Pointless Nostalgia…
As many of you recall, a few weeks ago we returned to our video gaming roots over here at StupidRanger Central by purchasing an Xbox 360. As I traversed the different options made available through the Live Marketplace, I was presented with many games from years past.
This made me particularly nostalgic and got me thinking about some of the things that led me into D&D. One such game was the Milton Bradley classic game HeroQuest.
Ah, the good ol’ days
This game came out in 1991, and unfortunately it was during the Dark Times when I didn’t have many friends that appreciated the nerdish tendencies that I possessed. My sister wasn’t really old enough to play the game, however I was able to get a few of my neighborhood chums to play a few times.
I hadn’t quite grasped the notion that you could have creativity alongside a board-game, so I stuck to the stock adventures that came along with the system. The game was played with miniatures and cardboard tiles, and the game master led the players through a dungeon and the goal was to escape alive.
The interesting thing about this game was that it had elements that spoke to pretty much all aspects of roleplaying gamers: character creation (you had to pick a class and learn their skills), dungeon creation (or just a storyline if you are a player), miniatures including set pieces (my first exposure to mini’s), and my favorite part… the treasure cards.
Basically, they were fancied up “Chance” cards a la Monopoly. I remember that the cool things seemed to outweigh the bad, but there was always a chance of unearthing a monster or trap when you searched an area for treasure. They really tickled the part of me that would later embrace Magic: The Gathering for many, many years (thankfully, I broke that habit midway through college).
Reflecting
It is interesting to consider how this game was a good teaching tool for the budding Dungeon Master. All the elements are there… building interesting traps/encounters, doling out treasure, killing bad guys… and the best thing about it was it was designed to be a classic dungeon crawl.
I don’t know what became of my set… I have a feeling it met with either a leaky closet ceiling or the wrath of my mother’s Spring Cleaning… I found a link over at BoardGameGeek that indicates that I could replace it for a scant $111.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that outlay of cash happening anytime soon… I’d rather have the memories intact anyway.
I have an expansion for that, but not the original game. Got it as a birthday present when I was little. Never got to actually play the game, though the miniature-things saw some use elsewhere.
You know, I have that game still to this day and some of my friends and I even play it from time to time. I have it and two expansions, “Kellar’s Keep” and “Return of the Witch Lord”.
Honestly, it’s sitll a blast as a “super rules light” tabletop. With just a tiny handful of house rules (for example, daggers don’t magically vanish when you throw them), it’s not bad at all.