Search – The Binding Topic

[Kurgan]

The HQ Companion app (at least the latest version as of this posting, v1.62) does some strange things that makes me wonder how other people have been interpreting the rules (or are just flat out mistakes). Avalon Hill has at times put out rule clarifications on Twitter or possibly on the Avalon Hill discord. How much weight one gives to these new interpretations (after all these are not the same writers who originally created the game, but then again they may have access to draft notes and personal interview material that we don't, to guess the original intent of the designers... or they may just be making it up as they go based on what seems best to them today).

Back to the App's oddities...

For example when a hero is standing at a crossroads of corridors, how does the app know which one he is searching for traps or secret doors? Apparently the App just thinks you're searching all of them at once (similar to how you search a double corridor all at once, not just the vertical path you're on).

For when a hero is standing in a corridor facing an open door and there are monsters in the room, he's unable to search for anything (because he can "see" monsters even though they're in a room and he's in a corridor). Likewise a hero in one room can "see" monsters in the next room via an open door, he can't search for things. But if another hero or mercenary blocks the line of sight (obscuring his view of the monsters in the next room) he can search again, at least for certain things (secret doors/traps and treasure are considered differently). And yet when the door that connects two rooms is a secret door, the same rules don't seem to apply, and you can search despite having a clear LOS to monsters in the neighboring room! So the app seems to take "visible to you" a lot more broadly and literally than I would have read it back in the day.

The "intangible furniture" toggle just seems to be a debugging feature, but the Yeti hug break toggle is a whole new mechanic previously never before seen (it varies from the original draft notes of how the Yeti hug was escapable originally). And yet the Yeti hug nerf suggested in "Into the Northlands" (that Yeti damage doesn't automatically lead to the hug as normal) is enforced in all the Frozen Horror solo quests, except when the Hero is accompanied by an animal companion (in which case it is treated like a group quest, but if the animal dies Yeti hugs are disabled again).

Another oddity of the App is that the way opening of doors is handled. There has to be an open square in front of the door for a hero to be able to stand in front of it, in which case a prompt asks if they want to open the door. In the actual game, this doesn't matter, because you can pass through a friendly figure who is "blocking" the door with no problems.

Last I checked there was a room formed out of a corridor (in Kellar's Keep?) that put a treasure chest essentially "in a corridor" and the App wouldn't let you search there (because you can't search corridors for treasure... not since the 1989 1st EU edition), when in fact there's a quest note and everything because it's "really" a room. So the App doesn't handle this correctly. A lot of other things in the App are on the honor system, allowing different interpretations of the rules to hold sway, and even homebrew rules to be used with it without too much problem.

The way the Polar Warbear double attack is handled is also slightly different than other treatments. Both attacks are shown and the hero is left to decide which one to roll against (the playtest in "Into the Northlands" suggests he can choose to wait and see what the second attack will be, if he wants to roll against it, while the original version left it vague, as if perhaps they intended the second attack to simply always be unblockable if aimed at the same target).

While interesting to see how it handles things, my baseline is to assume that we can't necessarily draw rule clarifications from how the app handles things.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Kurgan,

One question to keep in mind when changing the rules around is... what is my goal?

I agree entirely that this does need to be kept in mind whenever considering rule modifications and ideally stated out loud and recorded, so you can compare the effects of any modifications against your original purpose, which is exactly why I started this with a list of specific problems that I felt needed fixing.

The beauty of HeroQuest is that there's no need for there to be a universal agreement on how these disputes should be resolved, except that which is proposed in the games themselves (as spelled out in the Elf and Barbarian Quest packs), ZARGON (the GM) DECIDES! Using his or her experience and knowledge, the buck stops with the GM, even if another GM might rule another way on another day.

I don’t think that there is any need for universal agreement in house rules for any game, including HeroQuest, but universal agreement where possible does bring advantages, ease of compatibility when creating new Quests, more alignment between gaming groups, larger play test and feedback groups so more robust rules and better playability especially where you consider that gaming groups are less isolated than they used to be, and so on.

