Ye Olde Inn

I first started playing HeroQuest back in the early nineties and played for the best part of five years, initially once a month but then with less frequency as AHQ took over (or at least an increasingly heavily customised version of AHQ). I played a few more games around the start of the millennium as an indulgence in nostalgia but since then I haven't actually played a game of HeroQuest although I have been working on documenting and refining up my own customized version of AHQ.

I now have the opportunity to introduce HeroQuest to a new generation and wanted your guys input and experience on a few points on how best to do this from scratch;

1. Which is the best to use as a starting point, the EU version or the US version and why?

2. Based on the decision in question 1, are there any simple mods / changes that are essential or at least recommended to include from the start, and if so what are they and what are the benefits of each?

3. Would you lot like a 'battle report' of how it all goes!

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Updating this post to provide a list of the House Rules that I am currently using, some may stick, some may not. Reasons and details for each can be found in the thread below;

#1. Both Heroes and Monsters need to roll to defend.

#2. Heroes have fixed movement of 6 squares as standard but can declare a 'Run' action at the start of their turn, rolling a single die and moving that many extra squares instead of making an action.

#3. If you start your turn adjacent to a Monster you cannot walk away until it has been killed, no strolling out of combat!

#4. Heroes retain all items and equipment, including potions, from quest to quest. Artefacts and magical items, including potions can't be sold and have no gold value, can resell any mundane equipment between quests at 50% original value.
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#5. Throwing weapons are only lost on a roll of all but otherwise can be recovered by moving onto the target square or automatically when the area is searched.

#6. Potion upgraded effects;

Potion of Healing - restores Hero to full body points
Potion of Speed - "Run" action now has 2 dice added instead of one until a double is rolled
Potion of Resilience - Extra two defence dice lasts until no more visible Monsters on the board
Potion of Strength - Extra two attack dice lasts until no more visible Monsters on the board
Berserker's Brew - Extra die in attack and defence, lasts until no more visible Monsters on the board
Holy Water - 5 CD attack on Undead

#7. Healing potions and healing salves can be used on yourself even on zero points provided they are used immediately

#8. In close combat only both and count as hits

New Equipment;
Shield (150GC) anyone wielding it gets to count the as a defend aswell as an additional die in defence (cannot be used with battle axe or staff) [the original proposed rule works fine logically but makes it a little awkward when having to check or compare results from rolls especially when multiple Heroes and some Monsters are equipped with shields]
Healing salves (50GC) restores D6 BPs
Bow (250GC) as Crossbow but 2CD only usable by the Elf

IMPORTANT EDIT: 5 years on and having played and discussed in depth my revised rulebook is presented in my signature below and I would advise anyone looking to introduce HeroQuest to the next generation to consider my revised rulebook, based on the US rules with a few tweaks for problem resolution, clarifications and removing inconsistencies, as that answers the questions that I originally posted on here.

It also doesn't include most of the changes that I made above, but does include some more useful material!

#1 - scrapped
#2 - scrapped
#3 - similar effect in new rules but handled better
#4 - sell back at 50% rule kept (although that is still debatable), retaining unused potions obtained from the treasure deck from one quest until the next is still in, but they are not returned to the deck until the quest AFTER they have been used to avoid stockpiling.
#5 - that one is still in
#6 - scrapped
#7 - that one is part of the US rules anyway
#8 - scrapped
New Equipment - scrapped

I'd say run EU rules for the standard game system.
The monsters only have 1BP - easier to keep track; easier to kill for inexperienced heroes.
The equipment is card based. That is just such a great feeling to sit with your actual equipment in a physical form, rather than notes.
After the game system you can decide if you want to switch over to NA for a tougher challenge.

Only change I would suggest is to give the final boss more BPs. Either 3 or 5. Killing him in a single random blow is too anticlimactic.

Battle reports are nice as long as there are more pictures than text

It seems a shame to ask for advice and then ignore it but I think I prefer the more co-operative feel of the US version (at least according to my research http://oldscratch.smackwell.com/cgi-bin ... 1272806499) that said the differences are fairly minor and I think it is simple enough to modify the UK version to match the US or vice versa.

That said I do entirely agree with the physical card based equipment being much better so I'm definitely using the cards.

