Event deck for HeroQuest

[SamuelF]

Those familiar with Space Crusade might remember the 'Alien Event' deck. This was a card that the alien player drew at the start of his turn that essentially threw lots of crap and a few goodies at the Marine player. There was also another rule associated with this deck. When you came to the last card, that was it... Done.. Game over.

This scenario only very rarely happened however, and wasn't really an issue due to Space Crusade being less of an exploration game and more of a hunt-down spatter fest. The event cards themselves add a fun random element that make the alien player feel like they have a little more to do, and make for some great tension in the game.

The cards here are an extension of the event deck idea into HeroQuest. It contains a few cards beneficial to the heros, and more than a few that are not . The idea I have at present is that the the deck is shuffled and an 'Ending Card' is placed on the bottom. I have two ending cards at the moment ('Undead Army' and 'Overrun'), and the idea is that they remain in play if drawn.

The cards:
HQEvent01.jpg
HQEvent02.jpg
HQEvent03.jpg
HQEvent04.jpg
HQEvent05.jpg

They haven't been play-tested yet but shortly will be (I'll get back to you on that in my next post hopefully). I'd like to know if I have the right balance of good and bad cards for the heroes, and if the text is clear enough for others to understand. I'm hoping that the Ending Card idea injects a sense of urgency into the game, whilst not being so dramatic as the 'Game Over' scenario.

I'd love to hear what others think. Ideas for new cards or ones from my list that should be scrapped or re-written would be very welcome.

Tired now, off to bed. Will be on hols for the next week or so, so will get back to you on the play-test then. Have a cool Easter everyone!

[BobbieTheDamned]

Some nice event cards there, I like the 'end game' card idea a lot. Your set seem much kinder to the players than the set Mortis was using last time

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Excellent stuff!

Adding a event deck to HeroQuest is something I've been considering for a while and I will no doubt be using some of your ideas in my own Event Deck when I get round to making one.

Just to clear something up quickly before I go any further: my custom deck(s) that Rob mentions is a series of linked Treasure Decks (like the cards in DungeonQuest) which I'll talk about in detail another time.

Anyway a Space Crusade style event deck is a great idea for HQ!
The first thing I'll recommend you add is something that I felt the Space Crusade's 'Alien Event' deck lacked; a few 'Nothing Happens' cards. Having a different special event happen each turn will certainly make for an interesting game but can lead to too much going on at once.

Another way to tackle this problem is to (instead of drawing a card each turn) only draw a card when a certain situation comes up, for instance if a double is rolled for movement or if there are no monsters in play at the beginning of the GM's turn. Warhammer Quest's 'Event Deck' is drawn from if a 1 is rolled in the Power Phase (a part of the turn that determines how much magic is flowing through the dungeon) and the rules for some rooms will also instruct you to draw an Event Card upon entering (in WHQ this is called 'triggering an event'). The latter might work quite well for HeroQuest, draw an Event Card whenever the Heroes enter a new room. Another suggestion for determining when to draw an Event Card (which I've used in Space Crusade before) is rolling a dice at the begging of each players turn and having them draw an event card if they roll a 1 or 2.

Also having 'triggered events' as opposed to drawing a card each turn means the GM could prepare an adventure by picking a small deck of Event Cards along a similar theme from a vast collection to create a series of 'planned' events that would happen through out the adventure.

Yea! The 'Ending Card' placed at the bottom of the Event Deck is an excellent idea and would certainly add some tension to the game as the players watch the dwindling stack of cards disappear, knowing something big is coming. This reminds me of how the Objective Room cards work in WHQ and is a very nice mechanic, allowing a GM to prepare a deck certain number of cards to be drawn before all hell breaks loose!

Here's a quick list of ideas for alternative Ending Cards

+ DragonStrike! - in TSR's DragonStrike a Dragon appears on the board after set number of turns and normally leads to the heroes making a mad dash for the dungeon exit. This would be very easy to adapt to your Ending Card mechanic

+Night Fall – Dungeon Quest (also known as Drakborgen to Swedish among us) used a similar mechanic to Dragon Strike to track the time before dusk when the really bad monsters came out of hiding. Essentially in DQ it was a 'game over' situation like Space Crusade when it reached dusk, but for your End Card dusk could indicate that a hoard of ghosts has awaken (the Heroes better have magical weapons!)

