HeroQuest: City of Chaos Adventure (FREE PDF!)

Iron_Chef

Mongoose
Anybody here play the old Milton Bradley fantasy boardgame HeroQuest? I just got into it (picked up a used copy on eBay). It's the perfect gateway game to introduce newbies (and kids) to RPGs. You just pick a Hero and start adventuring. The barbarian on the box looks just like Conan!

Anyway, if anyone is interested, I have created a set of HeroQuest Extreme rules (requires original HeroQuest to play) and an epic quest PDF called City of Chaos, which turns the HeroQuest board into an evil city the Heroes must infiltrate, complete with shops, taverns, factions, etc. It emphasizes creative problem-solving and roleplaying without sacrificing the grueling tactical battles HeroQuest fans love. I even have a Conan-esque barbarian-thief in it!

I'm the guy that did so much work creating the Conan GM's Guide in this forum when Conan first came out, so rest assured, my HeroQuest project has a comparable level of creativity and detail. Even if you don't play HeroQuest, you could always plunder some bits from it for Conan or D&D.

Email me at todd008 AT comcast. net if you'd like a copy of the PDF. I'm looking for playtester data and feedback, so if you get a copy, please email me and let me know what you think! Thanks!
 
Interesting.
I had a copy of Heroquest, but absorbed the pieces into my Warhammer Quest game. Not sure if you've played it, but for some real dungeoncrawling, boardgaming fun you can't beat WHQ!
 
BullBear said:
Interesting.
I had a copy of Heroquest, but absorbed the pieces into my Warhammer Quest game. Not sure if you've played it, but for some real dungeoncrawling, boardgaming fun you can't beat WHQ!

I hadn't played WHQ; how is it? Hadn't played Advanced HQ either. Heard good things about both. What is the difference between WHQ and AHQ? Always shied away from most Games Workshop products (though I bought a bunch of Citadel minis back in the day for use in D&D) and avoided Warhammer because of its high prices, constantly changing rules/need to upgrade and a general lack of interest in any full-on tactical tabletop game that involved measuring sticks and comparing my paint jobs to others. :wink:

Just using the basic HQ (US) rules now, made a bit closer to d20 by my HeroQuest Extreme modular rules expansion (use what you like, ignore what you don't). I am a hopeless tinkerer. It seems I'm never satisfied with a game "as is" and must constantly try to tweak it in one direction or another.

Anyway, playing HQ is the closest my group has got to playing an RPG since February, IIRC. Summer was spent playing boardgames: Zombies!!!, Risk: Godstorm, Pirate's Cove, Memoir '44, Axis & Allies Revised, Runebound and now HeroQuest. I'm hoping HQ will help inspire/transition us back into playing Conan, or even D&D, TBH...

But I am enjoying the limited nature of HQ (while expanding its options). After all, players can't run off and spoil your carefully laid plans if they are stuck on a game board facing enemies! :twisted:

Also, for those of you who haven't seen it, don't forget to check out my Conan GM's Guide thread, linked to in my sig, below. It's well worth your time! Lots of adventure hooks, mini-encounters, new weapons, new classes, etc.
 
Iron_Chef said:
Anyway, playing HQ is the closest my group has got to playing an RPG since February, IIRC. Summer was spent playing boardgames: Zombies!!!, Risk: Godstorm, Pirate's Cove, Memoir '44, Axis & Allies Revised, Runebound and now HeroQuest. I'm hoping HQ will help inspire/transition us back into playing Conan, or even D&D, TBH...

Um... I know I'm drifting this off-topic... but what is Runebound like? Good game? Anything like the old Games Workshop game Talisman?
 
Paul Baldowski said:
Um... I know I'm drifting this off-topic... but what is Runebound like? Good game? Anything like the old Games Workshop game Talisman?

Never played Talisman (should have bought it when I had the chance back in 1989). How is it? How does it compare to HeroQuest?

