OVERVIEW

In 1993, TSR, Inc. released DragonStrike, a fantasy board game whose components and playing style strongly resemble HeroQuest's. It has not been supported by the publisher for several years, but it is still available from used game dealers and via online auctions. (More info.)

Despite surface similarities between it and HeroQuest, DragonStrike's playing mechanics are actually a simplified version of TSR's Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying product. Instead of asking the referee to name himself after the game's evil wizard, DragonStrike calls him "the DragonMaster" (still DM for short).

DragonStrike features five hero characters: Warrior, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf and Thief. The default thief -- the one depicted on much of the packaging and in the included video -- is female. Hero card and miniature support for a male thief are also included.

In a departure from the HeroQuest Game System, DragonStrike's sixteen included quests are a mix of solo quests, quests for two or three heroes and quests for four or five heroes. The quests are also ranked by "Levels" that range from "easy" to "very difficult." Additionally, because DragonStrike contains four map boards, the quests can take place in four different settings.

As is clear from flyers and TSR catalogs that came in the box, DragonStrike was intended as a "gateway" product that would guide young consumers to TSR's roleplaying lines. One flyer even encourages players to pay $20 (US) to join the "Dragon Knights" club and receive such treasures as a t-shirt, ID card, 12-sided die, two posters, two comic book/magazines and a metal miniature.

COMPONENTS

DragonStrike is a physically impressive package. Its box is the same length and width as HeroQuest's, but a little over a half inch (or centimeter) deeper.

Video

DragonStrike includes a VHS videocassette designed to serve as an introduction and mood-setter for the game. The tape's content consists of a dramatization of a dungeon crawl intermixed with brief scenes of a gaming group working their way through the same storyline.

Despite some badly aged visuals and some corny writing, the DragonStrike video does a good job of showing how players in a fantasy game work together to create a story. The Heroes in the video were directly based on the game's Hero characters, so as to make the point even clearer to novices.

The tapes themselves are not of the best quality. Tracking problems make them difficult to view on some VCRs.

Miniatures

DragonStrike comes with 24 plastic miniatures: 6 Heroes (Wizard, Dwarf, Barbarian, Elf, Male Thief, Female Thief), 4 BugBears, 3 Death Knights, 3 Orcs, 2 Gargoyles, 1 Fire Elemental, 1 Giant, 1 Evil Wizard, 1 Troll, 1 Manscorpion, and 1 Dragon.

The miniatures were produced by the Ral Partha company. The humanoid figures are sculpted along relatively realistic proportions, rather than Games Workshop's (and HeroQuest's) cartoonier "big head, big hands, big feet" style. For the most part, the DragonStrike figures appear less detailed than HeroQuest's, almost as if they were molded of a plastic that couldn't retain the sharpness of the original sculpt.

The sculptors put tiny numbered disks near the feet of the monsters. Upon close inspection, these make it possible to tell which of the otherwise identical Orc figures is Orc #1, which is Orc #2, and so on. In theory, this innovation should make it easier for the DragonMaster to keep track of the individual wound level of each monster. In practice, the numbers are impossible to read without picking the figures up and turning them until the light falls on them correctly.

Game Boards

DragonStrike comes with two two-sided game boards, for a total of four playing maps. These consist of "Castle," "Cavern," "City" and "Valley" (a field with a river).

DragonStrike does not come with 3-D furniture. The map artist nearly made up for this by including huge amounts of detail in the boards' artwork. Unlike HeroQuest's deliberately empty rooms, DragonStrike's rooms are depicted as filled with furniture, carpets, weaponry, artifacts and treasure. These boards already look lived in.

If anything, they look too lived in. The boards depict numerous monsters that are not actually part of the quests. Arguably, seeing decorative monsters that the heroes can't fight makes it harder for the players to suspend disbelief.

Although HeroQuest's board is not actually photorealistic, it is produced in a satisfying naturalistic style. DragonStrike's boards look quite a bit like magic marker art.

The size of the spaces (in the grid for positioning miniatures) varies from board to board. In some instances, it actually varies from room to room. The largest regularly-sized spaces are 1" (2.5 cms) square. DragonStrike's designers did include non-square spaces in a few instances, thereby allowing for some interesting diagonal corridors and organic-looking paths.

In a few cases, space that could have been used for additional rooms is instead used for mood-setting background art. For example, the castle map includes foreshortened views of the castle's exterior walls along two side of it, along with a very large moat. There's even a dragon flying out of the moat. This imagery all occupies space that could instead have been used to provide an additional six or seven average-sized rooms. Of course, some people may prefer the atmosphere created by having the castle surrounded by swampy green water on two sides. Your mileage may vary.