+ The Ritual – the Ending Card would represent the unholy hour of midnight when a maiden is to be sacrificed to the Chaos Gods somewhere in the dungeon. Can the Heroes find her and rescue her in time?

+ Sealed In! - the dungeon's exit door is on a timer and will be sealed shut when the Ending Card is drawn. The Heroes will have to get in and out before the door closes or maybe find another way out

+ Quake! – the earth shakes and passage ways start to collapse! The GM may place 1 rubble marker each turn after this Ending Card is drawn

+ Full Moon – an NPC accompanying the Heroes (or maybe even one of the Heroes) is in fact a Werewolf and will turn to wolf form and start attacking the Heroes when the End Card is drawn

+ The Gates Open – the opposite of Sealed In, the Heroes cannot leave the dungeon until the Ending Card is drawn. Combine this End Card with events that spawn Zombies or the like and you've got yourself a horror survival game.

+ Flood! - starting with a room with an appropriate feature (like a drainage grill or fountain) the dungeon begins to fill with water section by section once the Ending Card is drawn. Like Quake idea above this suggestion is based on an adventure idea from the AHQ rulebook

As you can see, you can write whole adventures based around an Ending Card.

A few notes on your existing cards now:

Dustly Tome, Drugged Darts and Safe Spot would make better additions to the Treasure Deck than part of an Event Deck. Safe Spot especially as it wouldn't make sense that it could be drawn in combat, being part of the Treasure Deck would mean it could only be drawn in a room free of monsters. Also 'Poisoned Darts' or 'Poisonous Gas' might work better as a title, 'Drugged Darts' sounds like an event in the Stoner Olympics.  

Alarm is great idea for an event, but I wouldn't have it unveil the unexplored rooms (this could ruin the exploration aspect of an adventure if drawn early on) instead have extra monsters appear at the nearest unopened door as if they'd just come through it (closing it behind them of course) somewhat like the Re-enforcements in Space Crusade.

Barred Door, in our games we too have rules for Locked Doors that can be broken down. Wooden Doors have the equivalent of 3 Body Points, Braced Doors have 4 and Metal Doors 6.

Door Ajar is a nice little twist on the door rules too, better wording might be “The next closed door the heroes encounter” and take out “this turn” so that the event is not 'wasted' if there are no closed doors the heroes can reach in 1 turn.

Dark Archer I feel needs to be a little more specific as I can't see all the monster in HQ being able to use a bow. Something like “Replace 1 Orc, Goblin or Skeleton Warrior with it's bow armed equivalent”

Depending on the main enemy type in a dungeon (eg some dungeons will be inhabited only by undead or Skaven creatures) goblins won't always be present (besides those are Orcs in the picture). To this end I suggest changing 'Goblin Ambush' to 'Monster Ambush' and have it say “Place 2 of the current Wandering Monster in any previously explored squares not in line of sight”. On the same note Orc Frenzy would work better as Monster Frenzy (although some rules restricting this card from being used on undead might be appropriate too)

A friendly NPC like Mighty Eric Shinn is a great idea for an encounter, the Witch, Maiden and Rogue NPC encounters from AHQ would also make for good event cards. Also check out AHQ's Hazards Table for more ideas.

Berserk Monster I think might work better worded “It may Attack Twice this turn” again you might  want to restrict this card from being used on undead

Dark Resurrection and Old Bones are very specific to Undead inhabited dungeons, you might want to make them optional cards to only be included when the Ending Card is Undead themed  

Because you've chosen to only use HQ artwork, you're some what limited to what you can have on the cards, I suggest you (like I have for my custom treasure decks) seek out similar artwork from other games and books (The Fighting Fantasy series has lots of great black and white artwork). New artwork may also help inspire some new event cards.

Later in the week I shall try to post some examples of the cards from my custom treasure deck that you might want to convert to Event Cards

Let me know how the play testing goes!

[Billiam Babble]

There's some lovely variety in those cards, which remind me of the fun that could be had in Talisman of drawing the cards - especially those circumstance cards which effect all players, like your cards do (in Talisman: Plague and Taxation were examples of this).  

I don't own Heroquest itself (just AHQ and WHQ) but I can imagine how they work in play.  