You can read my full review of Runebound here:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1753025#post1753025

Also, read other reviews and download fan-made goodies from BoardGameGeek.com (my full Runebound review is reprinted there, too, but I bit harder to find and less pretty looking, which is why I gave the ENWorld.org link):
http://boardgamegeek.com/game/9829
 
While we're off topic, I thought I'd point out that Hasbro (and one of the original HeroQuest designers, IIRC) has a new non-collectible tabeltop fantasy battle game out (with stackable terrain and 30 fully painted minis for $40 US) called Heroscape that is getting very favorable reviews. It uses the old HeroQuest skulls-n-shields combat dice system. Compete your dinosaur-riding orcs vs. robots, WW2 army men, vikings, roman centurions, flying valkyries, dragons, snakemen, X-Files secret agents and alien/predator looking monsters from outer space! Looks like a lot of fun, and the terrain (and minis) could come in handy for RPGs or similar boardgames. Read all about it here (reviews, fan-made goodies, etc.):

HEROSCAPE
http://boardgamegeek.com/article/50086

PS: There will be non-mandatory, non-randomized army expansions for those who want them with new terrain for around $10 each (coming soon).
 
After co-developing Heroquest with Milton Bradley, GW made AHQ. A lot better than HQ (henchmen, generating PCs, etc.), but was crippled due to only coming with skaven minis! Warhammer Quest came next ('96) and is the most complete dungeon crawling boardgame ever made. Unfortunately, you can only secure one from ebay these days. If you have the $$$ I strongly suggest it!

It's a great cross of board/rpg. Not only do you have the characters, but they develop various skills and abilities as they level up. Not just new/more weapons a la Heroquest. The book comes with a large beastiery that goes up to 20th level, and the core box had about a zillion creatures (add your HQ monsters and you'll have some well stocked dungeons). You can play all four players vs the dungeon (no DM!), with a neat tile/monster/item generating system. However, add a DM which adds a whole level of new skills sets to the game (bluffing, etc.), and the game truley shines. The most fun for our group was the between adventure stuff. You see, stuff happens to your guys as you travel to and from the dungeons. Plus, when in towns/settlements/cities (each level of economy will effect the likelyhood of items being in stock) you have to check what random things happen to your characters. Great fun!

There are some wonderful sites for WHQ, and if your group is having a good time with HQ, they'll be tripping over themselves to play WHQ.
Though, the core box came with the four hero types, GW published many more. All of which you can download from the warhammer quest museum.

Seriously, get this game. I've been waiting for nearly a decade for the next dungeoncrawler, and it seems like two along the lines have finally hit. Runebound and Heroscape. I have yet to play either (any good?), but one seems more skirmish and the other more kin to Talisman (which you can still buy, as they rerelased the main box last year).

Happy 'crawling!

(It should be noted, due to friends moving away and figuring it'd collect dust, I sold my completely painted HQ/AHQ/WHQ set and am now banging my head against the wall :cry: )
 
City of Chaos (and HeroQuest Extreme) are missing rules on picking locks and otherwise getting past locked doors. Here are the missing rules. I will incorporate them into a second draft of the City of Chaos PDF soon. Everyone who emailed me for the PDF has been emailed a copy of these missing rules.


LOCKED DOORS
To get past the locked doors in the City of Chaos adventure, the heroes will need a lockpick kit and trained Hero to use it (he picks locks like the Dwarf disarms traps), or else the heroes must "knock" (possibly getting a monster to answer at Zargon/Morcar's discretion), or they can simply try to bash the door down (roll an attack, regular door has 3 Body, defends with two dice, but blocks on a white or black shield). Only spells, hammers, warhammers, maces, morning stars, flails, handaxes and battleaxes can inflict damage on doors.

Superior doors are as regular doors above, but defend with 3 dice.

Double doors are barred and have 6 Body, defending as above but with 4 dice).

Portculli, Iron Cages, or similar obstacles can be bent apart by any Hero with Body 7+ who rolls a 6 on one red die. Multiple bending attempts allowed, but each takes up all action and movement. Once bent, one Hero at a time can move through the bent portcullis at a cost of 4 movement points (tight squeeze, if not enough move points, they are stuck in the portcullis until they have enough movement points to get through it or decide to back out (costs 2 movement points).

IMPORTANT! EVIL WIZARD PLAYER, PLEASE READ:
Note that bashing doors down (if not immediately successful) will summon a Chaos Warrior Patrol who will attack and attempt to summon reinforcements by blowing their horn (thus summoning another patrol). Two patrols are the most that will arrive to a door bashing incident, except at the Governor's Palace, which will alert the entire city: Throw open all locked doors, place all unseen monsters and furniture (etc.) and send the inhabitants out to attack the Heroes in force. In other words, you should discourage the Heroes from trying to bash in the front doors to the Palace! If they don't listen, they deserve what they get!
 
