Designer(s) Stephen Baker Age range 10 and upwards Random chance Dice rolling | Players 2 to 5 Playing time | |
Publisher(s) Milton Bradley
Games Workshop | ||
HeroQuest, sometimes also written as Hero Quest, is an adventure board game created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop the game was based loosely around archetypes of fantasy role-playing games: the game itself was actually a game system, allowing the gamemaster (called "Morcar" in the original British version and most localizations, but "Zargon" in the United States and Canada) to create dungeons of their own design using the provided game board, tiles, furnishings and monsters.
Contents
- History
- Characters
- Gameplay
- Movement
- Combat
- Spell casting
- Searching for traps and secret doors
- Searching for treasure
- Game end
- Expansions
- References
Several expansions were released, each adding new tiles, artifacts and new monsters to the core system.
History
Games Workshop worked with Milton Bradley to produce HeroQuest (1989) – an adventure game where the players cooperated against a single adversarial Games Master. HeroQuest was created by Stephen Baker, who worked for the UK division of Milton Bradley (MB). The game was released in Britain, Europe and Australia around 1989. It was released in America and Canada in 1990 in a slightly different version. In 1992, HeroQuest won the Origins Award for "Best Graphic Presentation of a Boardgame of 1991".
The game consisted of a board and a number of individual miniatures and items. The protagonists were 4 heroes ("Barbarian", "Dwarf", "Elf" and "Wizard") who faced a selection of monsters: Orcs, Goblins, Fimir, Chaos Warriors, a Chaos Warlock/witch Lord (which represented many of the named characters for the various quests), a Gargoyle and a number of Undead—skeletons, zombies and mummies.
Many expansions for the game were published, starting with Kellar's Keep, released in Europe and Australasia in 1989, and The United States & Canada in 1991. Kellar's Keep added new quests, new items and artifacts and a further batch of monster figures – more Orcs, Goblins and Fimir. Released shortly in the same years was Return of the Witch Lord which extended the undead with more skeletons, mummies and zombies.
The publication of expansion sets was then split between the Europe & Australasian markets and the North American market. In Europe & Australasia, Against the Ogre Horde was released in 1990, and included Ogres, a more powerful monster type, while Wizards of Morcar was released in 1991, themed around the addition of enemy wizards.
In 1992, the United States and Canada saw the release of two sets of their own: The Frozen Horror, with a snow and ice theme, featured a lone "Female Barbarian", Mercenaries, Ice Gremlins, Polar Warbears and a pair of yeti as well as the "Frozen horror" of the title, while The Mage of the Mirror had an Elven theme: Female Elf against an evil Elven Archmage, Elf warriors and archers, Giant Wolves and Ogres.
A HeroQuest Adventure Design Kit was released in Europe in 1990, containing items to help HeroQuest players design their own quests, and an Adventure Design Booklet was published with 4 sheets of adhesive labels and with an 80-page pad of a new design, larger character sheet. There was also a blank quest map printed in the middle of the original game's quest booklet for creative players to make their own adventures.
HeroQuest Advanced Quest Edition (also known by the German version name "HeroQuest Master Edition") was released later with 12 added miniatures ("black guards") with 4 kinds of detachable weapons and a new 13 part adventure "The Dark Company" in addition to the original contents of the basic HeroQuest Box.
3 HeroQuest novels were published: The Fellowship of the Four, The Screaming Spectre and The Tyrant's Tomb; and the HeroQuest computer game adaptation was released in 1991, forcing Sierra On-Line to rename their Hero's Quest series to Quest for Glory. A version of the game for the NES was developed to a prototype stage, simply named "HeroQuest", but never released. A sequel to the PC titled HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil was released in 1994.
Advanced HeroQuest was a revised and expanded version of the HeroQuest game. The basic concept is the same: four heroes venture into a dungeon to fight monsters and gain treasure, but the rules are more detailed and complex.
Characters
The four player characters offer a choice of gameplay. The Barbarian and Dwarf allow a more combat-oriented game, while the Wizard and Elf can cast spells. The artwork and miniatures of each character are standardized, but the equipment stats vary somewhat from this basic portrait.
