HeroQuest: Core rules

by Robin D. Laws

Book by Robin D. Laws

Genres: Role Playing Games, Gaming, Games

130 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2009

About the author

Writer and game designer Robin D. Laws brought you such roleplaying games as Ashen Stars, The Esoterrorists, The Dying Earth, Heroquest and Feng Shui. He is the author of seven novels, most recently The Worldwound Gambit from Paizo. For Robin's much-praised works of gaming history and analysis, see Hamlet's Hit Points, Robin's Laws of Game Mastering and 40 Years of Gen Con.

Reviews

[Ramón Nogueras Pérez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es una joya.

Un juego que, al contrario que la mayoría, hace lo que dice en la portada. Puedes simular cualquier género, cualquier ambientación, cualquier idea imaginable. Y, lo más importante para mí, lo simplifica todo tanto para el que arbitra que no es ni normal.

Ignorad la penosa traducción que hizo Edge Entertainment de la primera edición (que es mucho más enrevesada que esta, y de modo innecesario), y echad un vistazo a esto. Es probable que no volváis a necesitar otro reglamento.

[Ernesto I. Ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting set of rules, they give a very different approach to the traditional playing style. I like how easy are the resolutions, even if I am a bit doubtful about the how open is the selection of "skills" sometimes.

The only thing that actually I didn't like is the use of Hero Points both as experience point and as away to upgrade the character. It forces you to the decision of either fall into a serious problem or not upgrade the character fast enough to the progress on the game difficulties. It has many ways to help make this issue less dramatic, yet it continues to exist.

Personally I would change that and make it a little more like FATE in which the metaplot points are separated from the "Experience Achievements".

Otherwise I loved many of the concepts used here. Great work.

[Hugo Barbosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far it's a very nice set of narrativist rules with a brilliant character-creating method (my favorite is the 100 word-description). It gets the creative juices flowing, if you don't mind an abstract approach to gaming. The conflict resolution applies to all sorts of (er) conflicts from physical combat to social "duels", mass combat and even (why not?) magic conflicts. It's a sort of unified system for all types of conflicts. So far, it's 4 stars out of 5.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a couple of tries, but I finally finished reading this set of rules, and it turns out that I rather like them.

The game uses a relatively simple core mechanic and a design philosophy that puts the narrative story first above other considerations. I'm looking forward to running a game using these rules, even though there are one or two mechanics in the game that I dislike.