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Brindlewood Bay
Brindlewood Bay
Brindlewood Bay is a tabletop roleplaying game that combines Murder, She Wrote with H.P. Lovecraft. In it, you play a group of elderly women, members of the local Murder Mavens Mystery Book Club, who help the authorities solve murder cases in a picturesque New England Town. Over the course of their investigations, they become aware of a dark occult conspiracy that connects the cases, and will eventually have to face that conspiracy in order to save their community. The game is low-prep and easy to play no matter your experience with tabletop roleplaying games.
168 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2021
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71 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 15, 2023
Five stars, it has become one my favorite games EVER. I had already read the Spanish pre-Kickstarter edition translation, which is significantly shorter (80 pages versus 168), and although I liked it a lot, I was a little puzzled about how to run it. This expanded edition incorporates mostly guidance for the game master, clarifies rules, and fixes most of my concerns. I could not ask for more.
The premise is absolutely awesome: a motley group of retired ladies in a Massachussets touristy seaside village solve crimes in the Murder, She Wrote vein, with a healthy serving of greek myths and lovecraft cults to spice things up. It is PBTA based, and provides an almost tabletop boardgame session structure, with rather freeform and improvisational scenes. It is very rules-lite, the game master does not actually roll any dice, and most actions are abstracted into a few movements solved with a 2d6 + stat roll.
The most innovative mechanic at its core is the mistery solving: there are no canonical solutions for the scenarios, the players must find clues, and then they must incorporate them into a theory and test it with a dice roll. The more clues they manage to explain, the higher the odds their solution is correct. This has become the "carved from brindlewood" system and it is used by other games from the same publisher like The Between, Public Access or the recently released The Silt Verses.
If you are an old school gamer like myself, it can take a bit of work to wrap your mind around the game approach. I highly recommend watching the actual play videos of the games run by author Jason Cordova to see how the game works in practice, they are quite clear and also incredibly entertaining.
At the moment I am running this game for two different groups. It is giving me some of the warmest, funniest, and downright scariest moments I have had at a gaming table, and I have been playing since 1985. I can not praise it highly enough, it is a fantastic roleplaying game.
The premise is absolutely awesome: a motley group of retired ladies in a Massachussets touristy seaside village solve crimes in the Murder, She Wrote vein, with a healthy serving of greek myths and lovecraft cults to spice things up. It is PBTA based, and provides an almost tabletop boardgame session structure, with rather freeform and improvisational scenes. It is very rules-lite, the game master does not actually roll any dice, and most actions are abstracted into a few movements solved with a 2d6 + stat roll.
The most innovative mechanic at its core is the mistery solving: there are no canonical solutions for the scenarios, the players must find clues, and then they must incorporate them into a theory and test it with a dice roll. The more clues they manage to explain, the higher the odds their solution is correct. This has become the "carved from brindlewood" system and it is used by other games from the same publisher like The Between, Public Access or the recently released The Silt Verses.
If you are an old school gamer like myself, it can take a bit of work to wrap your mind around the game approach. I highly recommend watching the actual play videos of the games run by author Jason Cordova to see how the game works in practice, they are quite clear and also incredibly entertaining.
At the moment I am running this game for two different groups. It is giving me some of the warmest, funniest, and downright scariest moments I have had at a gaming table, and I have been playing since 1985. I can not praise it highly enough, it is a fantastic roleplaying game.
December 12, 2024
I love the vibes and the focus on narrative, collaborative elements. My only critiques are: 1. It would be nice to have the character sheet, in some form, in the book and 2. The mechanics feel pretty amorphous. I definitely feel like I need to watch a few actual plays before gm'ing. However, I tend to do that anyways with new systems.
In sum, I'm excited to try this ttrpg system!
In sum, I'm excited to try this ttrpg system!
June 2, 2024
Brindlewood Bay is another great example of a PBTA game. It plants itself in the cozy murder mystery subgenre exemplified by Murder She Wrote and takes nods from the wide swath of detective fiction. Your players will take the roles of elderly widows who are members of the local murder mystery book club. They are called on by the incompetent local police and private clients to solve crimes which defy solutions and stumble onto an eldritch horror story themselves.
