HeroQuest World

[Bareheaded Warrior]

You pick out some key geographical locations that are common but I'm not convinced of your logic that these demonstrate that the two worlds are the same;

[*]"Borderlands" - is a term in common usage defined as "A borderland or borderlands are the geographical space or zone around a territorial border" in the UK we have at least two areas referred to as the Borderlands, so applying your logic would mean that HeroQuest is set in the real world?
[*]"World's Edge Mountains" - is used in the setting for the Pathfinder RPG, which is based on the planet - Golarion, but I have no reason to believe HQ is set on that planet

Warhammer (Fantasy) and Warhammer 40,000 have far more common points than HeroQuest and Warhammer (Fantasy), and whilst originally Games Workshop originally stated that these "share the same universe" (Rick Priestley March 1987 White Dwarf Magazine #87), I understand they were later retconned to be separate universes, that said I was never really a "Hammerhead" and haven't touched anything Warhammer for 30 years, so I have no idea what the current status is, but if GW can't seem to decide definitively on whether their own products share the same universe, then I would certainly take their opinions around MB's product setting with a pinch of salt!

[Kurgan]

I was kind of done with this topic (until Ash's video)... and I don't have the exact release dates, but it's worth remembering that Advanced HeroQuest came out the same year as the first edition of HeroQuest (which was not a UK exclusive, contrary to some popular belief) and the EU editions of Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord (the NA editions I grew up with of all these did come later... GS in 1990, two expansions in 1991). The GWS logos were proudly on all these boxes across editions from what I could see (would have to double check the Brazilian edition because even though all of the minis were cardboard and even some of the furniture, they still bore designs that appeared in White Dwarf magazine and from the art of Gary Chalk that was prominent in WHFB 3rd edition so having the logo or an acknowledgement to them would still make sense).

There is also a popular belief that there was some kind of "rupture" between GamesWorkShop and Milton Bradley (Hasbro the whole time). I think some of this has been fueled by various comments over the years implying some "drama" between Stephen Baker and (possibly) Brian Ansell over who "invented" HeroQuest (not legal claims, but as to who had the greater influence on the game that we eventually got). I think this has been exaggerated by fans and it's going to be hard to get the real story on that because the modern company (Avalon Hill, a subsidiary or imprint for Hasbro Gaming since 1998; some of the info on wikipedia is not correct apparently) is not trying to burn any bridges and according to Chris Nadeau they maintain cordial relationships with the teams over at Takara (who did the '91 japanese edition of heroquest) and GamesWorkShop (responsible for all things Warhammer). The way Chris Nadeau (Encarmine to those in the fan community) tells it, the GWS people were happy to sit down and iron out what needed to be renamed or removed from the HQ lore because they were 100% behind HQ getting re-released (far from the image some imagine of them dragging their feet or having some kind of animosity towards Hasbro). Is that a leader putting the best PR spin on a situation possible, or reporting true facts? Some of us can remain suspicious but I don't personally have a reason to think anything other than to take him at his word on this. Whatever possible drama that might have hit the internet at various times (hard to verify as the comments are being translated from other languages or appear anonymously in comment sections) can't necessarily be projected back to those first years. It seems like they had an amiable relationship and GamesWorkShop continued to support HeroQuest with references in White Dwarf magazine for years AFTER AHQ came out (in case some imagined it was some kind of attempt to "distance" themselves from MB and go off on their own; see issues #134 & 145, also Marvel Winter Special, all from 1991). EU second edition didn't remove any GWS references and it was released across Europe in 1990 (the "Advanced Quest/Master Edition" was just 2nd edition plus the mega-quest poster and extra mercenary miniatures for use in "The Dark Company" in '92). Miniatures that were explicitly GWS designs even appeared in the 1992 expansions "Mage of the Mirror" and "Frozen Horror" (then known as the Barbarian and Elf Quest Packs specifically, Dwarf & Wizard packs were planned for the following year once again featuring GWS designed minis alongside original ones --their non-release seems to have coincided with the general closing of the franchise, rather than any "break up" or blow up between teh two companies that we know of... HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil was the last official HQ product that I know of that was released two years later and it was a computer game so there weren't any plastic minis to license but the artwork on the cover and in the booklet are very reminiscent of the hero artwork from classic HQ). There was also that collab between the two companies ("USopoly" or whatever it is called is regularly licensed to create those themed versions of various Hasbro games and was involved) for Warhammer 40,000 edition Risk just a few years back. I don't have proof but I also wouldn't rule out future collabs between the companies, even though there are plenty of fans who have problems with GWS these days (to be fair, there are plenty of fans who have problems with Hasbro these days as well!). So without strong evidence being presented I am now very skeptical of this popular fan theory (which I once accepted without question since it was so often repeated) of the relationship between the two companies.