The Time Track

Along the edge of each board, there's a narrow strip called the "Time Track." This is divided into boxes, twenty of which are numbered, one of which contains a dragon head symbol. During gameplay, the DragonMaster is supposed to move an Hourglass marker (a small cardboard tile) along the Time Track, counting down to the dragon's head. If the marker reaches the dragon's head, the Dragon (represented by one of the game's nicest miniatures) appears on the board.

This is presumably a clumsy attempt at adding excitement and keeping the players from moving too slowly. Since the dragon is dangerous, its arrival often just serves to make a difficult scenario impossible.

Markers

The game includes 43 cardboard markers. Some of these depict such things as "special treasures" (i.e., artifacts), treasures, pits, and rocks. Others are used to identify when an individual character is charmed, in flight, invisible or webbed.

Doors

DragonStrike's doors are not nearly as nice as the ones that come with HeroQuest. The art is executed in the same magic marker style as the boards and overlays. The doors stand with the help of tiny clip-on plastic bases. It's very easy to knock them over accidentally.

Hero Cards

DragonStrike's Hero Cards are of a similar size to the ones included with HeroQuest, although they are printed on much thinner cardstock. They come with plastic bases so they can stand upright on the table, sort of like mini DM screens.

As in HeroQuest, the player's side of each Hero Card lists die roll statistics for the Hero, but the DragonStrike version also has a number track along one edge so that each player can use a clip to mark off the Hero's current Hit Points. The reverse side of each card contains a large video still of the Hero. Background information about each hero is provided on a separate baseball-style card.

Game Cards

DragonStrike's spell, treasure, monster and trap cards are produced in the exact same baseball card style that TSR used for their "AD&D Collector's Cards." Instead of drawn or painted illustrations, DragonStrike's cards are decorated with photographs and video stills. These get the job done, but they don't capture the fantasy mood quite as well as HeroQuest's card art seems to.

Booklets and DM screen

DragonStrike comes with three booklets, counting the Instructions. Instead of offering a single Quest Book like HeroQuest, DragonStrike provides separate booklets entitled "Adventures" and "Map Book." The Map Book takes up 8 1/2 by 11 inches (21.4 cm x 27.3 cm) when it is folded back so that one page is showing. The Adventures booklet is half that size.

Fortunately, the booklets have a generously sized DM screen to hide behind. DragonStrike's screen is 24 1/4" wide by 10 3/4" tall (61.3 wide by 27.3 cm tall). The DragonMaster's side contains a monster table, a summary of the rules and even advice on "Running an Adventure." Even with the large DM screen, juggling the two booklets is clumsier than managing a single HeroQuest Quest Book.

Perhaps most interestingly, the edges of the GM's side of the screen are lined with number tracks representing all of the monsters in the game. Plastic clips are included for marking off the hit points of all the monsters currently in play. As the game proceeds, the DM can keep record of the individual status of all of the monsters by sliding the clips along the number tracks.

CONTENT

Quests

DragonStrike's Adventures booklet contains some interesting twists on quest design. Admittedly, several of the usual "rescue the prisoner" or "find the artifact" quests appear here. However, DragonStrike offers two "defend the carriage as it travels" quests. There's a "run for your life" quest. There's a quest in which the Heroes have to stage an ambush, so the players are allowed to choose their starting positions anywhere on the Valley map. And there's a quest in which the monsters are transformed villagers, so the Heroes are forbidden from killing them.

Rules

As noted above, DragonStrike's rules are a simplified version of the systems used in TSR's fantasy roleplaying games. They've been streamlined enough to only require three polyhedral dice: d8, d10 and d12. In order to simplify matters for novices, the dice are color coded and the colors are used for identification throughout the game materials.

DragonStrike encourages players to interact with the game's environment in ways not contemplated by HeroQuest. To facilitate this, the game includes rules for "Feats." Each Hero has Strength and Dexterity stats. These are applied to actions such as leaping, swinging on ropes, sneaking, pushing or lifting large objects, and kicking doors open.

The concept is a good one, but the implementation is vague. According to the rules, a roll of 6 or better on the assigned die always represents a success. By just adding one more paragraph, the designers could have told novice DragonMasters how to assign difficulty numbers on a case-by-case basis.

DragonStrike succeeds as a fast-paced tactical fantasy game that can be played in a limited period of time. It provides a similar experience to HeroQuest, and it even introduces some clever new twists to the concept. However, my group felt that that DragonStrike's dice system, despite the ambitious addition of the "Feats" rules, just isn't as exciting as battling with HeroQuest's Skull Dice.

For a discussion of the suitability of DragonStrike's miniatures and other components for use with HeroQuest, take a look at Dewayne's article. You'll find it on his website at http://geocities.datacellar.net/TimesSquare/Chasm/9223/games/DS.html