Brindlewood Bay by Jason Cordova is a role playing game supplement published by The Gauntlet. This particular version is no longer available, as it’s been replaced with Brindlewood Bay (Kickstarter Edition).
The supplement is a 40-page PDF with one page being the front cover, one the front matter, one the table of contents and two being blank.
Overview explains that this is a role playing game about a group of elderly women, members of the Murder Maven book club who end up investigating real murders. In the process, they become aware that there are supernatural forces connecting the cases they are working on. Details are given as to the sources of inspiration for the game, which perhaps naturally includes Murder, She Wrote.
The Setting is Brindlewood Bay, a small Massachusetts coastal community, one that used to be a whaling town and is now mostly a tourist spot and caters to such.
The Murder Mavens are a mystery book club that meet every Saturday at The Candlelight Booksellers and are fond of The Golden Crown Mysteries by Robin Masterson (it is no coincidence the name is very similar to Robin Masters from Magnum, P.I.). The Mavens themselves are elderly women whose partners have passed and whose children have long since left home. They are also amateur detectives who aid the police, and sometimes just stumble across cases.
The Midwives of the Fragrant Void are a nihilistic cult that is responsible for many of the murders in and around Brindlewood Bay, and the Mavens become gradually aware of the cultists’ existence as the game progresses, and may dabble in the occult to face off against the Midwives, or even decide to join them.
Structure of Play (Session Two and onward) looks at how to run the second and later sessions; Session One has a different structure that’s found at the end. The first parts of a session are to recap any mysteries that weren’t solved by the end of the last session then resolve any cliff-hangers. Following this is a housekeeping phase then each player narrates a vignette showing their Maven enjoying life. The Keeper will then present a new mystery and inform the players of its complexity rating. Most of the session will be taken up by the investigation of one or more of any active mysteries. There are also two special Crown sections, that result in a specific type of play. Once the session ends, players and Keeper share the things they enjoyed about the session and what they’d like to see in the next.
Anatomy of a Character Sheet goes through the character sheet explaining what each section means. As this game leans heavily to narrative play, some of these sections are related to narrative actions more than dice rolls.
Rolling Dice starts by explaining that only players roll dice. Most of the time when dice are rolled, it’s 2d6+ ability modifier. A hit is 7+, a miss is 6-. Advantage means three dice are rolled, with the highest two kept, disadvantage that three are rolled and the lowest two. If circumstances would mean both advantage and disadvantage apply, they cancel each other out and the dice are rolled as normal. Neither advantage nor disadvantage can stack nor can they outweigh the other. Putting on a Crown can be done after the dice have been rolled and the outcome narrated, and it then increases the dice result by a tier, meaning a new outcome is narrated and what was previously narrated did not happen.
Moves looks at the fundamental part of the game, which is the move. There are two types of move, the basic move and the Maven move. Mavens have access to all the basic moves as well as one or more of the Maven moves; the Maven moves are on the Maven Moves sheet and the basic moves are on the Reference Sheet and covered in this section.
The Day Move is done when facing something risky. The Night Move is similar, but done at night. These are the fundamental moves that cover most actions. The Meddling Move is done when searching for clues, conducting research or otherwise gathering information. The Cozy Move is done with another Maven whilst one is engaged in their cosy activity, and is used to clear conditions and show the connections between the Mavens. The Gold Crown Mysteries Move can be done once per game; the Maven claims a situation reminds them of something from an Amanda Delacourt mystery and narrates how she overcame a problem The Occult Move is done when engaged in an activity related to the supernatural or the occult for the first time. Finally, Theorise is done whilst talking about the Clues discovered, and on a success their solution is the correct one.
The Keeper is for the GameMaster, the person who will be running the games. It starts by explaining that this is a murder mystery game, but with some significant differences. Clues are not found in specific locations, and can instead be found wherever the Mavens are looking for them. The Keeper themselves doesn’t know who the killer is until the Mavens make the Theorise move successfully. Finally, the murder mysteries themselves are not the real mystery; that is the dark conspiracy lurking beneath them. The Keeper is also responsible for portraying the world, including NPCs and dangers.
