Dungeon Keeper mod

Today I had the idea of trying a complete different way of playing Heroquest with the kids : I called it Dungeon Keeper!
The idea is to let the players play the monsters while the Dungeon Master plays the heroes.

First, I set up a basic dungeon by placing some doors and furniture and prepared one stack of monsters for each player.

Then the young dungeon keepers prepared their defense. One after the other they placed their monsters where they wanted to.
Their goal was to prevent the heroes from stealing the treasure chests.

Once ready, the first hero came in. The Barbarian desperately tried to make his way to the treasure room but was killed by the Mummy after he had slain two Skeletons.

I then sent the Dwarf in the Arena. He fought bravely but had to run away when he had only one body point left after a fierce fight against a Fimir.
This time it is a victory for the Monsters...

The game was really fun for the kids but I guess I couldn't play it too often since they asked to play the heroes again right after this game.
Nevertheless, a complete new way of playing Heroquest is emerging from this game. Next time I could also let the players place some traps where they want to or give them several objectives so that they do not concentrate all their figures at the same place...

In conclusion it was a nice and funny experiment...

The Magic Trial V3.0

Thanks to all the suggestions I had on Ye Old Inn forums, I finally decided to rework my quest for the Wizard.
You will find here the last version (3.0) in pdf format including the map and all the required notes.

I'm quite sure it still needs some proofreading and adjustment but this version should be definitely better. I've completely reworked the Notes so that it is more understandable by Dungeon Masters who can then guide the player toward the good solution.

Notes : 

This quest is designed for players to learn the art of magic spells. It is supposed to be played by the Wizard or any equivalent hero. The quest was designed as a kind of riddles where the right spell should be used at the required occasion. I would thus recommend the master to read the quest carefully before playing it. A solution is suggested in italic letters in the notes.

It should be played by a beginner Wizard without any equipment nor treasure from any previous quest. Should he be killed during the adventure, the Wiazard will automatically be teleported to the very first room. He will lose any treasure or equipment he may have found and start the quest from the beginning.

In order to play this quest you will need the figures of the men-at-arms and the spells from the expansion set “Wizards of Morcar”.

The player doesn't choose any spell at the beginning since he will find them during the quest.

Get the full notes here

New character sheet and minor adds to the Blog

I've just reworked my character sheet :

The "Spells" section is related to a custom rule I've implemented allowing heroes to learn spells from scrolls. You can read more about it here 

I also added three new custom quests to the Download page :
- The Necromancer's Lair
- The Knight's Tomb
- The Four Kingdoms

Educational heroquest : dictations and spells

A few monthes ago I wondered how I could make heroquest an educational tool without compromising the fun part of it. This subject was discussed on forums without finding any proper solution.

But now I have a new idea : learning spells!
Some characters can learn spells one at a time provided he finds a sroll during the adventure and the player is able to write it done under dictation (or copying it for younger ones) without mistakes. This must be done between adventures, exactly the same way the player would buy equipment.
If only he or she can achieve this he or she will be granted with that spell.

Who would like to try that?

Heroquest as an introduction to RPG

For the holidays we had planned to go camping with the 2 older kids (6 and 8 y.o.). Unfortunately weather forecasts were not good enough to bring the game along. All the more most of it was recreated with cardboard...

When the children asked to play heroquest I had the idea we could play it without the board.
So we wrote the character sheets on paper and played it like we would in a normal Rpg.
The dice were rolled thanks to my Dice For Heroquest application.

Dungeons were of course shorter but I could introduce some role-playing elements like free actions, talking...

And it worked! They even found it better to play. Heroquest turned out to be a very good introduction to rpg!

Children's attention span

Now that I have played dozens of games with the children I have gathered a little experience on how to handle a game with them. One of the most important aspect to take into account is their attention span ability.

Just to set up the background, let me remind you that, most of the time I play with children aged between 4 and 8. 

The last 4 games we played on the same quest : Four Kingdoms. The advantage of this quest is that it can easily be divided into four main parts : one for each kingdom or quarter of the map. This was key because each part took us around one hour.

What came out of it is that a 4-year-old child will stay focused on the game for around 20 minutes. Then he will start leaving the table between his turns and play something else. Should he find another center of interest he will eventually give up playing. With a 6-year-old child it can last up to 30 minutes before the focus is lost.
Finally the eldest one, who is also the most motivated by Heroquest, can easily play for an hour without interruption.

Could anyone confirm these results ? Do you have any tips to play longer with children ?
Please let me know in the comments.

The Magic Trial V.2

Thanks to the feedback I earned quickly from the community (mainly on Ye Old Inn forum) I've edited my training quest  for the Wizard :

Note : In my downloaded version of the spells, the Genie can resurrect a dead hero. If you don't have this version you should add a Elixir of Life in Room 7

Changelog :
- Room 2 : The 8 Orcs have been replaced by the Barbarian and men-at-arm fighting against Orc so that the player will have to go through.
- Rooms 3 and 4 : The Chaos warrior has been moved from room 3 to 4. Traps added to room 3 then to maintain player's awareness and/or use the healing spell ;)

- Rooms 5, 6 and 7 : Minor change in furniture, treasures (this holy water might be useful) and monsters.
- Rooms 8 and 9 : Inverted the Elf corpse and the chaos warrior
- Room X : Replaced the Fimirs by the Dwarf and his man-at-arm fighting against undeads.
- Room 14 : Removed 2 Chaos Warriors
- Room 15 : Removed half of the Fimirs
- Room 16 : Piece of furniture added

Reworked the notes to follow chronological order of the quest

Training quest : The Magic Trial

The Wizard is the most difficult hero to play for young players. It requires to fully read and understand each spell to build a real strategy during the game. Thus it is often poorly played by the youngest players. That is the reason why I've built this quest.
Its purpose is to teach them the use of all the spells available in the game (Water, Fire, Earth and Air but also Protection, Detection and Darkness from the extension).
This quest is designed as a succession of riddles where the right spell must be used at the right moment... Yet their might be several solution to solve it.

Please try this quest and give your feedback in comments. I would be particularly interested in reading any clever trick your players found to reach the end of it...

Now refer to the following chart to show how far your player went : 19 is the exit, X is the dead-end room and Y is the bonus room. Please comment with your score...

Quest : Four Kingdoms

As the kids are now veterans I have set up a very difficult map for them. The first time we played it, they only explored a fourth of it before we had to stop.

To play it you will need my Skin Skirmisher and Lizardman custom monsters. Please do not hesitate to try it and send some feedback about it...

Lizard men, two new monsters

Here are two new monsters straight from the swamps : a Lizardman and a Skink skirmisher.

Please try them versus your players and send me feedbacks...