HeroQuest is a role-playing game written by Robin D. Laws first published as Hero Wars by Issaries, Inc. in 2000. It has its roots in Greg Stafford's fantasy world of Glorantha, but was designed as a generic system, suitable for, but not tied to any particular genre. The game's mechanics are focused on quick resolution; Contests are resolved by comparing the results of two twenty-sided dice, each tied to a character ability chosen by players and/or narrator. After the die roll, the participants work together to interpret the outcome in story terms. In 2020 Moon Design sold the HeroQuest trademark to Hasbro, rebranding HeroQuest as QuestWorlds. The game system HeroQuest focuses on dramatic presentation and storytelling techniques: The system is built around abilities and keywords. A keyword is a broad term to sum up several abilities, such as a profession or a homeland or culture. Character creation There are three main methods to create a character: prose, list, or "as-you-go". In the prose method, the player describes the character in a couple of sentences for a total of 100 words. The player then selects words and phrases from the description to be used as character abilities. Depending on the game setting, the description can include keywords to indicate a character's profession, homeland, and other affiliations; keywords can be used to imply certain abilities. In the list method, the player starts with choosing one or more keywords as appropriate for the setting, and then chooses up to ten additional abilities and up to three flaws. In the as-you-go method a player states their character concept and defines keywords and abilities during play based on what they think their character would know. Keywords and abilities Characters are defined by a list of their abilities. Keywords are an optional rule that allows abilities to be grouped together for simplicity. For example, a character might have a keyword representing their occupation, and this is assumed to contain all abilities relating to that occupation. Other keywords might cover the character's background culture, homeland or magical tradition. Abilities are given a level from 1 to 20, to represent how good the character is at using that ability to solve problems. Keyword ratings cover all the abilities within that keyword. For example, a character with a warrior rating of 17 can reasonably be expected to be able to sword fight at that level. However, characters are further