Rumor HQ + D&D mix forced by Hasbro? HeroQuest needs such?

[HispaZargon]

Hi everyone, I think there is an important topic for the Fans Community which worries a bit. I guess worth to be discussed in the Inn, so I decided to open this thread.

Since weeks ago is being mentioned in media a bit frequent rumor suggesting that Hasbro has plans to officially link HeroQuest with Dungeons & Dragons franchise in a not too far future, making a kind of crossover, even directly continuing the HeroQuest story with one of the D&D contexts/worlds after the events of Crypt of Perpetual Darkness.

For me it is still just a rumor, nothing confirmed yet, but I would like to know the feelings / opinions you have about this topic because it is something being told and if true, surely it will introduce a big change in how we have understood HeroQuest until now, whatever how each one of us has understood it of course.

From my side, honestly my first thought is I don't like the idea. I have always seen one of the best things of HeroQuest is it is not officially part of any known fantasy universe, because it actually helps new players to be introduced to the game, even to general fantasy worlds.

As many of you know, it is true that I like to think that classic HeroQuest is part of the 80's Warhammer universe, however it has been always a personal decision which I feel confortable since I think in that case it makes me easier to take new ideas from Warhammer for my games. The classic game officially could be just considered 'loosely based in Warhammer World' but the game also allows you to consider that it is not if you want, like if HeroQuest was just 'another' fantasy universe different to any other one. This 'independent' concept of the original game I think was not casual and tried to make the game more accesible because it actually meant an implicit message for new players: they don't need to know anything about HeroQuest world before starting to play, no priori conceptual preparation required like in traditional RPGs for example, which as said is one of the strong things of the game in my humble opinion.

In the other hand we know the remake is for sure not further 'loosely based in Warhammer', so these questions came to my mind:

- Does it need to be based in other known franchise like D&D? Does HeroQuest needs something like that? Worth it?

- Why Hasbro does not try to better reinforce HeroQuest to make it a more powerful franchise, with his own fully independent story, creatures, lore, etc.?

Here I share some ideas how Hasbro might empower the franchise without merging it in D&D:

- Making an animation series based in HQ.

- Making videogames based in HQ.

- Making a HQ movie (animation or action live).

- Making new books/comics series.

- Making new expansions for the game based in the stories seen in the animation series / movie, even in the books/comics.

- Making official Advanced Rules for the game for those who wants 'more', but compatible with the basic rules. Those rules could improve the Amory, the Heroes Growth, the Magic rules, etc.

- Creating a new board, even an official system rules to play with modular boards for new expansions, even for solo play.

- Etc.


I think no one of the aforenentioned addons to the game need any approach with D&D, so if the rumors are true, and Hasbro finally decides to become HeroQuest as part of D&D, I have the feeling that it would only answer to business reasons, not to creative ones in any case, to increase the number of newcomers to D&D, using HeroQuest as a bridge between franchises by means of sacrifying a big part of the charm and uniqueness that HeroQuest has today and wasting forever the opportunity of making HeroQuest a bigger thing by its own, to just finish sunk in D&D as another one of its many worlds, probably... as a lover of HeroQuest of course it would be something I don't like, but what do you think? Thanks.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Granted that this is only a rumour, but this consolidation of products and their customers is a fairly standard consideration with big companies for financial reasons (a statement of fact, not a dig), so for me this kind of thing is an expected downside to any big company backed reboot (that has lots of upsides too like lots of new players), which is why I have always tried to keep my focus on the "Living HQ" that we have been constructing and debating here for 3 decades, take any advantages that we can from the reboot, but not become too slavishly tied to or too distracted by the shiny new version as that may well take a direction that we don't like or may be abandoned in a few months or a year or two because the profits drop, whereas I would like to think that "our" heroquest that has weathered a 30 year period without an official big company sponsor, will continue to thrive for many more decades after any official big company sponsor has long moved on...

[Vorimir]

When (if) D$D is in I'm out. Heroquest is Heroquest. Ill keep playing but my way.

[Kurgan]

I would want them to stay separate. It's one thing if there was a one off crossover, similar to what happens in superhero comics, but a permanent official tie, no. Let the two franchises do what they do. They're different games and little seems to be gained by combining them (HeroQuest being the smaller game, it would risk being completely overshadowed if it were part of D&D). If individual fans want to do that at their own tables of course, they have always had the freedom to mix and match.

D&D is a pencil and paper RPG, but yes it has also crossed over into the tabletop board gaming realm many times, with many attempts to duplicate what HeroQuest achieved for those several years three decades ago. WOTC and Avalon Hill are both under the Hasbro umbrella, so they have the power to do what they want but it all goes into the same pot in the end. Just let each subsidiary/imprint/whatever do what they do best. Best case scenario it's like JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis comparing notes and sharing ideas over a pint.