What's not to love?
The theming is great. Specific mechanical theming is often weak in PBTA games but the moves in this game are very well considered to evoke their specific genre. And there's decent character customization. You get our own cozy little place, cozy hobby, and a cozy personal move themed after a famous fictitious detective. It's oozing with a love for detective fiction and cosmic horror. It gives you a lot to play with the GM sections are full of fantastic advice and tools that would easily break outside the bounds of the game. Brindlewood Bay is up front about discussing the consequences and working out what exactly is on the line with a given roll before the dice hit the table. Could a Maven be killed by failing this action? At least you'll know before you roll and can reconsider. Bidding the stakes like this creates some wonderful tension that will make the game both extremely fun and very fair. I also like that the players get a couple of limited-use moves to override these poor results but they are a very limited resource and expending them could put their Maven on the path to retirement.
Brindlewood Bay balances on a knife edge. It starts cozy and funny and slips into cosmic horror over the course of a 10-or-so adventure campaign. The cosmic horror can still be funny (In one suggested scenario, the eldritch being is going to be summoned by British Loyalists upset at the American Revolution). But the mix of humor and horror has gone hand in hand for decades.
Brindlewood Bay is an excellent game that knows what it's about and also plays well within the sometimes restrictive limits of the PBTA model.
What's not to love?
The theming is great. Specific mechanical theming is often weak in PBTA games but the moves in this game are very well considered to evoke their specific genre. And there's decent character customization. You get our own cozy little place, cozy hobby, and a cozy personal move themed after a famous fictitious detective. It's oozing with a love for detective fiction and cosmic horror. It gives you a lot to play with the GM sections are full of fantastic advice and tools that would easily break outside the bounds of the game. Brindlewood Bay is up front about discussing the consequences and working out what exactly is on the line with a given roll before the dice hit the table. Could a Maven be killed by failing this action? At least you'll know before you roll and can reconsider. Bidding the stakes like this creates some wonderful tension that will make the game both extremely fun and very fair. I also like that the players get a couple of limited-use moves to override these poor results but they are a very limited resource and expending them could put their Maven on the path to retirement.
Brindlewood Bay balances on a knife edge. It starts cozy and funny and slips into cosmic horror over the course of a 10-or-so adventure campaign. The cosmic horror can still be funny (In one suggested scenario, the eldritch being is going to be summoned by British Loyalists upset at the American Revolution). But the mix of humor and horror has gone hand in hand for decades.
Brindlewood Bay is an excellent game that knows what it's about and also plays well within the sometimes restrictive limits of the PBTA model.
September 17, 2024
Love the detail and idea in this book, intimidated to run it but I want to give it a shot!
January 4, 2024
Murder, She Wrote was a great show, but it would have been even better if Angela Fletcher spent her time encountering weird cults and eldritch horrors…
Brindlewood Bay is a cozy mystery horror role playing game ideal for those who like solving mysteries and being directly involved in the story…
Ostensibly, the game follows a group of older women who are in a book club called the Murder Mavens who find themselves encountering murder mysteries (both mundane and weird) in Brindlewood Bay, Massachusetts.
Fortunately, with the layout of this game you could easily alter the group and their reason for gathering while also transplanting into a different city if you prefer (even Cabot Cove, Maine).
In the game, the GM (the Keeper) works with the players narrating the story. Players have the options of different moves and skills they can pursue…usually tied to discovering clues. Different narrative techniques are offered up to prevent character death though the game is reliant on player creativity, so this wouldn’t be the right game for a hack and slash group that just wants to defeat a and guy.
In addition, the Midwives of the Fragrant Void is an evil competing cult with their own motives and origins. Fortunately, with the way the game is down, a Keeper could easily have all the murders be simply mundane and not embrace the cal of Cthulhu-style plot elements.
Each of the provided sample mysteries has the initial setup, various locations to gather clues, suspects (and their personalities), and various clues (mundane and weird) that might be found. What each mystery doesn’t provide is the actual guilty party as that will be up for the keeper and players to decide thematically as part of the session.
