Do the quests take too long?

[ken]

We will let him go to shop at Shaw's. With someone else.

Is that where Zebs' gets his woolly jumpers

[Pugahla_272]

good luck to all trying to find groups intrested in playing HeroQuest

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Someone mentioned the fact that the trial took them 3 hours to finish.
That is way too long for one quest. I noticed this problem as well. We all
tout the HQ game for its simplicity and ease of play, and yet the quests
take, usually an hour or more (typically on the more side) to get through.

An interesting thought, I would say for a family game you should probably be aiming at 60 minutes, potentially up to an absolute maximum of 90 minutes (depending on the age of your players this may be shorter 45-60 minutes), the 90 minutes may be reasonable for a "grand finale" quests. I'm thinking of the Game System in particular here (and maybe KK and ROTWL) as some of the later expansions may take much longer, 2-3 hours isn't unrealistic for those but I wouldn't consider that a problem as if your players have got that far then they are dedicated and have probably aged as a result.

I have one occasional gaming group, consisting of "retired" players, generally family that have grown up, and a few guests who gather for a one-off quest or a double quest in holiday seasons (Boxing Day/New Year's Day generally) and these can take 2-3 hours but the excess is purely down to chin wagging and throat lubrication and cannot be blamed on the game!

It would be interesting for us EWPs to time and post some durations (particularly Game System quests, excluding set up time and any between quest purchasing at the end) - the more dedicated could even video the sessions and do some in depth analysis...but back to the main thrust of the topic, suggestions to reduce the time taken

1) Quest Design - I'm currently "polishing" the Game System Quest Book and will be looking to tweak where possible to make them a touch more punchy as there are definitely some quests that need trimming down (PM's Gold) as there is a lot of wasted time - obviously you need lulls in the action to ramp up for the next piece of action - but an hour long slog to get out of a dungeon once you have completed the objective is a real fun killer! On that note the Trial is fine, but not as the first quest, as the first quest will always take longer as players (and potentially the EWP) are new to the game, so the first quest should be shorter, drop the Trial to before Barak Tor the First and you'll find it doesn't take anywhere near as long!

2) Turn off the telly and amputate mobile phones

3) Look at some of the suggestions on combining searches, if you don't already combine Secret Doors and Traps into a single search action then that might help, personally I have gone further and merged search for traps and secret doors into movement, and limited Search for Treasure to rooms only and once per room (not once per hero per room) which is definitely results in a smoother experience which keeps up the momentum

4) Use of a dice tray, saves time when rolling dice and reduces time wasted through knocking over pieces, finding the dice, recovering them from under the sofa and similar

5) I use tokens to represent Body points and Cards for all Equipment which removes the need for character sheets and the related locating pencils, crossing things out and scribbling notes (which does add up)

6) EWPs, get yourselves more organised pre-game, nothing kills momentum like the players sitting there whilst you hunt through the box for the right figure / token / furniture piece (I'm sure that doesn't apply to any of us!) maybe lay them out in piles as part of set up, along with laying out furniture and common monsters on the table top (special monsters I leave in the box to avoid spoiling the surprise). Related to this a thorough reading through of quest notes, prior to the Quest helps prevent delay, along with being familiar with the rules (my house rules are more consistent than the official rules which means less looking up of those obscure variants that are similar to but subtly different from other rules so don't stick in your mind). I also use trap reference cards and special "named" monsters have their own cards and I used to use a quick reference sheet for any rule I had to look up during play, so I didn't have to do it again.

7) Introduce a timing penalty, such as EWP cards or a similar mechanism, to gently nudge players into moving along - personally as a EWP I use a Wandering Monster rule,- by rolling a combat die at the start of each of my turns and if a is rolled then a WM is placed

I appreciate that a lot of these points seem obvious and minor, but implementing a number of them together, keeps the momentum up and collectively makes a substantial difference.

Finally, returning to Quest design, another thing that bugs me (and I'll be polishing this too) is the amount of variance in the time taken to navigate a dungeon, Quest objectives hidden behind secret doors so you have to waste half the session back-tracking and re-tracing your route and searching over and over, long looping dead end paths - more back-tracking - and especially in some Quests were you can have 4-5-6 alternative paths (fine) but only one leads to the objective meaning that a game could take 20-30 minutes or 3 hours depending on the paths the players choose, I'm all for exploration and alternative paths but keep the dead-end paths short and ensure that alternative paths still lead back to the main path / objective without endless barren passageways leading to turn after turn of roll and move, roll and move and on and on

[Pelkone]

12 years, an impressive timespan for threadomancy, heh However, the question must be as relevant today as it ever was.

Even though we're rather new HeroQuestors, our small playing group has already implemented all these time-saving tricks, mentioned in the very first reply to this topic.

1) Combine search for traps and secret doors into 1 search.
2) Only allow 1 treasure search in each room (most people do this anyway).
3) Fix movement for heroes at 7 squares.
4) Design shorter quests.
5) Stop the quest when the objective is complete (and all visible monsters are dead).

As well as this;

4) Use of a dice tray, saves time when rolling dice and reduces time wasted through knocking over pieces, finding the dice, recovering them from under the sofa and similar

We have quite enjoyed pen-and-paper character sheets. With some games, there's so many chits and counters that your gaming table tends to look like a lair of a crazed philatelist. We are also using a bunch of other house rules, so I made completely custom sheets for my players to include reminder texts about those.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I am certainly a threadomancer, possibly The Threadomancer but just remember the golden rule "don't call up that which you cannot put down"!