The "spiritual journey" Encarmine interview where he talks about the Monk to me shows that at least AH doesn't have this intention.

Now if there needs to be a future collaboration, I think it should be with GamesWorkShop. Bring the band back together, even if it's just for a single anniversary reunion album set.

[Vorimir]

If Greed Workshop is in, I'm out again.

[dreicunan]

A I said over in the discord, people have been putting D&D into their HeroQuest for a long time. D&D is just a ruleset, not a setting, so I'm not overly concerned about crossovers. Give me models to use and questlines that don't require me to do too much work to make them both lore and internally consistent, and I'm good.

We'll all ignore whatever we want to ignore and change whatever we want to change at our own tables anyway.

Rolling HeroQuest in as a potential setting for D&D doesn't really do anything to HeroQuest apart from making it slightly more likely for us to get a model to represent a talking skull named Morte...and I'd be 100% on board with such development. It would also give an interesting option for what to do when a player character dies!

And who knows, if they start looking at HQ as a potential source of proxies for D&D, it could also mean variant game boards to allow for even more map variety, or at least more tiles to shake things up. Perhaps they'll embrace HQ scale for their models moving forward. On the other hand, the fact that Wizards of the Coast already has an existing WizKids line in which the D&D environment is invested makes that all unlikely.

[cornixt]

I don't put much stock in this rumour, it's pretty much been flying around since the bard and warlock heroes were added but nothing else connecting HQ to D&D has appeared in any of the sets.

Would it be wise to connect them? Well, there are already a load of basic D&D beginner board game sets but I have no idea how well they have performed in comparison to HQ. I don't see them in stores very much. Turning HQ into a introduction to D&D doesn't really make sense because there are too many differences, I don't even know where Dread would fit in. I could see a retheme as more likely, just stealing the dice rolling and such and replacing the monsters with more typical D&D monsters that all thematically fit together. But to be honest I don't see it happening at all. Maybe a few more hints by adding D&D things in HQ, but not a full-on connection.

In the other direction, I don't see it likely that there will be more non-game franchise stuff for HQ. It's expensive to do and it's already a crowded field, they won't want to compete with themselves for the same money.

[LucaRocks]

I'm all for a DnD crossover expansion with minis for Drzzz and his panther (boss at first, later ally), a displacer beast, beholder etc... That would be awesome. And that one expansion could make available (and find uses for) a DnD set of dice.

But tying DnD into HQ is a bad move. I just had a player tell me they like HQ because DnD is way too complicated. And that's fair. I am Zargon and can't imagine how much harder it is to prepare a DnD game as a DM. HQ is foremost A BOARD GAME with all the strengths and weaknesses of the format. It's what makes it special.

Now if they wanted to make HQ transition into DnD as it did to Advanced HQ back in the day, that would make a lot of people leave.

[QorDaq]

Is there a "Source" for this rumor, or is this the same conversation that has been rehashed, as Cornixt points out, since the early days of HQ 2021+? I am genuinely interested to know if I've missed something specific that has lead directly to such a rumor.

It seems there have been other rumors that have borne out, such as future expansions and the like, which to me, have typically fallen into one of two categories. 1) based on retailer leaks that were not initially confirmed by AH, or 2) The logical suspicions of fans based on known information.

As examples I'll pose the following; In the case of category 1, almost everything that has been released post HasLab. And in the case of category 2, SQT, after the the original tease of PoT.

In the case of D&D, I don't feel that I've seen anything beyond fan discussions stemming from the introduction of Hero "Classes" (Not a thing in HQ, but that appears to be the basis for the argument), such as the Bard, Druid, Rogue, Warlock, and now Monk. Also the Knight in some editions of D&D.

To be fair, that's a lot of overlap with D&D classes, however, none of these to date have come with obvious (to me) D&D connections beyond the class names and general roles, which are somewhat ubiquitous to many fantasy tropes going back decades.

Now, for the sake of discussion, let us suppose it were true, and there is to be some future D&D connection to HQ (Or more likely the other way around).

First, I don't think anyone outside of Hasbro/ WotC/ AH, can begin to authoritatively say what that would look like. All speculative discussions about Marketing, the realities of production, cross brand coordination, content development, or budget schedules aside, since I don't think any of us are actually qualified to speak to any of that, has to be just that, speculation. Which is fine, we do that all of the time, but I don't think it means much beyond individual fans expressing their preferences and or fears--and to be clear I've done this myself at times, so I am not judging. But I don't think this qualifies as rumors.

Next, personally, I am not convinced that it'd necessarily be either a good or bad thing if a Crossover of some description were to occur. And here is why...

