I have no nostalgia for Heroquest. I didn't have access to a lot of "cool" things growing up, so, in effect, if I enjoy something from the old days, you can generally be sure it's probably pretty good, since I'll be coming into it fresh, untainted by nostalgia.
I really liked Heroquest's conception, which to me, seemed like a fun little dungeon crawler for people who know nothing about DnD and other games like it. It is a remarkable teaching tool, but far too simple for people over the age of 12, I would say. It's hard to actually note this, since I know people with children under the age of ten who basically pull off pro-level Fornite maneuvers I have no inclination to learn(this is me coping hard, I wouldn't be able to do them). I do really wish I'd had access to a copy of Heroquest when I was younger and people who would play with me, because my only experience with tabletop RPGs in college was Disney propaganda about how they would turn you into a gibbering junkie and a jerkoff who said, "Sure, you can play" and handed me a confusing tax-form looking sheet and told me to fill it in with no assistance. Yet, now, with some RPG experience, Heroquest is a little too simple. Roll a pair of dice to move. Take an action, most of which auto-succeed unless it's a trap(debatable on searching for treasure, you do pull a treasure card, but the deck appears without a specific count to have either half or slightly more of a "fuck you, you get a monster or damage" variety of cards in it. Otherwise, that's about it.
Enter Heroquest XP, a fan mod that does what several other mods of Heroquest do for the game - adding experience and character progression! I've seen a few here and there and a lot of them don't really do it for me - if you're going to just add races, let people pick whatever of the four races they want, add in a leveling system, maybe even ability scores and skill trees - just play DnD, or Shadows of Brimstone. At least, that's the way I see it.
Heroquest XP does away with all of that shit and does something fun and interesting with the game, while making it a much more difficult experience for the players and a more fun one. I don't think I'd recommend it so small kids, but gamers who like to screw with systems and cheese and such will have a really good time, at least in my case. So whirr went the printer and out came the scissors, a little tedious for sure, but slotted nicely into sleeves I quickly had a small rulebook and 64 cards.
How does it work? There's a new sheet. Sadly, this is the way, but conservation enthusiasts and legacy mechanic haters will be happy their pad of sheets is worthless and won't be pulled apart to sate the dark gods. I guess.
You don't pick whatever race you want, and you don't add ability cards. It's still Heroquest. Take four heroes and their starting equipment. Add 25 XP to start and sift through your cards. The cards can be played instead of taking a normal action, many are one-offs, everyone has a passive "level up" card, and some can be taken as free actions and some have conditions for recovering themselves after use. Mind points have more value than the base game. The cards have a base cost that doesn't scale, and you can buy some of them multiple times.
But.
But.
Buying cards also gives Zargon a card for each one you have, meaning he gains more each purchase of a player card. Level-ups are kind of mediocre, since they only afford one body or mind point and in return, ho ho, in return Zargon gets a new card like "destroy the entire room and do three no-save body points to everyone in it" or "everyone must roll a d6 for each mind point they have, if they don't roll a six, they are paralyzed for Zargon's round and cannot defend themselves" or "this monster gets a spell card, Zargon presents two cards to the players and they choose which one the monster gets", etc. There is no safety either, Zargon gets more and more options to fuck with the players and in return, the players get a larger host of abilities to defend themselves. And the difficulty does a good job re-scaling, if the Barbarian is sent screaming to Khorne's mighty realm, never to return, you make a new Barbarian with none but the standard starting XP, and if he had four XP cards, the Zargon player reduces down by three for the next adventure.
On top of this, if there are no monsters on the board, Zargon begins to flip over cards from the treasure deck until one of the negative card effects appears, but instead of it happening to a specific player, Zargon can choose. If a Zargon wanted to treat the game like it was a competition one supposes he could simply direct all ire to the wizard, then elf, then dwarf and finally barbarian, but I roll a d4 and let fate take it's course. It's a far more difficult game, because in base Heroquest, no monsters on the board means it's time to fidget around, and in Heroquest XP, it means constant attacks by wandering monsters. The orc is a simple foe, but once you get to things like the Fimir/Abomination, things become harder. We tend to play rules as written, because why not!
In a recent adventure, the players needed to steal gold from chests in a Dread Warrior's stronghold and return them to a prince and the players realized that with Abominations being the spawning monster of the dungeon, they would be having quite a few difficulties very quickly. When they found what was effectively a boss room, they fought a dangerous and deadly encounter indeed, and then afterwards, they left a single goblin alive. This, the wizard put to sleep, you see. The players gathered up their gold, and then proceeded to slow-march out of the massive dungeon, me unable to spawn a single god-damn thing because, well, as you see, there was an enemy on the board. The final stretch of the journey was mostly really just funny, as a single goblin, finally awoken after five rounds of the party walking away and, in blind desperation, trying to murder the dwarf and failing to score more than a single hit then entire time. At some point he managed to get ahead and score a few hits on the barbarian, but end of the adventure, the players use of strategy had neutered Zargon's ability to spawn more dangerous foes.
So, it's a better game. Feels a little Descent-ish, but simpler, and honestly, a bit more fun, as I have never once enjoyed Descent. There are mechanics you can use to account for what is, a literally harder game. The difficulty scales up, and then down, and overall it's good fun. The rules are on BoardGameGeek, and I am telling you now, go to that site and give them a once over, it's certainly worth the time. It's still Heroquest, but advanced enough to still be Heroquest and not just be an RPG-lite without any of the advantages of an RPG-lite.
