Everyone loves Games Workshop and Milton Bradley's 1989 fantasy board game, HeroQuest, but its younger sibling, TSR's 1993 fantasy board game, DragonStrike, is mostly remembered for the campy VHS video included in the box. DragonStrike deserves a better legacy because it's a better game—take it from a guy who was the target audience of both at the time they were released.
HeroQuest's dungeon furniture and plastic miniatures were far superior to anything DragonStrike had to offer. Gary Chalk's wonderful artwork put anything of DragonStrike's to shame (with the exception of Robin Raab's endearing battle map art).
None of that made it a better game, though.
Simply put, HeroQuest isn't even a role playing game. It's a straightforward hack-and-slash dungeon crawl—but it's really not that great of one. It's fun for three or four games, but it gets repetitive. I imagine modern dungeon-delving games like Descent provide more sustainable entertainment.
Not only is DragonStrike an RPG, it's a good one. I've talked about it before: TSR's DragonStrike in 1993
It's a rules-light system that encourages players to speak and act in character, and to interact with the world in anyway they can imagine. It encourages the game master to adjudicate the outcome fairly and generously. By my definition, that's an OSR role-playing game!
DragonStrike's Design
Whereas HeroQuest had a single quest book that contained the map and adventure, DragonStrike's Map Book and Adventures Book were separate. The digest-sized (6" × 8.75") Adventures Book had 32 pages and 16 adventures. The Map Book was magazine-sized (8.5" × 10.75") and staple-bound paper; it had no cover. Each quest in the Adventure Book had a one-page map in the Map Book.
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Adventures Book cover and contents.
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Map Book, first quest.
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It's set up to be played exactly like a regular Dungeons & Dragons adventure module. The GM, called the "Dragon Master," even had a tri-fold stand-up screen. The adventures were played on one of four boards: a castle; a cave; a city; and a wilderness map.
I recall so fondly playing what was essentially Dungeons & Dragons on those four game boards. I wrote and ran so many adventures. Ah, those were the good ol' days!
DragonStrike as OSR Adventures
As written, DragonStrike's adventures are a little too straightforward for the OSR. If the OSR is "problems without prescribed solutions" like the mantra says, then converting DragonStrike into OSR adventures might simply require writing them as if players have complete freedom to do as they wish.
"The OSR is the players story, not the GM's," is another OSR mantra. Rather than a single goal like "slay the dragon," an OSR adventure should consider the many predictable motivations the players might have. Instead of "Save the princess in the dungeon," we simply state, "There's a princess in the dungeon." Players might set her free, ransom her, kill her (e.g., they are the Duke's paid assassins), or leave her to rot. We don't write the plot; that's the players' job.
For example, let's take the first adventure for a party of 2-3 players, "Against the Giant:"
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| Page 3 of the Map Book on top; pp. 6-7 of Adventures on bottom. |
The Adventure Book says, "Put the giant in [a cavern chamber]. This is Grunt. If questioned, Grunt has but one response: 'Fee, fie, foe, fum! I smell the blood of hero-scum! Grunt kill you now.'"
Yikes. That's not going to cut it in the OSR by a longshot. We could re-write it to say something like: "Grunt the hill giant reaches under his bearskin tunic and scratches between his legs as he lounges near the fire." Short descriptions are best; the most important part of the game is the back-and-forth between the GM and players.
We need to give Grunt a motivation, and we need that motivation to be anything other than "kill the players." The story says, "Grunt plans to raise an entire army of creatures, which will march upon our lands." This must be a smart and charismatic giant. It's usually evil wizards who try to raise humanoid armies.
Elsewhere, it says there's an orc who stole a trove of powerful magic items from Grunt. Right there we have an easy motivation: Grunt wants his stuff back. We also have some opportunity to add some intrigue and diplomacy. Why does a giant have powerful, orc-sized magic weapons and armor? Why is an orc stealing them from him?
These questions need to have interesting answers, because this how we give players reasons to use diplomacy rather than swords. If "just kill the orc and take the stuff, then kill the giant," is the best answer this whole scenario, then this will be a simple hack-and-slash. That's the antithesis of the OSR. Choice becomes an illusion as players lose agency. Maybe they don't want to kill the monsters and take their stuff.
The story says the giant is raising an army and has orc-sized magic equipment, so it's probably a payment to the orc's chief to fight for him. This nameless orc thief must have a motivation to make sure that doesn't happen.
All we know about the orc is that he or she has stolen the some radical magic equipment: Gauntlets of Ogre Power are a bad ass treasure! Let's give our thief an identity and motivations.
Vorkha the orc Thief knows what will happen if her small tribe of orcs goes to war with Lord Narran: they'll be slaughtered. She's sabotaging the negotiations by stealing the giant's payment to her chief. Lets make her sympathetic to humans; she's known their kindness. She's also greedy as a dwarven miner and not afraid to take what she wants. She's not a warrior, but she'll fight to the death if players try to take her spoils. She'd rather have gold than the magic junk she can't use; but she suspects the set is very valuable.
Gargoyles inhabit the cave as well; two of them just down the hall. In DragonStrike, they are an interesting encounter: "The gargoyles here are chatty cowards who fight only if attacked." They have an empty chest also stolen from Grunt. They think there's treasure in it. (Quite a coincidence, but the book doesn't expound.)
Crong and Razaad, gargoyle brothers, have just been given the slip. They helped Vorka steal the equipment in return for whatever else they found. They found the chest, which Vorkha convinced them contains gold and jewels. In reality, it's trapped and full of worthless junk, but they don't know that. They're simply waiting on her to come back from scouting ahead for trouble. Spoiler alert: she's not coming back.
There is a troll and another orc in a chamber with a treasure chest. There's a small band of bugbears with a treasure chest as well. The book doesn't say those are stolen, so we can infer they've met with Grunt and have accepted his payment for their services. Let's say the troll is Grunt's lieutenant and the orc is his sergeant. They'll need identities and motivations, but we're drawing near the end of this exercise.
The bugbears are visiting and have just accepted payment. In the book, they ambush, so we can infer this truce with the giant and his other henchman is a new and uneasy one. They're just waiting for an attack. Let's say the door is barred from inside.
The two orcs guarding the entrance (room G), crossbows ready, are on watch for intruders. They rotate one out every six hours. If they detect intruders—a certainty if they're carrying torches and talking—one will run to the giant's chamber. The other will shoot his bow down from above.
Grunt's treasury has three more lockboxes in it suggesting there are three more factions yet to arrive. That can make for all sorts of interesting future encounters. As is, it's a great place to put a lot of treasure, and that's what all players are after!
To Be Continued . . .
That's all the book gives us for "Against the Giant," but it's more than enough to create a fun, exciting, and interesting OSR adventure.
If all 16 adventures were converted, it would make quite an OSR campaign. There's the "good" king Halvor and the "evil" wizard Teraptus (a play on S2 White Plume Mountain's Kerpatis), not to mention the titular red dragon, Darkfyre.
If I get time, I'll re-write "Against the Giant" and upload it as a PDF. Who knows, maybe I'll convert some other DragonStrike adventures in the future.
Until next time!
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