I received a copy of Hero Quest (1989) for
my birthday when I was 11. A product of Milton Bradley in conjunction with
Games Workshop, it was designed as a tool for introducing young people
to the concepts of role-playing games, but with minimal amounts of the
play-acting and dramatic storytelling.
Hero Quest consisted of
a board, and a collection of minis and frogs, along with cardboard
tiles and specialized diced resolve combat. The combat system was
loosely based on Warhammer Fantasy Battles, with various icons on the
dice representing one and six, two and six, and three and six chances of
success on a d6 roll.
The symbols were variously a skull to represent a wound (3 in 6), a shield to represent a hero deflecting an attack (2 in 6), or
a skull to represent a non-heroic unit deflecting an attack (1 in 6).
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| Original 1989 box |
The System
Players
chose from one of four units to be there player character, a barbarian, a wizard, an elf, or a dwarf. The barbarian, of course, had
starting equipment that boosted their combat ability, and eight hit
points p. Elves and dwarfs headache middling sex hit points. The elf had
limited spell casting ability, while the dwarf started with unique
abilities when attempting to disarm traps.
Magic was handled
with a deck of 12 cards with three cards per suit, with four suits representing the
four classical elements. Wizards could pick three elements and use those nine
cards once each during the session, file elves got the remaining
Elemental three cards.
The game master takes the role of Zargon, the
evil sorcerer. Whenever a new room is accessed, Zargon puts the minis in
that room in play, lays out the room, and States any important details
about it.
On a player's turn they roll 2d6 to move up to that
number of squares, and they may take an action. They may either move
then act or act then move, but they may not bank movement points so that
they can move, act, then move again.
Aside from attacking or using magic, Player Characters can
search for treasure, secret doors, or traps on their turn. If they
search for treasure, any preset treasures designated by the module are
found first. If none are present, or they've already been found, the
player May instead draw cards from a treasure card deck, which also
includes traps, wandering monsters, and other hazards, making treasure
hunting perilous, but potentially rewarding. A character may only
search a given room once.
If they search for traps, the GM will
point out any squares that have a trap for a location. A dwarf, or any
other PC who happens to be carrying a toolkit may attempt to disarm or
spring the trap. With slightly different mechanics for the dwarf
disarming versus the humans or else disarming it. A character may also
choose to jump over a square that they believe is trapped by spending
extra movement and rolling a die to see if they managed to successfully
avoid triggering the trap.. secret doors are revealed automatically the
first time my player searches.
On Zargon's turn, the GM may move
each monster up to a total of its listed movement rate, and may make an
attack. At the beginning of some scenarios, Zargon is issued spells
from a "dread spell" deck that he can choose to cast as one monster's
actions during his turn. Like the player character spells, once a dread
spell has been played once, it is gone for the rest of the scenario.
Hero Quest contained a
book of scenarios with 14 adventures. It indicates we are to lie down
tiles that show where there's solid walls a player character may not
cross, and where to lay out doors, set pieces, and monsters each time a
new room is explored. Or if other special circumstances are met
described in the scenario.
Player Characters could persist
between scenarios and use gold earned in the dungeon to buy gear that
increases their attack and defense dice or gives them the ability to
attack diagonally or at range. There was a notepad of custom character sheets included.
A Player Character who is
reduced to zero body (hit points) has one round to drink a healing potion on
their person or be given one by another player or subject to a healing
spell. Otherwise they are out of play for the rest of the scenario. While
the game has consistently said that such characters are killed, the
player May play another character of the same class with all of the same
equipment and achievements under a different name starting in the next
scenario. Why the game even bothered saying the PC is dead instead of wounded and
unable to continue is merely stylistic.
When I was a kid and still had the game, two expansion sets were released with a book of an additional 10 scenarios and some additional cards and minis. Keller's Keep, the first expansion was not distributed in Atlantic Canada to my knowledge, but the second expansion Return of the Witch Lord was given to me as a gift a month after receiving the game.
Shortly
after I received this gift, and the expansion set, my family took a
vacation and Halifax Nova Scotia, and my brother and I played through
all 24 scenarios that were available to us in a single long weekend. It
was immense fun and I still had fond memories of it for years
afterwards. Occasionally we would replay it, and I turned my hand to
designing my own scenarios eventually.
