Heroquest: Opinions needed!

[Infje]

Hello guys,

A friend of mine is really into Warhammer Quest. Ever since we gave it a try, we haven't returned to Heroquest. I know, blasphemy! It's not like the group doesn't like HQ anymore. It's just that the more you play it, the more you start to notice little things that even I have to admit. Luckily, we have this forum. A lot of problems were solved by adopting certain house rules (thank you all) and switching to the US version. However, both games still have pros and cons. I asked the group to come up with a list regarding HQ:

Pros: Simplicity, Monster diversity, Quests (campaigns), Furniture, Art

Cons: Game board is not modular, unbalanced, shallow characters, no real progression

I want to address these issues. But, it has been stressed out that HQ's strength and appeal is it's simplicity. Adding large amounts of role play or a extensive progression system would undermine that. So all changes I'm making will have to follow the principle of keeping it simple. So here we go:

The game board is easy. I'm just going to print one and cut it up. I can still use the original quests while having it modular.

Balance/characters are a tougher nut to crack. I already have several house rules to improve the Wizard (the weakest character) but the Elf would be more suited with a bow or a Rogue like character. The Wizard should be more of a healer for the party.

Progression is the biggest challenge. Because I don't want to go overboard with this. My initial thought is drop the shop all together. Make (better) equipment cards and make it so that players find it during the quest instead of buying it. Gold could be used to unlock levels and each level would boost the stats a little. I was also thinking about adding skills, like dual wind, cleave, frenzy, etc but that's probably going too far already.

Some other things I'm also considering:

Dropping Mercenaries.

No more actions allowed in the hallways (player will be given a warning, in case of a trap, that something's a miss). They can throw a die and depending on the result they either spring the trap or not. Secret doors can only be accessed from rooms. Each room can be searched for treasure ones and all the players will get one treasure card (to make up for losing the hallways). Furniture can be searched separately.

This thread is meant to discuss these ideas, share experiences/suggestions/etc. I value your opinions so please share them but keep the credo of simplicity in mind.

Thanks!

[Goblin-King]

While you COULD make your own HQ board tiles, why not just use the WHQ ones? They are very nice. It only takes a little improvisation from the GMs side to adjust the differences.
But then again, I don't really see why the board is a problem. If you are doing the official quests the board is easiest. If you make custom quests, just use the WHQ tiles.

And basically what I'm gonna do now, is ignore everything else you wrote. I think you are going about this the wrong way.
I am not a fan of power creeping everything to keep HQ fresh. By that I mean when you gain a new skill, but you also meet stronger monsters. You gain more gold, but find bigger treasures (edit: I meant: You buy more expensive equipment, but find bigger treasures).

In my humble opinion the art of HQ is in the custom quest making.
You can do a lot to really make a quest interesting besides just adding stronger monsters (which is actually some of the least interesting you can do)
Add some simple RP elements like the occasional NPC the heroes can react to.
Think about making quests like writing a thrilling short story. Give the quest a twist. Make the quest more of a story than a board game.
Basically, make the players beg to play next quest because they want to know what happens next.

Maybe add actual puzzles.
You feel the players max out too fast? Well, add some monsters with rust spells. Or just take their stuff away like in the quest where they start off imprisoned.
Maybe kill of a hero once in a while (for more info on this call 666-chaoticprime)

You asked for my opinion, that's what you got

[Infje]

Appreciated Goblin King. I've got enough tiles but I'm using the original ones so I can stick to the quests. I could change the original quest layouts, but one thing at a time.
For the record: I love the game. I just want to iron out the wrinkles.

[Patroclus]

Cons: Game board is not modular, unbalanced, shallow characters, no real progression

Actually with this board and the system with the blocks you can make almost every quest you can imagine.
The good about HQ’s simplicity is the balance. The monsters have only attack, defense, mind and body. Your custom monsters could have the same stats with the original (you have to give them some skills to make them unique) and that is bad, but you can’t say that the American rules are not balanced.
About shallow characters, I can’t say that you are wrong. But if you remember your first game, it was exactly what you needed. A character to grab and start the game. After that you’ve finished all the original quests, and you had enough experience to make some tweaks. I don’t expect this from MB to do it. They’ve made the basic system and have teach you how to play, the rest is yours.
I agree with GK about progression. In ad&d there were rules about being a god. In HQ you are only a hero. You are killing monsters and complete quests. This is your role. I am playing a wizard of 2 Defense for years, and I don’t want to get 4 Defense and stand in the center of the room fighting with 4 chaos warriors without having a wound. I don’t expect any progression either. Progression have not fun. It’s true, that for time to time I am changing some spells, but I don’t get better spells, I am taking different spells.