ATTENTION PLAYTESTERS!

v.1.2 PDF of the HeroQuest City of Chaos adventure is now available.

Changes from the previous version:
Increased page count from 14 to 16.
Expanded description and powers of "Bosses"
Added "Inventory" and "Storage" rules
Added "Locked Door" rules
Added several New Item sidebars (Backpack, Bag of Holding, Dwarven Ale, Grappling Hook, Wineskin) in addition to Rope
Gave additional credits and provided additional HeroQuest Resource Links
Numbered the pages

Thank you for your support!
 
Here are the very best HeroQuest sites I've found so far:

http://www.aginsinn.com (active forum, too)

http://www.freewebs.com/mortimerkhan/chaos.htm (monsters)

http://heroquest.no-ip.com/ (almost everything)

http://www.heroquestgame.com/HQWorld/hqworld_main.htm (almost everything, but is in Italian only, but worth it, that's where I got Wizards Of Morcar, Frozen Horror, and several other scarce official expansions)

http://www.geocities.com/theferret1/ (armory cards that rock!)

http://groningen.bio.ucalgary.ca/~mjpushie/hq/tdott.html (new cards)

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/parthenon/3157/quest.html

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Keep/9194/index2.html

http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~lbroers/download.htm

http://www.geocities.com/falk1856/hq/

http://www.geocities.com/baloban/faq_page.htm

http://oldscratch.smackwell.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?
board=;action=search (forums)

http://www.kabay.arc.net.au/index.html (advanced HQ only)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/699 (most links dead, some still good)

CARD CREATOR SOFTWARE (Just like the original HeroQuest cards, but you make them yourself with this simple program, fronts and backs designed in a snap!)
http://www.trentdavis.net/projects.html

FREE HEROQUEST COMPUTER GAME (just like the boardgame, only you control all four heroes and you can buy and sell stuff at the Armory)
http://oldscratch.smackwell.com/trial/hqdemo.zip
 
PLAYTESTING DATA/SESSION REPORT
(City of Chaos v.1.2)


Ran v.1.2 of my City of Chaos quest last night for my regular weekly HQ group with their current, fairly inexperienced heroes (3 or 4 quests under their belt), using my HeroQuest Extreme rules (included in PDF), but all you Zargon/Morcars out there should note that these are revised "Extreme" Heroes, so this data is not all that relevant where regular HeroQuest rules are used.

There were five Heroes: Wizard (Revised to Body 5, with all 12 elemental spells), Barbarian (revised to immune to command and fear, 1 extra "mighty" Combat Card per quest), Assassin (revised from version on AginsInn to be trained in lockpicking and disarming traps with kits), Psychic Assassin (homebrew Hero), and Ranger (revised from AginsInn version with +1 attack die when using a longbow).

* NOTE: I had to fold the thief type abilities into the assassin, not because he really needed the power boost, but because no one wanted to play a thief, and lockpick/disarm traps is crucial to this quest. Yes, they could have hired a Scout, but I forgot about that, LOL. At least folding the skills into the Assassin made him blow 500 gold on buying the lockpick and trap tool kits. Plus, I didn't want anymore Hero types coming along than I already had. OOPS! Just had a thought: By making a Scout available in the Red Dagger Inn for hire, I could have eliminated this altogether. Will incorporate this into next version.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW, HEROES KEEP OUT!
THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR ZARGON/MORCAR'S EYES ONLY!


They went to the city but the Chaos warrior at the gate immediately detected their papers as forgeries by rolling a black shield on his Mind roll (explained in the PDF's HQE rules). The two Heroes (Wizard, Ranger) in front of the city gates were dropped into a pit. I quickly realized that this was a bad idea to get the Heroes captured, so provided an escape tunnel from the pit into the sewers, justifying it to myself as having been dug by ghouls looking for victims (ghouls are in the quest, after all). This kin of fancy mental footwork prevented the quest from being derailed right at the start, LOL, which was a massive oversight on my part while writing it. I will correct this in the next version.