Currently we have all of the original NA content already represented, we have an announced iteration of a classic expansion from the UK edition (Ogre Horde, or whatever the final title might be--though I suspect Ogre Horde is likely accurate), and we have several all new products, not to mention a majority of the HasLab Mythic content dropping VERY soon. If Ogre Horde justifies itself in sales, I can imagine we'll see at least some form of Wizards of Morcar/ Zargon on the horizon at some point.

To me that means we have a lot of "Modern" HQ available at retail, or soon to be. It would also appear that the sales for HQ have, to date, been sufficient to support the brand for the time being. So I find it unlikely that any content related to D&D would be designed to supplant that. Could a new "Core" box themed around D&D, which adds an in-universe setting to HQ, like say, The Forgotten Realms or something, be possible? Sure. Would that directly impact our current pile of existing HQ? I don't see how.

To take a minor detour in order to demonstrate my thinking, back in the second half of the 2000's a little game called HeroScape hit the mass market retail scene. The "Multiverse" nature of the backstory and diverse unit types caught a lot of people's attention, and even if one were not particularly interested in the PVP skirmish nature of the rules, it was a great source for pre-painted minis and some very useful BattleTech terrain...er... Hex Terrain pieces for building game boards.

A couple of years in, Marvel became part of Hasbro's stable of potential IPs to work with, and a unique core set based on Marvel comics properties was developed and released to mixed fan opinions. At the time, while a new "Setting and theme" had been introduced, it did not replace the previous content for HeroScape. Some folks incorporated the Marvel content, some kept it separate and hoped for more Marvel, and some simply didn't buy the product. But it wasn't considered the new face of HeroScape, it was just another product in the line. Later, towards the end of HeroScape's run, a D&D core set was also added, and once again, while some fans groaned that HeroScape would turn into D&D, it was, in the context of all that came before, just another possible setting to play with, with more minis and terrain.

Unfortunately, HeroScape didn't last much longer, but I suspect there were other considerations there besides experimenting with Marvel and D&D. A suspicion I cannot defend with any authoritative evidence mind you, but I think discontinuing support on an outlying brand for any large company is probably more complex than fans are typically privy to the details of.

So, back to HQ. Let's say Hasbro/ AH were to look for a means to incorporate the D&D IP in some manner, be that as an expansion or even a full new Core box, would that automatically re-write the history of HQ as we know it, would it somehow force anyone to play HQ as D&D, or strong-arm any of us into dropping existing HQ content into a new D&D setting? Those are of course rhetorical questions, and the real answers are quite straightforward.

While I have no basis for asserting that were the Hasbro/ WotC/ AH, powers that be, to decide to add some D&D flavor to the mix, it wouldn't spell the end of HQ as we know it, I firmly "Believe" (an admitted sure sign of confusion of course), that this would not be the case. That D&D wouldn't inevitably and completely replace HQ.

I'll even go a step further here, and say that I would welcome some codified Dungeons and Dragons assets, were they designed with existing HQ mechanics... Characters, Enemies, Maps/ Tiles, Quests, all of it. Quite simply because these would by nature, be additional tools for me to add to MY sandbox game of HQ.

HeroQuest fans have added homebrew elements of D&D (and other games), for decades. Folks have also done their own thing with the toolbox MB and GW gave us back in the day, despite differences in regional editions, perceptions on the setting and/ or tone of the world HQ takes place in, or opinions on what any of it means, for just as long. Sharing ideas, assets, and mods with the community, and of course passionately arguing for and against all of it.

I really don't see that changing, not with the folks that are already engaged. As for arguments about the perceptions of what HQ is in the eyes of new generations of players, well, that's well outside any of our control anyway, and it will most likely change despite how tightly any of us holds on to personal bias' of what HQ is or should be.

There is no part of me that thinks, that even in a worse case scenario, where going forward all future HQ content is completely re-branded as D&D, and that somehow that kills the franchise, that it will or can take what's come before away from us, nor change what HQ means or has meant to anyone who has a history with the game.

Speaking, as always, strictly for myself, even should there be existing rumors which are steeped somehow in fact, and D&D (or any other setting/ theme) is to be attached in some form to HeroQuest, I'd frankly be curious to see what that looks like.

And to be clear, that is not in any way meant to discourage anyone from sharing their own takes on what it would mean to them. Quite the opposite, I very much support open discussions like this.

[HispaZargon]

Is there a "Source" for this rumor, or is this the same conversation that has been rehashed, as Cornixt points out, since the early days of HQ 2021+? I am genuinely interested to know if I've missed something specific that has lead directly to such a rumor.

It is true that it is an old rumor and I never got it seriously before, however I see now the rumor is growing bigger.

For example, if you check minute 14:25 and up of the following video, the speaker informs that the rumor was got by him from a former Hasbro's insider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmPs3cQIQKQ