Again, this game definitely depends on having the right group trying it out, and if you do then I imagine you can get a ton of fun out of this rule set…or at least a solid one off game if you’ve got a group that might not want to commit fully.
I highly recommend this for those who like alternate weird horror, cozy mysteries, and genre detective shows from the 70s and 80s.
Brindlewood Bay is a cozy mystery horror role playing game ideal for those who like solving mysteries and being directly involved in the story…
Ostensibly, the game follows a group of older women who are in a book club called the Murder Mavens who find themselves encountering murder mysteries (both mundane and weird) in Brindlewood Bay, Massachusetts.
Fortunately, with the layout of this game you could easily alter the group and their reason for gathering while also transplanting into a different city if you prefer (even Cabot Cove, Maine).
In the game, the GM (the Keeper) works with the players narrating the story. Players have the options of different moves and skills they can pursue…usually tied to discovering clues. Different narrative techniques are offered up to prevent character death though the game is reliant on player creativity, so this wouldn’t be the right game for a hack and slash group that just wants to defeat a and guy.
In addition, the Midwives of the Fragrant Void is an evil competing cult with their own motives and origins. Fortunately, with the way the game is down, a Keeper could easily have all the murders be simply mundane and not embrace the cal of Cthulhu-style plot elements.
Each of the provided sample mysteries has the initial setup, various locations to gather clues, suspects (and their personalities), and various clues (mundane and weird) that might be found. What each mystery doesn’t provide is the actual guilty party as that will be up for the keeper and players to decide thematically as part of the session.
Again, this game definitely depends on having the right group trying it out, and if you do then I imagine you can get a ton of fun out of this rule set…or at least a solid one off game if you’ve got a group that might not want to commit fully.
I highly recommend this for those who like alternate weird horror, cozy mysteries, and genre detective shows from the 70s and 80s.
August 2, 2023
This book outlines the core rules of the table-top RPG game Brindlewood Bay, as well as offering some starter mysteries for anyone playing. Having read more than a few of these at this point in my gaming life, I find this to be a really lucid and well-laid out guide for players and GMs (called Keepers in the book's parlance).
Brindlewood Bay isn't a game for all players. The protagonists are, primarily, elderly women who are part of the same book club, in a contemporary, small New England town. It's based on the "cozy mystery" genre of TV shows and books so there's little to no combat, and the game is more narratively oriented than rules-oriented. I'm a flexible player, so it's entirely my cuppa, but I do recognize it isn't everyone's.
It is a fun, clever, game system that really captures the heart of the cozy mystery in a way that lets the player inhabit it and drive it.
Brindlewood Bay isn't a game for all players. The protagonists are, primarily, elderly women who are part of the same book club, in a contemporary, small New England town. It's based on the "cozy mystery" genre of TV shows and books so there's little to no combat, and the game is more narratively oriented than rules-oriented. I'm a flexible player, so it's entirely my cuppa, but I do recognize it isn't everyone's.
It is a fun, clever, game system that really captures the heart of the cozy mystery in a way that lets the player inhabit it and drive it.
July 12, 2022
It's so, so FUN! Fun to play, fun to read and fun to "keep".
April 7, 2023
Very innovative mystery resolution style, I love everything about Brindlewood Bay and other Carved from Brindlewood games like the Between (also by Jason Cordova).
October 8, 2025
[4.25/5.00]
What a clever roleplaying game!
This was a light read, with little over a chapter or two of full-on rules. A section on GMing the unique structure and quirky nature of a Brindlewood Bay session. And then the rest of the book is just lore and pre-made investigations to use at your leisure.
One of the promises this game makes on the front cover is "cozy." Which has been used so much in marketing recently as to almost be a red flag for me. But the aesthetic trappings of that word aren't solely what gives Brindlewood Bay its feel... the whole spirit of the game is in easy, slow living.
Well, slow living that frequently involves small-town murders with a cthonic twist. But slow living nonetheless.
