by chaoticprime » June 28th, 2013, 9:53 am
In the NA version, you lose all of your *lemony goodness* when the party gets wiped out. Required Artifacts can always be found again before they are needed, and money is plentiful enough to buy new stuff per epoch. When I play the Evil Wizard (which is always--I have not played a Hero since 1991 or so), I win against the Heroes about every third Quest. I play "rules-as-written." My very favorite tactic is to lure the Heroes into the various traps by having Monsters lead them. I also try to keep "Kite Goblins" around--they stay out of easy reach, but to make it harder for Heroes to Search out traps while in hallways. The most important number on the Goblins' stat card is the "10" for its Movement Squares.
Killing Heroes when there are no other heroes in the same room or corridor, is my top priority, however. That instantly removes all their equipment from the game. I have found that any measure taken to prevent these kinds of losses just wrecks the balance of the game. The rules give the Evil Wizard player freedom to make changes, however, the player is not a Dungeon Master--the Evil Wizard is not trying to give the Heroes a hard time so they'll appreciate their gains more, he's there to kill-the-crap out them because that means he wins the game.
Most fans of the game that I have met have never even played the game as intended. Its not a role-playing game, its a board-game about feeding generic heroes into an abattoir of hilarious misfortune. I almost never fail to kill at least one Hero each quest. Its usually the Wizard.