I have been slowly working on creating a Heroquest like experience using stripped down WHFRP rules along with Miniatures and modular Dungeon Tiles. There are a few things that need to be addressed and this thread is intended to act as a forum for me to post upon.

First things first I feel that, due to the vision of the game as more of a dungeon delve / boardgame, that movement rules need to be looked at. I currently am thinking of having players roll d6's and take the highest number. Humans roll 2, Dwarfs roll 1, and Elves roll 3. With these rules the characters all have the opportunity to move up to 6 squares each turn however it is more likely for Elves and Humans to move farther than Dwarfs. I also am mulling around the idea of having players be able to spend fatigue to either roll another dice and add that to the total or just spend a fatigue to move one additional space.

The game as it is currently imagined is being developed to be an even more simple intro to the World of Warhammer and the Basic mechanics of WHFRP 3rd edition. I am co-developing the first adventure "pack" with my lady friend and we are setting it at Blood Keep and using an undead theme. The goal is to run a Warhammer Halloween Party at which we play this "HeroQuest-ized" and more simple version of WHFRP. As time rolls on I want to develop adventure "packs" that introduce new dungeons and new races of foes.

I intend to keep Conditions, Wounds, Miscasts, and Insanities but am trying to figure out ways to streamline the rules so as to create a simple to learn and swift to implement version of the rules. I'm intending to use GW miniatures and am also looking for three dimensional furniture and other items to populate the board. If anyone has suggestions for rules fat that can be cut or ways of creating rules to allow the game to work on a square by square basis that would be great.

I'll post more information as I develop it and hope to record the experience and post it on youtube after Halloween.

THIS is an awesome idea! Heroquest is THE board-game that introduced me to table top rpgs, and while I've never played Warhammer Quest, I've always admired it from a distance.

Have you considered streamlining the movement rules even further, take a page (or two) from Descent: Journeys in the Dark, and just give each race a base movement number (i.e. a maximum number of spaces/squares/inches they can move per turn), allowing them to spend fatigue to move further? This would keep extra, non-WFRP dice off the table.

Also, what kinda tiles are you thinking of using for the dungeon?

If you need any help with brainstorming, let me know!

I'd recommend pregenned characters (start with Jay-n-the-gang's work in LF 7 to ease the workload) spanning the playable races. As an introduction to the warhammer world you could eliminate the "power careers" from the initial choices (wizards, troll slayers, etc). Giving introductory players a chance to pick from a something like a Dwarf Pedlar, an Elf Scholar, a Human Guardsman, etc. It will hopefully help to keep them from being bummed out when they play the full 3rd edition game and don't randomly get the superior choices because they will obviously have had fun running your boardgame version with quirky "warhammery" careers. It'll drive home the fact that combat can be fun and successful even if you are a peasant with a kitchen knife (well...maybe not...but hey it's Warhammer!). More importantly they may learn the value of "Run AWAY..!!...!! Run AWAY...!!"

If I were embarking on the mad-cap adventure you are heading into Lester I'd eliminate stance meters entirely. I know it sounds bonkers but just do it. It'll simplify dice pools and keep the focus on learning the basics. For action resolution (ie which side of the card to use) just pre-decide the character/career to a particular stance (as if in neutral) and have done with it. It'll make the addition of stance pieces, meters, etc in 3rd edition make sense if they start to play this full version of the game. I'd generally run along with the idea of making customization choices for the characters and lock them down as "here are your characters and stats." This is what made Warhammer Quest and Hero Quest so cool to me as a youngster is that the characters were different and it was more about exploring dungeons than worrying about why a barbarian's attack dice were X.

The creation and advancement system is THE single most rules-heavy, confusing and hairy aspect of 3rd edition. Wait till they ask to play 3rd edition propper and then drop that ball of wax on them. By then they'll hopefully be too far in to turn back (yet another good lesson to learn when playing Warhammer).

Also use Fimir

*note* I'm just spit-ballin' here so feel free to ignore this "advice" completely as I will probably disagree with myself by lunch time

This is a *really* neat idea!

I'll second the suggestion of having "static" movement values to make the game simpler and involve less dice rolling. Perhaps Dwarfs move 3 spaces, Humans move 4 and Elves move 5. Gaining Fatigue for extra movement then becomes a pretty big deal, say 1 Fatigue for an extra 1 or 2 spaces (universal, not varied by race).

Callidon has some great suggestions too. I think introducing more of the "mundane" careers as the starting character options helps instill the idea that "heroes" in Warhammer don't have to be super-duper warriors or spell-slingers. Perhaps some careers like Barber-Surgeon, Bounty Hunter, Grave Robber, Hunter, Messenger, Student, Thief, Thug, Watchman, and Zealot would fit the bill and have possible reasons for entering a "dungeon". If you dared to introduce magic to the career options, I think Witch might seem appropriately forboding and not so "power-gamey".

I'm also with him on removing the Stance Meters and just assigning each career a default Stance that doesn't change. This will help demonstrate that the game recognizes a difference between "Reckless" and "Cautious" characters but without twisting them up in the extra mechanics of it. You can either pull the Stance Dice out completely and just roll straight Characteristic Dice, or you can have each player replace one (and only one) of their dice with their career's default Stance. Again, this might help demonstrate the existence and effect of the mechanic without over-complicating it.

Leave out Corruption and Diseases but keep Insanity, Conditions, Critical Wounds, Miscasts (if any *magic* careers are included) and possibly even Mutations. Perhaps you could adapt the Corruption mechanic such that rather than handing out Corruption tokens, such instances (say, a room littered with Warpstone) would give the character 1 Mutation instead. For Insanities, I wouldn't bother with the temporary/permanent distinction since the "scenario" of the game would be short-term any way. Simply, if they gain an Insanity, they're stuck with it for the rest of the game.

