GAME REVIEW
Today I want to talk about a small jewel of the past.
A game that was not a true role-playing game, neither a classical tabletop.
It stood in the middle of both categories.
Advanced Heroquest was published in 1989 by Game Workshop.
It was meant to be the sequel of Heroquest.
However the only trait Advanced Heroquest shared with Heroquest was the word “Heroquest” in the title.
Advanced Heroquest, technically speaking, was (and is) a completely different game.
It shares, like any true Rpg, a character’s creation procedure but it lacks emphasis on the role-playing aspect.
IF the topic interests you, you can download the Advanced Heroquest enhanced rules for free, made by the fans for the fans. These guys made an amazing job, so give them a chance.
AND have a look at my Dungeon Crawl Generator – Catacomb, which is inspired on the principles of the Advanced Heroquest dungeon generator, but for any D20 System.
The game has a peculiar game mechanic exclusively based on D12.
Read…Advanced Heroquest (1989) vs DnD (2000) Combat System
The whole campaign setting is imported from Warhammer, however it is not Warhammer.
Nevertheless the game mechanic transmits the same grim flavor of warhammer.
Dying is easy if you make too many tactical errors, and improving the character is hard.
No levels or experience points. Training!
Another feature that distinguishes Advanced Heroquest from other Rpg is character advancement.
You don’t collect any experience points and there are not levels.
The character, instead of leveling up, may increase his primary stats.
You increase your primary stats by one point at a time, and you do it by paying an increment amount of gold pieces.
So the cost doesn’t depend on the score of the primary stat, it depends instead on how many points you are increasing it.
Advanced Heroquest character’s sheet shows nine primary stats – remember that primary stats are such because you usually roll them during character creation.
Primary stats are the following:
Weapons Skill, Bow Skill, Strength, Toughness, Speed, Bravery, Intelligence, Fate and Wounds.
So, when you “level up” you are indeed increasing, through training, by one point one of these primary stats.
Classes & Races
Advanced Heroquest employs classes and races, so in this aspect it’s like any other Rpg we know.
The original manual presented humans, dwarves and elves.
However many fans of the game have done an excellent work in expanding the playable races and improve a bit the rules.
Classes also were limited, if I remember well you could pick barbarian, warrior, clerics and wizards.
Again, fans has already expanded the list of classes.
In the web you can find plenty of pdf that contain the expanded rules.
Mercenaries
One aspect of the game I really enjoyed!
Hiring mercenaries was very simple and an important aspect of the game.
You just had to pay them before entering a dungeon.
The original box contained indeed the miniatures of mercenaries.
As I mentioned above, Advanced Heroquest has a high character’s mortality rate, so mercenaries is an important add-on for your party.
You had only one type of mercenary to hire, however nothing prevented you from crafting different and exotic types.
Monsters
The original box contained only one type of miniature to be employed as monster.
Skaven!
For those of you that are not familiar with Warhammer, skaven are nothing more than evil ratfolk with a “calling” for alchemy.
However the rules contained a small bestiary with a good list of monsters.
Orcs, Chaos Warriors, Fimirs, Goblins, Skeletons, Zombies and Gargoyles.
Basically all the monsters that Heroquest contained in its box.
Tiles, Rooms, Doors & Features
This aspet of the game is indeed the one many people liked most (I suppose at least!).
The box came with modular tiles to assemble a dungeon in real time while exploring.
You had corridors, crosspoints, left turns, right turns and T-turns.
Rooms! Not many kind of rooms, but enough to assemble a decent dungeon.
Special features! Like pools, mosaics, statues, traps, chasmes and tombs.
Doors! Doors made of plastic that could open and close.
The quality of all this stuff was high and this reflected in the price, but the game was worth every coin.
Dungeon Generator
This is the second aspect of the game that I loved and made it very original
The manual included an easy step by step procedure for dungeon building.
The Game Master could employ this tool to build the dungeon before the session. Until here nothing special you may say.
However, building a dungeon while exploring was the most exciting part of the game.
The players knew they were bulding a dungeon in real time, and were aware that every encounter could be very dungerous because the Game Master had little control on the difficulty of every encounter.
At the same time the Game Master didn’t know what was about to happen and had to carefullu administrate his resources.
Today many dungeon generator exist, more or less complex, more or less interesting.
Many of them generate dungeons by a software…a sort of plug-and-play if you pass me the term.
It’s fine.
Believe me! Nothing compare to building a dungeon in real time, while rolling dices and wondering what awaits you behind the next door or turn!
I add that to this day you can (finally) find many excellent tiles producer. Some tiles are even made in resin, other in paper.
Just pick the one you prefer.
Conclusions
Long story short, Advanced Heroquest was a hack, slash and loot, with a touch of sandbox.
If you possess a box, you made a good investment.
If you want to buy a box, you should check something in the second-hand market. People are selling the full box (very few indeed) and its spare parts also.
If you like creativity just grab a software, draw your tiles and have them printed…or buy coll stuff from specialized producers.
Whatever will be your decision…build dungeons and roll dices!
“The game has a peculiar game mechanic exclusively based on D12.”
and … ?
Don’t leave us hanging!
The article was not about the game mechanics of the game itself. It’s just a short review of its content.
I can explain some of the basics if you formally ask me to write an article about this specific topic.
Here is the article with some explanations about the D12 mechanics.
Advanced Heroquest (1989) vs DnD (2000) Combat System