Searching for everything

[mitchiemasha]

Yup. I think you've swayed me.

I've always quite liked the thought of, oh look I've found a switch... oops i'm in a pit or quite as equally... ahhh, a door.

What's this wire here??? Traps and secret doors are easily the same thing. Not sure why the changed it for the American version.

[mitchiemasha]

Having said that, have you ever known any but the most rookie of players to open a chest without checking for traps first? In my experience players soon learn to trap-search everything at the earliest possible opportunity (as soon as they step into an empty room / as soon as they slay the last monster / as soon as they move next to searchable furniture).

I hardly ever search for traps, I'm always falling in them too. Always in a rush, what's 1 BP here and there.

[Anderas]

Me too. But I am no more used to play without a kind of EWP Deck or token. That hurries you quite a bit.

[Thinker]

This has always been a sore spot for me. I completely agree that furniture traps do become a formality, like you said, because players always search for traps first. Since there is no drawback to searching for traps first, there really is no reason not to do it. This is part of the reason (well, I think it is part of the reason) why there are so many house rules revolving around punishment for loitering. It's not just to prevent the tedious "line up in front of a door before opening it" routine, but also to make it risky to waste time searching for traps.

Yes. What would really improve that aspect of the game would be an equivalent to Space Crusade's Alien Event cards - potentially bad stuff like booby traps and ambushes are linked to the Alien player (that's SC's equivalent of the Evil Wizard, on the off-chance you're not familiar with the game) turn rather than heroes searching. There are also bad guy power-up cards that the Alien player can accumulate, so consequently the longer the good guy players dawdle for, the tougher the level is going to get.

I'm going to guess that some ingenius Ye Olde Inn Evil Wizard has already home-brewed something along those lines.

[Anderas]

Yes that is the evil wizard player deck I was talking about. Sjeng has one proposal, GimmeYerGold another. You draw a card if there is no Monster on the board.

[knightkrawler]

I keep all three searches seperate, mostly because I allow two treasure searches per room.
That makes four searches in a room, which makes up a full round.
However, "loitering" (the group taking that full round without monsters in sight to search) is punished by the use of my Morcar cards.
I have a set of my own in writing, but basically it is what has been mentioned here before.

[Thinker]

Yes that is the evil wizard player deck I was talking about. Sjeng has one proposal, GimmeYerGold another. You draw a card if there is no Monster on the board.

Oh now I see - Sorry, I'm still new to this board and finding my way through the old threads and ideas.

I've just had a look at some of the work done by Ye Olde Inn posters on evil player decks - some really amazing, creative stuff!!

[Lemmeron]

I have a few things I do differently (house rule) in my games.

1. Each room / corridor gets searched once for traps, and once for treasure only - I have also made search markers that get placed when a search is done.
2. Each item of furniture can be searched separately for traps and treasure
3. Treasure chests and furniture can only be searched for traps and treasure by a character standing adjacent to the chest/furniture.
4. If a trap card is drawn for your treasure AFTER the room / item has already been searched for traps, I draw a new card.
5. Traps and Hidden door are the same search

It seems to work well for us, and isnt too complex for an 8 yr old to follow.

[Thinker]

I have a few things I do differently (house rule) in my games.

1. Each room / corridor gets searched once for traps, and once for treasure only - I have also made search markers that get placed when a search is done.
2. Each item of furniture can be searched separately for traps and treasure
3. Treasure chests and furniture can only be searched for traps and treasure by a character standing adjacent to the chest/furniture.
4. If a trap card is drawn for your treasure AFTER the room / item has already been searched for traps, I draw a new card.
5. Traps and Hidden door are the same search

It seems to work well for us, and isnt too complex for an 8 yr old to follow.

Those all seem like a sensible adjustments. In fact, if memory from my first-time-around playing days serves me correctly we eventually came to a similar conclusion about trap cards drawn after trap searches - Although we treated them as "Nothing"s I think.

[mitchiemasha]

I use EWP tokens instead of a deck, stole from Advanced HeroQuest...

Ambush Token
This token can be activated when a Hero re-enters an emptied room or corridor. The monsters of that room or corridor are replaced, excluding special characters.
Character Token
This token can be activated when a room is revealed. The EWP can bring a special character, Like ‘Zargons Hero’ into play. The Special Character is placed in the newly revealed room
Escape Token
This token can be activated during any Heroes turn and allows any 1 monster to move up to its movement value away from the Heroes.
Fate Token
This token can be activated to reroll any 1 monsters failed combat dice in attack or defence.
Trap Token
This token can be activated when a Hero opens a door and works the same as a spear trap.
Wondering Monster Token
This token can be activated during any Heroes turn and works the same as the Wondering Monster Treasure card.

The EWP gets to pick one from the bag, randomly every time the players take over a certain time to complete a full rotation, egg timer.