My house rules so far . . .

[Naniyue]

CHECK BOTTOM FOR UPDATES!

Minimize movement rolls:
As long as no monsters are present and chasing the party, players may
maneuver their pieces into any allowed position. This saves a lot of time on
dice rolls that lead to the same results anyway.

Flavor rules:
The whim of my imagination may create flavor rules for any given moment. For
example, did that orc see you as you peeked around the corner? Roll and find
out. If not, prepare your party. If so, the orc gets initiative.

Believable monster behavior:
Goblins may be hit and run attackers, but the undead have no such mind, and
the Chaos/Dread Warrior is too tough to just take off down the corridor. In
other words, not all monsters will run away or cleverly act and maneuver.

Party Stash:
The heroes keep a stash of their items, equipment, and gold back at base,
with access only between quests. This solves questions of encumbrance, as well
as being a measure of theft prevention by a monster if a hero dies.

Straight Sweep of Kellar's Keep:
Shops and the stash are NOT available between quests, as there is no magical
traveling store or portal to Mentor waiting for you inside the mountains. And
if a hero dies, you must carry on without them!

EDIT 01 (01-25-24)
Searching for treasure:
Stagger the players about as if they are independently searching. Allow one search per piece of furniture or chest, and one for the room in general, up to the usual max of one time per hero.

EDIT 02 (01-27-24):
If wielding a crossbow, a shield cannot be in active inventory. This means no switching to sword and shield, just sword.

EDIT 03 (01-31-24):
I haven't implemented this yet, but with no monsters around, why not carefully lower yourself into a pit? Have a hero on either side to help you in and out, and therefore no further damage!

Add ROTWL to the straight sweep rule.

Late edit for same day:
Use the Companion program's yeti hug breaks rule! You WILL die without it!!

EDIT 04 (02-01-24):
Flavor rule: "You killed my boyfriend/girlfriend!"
Since the remake offers enemies of both sexes, why not sometimes have one get enraged when the other is killed, giving one extra attack die to the survivor?

EDIT 05 (02-02-24):
Both attacks by a Polar Warbear can be defended against. There have been a couple of times this has happened in the Companion, and it seems fair enough.
The Frozen Horror is too difficult to play without visiting the shops, so normal shop rules apply.

[burglekutt]

Movement:
Some suspense might be missing here but some players allowed a minimum 7 move instead.

Flavour Rules:
This is fantastic. A bit of chance is added to the possibility of being caught off guard. Hell, you could possibly give a bonus to the enemy if the roll goes wrong if we wanted.
Anytime a roll can be used I'm usually in favor of.

Believable monster behavior:
I got no problem with this.

Party Stash:
This is how the game normally plays as we assume the players have a Shed or safety deposit box in town for their gear.

Searching for treasure:
Alot of us like this idea because it gives furniture more use in the game.

"crossbow, a shield cannot be in active inventory."
This seems realistic but wouldn't bother me if there was a penalty between switching weapons instead.

"You killed my boyfriend/girlfriend!"
This is weird to assume two Hero's are related, sounds more like a Class skill instead.
Unless you were to say that if your hero dies, your next hero is a relative & gains a small bonus like gaining some of the dead relatives equipment back through an assumed quest.

[Naniyue]

Thank you for your post!

I DO like more realism while still maintaining the fun.

I meant the monster's mates! It's funny seeing a goblin in a dress!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Minimize movement rolls:
As long as no monsters are present and chasing the party, players may
maneuver their pieces into any allowed position. This saves a lot of time on
dice rolls that lead to the same results anyway.

Flavor rules:
The whim of my imagination may create flavor rules for any given moment. For
example, did that orc see you as you peeked around the corner? Roll and find
out. If not, prepare your party. If so, the orc gets initiative.

The HeroQuest movement rules, with one side, the heroes, using variable movement and the other side, the monsters, using fixed movement, neatly incorporates a simple initiative system, where a higher roll has a greater chance of giving you the initiative, a lower roll has a greater chance of giving the initiative to your enemy.

Reducing the situations in which you roll the movement dice creates a gap in this mechanism, and then you plug the gap that you created when you reduced the number of dice rolls, by creating a new initiative system based on a dice roll, why?

[Naniyue]

My movement rules are meant mostly for outside of combat. So basically, if you just want everyone to line up in a certain order outside a door, why keep rolling instead of just placing the party the way you want? It just saves time. Now once that door is open and an orc is staring you in the face . . .

Flavor rules fluctuate, and are meant to provide some role to the roll, or life to the game as it were, especially since I'm playing strictly solo.

[burglekutt]

I meant the monster's mates! It's funny seeing a goblin in a dress!

Ah, understood. Might be a good addition to the Evil Wizard's Deck card for the monsters. I like this it adds drama.

[Naniyue]

Future playthroughs WILL utilize rules from all of the expansions together, but for my initial complete run, additional rules and clarifications can only be used as they are introduced. For example, I cannot sell weapons and armor in the original campaign, but nothing says I can't hold onto everything until those rules come up! The reason for this is that I want to experience things, for the most part, as they were designed, then modify things any way I want the next time through.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

My movement rules are meant mostly for outside of combat.

