What do you think?
Rate this book
Brujas de la noche
ESTA NOCHE VOLAREMOS
En la Segunda Guerra Mundial había un regimiento de bombardeo nocturno compuesto enteramente de mujeres. Aviadoras soviéticas natas.
Aquellas 200 mujeres y chicas despegaron sus obsoletos biplanos desde campos cercanos a la línea del frente para atacar a los invasores alemanes cada noche durante 1.100 noches consecutivas. Cuando se quedaban sin bombas, tiraban travesaños de ferrocarril.
Formaban una sororidad con lazos forjados con sangre y terror. Para la Fuerza Aérea del Ejército Rojo eran algo secundario, un exasperante espectáculo feminista. Para los alemanes eran simplemente Nachthexen: Brujas de la Noche.
Las Brujas de la Noche es un juego de rol sobre mujeres en la guerra. Como miembro del 588º Regimiento de Bombardeo Nocturno, responderás a la llamada de la Madre Patria en sus horas más bajas. ¿Podrás cumplir con tu deber y asestar un golpe tras otro a los fascistas? ¿Podrás sobreponerte a la discriminación, que puede llegar al sabotaje, y destacar por encima de tus camaradas sexistas? ¿Hay límites para el patriotismo o la resistencia? ¡Juega a Las Brujas de la Noche para averiguarlo!
Para jugar a Las Brujas de la Noche se necesitan 3-5 jugadores, que se turnarán en el puesto de Director de Juego. Se pueden jugar sesiones individuales de dos horas o expandir el juego a una campaña literal que siga al Regimiento durante toda la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En ambos casos estarás contando una historia épica de heroísmo y sacrificio, que honra a las mujeres que lo hicieron en el mundo real.
En la Segunda Guerra Mundial había un regimiento de bombardeo nocturno compuesto enteramente de mujeres. Aviadoras soviéticas natas.
Aquellas 200 mujeres y chicas despegaron sus obsoletos biplanos desde campos cercanos a la línea del frente para atacar a los invasores alemanes cada noche durante 1.100 noches consecutivas. Cuando se quedaban sin bombas, tiraban travesaños de ferrocarril.
Formaban una sororidad con lazos forjados con sangre y terror. Para la Fuerza Aérea del Ejército Rojo eran algo secundario, un exasperante espectáculo feminista. Para los alemanes eran simplemente Nachthexen: Brujas de la Noche.
Las Brujas de la Noche es un juego de rol sobre mujeres en la guerra. Como miembro del 588º Regimiento de Bombardeo Nocturno, responderás a la llamada de la Madre Patria en sus horas más bajas. ¿Podrás cumplir con tu deber y asestar un golpe tras otro a los fascistas? ¿Podrás sobreponerte a la discriminación, que puede llegar al sabotaje, y destacar por encima de tus camaradas sexistas? ¿Hay límites para el patriotismo o la resistencia? ¡Juega a Las Brujas de la Noche para averiguarlo!
Para jugar a Las Brujas de la Noche se necesitan 3-5 jugadores, que se turnarán en el puesto de Director de Juego. Se pueden jugar sesiones individuales de dos horas o expandir el juego a una campaña literal que siga al Regimiento durante toda la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En ambos casos estarás contando una historia épica de heroísmo y sacrificio, que honra a las mujeres que lo hicieron en el mundo real.
174 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2015
3 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 10, 2018
Night Witches, by Jason Morningstar, is an amazing text. Actually, it’s an amazing set of texts, because I think you need to consider all of the downloadable material in addition to the book itself when talking about the game.
Night Witches is, as far as I’m concerned, the gold standard of GM tools. It is clear that Morningstar was worried that the historical subject material would give players pause about actually bringing the game to the table. As excited as people might be to tell the story of badass female Russian pilots in World War II bombing the Germans in out-of-date farming bi-planes, there is a natural nervousness that comes with playing with historical fact. I know nothing about Russia, let alone Russia in World War II, let alone the battles fought or the landscapes of those battles. I know nothing about military rank, let alone Russian ranks in World War II. And on and on, the potential player would say. How can I create narrative in a world in which I don’t feel knowledgeable and that I am restrained by historical facts?! That’s where all the extra material comes in.