Players inhabit the roles of Mavens - older women, widowed, who spend their days performing mundane activities in the comfort of their friends. Most notably, their community is founded upon a shared murder mystery novel fandom. Faced with the slow, domestic nature of prolonged and single retirement, what else is there for the Mavens to do except use those mystery novel-earned skills to solve crimes in their hometown of Brindlewood Bay?
The premise is golden. Literally, think Golden Girls dropped into a Harlan Coben thriller, the main characters taking short breaks from their knitting circle to swing by the autopsy tech - bribing him with freshly-baked muffins in exchange for the right to poke at a stiff in the morgue. Even removed from the table, you'll find yourself chuckling at the concept of three septuagenarians sneaking into a costume party and flirting with the local fire brigade while ostensibly plumbing for clues. It's an idea that has legs. Dismembered legs, found stuffed into a chimney and divorced from the rest of the body.
These mysteries, by the way, do not have a set conclusion. Instead, the Mavens spend their day and night cycle (which are different, rules-wise) querying suspects who all have a potential motivation for the crime. Investigating scenes and finding evidence which could realistically point to anyone. The players are the ones connecting dots and spitballing, stacking supposition on supposition until they feel confident enough to make a "Theorize" check, compared to a DC of the case's "Complexity." That, in and of itself, is pretty damned unique for an investigation TTRPG.
I have no idea how that plays in practice. I have never played this game. But I can see where the game might... lose something. In how generic all the evidence is. How it can point to anyone, so long as the Mavens can justify it in their own heads.
Quintin Smith of Quinns Quest and Shut Up & Sit Down fame said in an episode of the SU&SD podcast that it felt like the Mavens weren't really solving the crime. They were just framing people. Which was potentially even more hilarious, but also quite reasonable. After all, Brindlewood Bay seems to be the Schrödinger's cat of TTRPGs.
No suspect is technically guilty, because the case doesn't necessarily have a conclusion. But also, every suspect is potentially guilty, because any bit of evidence can theoretically be ascribed to them. In the act of opening the box (solving the mystery), the Mavens are the ones who reintroduce the rigid binary of guilt and causality - the Mavens are, literally, Making a Murderer.
But isn't the fact that I've written so much about this one roleplaying game... meaningful? It's thought-provoking, attractive, and delicious to consider running.
My only gripe is that, with the strict adherence to a theme, added cult influence (with multiple core moves specifically relating to the unnatural), and discrete arcs that collide with the unknowable at their terminus... I have a hard time imagining myself running it. I'm both exceedingly free, in that the cases are more open and forgiving than a Delta Green Operation by far... but also, the thematic blanket of the setting, the encroaching forces of darkness, doesn't leave as much room as I'd like to get experimental with the narrative arc itself.
I loved reading this book. And if it were a hair more multipurpose, I'd have more of an excuse to run it.
What a clever roleplaying game!
This was a light read, with little over a chapter or two of full-on rules. A section on GMing the unique structure and quirky nature of a Brindlewood Bay session. And then the rest of the book is just lore and pre-made investigations to use at your leisure.
One of the promises this game makes on the front cover is "cozy." Which has been used so much in marketing recently as to almost be a red flag for me. But the aesthetic trappings of that word aren't solely what gives Brindlewood Bay its feel... the whole spirit of the game is in easy, slow living.
Well, slow living that frequently involves small-town murders with a cthonic twist. But slow living nonetheless.
Players inhabit the roles of Mavens - older women, widowed, who spend their days performing mundane activities in the comfort of their friends. Most notably, their community is founded upon a shared murder mystery novel fandom. Faced with the slow, domestic nature of prolonged and single retirement, what else is there for the Mavens to do except use those mystery novel-earned skills to solve crimes in their hometown of Brindlewood Bay?
The premise is golden. Literally, think Golden Girls dropped into a Harlan Coben thriller, the main characters taking short breaks from their knitting circle to swing by the autopsy tech - bribing him with freshly-baked muffins in exchange for the right to poke at a stiff in the morgue. Even removed from the table, you'll find yourself chuckling at the concept of three septuagenarians sneaking into a costume party and flirting with the local fire brigade while ostensibly plumbing for clues. It's an idea that has legs. Dismembered legs, found stuffed into a chimney and divorced from the rest of the body.
