Treasures of the cupboard top - Heroquest (1989)

Continuing to clear shelves and poke in attics, this time with the aid of a stepladder, I found another treasure - my old Heroquest box, probably from 1989-91. This was my on ramp into the whole TTRPG space - this connected to Games Workshop, GW published White Dwarf which also had articles on things like WHFRP, got me aware other things existed and from there to Black Box D&D.

Friends of the blog The Adventuring Party recently talked about the new Heroquest rerelease and how the mechanics of the game have not changed - though the bits and models have which is good to hear. They mentioned some mechanical foibles that I do recall after all the time like sometimes it was really hard and sometimes things seemed to be just 'gotcha's' and it is nice to know my impressions at the time weren't completely wrong.

This did not stop me from snaffling up all the expansion packs I could get my grubby paws on - Kellars Keep, Return of the Witch Lord, Against the Orc Horde and Wizards of Morcar. I recall those later ones being tough at hell, with lots of big multi-wound baddies that made the equivalent of the early dungeon boss monsters into something you just randomly encountered about the place. It is interesting to think that coming in from Heroquest shaped my understanding of what D&D ought to be - heroes down in the dark, fighting monsters and claiming treasures. The mission packs in the book were also great DM primers for 'this is what and adventure should have' - a general location theme, a scatter of specific rooms with monsters, traps and treasures. Definitely shaped my understanding of what TTRPGs ought to be before I ever got to them - quite different to coming at them from the war-game space I imagine.

All the character sheets from games played were still in it - some truly ferocious attrition rates in there. Reading those, a lot never make it past their first quest.

For the few that made it a good way, I think this was the starter group - they basically got a few important magic items that gave them survivability and then once they perished and were replaced, the survivors never lasted long enough to scrape together the arsenal the original trio had.

I am going to see if I can find a new home for this - some other friends kids are beginning to cruise up on the right age for this - great to get it into the hands of someone who will put it back to use; especially since I can say the exact same game in a modern box is on the shelves today but this has extra skellies, orcs, ogres, what-have-you.