Running the Japanese Quests (and others)

[knightkrawler]

Everyone gets their own movement dice?

Pat of them he got from me. My movement dice are in good hands, I see.

[bastianbux]

This week we played the 5th quest in KK: "Hall of the Dwarven Kings". The gimmick of this quest is that it is just one long winding corridor void of monsters, which leads to the central room which has a tomb and SIX doors. Behind each of those doors is a single square inhabited by a skeleton in most cases--and these skeletons are "inactive" until attacked. Once a hero opens one of those doors, they all open. Behind one of them is an active zombie and inside of his little one-square mini-room is a secret door.



By chance, the Heroes opened the Zombie door and defeated it. The skeletons were revealed, but (though the notes didn't tell me to tell them this) I told them that the skeletons were standing still. They knew well enough to leave them alone. They realized they'd run into a dead end and figured there must be a secret door in one of those one-square rooms. The Barbarian reasoned that it must be the one in which the zombie was found.



Another fun gimmick of this quest is that during each of Zargon's turns, he rolls a red die to see how many monsters he can have enter via the entrance door. At first the elf positioned himself to block those monsters and take them on... and I worried that they would draw the quest out by trying to defeat them all, but they soon learned that the monsters were just going to keep coming and simply used the Elf (he has 4 defense dice) as a barricade against the horde.






I again placed one of my trolls in the final room (the one with the treasure chest which held a quarter of Grin's stone map which they are instructed to collect before leaving). I positioned the troll to trap the Barbarian alone in the room with it and two Fimirs. At first she was focused on killing the Fimirs but the Cleric and Elf kept casting spells to try to get the Troll dealt with from the other side of the door. At one point the Elf wanted to cast a spell on the Barbarian, but his line of sight was completely blocked by the troll and one of the Fimirs, so I wouldn't allow it. The Heroes were not amused; ah well. The Cleric used up one of his Magical Throwing Daggers, the Elf cast a spell on the Barbarian giving her two attacks, and they only JUST barely managed to finally defeat the troll and--keeping the door blocked so none of the other monsters could enter the room--did a search for treasure, got the map fragment and made for the exit door.



Once again: at no point did they need to use a healing spell nor a Potion of Healing (though the Barbarian was reduced to 1 BP by the end). I wonder if these quests are just cake for those groups who allow regeneration of BP between quests? The only real challenge for them was the Troll, which is really just based on luck--they have to inflict all three BP or else it will regenerate them during Zargon's turn.

This quest took WAY longer to beat than I thought it would. I thought for sure they would through it in a half hour... an hour MAX. Instead it took them about as long as usual (two hours). Of course, this has more to do with the fact that between EVERY SINGLE HEROES TURN they are talking for at least a minute or two about this TV show or that movie or a video game or something that happened during the day. But that's just how they always are. It can get a bit frustrating at times because I'd much rather just focus on the game while it is happening.

[knightkrawler]

The Barbarian reasoned...

No comment.

[Sjeng]

Yup, I remember that one...

[Jewels!]

[bastianbux]

Haha, wow, that line of monsters is terrifying!

[bastianbux]

So in case you haven't guessed, my HeroQuest group disbanded. And I blame Keller's Keep. It was just too boring and monotonous for the players, I suspect, even with my minute additions. Ah well. Maybe some day they will be ready to finish it.

I'm also about to gear up for running the Japanese base game localization I completed with a different group. We'll see how that goes.

[bastianbux]

Herein begins the record of the adventures of four brave Heroes who sailed to the far east.

I ran the first Quest of Rise of the Chaos God (my localization of the Japanese Quests). It was interesting for several reasons. The first being that the Wizard and the Dwarf were played by friends who I had played HQ with in separate groups about fifteen years ago. They had since become friends and part of a weekly gaming group. The two other players had never played the game.

The quest is an interesting one, similar in concept to one of those in the US/EU base game: there are three treasure chests which must be carried back to the beginning. However, unlike the original quest, these chests are located in different rooms. And the quest notes has the local lord asking the Heroes to slay Berag the Fimir (located in the central room, of course). Unfortunately the quest design would allow the Heroes to find and carry the treasure chests back without ever encountering Berag... which nearly happened...



The Heroes quickly split up, despite one of them strongly suggesting to the others that they stick together. The Wizard was the first to discover a treasure chest and used his spells wisely to dispatch of the monsters guarding it--by the time he returned it to the stairway, the other Heroes were only just finding their treasure chests. The Elf ventured on his own to the central room and had massive difficulty with Berag (who has one more attack/defend die and one more BP than the typical Fimir); the Elf did manage to inflict two BPs of damage before his death. The Dwarf was on his way to assist and as he was in the corridor near the Elf, I allowed him to pick up the Elf's 25 gold... which he opted to keep for himself. The Dwarf quickly dealt the final BP of damage. During all of this Berag business, the Barbarian had found a treasure chest and had attempted to return to the stairway, but fell victim to a monster and died. This enabled the Dwarf to return two of the treasure chests to the stairway... and while the quest notes say that each Hero returning a chest would receive 100 gold, I decided to award the Dwarf double for returning two chests.

I have to admit: I did bump up the monsters slightly, and maybe I shouldn't have. For those who have looked at the Japanese quests, you'll see that there are very few monsters. I worried this would make the quest a bit too easy, so I replaced a couple goblins with Orcs and in places where there was only one monster, I placed two in some cases. I think I probably shouldn't have and just let this quest be a bit too easy. Ah well.

My intention was that if any Hero died, to follow the US rules to the letter and keep them dead, but during the next session I'll let the Heroes know that the house rules will be that their Hero CAN be resurrected post-Quest, but that if a Hero cannot retrieve their stuff before a monster does (meaning: if there is not a Hero in the same room or corridor) then their stuff is lost.

Also, because the quest design was so strange and could have allowed the Heroes to never encounter Berag and thus not fulfill their promise to the local lord, I am going to take the liberty of relocating one of those three chests into Berag's room.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, even for such a simple quest. The Heroes got a bit distracted towards the end due to extenuating circumstances (two of them had their children in the next room over that required quite a bit of parenting). And it seemed likely that we would have played another quest except that one of the players had brought along a different board game that he had recently purchased (Whitechappel) and wanted to give it a go. I think we plan on playing again next Saturday, so I'll post next weekend with how the second quest goes.

[knightkrawler]

This battle report makes me wanna play the quest pack instead of The Gathering Storm with a group starting anew. It seems well weighed with ideas from the original incorporated and improved upon.
But where are THE LEGS?

[Sjeng]

Keep playtesting! When you edit your questpack, be sure to upload it for us