We’ve had this exchange many times on many different topics, and I whilst I continue to agree whole-heartedly that Zargon (the GM) does indeed have the final say at their table, I continue to repeat that one of the many useful opportunities that this forum provides is for a collective of Zargons to discuss problems that are common to all and attempt to find the best or failing that better solutions which I think is what we are trying to do here.

The trap on the square opposite an open door simply cannot be disarmed and that's to make things harder.

I doubt we will ever find out for sure but I strongly suspect that the trap on the other side of the door scenario was NOT a deliberate change to make things harder, but was an unintended consequence with no easy solution so it was less effort to just leave it in as a ‘feature’

Rule modifications that were considered by those developing the original game are definitely of interest but the fact that they were considered but never actually implemented, could be taken to mean that they were play tested and a decision was made NOT to include them or they were never play tested, either should be taken as a note of caution!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Markus Darwath,

Yes you are correct my search rewrite does relegate disarm from being an action to being merely a ‘free action’ but for me the action versus free action debate must come down to playability rather than realism, because at the end of the day it is a game. The ‘Passing item’ rules in original HQ (or at least in the expansions) is a ‘free action’ but I have changed this into an action because it plays better, equally some have suggested sorting through a backpack whilst fending off an attacker to find, locate, uncork and drink a Potion of Healing should be an action not a ‘free action’ but again I have kept this as a ‘free action’ because I feel it plays better. Even the original HeroQuest isn’t particularly consistent around the time taken for an action relative to a free action or even relative to movement itself.

For example a Hero can search the entire central room, a 30 square area, potentially crammed with furniture, in a single action, but can only move between 2-12 squares in a single movement, which implies that an action takes at least 4 times longer than movement, again you can search a 25 square corridor, slowly and meticulously, and move all the way back to where you started (another 25 squares) in a single action, but during your movement phase, you can only 2-12 squares so an action takes at least 7 times longer than movement, but on the other hand during your movement phase you can clamber out of a questionably deep pit in an instant as a ’free action’ without so much as the loss of a single square of movement. In the context of that I’m not overly worried about accurately representing how long it would actually take to snip a tripwire, or deliberately set off a spear trap whilst ensuring you stay clear of the spear as long as playability is improved.

Personally I find the loss of ‘avoidance’ to be less of a loss than you might expect in game. For a typical quest by the time you discount traps in squares that weren’t searched for, traps that are in a single width corridor so can’t be avoided even if discovered, traps behind doors, there aren’t too many traps that could be avoided, and you only have to fall victim once whilst limping out of the dungeon having achieved the objective with only a single remaining BP to make you realise that avoidance is rarely a good option even when it is possible

In theory, if you can jump over a hole in the floor there should be no reason you can't also jump over an equally sized section of plain old floor.

The squares in the game are 2D representations of a 3D space, a trap could easily be triggered by a length of wire pulled across a corridor at chest height, good luck trying to ‘blind jump’ that square to avoid a potential trap, or alternatively jumping an area that has been indicated as having the potential for a ceiling collapse, again I'm not sure jumping would be the best option in that situation. Personally I keep the 'jumping' functionality for jumping over pits and chasms.

Also, I think you’ll rapidly run into problems with a conditional search for secret doors, whether you do an open roll that the other players can see or a hidden one that they can’t.

If I’m searching part of a room for a secret door, but a 3 is rolled, so I know that the area may or may not contain a secret door but even if it did I would have missed it, so I search again and roll a 1, so I search again and roll a 4. Turns out there wasn’t any secret door.

Alternatively, if you opt to use a hidden roll, so the other players don't know the result, now your board consists of squares that haven’t been searched for secret doors and may contain them, areas that have been searched for secret doors but as the roll was too low may still contain secret doors and areas that have been searched with a suitable roll and don’t contain them, this would cause a back-tracking nightmare for quests like Rescue of Sir Ragnar when you can’t achieve the objective without finding the secret door, as even if you could remember every square that you had already searched for secret doors, how would you know which squares contained a secret door that you searched but failed to find, you would have to research the whole dungeon again, and even then you could have missed it on your second sweep!

