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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A new roleplaying game for an old world, 14 Nov 2003
HeroQuest was first announced as an expansion on the then
acclaimed RuneQuest RPG, a highly detailed simulationist
role-playing game centered around Greg Stafford's fantasy
world of Glorantha.The Glorantha game setting has always stressed the importance of
the mythological connection - heroes follow and emulate their
gods, acquiring greater affinity with the gods and their powers.
HeroQuest reinforces the links between heroes, the gods and their
community. Any roleplaying game deals with conflict resolution, typically
using tables and dice to resolve most conflicts. HeroQuest has a
single universal mechanism, which scales very well, as it takes
into account different levels of Mastery. A die roll can result
in a Critical, Success, Tie, Failure, or a Fumble, each with
corresponding impact on the player characters. Heroes can use
their Masteries to adjust the die rolls in their favor, if
applicable. A Succes can become a Critical, ensuring a quick victory, or can save himself by turning a Fumble into a mere
Failure. Group conflicts (which don't have to imply combat) are easily
resolved by assigning a skill level to the group as a whole,
based on the average skill of its members, augmented with a
bonus from its leaders, or vice versa. The game is very flexible, which at once is a boon and bane.
At times, the narrator and players can be at a loss on how to
address an issue, as there is typically more than one way to
resolve it. To assist, the book starts with a good
meta-discussion focusing on narrative flow and 'Maximal
Game Fun.' Recommended. Minor quibbles - the book is massive and dense, and for a light
introduction to the game I would recommend the Hero's Book,
playing HeroQuest. A first edition was published a few years back by Issaries, Inc.
under the Hero Wars banner, which suffered from bad lay-out and
some inconsistencies. HeroQuest is effectively second edition
Hero Wars, and the rules have been revised and streamlined.
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