monster Cards. Whilst I like Monster Cards and have expanded those for my own games to include Boss Monster Cards, for Grak and Balur and so on, and have even adopted Trap Cards, I suspect that had the monster reference material been included on the EWP’s screen from the start, and 8 card slots freed up then we would never have thought that an odd arrangement.

And if Quest Notes tell the EWP that a searching hero finds a Shield, then he gives out that card from the Equipment Deck, if there are none left as they are already in play, then either substitute a card of equal or lesser value, or they get nothing (and this is neatly self-balancing, the better the party is doing, the more gold, the more equipment purchased, the less equipment likely to be found and vice versa)

“Cards limit availability” may need tweaks to the numbers of cards but as a mechanism it has many advantages, it helps to reduce the need for carrying capacity limits, sell back rules (what do I do with all this equipment that I don’t need, quick make up a new rule to get rid of it) and encourages sharing between players.

Just in terms of the new character sheet and its commentary that appears on the back of the Adventure Design Booklet, which confirms an official switch away from the "cards limit supply" concept I'm struggling to pin down when this was actually released. The copy of the Adventure Design Booklet that I have has a product code of 4971GB491 which I think means it was finalised in April 1991, significantly later than the widely shared release date for the Adventure Design Kit of 1990. This discrepancy may be explained by there being more than one release of the ADK, but I'm yet to find a copy of any earlier version. If you own or have access to physical or digital copies please can you double check the product code on the Adventure Design Booklet, Adventure Design Kit Box and the Character Sheet Pad and see if we can resolve this, thank you!