We began modding HQ way back after beating the system in AHQ by throwing Greek Fire into a room, standing either side of a door and battering whatever monsters came running out of the flames. AHQ was too complicated a rules system basically as it was imported from WarHammer rules. So we went back to basic HQ and built in that.

We made Skill Cards, a deck which expanded as time went on to include everything imaginable and then simplified back down to practical basics.

We made a much, much better magic system by expanding the types of elements (plant, metal, flesh, silica (including crystal, glass, shell & chitin), spirit, mind.

A few more tweaks to it by adding a new Statistic to Body Mind Move Attack Defend every character has now also Power which is a measure of their magical ability, whether it is latent or something they tap only when under incredible pressure or something they tap any time they like because they have a Skill in Magic. Instead of using each Spell card once and disposing of it, you keep it but spend a number of Power points determined by how strong a result you intend to use (and also functions as a ‘roll equal or less to succeed’ rate when casting a spell – failing at magic means the spell goes wrong somehow).

We did away with the classic HQ board and replaced it with modular sections of dungeons more specific to whatever story we were telling at the time. Usually, delving to reclaim a magic power object so the wizards could expand their abilities, and to acquire any treasure so the rogues and dwarves could get rich easy.

We realised the immense potential of town settings instead of underground lairs, especially as elves hate being underground and barbarians do just as well brawling in bars and amphitheater’s as they do in basements.

Those modular dungeon sections became anything and everything from any fantasy medieval urban resource we could think up.

Where there are town guard there are banks and jails, stocks and hangman’s noose, mercenary bars, taverns, public baths, hospice, noble houses, castle walls and market stalls, legit shops supplying element based crafted goods of metal, leather, wood, wax, meat, veg and cloth, temples, townhouses, masonic construction.

Where there are no town guards there are thieves guilds, urban orcs (chav estates), assassins, beggars & brigands, alleys, shanty dwellings, leper’s halls, red light windows, gambling dens, drug dens, moneylenders and debt collectors, pawn shop, mafia competing for turf and ownership of amenities, alchemists lab, cemetery, cultists temple of sacrifice and summoning, warehouses, dereliction.

Somewhere in all that is a wizards tower. Nobody messes with a city wizard who has a wizards tower. He’s usually the one who hires the heroes to go and do stuff.

At some point the decision was made to build a docks with fishing boats, a couple of ships, fish processing facilities, wooden piers and warehouses.

Making all of those cardboard bases is time-consuming but easily done with basic stone slabs or wood floorboards for most of the floor textures.

Its not overly complicated to make it anything other than ground floor levels, simply stack the 2D floor tiles with the current one in use on the top. Rooftop games are brilliant, it uses that Athletics skill for balancing, climbing and leaping. Will need lots of windows on those rooftops!!! (And that Lock-pick/Disarm Trap Skill).