Da Bonz

Last week, in one of the Facebook Groups I belong to, Jonathan Songe Scott offered to send free copies of his Mini-Adventure "Da Bonz" to seven people in the group.  I don't recall his exact words right now, but at the time I thought, "that'd be cool, but I don't qualify."  A day later, I noticed he still had some, so I put my name in, PM'd him my address, and got word it would soon be in the mail.

It came on Saturday, and I eagerly read it.  I just wasn't sure how soon I'd get to run it, since my weekly group had several other things going on.  Monday night came, and while the party was deciding what they wanted to do, the Mage headed to the bar they frequent in order to fill his wine skins for whatever journey they decided upon.  (AH HA!  I couldn't have asked for a better set up!)   The bar was empty, and the bartender complained that his regulars were all "at that new place down the road."

The Mage went alone and found himself at Da Bonz.  He surveyed the establishment, bribed one of the NPCs who appeared to be taking notes, and learned enough to know that the rest of the group would be interested.  And they were!

Da Bonz is a mini-adventure, a prop and a magic item, and can easily be slipped into any fantasy game.  Included is a map of the building, a key that describes the map and the various NPCs found there, a small pouch and 4 dice, as well as a chart to allow the DM to locate the named effect, and several pages of detail about said effects.

PCs pay for admission and then for a chance to roll "Da Bonz," the set of 4 dice that came with the set.  3 of the dice have rune-like symbols denoting the numbers 1 to 6; the 4th just has two:  one represents fortune, the other, misfortune.  Less powerful than a Deck of Many Things, Da Bonz nevertheless can have quite an impact on the PCs, both for good and for ill.  Most effects are categorized both by type and strength and the descriptions include both a fortune and a misfortune.

Each of the 5 PCs in Monday's game chose to roll Da Bonz; and two of them rolled a second time!  When they finally decided to leave Da Bonz and head out to explore, they ran into an NPC they knew, who was now down on his luck.  The Mage offered to buy him a roll of Da Bonz, and they went back inside.  Sadly, this resulted in "Fortune (Abysmal)" for the NPC, who only THOUGHT he'd been down on his luck before.

The booklet itself has a laminated cover, and is almost the same dimensions as my OD&D LBBs... I think it's A4 folded in half.  Inside the front cover is the map, inside the back cover is the chart of effects.  In between are 12 pages including a table of contents, an introduction, the effects descriptions, details of the various locations depicted on the map, and more.

I liked the writing, I liked the map, I liked the dice!  I'm now trying to decide how to get my other group to visit Da Bonz (same campaign world, different city), because I know they'll like it too.  (Of course, several of them read this blog, so I shouldn't have to try to hard; they'll ask me about it!)

The only issue I had running it was that I only read it over once beforehand, foolishly thinking "it's only 12 pages, I got this!"  True, but they're packed with information, and the first few rolls of Da Bonz had me scrambling.

My only issue with the product itself was the font size used.  The margins were big enough on most pages that increasing the font size a pt or two wouldn't have affected the layout, but would have made it easier on my old eyes.

All in all, I enjoyed Da Bonz immensely as did my players, and will keep an eye out for other game aids by Jonathan Scott!