Ussing the HQ quests as a quik dungeon for other games.

[cynthialee]

Lately I have been ussing the HQ individul quest maps as short dungeon crawls. They work great actually. Just do a little of prep time figguring out some conversions and it is game on. Many RPG's have most of the HQ monsters in them and it is rather easy to just use the RPG version of the monster. Treasures and hazards need to be worked out before the game is played of course. My players are sure to never put a dead ork on a funeral pyre without propperly looting his bloody pockets...Artifacts take some homework and effort.
Even though there is a certain amount of prep work needed to do the premiss of the quest, placement of monsters and traps is already done for you so the majority of the work is acomplished.
For instance my gamer crew is currently playing the dungeon Mellars Maze from the main HQ quest book. They got almost to the end of the dungeon when they decided to secure a room, eat meals, rest, drink healing potions, re-enchant their wepons and prepare any prepatory spells. They have no clue (yet) as to how smart this move was. That last room with the Tailisman of Lore in it is going to be a major PITA. They are thinking that they are only about half way in, if they knew that the next room was thier quarry I am sure they would have moved on the room and damn the torpedos. Which likely would have cost them at least 2 of their player characters. So the next game session will be mostly an RP session after they secure their quest item.

I have ussed the HQ maps as a quik easy dungeon for AD&D, Storyteller (which required allot of work to be honest) GURPS, and Saga: the Game.


Anyone else use the HQ dungeons for other games?

[Big Bene]

Yes, I did, sometime around 1990 I think. Well, not exactly the quests, but the equipment.
Actually, when it was published, I and my friends had been PnP role players for quite a while, and found the idea of HQ a bit silly at first. We bought it (shared the costs) with the intention to use the nice minis, expecially the furniture, for our roleplaying games (back then, there was little other dungeon accesoires on the market).

In the end, I used it only once in a very big and complex AD&D quest, the HQ board representing the tomb of an ancient king, parts of wich Zyklator, the arch nemesis of the characters, had converted into his new head quarters. Other than this, I used it to actually play Heroquest with my family.

[cynthialee]

I use the minis, furniture and the dungeon map only. I don't like the game board so I map out the dungeon with a wet erase marker on a battlemat.

[Big Bene]

I like the board very much indeed - it's nicely designed and very cleverly layoutet to fit a lot of different themes.
But as I said, I used it just once in this way, and somewhat created the dungeon in question "around" the HQ board. It was just a gimmick in a much greater adventure, but a nice one which I and the players enjoyed very much.

[cynthialee]

I find the board to get cramped with mini's and furniture. Thats why I prefer the battle mat. The squares are a bit larger than the boards' so the is some flexability when placing minis and furniture.

[sadkitchen]

I actualy did this alot. Played through the entire qeust book that came with the base set and 1/2 of RotWL before that gaming group moved away. We used third edition DnD. I noticed that once the heroes start gaining levels additional work was required in adding levels to the baddies. Because if you didn't it was a cake walk no matter how many orcs you put in a room.

-SadKitchen (I'm Back!)

[cynthialee]

I tend to only add a few levels to the orks, but beef them up with temporarily enchanted +2 through +5 swords, potions of healing, +2 Plate and shield, and various other magic items of limited use. If the Heroes are going to get their hands on a powerful magic item you can be pretty sure that a monster or villian will be ussing it against the Heroes if it is in my games. Ever run into a Kobold or Goblin driping with magic items and heal pots? Nightmare little runt. Make it an Orc chief maxed hit points and hit dice with a pile of magic weapons and it can be a serious pita.

[sadkitchen]

I had made a pile of different level monsters to use against my heros.
It was sort of fun playing a barely any magic items DnD game, as that gaming group usuily had +5 weapons of awesomness by the end of their third quest.
I neve thought of the single battle +2 plate before. I wonder what spells the wizard would need to know to make that.

-SadKitchen

[cynthialee]

In the RPG I developed there are temporary enchantments for weapons, armour and other items.
Temporaty enchants tend to be very powerful compared to permanant enchants but permanant enchants will never wear off so they are more desireable for extended campains. 1 swing of a +10 sword is nice but if you are caught in battle all day long perhaps a permanantly enchated +2 sword would be a better idea. (to maintain balance any item with a permanant enchant mayt not benifit from a temporary enchant of the same type)