These mysteries, by the way, do not have a set conclusion. Instead, the Mavens spend their day and night cycle (which are different, rules-wise) querying suspects who all have a potential motivation for the crime. Investigating scenes and finding evidence which could realistically point to anyone. The players are the ones connecting dots and spitballing, stacking supposition on supposition until they feel confident enough to make a "Theorize" check, compared to a DC of the case's "Complexity." That, in and of itself, is pretty damned unique for an investigation TTRPG.
I have no idea how that plays in practice. I have never played this game. But I can see where the game might... lose something. In how generic all the evidence is. How it can point to anyone, so long as the Mavens can justify it in their own heads.
Quintin Smith of Quinns Quest and Shut Up & Sit Down fame said in an episode of the SU&SD podcast that it felt like the Mavens weren't really solving the crime. They were just framing people. Which was potentially even more hilarious, but also quite reasonable. After all, Brindlewood Bay seems to be the Schrödinger's cat of TTRPGs.
No suspect is technically guilty, because the case doesn't necessarily have a conclusion. But also, every suspect is potentially guilty, because any bit of evidence can theoretically be ascribed to them. In the act of opening the box (solving the mystery), the Mavens are the ones who reintroduce the rigid binary of guilt and causality - the Mavens are, literally, Making a Murderer.
But isn't the fact that I've written so much about this one roleplaying game... meaningful? It's thought-provoking, attractive, and delicious to consider running.
My only gripe is that, with the strict adherence to a theme, added cult influence (with multiple core moves specifically relating to the unnatural), and discrete arcs that collide with the unknowable at their terminus... I have a hard time imagining myself running it. I'm both exceedingly free, in that the cases are more open and forgiving than a Delta Green Operation by far... but also, the thematic blanket of the setting, the encroaching forces of darkness, doesn't leave as much room as I'd like to get experimental with the narrative arc itself.
I loved reading this book. And if it were a hair more multipurpose, I'd have more of an excuse to run it.
April 7, 2024
I backed this on KickStarter then forgot about it until it showed up in my mailbox, with an add-on book, Nephews in Peril. I *really* want to run a game based on this world but... after reading the whole book, I'm not sure how I feel about the actual mechanics and game system. Like, I love every box the premise ticks. Mystery of the week, a la "Murder She Wrote", Lovecraftian/cult elements, you get to roleplay as meddling old ladies, set in a small but mysterious seaside resort town... yes, please. But the stuff with the "moves" seems complicated, and weird terminology all the players will now have to learn. Why couldn't they be called anything more familiar from another system? Also, a lot of the moves, while explained in the book (which, only the GM will have) require sort of knowing a bunch of TV, Film, and Fiction tropes and characters to remember what they are called or know what they do and how they work, which feels like a lot to ask of a casual player - and I assume since this was meant to be "rules-light" RPG you're trying to capture players looking for more fun and less rules/memorization than, say, D&D. I tried to watch a couple of YouTube playthroughs, but the first 30!!! minutes (and that is after like, chit-chat and everyone introducing one another talking each other up a bunch, sigh) in both videos I found is the creator going through like, a VERY LENGTHY consent talk, a VERY LENGTHY like, bunch of other disclaimers and stuff... yeesh. I had to watch like 45-60 minutes before I even got to rules explanation and by then I was like TL;DW and tried to find another video. IDK. I will have to read this again and for sure find a video I can make it though to see if this is playable for me and my friends or if it's something where maybe I should just take the premise/setting and create a similar scenario in another game we are all familiar with using that.
PS if any friends in Chicago read this, LMK if you'd be interested in playing in a game if I ran one! OR if you know anyone starting one so I can try playing it maybe before running it!
PS if any friends in Chicago read this, LMK if you'd be interested in playing in a game if I ran one! OR if you know anyone starting one so I can try playing it maybe before running it!
November 7, 2023
Inspirowany serialem „Murder, she wrote” ciekawy pomysł na grę fabularną, w której graczki i gracze wcielają się w starsze panie, miłośniczki kryminałów. Ładnie wydany i dobrze napisany podręcznik zachęca do tego, by spróbować zmierzyć się z zagadkowym morderstwami w Brindlewood Bay.