By 1990 a third expansion Against the Ogre Horde was released, but it never saw release in my province, and the game had waned in popularity in North America. I have never seen a copy of Advanced Hero Quest - the expanded game - in person. Outside of North America a fourth expansion Wizards of Morcar (a regional re-name for Zargon in the UK and Australia). Two North American Expansions: The Frozen Horror and The Mage of the Mirror came out in the early 90s, but as with the other expansions, suffered poor distribution in Eastern Canada.
Re-Release
In 2021, Avalon Hill (which was is currently a Hasbro Subsidiary)
re-released hero quest. They promised nearly identical gameplay to the
original, but with higher quality materials, and a few mild tweaks. I
just received a copy for my 45th birthday and have played several
scenarios with my wife and children.
This is being great family
fun! We've seen a lot of laughter and a lot of smiles, and even my
youngest son, who doesn't like Dungeons & Dragons for being "all battle"
(which may be true as his brother plays it) has really enjoyed this
Lo-Fi dungeon crawling skirmish game.
There's something about
the miniatures, the set pieces, and the overall design aesthetic of the
game that makes it a great gateway drug into role-playing games, and a
fun experience even if you're an advanced player of such games.
However,
the re-release of the game did come with a substantial hike and price.
At present the board game costs about a $150 CAD. And when
Avalon Hill first released it, it's lack of availability in Canada meant
that you nearly had to pay that again ($112) in shipping costs.
So what has changed, and how do they justify that immense price tag?
I
will start by saying that the quality of the miniatures is
substantially improved. They are incredibly finally detailed, with
multiple variations on orcs and goblins with different weapons and
clothing, even different sexes in order to add a little variety
visually. Each piece of miniature furniture is a more finely detailed
version of the ones that you received in the original box back in the
90s.
Divorced from Warhammer
The game has divorced itself from the Warhammer Fantasy
universe. The Fimir which represented the highest level of non-human
living opponent has been replaced by an "Abomination": a piranha like
fish man that evokes HP Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth. References to
the forces of Chaos have been replaced by references to The Dread, and
the "Chaos Warriors" have been renamed "Dread Warriors" and given a slight
cosmetic change from the classic Chaos Warrior design of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
Names of specific places have been substituted for generic non-Warhammer
places in the read-aloud fiction, as well.
The Minis
The only minis that
come left on sprues are random pieces of bones for scattering around the
map, and most of the miniatures have been filed and finished after
being moulded, although a couple of my goblins retain nubs from where
they've been cut out of their sprues. They are printed on a fairly
sturdy and high quality plastic that feels heavier and slightly
more durable than the minis I had as a kid.
Box and Printed Props
The artwork on the
cards remains the original artwork, although the cards feel somewhat
higher quality in their printing. Much of the artwork on the box and in
the books is a repainting of the original artwork slightly tweaked to
more modern aesthetic and design.
The game box itself is massive
and heavily reinforced. Unlike the original release which simply gave
you a large enough box of pile The minis in, this box comes with a pair
of lidded vacuum-formed trays for holding your dice, minis, and card,
with a glossy colour printed card-stock slip case to go over the trays
with copies of the box art.
Most of the cardboard tiles remain
the same, but they have replaced the cardboard door standies with
plastic minis of open and closed doors.
I do not recall if there
was a GM screen with the original hero quest. I seem to remember
needing to hide my scenario book, or use the one DM screen I owned as a
kid, which was the removable slipcase cover for Under illefârn, but I
have 34 years of memory leakage to work through on that front. The Avalon Hill release has a GM's screen with cool artwork and a table with all of the monster statistics present on the back.
As far as my memory serves me the scenarios remain unchanged, and the game rules remain essentially the same. They have tweaked magic selection so that the Wizard picks one element first, then the Elf does, and the Wizard gets the remaining two.
My Thoughts
In
other words, it is a beautiful game with highly detailed many of the
higher end of quality for moulded plastic. Everything is sharply
detailed, and pleasing in the hand as well as to the eye.
Overall
I'd say that it has been a substantial improvement in the quality of
the physical product. And the game remains quite fun. I'm very satisfied
with it, and, I consider it worth the purchase has a way to share a favourite old game with my sons, and help my older one work on his
teamwork skills while introducing the younger one to the joys of fantasy
gaming.
Is worth noting that all of the original expansion sets are
available, and new ones are being released, giving the game a means to
substantially extend its replay value, and the rule book also offers better guidance on
designing your own scenarios than it used to.
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