Ye Olde Inn

Hi folks,
I have an idea for a house rule for when I play HQ with the kids - I doubt many of you would think it worth adopting yourselves as it's a simplification of the existing rules rather than an addition. What I'd like to know is can any of you experienced Evil Wizards spot any logical errors in the idea that will mess up the game?

What I plan to try is very simple - I'm going to combine both searches into one. i.e. rather than separate Trap and Treasure search actions, a hero can simply search a room: When doing so, any traps / secret doors are revealed and a treasure card is drawn.

My main reason for this is pretty straight-forward - my youngest player is 6. Now, he's a pretty smart 6 year old but he does tend to get bored very easily so I want the game to move as quickly as possible.

My other (minor) reason for the change is based on a gripe that still bugs me from my playing days. It always annoyed me that you could clear all the traps in a room and still get hit by a booby trap card when subsequently searching for treasure. If all searching is performed in one action, it would seem less unjust (to me at least) that your rummaging might accidentally trigger a trap.

On the face of it, I can't see how this will harm the game in any way and in fact will lead to a little bit less loitering. Or have I missed a logical pit-fall in ths rule change?

I haven't tested this, so if anyone can see a reason why this is a bad idea, I'd welcome the criticism.

Some players on this forum like to combine the ability to search for Traps and for Secret Doors into one search, which is fine, since in both cases the Hero is looking for hidden things. However, I would not advise rolling the search for Treasure into it as well unless you want to remove all the risk from such a search. Many a Quest features a trapped treasure chest, which must not be searched for treasure before the trap is disarmed. If you can search for Traps and Treasure at the same time, furniture traps will never be sprung against the Heroes, removing an important element of play.

There was one or even several great threads discussing various combinations. I recommend reading into them. At least one of them was opened by yours truly under the rules section.
Also, my HQ - Heroes & Villains thread might cover the topic if you're interested.

Traps secret doors are quite like the same thing just a different result, with treasure as likely to be found... However the logic is. If you'd quickly glance over a room, pulling at anything you find, hunting for that treasure, you'd likely spring a trap. Those not rushing and more careful would check the room for traps first before mindlessly ripping out draws, tossing through rags etc. The 2 turns doing a search, first for traps, second for treasure represents this quite well. or, Think of it like this, if there is treasure, you might quite easily see it, your just going to spends some time looking for lil wires or strange cogs before grabbing the prise. Those more risky out there will just grab it, do a treasure search first go.

Traps & Secret Doors, together, Treasure separate.

Count Mohawk wrote:Some players on this forum like to combine the ability to search for Traps and for Secret Doors into one search, which is fine, since in both cases the Hero is looking for hidden things. However, I would not advise rolling the search for Treasure into it as well unless you want to remove all the risk from such a search. Many a Quest features a trapped treasure chest, which must not be searched for treasure before the trap is disarmed. If you can search for Traps and Treasure at the same time, furniture traps will never be sprung against the Heroes, removing an important element of play.

That's an excellent point - furniture traps would never be sprung accidentally the way I plan to work it. I'd have to add some further mechanism like a spot check to make it work, which would defeat the point if I'm trying to simplify things.

Having said that, have you ever known any but the most rookie of players to open a chest without checking for traps first? In my experience players soon learn to trap-search everything at the earliest possible opportunity (as soon as they step into an empty room / as soon as they slay the last monster / as soon as they move next to searchable furniture). It pretty much becomes such a formality, that furniture traps are never set off anyway...

knightkrawler wrote:There was one or even several great threads discussing various combinations. I recommend reading into them. At least one of them was opened by yours truly under the rules section.
Also, my HQ - Heroes & Villains thread might cover the topic if you're interested.

Thanks! I should have searched more thoroughly my self!

mitchiemasha wrote:Traps secret doors are quite like the same thing just a different result, with treasure as likely to be found... However the logic is. If you'd quickly glance over a room, pulling at anything you find, hunting for that treasure, you'd likely spring a trap. Those not rushing and more careful would check the room for traps first before mindlessly ripping out draws, tossing through rags etc. The 2 turns doing a search, first for traps, second for treasure represents this quite well. or, Think of it like this, if there is treasure, you might quite easily see it, your just going to spends some time looking for lil wires or strange cogs before grabbing the prise. Those more risky out there will just grab it, do a treasure search first go.

Traps & Secret Doors, together, Treasure separate.

Yup. I think you've swayed me.

Thinker wrote:Having said that, have you ever known any but the most rookie of players to open a chest without checking for traps first? In my experience players soon learn to trap-search everything at the earliest possible opportunity (as soon as they step into an empty room / as soon as they slay the last monster / as soon as they move next to searchable furniture). It pretty much becomes such a formality, that furniture traps are never set off anyway...

This has always been a sore spot for me. I completely agree that furniture traps do become a formality, like you said, because players always search for traps first. Since there is no drawback to searching for traps first, there really is no reason not to do it. This is part of the reason (well, I think it is part of the reason) why there are so many house rules revolving around punishment for loitering. It's not just to prevent the tedious "line up in front of a door before opening it" routine, but also to make it risky to waste time searching for traps.

The only other possible situation where I could see a player want to search for treasure before searching for traps (aside from quest specific time constraints like monsters appearing every turn) is if you have multiple selfish heroes that don't share treasure. You walk into a room with a chest, so you search for treasure before any other player can get their grubby paws on it! But since the heroes work as a team and benefit from sharing treasure and keeping everyone alive, selfishness is rare.

One other thing to consider when combing traps and secret doors. Do you play that when a secret door is found, it is automatically opened and the room is revealed? Combining the searches changes player strategy quite significantly. If they are separate, I can search a room for traps by myself, without the risk of opening a secret door to a room full of chaos warriors. With a combined search, I would wait for my comrades to be close by and ready to come to my aid.

Really it works either way. I actually like the idea that while searching for traps, you may accidentally/unknowingly trigger a secret door to open, making the combined search a little risky. Maybe that will slightly encourage searching for treasure first, since you don't risk opening a door unexpectedly.

Showdown35 wrote:Really it works either way. I actually like the idea that while searching for traps, you may accidentally/unknowingly trigger a secret door to open, making the combined search a little risky. Maybe that will slightly encourage searching for treasure first, since you don't risk opening a door unexpectedly.

If the room has been searched for treasure first secret doors don't activate rooms, if they haven't they do. A risk either way round.

It kind of makes logical sense. They saw something while searching for treasure but didn't think much of it and when they search again the realise it's a secret door without triggering it.

Might be a bit complicated for a six year old though.

It would work for furniture if you play that it's included in the room search, I think in the US rules it isn't. They have two separate searches for traps and secret doors as well. The only good thing about that rule is it allows you to combine the searches as a special ability for a new hero or from character progression (dwarf) or from an item.