Incidentally, my partner was looking over my shoulder yesterday when I was first perusing your graphics and she was very impressed at how professional they look.  Great choice of art work (I'm a big fan of Dever/Chalk).

 (do you need the copyright remark at the bottom?)

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Billiam Babble wrote

There's some lovely variety in those cards, which remind me of the fun that could be had in Talisman of drawing the cards - especially those circumstance cards which effect all players, like your cards do (in Talisman: Plague and Taxation were examples of this).  

Talisman! Of course! Talisman Dungeon would be a gold mine of ideas for dungeon events! I'll go and look through my set!

[SamuelF]

Okay, I finally have the time to reply to this one.
I also wanted a bit of time to think as I was fairly blown away by the depth of the response. *deep breath*

RobertTheDamned wrote

Some nice event cards there, I like the 'end game' card idea a lot. Your set seem much kinder to the players than the set Mortis was using last time

Thanks man!  I liked the end game card as a concept as well. I particularly like the concept of a deck of cards for events even though a table can contain more info, a deck just seems more solid: the players sit and eye the pile with dread as the next card is pulled MuaHahaa!

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

Adding a event deck to HeroQuest is something I've been considering for a while and I will no doubt be using some of your ideas in my own Event Deck when I get round to making one.

Just to clear something up quickly before I go any further: my custom deck(s) that Rob mentions is a series of linked Treasure Decks (like the cards in DungeonQuest) which I'll talk about in detail another time.

I'm honoured that you'd consider using any of these ideas! Sadly I've never played DungeonQuest, so I'd like to know more about how the linked treasure deck functions. (On a side note I hear that FF are going to do a DungeonQuest remake).

I have had time to give the cards a test run on one of my own scenarios and have found many of your suggestions very thought provoking.

The idea for the 'nothing happens' cards was quite foresightful. The deck as it is, is very busy. Due to the nature of Heroquest (searches/lost moves due to turn ordering etc..), many more turns are made than in your typical game of space crusade. I feel that there should in fact be as many 'nothing happens' cards as there are other types of card in the current structure of use.

The idea of triggered events is also very interesting, and you pose some good examples. I almost want to make a set of different decks for different triggers, but I'd want to try and keep anything that I add to the game as simple as possible. My goal is to make a single usable event deck.

- The door trigger is great, and I've seen it before. It makes for fantastic suspense, but I see it as being slightly limited to a particular set of event types perhaps? (might be due to a lack of imagination on my part!). Also, once you run out of doors what happens? In Heroquest I could see this trigger being abused by players, and might punish exploration. It works very well in a format such as WHQ however..

- The 'no-monsters present' trigger is interesting but it negates the monster power-up type cards somewhat, unless the monster player is permitted to keep cards secret or even hold on to a few! I think that using this trigger would mean a re-think on a lot of the present cards that I have, but is worth bearing in mind.

Of the alternative triggers you mention, the one I think most suits the deck here is the roll of a double for movement. The chance of rolling a double on two dice is 1 in 6, so with four players you are looking at two events every three rounds on average. This would cut down the number of 'nothing happens' cards required, and makes nice opportunities for the 'on searching' type cards and others.

The idea of a pre-constructed deck is also a good one. Having a large body of cards from which to choose either randomly or selectively makes for great variation and flexibility. I will definitely be looking to add this feature into the functioning of the deck somehow if possible.

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

Yea! The 'Ending Card' placed at the bottom of the Event Deck is an excellent idea and would certainly add some tension to the game as the players watch the dwindling stack of cards disappear, knowing something big is coming. This reminds me of how the Objective Room cards work in WHQ and is a very nice mechanic, allowing a GM to prepare a deck certain number of cards to be drawn before all hell breaks loose!

I'm glad that the ending card has gone down well!
I feel that it is quite central to how I want the deck to function; by pushing forward the pace of the game and creating suspense.
Some of the ending cards you suggest are fantastic! I particularly like the idea of a nigh on indestructible monster chasing the heroes through the dungeon. The collapsing rubble idea is good as well!

Thanks for the critique of some of the cards. On the test run I found many other glaring problems. I'd like to keep 'safe spot' or something similar to even out against the bad things that happen to the heroes, but in light of things here, I think there may be a fairly drastic process of editing in the works! (I am currently looking through event tables from various sources for new inspiration)

Billiam Babble wrote

There's some lovely variety in those cards, which remind me of the fun that could be had in Talisman of drawing the cards - especially those circumstance cards which effect all players, like your cards do (in Talisman: Plague and Taxation were examples of this).  

