[Free RPG Day 2026] Three Days to the Big Easy

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is the quick-start for the Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror derived from Arkham Horror board game and Arkham Horror Living Card game from Fantasy Flight Games, both of which are derived from the original version of the Arkham Horror board game published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1987. It is published by EDGE Studio.

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is a thirty-two page, full colour booklet.

How long will it take to play?

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure includes the scenario, ‘Three Days to the Big Easy’, a short scenario which can be played through in one session.

What else do you need to play?
The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure needs a set of six six-sided per player, plus a lot more for the Keeper and some dice of a different colour.

Who do you play?
The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure includes six pre-generated Investigators. They consists of a bruising gangster with connections to the O’Bannion connections; a larcenous White Russian countess; an African American trumpet player (who has the Knack ‘Dead Man’s Stomp’ in a nice nod to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying); a supernaturally resilient singer; an intuitive violinist; and a magician who knows a little too much lore.

How is an Investigator defined?

An Investigator in Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game is primarily defined by ten skills—Agility, Athletics, Intuition, Knowledge, Lore, Melee Combat, Presence, Ranged Combat, Resolve, and Wits. Of these, Lore is how much an Investigator knows about the occult and how to apply it, if necessary. Skills are rated between two and six. He has a variety of Knacks, special abilities that might grant him extra dice, alter the number of dice rolled, allow special actions, cast spells, rerolls of the dice, and more. There is a wide variety of Knacks, even presented in the six pre-generated Investigators in Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure.

An Investigator also has a Personality Trait, such as ‘Reserved’, ‘Ambitious’, or ‘Outgoing’. These can have a positive and a negative effect in play.

Lastly, an Investigator has a pool of six-sided dice, typically six. These are used and refreshed from one scene to the next and they represent a combination of an Investigator’s effort and health. In the case of the latter, when an Investigator is injured, he loses dice, limiting his actions until he can rest, heal, and receive medical attention.

How do the mechanics work?

When a player wants his Investigator to undertake a Complex action, such as climbing a fence in a chase, shooting cultist in a gunfight, researching a newspaper morgue for clues, or casting a spell, he takes as many dice as he wants from his pool and rolls them, comparing the results with the skill being used. For each die result equal to, or greater than, the value of the skill, a success is scored. In general, only a single success is required to achieve whatever an Investigator wants to do, but more successes are needed to trigger the effects of some Knacks.

In general, only a single success is required to achieve whatever an Investigator wants to do. Complex actions can also be rolled with Advantage or Disadvantage, rolling with one more or one less die in either case, but removing the lowest result on any die if at Advantage or the highest if at Disadvantage.

In addition, an Investigator has a supply of Insight points. These can be spent to add an additional success to a complex action, take a Complex Action with Advantage, to add a narrative element to a scene, or to avoid certain trauma.

Play itself in Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game is handled as a series of scenes, either Narrative or Structured scenes in which Simple and Complex Actions are attempted. Narrative scenes rarely involve peril, and allow an Investigator to undertake Simple Actions without his player needing to roll dice, whereas Structured scenes do involve peril or great difficulty, such as a combat scene or a confrontation with the Mythos, require a player to roll for both Simple and Complex Actions.

How does combat work?

Combat uses the same mechanics, with damage being inflicted in two ways. Primarily by reducing a defendant’s dice pool, limiting his capacity to act, wounding him if the dice pool is reduced to zero, after which he can strain himself to restore his dice pool to full at the cost of suffering an Injury. The other way is by a weapon specifically inflicting an Injury. Injuries are determined by rolling on the Injury Table. These are rolled on a single die, to which are added the number of injuries already suffered. Since the Injury roll is made on a single die, it takes a lot of injuries—at least five—before someone can be killed straight off. There is no little grievous Injury in the meantime, but it is difficult to kill a defendant and certainly an Investigator.

How does Horror work?

The way of handling Horror Damage or exposure to the cosmic truths of the universe is more interesting, though similar to that used for injuries. When an Investigator suffers Horror Damage—whether from a spell cast at him, seeing a creature of the Mythos, or reading a horrific tome—his player replaces a number of dice in his dice pool with Horror Dice equal to the Horror Damage suffered. Horror Dice work exactly like normal dice in a player’s dice pool and can be lost if an Investigator suffers damage. However, should a player roll a one on any single Horror Die, his Investigator gains a Trauma. The rolls a single die and consults the Trauma Table, adding one for each one rolled on the Horror Dice. Where an Investigator is physically resilient, the same cannot be said mentally. It is a lot easier in comparison to get Horror Dice, roll ones, and suffer Trauma and since there are fewer results on the Trauma Table, for an Investigator to be ‘Lost Forever’.

