A Friend in Need by Jenny Jarzabski and BJ Hensley is a role playing game supplement published by Playground Adventures for use with Hero Kids. This is an adventure that is also available in Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition versions.
The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $3.95, as a softcover print on demand book for $9.95 or as both PDF and softcover for $10.95. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. The PDF has 30 pages with two being the front and rear covers, one page is the front matter and Contents and one page has a black and white version of the front cover illustration; presumably children could colour this in.
The first page of content has the Adventure Background and Adventure Summary. A monastery was overrun by evil forces many years ago and abandoned. More recently, a dragon moved in to hatch her egg. The egg hatched and the dragon left guardians for her child. The mother went out one day and didn’t come back. Then the dragon looked for friends and took a small girl, who sent an origami crane out to ask for help. The heroes get that crane and head to the monastery. They must defeat the guardians and solve the puzzles, but not defeat the dragon, for he and the girl have since become friends. The adventure then covers this in more detail.
Five pages have nine new monster cards, two pages have colour player maps, two pages have colour GM maps with labels and two pages have colour miniatures.
A Friend in Need in Review
The PDF is bookmarked but only the major sections are linked. The Contents is to a similar level of depth and is also hyperlinked. Navigation is okay but could be better. The text maintains a two column full colour layout and no textual errors were noticed (see below for others). There are a lot of full colour illustrations, all custom, from monsters to maps to the layout to simple illustrations. Presentation is superb.
Reading the text gives the very definite impression that this adventure was created for Pathfinder and then altered for Hero Kids. There are references to Pathfinder things such as haunts and Pathfinder monsters such as soulbound dolls. In most cases, this is fine; the terminology can be recognised but it doesn’t make much difference in game (although the skill checks are possibly the most complicated seen in a Hero Kids adventure) but in some cases the translation hasn’t been as good. For example, the heroes can find a sunrod. There is a mention as to how to explain a sunrod for children, but no mention anywhere as to what it actually is in Hero Kids terms. There are a few items that could have done with Hero Kids item and equipment cards making. Not a huge problem, but it is noticeable.
One useful part of the adventure is the sidebars. These offer the GM advice on running the game with children. Should monsters be killed or just defeated, how to do riddles with small children, explaining things, taking breaks and such. These will be even more useful to GMs who have experience, but not with children.
Aside from the few leftover Pathfinder bits, this is a very nice adventure. It looks stunning and there are both player and GM full colour maps and it has the potential to not be entirely focused around combat, which many Hero Kids adventures are, and therefore shows the system’s adventures do not have to be combat-based. A Friend in Need is a lovely adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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