Heroquest remake by Hasbro - The BIG discussion thread

[Kurgan]

Which I've forgiven him for, but that's another story.

[Oftkilted]

Isn't this the part where someone steps in and says "Hero Quest isn't fantasy... it's sword and sorcery!" (less Lord of the Rings and more Conan the Barbarian) High Adventure =/= High fantasy? Just kidding I don't care...

Nobody is going to say that - sword and sorcery is a genre of fantasy, fool!

The problem is that biggest part of what makes Dragonlance so epic is the Cataclysm and the War of the Lance. The Heroes of the Lance are adventurers in the foreground of an epic story where they turn the tide in the war. This isn't a trope unique to Star Wars, although most people know enough about Star Wars to relate to the most iconic conflict from a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

The problem is that Warhammer was built on this trope of Epic Fantasy, as was HeroQuest. Look at the lore about Rogar and the Star of the West, as well as the fight in the Borderlands and the whole of Kellar's Keep. The main questline for anything HQ and/or Warhammer-related is that the Heroes are doing something that will change the course of or prevent a war.

Because of this, there's no NEED to change HQ to be more like Dragonlance, when HQ is already like Dragonlance. What's happening is that this is more proof that Hasbro are looking to write out Warhammer and replace it with their own Epic Fantasy setting, which would be something like Dragonlance, or ironically, something like Warhammer.

The fact is Joe is trying to make out he was doing something special and unique for the $4 million stretch goal. The problem is that he wasn't - Dragons are NOT unique. In fact, Dragons are normally in the top three themes for expansion packs in dungeon crawlers, after greenskins and undead. The only reason we didn't get a Dragon EP for HQ before is because Dragons aren't a thing in the Warhammer World. They exist, but they are not the all-powerful awe-inspiring cunning tyrants you see in D&D. It's like Talislanta and it's "No Elves" motto. Elf-like things exist in that setting, but they aren't as dominant or iconic as in normal D&D.

So, all Joe was really doing was trying to make HQ more generic, so Hasbro's NuHQ can challenge FFG's Descent or the D&D Adventure Game System for the most generic dungeon-crawler award...

From a personal view as a “HeroQuest player / evil Wizard” adding a dragon as an adversary is an interesting twist. By the time the heroes have completed the core game and the official expansions they’re fully decked out in gear.

Even in other classic fantasy universes creatures like dragons exist. Like the LOTR universe, where they find Smaug. Are dragons iconic in DnD? Yep. Are they commonplace in HQ? Naah. Much like greater daemons ... iconic in WHF, common? Not at all. An awesome addition? Yep!

Even in the WHF universe, If we look “forward” from HQ to WHQ and the higher level monster tables, you see dragons in them for the level 8, 9 and 10 adversary tables. Arguing that “dragons make it more DnD-like” seems somewhat pointless. Perhaps the quest would have given more personality than a purely larger creature enemy. But in the core HQ game it’s a mostly combat adventure.

As mentioned, Dragons and other fantasy monsters are all part of the Warhammer universe, and pretty much all of the ‘Fantasy Worlds’. Adding a dragon that happens to be modeled in such a way that it can be used on a map with 25mm squares is pretty awesome in my book.

Does it make it “more generic”? No, if you’re a fan of HQ being in the Warhammer World, it adds monsters that already existed in the universe, and the ability to use them in the purposefully limited HeroQuest map. And if you enjoy other fantasy universes it gives story and creative options that didn’t exist in the original box and expansions.

[Davane]

Yes, Dragons exist in WHF, but they don't have the depth of character that they do in D&D. In the wargame, most dragons are steeds, and even in WHQ, you had a random table to determine the colour of the dragon and what breath weapon it used, but it wasn't very well defined.

The key point is that in WHF, Dragons are monsters - big beasts for Slayers to slay, and a step up to tackling Daemons. They are there to be fought, defeated, and looted.

Contrast this to D&D, where Dragons are more typically characters. Sure, you can still use Dragons as monsters, and they can still be fun to defeat, but in general, in D&D, Dragons do much, much more than just sit around on piles of treasure waiting to stomp adventurers into the ground.

This is particularly the case in Dragonlance, where Dragons are the key stars of the show. Not only do you have the big threat to the world being Takhisis, the Dragon Queen, and the five Dragonarmies conquering Ansalon, but in the initial Dragonlance modules, the core for most of them revolved around one or more signature dragon types, and the role they play in the larger conflict.

WHF doesn't use Dragons for larger conflict, like Dragonlance does. WHF used the forces of Chaos, and there's much more character to the various Daemons plaguing the Warhammer World, than there is to any of the dragons that exist in Warhammer.

What Joe was trying to do was to add the epic to HQ, but copying the epic from Dragonlance. The problem is that what's epic for Dragonlance ISN'T epic for HQ and/or the Warhammer World. HQ is about fighting Chaos (or Dread), not Dragons, and that's what's epic for HQ.

