Playing as the Bad Guys

[elvyler]

Has anyone made a homebrew ruleset yet where the 4 hero's are minions of Zargon and Zargon sends them on a quest and the GM would be Mentor? Just asking because I think it would be interesting and now it seems the lines are being blurred between what's good and what's evil

Yes, I had in mind (but never realized) to do something with the 4 Wizards of Morcar so the player can have fun using their spells. A small quest where every player can use one of the evil wizards and have to face man-at-arms along the dungeon until they reach the Heroes as final bosses or just the Wizard Hero.
Each evil wizard will start from a different point of the board.
Also another idea was to plan some sort of competition beetween the 4 wizards where they are running to reach a common goal and the first one to reach it win the game. So at the end they have to fight each others.

I was just thinking about how to creatively do "play as the bad guys" campaigns. You might even have two teams, the Heroes vs the Anti-Heroes (with Zargon taking a much more passive role as banker/board sweeper). I like your ideas, you two should start a thread on it!

Starting a new thread about this topic that came up in another thread. If anyone has any ideas to contribute, that would be great.

[lestodante]

OK... Now I have to start this project too!!!
PS: Elvyler i can see you registered recently! Are you someone working at Hasbro trying to find new ideas to implement the new release?

[Kurgan]

I approve this message!
How about having two teams, the Heroes vs. the anti-Heroes, and human players control both sides. If Zargon is present, all he does is act as referee/banker, rather than his old role as controller of all the bad guys. The Four Chaos Sorcerers for example could have their minions and the Heroes could have theirs. Each reveal stuff as they go, like a standard quest, except the factions are against each other. Whoever accomplishes the goal first (whether retrieving an artifact and returning to their starting point, wiping out the other side, etc) wins. Maybe best 2 out of 3 for competition's sake or something like that? It wouldn't be like a war game, because it's still using the standard HQ board and such. Now would the bad guys be susceptible to traps? I think for fairness sake yes. They would probably roll white shields too (or use blue dice for defense) to make it fair. But convert as much existing stuff so it still feels like all of a sudden the bad guys became player characters.

[elvyler]

OK... Now I have to start this project too!!!
PS: Elvyler i can see you registered recently! Are you someone working at Hasbro trying to find new ideas to implement the new release?

Ha, I wish, I would love to be sitting around designing games for a living. Instead I'm just a lowly IT guy and web developer.

I've been aware of the Inn for several years, but I'm not really one to get into online forums. For an IT guy, I have an odd distaste for online things. I joined recently so that I could share my longtime love of HeroQuest and the board that I started crafting when the pandemic hit. So far, I've had a blast, it's a great community.

[elvyler]

I approve this message!
How about having two teams, the Heroes vs. the anti-Heroes, and human players control both sides. If Zargon is present, all he does is act as referee/banker, rather than his old role as controller of all the bad guys. The Four Chaos Sorcerers for example could have their minions and the Heroes could have theirs. Each reveal stuff as they go, like a standard quest, except the factions are against each other. Whoever accomplishes the goal first (whether retrieving an artifact and returning to their starting point, wiping out the other side, etc) wins. Maybe best 2 out of 3 for competition's sake or something like that? It wouldn't be like a war game, because it's still using the standard HQ board and such. Now would the bad guys be susceptible to traps? I think for fairness sake yes. They would probably roll white shields too (or use blue dice for defense) to make it fair. But convert as much existing stuff so it still feels like all of a sudden the bad guys became player characters.

I think what I was envisioning was something like Mentor in Zargon/Morcar's shoes, controlling minions in a castle. I love the idea of those minions being the men-at-arms. Could also use the elves from the EQP as well. The idea would be that Zar/Mor (can we just call him BBEG) could send an elite group, anti-heros would work, to infiltrate the castle, like the hero's would a dungeon.

I also like the idea of using the 4 sorcerer, and the idea of facing off against the original good heros is amazing.

So it seems that there are several ways this could go.

[lestodante]

or Wandering Monster can be one of the Heroes!
Eventually if you don't draw all the four "Wandering Hero" cards (consider only the first four) you'll meet and deal with ALL the remaining Heroes in the final room.

[lestodante]

I approve this message!
How about having two teams, the Heroes vs. the anti-Heroes, and human players control both sides. If Zargon is present, all he does is act as referee/banker, rather than his old role as controller of all the bad guys. The Four Chaos Sorcerers for example could have their minions and the Heroes could have theirs. Each reveal stuff as they go, like a standard quest, except the factions are against each other. Whoever accomplishes the goal first (whether retrieving an artifact and returning to their starting point, wiping out the other side, etc) wins. Maybe best 2 out of 3 for competition's sake or something like that?

Sure we can develop something like this too, 2 players playing in separate teams, Good vs Evil.
They are both searching for a stone artifact and they must reach it before the other faction do. They have to enter an abandoned dungeon which is neutral territory but infested by other monsters that will attack both factions. Uhmmm, Skaven maybe?? So they both will meet something to kill.

It wouldn't be like a war game, because it's still using the standard HQ board and such. Now would the bad guys be susceptible to traps? I think for fairness sake yes. They would probably roll white shields too (or use blue dice for defense) to make it fair. But convert as much existing stuff so it still feels like all of a sudden the bad guys became player characters.

As it will be a neutral territory EVERYONE will suffer traps, except Skaven which are controlled by the ZARGON player.
We should playtest the white shields as the Evil Wizards defend with 5 dice each (Fanrax even with 6!) while the Heroes rolls only 2 dice, unless we decide to assign them some equipment.
Both Grawshak and Fanrax can also summon Orcs or Undeads usable as playable characters; this can also unbalance the game.

This table I did for something else but we can use for reference (ignore my custom stats):

WoM stats.jpg

[j_dean80]

This could be an entire campaign of good vs evil racing to collect artifacts or capture/defeat special interest people/monsters. The results will turn the tide in the war. I like the idea of both parties fighting against a common enemy. Skaven/Ogres/Trolls/Dark Warriors.

[elvyler]

If you had enough of each team, you could almost run this like a war game. Wouldn't be a bad idea, use HeroQuest rules and have each team start at a different end of the map. Might need to modify some of the rules for movement, I can imagine rolling a bunch of 2's all in a row and immediately losing.

[Fallensaviour]

Ever since I saw the cover for “Orc Quest”
I’ve wanted to do this.Exchange all hero’s for green skins and do some quests as orcs.
Wandering monsters would be men at arms.
Or the hero’s have been transformed into green skins by a wizard to infiltrate the dungeons to obtain something.
Either way I think it could be great fun and really change things up a bit.