Six Heroes, One Dungeon, Zero Survivors — HeroQuest Night at the Wildlings

It starts with a door.

Someone at the table — there's always one — points at the door on the left. Someone else points at the door straight ahead. A brief argument breaks out. The Barbarian votes for straight ahead because that's where Barbarians always want to go. The Elf, more measured, suggests the left. The Dwarf hasn't said anything yet but is eyeing the treasure chest in the corner with obvious intent. The Wizard is quietly calculating survivability odds that probably don't bear close examination.

They choose the left door. And somewhere behind his screen, the Zargon player smiles.

Last night, six Wildlings gathered for the very first Dungeon Crawler Friday — hosted by Stephen, running HeroQuest, and absolutely brilliant from start to finish. Here's what happened, why it worked, and why we think storytelling games like HeroQuest offer something that no other kind of tabletop gaming can replicate.

What Is HeroQuest?

HeroQuest is, in the simplest terms, a dungeon crawler board game produced by Milton Bradley in partnership with Games Workshop, originally released in 1990. It was designed as an entry point into the world of fantasy adventure gaming — streamlined enough for a ten-year-old to learn in fifteen minutes, deep enough that the same person might still be playing it three decades later. The modern edition, republished by Hasbro in 2021, has introduced the game to an entirely new generation while keeping everything that made the original extraordinary.

One player takes the role of Zargon — the Evil Sorcerer, the dungeon master, the architect of everything horrible that happens in the next three hours. The remaining players are the heroes: Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard, each with their own strengths, equipment and role in the group. Together they explore a dungeon built from modular board pieces, discovering rooms, fighting monsters, avoiding traps and searching for treasure — all in service of a quest set by Zargon at the start of the session.

It sounds simple because it is simple. And that simplicity is the point.

What Storytelling Games Do That Nothing Else Can

Last night wasn't just a good game. It was a good experience — and there's a meaningful difference between those two things. The six players around the table came from different backgrounds, with different levels of hobby experience, and within twenty minutes of setting up they were arguing about which door to open next as if they'd been adventuring together for years. That's not luck. That's what well-designed collaborative storytelling does to a group of people.

In a competitive wargame, there is always a winner and a loser. The experience of the two players around the table is fundamentally divergent — one person's good game is often the other person's difficult one. In a dungeon crawler like HeroQuest, every person at the table is experiencing the same story. When the Barbarian charges the Chaos Warrior and rolls a critical hit, everyone cheers. When the Wizard gets hit by a dart trap and loses their last body point, everyone groans — and then everyone leans in to figure out how to get them out of the room alive. The emotional experience is shared.

This is what researchers mean when they talk about the social benefits of cooperative storytelling games. A 2025 study in Behavioural Sciences found that collaborative games requiring shared decision-making and narrative investment build genuine social bonds, reduce anxiety in social settings and increase players' sense of belonging and self-efficacy. The study wasn't talking about anything more complicated than what happened at our table last night — people working together, making choices, experiencing consequences, and telling a story that belongs to all of them.

The Magic of the Dungeon Master

There's something specific that happens when one person takes on the role of narrator — the Zargon player, the dungeon master, the keeper of secrets. In competitive games, every player is working toward their own victory. But the Zargon player's job is fundamentally different: they are trying to create a great experience for everyone else at the table. Not to destroy the heroes, but to challenge them in ways that are exciting, dramatic and fair. The best Zargon sessions are the ones where the heroes win — but only just.

Last night Stephen ran the table, and by all accounts the monsters knew exactly when to press forward and when to let the heroes feel briefly, gloriously in control before the next corridor revealed something new and terrible. That balance — the art of the dungeon master — is what transforms a board game into a story that gets retold in the car home and at the club the following Friday.

Who Is Dungeon Crawler Friday For?

Last night's group included players who have been wargaming for years and players who had never sat down to a hobby game of any kind before. By the end of the first quest, you couldn't tell the difference. That's the specific genius of HeroQuest and the broader Warhammer Quest range — there is no entry barrier high enough to stop someone from participating fully. You don't need to know the rules in advance. You don't need a painted army. You don't need any prior experience. You need to be willing to open a door and find out what's behind it.

Dungeon Crawler Friday runs every four weeks on a Friday evening, 6pm to 10pm, at West Allotment Community Centre. It's hosted by Stephen, capped at six players, and completely free to attend as part of your Wildlings membership. We're rotating through a curated programme of dungeon crawlers across the year — HeroQuest first, then into the Warhammer Quest range and beyond.

Want to Join the Next Session?

Places are limited to six per session and they will go quickly. To reserve your seat at the table, join our Discord at discord.gg/QWzyXKZhRt and ask Stephen directly. New players and complete beginners are warmly welcome. If you can point at a door and say the words 'I open it,' you are already qualified.

The dungeon doesn't care how many tournaments you've won. It only cares whether you're brave enough to open the next door.