The extra material is beautifully and simply presented. There is always just enough information to comfortably fake it, and not so much that you feel like you have to complete an undergraduate course in history to play. The book provides an wonderfully written overview of the progress of the war and all the individual elements that interact with the fiction you will be creating. There are handouts for each duty station the pilots are stationed at throughout the war with an overview of what the nights and days were like, what the theater of operations was like, and what logistics are important. Then, there are a series of questions about the duty station that lets the players create their own elements. In other words, the game walks a line between historical accuracy and fictional creativity, and it gives the players the tools for the former and the encouragement for the latter.
In addition to these tools and the standard pbta printouts, the downloads for Night Witches includes a list of “144 Night Witch-y Things” which allows the GM to grab a dramatic element at a glance and introduce them into the fiction. There are 12 categories (What’s going on around the airbase? Who is that bigwig? Why is this airplane fucked? What does she need right now?) with 12 details under each category. Similarly, there are walkthroughs for the first station if players want even more handholding. No matter what your play level or what your comfort with the material, the game has got your back. It is truly an impressive array of support and guidance.
But all that GM support would be pointless if the game weren’t worth playing, and the game is definitely worth playing. There are so many clever constructions in the game, such as “Marks” a kind of existential harm track that shows the ways the war has worn on your character. Each mark is accompanied by a detailed event that should be immediately worked into the fiction. It’s a brilliant approach, because it’s one thing to have a physical track that shows how close you are to exhausted; it’s another thing to spin out these stories and moments so that you feel all the shit your poor airwoman has suffered through. Another feature I love is the various roles your characters can play, and the fact that those roles are changeable, so as the war wears on, your dreamer might become a protector and finally a misanthrope. The changing of roles not only tracks your personal growth but the way that your social performance is affected by the various roles your comrades are assuming. It’s a simple and elegant way to communicate such complex social interactions.
Another neat feature is Regard, which is a way of tracking relationships, like bonds in Dungeon World or Hx in Apocalypse World. Like everything else in Night Witches, Regard is beautiful for its simplicity. If you have Regard for a person or thing, you have +1 with your rolls involving that person or thing. You don’t need to keep track of numbers or movements. But at the same time, it’s more than just a binary on/off switch. Regard comes with an emotional tag that guides roleplaying and is fun to create. Finally, each character type has a maximum amount of Regard for others, and Regard is claimed as an advance. Traditionally, relationships lead to advances not result from advances. It’s a cool way to map the deepening and broadening of relationships as the war progresses.
The text itself is as clear and compelling as we have come to expect from Jason Morningstar. The writing is concise and evocative, telling us what we need to know and moving on without belaboring a point or filling up pages unnecessarily. For a quick example, compare the discussion of the GM agenda, principles, and moves to any other pbta book. This is one lean, mean, communicating machine.
Night Witches is, as far as I’m concerned, the gold standard of GM tools. It is clear that Morningstar was worried that the historical subject material would give players pause about actually bringing the game to the table. As excited as people might be to tell the story of badass female Russian pilots in World War II bombing the Germans in out-of-date farming bi-planes, there is a natural nervousness that comes with playing with historical fact. I know nothing about Russia, let alone Russia in World War II, let alone the battles fought or the landscapes of those battles. I know nothing about military rank, let alone Russian ranks in World War II. And on and on, the potential player would say. How can I create narrative in a world in which I don’t feel knowledgeable and that I am restrained by historical facts?! That’s where all the extra material comes in.
The extra material is beautifully and simply presented. There is always just enough information to comfortably fake it, and not so much that you feel like you have to complete an undergraduate course in history to play. The book provides an wonderfully written overview of the progress of the war and all the individual elements that interact with the fiction you will be creating. There are handouts for each duty station the pilots are stationed at throughout the war with an overview of what the nights and days were like, what the theater of operations was like, and what logistics are important. Then, there are a series of questions about the duty station that lets the players create their own elements. In other words, the game walks a line between historical accuracy and fictional creativity, and it gives the players the tools for the former and the encouragement for the latter.
