Hero Master: An Epic Game of Epic Fails

“There’s A Dragon In Snoozehaven”

Welcome all brave heroes! Oh no, wait… this is a game about the other adventurers – the selfish, the lazy, the practically inept who are trying to be the one to lead their party to glory and take the treasure rewards for themselves. Hero Master is a great and hilarious twist on the classic dungeon crawl genre, really showcasing what happens when the heroes turn out to be less than heroic.

Designed and illustrated by Jamie Noble Frier, Hero Master is a game for 2-5 players lasting around an hour. During the game the heroes must travel through seven classic fantasy genre locations to ultimately face the boss and come away with the most loot to win the game! There are five races that each player must pick from – Elf, Dwarf, Human, Gnome and Halfling, and also five classes – priest, barbarian, rogue, ranger and wizard. Each class and race brings with them their own deck and starting equipment ensuring many different combinations to choose from and differing game experiences as a consequence. There is also two play options – either play a standalone game or delve into the campaign mode for a much more immersive experience where the players get the opportunity to visit the village of Dozehoff and also play with campaign quests and scenario cards.

Gameplay

Once the players in Hero Masters have chosen their race, class and collected their relevant deck and equipment cards, they are ready to start! Hero Master provides beautiful neoprene mats or player boards which will be your main playing area where you will keep track of health and hand size (this can be altered through game mechanics), store hero cards, equipment, attack cards and bungle cards. Just as equally impressive is the also-neoprene game board where the location cards, monsters and loot for each location are kept. Once the first location has been drawn and a starting player (or party leader) has been chosen the players are ready to dive into the game. Each location has its own effects on the game, which can be helpful to the party or inversely provide a negative effect. For example, the Tavern location gives the heroes a chance to heal whereas the Abandoned Mine allows players to take gold from the loot pile when they play bungles and the Net Trap allows the player with the least amount of gold to steal gold from their rival players. Locations will also have unique effects for the party leader, which can also range from positive to negative.

From then on it’s time to start the first encounter. Hero Masters gets even more exciting! The party leader will choose a monster from the game board to initiate and encounter with, and either playing an attack card or declining to be involved in the fight and thereby passing the party leader token to the next clockwise player. The party leader token is a vital part of Hero Master, giving the party leader many choices to make and influencing many aspects of the game through their responsibility or lack thereof. Every player get the opportunity to either attack or decline, and once it has been decided who is attacking, the play continues clockwise with each player getting chances to play more attack cards or bungle cards until everyone either passes or runs out of available slots.

Each player then will have their chance to perform their attack, starting with the party leader. The player will resolve the attack card in their first slot before clockwise passing to the other players until every player has no attacks left or the monster is dead. On your turn you can choose to add hero cards or equipment cards to your attack increasing the value of specific damage types – each monster has four different types of damage values and your attack must equal or exceed one of those for you to be able to defeat the monster. To resolve your attack you must roll both d20 dice that are supplied with the game, a green die for the player’s attack and a black one to represent the monster attack. After modifiers have been taken away or added to your dice roll and the green die total is more or equal to the monster’s defence value and you have checked against the damage values to ensure you have defeated the monster you will take the relevant reward shown on the monster card and also the party leader token, as you have actually managed to kill something! If the black die equals or exceeds your hero’s defence value then the monster has hit you and you suffer wounds equal to the monster’s ferocity value which is also printed on the card. Once the monster is defeated, or all players decline to tackle the enemy, the heroes move onto another foe or if there are none left they move to another location. The players continue on until they encounter and either defeat or run away from all the monsters in the final location – the Dragon’s Den. The winner is then the hero at the end of the game with the most gold, as they move on to try and buy their way into a more capable party.

Tongue Firmly In Cheek

The most enjoyable part of Hero Master is its sense of humour – all of the cards have wonderfully hilarious flavour text, perfectly parodying the Dungeons and Dragons dungeon crawl genre. But the comedy doesn’t stop there, as the game’s unique feature – the bungle cards – also entertain in their own frustrating way. Bungle cards are played on other players to try and prevent them from attacking and defeating the monsters and as such gaining rewards. These can range from the barbarian’s “huh?!” card, where he stands witlessly in front of another hero’s attack to the ranger’s “dung-o-flague” card, distracting the other adventurers with his smell. There are also protest cards, representing the heroes with less loot being unsatisfied with the adventure. These cards are in place to help the players who aren’t doing as well as their rivals, giving them an extra card to play during their turn but they also fit into the game’s theme and overall feel nicely.

Campaign Mode

If the standalone games of Hero Master aren’t providing enough amusement for you, there are campaign rules too, which enables you to link a series of adventures together. This is where the game really comes into its own, allowing players to try and join one of three different guilds by reaching ten influence with any guild over a group of games and thereby winning the campaign. The players can gain influence with the three guilds (Slayers Guild, League of Loot and Trinket Tinkers) through donating money to them or performing quests via the quest and scenario cards that you will draw at the start of a campaign game.

The main feature of the campaign is the village of Dozehoff, represented by a village layout on the back of the handy and informative reference sheets provided with the game. After completing the chosen scenario, players will have the chance to visit up to eight different locations to give them upgrades for the next adventure, such as regaining health, purchasing new equipment and becoming the party leader at the start of the next game. This mode really expands on Hero Master’s game mechanics, giving your heroes a chance to ‘level up’ in a way, and providing a chance for player’s to really invest in their characters and also play through different scenarios and quests that differ from the standalone version.

Game Components

The artwork in Hero Master is consistently cartoony, an ideal match for the style of the game. The cards are of good stock with clear and colourful illustrations and the tokens are of a solid cardboard quality. The reference sheets are made of a more flimsy card but they are incredibly useful – after a couple of playthroughs the reference should be all you need to assist you during your games. The real quality of the components is shown in the player and game boards – they are laid out so well to help you with any set up and the neoprene design is a welcoming difference from the traditional cardboard style.

Final Thoughts

Gather your party, journey to the Dragon’s Den (battling monsters along the way) and defeat Crackletooth the Tepid to save the land of Snoozehaven… sounds easy, right? Only this game is certainly not easy – your heroes can struggle against the weakest of enemies, and even when you think you have the winning combination a rival player can hit you with bungles to ruin your attack. However the game shines in its humorous presentation, and while playing you must remember that you are in control of the worst heroes that Snoozehaven can find – not the type of characters you would normally play as in a traditional dungeon crawl adventure. The campaign mode is certainly the more immersive way to play the game, with journeys to Dozehoff village in between quests giving the game much more of a RPG feel.

Remember to play this game with tongue firmly in cheek, laugh as your ‘heroes’ fail to slay a lowly Goblin Runt and run away from the boss monsters and you will find yourselves having a great time exploring the world of Hero Master: An Epic Game of Epic Fails.