I don't own Heroquest itself (just AHQ and WHQ) but I can imagine how they work in play.  

Incidentally, my partner was looking over my shoulder yesterday when I was first perusing your graphics and she was very impressed at how professional they look.  Great choice of art work (I'm a big fan of Dever/Chalk).

 (do you need the copyright remark at the bottom?)

Thanks for the kind words!
The copyright mark was because I wasn't sure about the legality of posting others art modified. Should I remove it do you think?

After I read this I remembered I great site called Talisman Island. If you download the 'Tal-Is-Poor' set from there you can get some good Chalk art: http://www.talismanisland.com/downloads.htm For those interested, the art I used came from here: http://www.yeoldeinn.com/design-tools.php

If anyone finds other links to Chalk art, I'd love to check it out (seems fairly hard to find )
I'll post up any new items/ideas that I come up with to this thread for criticism, so watch this space.



(ps- Mort. I'd love to see any of the event cards from your set as well!)

[SamuelF]

In the previous post I said that I'd post up any new ideas etc... Sooo I've been busy, and to cut a long story short here is a fairly major re-working of the entire deck, including a change in rules, some new cards, lots more endings and a change to just about every card from the original post.

The cards:
EventSheet01.jpg
EventSheet02.jpg
EventSheet03.jpg
EventSheet04.jpg
EventSheet05.jpg
NonEvents.jpg
EndSheet.jpg


The first major change is to the rules:

EVENT DECK RULES
Whenever a hero rolls a double for movement the DM draws from the event deck. Most events resolve instantly, except for when a card contains the hand symbol in the bottom-right corner. The hand symbol means that the DM retains the card in his hand (without showing the hero players what that card is) until it resolves, whereupon it is then discarded as normal. The DM must play or discard any card in his hand before he draws a new event.


So the hand icon is basically a visual reminder to keep the card secret for the moment, and to not just slap it down.

Some cards have been changed more than others, mostly following Mortis's advice from the above post. I have kept some of the more themed cards and changed them to make them a bit more universal. I have also made use of the new event trigger to make scenarios that last until the next event, which I thought might be interesting since it's a random trigger (I won't be able to play-test until I get some rather expensive printer ink! ).

I checked out the AHQ hazard table as suggested and found some great ideas in there. I've adapted the princess and the witch NPCs to the HQ format and am looking forward to seeing how they play out. I also took a lot of the end card ideas that Mortis suggested and adapted them, so I'd be interested to see how they go down also!

There is a now page of 'Nothing Happens' events. I still won't be sure how many will be needed to balance the deck until the play-testing is done (it's quite a busy set as it stands currently), but I'm hoping it's a large enough collection to also be quite flexible. Its all been jazzed up with some extra art (mainly from Talisman 1st Ed).

I guess that my main aim at the moment is for the deck to be a useable package for DMs with all levels of experience. Perhaps useable alongside the original HQ missions, or maybe with some specially made missions.

Any criticisms or praise would be welcomed!

[SamuelF]

Okay, time for an update..

Play test in. I'm not happy.

The deck is rather busy, and there are too many dependencies associated with its application in-game as it stands. There need to be fewer and more interesting events for starters, and a more straight-forward method of use.

I've had the idea of combining two of the triggers mentioned by Mortis above ^ whereby the hero player draws an event on rolling a double only if there are also no monsters currently on the board. This will reduce the number of events, and gives a more standard situation in which a card is drawn. I'm thinking of stripping out all monster power-up type events and adding in more multiple choice type where you either choose the outcome or it is decided by the roll of a dice.

The hand icon idea is a bit too clunky as well so I'm getting rid..
The re-working has begun. Here are a couple of the new cards I've started:


Door Event
The next time a hero tries to open a door they must roll a dice:
1-2 = Trap! Roll a shield on one dice to avoid losing a body point.
3-4 = Barred. The door needs one point of damage before it will open.
5-6 = Ajar. The heroes can see the contents of the room before entering. Place any monsters or furniture.

