Doug Hopkins asks: What do you Want to see in HeroQuest?

[Kurgan]

That would be interesting. I too would LOVE to see "Stephen's Notebook," as it were. Draft notes, discarded concepts, background on the history of HeroQuest, all of that really fascinates me. I'd love to see it even if there were not plans to ever release it in a playable form (of course once it's out there fans could always tinker around and play with it if they wished right?).

Many fan-made boards are being sold online that just take the classic HQ board layout and expand all the corridors to be 2 squares wide, which would add 3 squares to the overall width and 3 to the overall length (classic board is 26x19 squares, though the HQ logo area which is a few squares wide appears at the "bottom" of the rectangle on the long side in the original, and on the eastern/left side in the remake). These boards are nowhere near as big as we're talking about here, more like an Axis & Allies board that has three folds (the remake board is quad fold but has the same number of squares as the 1989-1993 boards, ditto for the First Light board which is 6 fold).

[cornixt]

So how many squares could there have been? Enough for an extra row of rooms on each side or less than that?
Or was the original one just using bigger squares? They are unusually small compared to all other paper dungeon designs and grids, with 1 inch being the standard.
Or maybe a combination of both?

[Kurgan]

Depends upon the size of the panels I suppose. Presumably the squares were still 22x22mm at that time. If the panels were all equal size... maybe another 13x19 squares?

Compare it to Axis & Allies boards circa 1989? This discussion might be helpful.

[Daedalus]

In Stephen' Baker's Kaos interview he said he was working on a board similar to that of Incognito. According to BGG, the 1988 version of that game had box dimensions of 20.00 x 12.68 x 2.28 inches. Triple the width and you get just over 38 inches by 20 inches. I figure the prototype board was likely 19 x 36 or 37 squares. That's 10 or 11 by 19 extra squares of space. I figure that would have made possible the inclusion of some larger rooms overall, more in line with the improved playable space of the central chamber.

[Daedalus]

Thinking what has been done with First Light, I think it would be great to see a new expansion for the full game that featured a new double-sided gameboard and a boss mini, a Quest Book, room tiles, and perhaps some counters or cards for new rules. As for the gameboard, interest has been shown over the years for the outdoors. A forest on one side and hilly grassland on the reverse could help with homebrews.

Back to the regular gameboard, I think it would be great to see an expansion that favored room tiles and corridor tiles over a full set of figures. Yeah, include some of the regular expansion stuff like a Quest Book and a boss mini, maybe even a set of minion monsters. But also be sure to feature tiles with rules representing new traps and barriers, raised areas, etc., something like in the BQP with all those nifty overlays and tiles, but less frozen. For instance, give us double-wide corridor overlays and single corridor tiles with walls that can traverse and wind through rooms. I want something that resculpts the gameboard map so that less predictable mazes are possible with special rooms to be discovered.

[LucaRocks]

Love that idea!

[Kurgan]

Great thread everyone... we're coming to the end of 2024 and First Light is still scheduled for January 2025. No new surprises confirmed yet for anything else, just some more variant dice for those lucky enough to get them in whatever quantities alongside...

[Daedalus]

I believe that it was a comment by Bareheaded Warrior about the not-so-useful placement of solo Quests in the BQP and EQP that got me thinking . . . wouldn't it be useful to create a solo Quest for every Hero? Something that could equip a Hero with suitable AD and DD for mid-level play, plus gold coins for a potion and maybe even an artifact.

I'm talking something like Into the Northlands, so I imagine they would be online downloads. If AH needed cash as an incentive, four-Hero expansions might also work, with three Solo Quests per Hero. In that case, a Hero need only play as many solo Quests as needed to catch him up to the other Heroes. It could also be possible for all four Heroes to play solo Quests to power up to the appropriate power level for an expansion such as Kellar's Keep.

[Kurgan]

I'm really hoping that between Wizards of Morcar and Crypt of Perpetual Darkness retail we finally get the last of the "Haslab exclusives" in retail form. I also hope that the Rogue Heir of Elethorn either gets renewed for another print run or else as Patrick suggested, it gets the "Knight treatment" and is preserved that way for those who want it, rather than being relegated to the overpriced aftermarket like any other "exclusive" or limited run product.

I would love to see the "fancy dice" from Fanroll become a regular retail product rather than limited run but I suppose that's not practical, or something? So my hopes are... an "Idea book" and that the "Crossover product" really be something awesome.


If I had my wish I'd love to see a "HeroQuest Scrapbook / Making Of" Nostalgia book, like a fancy coffee table book with the history of the game, never before seen drafts, cutting room floor ideas, official interviews, art, sketches, etc. that would be SO cool. On the other hand I could see such a product being more of a niche thing at Barnes & Noble rather than a regular product sitting on the shelf next to the Game System and First Light, so...


I'm stuck on the idea of a BIG BOOK HeroQuest supplement. No, not a reprint of all of the quests... I'm thinking something more unique but also practical.