[Markus Darwath]

Markus Darwath,
Personally I find the loss of ‘avoidance’ to be less of a loss than you might expect in game. For a typical quest by the time you discount traps in squares that weren’t searched for, traps that are in a single width corridor so can’t be avoided even if discovered, traps behind doors, there aren’t too many traps that could be avoided, and you only have to fall victim once whilst limping out of the dungeon having achieved the objective with only a single remaining BP to make you realise that avoidance is rarely a good option even when it is possible

The main advantage of avoidance is that a character with low BP and no potions has the chance to let another hero with higher BP or better disarm chance handle the trap. Sure, that character shouldn't be taking point in the first place, but things happen.

In theory, if you can jump over a hole in the floor there should be no reason you can't also jump over an equally sized section of plain old floor.

The squares in the game are 2D representations of a 3D space, a trap could easily be triggered by a length of wire pulled across a corridor at chest height, good luck trying to ‘blind jump’ that square to avoid a potential trap, or alternatively jumping an area that has been indicated as having the potential for a ceiling collapse, again I'm not sure jumping would be the best option in that situation. Personally I keep the 'jumping' functionality for jumping over pits and chasms.

Definitely a valid point. Not every trigger is a pressure plate in the floor. On the other hand, jumping does come with a chance of failure. No reason that a failure couldn't be sometimes flavored as a high strung tripwire vs simply missing the leap.

Also, I think you’ll rapidly run into problems with a conditional search for secret doors, whether you do an open roll that the other players can see or a hidden one that they can’t.

If I’m searching part of a room for a secret door, but a 3 is rolled, so I know that the area may or may not contain a secret door but even if it did I would have missed it, so I search again and roll a 1, so I search again and roll a 4. Turns out there wasn’t any secret door.

Alternatively, if you opt to use a hidden roll, so the other players don't know the result, now your board consists of squares that haven’t been searched for secret doors and may contain them, areas that have been searched for secret doors but as the roll was too low may still contain secret doors and areas that have been searched with a suitable roll and don’t contain them, this would cause a back-tracking nightmare for quests like Rescue of Sir Ragnar when you can’t achieve the objective without finding the secret door, as even if you could remember every square that you had already searched for secret doors, how would you know which squares contained a secret door that you searched but failed to find, you would have to research the whole dungeon again, and even then you could have missed it on your second sweep!

Yes, I did consider those points. The first issue is why I allowed for each hero to search a given area. An open roll would have the side effect (whether it's a benefit or problem depends on perspective) that the players would know whether their compatriot's search needs to be double checked. I failed to specify that each hero would only be allowed to search once per instance of encountering that area.

As far as back-tracking for missed doors, it happens in RAW and isn't necessarily horrible unless you're trying to speed-play as many quests as possible. One plus side to re-searching is that you only have to cover the squares adjacent to walls. It might make sense to then make success automatic if an area must be revisited to search a second time.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Markus,

I do understand your point about avoidance being useful for players in certain situations, but if you consider that advantage only applies in a particular set of circumstances (that is when a Hero has remembered to search for traps AND one is present AND it isn’t in a single width corridor AND it isn’t in a doorway AND the searcher has low BP AND the searcher has no healing potions AND another Hero is suitable placed/equipped/has higher BP/healing potions to take over - and under your proposed modifications this is even less likely to occur as finding traps is less likely even if you do search the relevant area) then in actual play the loss of that advantage is rarely noticed and is balanced out by other advantages, that aren’t available in the official version such as being able to discover a trap behind a door.

With regards to forcing the players to back-track or retrace your steps, it can and does happen within the original rules, and isn’t necessarily a bad experience if it is limited in scope. However taking my earlier example of ‘The Rescue of Sir Ragnar’ (and there are plenty of other examples) the rules allowing a secret door to be missed, combined with poor dungeon design, means that missing the secret door, can lead to the Heroes sweeping the entire remainder of the dungeon, killing all the other monsters, ruining the plot device built into that Quest that when the alarm is triggered and all the remaining doors open and flood the dungeon with monsters, causing a rush to the exit with a slow and vulnerable prisoner, to achieve the objective. Instead they would have to back-tracked or retrace their steps searching for secret doors, potentially through most of the dungeon, to find the missed secret door to achieve their objective which adds a long winded and boring task and spoils the surprise.