Also, I don't see "Warhammer Quest" going away either, despite the remake retail release of HQ. Now if someone has hard facts and evidence to disprove my interpretation bring it on (even if it's beyond the scope of this thread).

I think the GenCon interviews proved to me that legally speaking they are two separate universes NOW (in the eyes of GWS and Hasbro), but in terms of what HeroQuest allows in terms of rules, any players can decide on their own to insert whatever imagination or lore they want to into those deliberate "gaps" and ambiguous areas of HQ lore for their own fun. If you read Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd Edition core rulebook (much like the Rogue Trader Warhammer 40K book which recently had a re-release in limited print on demand quantity), you'll see that at the time, GWS was very open to allowing their players to toy with the Lore universe, and introduce their own miniatures from other IPs with their own customization... the only caveat being that the other player(s) at the table have to agree to allow it. That may not be true these days (I can't say for sure, not being a Warhammer player) at official shops or tournaments of course, but there you go. The intention back then was that you could do whatever you wanted, meaning make HQ completely canon within Warhammer (even if you didn't own Advanced HeroQuest which says you can use HQ assets in it and gives rules for them). The modern game, from Hasbro's POV is official NOT Warhammer, but you are free to insert anything (or nothing) from Warhammer into it if you wish. This to me goes beyond merely being unable to stop players from modifying their game, but actively blessing their freedom to do so. So I wouldn't be so strict to say "oh you're using the classic set, that means you can refer to WH lore, but if you're using the 2021 edition you have to stop that right now!" From a game players standpoint, anything goes (if the GM approves).

My take on this well worn topic today is that I am pleased to look at those other materials (from AHQ, WHFB/RPG, Battlemaster, etc) and if I see something cool in there that I think fits into my headcanon, I'll use it. If not, I feel free to ignore it. It's like with those script drafts that have cutting room floor material for HQ. Some of it may not work, but some if it I think is a cool source of inspiration. It wasn't meant for the final game, but it COULD BE and it is at least in the right ballpark if someone wants to use it! I don't think it's very reasonable to imply someone isn't a "true fan" of HeroQuest UNLESS they obtain all this Warhammer material and digest it (granted, most of the OOP stuff seems available on the internet even without pir8ing it, but via fan wikis and things -- certainly trying to own much of that stuff is way too rich for my blood!) just to add it to their game. Nor would I say that you have to EXCLUDE that stuff to be a "real fan" either. It's personal preference, like it always was, really. If anyone wants to hate me for that, have at it, I'm over it.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I was kind of done with this topic (until Ash's video)... and I don't have the exact release dates, but it's worth remembering that Advanced HeroQuest came out the same year as the first edition of HeroQuest (which was not a UK exclusive, contrary to some popular belief)

Both came out in 1989, HeroQuest first, Advanced HeroQuest after

There is also a popular belief that there was some kind of "rupture" between GamesWorkShop and Milton Bradley (Hasbro the whole time).

I can't speak for others, but I'm not suggesting any form of rupture, just a creative tension and conflicting MOs between MB and GW.

