Gaming

Fantasy Gaming in the 80s and 90s – Part 1: The What

I recently received a copy of HeroQuest from a friend of mine, and it made me feel quite a bit of nostalgia for what it was like to be a young gamer. When I look back at the things that really got me in to gaming, aside from the fact that my parents role-played, I think of four games in particular: HeroQuest, Dragon Strike, Talisman, and Key to the Kingdom.

I guess it’s worth noting that these fall into two categories – dungeon crawls and adventure games. And, as I look at them now, there is a very specific pattern: There was the game that I played first (released in the 80s), and the game that I owned myself (released in the 90s).

HeroQuest (1989)

When I played HeroQuest for the first time, I distinctly remember thinking that this was role-playing that I could really start to understand. My mother played the game master, and I remember going through each of the quests in the quest book. Also, each of our characters had names, though I don’t remember what those were (except that my youngest brother, William, played the dwarf named “Choppy”). I played the elf, Genevieve played the barbarian, and Tony played the wizard.

Sometime after that, our copy degraded slowly – I remember there being some missing pieces one new year when I ran a real D&D campaign for some friends while we journeyed around the HeroQuest board. However the main blow came later when I used the barbarian and gargoyle figure as Theseus and the Minotaur in a Labyrinth diorama for history (which ended up being thrown away along with a fair number of legos). Sometime after that, I ended up with a handful of the miniatures and the board – the last bits that I have been hauling around with me since.

  • What I still have: The board, the GM screen, the quest guide, the chests, many of the rock/trap tiles, most of the monsters (missing 2 orcs, 3 goblins, 1 skeleton, the warlock, and the gargoyle). The elf and the dwarf are the only heroes to have survived. I also still have the original red dice, and four of the six combat dice.
  • What I miss the most: Somehow, HeroQuest did what Descent does well but very simply. Yeah, the box was big, but easily half the size of descent, and setup was much easier. You could be up and running in just a couple of minutes.

Dragon Strike (1993)

Sometime after I got into HeroQuest, I received a copy of Dragon Strike. It had much the same setup – miniatures and props that set up on a board, and one player playing the part of the “Dragon Master” for the other players. I remember thinking that the artwork was a little “lighter” in theme than HeroQuest, though there was also a lot more options – there were four boards instead of one, and and a fair number of options for characters and monsters.

Dragon Strike suffered the same degradation that HeroQuest did – I’m sure I never played through more than a few quests, and at that point I was heavily into playing Dungeons and Dragons. After a while, the miniatures were all that I really cared about since I could use them for role-playing. I gave away the VHS that came with the game to Cliff, because at the time I thought it was thoroughly cheesy – I hope now that it inspires the next generation of gamers.

  • What I still have: The boards, the DM screen, the quest and instruction guides, the hero and monster cards, a handful of the tokens, most of the monsters (missing 1 orc, the giant, and the dragon; the manscorpion is in pieces though). The male thief, dwarf, and wizard were the only survivors. I still have the original blue D8 and black D12, but not the D10 – probably because it had a 10 instead of a 0 made it less useful for D&D (I got rid of stuff for such arbitrary reasons back then).
  • What I miss the most: Actually, I miss the VHS the most; luckily, I was able to find it on youtube (watched it last night with my wife). There was a little section at the end that really caught me though, a section for prospective DMs – it provided two huge pieces of advice: “Don’t be afraid to ham it up.”, and “There is really only one rule to being a great Dragon Master: the real object of the game is for everybody to have fun.” Words to live by (delivered by a guy in a black turtleneck).

Talisman (1983)

Talisman was my introduction to adventure games. The characters played heroes that ran around a board, collecting treasure, slaying monsters, and trying to reach the biggest treasure of them all at the end. Though it seemed mythical from talking to any geek from the 80s and 90s, I actually did finish a fair number of games of Talisman. Tony was quite good at the game (and his Warrior of Chaos was always very powerful), and we played rarely, but whenever there was sufficient time and space. We had the second edition of the game with The Adventure expansion, and uncle Mike had The City and the Timescape.

The things I remember most about Talisman were the various things that could happen to adventurers (usually when it was bad): Cursed by the Hag, the Poltergeist, the Chinese Dragon, the Raiders (that hid your stuff in the oasis), getting turned into a toad. But there were also fun things, like Market Day, the Cross (that let you deal with undead), and the Prince and Princess. As far as I know, my parents still have a copy of Talisman around that’s in good shape – the biggest degradation is in the cards getting bent and lost.

  • What I still have: I never ended up with the Talisman stuff, though I’m guessing that my parents still have a full working copy. My memory from last time I pulled it out was that some of the decks looked a little anemic (lost cards), and I think some of the character stand-ups were missing, but that’s not bad for an almost 30 year old game!
  • What I miss the most: The thing I miss the most about Talisman is The City expansion. I have the new fourth edition of the game, and still pull it out to play occasionally, but the City was a neat expansion to gave a really cool reason to visit, and I would love to see an updated version of that!

Key to the Kingdom (1990)

Key to the Kingdom was another game that I got once it was clear that I enjoyed adventure games. This one I’m sure I played a few times through, if only by myself. If Talisman was mythical in it’s ability to take a long time to play, Key to the Kingdom could potentially match it without being mythical.

This game didn’t get picked over quite as bad as I had initially thought. I grabbed the adventurer and the demon king miniatures for my tackle box of minis, but everything else stayed in the box. At some point, I lost both instruction books (including the Hazard Handbook which, until the internet came around and contained everything, would be a death knell for ever playing this game), but most everything else remained intact.

  • What I still have: Nearly everything except the instructions – I’m missing one adventurer figure, and two bridge sections – I even have the original box (in amazingly good shape) and green 8 sided die!
  • What I miss the most: Key to the Kingdom was a one-trick pony, but the gimmick was still pretty cool. I haven’t seen a folding game board mechanic in quite some time!