In addition to these tools and the standard pbta printouts, the downloads for Night Witches includes a list of “144 Night Witch-y Things” which allows the GM to grab a dramatic element at a glance and introduce them into the fiction. There are 12 categories (What’s going on around the airbase? Who is that bigwig? Why is this airplane fucked? What does she need right now?) with 12 details under each category. Similarly, there are walkthroughs for the first station if players want even more handholding. No matter what your play level or what your comfort with the material, the game has got your back. It is truly an impressive array of support and guidance.
But all that GM support would be pointless if the game weren’t worth playing, and the game is definitely worth playing. There are so many clever constructions in the game, such as “Marks” a kind of existential harm track that shows the ways the war has worn on your character. Each mark is accompanied by a detailed event that should be immediately worked into the fiction. It’s a brilliant approach, because it’s one thing to have a physical track that shows how close you are to exhausted; it’s another thing to spin out these stories and moments so that you feel all the shit your poor airwoman has suffered through. Another feature I love is the various roles your characters can play, and the fact that those roles are changeable, so as the war wears on, your dreamer might become a protector and finally a misanthrope. The changing of roles not only tracks your personal growth but the way that your social performance is affected by the various roles your comrades are assuming. It’s a simple and elegant way to communicate such complex social interactions.
Another neat feature is Regard, which is a way of tracking relationships, like bonds in Dungeon World or Hx in Apocalypse World. Like everything else in Night Witches, Regard is beautiful for its simplicity. If you have Regard for a person or thing, you have +1 with your rolls involving that person or thing. You don’t need to keep track of numbers or movements. But at the same time, it’s more than just a binary on/off switch. Regard comes with an emotional tag that guides roleplaying and is fun to create. Finally, each character type has a maximum amount of Regard for others, and Regard is claimed as an advance. Traditionally, relationships lead to advances not result from advances. It’s a cool way to map the deepening and broadening of relationships as the war progresses.
The text itself is as clear and compelling as we have come to expect from Jason Morningstar. The writing is concise and evocative, telling us what we need to know and moving on without belaboring a point or filling up pages unnecessarily. For a quick example, compare the discussion of the GM agenda, principles, and moves to any other pbta book. This is one lean, mean, communicating machine.
July 16, 2025
Night Witches is streamlined and daring RPG handbook with an incredible specific theme that, nevertheless, offers wide possibilities. This is certainly a labor of love and love letter to the titular Night Witches. Although focusing so sharply on such an specific period and characters might discourage GMs and players looking for yet another D&D-like experience, the game certainly offers many narrative and role-playing possibilities and can even be an opportunity to learn about the heroic (and sometimes tragic) stories of the Sovient women who bombarded Nazi bases using subpar and non-military planes. Many other reviews have already discussed in depth the mechanical issues and achievements of the game, so I will not go into much detail about them. Finding the right group to play this game may involve a quest of its own, but it should be a worthwhile effort in the end.
August 8, 2016
Powered by the Apocalypse: check
Designed by Jason Morningstar: check
WWII: check
Yep, this game is definitely trying to appeal to my interests.
The game puts the players into the roles of female pilots in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment in the Soviet armed forces in WWII.
There are two play modes, with the default being the campaign mode where everyone starts with a green character at the formation of the Regiment in 1942 and plays through until the end of the war, taking turns GMing along the way.
The other mode is as a one-shot with players taking the role of an experienced pilot in the spring of 1943. I like that some attention was paid to both modes. There's even more support for the one-shot mode available as pdfs.
Without having played it I can only fully evaluate the book's writing and production, both of which are excellent.
I liked the brief mention of what is different in the game compared to other games Powered by the Apocalypse. Those differences are the Mission Pool, Marks, and Regard.
The Mission Pool is a common bonus pool generated during the day and available to all characters during the night mission. The game follows a day/night structure with the night representing the missions the pilots fly, and the day everything else that goes on in their lives.
The Marks are a sort of narrative hit points (I think the book describes them that way at some point). You take Marks as consequences from different things. Some are good, most are bad, and eventually you are left with death as the only Mark you can take. This represents the creeping doom inherent in the war.
