I love BIG BONE! It’s a one-page (two sides) distillation of lo-fi adventure by Numbered Works. It wears its references and inspirations (very MAZE RATS; extremely TUNNEL GOONS) on its sleeve, but it also has a voice all its own: one that is charming and playful, the way the best gaming groups are. With a single d12 and a few essential supplies–“pencil, paper, picnic blanket, park, snacks”–BIG BONE makes getting into the action lightning-fast for the players, sure, but it also gives the improvisational referee a wealth of inspiration. So let’s start there. Here’s what I love:
THE TABLES!
I do not hide my adoration for a random roll table. A good one conveys a lot of setting-specific information in a compact space, and each one of the NINE random-adventure-player-character-spell-building tables does the heavy lifting of dropping you into that sword-and-sorcery comfort food world you’re thinking of. I’m thinking of it, too!
The Adventure Builder section is especially inspired, and if you wanted to really mix things up, you could split each of these in half for some extra adjectival randomization. For funsies, here’s one I just rolled:
“The party discovers a crumbling (12) tower (12) located behind (6) a volcano (8). Inside there is a sad (8) vampire (1) and jealous (3) pixies (9). If you survive the Minotaur (5) room (7), you might find the kidnapped (8) portal (7)."
As a referee, my mind swims with the circumstances surrounding this decrepit tower. Is the vampire sad because of the pixies’ jealousy? Did they steal the vampire’s portal and lock it up behind a Minotaur? As a player, I want to get in and learn more before the volcano finishes the job and completely destroys the tower!
Suffice it to say, I am a fan of the tables.
PC GENERATION!
The flip-side (literally: the inverse page) of the adventure generation holds player character generation and rules. The character types are balanced in the sense of: who cares? If you want to be a group of a fairy, a catperson, and a goblin, go for it. You can be a fishfolk sorcerer who’s gonna go cheer up the volcano-vampire, and that is beautiful. Bang your gong and get it on.
The stats, similarly, are so refined that there’s zero room for theorycrafting, min-maxing, or power gaming. Everyone gets to shoot their shot, and there are no bad characters in the bunch. This makes me think the game would be brilliant for introducing new people to the hobby. Take the simple and sensible character generation, slot everything into the adorable li’l character sheets, and you have an all-ages party ready to rip.
12-SIDED DICE
I frickin’ love a d12. Apparently Kmart sells big foam ones. I’m getting some.
GO GET IT!
BIG BONE by Numbered Works is available on itch.io, pay what you want. You might also explore LITTLE BONES, a parallel universe using 2d6. Same charm, different bones. The CC-BY-4.0 license ensures I will print a bunch of copies and stash them around town.
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I Love This is an attempt to write some nice things about the nice things I read and see every day. Not so much a review or critique, it's an unabashed good-vibes-only love-fest because that's the sort of thing I want to write and see when I'm writing and seeing! If you like this format (not that I invented "writing nice things") and want to give it a go on your own blog, please let me know and I will be sure to give your post a boost to the best of my ability!
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