I've got the heroic launcher installed on steam deck, because I'd like to play several of my GOG games "portable style".
I'm not really concerned with getting things that have their own steam version loaded, but rather the classic GOGs that are exclusive.

Here's my attempts so far:

Record of Lodoss War Zero goes to a black screen taking up the game, with the frame being the game itself.

Nox loads up just fine but I can't seem to get the controls working at all

Alien Breed Assault just blinks for a second and it's back to the launcher.

I'd hate to try something really old like Albion or M&M 1-5

Is there an easy way to do this without having a CS degree or being some sort of Level 25 Nerd with a +1 in Linux?

For the DOS games get a DOSBox version or another DOS PC emulator that works with your Linux version.

Yeah, Heroic doesn't really do Dosbox/Dos. I'd suggest Lutris; especially since it isn't a glorified Electron app.

Specific games may have specific compatibility issues.

Given the final line which gives an idea of your familiarity with the system, I think it's worth mentioning Linux troubleshooting is more about trying to run a seemingly faulty program on terminal, reading the error outputs and trying to find a given line of the error that may help, no coding knowledge needed.

Also, when troubleshooting, Google, DuckDuckGo and other search engines are your friends. And I don't say this in a condescending, "do your own research", way. Back when I was learning how to use Linux systems, and even now, although with less frequency, researching would be my salvation, specially since I usually get highly specific issues given my tests tend to be highly specific, and people would not have an universal answer for my issues. And thus, block by block, search by search, I'd get an idea of what was going on, and how to solve them.