HQ is not Dragonstrike. We don't NEED Dragons in HQ to get that sense of epic. Chaos Dwarfs can be epic. Lizardmen can be epic. Skaven can be epic. Chaos Warriors can be epic. Dark Elves can be epic. Orcs can be epic. Undead can be epic. Lots of these are generic enough that the argument that HQ needs Dragons to be epic is inherently flawed.

World rewrites aside, if you want to add epic to HQ, then make HQ epic. It doesn't need to be stolen from other IPs and shoehorned into HQ, when there's still so much mileage left in HQ.

[j_dean80]

So, I was browsing through old Citadel miniatures and came across something interesting:

03E9BFA3-8279-4448-BA60-C1357B7B4C4C.jpeg

67DE18EE-ABE6-4D12-8245-B955BDA97D23.jpeg

Apparently GW already came out with “Abominations” or Fish Men.
There are several other models too, this was just an example.

[Davane]

So, I was browsing through old Citadel miniatures and came across something interesting:

03E9BFA3-8279-4448-BA60-C1357B7B4C4C.jpeg

67DE18EE-ABE6-4D12-8245-B955BDA97D23.jpeg

Apparently GW already came out with “Abominations” or Fish Men.
There are several other models too, this was just an example.

There's no lore for fishmen beyond random Chaos mutations in Warhammer, if I recall correctly, so these are probably from Citadel Miniatures BEFORE the big change in 1991. Citadel Miniatures and Ral Partha Miniatures had a mutual distribution agreement for all sorts of miniatures between the UK and US back in the day, not all of which were necessarily tied to any GW IPs...

[Kurgan]

To me the Dragon I would use in HQ would be something akin to the medieval dragons of yore that were about the size of horses as opposed to the (dinosaur... or building size) dragons of D&D and other games... which are frankly ridiculous opponents for a couple of guys in armor to face. I am partial to the "sleeps on piles of gold until you come by to piss them off" or "terrorized villagers and needs to be put down" type of beast myself, but they should be rare.

The rubber miniature dragon I have is basically a 2.5 square monster, so nothing too crazy. He's no more difficult to take down than one of the higher level monsters encountered in EQP/BQP.

[j_dean80]

So, I was browsing through old Citadel miniatures and came across something interesting:

03E9BFA3-8279-4448-BA60-C1357B7B4C4C.jpeg

67DE18EE-ABE6-4D12-8245-B955BDA97D23.jpeg

Apparently GW already came out with “Abominations” or Fish Men.
There are several other models too, this was just an example.

There's no lore for fishmen beyond random Chaos mutations in Warhammer, if I recall correctly, so these are probably from Citadel Miniatures BEFORE the big change in 1991. Citadel Miniatures and Ral Partha Miniatures had a mutual distribution agreement for all sorts of miniatures between the UK and US back in the day, not all of which were necessarily tied to any GW IPs...

Apparently they were in 1st ed.

[Oftkilted]

Yes, Dragons exist in WHF, but they don't have the depth of character that they do in D&D. In the wargame, most dragons are steeds, and even in WHQ, you had a random table to determine the colour of the dragon and what breath weapon it used, but it wasn't very well defined.

The key point is that in WHF, Dragons are monsters - big beasts for Slayers to slay, and a step up to tackling Daemons. They are there to be fought, defeated, and looted.

Contrast this to D&D, where Dragons are more typically characters. Sure, you can still use Dragons as monsters, and they can still be fun to defeat, but in general, in D&D, Dragons do much, much more than just sit around on piles of treasure waiting to stomp adventurers into the ground.

This is particularly the case in Dragonlance, where Dragons are the key stars of the show. Not only do you have the big threat to the world being Takhisis, the Dragon Queen, and the five Dragonarmies conquering Ansalon, but in the initial Dragonlance modules, the core for most of them revolved around one or more signature dragon types, and the role they play in the larger conflict.

WHF doesn't use Dragons for larger conflict, like Dragonlance does. WHF used the forces of Chaos, and there's much more character to the various Daemons plaguing the Warhammer World, than there is to any of the dragons that exist in Warhammer.

What Joe was trying to do was to add the epic to HQ, but copying the epic from Dragonlance. The problem is that what's epic for Dragonlance ISN'T epic for HQ and/or the Warhammer World. HQ is about fighting Chaos (or Dread), not Dragons, and that's what's epic for HQ.

HQ is not Dragonstrike. We don't NEED Dragons in HQ to get that sense of epic. Chaos Dwarfs can be epic. Lizardmen can be epic. Skaven can be epic. Chaos Warriors can be epic. Dark Elves can be epic. Orcs can be epic. Undead can be epic. Lots of these are generic enough that the argument that HQ needs Dragons to be epic is inherently flawed.

