A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Hero Kids – Space Adventure – Trouble At Threshold Station

Hero Kids – Space Adventure – Trouble At Threshold Station by Justin Halliday is a role playing game supplement published by Hero Forge Games for use with the Hero Kids system. Hero Kids is aimed at children from age 4 to age 10. This is a four encounter adventure with an easy difficulty rating. This is also the first space adventure, rather than the more common fantasy ones.

The supplement is available from RPGNow for $2.99 but can also be purchased at a reduced price as part of the Hero Kids – Complete Space Expansion PDF Bundle, which is how it was bought.

This is a sixteen page mostly landscape PDF of which one page is the front cover. The PDF comes in two versions, one of which is a printer friendly version which lacks the parchment-style page backgrounds.

The supplement starts with what is needed to play. As well as all the usual items – d6s, the core rulebook, pencil, eraser, printouts of the monster and hero cards, stand up minis and encounter maps – the GM will also need some Space Expansion Hero Cards, of which there are two sets, as there are no space hero cards in the space adventures.

There is then background for where the kids are based, which is in a tiny outpost on a frontier planet. It then gives an overview of the adventure, in which the kids travel to an orbital station to sell some spare parts, only for the transaction to be interrupted by raiders.

First is the introduction to the adventure and the kids go into orbit. On the way, they travel through a meteor shower to get to the space station. On the station, the first task is to negotiate with the merchant, then there are two combat encounters, one in a docking bay and one in a space ship.

There are three pages of encounter maps, which are larger versions of the GM’s maps which lack labels. Next are two pages which have four monster cards and four minis and finally there are another two pages of stand up minis.

Hero Kids – Space Adventure – Trouble At Threshold Station in Review

The PDF unfortunately lacks bookmarks, which is unusual for this publisher, and also lacks a table of contents. Although the supplement is quite short, navigation is poor.

The text maintains a two column format and no errors were noted. The only illustrations are the black and white encounter maps, monster cards and stand up minis, although these are all that is needed.

The two non-combat encounters require ability checks and each has different ways of achieving success. The two combat encounters are scalable, depending on the number of heroes, and also have different ability tests possible to achieve things. As such, the encounters are quite flexible.

The lack of hero cards is a bit of a nuisance, as this requires a third supplement to be purchased in order to play this adventure. The cards can then be used to play the other space adventures as well, but there are only two others.

The adventure itself is decent enough but one of the shorter ones. There is a reasonable mix of problem solving and combat challenges, but this is perhaps not one of the better adventures. Still, Hero Kids – Space Adventure – Trouble At Threshold Station is a nice change from the fantasy adventures and it can be found by clicking here.