While I would LOVE a "making of" book about the creation, behind the scenes, draft notes, etc. of HeroQuest the game (from the original to the remake), I'm sure they probably realize only superfans like us would be interested in something like that for more than 2 seconds. What they could do instead is provide a book of basically ideas...

Again I'm not talking about a "GM's guide" or something like that. You don't need such a thing. HeroQuest is already simple enough.. all the "rules" are right there in the booklet that's under 25 pages. We also don't need an official "compilation" of quests (as cool as those fan made ones area). You can just print all of the PDFs and you have that and slap it into a binder if you really want to... (plus it's missing all of the plastic, so why not spend the money you were going to spend on that book, on the expansions themselves?).

Instead I'd see this as a book of ideas... inspirations... I'm talking monster variants, cutting room floor stuff, optional rules, variants, etc. from the designers. Think of it like an expanded version of what we got with the Adventure Design Kit and Into the Northlands... ways to jazz up old quests, partial scenarios, options, that kind of thing. And yes, it could contain some "one off" quests. Talking here Solo quests, even classic stuff like the Dark Company, Marvel Winter Special, etc.

Granted, I would love to see the magazines and novels be reprinted (even if they had to slap a silly "Legends" type label on the outside to show it wasn't the original and no longer had the official branding of GWS in any way, etc) but I understand if that's too complicated, maybe just the quest content and hire someone (not Kevin J. Anderson) to write some good quality HeroQuest inspired books (as before, keeping the world and characters generic enough nobody feels like there is now only one barbarian and you have to use his name, etc).

Since it's a book, it dodges past the issue of where to ship the plastic, right? And it could include bonus tiles, even standees if they wanted, and could be sold in regular stores (not just online and at FLGS which prior to First Light, was pretty much the limitation of AH's HeroQuest).

So here I'm thinking of a book the size of your D&D type manuals, they could have a hardcover and softcover version. Not a limited run thing that is held together by elmer's school glue, something high quality, but it doesn't need to be some heirloom quality leather bound thing either (though that would be awesome, it'd be too expensive for the average consumer they're trying to target here).

But yes, the marketing could be that it's a "guide" for quest creators and people wanting to play some one-offs, and you could include some easter eggs in there too.

If they are going to cross over with something, yes, a HeroScape battle box could be cool...

You'd have a painted and unpainted version (as is the norm for the HeroScape licensed out to Renegade Game Studios). The "unpainted" version could be cast in HeroQuest unit colors however. I'd imagine two squads... one based on the Heroes (perhaps with Mentor and some mercs, maybe some animal companions) vs. Zargon and his monsters. As we discussed on the last stream (I think it was Bohemyus who first suggested it), this would be the golden opportunity to provide a set of "Named" characters from classic HeroQuest.

As we've discussed, not every one off character, whether boss or NPC needs its own dedicated miniature, but still, in the Haslab campaign they gave us a Sir Ragnar prisoner mini and a "Mentor" alternate Wizard. Rumors swirled that we'd one day get a figure for Zargon (or Morcar) and yet how weird would it be to be fighting the GM controlling himself on the board as some kind of "final" quest. But here it could kind of make sense.

So you'd have these named figures... as Jacer suggested, the heroes could even be named for the four "legendary" heroes of the HeroQuest prologue... Rogar (Barbarian), Telor (Wizard), Ladril (Elf mage), and Grugni (Dwarf warrior). Mentor could be a wizard also of course. You could have a mix of allies (men at arms, elven mercenaries, etc). The bad guys would get Orcs, Undead, Chaos Warriors. You could double dip and get GWS involved so that you have "official" Chaos Warrior designs. I know Encarmine said Fimir were "never" coming back, but doesn't GWS have some variation of these monsters still out there? Just for nostalgia's sake, a tribute if nothing else.. but whatever.

Anyway, you'd have these figures in the box. The dice could be like the existing HeroScape dice, but maybe have them be inscribed with the HQ symbols (but with the red skulls and blue shields of HS). Jacer's suggestion... cardboard mini board included with hex tiles on one side and HQ squares on the other (which then could be used as some kind of bonus room on the HQ board).

It would basically be a HS product with interest for HQ fans.

The whole thing would be able to be used as a stand alone fight, or take either or both factions to use in a regular HeroScape battle. But you could also take the individual minis to use as proxies within HeroQuest or design custom quests around them.

This I think could be a really cool product, and get Stephen Baker and Craig Van Ness to design it, boom! Major nostalgia injection and boost for both franchises.

This as opposed to like HeroQuest-Opoly, HeroQuest-Risk, HeroQuest-Cluedo, Betrayal at HeroQuest on the Hill... all of which sound cool/funny but really are going to just be snapped up by collectors then forgotten since they have nothing really to do with HeroQuest at all (though granted, as above, you may have your people who buy them just to toss away the cardboard and grab the plastic minis).

[cornixt]

I had a crazy idea for a spiral-bound book with 100 pages, where each page is cut into three - the map, the quest text, the quest details. You flip over each part of the page separately so you can match any map with any quest text with any details. So you get 100x100x100 combinations, a million quests.