The heroes came up from the sewers inside the city over by Cemetery Hill and decided NOT to explore the city as they were, after all, wanted men (prudent, but frustrating for me as the quest author). They headed for the Red Dagger Inn to keep their appointment with Baron Vlako, the Chaos Army defector. Ran the ambush as written, but heroes, having not depleted their strength elsewhere, made short work of my Chaos Warriors. They even put my Doomguard to sleep and finished him off before he could do a thing except say "Ha! You fools fell right into our trap..."

The Heroes then had the brilliant idea to put on the Chaos Warrior armor to disguise themselves (remember, they were wanted men). They then smashed in the faces of the Chaos Warriors to make their corpses unrecognizable, and carried them off to the Governor's Palace, where they knocked and presented themselves as the Chaos Warriors who had just killed the Emperoror's heroes in the ambush the Governor had set.

CHANGE: Added Baron Vlako as the victim on the torture rack in the Governor's Palace. I had made the Heroes think they had EATEN him when they bought food at the Red Dager Inn prior to going in the back for the ambush, LOL. They were relieved to see they weren't cannibals! I will add Baron Vlako to the next version of the quest. Having a rescue victim present forces the Heroes to spend a Healing potion tomake him fit to escape, and gives them something else to worry about in the fight and while escaping the city.

CHANGE: The central room is just too small to run this battle. Switched battlev to Ron Shirt'z Palace tile (the one with the giant winged statue on the raised dais). This eliminated the second set of double doors into the palace and prevented any monsters from escaping to alert the city.

So the Governor welcomes them in, and then the Heroes attack! I had them make a free round of surprise attacks to reward them for their cleverness at gaining entry (plus, thisbattle could be super-deadly for them as relatyively inexperienced Heroes --- too deadly, I was worried). The heroes were very angry with me when they realized that there were so many doomguards, because they had met one as a boss in last week's quest and discovered that doomguards block ALL a hero's skulls by rolling just ONE black shield when they defend!

The Psychic Assassin cast her Possession ability on one of the 4 doomguards closest to the Governor (a Balrog demon). Possession does not work on "bosses" so that was the next best choice. The spell worked, and suddenly, the Heroes had a Doomguard on their side, attacking the Governor! This kept the Governor busy, his Fimir Champions busy, and effectively out of the fight for the entire battle!

NOTE: My version of the Chaos Doomguard has them able to cast Cloud of Chaos and Summon Undead once each.

One doomguard cast Cloud of Chaos, while another cast Summon Undead and hung back as he couldn't get to attack anyone (he did send a skeleton after the possessed doomguard on the dais above). Two doomguards were killed faster than I expected, but my Cloud of Chaos paralyzed the Barbarian and Assassin (the Psychic Assassin and Wizard had stayed out of the room). The Ranger broke the spell and killed the Doomguard who cast it with his bow, freeing the Assassin and Barbarian.

The Barbarian got paralyzed AGAIN when the last unpossessed doomguard cast his Cloud of Chaos and so the Barbarian stayed out of the rest of the fight (the Ranger got paralyzed and stayed out of several rounds before he broke free).

Meanwhile, none of my monsters could kill that one stupid, possessed doomguard. We had previously ruled last quest that while possessed/commanded/charmed, etc., a monster defends with WHITE shields instead of black, as he is temporarily considered a Hero/Henchman. So, much effort was wasted trying to protect the Governor from one of his own "loyal" men! In fact, the possessed doomguard assassinated the Governor (right before he was about to Fire Storm everyone into oblivion and fly off for help through the skylight). The Fimir Champions were quickly destroyed and the Undead. The last doomguard fought valiantly, blocking many blows, but eventually fell to the Heroes combined assault. The Wizard had made good use of his remaining spell cards was down to just 3, with the only "good" attack one left being Genie. He would've used it on the Governor, but decided to cast "Courage" on the possessed doomguard, which was a much better choice, as he became even more invincible with two extra attack dice, LOL.

The Psychic Assassin then ordered the possessed doomguard to open the locked chest (containing the military maps the Heroes came for) after everyone had left the room. I added a firestorm trap that blew him up (he had only 1 Body left), and then doled out treasure.