[*]MB's Standard MO = Family Board Games - relatively simple, to include a mixed younger audience and their parent, not too expensive, short session playing time 60-90 minutes, minimal book keeping and reference tables, shorter set up time and so on

[*]GW's Standard MO = Promote Sales of Miniatures (where the profit lies), One Size Fits All Rules & Stats (the basic 43333137 style stats bank that in theory at least would mean you could play a force of Fantasy Dwarfs backed up by a Leman Russ tank, against a Genestealer Cult Necromunda Hive Gang backed up by Daleks for example), Amoeba-like Universe (absorbs everything from Moorcock, Tolkien, Own Brand, Judge Dredd, Dr Who, Howard, Lovecraft and many many others into a single seamless blob - or at least the seams are not obvious at first glance).

Personally I'm not a fan of the one-size-fits-all ruleset or the amoeba-like universe, although I admire their ability to pull it off, but mainly because I have always been more of a "specialist game" person and spent the late 80s, early 90s on more skirmish (30 miniatures) sized games from HeroQuest, Space Hulk, Block War (my own Judge Dredd miniature war game later influenced by Confrontation), Renegades (my own Fantasy Skirmish Warbands Game), Blood Bowl and even Warhammer 40,000 but only the earlier skirmish versions limited to conflict between Space Marine forces and these games do not have nor need the massive breadth of the common Warhammer System and World, but that is just my preference and clearly I'm in the minority and am happy with that.

The original 1983 Warhammer game "Warhammer The Mass Combat Fantasy Role-Playing Game" whilst including RPG elements that reveal the origins of the company, had the original remit of producing a set of game rules for mass miniature battles that would be given away free of charge by mail order as a way to to promote the selling of miniatures. The profit was in the miniatures not the game "books" even when they were packaged and sold.

The latter 1987 Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader had a similar remit and included rules for all the "sci fi" miniatures that Citadel produced at that time, including those from the Judge Dredd/2000AD universe, the Whoniverse (Doctor Who) and many many more disparate parts.

MB knew more about producing mass market family board games and GW/Citadel were experts in miniatures (and as it transpired were probably better at game mechanisms too, it was a common misunderstanding back in the day, possibly due to the name, that "Games Workshop" was a company that made game components as opposed to games). I suspect MB relied more on GW than they initially expected and so allowed a bit more leeway in the direction of GW preferences for HQ to be embedded in their world (and world view - look at AHQ stats banks compared to Warhammer) in order to act as a gateway into their mass miniature game(s) than they originally planned, it was an evolving situation.

To be clear I'm not criticising either company, both "approaches" were clearly successful as both GW and MB (at least in its modern form) are highly successful companies, so they were both right, I'm just explaining that their different approaches were to a certain extent, conflicting and whilst some game designers and other creative types may lament constraints that are placed on their creative juices (if only I had an unlimited budget...) the fact remains that many great games are great precisely because of the conflicts and constraints that they were forced to operate within and the designers innovative ways of working within the constraints, and not despite them. HeroQuest is a great game because of that creative tension and constraints involved in the MB-GW relationship, without either of MB or GW, HeroQuest wouldn't have been the great game that it is, and I suspect that this is proved by Advanced HeroQuest (HeroQuest without MB) selling less units than HeroQuest (although I don't have any data to back that up)

[HispaZargon]

Doesn't matter how many times I read about this topic, it is always interesting for me.

I will not enter too deep in the topic, because I am not actually sure what is the topic being discussed now, but here are some pills to boost (even more) the debate:

If you check White Dwarf #115 there are two sentences quite intersting which I think are responsible of many legendary fan theories (or not theories) about the authority of HeroQuest and why Hero Quest and Advanced Heroquest can be considered part (or not part) of the same Universe:

- Page 33, above: "Hero Quest has been developed in collaboration by MB Games and Games Workshop, using the talents of game designers Jervis Johnson and Steve Baker, and artist John Blanche, plus the skill and creativity of the Citadel Miniature designers to produce a unique boardgame"

- Page 35, middle: "Advanced Heroquest, designed by Jervis Johnson, is Games Workshop's new 3D replay hobby game, complete with board and Citadel Miniatures. As well as being completely self-contained, it is fully compatible with Hero Quest, and your Hero Quest characters can be easily transfered to Advanced Heroquest to continue their adventures." (this text is again repeated in White Dwarf #118, page 47)

