Most people associate tabletop roleplaying games with adventurers exploring fantastical lands, but that’s not all the medium has to offer. In Brindlewood Bay, you’re not barbarians or wizards, but rather a group of elderly women in a murder mystery book club who solve real-life crimes in their cozy New England town, where a sinister secret lurks in the shadows. For more information about the newly-launched Kickstarter for Brindlewood Bay, we talked to author Jason Cordova about the origins of the game and what makes it such a unique experience at the table.
Brindlewood Bay is being published by The Gauntlet, an organization Cordova is a part of that’s focused on independently-produced tabletop games, generally ones published by a single person or small company. Brindlewood Bay has been out for a while in a digital-only format and has gained quite the following, but the Kickstarter will be funding a print version with brand new, full-color art from Cecilia Ferri.
“The Kickstarter is going to be to kickstart two different hardcover books. One is the core rules of Brindlewood Bay, and then another is a supplement book called Nephews in Peril. Brindlewood Bay has the core rules plus six mysteries, and those rules are greatly expanded from what was originally released in the digital-only; it has a lot more guidance for running the game. The Nephews in Peril book has more about the setting of the town, plus ten more mysteries.”.
Aside from the unique setup for the game, Brindlewood Bay also stands out from the crowd with its interesting mystery mechanics. Cordova has always been a huge fan of both the mystery and the horror genre and wants to capture that idea in a roleplaying game. He felt like games like Call of Cthulhu got close to what he was looking for, but never actually felt like the player has agency in the solution of the case.
“I’ve always loved the idea of being able to experience a mystery or investigation in the context of a tabletop roleplaying game. I think the way Breindlewood Bay does mysteries is really, really different from anything out there and feels like you’re actually solving a mystery.”
Rather than having the Game Master, called the Keeper in Brindlewood Bay, have a predetermined solution, they instead prepare a series of clues, locations, and suspects that the players will discover as part of their investigation. Once the players gather enough clues, they can have a conversation to piece the clues together themselves and determine who the murderer is. This mechanic helps simulate the classic scene at the end of a murder mystery where the detective lists off all the clues and how they point to the real culprit. While this works perfectly for the setting of the game, Cordova originally worked on Brindlewood Bay to help him solve a problem with another game he was writing, The Between.
“The Between is the game that came before Brindlewood Bay in development but was published after Brindlewood Bay because Brindlewood Bay was created to solve a problem with The Between. It is a game about monster hunters, both literal and serial killer type monsters, in Victorian era London. I wanted it to have a strong mystery component where players are not just battling serial killers and monsters, but trying to figure out the details. Where do I find them, how do I get them to stop doing this, how do I get this ghost to pass on to the next world? I didn’t know how to present this in a way that other game masters could take it and run it the way I do. So instead of reinventing the wheel over and over again until I got it right, I wrote another game.”
While they both ended up using this same mystery mechanic, the flavor of horror in Brindlewood Bay strikes a completely different tone than The Between. Brindlewood Bay is inspired by cozy mysteries, like Murder She Wrote, but also has some pretty intense Lovecraftian horror that works its way into the narrative as the campaign progresses. Instead of directly using Lovecraft’s mythology, Cordova decided to work more Greek mythology into the cult, called the Midwives of the Fragrant Void, making it feel familiar yet unique. As a huge fan of horror, he believes that the tabletop roleplaying medium can do things other media cannot.
“What the medium does have is collaborative storytelling. That’s what it can do that films and music and TV shows and books can’t do. I do think there’s something really interesting that goes back to cavemen sitting around a fire telling stories to each other and creeping each other out. You can evoke fear sitting around a table talking to each other and telling stories together. What I think that tabletop role-playing games can do is put a framework around that to ensure that you get a great result.”
Despite the presence of dark cults and ancient gods, Brindlewood Bay also leans into a more fun and playful side of the genre, especially given the players are all elderly women. Cordova says this combination helps enhance the horror by providing release to the tension.
“I like horror that has a certain camp element to it because I think that horror that has a little bit of humor actually makes the horror better to me. It makes it go down a little easier and keeps me in it more than something that’s just purely bleak.”
While there aren’t traditional classes like in other games, each player has a set of moves that they can choose from to give them certain advantages throughout play that help them define their individual Murder Maven. In addition, there is also a set of moves that all players can use as a way of enhancing their die rolls if necessary. Not only do these moves save a character from potential danger, but they also give the player an opportunity to develop their Murder Maven’s backstory during play.
“The way it works is if you make a die roll and you don’t like the result, you can bump up the result by putting on either the Crown of the Queen or the Crown of the Void. The Crown of the Queen gives the player a chance to explore their character backstory a little bit through flashbacks, and the Crown of the Void shows the character getting more and more taken over by the occult conspiracy. These two crowns together sort of function as your hit points, so to speak, because once you don’t have any more crowns, you are totally at the will of the dice, and sometimes the dice might kill you.”
Another fun way players can improve their fate is by using the Gold Crown Mysteries move, which gives them the opportunity to work together to come up with one of the novels the Murder Mavens have read in their book club.
“These characters are fans of a particular series of mystery books in the fiction called the Gold Crown Mysteries. The heroine of those books is a character called Amanda Delecourt. So at any point in the game, once per session, a player can say ‘this reminds me of something that happened to Amanda Delecourt’ and as a group the players come up with the name of the Gold Crown Mystery book, what Amanda Delecourt was facing, and what she did to solve the problem. If they do that, they get a bonus to accomplish something they are trying to accomplish.”
Cordova and company wanted to do something special as an add-on for the campaign, so instead of doing something like dice or cards, they’re including the option to add the Brindlewood Bay Community Cookbook to your pledge. This is meant to be an in-universe book that’s a fundraiser cookbook assembled by members of the Brindlewood Bay community, with a unique twist.
“In the margins of the pages are handwritten notes of a Murder Maven, and there is a murder mystery that’s basically happening in the margins of the cookbook. So it is a functional cookbook, but it’s also a solo mystery roleplaying game.”
You can check out the Brindlewood Bay Kickstarter here , and if you want to sample the game before you commit, it’s currently on DriveThruRPG for whatever price you feel comfortable playing, including free.
The post [Interview] ‘Brindlewood Bay’ Author Jason Cordova Discusses the Origins of the Unique Murder Mystery Tabletop Game appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.