"Mead and Pretzels" - A 1 hour game of Advanced HeroQuest Dungeon Crawling


How to play a game of Advanced HeroQuest in about an hour. If you have a cheat sheet, the 4 tables below, the Wizard's Spellbook and the dice, you shouldn't need to consult the AHQ rulebook.
If you don't have Advanced Heroquest, you can use a suitable tile set, and whatever miniatures and combat rules you are used to. Some paper AHQ hero standups here.

Update: You can generate a dungeon using a Windows program, it is much easier.
For a quick "Mead and Pretzels" dungeon crawl using AHQ, generate a corridor using the dice (print and stick onto dice or wooden cubes from the dollar store craft section):
If you don't like the dice, use the tables at the bottom of the post.
  1. If there are 2 doors in "Passage Features", there are 2 rooms, so roll "Room Type" for each room.
  2. Add Doors somewhere along the passage, each door has a room beyond it. On the "1/2" side flip a coin to see if you get a wandering monster.
  3. Roll for passage end, including stairs up or out
  4. Roll for each room, place any doors on random wall
  5. Populate room according to Lair/Quest/Hazard matrix:

(I could have dice for the Matrices above, but it would be hard to know which die was which. And you might have different Matrices for other enemy races)

Your band of Heroes enter at the start of the corridor. If they reach the end of the corridor, a new section is created. If the new section is a dead end, optionally replace it with a T-junction if the Heroes have nowhere else to go.
The Warrior/Champion/Warlord in the Wandering Monsters Matrix would suggest Orcs, but other races can be substituted.
The game ends when a Quest room is cleared.
If you reach the third corridor, you are allowed a reroll on the Room Type, to end the game sooner.
Optionally, the 3rd corridor always has a Quest room in addition to existing rooms, for a short game.
Optionally, replace the Hazard with a wandering monster, so you don't have to read 4 pages of Hazard rules.
Optionally, cleared Quest and Lair rooms contain 20 * 2D6 Gold Crowns, instead of using the AHQ Treasure Chests Table rules.
The Heroes retain gold and treasure and wounds from the last game.
If the game is interrupted, record gold and treasure and wounds, and start with a fresh dungeon next time.

Tables instead of dice