If you also read Stephen Baker's interview from magazine Games Review Monthly from 1989, there SB gave us a lot of clues about how the MB game was developed. The original idea he had was creating a boardgame with modular board, complex rules and character growth... typical aspects of a RPG, however once he started to work with MB he noticed it was too complex to be played by kids and he re-oriented the design principles of the game to a more simple one, because the final target was the mass market. Meanwhile, GW contacted MB and collaborated in the project of Hero Quest but at the same time they developed their own game, which was Advanced Heroquest. It is a coincidence or not that Advanced Heroquest used a modular board and was more close to a RPG in most of the aspects? I don't think so, I think it was more a cards exchange of ideas between Stephen Baker (MB) and GW, each one in their own market, which was really different (SB explains it very well in the interview, MB was for products in malls and mass market, however GW made hobby games, and Advanced Heroquest was such kind of course), but all the parts took their benefit of this exchange.

How far went GW in the development of MB's Hero Quest? We don't know, maybe they just provided the aesthetic, the miniatures and the illustrations, or they gave a lot of guidance to SB to develope the rules and the lore, who knows, but the reallity is that in White Dwarf #115 & #118, GW says that Jervis Johnson, one of the most famous games designers ever from GW, collaborated in the design of MB's Hero Quest, true or not it is written there and nobody complained about it so probably it was true. This does not mean that Stephen Baker was not the author of the game, for sure he was the principal one, who had the last word of probably everything about the game rules and all its core aspects, and he was for sure the guy who gave the very first idea to MB about developing the game, however I think he was not the only conpetual author, GW designers were there too. Nevertheless, for sure it was a win-win collaboration between MB and GW, I have never thought they were competing, Hero Quest and Advanced Heroquest were games for different public, and they knew it since the beginning. Morevoer, many kids (like me) knew about GW, Citadel Miniatures and Warhammer stuff thanks to our Hero Quest board game back in the day, and year later we played Warhammer games.

The collaboration between MB and GW I think formaly finished at mid or end 1993 for board games development (video games Hero Quest rights were different if you check public patent databases). The reasons are not clear, but I am quite convinced that GW was the Company which didn't want to continue the collaboration because it was something they were not further interested. I think there were Company internal reasons for it, GW Directives changed in 1990/1, and also market reasons, the new Fourth version of Warhammer Fantasy Battles arrived in 1993 without fimirs and new lore different than the one which 'was supposely based' Hero Quest (3rd Edition), and first Warhammer Quest was going to be released just two years later. At the same time MB market probably reduced their sales because of the new wave of domestic videogames explosion (Super Nintendo, MegaDrive, Game Boy, etc...) and they couldn't afford the miniatures production by their own without the support of GW and mantaining the low production prices for the mass market, and probably other legal reasons were not compatible with the idea of continuing the brand by their own. So the brand got to its end, unfortunatelly, but for me makes sense attending to all this stuff (an many other reasons for sure).

[b_0]

You pick out some key geographical locations that are common but I'm not convinced of your logic that these demonstrate that the two worlds are the same;
[*]"Borderlands" - is a term in common usage defined as "A borderland or borderlands are the geographical space or zone around a territorial border" in the UK we have at least two areas referred to as the Borderlands, so applying your logic would mean that HeroQuest is set in the real world?
[*]"World's Edge Mountains" - is used in the setting for the Pathfinder RPG, which is based on the planet - Golarion, but I have no reason to believe HQ is set on that planet
...

The identity of those locations are expanded upon later in the maps which correspond to the warhammer world. A later connection in maps coupled with matching names is a stronger case than mere correspondence of names with no other connections.

The relevant maps can be found on another post here: https://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5504#p106613

In that post, there is a sentence near a "map included in two of the HeroQuest novels: the Screaming Spectre, and The Tyrant's Tomb":

"The HeroQuest World is loosely based on the Warhammer World..."

