A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Adventures in Bayhaven – The Ringmaster’s Request

Adventures in Bayhaven – The Ringmaster’s Request by Brian Benoit is a role playing game supplement published by Roving Band of Misfits Press for use with the Hero Kids system. This is an adventure in the publisher’s setting of Bayhaven.

This is an 18 page PDF which is available from RPGNow for $2.99 but was purchased at the reduced price of $1.50 as part of the Adventures in Bayhaven Ultimate Bundle. One page is the front cover and one page the front matter.

The first page is a standard one, explaining what is needed to play, what is useful to play, how to use the adventure and Time Units, an optional rule which can result in players failing to succeed or fully succeed at an adventure if they run out of time.

Next is two more pages, giving background for Bayhaven, the adventure, a synopsis of the adventure, how to reuse the adventure and other options, such as tying it into Hero Forge Games‘ The Glade of the Unicorn.

The adventure itself has two different tracks. The first encounter is the same for them both; it has the characters visiting the circus with a number of different activities to interact with that are solved by skill rolls (for those with more space, it might be fun to turn these into actual sideshows). One display is of monsters, including a shrike, which are the focal point of the three part series of adventures, Shrike Incursion, which starts with Empty Nets.

Following the circus, the owner and ringmaster will asks the characters to capture a gromp for him. This is where the adventure splits into two tracks. The players can say yes, which will require them researching gromps and then capturing one, or say no, which will result in them following the party hired to capture it and stopping them. Both encounters with the gromp have a battlemap and can be combat, but non-combat options are provided as well.

Finally, there is a monster card for a gromp with a mini (there is an error with the mini; it is included without error in the Bayhaven main book though), a battlemap which looks to have been drawn in coloured pencil and a map of Bayhaven with the various places visited marked.

Adventures in Bayhaven – The Ringmaster’s Request in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although they are not essential for its length, they would have been useful. Navigation is below standard. The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noticed. The only illustrations are the monster illustrations and maps; presentation is okay.

Given that players can only run through one track of this adventure, it would have been quite disappointing to not be able to use nearly half the supplement. However, the notes at the beginning on reusing the adventure are useful for this. Another plot is given for the adventure with notes on reskinning the encounters for the two different tracks. This means that both tracks can be used, without players knowing, and greatly improves the value of this adventure.

Having the two tracks itself adds another component. One track assumes that players will not be happy, perhaps for moral reasons, about capturing an animal to exhibit in a circus, and gives them an alternative option, nicely avoiding railroading. The combat encounter can be solved in non-combat ways on both tracks as well, such as by skill rolls or perhaps through superior role-playing. This adds depth to the adventure.

This adventure is one that contains a treasure map fragment, used for the, unpublished as yet, adventure The Cave of the Black Sail Pirates.

Adventures in Bayhaven – The Ringmaster’s Request is a good adventure in this series and it can be found by clicking here.