World rewrites aside, if you want to add epic to HQ, then make HQ epic. It doesn't need to be stolen from other IPs and shoehorned into HQ, when there's still so much mileage left in HQ.

I see that adding the dragon was literally part of that “world rewrite” as Hasbro doesn’t have license for any of the standard WHF. Sure, the mechanics could exist for the classic WHF universe HQ.

Given that HQ without WHF has no “back story” other than what exists in the Quest Books, what would you suggest “to make it epic”? It’s a reasonably standard fantasy board game, with relatively common enemies. (And it’s expanded into adding ghosts.)

Very few, if any of the fights in the core quest books can truly be classified as “epic”. Without actually seeing what was going to be going into the (now defunct) book with a dragon we don’t know if this is some more crazy plot, or a dread sorcerer with a transformation spell. Or a diabolical mastermind that just so happens to be the incarnation of the Evil Wizard Zargon/Morcar.

[Shadzar]

I see that adding the dragon was literally part of that “world rewrite” as Hasbro doesn’t have license for any of the standard WHF. Sure, the mechanics could exist for the classic WHF universe HQ.

Given that HQ without WHF has no “back story” other than what exists in the Quest Books, what would you suggest “to make it epic”? It’s a reasonably standard fantasy board game, with relatively common enemies. (And it’s expanded into adding ghosts.)

Very few, if any of the fights in the core quest books can truly be classified as “epic”. Without actually seeing what was going to be going into the (now defunct) book with a dragon we don’t know if this is some more crazy plot, or a dread sorcerer with a transformation spell. Or a diabolical mastermind that just so happens to be the incarnation of the Evil Wizard Zargon/Morcar.

There is several problems with this, first being "epic" in several quests the heroes lose everything. On top of that there isnt a steady increase in power. It only comes form the gear. The idea of "epic" would be something outside of the scope of HQ and be more for AHQ which was a different set of rules. Which seems to be what these designers didnt understand. the more D&D game was Advanced HeroQuest that tried to be a game for higher level play, or allow to reach it, while HQ is jsut a repeatable dungeon crawler. It isnt designed to be epic, except in the idea that you saved the world form these mundane armies as the 4 lone heroes.

as to world rewrite, HASBRO has no world to inject other than D&D. The Magic the Gathering "worlds" are just a universe of silly to be able to throw anything in including the kitchen sink, and they are trying to merge that with D&D already with Ravnica, and Theors. Theros, the name of a D&D character from DragonLance, whom they deemed racist, even though Theros Ironfeld is a black man from 1983 novel.

Other than DL, D&D has Greyhawk, which has been throw out to remove the creator of D&D, Gary Gygax, from its history, so that world is gone even though it was the most generic. Forgotten Realms is their current bit of canon fodder, and force everything into it for D&D for the past 7 years. Al-Qadim and Dark Sun are desert worlds, Ravenloft is just filled with vampires, which never yet existed in HQ so probably wouldnt work without substantial mechanics changes to the core game. Birthright was less a world and more an idea stemming from bloodlines of characters being important, and in HQ hat wouldnt work since heroes are easily replaceable. Barbarian dies, just replace with one of the crowd of waiting barbarians to continue. Mystara is the Basic D&D world, and if they interest people in that, they would drive people to Basic D&D and not 5e D&D.

HASBRO designers have no worlds outside of ones that dont work, and are incapable of writing them. They are all modern D&D players that don't understand where HQ comes from which would be Mystara type world as it is built close to Basic D&D which none of them have played, and clearly they never played HQ either, they just saw box like a kid would and started trying to write a story then slap some monsters on the quest map, because that is what they do with D&D now, when they play Furries & Fanfics.

It is like HASBRO got a bunch of 10 year olds that played maybe 1 quest in HQ to write full quest books without any understanding, and then wish to sell those quests made by 10 year olds as professional products....

As someone else said, Chaos didnt need to be replace being there is no way GW could copyright that as D&D has Chaotic in it long before GW used it, and chaos is a term well known and generic. They just needed to replace the "world map" and put places on it, and could use all the generic background info in the quests. They rushed the campaign to sell the game after getting the trademark back, and did it sloppily without thinking anything through in the middle of a pandemic just to show some revenue stream for their quarterly reports for the shareholders.

[cornixt]

While Joe wants to be big in D&D, his 4 million stretch goal focused on a dragon for a very clear reason... he wanted to turn HQ into DragonLance with dragon men everywhere.. whether they would have been Draconians or Dragonborn... they were ended quickly, thankfully.

I take it you haven't heard about the new army for Warhammer Total War? Cathay is rumoured to be dragonfolk, which would be a bit of a retcon from their somewhat ordinary Chinese human descriptions in the past. No word on whether GW will be releasing physical models for them yet. I guess we just have to wait to see.