The book seems to have been produced by Hasbro. So not only is there a connection from a GW perspective(per the AHQ rulebook), but Hasbro also seems to acknowledge a connection (though a looser connection). They said it is "loosely based", but in saying that, they tacitly admit that it is based on the Warhammer world, however loosely it may be.

If it is based on the Warhammer world per GW and Hasbro, then it would seem unlikely, if not unreasonable, that the locations are not the same.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

"The HeroQuest World is loosely based on the Warhammer World..."

This precisely illustrates my point

The material for the original version(s) of HQ, for example, the First Edition game system material, the Fellowship of Four book material, appears to have very tenuous connections to the Warhammer World. Later publications RotWL, Screaming Sceptre etc show an increasing connection, even to the extent of rewriting original maps (for example, the description of location and travel in Fellowship makes no sense in the context of the later maps).

I find it unlikely that MB was 100% for the immersion of HQ into the Warhammer World and GW were 100% against it, so for me this suggests a stronger influence from GW as time progressed.

However the inclusion of the phrase "The HeroQuest World is loosely based on the Warhammer World..." implies to me that they are NOT the same world but have shared or common material. I have never come across in any GW material from AHQ, WQ, WRFP, WFB where it states that any of the material, maps or otherwise are "loosely based on the Warhammer World", why? because they are not loosely based on the Warhammer World, the world they are describing = the Warhammer World, so by extension, the HeroQuest World does NOT = the Warhammer World.

Hence my vote for "No, the guys from Greed Workshop wanted it to be, but this was not the intention of MB, who own the game" as this is the closest match to my position, although personally I wouldn't have chosen the term "Greed" Workshop and would have inserted the word "original" before "intention".

As I mentioned before, I found the poll problematic as you only get one vote and I also agree with the "No, they are two different worlds, and that's that. Any similarities are due to the fact that the same people created the backgrounds and re-used some ideas" statement.

They are two different worlds with some shared ideas that later became more connected, although still only loosely, through Games Workshop's increasing influence but at no point were they one and the same world.

[b_0]

"The HeroQuest World is loosely based on the Warhammer World..."

This precisely illustrates my point

I think I need to back up. When you said :

...but I'm not convinced of your logic that these demonstrate that the two worlds are the same;

I failed to mention that I think you are taking my arguments in too strong of a sense. I'm not saying there is an "exact" correspondence of worlds from the MB perspective(though I think there is from a GW perspective).

I had leaned towards "Yes, they are essentially the same, but we musn't feel obliged to adopt everything from WH to HQ.
Though I would use "essentially" more in a sense of "basically" with exactitude as it's antonym.

I'm under the impression that the view which asserts different worlds is largely held due to preferential bias. From the MB side of things I think there is a situation where the glass is partially full and partially empty, but more full of Warhammer than some would like to admit. From the GW side it is full(a point which shouldn't be taken alone but which at least adds a little bit to the big picture). The biggest difference between worlds is probably found in the level of disdain for the manufacturer of those worlds, and maybe also in disdain for some of the content in one of the worlds. I understand why there is a motivation for many to distance from GW, and I don't think that is an unjustified motivation. Your reference to certain locations in the world and the pathfinder RPG as alternate location possibilities for HQ locations, whilst GW is listed on the HQ box as part of the development team, seems to demonstrate a kind of straining or stretching to distance GW from what seem to be their obvious hallmarks and footprints. If one just can't know what the "worlds edge mountains" refers to because some other party not involved in the development of HQ may have used that term somewhere else, one might as well assume that the references to Chaos and Fimir are coincidental as well since chaos is a common word, and Fimir might conceivably be a nonce word MB concocted in an uncanny coincidence. The Warhammer style goblins might as well be presumed to be from middle earth since middle earth is not Warhammer, though even GW's LOTR middle earth goblins look different from the Warhammer & HQ goblins. On second thought, since GW is connected to LOTR, maybe D&D goblins would be a better alibi, though they look different as well. Or better yet, lets just pretend these are unique goblins to HQ, and that they are only coincidentally similar to any other goblins they are identical to (especially in the case of GW's warhammer goblins). There is bias when silence and ambiguity are taken as difference rather than as a lack of information, and when similarities are automatically assumed to be coincidence. I think it's fine to exercise that kind of bias for the purpose of being imaginative with game play, but I don't think it pertains to an objective view of reality.

