Does it work for homeschooling?
Yes, as a game a homeschool family can play in any week, at no cost. The notice in every book lets you print and copy Brave and Bonkers for your own table, and an hour of it involves reading aloud, adding a small printed number to a die roll, waiting through other people’s turns, and saying out loud what your hero does next. The kit is three adventures, seven heroes and a rulebook, with no lesson plans or worksheets in it, though two projects grow out of it easily: working out the odds of a dice roll, and writing an adventure of your own.
What an hour at the table involves
Whoever runs the game reads the boxed text in the adventure to the table, and most kids from about eight read their own hero sheet, abilities and all. Younger kids have it read to them.
The arithmetic is small. To attack, a kid rolls the twenty-sided die and adds the number printed beside their weapon, usually three to five, then rolls damage and adds a second number from the same line. Damage taken comes off their hit points in pencil. Most other rolls are a straight comparison against 8, 12 or 16, depending on how hard the thing is.
The rest is talk. Every kid says what their hero does in their own words, and the party has to agree on a plan with people who want something else. In between, everybody sits through the other turns before their own comes round again.
Kids of different ages at one table
The game is written for ages 6 to 12 together, so three kids spread across that range can all play the same adventure. The youngest plays beside you with their sheet read out, and the oldest takes one of the heroes with more decisions on it. Siblings of different ages goes through setting up that table.
When an older kid runs it
Running the game is mostly reading the adventure aloud to a table that wants to know what happens next, and deciding quickly what the dice mean. An eleven- or twelve-year-old who wants the job can run it for younger brothers and sisters, with the words they need printed in the adventure.
The page for kid Game Masters is written to them, and covers what to print and what to say when they do not know a rule.
Making something of their own
The Starter Bestiary ends with a blank monster card for writing your own. Filling one in means naming the monster, then picking its armor, hit points and attack, with the thirteen finished monsters in the book to compare against.
The sheet customizer prints any hero with the illustration your kid prefers, from six for each hero.
Two projects to build around it
The dice make a ready-made probability question. A roll has to equal or beat its target, so on a twenty-sided die 13 of the 20 faces make an easy 8, 9 make a tricky 12, and only 5 make a big-stakes 16. Rolling with advantage, which means rolling two dice and keeping the higher one, changes those odds in a way a kid can work out on paper and then test at the table.
Writing an adventure is the other. Each printed adventure is a handful of short scenes, called beats, with the words to read aloud set apart, a map of the zones, and the monsters printed where they appear. A kid who has played one has a model for writing their own: a problem to solve, a few beats, something to read aloud in each, and a monster made on the blank card in the bestiary.
We do not publish lesson plans for either. Both use only what is already in the kit, and how far to take them is up to you.
A co-op or a group of families
The same notice covers a classroom, and a co-op meeting works like one. The game is built for three to five kids per table with one person running each, so a bigger group splits into tables. Running it in a classroom or a library covers group sizes, fitting a fixed period and what to print.