There is a thread specifically about combining / reworking search that actually comes to a conclusion Search – The Binding Topic which may be of interest and the end result condenses searching considerably

Fixing Hero movement to 7 squares, I'm definitely not a fan of fixed movement for heroes but again there is a decent thread Is 2 red dice for Hero move best? about the merits of various movement mechanisms for heroes, fixed, standard variable, variable by hero type.

I'm currently polishing the Second Edition Game System Quests and would appreciate your feedback, once I have produced something of use (currently using hQuest Builder to recreate the originals which I'll share before "polishing" them, one at a time) but this will include some tweaks to shorten and in some cases end when the action is over.

And you are quite correct about the "lair of a crazed philatelist" effect, great line, but I have eliminated the need for the character sheet by adding only 2 or 3 new token types:

Skull Tokens (NA Edition players already have these) to track monster BP loss and I use them to manage poison attacks also
Tokens - Gold (10): Each represents 50 gold coins for use when dishing out gold found in treasure chests
Tokens - Green (30): Used to track Hero Body Points, dished out at the start, removed when lost, returned when restored

So crazed, possibly, but not so many extra tokens

[Pelkone]

The thread about searches was quite a good read, and even though it comprehensibly highlighted the many problems of the search actions, most of them could (and in my humble opinion, should) be hand-waved away. We've played the combined trap/hidden passage search in a way that a Hero searches the entire area of their line of sight, no matter how many squares away, and is able to do this without moving. So, multiple traps on a row or a hidden door beyond traps do not present problems. And traps right behind doors are just the Dungeon Architect being cheeky.

The driving force behind most HeroQuest house rulings (whether tweaks to official rules or complete homebrew mechanics) should be kept sufficiently light so as to not to disrupt the flow of the game too much. It could be argued that HQ should not be seen as a tactical RPG, but rather a hack-n-slash on a tabletop.

Concerning the randomized movement, I think Avalon Hill's suggestion to keep the 2d6 movement in combat, but to give every Hero a fixed move of 8 when no Monsters are on a board is a good enough solution. We've used a combination of fixed 4 + a roll d6 if Monsters show up in the middle of a Hero's turn. Some people probably like the idea of different movement values for different Heroes. Our group has agreed that the the Dwarf is just so enthused to get into action that he manages to keep up with the Elf, so everyone moves the same.

Have you tried using d6 for tracking Body Points? We did that a lot back in our Gloomhaven days.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

The thread about searches was quite a good read, and even though it comprehensibly highlighted the many problems of the search actions, most of them could (and in my humble opinion, should) be hand-waved away. We've played the combined trap/hidden passage search in a way that a Hero searches the entire area of their line of sight, no matter how many squares away, and is able to do this without moving. So, multiple traps on a row or a hidden door beyond traps do not present problems. And traps right behind doors are just the Dungeon Architect being cheeky.

The driving force behind most HeroQuest house rulings (whether tweaks to official rules or complete homebrew mechanics) should be kept sufficiently light so as to not to disrupt the flow of the game too much. It could be argued that HQ should not be seen as a tactical RPG, but rather a hack-n-slash on a tabletop.

Whilst I agree with this entirely as a principle, it was only when I developed and play-tested the new Search rules, more to see if and how they worked in practice and motivated by curiosity, rather than any intention to do a full rewrite (my original intention was only to tweak), that I found that the new version is lighter, smoother, more consistent, easier to learn and apply, and reduces time taken/wasted during quests, whilst retaining all the good stuff in searches (Treasure Deck), and drastically reduces the boring back-tracking when you realise you've missed a secret door at some point in the last 10 rooms and passageways so can't now reach the objective to mention some of the advantages, there are more!

Oh go on then, seeing as you didn't ask, another advantage is when you get the "rush to search the room first and grab the treasure" situation and the first player gets a trap ends his search attempt, so the "loser" actually ends up getting the treasure, is a great equaliser and a great twist.

Once I tried it with my players there was no going back, and they retrospectively realised that the official rules did disrupt the flow of the game. Try it and you may see what I mean (or you may not )

Concerning the randomized movement, I think Avalon Hill's suggestion to keep the 2d6 movement in combat, but to give every Hero a fixed move of 8 when no Monsters are on a board is a good enough solution. We've used a combination of fixed 4 + a roll d6 if Monsters show up in the middle of a Hero's turn. Some people probably like the idea of different movement values for different Heroes. Our group has agreed that the the Dwarf is just so enthused to get into action that he manages to keep up with the Elf, so everyone moves the same.

I didn't quite understand what you meant by the "combination of fixed 4 + a roll d6 if Monsters show up in the middle of a Hero's turn", so if you opt to "take the 8" as there are no monsters on the board, move 5 squares, open a door revealing a monster, then you...roll a red die and deduct one to determine your remaining movement?

Have you tried using d6 for tracking Body Points? We did that a lot back in our Gloomhaven days.

For tracking Hero or Monster BP loss? For monsters I like the skull tokens as they can be stacked under the figure so it saves space when you have a few and keeps it clear which monsters the skull tokens apply to, for heroes, it is an option that I considered but there is something "real" about having to discard your Body point tokens, literally throwing your life away, which really appeals to my players (or really doesn't appeal, if you see what I mean).