Regard represents a connection that the character has to something or someone, friend or enemy or object. Beginning characters have no Regard for anything, but can earn it as they advance (in campaign play it's required to be the first advancement they get).
Advancement seems slower in this game than in other games Powered by the Apocalypse, but that may be a false impression brought on by the fact I haven't played it yet.
I'm looking forward to getting this to the table.
Update: I have played this a couple of times now, and it is a lot of fun. The rate of advancement did not seem to be as slow as I feared.
I do have one issue with the game that I want to mention: I'm noticing a disturbing trend in Powered by the Apocalypse games of leaving the playbooks out of the rules, and this was the first game where I noticed that. I'm very tempted to knock a star off the rating for this because of that, but it's such a solid game otherwise that I don't think I will, at least not now.
I think it's a big mistake to leave the playbooks out. Sure, they're easily available as downloads online, but the playbooks basically ARE the game for players, and not having them easily at hand to reference in the book itself is annoying when reading the book.
Designed by Jason Morningstar: check
WWII: check
Yep, this game is definitely trying to appeal to my interests.
The game puts the players into the roles of female pilots in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment in the Soviet armed forces in WWII.
There are two play modes, with the default being the campaign mode where everyone starts with a green character at the formation of the Regiment in 1942 and plays through until the end of the war, taking turns GMing along the way.
The other mode is as a one-shot with players taking the role of an experienced pilot in the spring of 1943. I like that some attention was paid to both modes. There's even more support for the one-shot mode available as pdfs.
Without having played it I can only fully evaluate the book's writing and production, both of which are excellent.
I liked the brief mention of what is different in the game compared to other games Powered by the Apocalypse. Those differences are the Mission Pool, Marks, and Regard.
The Mission Pool is a common bonus pool generated during the day and available to all characters during the night mission. The game follows a day/night structure with the night representing the missions the pilots fly, and the day everything else that goes on in their lives.
The Marks are a sort of narrative hit points (I think the book describes them that way at some point). You take Marks as consequences from different things. Some are good, most are bad, and eventually you are left with death as the only Mark you can take. This represents the creeping doom inherent in the war.
Regard represents a connection that the character has to something or someone, friend or enemy or object. Beginning characters have no Regard for anything, but can earn it as they advance (in campaign play it's required to be the first advancement they get).
Advancement seems slower in this game than in other games Powered by the Apocalypse, but that may be a false impression brought on by the fact I haven't played it yet.
I'm looking forward to getting this to the table.
Update: I have played this a couple of times now, and it is a lot of fun. The rate of advancement did not seem to be as slow as I feared.
I do have one issue with the game that I want to mention: I'm noticing a disturbing trend in Powered by the Apocalypse games of leaving the playbooks out of the rules, and this was the first game where I noticed that. I'm very tempted to knock a star off the rating for this because of that, but it's such a solid game otherwise that I don't think I will, at least not now.
I think it's a big mistake to leave the playbooks out. Sure, they're easily available as downloads online, but the playbooks basically ARE the game for players, and not having them easily at hand to reference in the book itself is annoying when reading the book.
Read
March 29, 2021This is an exceptionally interesting RPG that has such a specific focus - women fighter pilots for the USSR during WWII - that it immediately drew my interest. Definitely more roleplay and story-oriented than your traditional D&D but certainly an interesting module. Would play as a one-shot with friends who are much more experienced and dramatic than I am.
March 24, 2015
Storygaming all-star team here, with Jason Morningstar (Fiasco) creating a Powered By The Apocalypse game about the Night Witches, the all-female Soviet bomber regiment.
It's a really specific topic for a game, but one that has been customized perfectly, as witnessed by Jason's thoughts on character sheets. Characters are distinguished by Natures (a personality type, which is fixed), and a Role (which can change). Perhaps the cleverest bit of game design are the Marks, a sort of strategic damage track representing the psychological toll of war. There are long odds against the Night Witches, and even if they avoid the simple Harms of flak, Nazi fighters, and crash landings, they'll eventually run out of options and be forced to Embrace Death. The gameplay itself is similarly made to order. Each mission has a day phase where characters rest, recuperate, prepare and generally live, and a night phase where they brave the hazards of the Eastern Front to make attacks on German positions. Unless players are ungodly lucky, they will take damage, but failure means interrogation by the NKVD. Better to die honorably in the air for Mother Russia!
