Is it good for a birthday party, a sleepover or a rainy day?
Yes, for up to five kids at a table. Brave and Bonkers is written for three to five players and one person running the game, the first adventure fills about an hour, and everything prints at home on ordinary letter paper. A bigger group needs a second table with its own Game Master, which can be an adult or a confident older kid.
How many kids
Three to five at a table, which is the size every adventure is written for. Above five, the wait between turns starts to show.
For more than five, set up two tables. Each one needs its own copy of the adventure and somebody to run it, and an eleven- or twelve-year-old who has played before can take the second one. Running it in a classroom works through a room with twelve kids in it.
What to print the night before
- All seven hero sheets for every table, even a table of three, with the How to Play page on the back of each or one copy in the middle. If two guests want the same hero, print a second copy and let one of them rename it.
- One adventure per table. The first one is The Cat in the Well, and the person running it should read it through once before the party.
Then dice and pencils. One set of RPG dice covers a table, and a spare twenty-sided die or two saves passing it round. What you need covers which dice to buy and what to do without a printer.
Guests who have never played
Nobody needs to know the rules before they sit down. The rulebook prints a short opening speech that explains the game, and a five-line script for walking each kid through their first turn. After a round or two, most of them take their own turns.
Start new players on the first adventure, which teaches one rule at a time. The second and third assume the basics and ask for ten minutes with the rulebook’s section on running a session first if anyone at the table is new.
At a birthday party
Give it an hour, and have the hero sheets out on the table before the guests arrive. Choosing heroes takes ten minutes at least, and the birthday kid should get first pick.
Every scene in the adventure is marked with what can be cut, so if the cake is ready early the party can still reach the ending and finish the story. Nobody dies in this game, and every session ends with the heroes winning something. Is it scary says more about that.
A set of RPG dice makes a good party favor. A seven-dice set costs a few dollars, so each guest can play with their own set and take it home afterwards as a keepsake, ready for the next game.
At a sleepover
A sleepover usually has the time for the two-hour version, which the rulebook suggests for ages eight to twelve. Nobody’s Shadow, the third adventure, has a windmill that turns with no wind and a shadow that went up the hill and did not come home, which suits a dark evening. The frightening thing in it wants a friend.
On a rainy day
If the rain started this morning and there are no dice in the house, a free dice-roller app on a phone covers every roll in the game. Every sheet prints on one page of ordinary letter paper.
A whole wet afternoon fits the two-hour version of any of the three adventures, and each one lists extra scenes with the minutes they add. In The Bridge Toll, one of those is a goblin courtroom.