The Heroes evacuated Baron Vlako, his maps, and made it home to get their reward. I could have made it more difficult to escape, but it was 2:30 am and the Heroes would've gotten creamed. They earned their escape through their clever tactics.

CONCLUSION: There are still a few bugs to work out, but nothing a creative Zargon/Morcar can't make up on the fly. Not sure regular HeroQuest Heroes (Elf, Dwarf, Barbarian, Wizard) would have made it. The Rings of Healing I gave out at the start were only used by two Heroes to resurrect themselves. The rest went unused and were taken back.

If you have read or run this quest, please post your feedback here for me, PM or email me your thoughts. Thanks!
 
The HeroQuest Extreme (HQE) rules and the City of Chaos Quest are being revised in the upcoming v.1.3 of the PDF as follows:

The big battle at the Governor's Palace will be shifted onto its own map (using one of Ron Shirtz's beautiful Palace tiles, the one with the winged statue) as the central questboard room proved too small. The second (northern) set of doubledoors in the palace will be removed as a result of the change. You could still run it on the questboard, but it will be a EXTREMELY cramped! In any case, remove the northern set of doubledoors in the central room.

Governor's Palace Tile (direct download link): http://www.aginsinn.com/tiles/VictoryHall.zip

Place the Governor and his Fimir Champions underneath the statue on the raised dais. Place 2 Chaos Warriors on either side of the stairs. Place 2 Chaos Warriors on either side of the double doors. Place the rack so that it is vertical with the statue and centered on the ground floor of the room. Place the Orc Torturer to the rack's right and center. Run battle as written in the City of Chaos quest.


HQE RULES:
Bosses will be revised to remove the extra Combat Card they got in v.1.2 as this proved too confusing to keep separate during play.

Treasure: Search for Treasure by rolling a number of white dice equal to your current Mind score; for every white shield that is rolled, you may draw 1 card from the Treasure deck (yes, that means you could get a lot of treasure if you're a Wizard and no treasure if you're a stupid Barbarian with a 2 Mind, LOL. Take ALL drawn and discarded cards and place them in a discard pile. Once the Treasure deck runs out, reshuffle the Discard pile into a new Tresaure deck. This way, the Heroes never run out of Treasure and will keep searching longer than usual (when only Wandering Monsters and Hazards wuld normally remain).

In v.1.1, the above was the rule. It was changed to allow only 1 Treasure card in v.1.2, but the players hated it and preferred to risk it all on multiple hazards, wandering monsters and treasures, or even to gain no treasure at all. They like to gamble, what can I say?

OPTIONAL TREASURE RULE: If a potion card comes up, you have a choice between accepting that potion, or drawing from a separate Exotic Potion Deck (consisting of the potion cards from The Ferret's Armory Cards and Ron Shirtz's Potion Cards). The new potion deck contains every potion not included in the original HQ deck (from all expansion packs, plus fan-made ones), including official expansion Hazards (Poison and Magical Trap).

Doubtless my HQE rules and City of Chaos Quest will be revised a bit further here and there as playtesting continues (another City of Chaos playtest is scheduled for Wednesday, 10/28/04), which will guarantee the Heroes get to explore the city more than they did last time... read my playtest data/session report from v.1.2 for more info!
 
0one Games has beautiful, detailed full color battlemaps. I bought Dungeon Rooms, Vol. 1, and got a lot of use out of them in D&D and HeroQuest (they all have the one square grid overlay so HQ battles are a breeze to run on them). Also work great for Conan!

They now offer a customizable software to create new versions of their maps. $7.50 per four related rooms, IIRC.

Download many FREE previews --- direct link here:

http://www.0onegames.com/pages/downloads.html


Here's some more FREE battle maps you can download for use with HeroQuest! All have the square grid standard HQ overlay.

Hero Quest City Map Board Overlay (turns quest board into a city... well, more of a sparse village, really, LOL).
http://infinitequest.net/download.html


Warhammer Quest (successor to HeroQuest) battle maps:
http://www.wqchronicles.com/boards/boards.htm

http://users.frii.com/evil/whq/Floorplans.html

http://members.fortunecity.com/arrch/dungeon/wqdgncrd.html


Skeleton Key Games Free Map Downloads (samples of larger map products --- the art is nowhere near as nice, but the layouts will make for fun battle scenes!)

http://skeletonkeygames.com/downloads.html
 
The Games Workshop/Milton Bradley HeroQuest boardgame not to be confused, of course, with Robin Laws's and Greg Stafford's brilliant (first-advertised-circa-RuneQuest II) HeroQuest, the Gloranthan roleplaying game and the system I'd use to play in the Hyborian Age.
 
