Category: horror

If you know the overlooked fairy tale Bluebeard then you are good. If you don’t, let me summarize: A young maiden is convinced to marry a brutish, ugly aristocrat named Bluebeard. After their wedding, the maiden is left alone in Bluebeard’s home and told the place is her’s, except for one room that must remain closed at all times. As in all fairy tales, she succumbs to her temptation and discovers an abattoir of Bluebeard’s former wives. The husband returns and vows to kill her. Depending on the version, a family member arrives and saves the maiden.

Bluebeard’s Bride (designed by Whitney Beltran, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson, to be published by Magpie Games) takes this fairy tale and explores and turns the message of the original on its head. Intended to be a warning to young girls to obey their husbands, Bride is an exploration of the female experience through a lens of body horror. The game is yet another using the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, with some very interesting variations to the mechanics. The players are all a singular character, The Bride, but choose playbooks modeled after aspects of her mind: The Virgin, The Fatale, The Witch, The Animus, and The Mother. A physical “wedding” ring is used to represent which aspect is dominant at the moment and is passed voluntarily or when triggered by certain moves. This was our game for the Friday afternoon session of Games on Demand and we were lucky enough to have Sarah Richardson as our GM.

Game play consists of the controlling aspect describing a key on the key-ring left to her by Bluebeard, the GM referring to an oracle type sheet, and then describing the room. Once inside the room, the Bride may not leave until she declares a Truth about what is going on. The truth can either be one that strengthens her trust in her husband or grows the distance between them. While most PBtA games are open ended, Bluebeard’s Bride has two tracks that, once one is completed, bring about a series of endgame moves and decisions to be made.

It is difficult to talk about the game because in my personal experience it was a very visceral, emotional session. As my friend Mick said in a write up about the game: “[..] it felt like the kind of thing I’ve always been taught Eucharist is supposed to be like[..]”. It did feel a bit like moving through the stations of the cross or similar religious rite but much more interactive. Very quickly, based on the Moves and explanation from the GM, you realize that the typical response of fighting back is not an option. Instead you’re encouraged to explore and illuminate the purpose of each room or object. The Truth revealed before exiting takes your discovery and gives them context in the larger meaning of the Bride’s experience.

I don’t know if I could ever play Bluebeard’s Bride again. Not a slight to the game but a compliment to both the design of the piece and Sarah, our GM. I view the game in the same category as Requiem for a Dream or the films of Simon Rumley. They are perfectly made and one of their purposes is to interact with parts of your brain you aren’t used to experiencing in “entertainment”. Bluebeard’s Bride is one of those games that challenges the notion that all games should be “fun”, in the same way some films aren’t made to help you escape from reality but to examine it from new perspectives and with a creative twists.

The body horror of the game was not what affected me on such a deep level. The existential horror was what lingers with you in the wake of the session. I immediately thought about the works of some of my favorite horror author, Laird Barron foremost, who manage to find ways to disturb and shake me. For a piece of writing to wield that sort of power is admirable. Helplessness against a looming horror is profoundly more disturbing than any monster the mind can conjure up. In a climate where people are overfed stimulus through media it takes a deft and creative hand to fashion something that can shake a viewer/reader/player.

I would imagine Bluebeard’s Bride is a delicate game to run. You need the right GM and players with open minds who are ready to explore dark places. Like all games run at Games on Demand, the X Card is present for players who get uncomfortable if triggering subject matter is broached. A good GM would need to be agile in making sure the content strongly affects the players without venturing into territory that would bring up personal traumas. But I personally believe good horror can’t be too delicate. It loses its power when it is too restrained in the same way it loses power if it is allowed to go completely gonzo. The work exists as both a playable game and a poetic piece. I compare it to my purchase of Black Sun Death Crawl, something from a system I would never likely run, but a quality work of writing and craft

Bluebeard’s Bride has not yet been published, but a Kickstarter is coming. I would recommend backing it because you’re going to help get a game out there that deals with subject matter not often touched upon in tabletop gaming. For more on the game and the place to look out for the Kickstarter’s launch visit here – http://www.magpiegames.com/bluebeards-bride/

For the Thursday afternoon slot at Games on Demand, my wife and I went with Zombie World (designed and published by the team at Magpie Games). Our main reason was the game’s GM, Mark Truman-Diaz, co-founder of Magpie. Mark is both a stellar GM and an all around awesome human being so we knew we were in for a great experience. Two additional players joined our table and we were ready to begin.

Zombie World is another game that is Powered by the Apocalypse. Unlike with Masks, and most PBtA games, Zombie World uses playing cards instead of dice for resolution. Character creation involves drawing three cards and referencing an Oracle document for their meanings. The cards represent your character’s Past, Present, and Trauma. Each aspect provides specific moves or boons that only your character will have, as well as informing you on how to roleplay that character. Character creation in this style makes you think on your feet to connect what has the chance to be three very conflicting, yet compelling, aspects.

My character’s Past was Social Worker, Present was Scavenger, and Trauma was Imperious (I interjected myself into social conflicts, always wanting to solve problems). Holloway, was a social worker who still had a sense of concern for others, but this was balanced with his survival instincts. Getting involved in other’s arguments could shore up power and over time he could be seen as a de facto leader, or least open up avenues to get much needed resources if he was seen as a helper. He made a good Scavenger because his job required him to find resources for people in need and he also navigated the tougher parts of the city for many years.

Our particular game was set in an abandoned prison, which came with a playbook that we at the table collectively fleshed out. Cards were used to determine resources, threats, needs, etc. Once we had our characters and settings complete we began. Mark described a caravan of vehicles, some being manually pushed along a road outside of town. One of our hunters had spied the scene and said there was a chance a devastatingly large horde was following in the wake of these people. Two characters, our sharpshooter and a former cop, took the direct approach on the caravan while a third character, a guard who worked at the prison, led a group of Syrian refugees that had been living with us out into the woods to provide backup in case relations went south. Holloway, my social worker, didn’t volunteer to go, but snuck out of the prison to spy from a distance.

Things definitely fell apart and, while no one died, the characters suffered a number of serious setbacks, injuries, and were forced to make brutally hard choices. Conflict resolution was done by triggering one of the Basic Moves in the fiction of the game, then drawing a number of cards equal to the relevant stat. The highest card drawn would be used to determine how successful an action was. Jacks were complete successes, 8-10 was a success with a cost, and anything less than a 7 was a failure. Queens represented expendable resources and their effects and were removed from the deck after a use until they could be replenished or maintained in the fiction. For instance, our prison had a strong fence. Having a strong fence could have allowed you get very restful sleep because you didn’t need to be walking the perimeter all night. That rest could be what helped you stay alert in a firefight. But, if you don’t look for damage to the fence periodically or a massive horde crushes it to the ground then that Queen would not be reinserted into the deck again. Aces could be successes but required the player to take Stress if they wanted that boon.

I felt the character creation had light touches of Fiasco with the use of the Oracle. The drawing of cards created a sort of meta-tension. It worked even better because the higher your stat the more cards you had to draw. So being good at something actually meant the tension could be higher with each pull from the deck. From a fictional standpoint, the game completely got across the atmosphere of popular character focused zombie media (The Walking Dead). The zombies were there but not necessarily the greatest danger to our characters. As is typical with this sort of thing, it’s the other human beings you need to worry about. The game seems incredibly well suited for both one shots and small campaigns. It’s yet another Magpie production that has me excited as a hell to get my hands on it and run for friends. Zombie World does not yet have a release date, but Mark said it is pretty much at completion and will be released in the near future.

Later today: Urban Shadows.