I've been stealing the resources of this site for about a year now, so it's about time I gave back. I started playing HeroQuest in the late 80s when my brother got it for xmas, and it became my introduction to the world of fantasy gaming. I moved on to Warhammer and didn't really think much of it for a while. Since my brother had two copies of each Orc and Witchlord exxpansion, I convinced him to give me a few of the models so I could make a BloodBowl team. Another decade on from that, late last year, and my kids are really interested in games. What better way to introduce them than HQ? I printed out tiles and fitted them into the standard HQ board shape, made lots of furniture out of card, raided my model collection for appropriate pieces while waiting for the Bones II Kickstarter to deliver (only a few months to go now!). It was a huge success, with the kids eagerly making their own quests (albeit fitting as many goblins as they can into every room).
As usual, I am not content with a game unless I have handmade something for it. Constructing the whole set from cardboard was not enough. Then I came up with the idea of a quest generator. Rather than using a series of tables, I figured that a deck of cards would be nicer - showing the layout in a way my five-year-old could understand. So I made it. Those who follow the HQ forums at boardgamegeek.com have probably seen it, but for those who haven't it is called CURD and it is here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/10160 ... uest-cardsStill this wasn't enough. The HeroQuest rules were just too full of gaps and restrictions, and none of the homebrew rules on here really addressed the problems in the way I wanted. So for the last few months I have been in the process of writing what I call Two Page Dungeon Crawl. It is based on the HQ rules but with my fixes, which handily fit onto just two pages without shrinking the text down into tiny writing. I've already fleshed out the fantasy supplement that contains all the specifics for fantasy quests (also no more than two pages, but could instead be replaced by a deck of cards) and I have modern day and future supplements partially done. Another two pages of "advanced" rules in the works too (everything has to be two pages only; no more, no less!). It's 95% compatible with HQ quests but open enough to work with whatever bits you have. CURD is being adapted for this game.
As if that isn't enough, I am mulling over rules for an antagonist games master who actively tries to get the dungeoneers to fail, and/or making it GM-less and having players take turns to control things in a set way. All that in time.