I am running another playtest tonight. Anyone who has a copy of this quest, please read it and get back to with your comments/ideas as soon as possible. Version 1.3 is coming very soon and I would love to get some more feedback first --- the feedback so far has been excellent!
 
SPOILERS

Ran my second playtest with good results (incorporating some of Jacob Busby's excellent ideas), but the heroes didn't make it very far before we had to quit because of the hour and work the next day. All they did was talk to the Alchemist, go to the bar, hire a mercenary, and sow some dissent among the goblins vs. the orcs over an imaginary treasure the orcs got, LOL.

The party killed Margath the Lich Lord and the battle went about as I expected (long, hard and nasty), with me getting four near kills out of five heroes and 1 swordsman man-at-arms (with 2 Body who got reduced to 1 Body twice and cheated death twice with the most amazing luck of the dice, even evading a Firestorm). The purple cloud messed them all up good combined with the lich's fear aura, but really it just stalled them fromm advancing (that and all the summoned undead).

Despite Margath having 8 Body and being inaccessible to attacks except by spell, diagonals or missile weapons, he was killed in just 2 rounds, with most of the damage in the second round thanks to the Barbarian playing the Combat Card that doubled his damage (from 3 to 6, no blocks). The Wizard cast Genie and scored 3 hits (1 blocked) and that was that. One dead lich. He didn't even have a chance. I got two heroes in my pit trap, though, hehehe!

The heroes didn't even search for treasure, they just grabbed Margath's (evil) magic staff (as proof of his death to get the 1,000 gold reward) and ran into the sewers. Why? Because killing Margath sets the city on alert as all the undead suddenly crumble to dust once Margath dies, so everybody knows something is up and that Margath must be in trouble, LOL. They made the right choice; they were gone before anybody could show up to investigate! The quest is not over, though they have used up a lot of resources (healing potions, spells). I am hoping for a continuation of this playtest Saturday or Sunday. Will post more results then.
 
I don't mean this to be offensive, but what does this actually have to do with Mongoose, Conan or anything else R.E.Howard related?
 
Lucius said:
I don't mean this to be offensive, but what does this actually have to do with Mongoose, Conan or anything else R.E.Howard related?

I'm offended, LOL. :cry:

No seriously... As a major contributor to this forum when Conan first came out (see my Conan GM's Guide in my sig link for an example), I know people here like my writing and thought they might be interested in seeing what game design I've been up to lately. Technically, you are correct, and this thread does not belong in this forum.

I keep my off topic threads to a bare minimum, but as I only game Conan (as far as Mongoose products are concerned), this is where all my friends are on the Mongoose forums. If I posted this anywhere else on the Mongoose forums, the thread would not "connect" with the "right" people (those who know my work).

I suppose I see this forum as not just about Conan but about the Conan-loving community, and as such, I like to know what others in the community are up to outside of Conan from time to time (whether it's what other games they are playing or projects they are working on, etc.), and hope that others may want to hear about me, as well. Technically, this viewpoint of mine is wrong, and this forum is only about Conan and related information. But I think it is safe to say that many people on this forum share a strong sense of community (bound by our mutual love for Conan/REH, games, sword-n-sorcery in general and the Mongoose RPG in particular).

Community is about people first. Mongoose has done a wonderful job of bringing Conan-loving gamers together in this forum with their incredible RPG. I don't want to see this forum cluttered up with a bunch of off topic threads anymore than anyone else does. But every once in awhile, it's nice to hear about what's going on outside of Conan, get tips from forum members on which games to try, books to read, movies to see, etc.

I certainly don't mean any harm or to somehow lessen anyone's Conan forum surfing experience; if this has occurred as a result of reading my off-topic thread(s), I apologize. I do post on-topic in other Conan threads when I think I have something useful to say. I have not been able to play Conan or any other RPG since February/March of this year due to the intrusion of real life, and so have not been as active in this forum/community as I would have liked (this may be why you are unfamiliar with me). Hope that explains everything. Again, I apologize if this thread bothers you in any way.