^This card combines a couple of the old ones and adds a possible nasty outcome.


Dusty Tome
The player kicks open a book lying on the ground which crackles to life. Roll a dice:
1-3 = A curse is released. Any monster that dies in this room or corridor is replaced by a skeleton warrior. (Happens once per monster.)
4-6 = A healing spell is released. Each hero gains a body point.

^This is a combo of Cursed Ground and Dusty Tome from the previous deck.


Dead Monster
The hero stumbles upon the body of a monster. Roll a dice:
1-2 = It was only sleeping! Place a wandering monster next to the hero.
3-4 = The monster shows signs of plague. It is clearly dead.
5-6 = You search the monster and find a purse containing twenty five gold coins. The players turn ends.


The ending cards I am mainly happy with. Any other ideas for endings would be very welcome. I think I'm getting closer to a deck that will be fun to play.
Hope this isn't turning into too much of a monologue!

Over and out.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Sorry I've been rather busy with writing the Dragon Strike article so I haven't contributed as much to this thread as I'd have liked to, let me try and make up for it ...

SamuelF wrote

The deck is rather busy, and there are too many dependencies associated with its application in-game as it stands. There need to be fewer and more interesting events for starters, and a more straight-forward method of use.

I've had the idea of combining two of the triggers mentioned by Mortis above ^ whereby the hero player draws an event on rolling a double only if there are also no monsters currently on the board. This will reduce the number of events, and gives a more standard situation in which a card is drawn. I'm thinking of stripping out all monster power-up type events and adding in more multiple choice type where you either choose the outcome or it is decided by the roll of a dice.

I think the main thing that needs to be considered at this stage is what kind of effect you want the Event Deck to have on the over all game play. In your first post you called it a 'Space Crusade style Event Deck', as you'll know the Alien Event Deck in SC is there to add a pit of chaos to the game and mess up players strategies by giving monsters more powerful weapons, having auto defences take pot-shots at marines and having Genestealers jump out of a hole in the ceiling right in the middle of the room you think you have secured, ect (the deck is also ultimately a turn-limiter). Quite a few of your Cards are the Fantasy equivalent of the SC ones (Dark Archer for instance could be compared to Ork Mekaniak, Berserk Monster to Alien Elite, Monster ambush to Alien Task Force, Trip Wire to Report In and so on) the SC events are purely tactic/combat orientated. From my experiences of playing SC I'd say its ok to draw these kind of events once per a round (in the GM's turn) so long as you've got a few Nothing Happens cards thrown in to stop it getting to busy. Alternatively you could have the GM roll a dice at the beginning of their turn which determines whether they draw a card or not and maybe even how many (a White SpaceCrusade Dice would work quite well for the latter)

Other Event Cards of yours (such as Dying Warrior, Maiden, Barred Door and you new 'combined' events) are more reminiscent of the Dungeon Event cards in WHQ, the Adventure cards in Talisman and Room cards from Dungeon Quest. In these games the 'Event Card' mechanic is used to 'write the adventure' as it goes along, i.e they have an over all effect on how the adventure is played, they are a mayor story event and effect the plot (as opposed to SC Alien events, which just 'spice up' the action a little and have no effect on the over all plot). These kind of events are triggered by moving into a new room in Dungeon Quest and WHQ or a new board space in the case of Talisman (Note that in WHQ the events are also drawn when a 1 is rolled in the Power Phase, for a little added chaos) and determine what Monsters, NPCs or Muguffins turn up in the adventure.

The point being that in WHQ, Dungeon Quest and Talisman the players are working through a bunch of Random 'Plot Events' toward a pre-determined ending (in WHQ the objective room, in DungeonQuest the Dragon's Lair and in Talisman the Crown of Command). Although the adventure has a specific ending the details of the adventure (how you get to that ending) are randomly generated in-game. Where as in HeroQuest however (if your playing as GW and MB originally intended) the whole adventure is fixed, the Map and Adventure notes detail what evens happens and where.

So the question is: how do you (and your group) want the game to play? Do you want to play pre-written 'fixed' adventures with the Event Cards to 'spice up the action' OR do you want to play randomly generated adventures determined by the cards?