Your proposed modification of making secret door searches conditional so that they may not even be found if the relevant square is searched, only makes that situation worse, they are more likely to miss the secret door in the first place, as they may not find it even if they do search the relevant square, and on top of that if they miss it the first time around, they could even miss it on the second sweep, at which point they will probably abandon the Quest, leave Sir Ragnar to his fate and just head to the nearest tavern with a headache!

I’ll cover jumping separately as I think that deserves a thread in its own right.

[Kurgan]

Hope nobody took my comments as overly critical or trying to shut anybody down, I didn't mean them to be!

The door blocking technique is actually suggested by the NA instruction booklet, so I highlight it as an example of something (which tends to help the heroes and hurt Zargon) the developers were aware of it and didn't think was cheating. In the same way, the trap on the other side of an open door was known about by the developers and even pointed out as a scenario in which you couldn't get past it without risk (the Japanese game even mentions this in their optional rules section as a way to make the game more difficult, if I recall correctly). Had they "realized" it was a bug or broken part of the game the simple fix would be to just never place a trap on that square, but they continued to do it from the game system all the way up to the last packs released. The fact that they discussed the blind trap jumping option shows that at least some designers were concerned that it was TOO much back in 1992 (a rare moment of mercy considering how HARD they made those last few packs in nearly all other areas). Ultimately they decided not to include that extra mercy, so we were "stuck" with what we got.

Some glitches did happen in the transition between EU 1st/2nd edition and the NA edition (see the final room of Quest 3 in the different editions). So I'm not saying the "classic era" designers didn't make mistakes, they absolutely did. I agree that in the moment Zargon can fix stuff. He can adapt on the fly to all sorts of things, to moderate the difficulty and even fix oversights of the developers, I also agree that discussions like this can make his job easier, assuming he's had time to study the debates so he knows what's coming. HeroQuest is supposed to make it easy to play these types of games and not every GM is going to want to do tons of prep work (or even would know that he "needs" to).

But I can appreciate some people get so frustrated with how some particular rule ends up (maybe with their gaming group's play style tendencies, or maybe in general) that they will declare something "broken" or a "bug" or "glitch" when in fact they just don't like a deliberate decision by the game's creators. I know I've had people tell me that my criticisms of some of the things in BQP/EQP were just me being upset that it was too hard... I was disagreeing with their decisions. However I admit it was a combination of disagreeing with their final decisions AND showing they had made actual mistakes (like leaving things out that normally are not left out, which caused problems for playability not just fun, like the yeti hug in solo quests and unmarked chests or artifacts that are useful but never found).

I'm all for people hashing it out and trying to come up with some kind of community wide "agreement" on rules and it IS good to discuss it ahead of time so that people can be thinking of different options before they have to make that call. But at the individual table, Zargon may simply decide in the moment to do things his way and that's perfectly cool, even if 100% of the online fan community thinks that's dumb. So not trying to take away anything from what this thread set out to do, far from it! In actual practice most Zargons won't ever see these conversations (unless they go looking for them online, which many eventually do) but will be forced to confront it sooner or later at the table anyway. So I won't use the term "educating" for what we do, but we're spreading options of what we've come up with when they do ask, which is great. Hints, tips, suggestions, not necessarily mandates.

Attempts have been made in the past to create a community "unified ruleset" (see Phoenix's own "Master" rule book on heroquestbyphoenix.yeoldeinn.com) wherein you take all of the official expansions and their special rules and try to apply them retroactively to the entire set including the game system that came before it. This would be a monumental task, as there is even more material now than there was when Phoenix did his attempt. You have so many different locale variants and changes that appear from one expansion to the next. My own tendency is to not apply those new rules and gimmicks until I get to the particular pack that adds them, but then again there are other variants I like so much I implement them earlier, so I guess like many I use a hybrid ruleset/remix based on my own preferences as most of us probably do.

