A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Big Trouble Adventure 02 – Fall of the Underground City

Big Trouble Adventure 02 – Fall of the Underground City by Brian Phongluangtham and Brandon Lillie is a role playing game supplement published by B Drone Games for use with Hero Kids and the Big Trouble setting. This is the second adventure in a trilogy and follows on from where Big Trouble Adventure 01 – Quest of the Forest Mice finished.

The supplement is available from DriveThruRPG for $2.99 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a bundle. The main PDF has 35 pages, with one page being the front cover and one the front matter, and comes in normal and printer friendly versions, the latter lacking page backgrounds. The third PDF has 11 pages and contains the battlemaps for the adventure.

Prerequisite explains what is needed to play; the Big Trouble Setting Guide and Rules, monster and hero cards and miniatures, inventory and crafting cards, encounter maps, d6s, pencils and rubbers. Background briefly mentions the opening events of Big Trouble and the Adventure Overview does what it says.

First Time Adventurers Start Here! explains what the GM should do regarding the accompanying mouse, Takto, for those who haven’t played the first adventure. This is followed by Crafting for Beginners, which is on getting gear, and The story thus far… is a recap.

The adventure itself consists of five encounters. As before, how an encounter unfolds depends on how the heroes succeed or fail at various tests. They have to make their way from the underground mole city to the adventures end fight, a snake who has been affected by the same stones that are affecting everything else. The various maps have different challenges and there are items that can be scavenged, either for parts to craft new ones or as gear in and of themselves. The adventure continues in Big Trouble Adventure 03 – The Fate of Mammoth Park.

Nine pages at the end are the encounter maps, which are reproduced at a larger scale in the accompanying PDF, and include a labyrinth that unfolds as the heroes explore. The final two pages have cards and miniatures for two new monsters and two new crafted items. The monster cards and miniatures come in black and white and colour.

Big Trouble Adventure 02 – Fall of the Underground City in Review

The PDF is well bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. Navigation is good. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be almost free of errors. Apart from the maps, there are a number of colour illustrations; these are all of the monsters and are either the colour illustrations from the monster cards at the back or a coloured version of one from the core book. Presentation is good.

This is perhaps a slightly less complex adventure than the first one; no encounters are avoidable or have different setups, although the actual events can alter according to what the heroes do. There are a number of different challenges for characters to face, including a rhyming one. There is no way to fail the rhyming challenge, if played correctly, which is good as otherwise it will derail the adventure. Again, Takto has plot armour and cannot be lost, which is a bit unfortunate. Big Trouble Adventure 02 – Fall of the Underground City is a nice continuance of the trilogy and it can be found by clicking here.