I have never come across in any GW material from AHQ, WQ, WRFP, WFB where it states that any of the material, maps or otherwise are "loosely based on the Warhammer World", why? because they are not loosely based on the Warhammer World, the world they are describing = the Warhammer World,

You are using an argument from silence, which is a fallacy. But the fact that you call them the same warhammer world, while there are discrepancies between warhammer games where they lack an exact correspondence with each other between games and editions of the same games, helps the argument that HQ and WH are the same world because it accepts the lack of exact correspondence.

[cornixt]

I would think that Hasbro wanted to not be accidentally be creating canon events in the Warhammer World, and GW certainly wouldn't want that. Plus they get to do things that aren't constrained by having to line up with Warhammer - there can be conflicting things and events. But they do get to keep as much of the rich background as they like, so people feel like these adventures are occurring in the world they know rather than some unknown fantasy world.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

You are using an argument from silence, which is a fallacy.

There is bias when silence and ambiguity are taken as difference rather than as a lack of information, and when similarities are automatically assumed to be coincidence.

I am not using an argument from silence, I'm stating that those texts are set in the same world so it would make absolutely no sense for them to state that they are set in worlds that are loosely based on each other, and they don't state that. "Loosely based on" implicitly means not one and the same.

I don't have any bias against GW, as I stated before the HeroQuest game would have been much poorer had they not been involved.

And I wasn't assuming that the similarities are coincidental, they clearly aren't, I was merely pointing out that just because similarities exist, doesn't mean that the two worlds are one and the same world.

The term similarity by definition describes two different things that have aspects that resemble each other, in much the same way that discrepancies between the description of the world in WFB and the description of the world in WFRP doesn't alter the fact that they are both set in the same Warhammer world.

The original HeroQuest release in 1989 contained no maps, and when Dave Morris started to write Fellowship based in the HeroQuest world he had to draw his own maps as no map existed of the HeroQuest World in 1989

Some time later, a change was made so that the HeroQuest World would be "loosely based" on the Warhammer World (for which maps had existed since 1983), and this was confirmed in 1991 by the map included on the back of the RotWL expansion and the map and declaration that you have mentioned from Screaming Spectre (3 Dec 1992) and beyond.

However this was a later change in position to the HeroQuest World being loosely based on the Warhammer World, which means that the original 1989 version of HeroQuest was NOT set in the Warhammer World or even a World loosely based on the Warhammer World, that came later.

As I have said before the wording on the poll is unfortunately ambiguous, as "essentially the same", could be taken to mean "one and the same" as under the first option, or could be taken to mean different worlds that have so much common that they can be considered as essentially the same world, or as you term it "basically the same world", however for me that is a much stronger connection than Hasbro's term "loosely based" implies.

So I stand by my position that the original HeroQuest world was not one and the same world as the Warhammer World, and that subsequent versions of the HeroQuest world were not one and the same as the Warhammer World but were "loosely based on it", at no point were or are they one and the same world.

[b_0]

I am not using an argument from silence

I did misread something of yours which was a valid point. My apologies.

however for me that is a much stronger connection than Hasbro's term "loosely based" implies.

I take Hasbro's statement along side GW's statement, since they were both part of the game development. Although I think Hasbro would have more weight in a statement, I think GW's statement and intention should at least weigh in some. Even if Hasbro did not mention a loose basis at first, GW having their own intention of a full connection during their involvement with development means that there was always a level of basis in the Warhammer world. Figuratively, if DNA from both companies produced a child, the parent with legal custody would be hard pressed to deny all senses of familial connection to the other parent, especially when the child bears clear resemblance to that other parent. HQ always had his father's fimir, chaos, aesthetic, and place names, but HQ's father was not related to HQ until the mother with custody said so and gave him some of his fathers old maps?