Bumbleberry Forest by Kamila Zalewska-Firus is a role playing game published by Skavenloft. The supplement is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported license and is based on Fireball.
The supplement is available as a 37-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, one the front matter and one the table of contents.
The Introduction explains that this is a game where adults run games for children who take on the role of the elven guardians of Bumbleberry Forest. It does not promote violent solutions and is suitable for age three and up and is intended for 2-6 players, one being the Narrator, or GM. The game uses d6s and is set in Bumbleberry Forest, where elves and friendly animals live in harmony and far from humans. The characters are Forest Guardians, young elves who help other woodland creatures.
Guardians is the character creation process. The first thing is to randomly determine the roles, which is the Guardian type and each has different abilities and equipment. The roles are Tough, Fixit, Smartie and Trickster; the names are pretty self-explanatory. Each has abilities, a talent, locked talents and equipment. Two more tables can be used to determine the character’s special features and nickname.
Quests are adventures. They are divided into three categories, each of which has a table for generating them. Minor quests are tasks which are helping someone in the village and similar. Important quests are journeys, which usually require travelling to an interesting place. Grand quests are expeditions, which can be travelling to a human settlement for resources needed by the elves that are only found in human homes.
How to Play looks at the rules. The Agility score determines turn order and characters can perform activities on their turn which may have consequences. Checks are done to determine if something is successful and involves rolling a die and adding the result to one ability score and one item bonus. Appropriate talents can add an extra die by spending a power point. Creatures who lose all their health points are incapacitated or flee.
Safe Haven are the places Guardians arrive after a quest. There are different kinds, each of which has different benefits, from advancement to healing.
Animals has stats and descriptions for such encountered.
Locations has various places to explore, each of which has what is essentially an adventure hook.
Playing RPGs with Children has some general tips for doing so.
The Injured Deer is a simple adventure scenario.
The final page of content is the character sheet.
Bumbleberry Forest in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. The table of contents covers the various sections and sub-sections. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are a number of stock black and white illustrations. Presentation is okay.
Though this is based on Fireball, it is a self-contained system and that isn’t needed to play the game. It is also a comparatively simple game with more of a narrative focus, though there is more potential complexity for older children if needed, just in the rules as is. It also supports a variety of playing styles, which is useful. Bumbleberry Forest is a nice simple game for children and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.
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