Quest for the Heartstone is a 1984 adventure module for the Basic Rules of the ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...

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role-playing game. The module was a

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with the LJN

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introduced the previous year. Reviews of the module described it as a poorly written marketing gimmick.

Product description

''Quest for the Heartstone'' is a wilderness and dungeon scenario, and includes a frost giant lair, with four pages of illustrations to show the players. XL1 ''Quest for the Heartstone'' was published by TSR in 1984 as a 32-page booklet with an outer folder, and was written by Michael L. Gray, with art by

Jeff Easley Jeff Easley (born 1954) is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork for role-playing games, comics, and magazines, as well as non-fantasy commercial art. Early life Easley was born in Nicholasville, Kentucky in 1954. He spent time drawing as ...

.Gray, Michael L. ''Quest for the Heartstone'' ( TSR, 1984) The module was designed for use with the LJN and TSR toy ''D&D'' characters, such as Strongheart and Warduke, and includes statistics for all the toy figures.

Reception

Graham Staplehurst reviewed ''Quest for the Heartstone'' for ''

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'', and gave it 4/10 overall, calling it, "no more than a sales exercise for ''AD&D'' Action Toys". Staplehurst felt that the module was "very reminiscent of everyone's first dungeon: a collection of randomly placed monsters with a random selection of Good Guys going off after some magic item and having to hack through them," criticizing that "No thought has gone into this at all, as far as I can see, although TSR have done their best with the artwork and maps to try and remedy the situation." Staplehurst pointed out some of the many references within the module to the

LJN LJN Toys Ltd. was an American toy company and video game publisher based in New York City. Founded in 1970 by Jack Friedman, the company was acquired by MCA Inc. in 1985, sold to Acclaim Entertainment in 1990, and dissolved in 1994. The toy d ...

''AD&D'' toy line ("You may use the Five-headed Hydra Bendable Monster for this encounter", and "the Dragonne monsters produced by LJN Toys Ltd"), noting that "As the adventure progresses ... it merely degenerates into excuses to introduce monsters that happen to be in the TSR figures or LJN range." He also pointed out some of the more bizarre encounters of the adventure, such as two giant crab spiders living in a cabin, and the "

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Storage Room". Ultimately, Staplehurst said he despaired of ever running the module, as "Few and far between are sensibly planned encounters with alternative courses of action".

Lawrence Schick Lawrence Schick is a game designer and writer associated with role-playing games. Early life and education Schick attended Kent State University in Ohio. Career Schick, as the head of design and development at TSR, brought aboard Tom Moldvay ...

, in his 1991 book ''Heroic Worlds'', calls this adventure a "Laughable scenario".

References

Dungeons & Dragons modules Mystara Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1984 {{D&D-stub