Horror Dice can be healed from one round to the next, as well as by certain Knacks and spells, replacing them with standard dice. This is an action though and in a Structured Scene, the Investigators might not have the opportunity. Whereas injuries can be healed though, traumas cannot, although they can recede over time. The combination of Horror Dice and Trauma is intriguing as a means of handling the escalating danger of being exposed to cosmic threat, but it does feel undercut by the ability to heal Horror Dice within a scene.

What do you play?

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure includes the scenario, ‘Three Days to the Big Easy’, a short scenario which can be played through in one session. The scenario primarily focuses on interaction and action in terms of its play and there is not a great deal of scope for investigation. In the main, the Investigators are reacting to violent events, appearing to discover the culprit, only for it to occur again. This is interesting, but not interesting enough. There is never really a chance for the Investigators to fully work out what the cause of the situation, only identify its source. And that source is another of the problems with scenario. The source is a vengeful spirit in a cigarette lighter. There is no denying that ‘Three Days to the Big Easy’ is a horror story and the situation is horrifying, yet at the same time, its source is so ordinary, it feels banal. Anyone playing the scenario and expecting a Lovecraftian source or threat is going to extremely disappointed.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is complete as is.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is easy to grasp and prepare.

Is it worth it?
Yes and no. The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is playable and presents an engaging set-up and potentially horrifying scenario. Ultimately, the repetitive structure of the scenario and its avoidance of anything Lovecraftian and satisfying explanation as to the situation for the players and their Investigators—especially in what is a one-shot—means that it does not fulfil its set-up as much as it should.

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is available from EDGE Studio.

Relatives at Risk

Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY is a companion volume to Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game. Published by The Gauntlet, Brindlewood Bay upended the traditional concept of murder mystery scenarios in roleplaying and changed what we play. In the traditional murder mystery scenario, the Keeper has the answers to hand—the victim, the suspects, the culprit, the means, and the motive—and the players and their characters have to deduce which of these is correct. In Brindlewood Bay, there is no set solution, but there are plenty of suspects and motives, and it is up to the players and their characters to hypothesise who the culprit is and why he committed the murder, and put it to the test. If passes, the murder mystery is solved. If not, the players and their characters must continue their sleuthing. Plus, the players are doing this with elderly female amateur detectives as their characters, such as Jessica Fletcher and Miss Marple, for example. Brindlewood Bay changed how we thought about investigative scenarios in roleplaying and how we played them. Besides the rules, Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game also detailed numerous murder mysteries, the Dark Conspiracy behind them that threatens the future of the quiet New England tourist spot, and a little about the town itself. Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY presents the Keeper and her players—and their Mavens—with even more of this.

Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY gives the Keeper a total of twenty new Mysteries, seven of which are of a new type of Mystery, which change the way in which Brindlewood Bayy is played—ever so slightly, and details more of Brindlewood Bay itself. It does not waste any time beyond simply listing the contents and describing the first mystery. After all, the Brindlewood Bay Keeper already knows what she is getting as far as the content goes. Each follows the same format as the core rulebook, with sections labelled, ‘Presenting the Mystery’, ‘Moments’ for various particular scenes, ‘Suspects’ complete with their quotes, ‘Locations’ with a guide on how to ‘Paint the Scene’ at each, ‘Clues’, and ‘Void Clues’, the latter connecting the mystery to the Dark Conspiracy playing out behind the scenes in the town. Also included is a ‘Complexity’ value, which represents the number of elements of the solution that the players and their Mavens need to discuss and hypothesise before they can make the ‘Theorise Move’ without a penalty. Some of the Mysteries do include elements that only come into play once parts of the Dark Conspiracy have been revealed, so the Keeper will need to pick which ones she wants to run and when. Further, some also have special rules, such as that for Brindlewood County Charity Poker Tournament which the Mavens can enter in the first mystery, ‘Dead Man’s Hand’.

The mysteries vary in tone. So, ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ takes place at a charity poker tournament, whereas ‘Lies and Dolls, or A Very Brief Tenure’, in which a corpse is discovered at the Museum of Brindle-Dolls, home to a collection of historic, locally-made dolls, and is thus a bit creepy. There is a sequel to ‘The Great Brindlewood Bay Bake-Off’ , with the Mavens again judges, but this time at Faversham’s Favourite Fudge competition at a farmer’s market in a neighbouring town, in the process, expanding the world of Brindlewood Bay, if only a little. The title of the latter, ‘Fudge, Jury, and Executioner’ is in the running for the best named mystery in the book, although ‘The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soulless’ and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Murder’ are almost as good. There are classic locations for murder mysteries too such as auctions, high school reunions, and carnivals, but also odder ones too, such as at a high school wrestling tournament. One of the most potentially fun is ‘A Throng of Vice and Liars’, set at the Mavens’ own headquarters, The Candlelight Booksellers which is hosting fantasy author, Herb L. L. Paxton, currently facing some criticism about how long it is taking him to finish the sixth volume of what was originally planned to be a trilogy. It very knowingly and amusingly pokes at fandom and fantasy, both onscreen and on the page.

