Family Heroquest "Get the Cat"

Last night, my 3 kids and I had another very fun game of Heroquest "lite". Following on from the success of  "Save your Brother", we ran a similar theme but this time trying to rescue our cat! The simplified rules I used were as follows:

• All characters can walk 4 squares. If they walk 4 squares then they can also either attack, cast a spell or investigate the area
• Characters can instead run 6 squares but forgo any other activity
• Investigating the area could trigger a wandering monster or the discovery of treasure, traps or equipment
• The spell-casting character (oldest daughter) can cast any spell she can think of (she has to use her imagination) but can only cast the spell once i.e each spell must be different. For it to be successful she has to use rhyme in her spell incantation and had to roll under her age on 2d6 (she's 9). She only uses one battle dice in combat.
• The other two characters (7 year old daughter and 3 year old son) had combat characters so could use three dice in combat. They had to roll over their age on 2d6 to attack first else they are attacked first! They only ever received scratches and bruises mind!
• Plus lots of other rules I made up as we played to help the flow of the game and keep them interested. Oh and treasure was in the form of jelly beans!

Doing this with the kids is definitely fun times for all, but also encourages them to use their imagination, empathy, storytelling, literacy (eg. reading the cards and the scenario) and numeracy (dice, counting etc). What's not to love? Oh and I get to play with my lovely kids and my painted toys too!

So I was the GM and the scenario was quite simple:




After discovering and slaying a few zombies (with son's trusty flail and some Holy Water he discovered), the family chase the cat into a corridor. Middle daughter decides to investigate the red glowing eye on the blue skull of the floor, which releases a gem (yum!) but also a couple of armoured skeletons..



Getting down low to capture the action. In the next room the cat runs past a few rats who are blocking the way, but these are hastily dispatched with some crossbow shots that oldest daughter had discovered.

Entering a room that was partly submerged in green water, middle daughter decides to investigate it's murky depths, only for a green warty hand to try and grab her ankle - a troll! You can't go round it, you can't go over it, you've got to go through it! Oldest daughter casts a polite spell: "Don't be angry Mr. Troll please, because otherwise I'll make you freeze". And after a successful roll, he froze! Jelly bean jewels visible near the far door!

Son runs ahead into the next room and discovers a throne room, alas just missing the cat who scarpers off behind a pillar. "I'm not scared" he says. Grabbing the scroll from the skeleton's hand they find directions to a stash of treasure under the broken pillar. A few jelly beans each!

Unfortunately we were told that we needed to finish up at this point, as the real GM (my wife) told us that tea was ready and we had to clear the table :(  So oldest daughter cast a spell which involved a portal to catch up with the cat: "Dungeon, dungeon I am mortal, please let me walk through a portal". She successfully re-appeared next to the cat, picked him up and waited for the other two to dispatch a few more skeletons before they all caught up together to high-five a successful dungeon exploration.

The end!

Below is what they would have further experienced with the rest of my dungeon tiles, including the end of dungeon baddie - a Wight King!

Next time my eldest and I may try for a game of Frostgrave..