This is a brilliant, but very narrow game. The art and presentation are great. While there are great quotes from real Night Witches, and a solid bibliography, there wasn't enough fluff to make me sure of my ability to portray the unique challenges of friendship and combat that the game demands, a problem that might be amplified by a rotating GM model. The systems ties to the Night Witches setting are great touches, but make it hard to adapt. I could see some of the ideas being used in any setting with a strong rest/hazard divide; like fire fighters or Battlestar Galactica Pilots.
So yeah, buy this game if the idea interests you, or you want to see some absolutely brilliant design. I loved reading it, but I honestly can't see myself ever playing it, sadly.
It's a really specific topic for a game, but one that has been customized perfectly, as witnessed by Jason's thoughts on character sheets. Characters are distinguished by Natures (a personality type, which is fixed), and a Role (which can change). Perhaps the cleverest bit of game design are the Marks, a sort of strategic damage track representing the psychological toll of war. There are long odds against the Night Witches, and even if they avoid the simple Harms of flak, Nazi fighters, and crash landings, they'll eventually run out of options and be forced to Embrace Death. The gameplay itself is similarly made to order. Each mission has a day phase where characters rest, recuperate, prepare and generally live, and a night phase where they brave the hazards of the Eastern Front to make attacks on German positions. Unless players are ungodly lucky, they will take damage, but failure means interrogation by the NKVD. Better to die honorably in the air for Mother Russia!
This is a brilliant, but very narrow game. The art and presentation are great. While there are great quotes from real Night Witches, and a solid bibliography, there wasn't enough fluff to make me sure of my ability to portray the unique challenges of friendship and combat that the game demands, a problem that might be amplified by a rotating GM model. The systems ties to the Night Witches setting are great touches, but make it hard to adapt. I could see some of the ideas being used in any setting with a strong rest/hazard divide; like fire fighters or Battlestar Galactica Pilots.
So yeah, buy this game if the idea interests you, or you want to see some absolutely brilliant design. I loved reading it, but I honestly can't see myself ever playing it, sadly.
January 19, 2019
Nice system, and a very interesting setting, though part of me is worried as to how you can play it sensitively and not descend into caricature.
April 25, 2015
I'm a long-time role-player, wargamer, and WW2 reader, with a side interest in women in warfare: this game hit a lot of notes for me.
There are a lot of unique and intriguing mechanisms in here, other reviews can and will cover them.
Only the 2nd *World game (a.k.a. Powered by the Apocalypse) that I've read, it's a system that seems to have lots of potential, if connected to the right group of players. While I am unsure if I have those players, I certainly want to try.
I recently ran a different RPG with the characters as mercenary fighter pilots, and that worked out fairly well, but not as good as I had hoped. The release of this game piqued my interest, as an attempt to do similar things with a different rules set. As I've read it, I like how it is structured here, it could be a workable alternative.
In short, a good read for a gamer, and I hope to play/run it someday.
There are a lot of unique and intriguing mechanisms in here, other reviews can and will cover them.
Only the 2nd *World game (a.k.a. Powered by the Apocalypse) that I've read, it's a system that seems to have lots of potential, if connected to the right group of players. While I am unsure if I have those players, I certainly want to try.
I recently ran a different RPG with the characters as mercenary fighter pilots, and that worked out fairly well, but not as good as I had hoped. The release of this game piqued my interest, as an attempt to do similar things with a different rules set. As I've read it, I like how it is structured here, it could be a workable alternative.
In short, a good read for a gamer, and I hope to play/run it someday.
November 4, 2015
What a delightful little game. The concept is one of the strangest I've seen for an RPG, but somehow it strikes as extremely interesting. Obviously you only want to do this with people whose thoughts on gender relations don't make you want to tear your hair out, but I think an intellectual group of players could really enjoy this.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews