Ye Olde Inn

Has anyone considered rules for hiding?

I suppose the situation would be you are being chased by a monster you pass through a room with a cupboard and choose to hide in it, the monster comes through and assumes you've gone out of the other door. Or maybe they can smell you're still around.

I've always thought that such rules would be impossible to put into the game. Let me explain: ok, the dwarf is in the cupboard, hidden. I (Morcar) know that so what stops me from surrounding the cupboard with the monsters I have available?
I wouldn't want another rule to state that I have to move the monsters out of the room given that there is no hero inside. The only thing that Morcar can use to be victorious (besides designing an impossible quest beforhand) is the monsters. Monster placement/movement and choosing your target from the moment the monsters become active is the only weapon Morcar has, so anything other than total freedom and zero restrictions is unacceptable to me.
That's why I also hate rules such as "mummies always attack the closest target" or "skeletons are fixed on their target until they die".

Or rules for new spells such as invisibility wouldn't matter in my games cause I could just surround the "invisible" hero or block his path, after all I can actually see him.

Why not rolling several combat dice for the ability to hide !

The dwarf would be the most likely to hide succesfully because of his little size, while the barbarian would have most difficulties because of his big size, his likehood for fighting or the smell of his feet ! ahah

I'd say 4 dice for the dwarf, 3 for the Elf, 2 for the Wizard and 1 for the barbarian.

I've thought about rules for this - but they usually end up being a lot closer to D&D and therefore
are a lot more complicated than would work with heroquest.

As far as knowing that the hero is hiding - the Evil Wizard is not really supposed to be the opponent
of the heroes - he is simply the referee in the game, he is supposed to set up the world around the
heroes, run the world around them, and make it fun for the players.

At least, if you want to get into role-playing game issues, that is how it should be. AND hiding is definitely
a role-playing game issue.

Ethica wrote:Has anyone considered rules for hiding?

No rules. Just role-playing, logical solutions, fairness, and mind points...

This is again one of those posts whether Zargon should a player to win or a host for providing fun to his/her friends...

Evil Wizard is not really supposed to be the opponent

But he is. Of course players can choose doing it otherwise, but in the basic game, it's very explecitely stated in the rules that the evil wizard's player is the opponent of the heroes. They win = he loose.

I think there's a simple reason to this:
If you don't "pimp up" the game with many house rules, it is very on the "hack and slay" side (at least when compared with full roleplaying games). The tension and exictement comes not from solving a complicated plot (as there isn't one), so it has to come from a more strategic task - overcoming the monsters and other obstacels the evil wizard can throw on you - in one word: from competition. It doesn't work if the evil wizard doesn't really try his best to win against the heroes.

Well, pesonally I'm all for including more role playing elements, and at some point the evil wizard's player becomes more of a game master in the classic sense. But that's not the origianal Heroquest anymore.

I should have written my post better - you're right, in the original, basic game, the evil wizard is
the opponent. This is true.

Well, it's not just this. I wrote this because I think this that's the central problem of "hiding" rules - I' with Tasoe here.
I'm all for house rules, but at least when I make up rules of my own, I try to make them compatible with the original game and not depend on any other house rules. So I would vote for a rule for hiding that works even with the evil wizard's player still working against the heroes.
I can't think of a solution right now, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

My rule has been that if a monster has its back to a hero when the Hero enters the area or a hero has his back to a monster that has entered the area the Hero or monster in question must roll their mind points in combat dice, looking for a black shield to notice the enemy sneaking up on them. If they do not notice the enemy they may not roll defense dice for the blow coming in. If they do notice they may roll defense normal. The Barbarian is never suprised so need not roll.