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Jump to:

• age target
• setting
• your character
• mechanics
• overall
• find a copy

Age target for Adventure Skeletons

Adventure Skeletons can be found in of the Ten One Page Roleplaying Game (for Younger Players) bundle, so it’s made FOR kids and youth to be able to play it. I’d say it would be appropriate for all-ages, so long as your players are OK with RP’ing skeletons. The mechanics are straightforward (d10 and d6 being used for all rolls with just a couple of minor modifiers), and the character sheet is a skeleton picture with hit boxes that you check off when damaged, so there’s a very low math and reading barrier. You and your players can control where the story goes, so you’re able to tone it to what’s needed for your particular players’ needs.

Setting for Adventure Skeletons

Adventure Skeletons is set in a medieval fantasy world where wizards summon skeletons to guard dungeons, you might find a magical library or mages’ college, and there may even be a seaside resort town (I smell a cross-over potential with What I did on my Summer Holiday from the same 1-pagers collection).

The tone of the game is one of lighthearted play and made with the intention to spark some shenanigans as you, an skeleton out in the world, looking for adventure, tries to blend in with the locals while also finding cool loot and making an epic story that will last the ages.

Your character in Adventure Skeletons

As you can guess, your character in Adventure Skeletons is going to be a skeleton! They were summoned by a wizard to watch over a dungeon… and it was REALLY BORING. Eventually, they got so fed up that they took what loot they could and set off on their own.

The game walks you through character creation (choose ancestry and gear then name your skeleton), and you are set to start playing within a minute or two.

Character creation was easy, which was great for kiddo being able to jump right into play, and I love the premise here. It gives a lot of freedom to go where you want with the story! With all the Halloween decor up right now, my kid loves making up stories about skeletons, so he was super into playing a skeleton character. We ended up having a skeleton with Link’s sword from Legend of Zelda going to fight a balrog to save a town full of lava goblins so that kiddo’s skeleton could earn diamonds for retirement and to help his skeleton friends back in the dungeon with opening up a pasta restaurant at the local wizard’s school. It was pretty awesome.

Mechanics for Adventure Skeletons

The mechanics in Adventure Skeletons were intuitive and allowed for very smooth gameplay while also being interesting and fitting the theme of the game.

All basic actions and attacks are made using a d6 or a d10, and, at most, you have a +2 modifier to any given roll. Where things get really interesting is when YOU take damage.

If your skeleton is hit, you roll a d10 to see where on their body they are hit, meaning that it is going to be totally random. When you’re hit, you take damage AND that part falls off… because you are a skeleton! You get a penalty for any missing parts that you don’t reattach, and they can sometimes break for good. Don’t worry though!! You are allowed to replace a part here and there, if absolutely necessary, with say a barrel for your chest or a branch for an arm!

The random hit location coupled with the missing parts mechanic was a lot of fun to mess with. We ended up with a skeleton who replaced an arm with what was maybe a magic wand (?) and who definitely had his head bopped off at some point (which was a fun scramble to get back mid-fight with the balrog). It was whacky and chaotic and a lot of fun, and it was all facilitated by a simple and well-applied mechanics set.

Overall thoughts on Adventure Skeletons

Adventure Skeletons is a great spooky TTRPG that fits on one page and has a solid set of mechanics to back up a fun idea. We loved playing this one, and kiddo has asked to go back to the game and play further in the story twice already (it has only been 2 days since the first session), so I know from that, this was a good TTRPG for us to try out. I’d definitely recommend this, for Halloween season or just for some fun anytime games, and I hope you enjoy it too!

Find a copy of Adventure Skeletons

You can find a copy of Adventure Skeletons in the One Page Roleplaying Games (for Younger Players) bundle on the creator website, OR as just the individual game through DriveThruRPG and itchio.

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