Can you play without Zargon

[phoenixcinder]

Is this game possible to play where everyone plays a hero and no one has to be Zargon?

I want to play this game cooperatively, not 1-4 people against one. Years ago when I tried D&D we spent hours building out our characters. Finally on the first play one guy rolled some crazy rare roll and pretty much instantly killed his character he spent hours building. He lost his *lemony goodness* hardcore, before any of us could react he already jumped across the table and tackled the DM. By the time we got to him he already plowed his fists in the DM's face 3 times and broke his nose.

So the whole one person pulling all the strings doesn't sit well with me.

[knightkrawler]

HeroQuest is a man's game.

[Pancho]

Funny you should ask. I came up with a way to do this just this morning. I've been toying with an idea for solo play for the official quests/expansions for weeks now, and I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with. It was only today that it dawned on me that it could work well with multiple players and no Zargon. I'm happy because when my son is old enough we can both explore Heroquest dungeons together without me in my evil wizard form having to Slaughter his Heroes (I don't like to play with kid gloves on).

The only problem is that it will still require work to prepare before games, an hour or so for each quest that I will play. It will also require that I have a longish lay off between preparing the quests and then actually playing the quest itself, otherwise I will remember where all the quest objectives are. Now that I write that, it sounds like a pretty big flaw. I think that any method of playing without Zargon/solo will be flawed in some way.

Let me know if your still interested and I'll explain it in detail.

[The Admiral]

Use the Advanced Heroquest dungeon generation system with Heroquest rules. Players alternate controlling baddies?

Play Original Warhammer Quest?

[Pancho]

He lost his *lemony goodness* hardcore, before any of us could react he already jumped across the table and tackled the DM. By the time we got to him he already plowed his fists in the DM's face 3 times and broke his nose.

I've had some games like this. I regularly play with two brothers who are always at each other's throats and the rest of us drink quite a lot so it usually degenerates into trouble.
I won't let this lot near my HQ collection. We mostly play strategy conquest variants of A&A's, risk, diplomacy, etc, where tempers often boil. It's easy to play the brothers off against each other though

[knightkrawler]

I do play alone sometimes, as Morcar AND four heroes.
When I do I try to be fair insofar as I try to make hero decisions as per character whenever possible; I try to find roles and act like it for the heroes.
I might not always manage to have a weighted game, but it's still fun, especially when I playtest my rules this way.

[Anderas]

Do it myself when I want to test something. The only problem are the traps, the rest works quite ok.

Maybe a Morcar app could do it all right, revealing room by room and throw in a trap event once in a while if they forget to search...

[whitebeard]

I used to play cooperatively as Zargon (and the Dwarf and Wizard ) when we first got the game and my son was 5 years old. Those were great times becausd it was just the two us. If you get 3 players, then Zargon can control a hero and it is "okay." You just cannot go first...

But the game was really meant for a separate EWP.

HQ is all about the quest customizing the rules. So I recommend you create a set quests which do not require the EWP. I think the best you can do in this case is some kind of WarhammerQuest system adapted for HeroQuest. Quest 10 in my DungeonsDark expansion (Silver Labyrinth = WHQ Silver Tower) is a quest that can effectively be played without EWP. Of course your players should be champions of the original 14 quests to attemp this. But reading it could give you some ideas.

The other cool thing about HQ is that the heroes are premade, and dying is often more fun than winning! We don't name the heros, and they are assigned to different players every session.

[phoenixcinder]

EWP?
Evil Wizard player?

[whitebeard]

EWP?
Evil Wizard player?

Since he has 2 names, we agree on Evil Wizard Player (EWP)