The 3rd approach (which I can't think of any good examples of at the moment) is the Event Cards as a 'Make something happen' or 'Give the GM something to do' deck. This is an idea I've been toying with for my games, events of this kind would bring extra monsters onto the board (Vermin, patrolling guards) or force the plot to move forward (A boss monster turns up to confront the Hero, the lantern goes out, an NPC turns up warning the Heroes of danger up ahead). These type of events would be triggered when the GM has no monsters on the board or the GM feels the PCs are wasting time in a room or doing something stupid.

There's no reason why you can't combine any or all 3 of these approaches, but you'll need to keep in mind how you want the game to play over all and what kind of events are appropriate for that kind of game play.  

If you want to use event cards along side pre-written adventures and also have some WHQ type events, I suggest the following method, have a small pre-determined number of cards (say 10? you'll need to play-test to determine what a good number would be) for each adventure hand picked by the DM from which the players draw from randomly (as opposed to drawing the top card) and when the deck runs out then the DM reveals the Ending Card. Have the event triggered by the GM rolling D6 at the beginning of their turn 1-3: No Event Cards Drawn, 4-5: Drawn 1 Event Card, 6: Draw 2 Event Cards
Using this method as a starting point you can connect a randomly-picked Event deck to a pre-written adventure.

For instance:

for 'Barak Tor – Barrow of the Witch Lord'
Suggested Ending Card: Undead army
Event Deck construction: pick 7 cards randomly and then shuffle in: Old Bones, Dark Resurrection and Dusty Tome

for 'Race Against Time'  
Suggested Ending Card: Sealed in or Dragon Strike
Event Deck construction: pick 6 cards randomly and then shuffle in: Maiden, Dark Mist, Time Slips Away and Monster Ambush

as you can see, by adding specific Event Cards and End Cards to pre-written adventures you can atmosphere and tension. Race Against Time becomes as real race against time (as opposed to 'explore until you find the stairs') and in Barak Tor the Witch Lord's army waking up becomes a major threat to the Heroes. To further tailor your even cards toward the above method of play you may want to divide it into 'Regular' and 'Special' events. Special ones being events specific to the kind of dungeon your facing (the ones you shuffle in after randomly picking the regular events)  

Something I forgot to mention before: with the way your even deck works at the moment (pre your current re-working or any of my new suggestions) every Event Card in the deck has to be drawn before you get to the End Card, this means if not enough doubles are rolled in movement it will take along time to get through the deck and the End Card may never get played. The 'Time Slips Away' card goes some way toward solving this, but it just makes the deck 2 cards shorter and because this would happen every game it doesn't make any over all difference to the number of cards before the End Card each game (the only thing that changes game to game is which 2 events get skipped). Maybe change 'Time Slips Away' so it removes D3+1 cards to add some randomness.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

SamuelF wrote

Mort. I'd love to see any of the event cards from your set as well!

I'll try and post some in the week

[SamuelF]

Hmm, thought provoking. Cheers Mortis. *scratches chin*

I guess that I'd like the deck to be able to work along-side any scenario, adding interest, and not unbalancing the game. So it isn't going to be totally like a Space Crusade style event deck as most scenarios are not balanced to deal with one .

I would like to retain a sense of danger but I'd like to balance that with enough good cards for the heroes (not too many though as I think the EU version of HQ is a tad easy for them ). In HQ I find there is a sense of the heroes being able to dally around somewhat in-between monsters, arranging the same order of players at doors etc.. and I'd just like to add that little bit of pressure for them to move forward, especially at the end of a quest when the players have to trudge back to the exit . I'm a big fan of Space Hulk and the way in which the timer pushes forward play and rewards efficient planning, but this isn't SH so I'll move along..

The idea of rolling a dice at the start of the DMs turn is a good one, and I would definitely consider using it. I like the idea of using a small partially pre-selected deck, and of having some 'special event' cards to spice things up (encounters falling into this catagory).

Soo, I think what I'm looking for is perhaps a set of more mundane events, some special, and some end cards. I've yet to decide on a trigger.

Thanks again for the feedback. It's helped me focus my thoughts a little better!  

[bujinkan]

So cool! Can I get the backs of the cards?

[MortiS-the-Lost]

I think an edited version of the WHQ Event Card back is in order

[MortiS-the-Lost]

bujinkan wrote

So cool! Can I get the backs of the cards?

Here you go:
HQEvent_Backs.jpg