Leave out the Party Sheet as it isn't really fitting or useful for deepening or expanding the story until the PCs are getting more into "exploring the world together" rather than trying to survive a dungeon. Plus, it adds extra mechanics (Party Tension and the Party "ability") that can muddle things.

That's it for starters. I hope it proves useful. I'd love to hear more about this as it develops and would love to continue to assist whenever possible.

And you could always use Strange Eons to print up "treasure" and "trap" cards....or perhaps wandering monster cards (i.e. Heroquest).

All great ideas guys. I think I am going to take the movement in a static direction and go with what Bloody Sun Boy suggested with the Dwarf having 3, the Human with 4 and Elf with 5 movement, with the fatigue giving a universal 2 square "surge". I want to include priests and magic users because that allows me the chance to show that those things exist in the world and implement their basic mechanics. The magic rules are something that I'll have to streamline though, if only to prevent the spell casting characters from having to roll twice to achieve one spell effect. I think that a dice roll of several fortune dice and a challenge dice will suffice for Power / Favour with the challenge there more so for the possible miscast effect. The caster generates Power / Favour equal to the number of successes or double boons.

I was already going to use pre~generated characters, the plan being to give a nice variety of options. I also feel that as the amount of adventures build up I can always just add new hero's to the game as a whole. The idea is to have pre-written stories for each character detailing how they fit into the world of Warhammer and why they have chosen to explore Blood Keep. This way the players will be brought into the story and wont have to fiddle around figuring out what their purpose is.

I'm thinking that for the first adventure we are going to take several sheets of large format, thick paper (3' x 4') and draw out the floors of the dungeon on those using stylized cardboard sheets to cover up unexplored areas. However I might just go straight for interlocking dungeon tiles like Warhammer Quest. That way the more generic ones can be reused in further adventures.

As far as stance is concerned I was planning on removing it and just giving the character a stance. This will make the game run smoother. Also I don't see a need for the Career sheet to be at the table, just a simplified character sheet, their actions and talents.

For the search mechanic I was going to use cutouts from LoTR the LCG and Warhammer Invasion the LCG and throw them in a velvet Patron Silver bag and have the player who performs the search rummage through the bag and draw a tile, The WHI wound tiles will represent hidden traps (those not written into the adventure), the LoTR progress tiles will represent wandering monsters, and the LoTR resource tokens will represent treasure. This is still a work in progress and needs to be playtested but I think it will work and at the same time give the impression of searching for something. I will pregen a deck of monster cards representing the monsters that are present in the specific dungeon. So in the case of the Blood Keep crawl I'll use undead and spider cards from the creatures vault. For random treasure players will roll 3 fortune dice and then I'll consult a pre~constructed table to see what treasure they receive, from a simple few coins to healing potions and beyond. I'm also tossing around the idea of using City of Thieves components for the game but this is still up in the air. For random traps I'll roll 3 misfortune dice and consult a small easily referenced table which will have basic things such as poisoned dart traps etc.

Seeing how the wound cards can get to be a bit cumbersome I plan to dish out wounds with LoTR LCG wound tokens. If a critical is generated then I'll have the player draw from a pre~constructed critical wound deck using the WHFRP 3e wound cards. This way I can control what severe and critical wounds are present in the deck. I'll also work Disease and Mutation effects into the adventure and then key them to different events. For example a zombies bite requires an average Toughness check and if you fail you receive Disease card X. Insanities will be permanent until the end of the floor at which point players get a chance to shake off disease and insanity (not mutation however) by passing a test. This "end of floor" step is intended to show the players the idea of rally steps.

Oh and Fimirs are my favorite. But they will not appear in this Undead themed Halloween adventure.

.... More coming.

I'm thinking of going with a pre~generated system for the wizard spells. The player who picks the wizard decides on which wind he controls and then grabs the "Scroll" for that specific college. Upon the scroll are 5 different spells with their effects and difficulties. So for example the Grey Wizard scroll will have 2 level 1 spells (lesser effect and only one challenge dice), 2 level 2 spells (medium effect and two challenge dice) and 1 level 3 spell (greater effect with three challenge dice). So one of the second level Grey Wizard spells might be minor invisibility which lasts a number of rounds and prevents the target from being seen. In addition to this all wizards will have the ability to use a cantrip for a very minor effect possibly to create a sound or move a small object.

If this sounds like a good idea I'd love to see what "Scrolls" you guys come up with for the 8 winds. I'll post mine with the underlined title of "WIZARD SCROLLS" as I come up with them. If you would like please post your ideas with the same headline for ease of finding sake. I plan to make these scrolls with the "tea stain technique" and a good burning of the edges so that the players really get the feeling that they have a scroll.

Priests should be addressed as well but I'm having a hard time justifying giving options beyond Morr, Sigmar, and Shallya. I'm quite stuck when it comes to how to implement Priests into the game.

The Strolling Bones said:

Callidon said:

I'd actually considered doing something similar using a homebrew rules set that combines elements of WFRP, Heroquest, and Warhammer Quest. In my case however, instead of being used as an introduction to the game, It was going to be used as a sort of break from our regular Warhammer Fantasy RP campaign. The idea was to have the players run pregenerated and somewhat badass characters (Witch Hunter Captain, Barbarian, Dwarf Ironbreaker, Sigmarite War Priest etc) during the previous Storm of Chaos many years before the current setting. The quests would be short and a mixture of randomly generated dungeons and scripted encounters (ala Warhammer Quest) set in some of the old Dwarf holds or Skaven tunnels. Goals would include the recovery of some artifact or the defeat of some villain.

I was going to run this for a few sessions and after getting back to the original WFRP campaign, have the PCs come across people, places and things that exist as a result of what the characters in the "board game" did years before.