As it currently stands the version I have is the EU one (second edition I think) which matches the PDFs available on the front of this site so I'll download those, print them off and make notes / amendments on those - old school style.

With regards to posting images to this site, I'm not sure how to even do that!

Let me offer a contrasting opinion: Go with the US version.

The main differences between US and UK versions are the monsters' strength and the addition of a few extra mechanics. My opinion is that EuroQuest lacks the challenge and therefore the dramatic tension prominent in the US version. Not to mention, if you start them off with US-level monsters, they'll know what to expect when they see them again and won't be unduly surprised by a sudden increase in their stats when you make the switch later. As for the other mechanics added, the artifacts and Chaos Spells in the Base System are easy to grok even by a completely green group of gamers.

As for important house-rules... for your first few Quests, keep it as simple as possible. If you have someone playing the Wizard and he complains of being underpowered, you may want to hook him up with one of the many Wizarding house rule sets on this forum. I am, of course, partial to mine (check the sig), but I'm a complexity junkie and made my cards to match, so I wouldn't advise using it unless you were sure you could explain how it works in less than five minutes. There are many other options in the Wizard Clearing House of House Rules.

And to post images, just use an image tag, by clicking the little button "Img" in the editor. The alternative is to upload it as an attachment, but the Inn only has so much space, so don't do that too often if you can link instead.

Where can I get a copy of the US rules (is there more than one version?) and what else would I need to go with that, is there a different quest book or other supplements for the US version?

I did a play through on my own yesterday evening, just to get rid of those cobwebs (using the EU SE) and I did notice / remember a couple of desirable tweaks already;

[*] Movement - All other characters / creatures in the game have fixed movement distances, the roll to move for the heroes seems to be a hangover from 'traditional' board games (roll a dice and move your piece), adds no value but does add an unnecessary delay so I've scrapped that and replaced it with a move value of 6 for each of the heroes (I assume they are moving cautiously around the dungeon to minimise noise, traps and ambushes rather than sprinting at full speed so I don't think armour or the Dwarf's stubby legs impacts that)

I think any suggestions that I play test and implement and decide to keep, I'll add to the original post as a list

In addition to that nice simple rule change I did notice that the 'searching rules' stand out like a sore thumb in terms of artificial construction that doesn't flow at all so once I've checked out the US rules to see how they are handled there I may look to tweak / rework as necessary.

The piece in combat where the monsters get only one face of a die to defend and the heroes get twice that seems to add a little complexity and a big advantage to the heroes when the monsters are weak enough already, but to get everyone to use the white shields as defence does open the question as to what to use the black shields for...

Finally and a bit more cryptically, one of the challenges of any games is to translate simultaneous activities of a group in real life into individual sequential 'turns' in a game without adding too much complexity or too much unrealism (not convinced that is a word). HQ seems to go with the most simple but not especially realistic, not a bad option but I'm wondering it a tiny bit of complexity, just a hint, may make that aspect a lot more realistic, more to follow when I have a fully baked idea on that.

Copy of the rulebook? Right here at the Inn. There are scans of EVERYTHING.

I wouldn't remove the rolls for movement. It breaks the game in my opinion. Obviously stuff like escaping from the rolling boulder trap, but it also helps to mess up the players' perfect strategies.

I agree with G-K's assessment of movement rolling. I admit it's tempting to make the whole shindig more "realistic" (1d6 + 5 for the Elf, 4 for Wizard and Barbarian, 3 for the Dwarf, for instance), but it really just takes from the fun all around. Imagine you want to attack a Goblin with a crossbow 4 squares away from you and you roll snake eyes. It's hilarious all around, even for that unlucky hero.
I have playtested other rules (1d6 + modifiers, set limit (8)). It's just not the same.
And the most important point of contempt is what G-K has said: it gives the players further strategic advantages they haven't deserved.

For the turn order, most realistic is to release it and let the heroes play in any order they like. The most fun it provided here at my house to use a rattle with colored balls for randomizing the turn order.
klick to see rattle

Yeah, true. One of the first changes to the original rule is to include a 30-second hourglass for the players to decide on an order and turn markers with a red cross on one side and a green circle on the other (from Descent, 1st edition).
The rattle was indeed a brilliant idea from Flint or someone else on the German forums, I (and my players) just like the strategizing of the players a little more.