u/Venonomicon

🫀 THE HEART:

HeroQuest at its core, at its heart, has a few key elements that you should be mindful of, as these elements are what makes HeroQuest what it is.

🫀 DICE:

Six-Sided Numeric-Dice (D6) & Six-Sided Combat-Dice (CD), which are 1-2-3 Combat Dice (meaning they have 1 symbol on 1 side, a 2nd symbol on 2 sides, & a 3rd symbol on 3 sides), are the dice used to resolve events in HeroQuest.

🫀 BODY & MIND:

HeroQuest uses 2 statistics, Body for all physical matters, & Mind for all mental matters.

🫀 MAXIMUM ROLL:

HeroQuest provides you with 2D6 & 6CD, you can get multiples of these dice for each player for convenience, but you shouldn't ever roll more than 2D6, or 6CD.

🫀 NEW MONSTER QUANTITY:

If you're buying extra monster models you only need 4 of any type. The original HeroQuest quests had a limited pool of monsters so they go over this limit as they could sell you more of the same models cheaply as the tooling was made for them already, which is why Keller's Keep, & Return of the Witch Lord were released, it was a low-cost way to expand the game, but the bloat of identical monsters was boring in the grand scheme of things.

🫀 QUEST TREASURE ARTEFACTS:

Artefacts are items that are the exceptions to the established rules of HeroQuest. An artefact can go beyond the normal rules, & are fun for creative minds. Artefacts have no mechanical limits, but they are supposed to be as rare to find as the sword Sting was in The Hobbit. Keep artefacts rare, & special.

I have played English HeroQuest since its release in 1989.

The 1st Edition contains The Maze as its opening quest, & features Spears as a weapon type, as well as Traps in the Treasure Deck. (These were renamed Hazards in International HeroQuest 2021 to avoid player confusion over room traps & Treasure Deck traps).

All subsequent releases of HeroQuest, changed a few things for the sake of correction, clarity, or localisation.

American HeroQuest 1990 swapped out the spears for daggers, & changed the Equipment Deck for an Armoury Board.

Japanese HeroQuest 1991 changed the whole game, even making Grimdead the enemy rather than Morcar/Zargon.

There are actually 1000s of changes to the game over the editions, & regional releases, which is why it's nice to have International HeroQuest 2021 these days, as it attempts to unify the HeroQuest experience.

Still, even after 37 odd years, HeroQuest is basically the same at its core, with the Combat-Dice being the most iconic, & persistent practical element of the game, & the Body & Mind statistics being the most persistent mechanical element of the game.

It's for this reason that HardCore HeroQuest keeps to the Body & Mind statistics, & sticks with Combat-Dice, as without those elements, the game really isn't HeroQuest.

You can get everything done with very little if you are creative, & knowledgeable. You don't need multiple polyhedral dice, nor multiple different attributes to resolve game situations, you just need to use the tools that HeroQuest provides to their fullest, & your adventures can be as deep as any big-book RPG, with very little of the time, & financial commitment.

Suffice to say creativity is the greatest tool for any table-top adventure gamer, role-player, or war-gamer, & the systems within HeroQuest have never let me down.

The continental (international really) street market is on, & it's a very good little market with a nice selection of food from England, Mexico, Korea, the Philippines, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Jamaica, etc.

Additionally there are various festival knick-knack stalls with ponchos, bucket hats, jewellery, toys, trinkets, & even a legal adviser.

The event was a trial, & if they deem it a success it may become a regular feature.

Between 1989-1996 we played HeroQuest to the point it was uninteresting to us, as compared to Advanced HeroQuest, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer Quest, World of Darkness, & Cyberpunk, it was too simple.

We all loved HQ though, so we decided to modify the rules for our club in 1996, adding elements from other games that we liked, both table-top, & video-games.

Table-top inspiration mostly came from World of Darkness (1991), Vampire: The Masquerade (1991), & Werewolf: The Apocalypse (1992).

Video-Game inspiration came from The Elder Scrolls (1994), Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996), Diablo (1996).

Later inspiration was taken from Demon's Souls (2009), & Dark Souls (2011).

A key element of all of the inspiration for HCHQ is the use of fundamentally balanced, mathematically calculated systems shown in charts, & tables.

Above you can see some examples charts in the Diablo, Vampire: The Masquerade, & Dark Souls books.

With a balanced system beneath the fluff on the surface, the game is easy to scale. Additionally we use a decimal system for money, making things cost 100s, up to 1000, as it keeps the economy easy to manage.

We also have the conversion charts for automatic HQ enemy statistics generation by assessing the equipment represented on the models themselves. This is another example of why an underlying system is better for serious players than pulling ideas out of nowhere.

HQ was a great game for us as children, but as teenagers it had to grow with us or be left in the past. We decided to carry HQ forwards as HCHQ, & still today we play our way, the way we've enjoyed HQ for 30 years, the HardCore way!

My favourite English HeroQuest (1989) expansion is the classic Adventure Design Kit (1990), as it gave us the ability to create our own content for HQ without having to use a photocopier, scissors, & glue.

The ADK consisted of a booklet, blank maps, bigger character sheets, & stickers of the quest icons.

This was not the first time we were told to make our own content however it was the expanded version of what was presented to us in the 1st printing of English HeroQuest (1989).

Suffice to say making HQ into whatever suits you has always been part of HQ, & every official quest release by MB Games, & Avalon Hill demonstrate that the only limit to the Game System is your creativity.

That's a point that needs to be made, HQ is not just a board game, it's a board game that operates on a Game System, & that system allows infinite tweaking, modification, & transformation.

That's why HCHQ exists, it's part of the official HQ system, the same way all House Rules are.

As for the products, all Hasbro (the owners of MB Games, & Avalon Hill) wants from us is our money, so as long as we are paying for their products, they don't care what we do with them.

So prepare for some more mature High Adventure in a World of Magic in video format on YouTube... eventually.

I've been updating my HCHQ website, Sub-Reddit, YouTube Channel, & Discord Servers recently. They are all used as means to distribute my rules, but none are as good a tool for teaching as demonstration videos, a phone-call, or in person.

I am constantly working on the rules back-end, which is the mathematical systems, tables, charts, & basically all of the unglamorous, ugly stuff. That said, you need the underlying system to be sound before you can dress it up. The system is the metaphorical foundation, & without it, the game falls apart.

HeroQuest is a great starter game for teenagers, & it's my favourite table-top adventure game, but the game is very basic by design. It succeeds in its goal of being a family board-game, & to many people that's what HeroQuest is, a simple board game to play on a rainy day with the family.

For me however it's a hobby made of other hobbies. Playing games is a hobby, model-making is a hobby, painting models is a hobby, writing rules is a hobby, & writing stories is a hobby too.

I intend on doing a full explanation video for each element of HCHQ, how it was developed, why it was developed, & what inspired its development. I feel this will help make the obscure elements more understandable.

HCHQ is simple when you play it, but it can look confusing, & esoteric on a screen.

HCHQ is a way to play HQ for people that enjoy table-top games with hefty rule-books, & that want to use their HQ components for more than their simple use in HQ.

HCHQ is not actually complex to play, it's the same as HQ to play, but it offers a full set of rules for experienced table-top role-players to enjoy, & a mathematically balanced system beneath it that follows the lead that HQ set to its logical conclusion.

Longer YouTube videos are the intention, so expect them.

The HeroQuest Barbarian takes a trip to Lordran in Dark Souls, to show the local Undead Hollows the pointy end of his Broad-Sword!