The New Beginnings Passing Rule below (compare to the EQP/BQP rule from 1992 -- the Frozen Horror remake is still only available online in German and didn't have time to scan it).

[Markus Darwath]

Markus,
With regards to forcing the players to back-track or retrace your steps, it can and does happen within the original rules, and isn’t necessarily a bad experience if it is limited in scope. However taking my earlier example of ‘The Rescue of Sir Ragnar’ (and there are plenty of other examples) the rules allowing a secret door to be missed, combined with poor dungeon design, means that missing the secret door, can lead to the Heroes sweeping the entire remainder of the dungeon, killing all the other monsters, ruining the plot device built into that Quest that when the alarm is triggered and all the remaining doors open and flood the dungeon with monsters, causing a rush to the exit with a slow and vulnerable prisoner, to achieve the objective. Instead they would have to back-tracked or retrace their steps searching for secret doors, potentially through most of the dungeon, to find the missed secret door to achieve their objective which adds a long winded and boring task and spoils the surprise.

Funny thing about that particular example: a few weeks ago I played that quest using the companion app with my wife and a couple friends. We did not miss the secret door, but simply ended up going the "wrong" direction and in fact did clear the entire dungeon before finding Sir Ragnar. When we found him, the dramatic alarm sound played and the app said to place the indicated items on the map.. but there was simply nothing left to place.
My point here is that this is an inherent risk within this particular quest, primarily due to poor maze design. When we're talking about basic game rules, I'm not sure that it's necessarily warranted to worry too much about how they might affect design features of specific less-well-signed quests.
Honestly though, I would think that my proposed searches might make it more likely for everything to be well searched, because players are more likely to choose the search action over plain movement any time there are no monsters on the board.
My proposal in itself could also be tweaked any number of ways. Conditional discovery could be made automatic. Or the success rate could be improved. Or the success or failure could be applied to treasure as well as secret doors and traps.

Your proposed modification of making secret door searches conditional so that they may not even be found if the relevant square is searched, only makes that situation worse, they are more likely to miss the secret door in the first place, as they may not find it even if they do search the relevant square, and on top of that if they miss it the first time around, they could even miss it on the second sweep, at which point they will probably abandon the Quest, leave Sir Ragnar to his fate and just head to the nearest tavern with a headache!

But is it necessarily a bad thing if sometimes failure is actually an option? As the official rules stand, a quest failure most often means the entire party died. Some might see an increased chance of failing without having a party wipe as adding depth to the game.

[Markus Darwath]

Hope nobody took my comments as overly critical or trying to shut anybody down, I didn't mean them to be!

I doubt anyone saw it the wrong way. After all, we're talking about a hobby for enjoyment. There really is no right or wrong viewpoint. We're just trying to hash out how well certain approaches achieve their goals.

The door blocking technique is actually suggested by the NA instruction booklet, so I highlight it as an example of something (which tends to help the heroes and hurt Zargon) the developers were aware of it and didn't think was cheating.

My players tend to go a step beyond simple door blocking and arrange themselves into straight up 'kill boxes'. One monster at a time is allowed to step through the door and get pounded on from three directions (four if someone has a diagonal striking weapon). And yet the luck of the dice can still end up doing a number on the party.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

The door blocking technique is actually suggested by the NA instruction booklet, so I highlight it as an example of something (which tends to help the heroes and hurt Zargon) the developers were aware of it and didn't think was cheating. In the same way, the trap on the other side of an open door was known about by the developers and even pointed out as a scenario in which you couldn't get past it without risk (the Japanese game even mentions this in their optional rules section as a way to make the game more difficult, if I recall correctly). Had they "realized" it was a bug or broken part of the game the simple fix would be to just never place a trap on that square, but they continued to do it from the game system all the way up to the last packs released. The fact that they discussed the blind trap jumping option shows that at least some designers were concerned that it was TOO much back in 1992 (a rare moment of mercy considering how HARD they made those last few packs in nearly all other areas). Ultimately they decided not to include that extra mercy, so we were "stuck" with what we got.