The anatomy of a Brindlewood Bay adventure is looked at. There’s a title, which can be shared with the players, the complexity, with is a number between 6 and 8, how the Keeper presents the mystery, the establishing question posed to one player character, intended to personalise it for one of the Mavens, the suspects, how the Keeper paints the scene, the Clues and the Void Clues.
Following this is a section of Keeper principles. It explains that you play to find out what happens, that the Keeper needs to make the world and those in it feel real, present the Mavens with challenges that make you root for them, sometimes allow the players to flesh out the world, keep the game cozy, make night-time dangerous and keep dangerous characters hidden in some way to hide their identities until the Theorise move is made.
Keeper reactions covers a number of ways that the Keeper can define and narrate complications from a die roll or react to a situation. The Mavens can be separated, a Suspect can be killed, a condition can be inflicted, a Maven can be put in danger, or even killed (the players always have an option for a fictional do-over), remove an item from a Cozy Little Place, have an official show up or cut to commercial.
Following this is detailed Keeper advice for specific rules, procedures and moves. It starts by looking at The Day Move and The Night Move which are going to be used for the majority of non-investigation actions that require a dice roll; it’s noted that these moves do not have miss conditions. What happens on a failed roll is up to the Keeper. It then looks at the Meddling Move, which is a critical one for keeping the game going, and the Occult Move which should be used infrequently and is dangerous. There are some details on how to go about writing new moves. It then looks at Clues and Void clues, and the Theorise move. Players should be given opportunities to add items to their Maven’s Cozy Little Place and there are some details on running the game as a one-shot. Finally, there is advice for the Keeper at using some of the trickier Maven moves.
Session 1 Procedure is how to run the first game session. It explains that the Keeper should read the rules completely (in truth, this should be done before session 1!), and what’s needed to play the game. The players and Keeper then introduce themselves.
CATS stands for Concept, Aim, Tone and Subject Matter, and there’s an example of this that the Keeper can simply read aloud, if they don’t want to make their own. Though just printing it out and giving it to the players should also work; otherwise, it’s a bit of a wall of text for reading.
The character creation steps are then covered; given the type of game, this is a simple enough process. The characters are then introduced to each other, with the relevant information about them and their earlier life. This is followed by a break, then two End of Session questions are marked and any Maven moves that start at the beginning of a session are resolved. Each player than narrates a vignette about their Maven enjoying life.
The Keeper then presents a mystery and tells the players its complexity rating. Most of the session is taken up by investigating, and it covers when Crown scenes are done. At the end of a session, players gain 1 XP for each End of Session question they can answer with a yes. Finally, the Keeper and players share what they enjoyed and what they hope to see in the next session.
As well as the main PDF, there are ten other PDFs.
A 20-page booklet version of the PDF.
Five 2-page adventures, The GBBBO, Dad Overboard, All Hallow’s Scream, A Murder Most Murky and Jingle Bell Shock.
The Dark Conspiracy, a single page PDF for tracking the history, motivations and actions of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void.
One page character sheet.
One page Reference Sheet that has all the basic moves.
One page Maven Moves sheet, which has all the Maven moves, which are based on television series characters.
A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Brindlewood Bay in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. The table of contents only covers the major sections. Navigation is poor. There are a few black and white illustrations, most one page. Presentation is okay.
Brindlewood Bay, for anyone unfamiliar with the Powered by the Apocalypse system, could well come over as initially fairly confusing to those accustomed to more mechanically binding systems. Though dice are rolled, these types of games are much more narrative in nature; the dice help steer the narrative, they are not the be all and end all. In addition, the adventures played with this are murder mysteries in which the perpetrator is decided during play, not before it. The Keeper doesn’t know who is responsible until the Mavens come up with an idea. There are possible suspects, but no firm one. Play to reveal is hardly uncommon, but this is perhaps a little different. The system itself is comparatively simple and easy to understand, once the differences are understood, because by its very nature, it is simpler. However, games that are driven by narrative this much are not popular with everyone. Brindlewood Bay is a bit of a different type of mystery game and, though this edition is no longer available, Brindlewood Bay (Kickstarter Edition) can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply