Re: Event deck for HeroQuest

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on May 12, 2010; 4:06pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Event-deck-for-HeroQuest-tp4840265p5041894.html

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.