I want to address these issues. But, it has been stressed out that HQ's strength and appeal is it's simplicity. Adding large amounts of role play or a extensive progression system would undermine that. So all changes I'm making will have to follow the principle of keeping it simple.

You should add roleplaying if you like. It’s an adventure and not an action game like crossbows and catapults. Put as many npcs as you like, as many traveling as you like, special rooms with extra rules (e.x. the room starts to fill with water, you are moving with 1 square per round, etc.)… but don’t put extra abilities to characters like intelligence, or components to cast spells like AHQ, these things will ruin the simplicity of the game.

Progression is the biggest challenge. Because I don't want to go overboard with this. My initial thought is drop the shop all together. Make (better) equipment cards and make it so that players find it during the quest instead of buying it. Gold could be used to unlock levels and each level would boost the stats a little. I was also thinking about adding skills, like dual wind, cleave, frenzy, etc but that's probably going too far already.

I am not so sure about making better equipment cards. The equipment in HQ is just to give you the attack and defense, sooner or later your heroes will choose to have one of the following setups:
1: Attack 4/Defense 4 (two handed battle axe, chainmail and helmet)
2: Attack 3/Defense 5 (long sword, chainmail, helmet and shield)
3: Attack 3/Defense 4 (longbow, chainmail, helmet)
This is HQ… Some people have made more equipment with special abilities. But I suggest you to focus on new skills and potions. In our group usually we are looking the miniature and give the weapon that it holds without buying it. But we are paying gold to skills and potions so there is some improvement from campaign to campaign. (For the skills give them 3 tokens for each, so they won’t overuse them)

[Sjeng]

I've also switched to the US version mostly, NA quests, NA cards, mixed monsters though, some houserules. As long as my group is happy, that's fine with me.
And between HQ and Zombicide, we've got our gamenights filled for years to come.

[IvenBach]

I feel that after the 1st quest the heroes have way too easy of a time killing stuff. My group equipped the dwarf with a crossbow and he was 1 shoting everything he saw in quest 2 and 3. I have found that adding extra rooms and/or secret rooms (my group habitually searches for secret hallways every room and corridor) makes for some more interesting games. Quest 2 added a slow moving Gargoyle that would have killed Ragnar if they hadn't taken point and end up killing it. Quest 3 was a secret room in the room next to the weapons rack filled with 5 rats and a 3 AD skeleton with diagonal attack [there was some balking at that]. Quest 4 was only a minor room since they pulled wandering Fimirs and pit traps (I lay a put tile down whenever they pull those ) constantly from the treasure deck. I'm not abashed to adding extra monsters or giving them some extra stuff to figure out.

I've already introduced some roleplaying without telling them. From quest 2 in the secret room they found 2 blue potions. I won't tell them what it does but you can get an idea of what it does from quest 7. I made slight modification to it and they'll just have to be brave and drink it. Depending on how your players are they may be open to modifications that you make. For whatever reason my players balk whenever I make any modification but I just smile at them and keep on gaming when they dislike it. It all depends on what you want and how your players take things. Hope my idea and example can help.

[Infje]

Perhaps your suggestions are better then trying to reinvent the wheel. I want to keep it as pure as possible and as mentioned, the American version balances a lot of things about. I'm going to mess around with some small stuff and see where it gets me. Thank you all. If anyone else have thoughts to share, please do so. Or perhaps you want to share some of your house rules regarding equipment, heroes, etc?

[Daedalus]

One houserule I favor is weapon damage, found in this thread. It slows progression, thus keeping the base monsters more useful for a longer time. Thrawn's advancement system with skills is also worth checking out.

[RemyT]

The best we can get is apply the AHQ rules to the HQ quest. Basically I'm just keeping the map from heroquest and play with AHQ rules. If you wan a random dungeon you could choose to pick up some "events" of the HQ quest and put it in the AHQ dungeon.
AHQ is really a great game (this problem with sitting at the door is'nt really one as it's the same thing in HQ). The major problem is the design of the whole thing that stops you before you even scratch the surface of the game.
After a few plays it becomes really fast and simple, even with the tables everywhere.

Cheers,
And sorry with the mistakes, mispelling ... I do my best but it's probably not enough for your english eyes