February 6, 2024
Very much looking forward to trying out this game. The book is an easy, fun read and makes the game sound easy to run and to play in. It will be interesting to see whether it really is so easy. I’m confident it is fun with the right group.
March 23, 2024
Fascynujące pomysły, rozwiązania metodologiczne, których nie znałem, mechanika która ryje łeb. Dużo nowości (nietypowych do klasycznych rpgów) i trudno się połapać przez strukturę opisu bardzo książkową. Jeżeli po rozegraniu spełni oczekiwania to dodaję jeszcze 1 gwiazdkę
January 4, 2024
Murder, She Wrote was a great show, but it would have been even better if Angela Fletcher spent her time encountering weird cults and eldritch horrors…
Brindlewood Bay is a cozy mystery horror role playing game ideal for those who like solving mysteries and being directly involved in the story…
Ostensibly, the game follows a group of older women who are in a book club called the Murder Mavens who find themselves encountering murder mysteries (both mundane and weird) in Brindlewood Bay, Massachusetts.
Fortunately, with the layout of this game you could easily alter the group and their reason for gathering while also transplanting into a different city if you prefer (even Cabot Cove, Maine).
In the game, the GM (the Keeper) works with the players narrating the story. Players have the options of different moves and skills they can pursue…usually tied to discovering clues. Different narrative techniques are offered up to prevent character death though the game is reliant on player creativity, so this wouldn’t be the right game for a hack and slash group that just wants to defeat a and guy.
In addition, the Midwives of the Fragrant Void is an evil competing cult with their own motives and origins. Fortunately, with the way the game is down, a Keeper could easily have all the murders be simply mundane and not embrace the cal of Cthulhu-style plot elements.
Each of the provided sample mysteries has the initial setup, various locations to gather clues, suspects (and their personalities), and various clues (mundane and weird) that might be found. What each mystery doesn’t provide is the actual guilty party as that will be up for the keeper and players to decide thematically as part of the session.
Again, this game definitely depends on having the right group trying it out, and if you do then I imagine you can get a ton of fun out of this rule set…or at least a solid one off game if you’ve got a group that might not want to commit fully.
I highly recommend this for those who like alternate weird horror, cozy mysteries, and genre detective shows from the 70s and 80s.
Brindlewood Bay is a cozy mystery horror role playing game ideal for those who like solving mysteries and being directly involved in the story…
Ostensibly, the game follows a group of older women who are in a book club called the Murder Mavens who find themselves encountering murder mysteries (both mundane and weird) in Brindlewood Bay, Massachusetts.
Fortunately, with the layout of this game you could easily alter the group and their reason for gathering while also transplanting into a different city if you prefer (even Cabot Cove, Maine).
In the game, the GM (the Keeper) works with the players narrating the story. Players have the options of different moves and skills they can pursue…usually tied to discovering clues. Different narrative techniques are offered up to prevent character death though the game is reliant on player creativity, so this wouldn’t be the right game for a hack and slash group that just wants to defeat a and guy.
In addition, the Midwives of the Fragrant Void is an evil competing cult with their own motives and origins. Fortunately, with the way the game is down, a Keeper could easily have all the murders be simply mundane and not embrace the cal of Cthulhu-style plot elements.
Each of the provided sample mysteries has the initial setup, various locations to gather clues, suspects (and their personalities), and various clues (mundane and weird) that might be found. What each mystery doesn’t provide is the actual guilty party as that will be up for the keeper and players to decide thematically as part of the session.
Again, this game definitely depends on having the right group trying it out, and if you do then I imagine you can get a ton of fun out of this rule set…or at least a solid one off game if you’ve got a group that might not want to commit fully.
I highly recommend this for those who like alternate weird horror, cozy mysteries, and genre detective shows from the 70s and 80s.
March 10, 2025
Me ha gustado, es un buen juego y la premisa es muy simpática y original, pero no es tan redondo como el juego más reciente del mismo autor, Public Access, que leí hace poco. Se nota que el sistema no está tan pulido, el material no está tan bien organizado. La parte gráfica y de diseño creo que no transmite tan bien la ambientación buscada. La edición española tiene algunas erratas y traducciones que rechinan. Puede ser morrofinismo, pero siempre me molesta.
Creo que leerlo puede dejarte la sensación de no saber muy bien por dónde empezar, invierte varios conceptos habituales en el rol: hay bastante estructura "macro", al nivel de sesión, recuerdan a los turnos de los juegos de mesa y poca estructura al nivel de escena (reglas de resolución de combate o acciones, por ejemplo). Los misterios no tienen solución canónica, es necesario desarrollar conjuntamente una teoría en la que encajen las pistas encontradas.
Me parece muy recomendable, incluso necesario, ver los vídeos de los Actual Play que el autor tiene en Youtube. No sólo son fenomenales, sino que ayudan a entender cómo poner en práctica todo el material presentado. Esto fue lo que me terminó de convencer de que es un muy buen juego.
Creo que leerlo puede dejarte la sensación de no saber muy bien por dónde empezar, invierte varios conceptos habituales en el rol: hay bastante estructura "macro", al nivel de sesión, recuerdan a los turnos de los juegos de mesa y poca estructura al nivel de escena (reglas de resolución de combate o acciones, por ejemplo). Los misterios no tienen solución canónica, es necesario desarrollar conjuntamente una teoría en la que encajen las pistas encontradas.
Me parece muy recomendable, incluso necesario, ver los vídeos de los Actual Play que el autor tiene en Youtube. No sólo son fenomenales, sino que ayudan a entender cómo poner en práctica todo el material presentado. Esto fue lo que me terminó de convencer de que es un muy buen juego.
August 8, 2024
I absolutely love the cozy murder vibes of Brindlewood Bay and can’t wait to strike up a mini-campaign with my friends. The collaborative storytelling aspect works really well for a group of people who are all willing to “Yes, And” their way through a plot. I’m less sold on the outset of the Lovecraft aspect than I thought I would be — particularly what kind of timeline to have in mind if we want to dive into that drama. (But that is a potentially empty critique and may resolve itself naturally through play.)
The starter mysteries are fun and wear their inspiration on their sleeves. I think it’s important to swing big with character for the suspects as there are a ton of them in some cases, but everyone will latch on to a few naturally.
I look forward to putting this through the gauntlet (heh) though, and if my opinions change drastically after seeing it live, I’ll be sure to come back for an edited review!
The starter mysteries are fun and wear their inspiration on their sleeves. I think it’s important to swing big with character for the suspects as there are a ton of them in some cases, but everyone will latch on to a few naturally.
I look forward to putting this through the gauntlet (heh) though, and if my opinions change drastically after seeing it live, I’ll be sure to come back for an edited review!
February 12, 2022
La ambientación del juego , me parece sublime. Una suerte de Se ha escrito un crimen y otras series similares de resolver misterios en un pequeño pueblo costero en el que una trama oculta y maléfica se mueve de fondo, no me podría gustar más.
Sin embargo, la decisión de hacer que los misterios no esten prediseñados, sino que se improvisen en gran medida, y sean los propios jugadores de dar un sentido que no tienen a las distintas pistas encontradas, me desanima enormemente. Simplemente con ese detalle, creo que el juego sería fabuloso, y probablemente pueda adaptarse sin mayor problema, pero no entiendo ni comparte esa opción de diseño.
Sin embargo, la decisión de hacer que los misterios no esten prediseñados, sino que se improvisen en gran medida, y sean los propios jugadores de dar un sentido que no tienen a las distintas pistas encontradas, me desanima enormemente. Simplemente con ese detalle, creo que el juego sería fabuloso, y probablemente pueda adaptarse sin mayor problema, pero no entiendo ni comparte esa opción de diseño.
November 11, 2023
It is cool for playing a PBTA based mini campaign in a Murder She Wrote/Call of Cthulhu crossover scenario. It's investigation system (in which you take clues and make a theory before rolling dice to see if it is true) is not for everybody.
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