But there is no distinction in HQ between movement within and outside of combat, because during the process of movement you can open a door or turn a corner and reveal a monster, it may start on a board with no monsters present at all and end with you next to a monster and fighting, so movement cannot be defined as being within or outside of combat. To do this you would need to introduce a split like AHQ does where new terrain is not revealed until the end of the EWP's turn so that you get that clear distinction which exists in AHQ between combat and exploration, but that would make HQ slower and less dynamic, the opposite effect to the one you are claiming in speeding up the game.

For example, instead of moving around a corner, revealing an Orc, continuing your movement to an adjacent square and then using your action to attack it, all within a single turn, you would instead need to stop your movement and your turn on the corner, wait until the end of EWP turn for the new board section to be populated and then on your next turn move and attack.

So basically, if you just want everyone to line up in a certain order outside a door, why keep rolling instead of just placing the party the way you want? It just saves time. Now once that door is open and an orc is staring you in the face . .

For a number of reasons, traps being the obvious one, it is essential to know in HQ exactly which squares a hero is moving onto on their turn and because traps are kept secret. This needs to happen the same on every turn, as making the rules different for when traps are present or absent reveals the fact that traps are present or absent which defeats the object of making them secret.

Player 1: Can I just move my hero straight to the door?
EWP: Er no you can't on this occasion
Player 1: I can see there are no monsters so there must be a trap, in which case I'll search for traps
EWP: You reveal a trap
Player 1: Wow I didn't see that coming, what a surprise, how lucky I am!

The resolution here isn't to change the rules, it is to improve quest design so that you don't create quests that have long periods of movement with no monsters or traps on the board and the boring and inefficient movement issue never arises in the first place. Prevention is better than a cure!

For example, I cannot sell weapons and armor in the original campaign, but nothing says I can't hold onto everything until those rules come up!

Games have 2 "aspects" the character aspect "I am a Dwarf navigating my way through a dungeon populated with monsters" and the player aspect "I am a player playing a game throwing dice and moving pieces of plastic around a board"

Every game has to work at the player level, but depending on the type of game the character level may be less important. Does Chess make sense from the perspective of a pawn? Who knows or cares, it doesn't matter but the game works very well from the player aspect. Full-blooded RPGs need to work from both aspects, which is why they have rulebooks that come in bound volumes. HQ as an RPG-lite is a compromise, a tricky balancing act, it has to work from the player aspect (or no one would ever play the game), the extent it works from a character point of view needs to carefully balanced between simple and snappy on the one hand but still sufficiently immersive on the other. Both aspects need to be considered when house-ruling.

Allowing characters to resell purchased equipment back for 50% of its value makes perfect sense from the character point of view (as does looting monsters of their equipment and reselling those for that matter) but as, at the player level, equipment represents experience as part of the advancement system introducing a "buy-back at 50%" rule effectively halves the cost of equipment, this has a knock-on effect of doubling the rate of advancement, making the game far too easy and having a negative impact on playability.

[Naniyue]

With the two GM programs, I DO end up hitting trap spots and such, so my movement rules still work as far as that goes.

Again, I'm playing solo, so there are no other players to worry about. It's strictly for my own enjoyment. And I still end up cutting it close or even losing sometimes, meaning the rules, official and house, still work.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Fair enough, my own house rules are linked to in my signature, but my rules that coincide on topics with yours are below:

#7 Search for Traps and Secret Doors

The “Search for Traps and Secret Doors” action is scrapped.

The EWP will declare when a hero moves onto a square adjacent to a secret door and places an open-door piece and anything else that is revealed beyond the door.

The EWP will declare when a hero moves onto a trapped square, attempts to open a trapped door or chest and the hero will immediately roll to detect & disarm (see #3 Action Dice Mechanism) either activating or disarming the trap.

#8 Search Action

A hero may conduct a “search” action in a room (not in a corridor) that contains no monsters.
The EWP will place the figure on the nearest trap, if one exists, and the hero must carry out a detect and disarm roll.
If no traps exist, the EWP will place the hero on the square adjacent to the nearest secret door and follow the rules above.
If no traps or secret doors exist, then the hero player may draw a treasure card as usual (unless the EWP declares a special treasure from the Quest Notes). At this point, the room is marked off (any face down marker will do) as searched and cannot be searched again.

#10 Rapid Move

Any character may sacrifice his action for the turn and move an extra number of squares equal to half his movement (for monsters) or for heroes as follows; Elf (6), Barbarian (5), Wizard (4), Dwarf (3). Alternatively, you can just allow heroes to roll an extra movement die instead of their action.

#18 Switching Weapons & Armour
Switching, or selecting, your attack weapons is part of your attack action, e.g. “I attack that Orc with my battle axe” includes switching to the battle axe and attacking with it. This means that if you attack with the battle axe then you cannot claim the extra combat dice in defence for being equipped with a shield until, on your next attack action, you choose to attack with, for example a shortsword, that permits the use of your shield.

A crossbow cannot be used with a shield

Armour must be worn and cannot be carried. It cannot therefore be removed or switched during a quest.
The only exception to this is when armour is found in the dungeon in which case the EWP may allow armour to be donned and/or swapped and similar as an action provided no monsters are on the board.