PS: I have gotten a fair amount of interest and requests for my project (which is not competing with Mongoose in any way as it is for an out of print game system and is not-for-profit), so there is at least some interest here for what I'm up to. :wink:
 
SPOILERS!

My 3rd "City of Chaos" playtest picked up where the last left off, with my players hiding/resting in the sewers after killing Margath the Lich Lord.

NEW HQE RULE: Resting. A Hero who rests for 12 hours (no activity, moving, searching, etc.) regains 1 Body point and 1 previously cast Spell Card of their choice.

The party then went back up, and explained their absence to those they missed meetings with the night before (the Alchemist and Grackle Bugdung, the Goblin Shaman) as due to being ordered to search for Margath's killers (very plausible, since they were disguised as Doomguards and Chaos Warriors/Warlocks). They made another appointment with the Alchemist for later that night, and then went to meet with Grackle at the Goblin Barracks. They told Grackle they had "dire news" for him about his tribe's future and set up a meeting at Margath's old lair away from prying eyes. They told Grackle that they had overheard the ogres saying they were going to enslave the goblins so they wouldn't have to share anymore treasure with them and would kill Grackle to weake the tribe. Naturally, Grackle agreed to help the Heroes kill the ogres on the spot. I added something new: Making an alliance with Grackle will help the heroes by giving them secret trapdoor access to both the Governor's Palace and the Ogre Barracks. The heroes decided to "recruit" two orcs (saying they were needed to help patrol the sewers for Margath's killers). These orcs would be killed in battle with the ogres and left behind as "proof" the orcs actually killed the ogres. Plus, one of the heroes had a potion of disguise and would turn into an orc and then be seen running out of ogre barracks with gold and a severed ogre head, leaving it in front of the orc barracks after knocking on the door (naturally, the orc who answered would take the loot). Anyway, the attack on the ogres was aided by Grackle's sorcery (orc shaman spells from Wizards of Morcar) and two goblin crossbowmen. The ogres died far too quickly/easily and the plan went off without a hitch. Then the alchemist was kidnapped by the heroes on his way to the meeting (Combat Card: Disarm & Capture) and forced to give them free potions. He was kept in the sewers and promised to be released when they killed the Governor. They promised Grackle that he would be installed as the new Governor (surely a blow to the Chaos Army forces in the area, LOL). Grackle thus agreed to help them kill the Governor and bring his troops into the fight. This battle was also too easy with the support of Grackle and his Goblin shortbowmen. The Governor cast the "Escape" spell and split to the Chaos Army Barracks to get more doomguards and crush the "goblin revolt." However, I think the heroes have won at this point due to their extreme cleverness at manipulating the Chaos forces inside the city. We didn't get to finish as we ran out of time. They really like Grackle Bugdung, LOL. They couldn't have done it without him (well, they could have, but it would have been a lot harder!). I think the Emperor got more than he could have hoped for: The City of Chaos is now in CHAOS!!! LOL, what a fun playtest, despite the stunning ease with which they won what were supposed to be the toughest battles.

Unfortunately, I probably won't get to do more playtesting (my players would kill me if they were sent back there again), so I'm going to prepare version 1.3 of the City of Chaos and HeroQuest Extreme Rules based on what I have now --- if not this week, then next (damn real life intruding again). I really want to hear from everybody who got a copy of this quest and read or ran it! Got some great input from Jacob Busby, now I need YOUR input!
 
Just another quick comment on this last playtest:

I think that because city-based quests are so FLEXIBLE and present so many ROLEPLAYING opportunities to MANIPULATE the villains that, as the Evil Wizard, I really can't object to some creative problem solving by the Heroes. The forces of Chaos are greedy, paranoid and self-centered, so they can and should be turned against each other by clever players. Why fight them when you can get them to fight each other? Or why fight alone, when you can trick some of the villains into fighting alongside you?

The smartest and strongest roleplayers in the group won out over the "let's just bash in the door and kill everything that moves" objections of the other heroes. If they'd tried to do that, they would've gotten creamed eventually.
 
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