Adventures in Bayhaven – Deck the Halls by Brian Benoit is a role playing game supplement published by Roving Band of Misfits Press for use with the Hero Kids system. The adventure is set in the publisher’s town of Bayhaven and is described as taking 45 minutes to play.
This is a 16 page PDF which is available from DriveThruRPG for $1.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $0.99 as a special deal. One page is the front cover and one the front matter.
The first page of content is a standard one. This covers what is needed to play, what is recommended to play, how to use the adventure and Time Units. Time Units are an optional rule whereby if players run out of them they either fail or fail to complete the adventure fully.
The first page gives some background to Bayhaven, the port town where the publisher’s adventures are set, and a suggestion to get the Bayhaven supplement to find out more (the supplement will be useful for running the adventure but is probably not essential). The Adventure Synopsis explains that the characters are recruited to help decorate The Copper Kettle’s banquet hall for the Christmas feast. If they run out of time units, they simply arrive at the feast late.
The Introduction Encounter has the characters recruited to help decorate The Copper Kettle. If they ask for payment, they will have their favourite desserts made for the feast and be first in line for the food.
Encounter 1 – The Most Perfect Christmas Tree has the characters go into the woods to find a tree. There is a rhyme given that needs deciphering to find the forest sprites. Once the sprites appear, they will ask the characters riddles. Options are given for using skill tests to help.
Encounter 2 – The Very Biggest Yule Log has the characters looking for a Yule log for the fireplace. To get the log, they will need to win a tree-cutting contest, one they have several attempts at. There is a reference to the Lumberjack apprenticeship option from the Bayhaven book which will give a bonus. This also grants a Treasure Map Fragment.
Encounter 3 – The Brightest Boughs of Holly has them looking for a holly bush. There is a white stag trapped in the bush and the characters should free it (they can kill it, which does have different rewards).
The Conclusion Encounter has the characters attend the feast.
The next page is essentially blank, and is for children to draw the Christmas feast if they wish. The page after that has a map of Bayhaven with two locations ringed on it. Another page has several cards on it; an item, a boon, a spell bonus ability and a treasure map fragment. The final page has a white stag monster card and a blank mini for it.
Adventures in Bayhaven – Deck the Halls in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although comparatively short, would have benefited from them. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two column format and the only possible error noticed was on the white stag monster card; it looked as it its ability had been left off (EDIT: This has been fixed in an update). There are a few colour illustrations, mostly stock, plus the reproduced map of Bayhaven and the various cards. Presentation is okay. The treasure map fragment gained is to start The Cave of the Black Sail Pirates. However, this adventure is not available yet, nor are there enough cards in the published adventures to actually start it.
An occasional complaint about Hero Kids is that it’s a very combat heavy system. This adventure shows that doesn’t have to be the case. There is only one potential combat encounter, and characters are intended to find a peaceful solution rather than fight. Whether adventures completely without combat are interesting to everyone is another question, but this does clearly show you can build an adventure without using combat. It’s more fun if children are able to complete the puzzles themselves without using skill checks, but at least there are both options. Adventures in Bayhaven – Deck the Halls is a nice little Christmas adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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