Gameplay
The game is played on a grid representing the interior of a dungeon or castle, with walls segmenting the grid into rooms and corridors. One player assumes the role of the evil wizard character (Zargon/Morcar), and uses a map taken from the game's quest book to determine how the quest is to be played. The map details the placement of monsters, artifacts, and doors, as well as the overall quest the other players are embarking upon. Quests vary and include scenarios such as escaping a dungeon, killing a particular character, or obtaining an artifact. The evil wizard first places the entry point on the map – usually a spiral staircase, although on some quests the players enter via an external door or begin in a specific room. The map may also specify a wandering monster. This is a monster that may enter the game if a player is unlucky while searching for treasure.
The remaining players select their character from the four available. If the wizard is chosen while the Elf is not then the wizard player may choose any three spell sets. If the Elf is chosen while the wizard is not then the Elf may choose any spell set. If both the wizard and Elf are chosen then the wizard chooses a spell set first, then the Elf chooses a set and the wizard gets the remaining two sets. The players may also start the quest with items collected on previous quests, such as extra weapons, armor, and magic items.
The game begins with the evil wizard reading the quest story, to set the scene for the game about to be played. Starting with the player to the left of the evil wizard, the game begins.
During a Hero's turn, the player can move before or after performing one of the following actions: attack, cast a spell, search for traps and secret doors, search for treasure.
Movement
Players roll two standard dice and may then move up to that number of squares. A player does not need to move the full amount of the roll and can end movement at any time. Players may move over a square occupied by another player if the occupying player grants permission, but may not occupy the same square. Doors, monsters and other objects are placed on the board by the evil wizard player according to line of sight. Once placed on the board they are not removed unless killed, thereby providing a steady stream of monsters for the evil wizard player to utilize.
Combat
Combat involves special dice bearing skulls and shields. The character players and the evil wizard player use the same dice, but the evil wizard player has a smaller chance of rolling his specific shield. The number of dice used is determined by the basic statistics of the player or monster, whether they are attacking or defending, plus any modifiers due to spells or items being carried. The dice have 3 skull sides, 2 'Hero' shield sides and 1 'monster/Zargon' shield side.
The attacker attempts to roll as many skulls as possible, and the defender as many shields as possible. If the attacker rolls more skulls than the defender rolls shields, the defender loses body points according to how many skulls they failed to defend. If a character's body point count falls to zero, they are killed and must be removed from the game. If there is a fellow hero in the same room or hall when the hero died, that hero may then pick up all weapons, armor, gold and any artifacts. At the start of the next quest a new hero can be created and then given all items. If the hero dies with no other hero in the same room or hall then the monster collects all items and all are then lost forever.
Spell casting
Spells can be cast by the elf and wizard characters, and some special monsters played by the evil wizard. Spells can be broadly split into offensive, defensive and passive varieties, and their use and effect varies greatly. Some must be played immediately before attacking or defending.
Searching for traps and secret doors
There are four kinds of traps in HeroQuest – pit traps, spear traps, chest traps, and occasionally falling rocks. Of these, only spear traps and chest traps do not appear on the board as they are activated only once and then they have no lingering effects. If a pit trap is not discovered and a player walks over it, they fall in and lose one body point. The pit will remain in play as a square that may be jumped over. A falling rocks trap will cause a rock slide tile to remain in play as a square that must now be navigated around, much like a wall. A quest may also contain secret doors which allow alternative routes to the objective or access to secret rooms containing treasure or monsters.
A player can only search for traps and secret doors in the room or corridor they are currently standing, and only if there are no monsters within the room or corridor. When this happens, the evil wizard character indicates where any traps may be and places secret door objects on the map. Trap tiles are only placed onto the board once a hero trips the trap. It is important for players to remember where traps are once they've been revealed.
The dwarf is the only character that can disarm traps without the aid of the specialized kit which is either bought in the armory or found during certain quests.
Searching for treasure
In a similar manner, players can search a room for treasure if no monsters are in the room. On some quests, searching for treasure in certain rooms will yield a particularly valuable artifact. More likely, however, the quest will not have specified any treasure for the current location and instead a treasure card is taken. Out of the 25 Treasure Cards, 6 are Wandering Monster cards and 4 are Hazard Cards, making a total of 10 "bad" cards that get put back in the deck when discovered. There is also a chance that searching for treasure may trigger chest traps that were not disarmed, or cause monsters to attack, usually a Gargoyle already in the room that does not move at first and cannot be harmed until it does move or attacks a Hero.
Game end
The game ends when every player has either returned to the spiral staircase, exited by a door or been killed by the evil wizard. If the objective of the quest has not been accomplished then the evil wizard character wins. Items collected during the quest may be kept for future quests. The quests usually form part of a longer story, especially the quests which are part of the expansion packs.