Ye Olde Inn

Hello all. I have recently dug out heroquest and was thinking of playing a few games again, last time being over 15 year ago. When reading the rules I found a problem that I had forgot about from last time, I didn't have the Internet to ask 15 years ago tho

There are pit traps directly outside doors in the quest guide. The issue is player can only search the room they are in or visible passage. So they open the door and even if they stop and do a search, rules as written say they won't find the trap as they are not in the room/passage.

How do people rule this?

Thanks in advance.

Strictly by the rules: That is correct. They cannot search the room for traps, unless they are IN the room.

However, several people have suggested that as long as you are standing immediately outside the door, and there are NO MONSTERS in the room, you may (as a specific action) search the ONE square, just inside the room, but only the ONE square. If there is a trap, you may move onto it the NEXT round with the attempt to DISARM it. You must then proceed to search the rest of the room for traps, if it is desired to do so.

I just thought, perhaps a search of "all visible squares" makes sense.

I am running it soon for some newbie gamers, might just shift the traps 1 square on the map so it doesnt come up and we play to the rules, keep it simple for them.

Thanks for the advice though!

I've added the rule that if in a corridor (or another room), and the square beyond the door is in the searchers line-of-sight with no monsters in that room, then a search for traps will include that one square beyond the door as well as the current room, or corridor.