I agree about door blocking but we were discussing traps on the other side of doors and I don't see any reason to assume that because they knew about door blocking then they knew about the 'trap behind the door' situation, I don't see that connection.

The 'trap behind the door' situation emerged from the rules in the UK First Edition (and that had Quest Maps with this set up), this aspect of the rules wasn't changed in the UK Second Edition (which also has Quest Maps with this set up), but in the "Third Edition" / US Edition there was a comment added by the designers to point out this "feature", so clearly they were aware of it at that point, and as you say they were discussing options around fixing it (although they didn't implement them). I would suggest that the explicit mention of the "feature" in the later edition but not in either of the two earlier editions that had the same "feature" and the subsequent discussions around fixing it, do in fact suggest that it was an unintentional consequence of the original rules that was only spotted later.

That said, none of that makes any difference to discussing modifications to eliminate that, and other issues within the Search rules.

As far as "disarming" already triggered traps, I never regarded that as possible. Pit traps work like doors, once open they are open. And the idea of putting a collapsed ceiling back in place just seems silly.

I also never thought of that as a possibility until playing with my 'second' gaming group, one of whom was an existing player from another group, and he suggested that his Dwarf should 'disarm' the blocked square that was preventing them from leaving the dungeon. Post game we reviewed the rules and discovered the source of the confusion. Years later I noticed in the US Edition they had attempted to resolve this confusion also, so I'm guessing it wasn't just that one player!

And I agree with Markus's point about not taking things the wrong way, for me this is a discussion between "Zargons" of how best to handle issues that crop up in game play due to different rule interpretations, lack of clarity, odd situations, a variety of different editions and a common desire to improve a game that we all enjoy.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Markus,

Just as an interesting aside to the main thread here your mention of “realism” and “immersion” kicked off a train of thought.

“Realism” is often cited in these discussion, but I think that word might be a little misleading. It is a game, therefore a simplified abstraction or representation of reality, but I’m not convinced that more “realism” is desirable. Do I want players to undergo a 4-week training camp involving hours and days of rolling dice to simulate their Heroes weapons training/ spell casting practise before I can use a new weapon or cast a new spell? Do I want every game session / Quest to take 24-48 hours as that is realistically the time taken for that sort of expedition, do I want my Hero to miss the next 4 quests due to a groin strain he picked up jumping over a pit?

I think that what we are really after is much better described by the other word you used “immersion” when a player chooses to play HeroQuest (or any other board game, videogame, watch a film, or read a book – do kids still do this?) then they choose to engage “wilful suspension of disbelief”, they choose to suspend their usual concept of what is ‘normal’ and adopt a different definition of normal for the duration and scope of the game.

Maintaining this suspension, this immersion, is key to a successful, enjoyable gaming session. There are lots of practical factors that you have to consider, to avoid breaking the suspension like keeping interruptions to a minimum, turning off TV, surgically removing mobile devices from players and so on, but in terms of what we are discussing here a key part is ensuring internal consistency within the game setting and ensuring that the rules are also simple, internally consistent, smooth and soon become second nature to players so that their focus in on the gameplay, what are they doing, what is happening, and less on how it is happening and which dice they need to roll what result they need to get, how they move, jagged rules can tear a hole in immersion.

As a new player, the game mechanisms aren’t necessarily familiar but the basics should be simple so that they rapidly become second nature. The concept of rolling dice and moving a number of spaces indicated on a grid, a board laid out in squares is standard in the bulk of board games, walls that block movement, open doors permit it, you can open a closed door by being adjacent to it and just stating ‘open the door’, all standard, simple and easily understood, combat – attack and defend roll, not likely to be quite as instantly familiar, but once you get it, simple enough and soon becomes second nature and automatic and it is exactly that simple enough to become automatic and second-nature that we need to maintain to avoid waking the dragon of doubt and skepticism