Seven of the Mysteries are ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’. These are designed emulate the type of stunt episodes of a television series in the USA in the eighties and nineties, typically involving a weird plotline or celebrity guest star, intended to attraction higher advertising revenue. In Nephews in Peril, ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ are intended to be played late in Dark Conspiracy campaign, as Mysteries after the campaign has been completed, or as one-off Mysteries. ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ emphasis the supernatural rather than murder, and to account for this, instead of solving a murder, the Mavens are answering key questions about the mystery. Further, there are limitations on the mechanics, most notably negating the effect of several Maven Moves, removing the Occult Move, and the replacement of the ‘Theorise’ Move with the ‘Answer A Question’ Move. Where in normal murder mysteries, there are Suspects, here there are Side Characters, and where in normal murder mysteries, solving a mystery would be enough, here the Mavens get rewards. These can come in the form of new Moves, recurring Side Characters, decorations for the Cosy Little Place, and so on.

The ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ start out with the amusingly named ‘The Hex Files’, which finds the Mavens on a road trip to Who Dunnit? Con, a mystery book convention in California when they discover an overturned car in a ditch outside of Devilwood, New Mexico—a New Mexico which looks surprisingly like Vancouver—and it so happens that there are bodies of two dead FBI agents in the vehicle with files about missing persons on the road on their person. ‘Dressed to Kill’ shifts the mystery to the Peak District in the United Kingdom, whilst in ‘Let the Night One In’, the Mavens are invited to visit another famous crime writer, this time living in an isolated town in the Canadian north in deep winter when the sun never rises and people are going missing… There is a good mix of mystery types to these ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ and they show off the flexibility of the Brindlewood Bay mystery format, though with some mechanical changes.

The third part of Nephews in Peril is devoted to ‘The Village of Brindlewood Bay’. This expands greatly upon the setting presented in the core rulebook that add a mixture of new and old businesses, old and new locations. So, there is Historic Brindlewood Congregational Church, The First Well Historic Restoration Trust, and Minuteman Memorial Statue versus the Foam coffee house and Nerdcore, which caters to nerd culture including players of Sorcery: the Coalescence! Each entry includes a description that explains what it does and its role in the community, details of its proprietors and employees, and with ‘Pose a Question’, a reason why a Maven might visit. The sense of Brindlewood Bay as a place is further developed in the last part of the supplement is ‘A Cozy Little Place’ which gives advice for the Keeper in bringing the town to live and playing up its cosy nature, developing each Maven’s attachment to both her home and community. The aim is to provide a counterpoint to the rash of murders that beset the town and the growing realisation that something else is going on with the Dark Conspiracy. The advice is optional, but if used it can enhance the setting of Brindlewood Bay.

Physically, Nephews in Peril is clean and cosy, and thus in keeping with the main rulebook. It is well written and engaging, but the illustrations by Cecilia Ferri are stunning, veering between showing the Mavens joyously having the time of their cosy lives, not just in Brindlewood Bay, but around the world.

Although entirely optional, Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY can be both expand the play of Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game and continue its play even after the Dark Conspiracy at its heart has been confronted and thwarted and the campaign is over. Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY simply gives you more. More mysteries and more cosiness and more of Brindlewood Bay itself, but also a slightly different way to way to play which remains faithful to the inspiration for the roleplaying game itself.

Mavens, Mystery, Murder, & Mythos

Just occasionally, along comes a roleplaying game that makes you sit back and think. A roleplaying game that upends your expectations. Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game does exactly that. It changes how you think about how you roleplay investigation in mystery games and it changes who you roleplay. The mystery—as opposed to the mysterious, which has always been there—has long been a part of roleplaying, all the way back to The Maltese Clue, the scenario published by Judges Guild in 1979. It really came to the fore with roleplaying games like Call of Cthulhu, Gangbusters, and Justice, Inc. and more recently seen in the GUMSHOE System with roleplaying games such as Mutant City Blues, which combines superheroes with the police procedural. What these all do with the mystery is provide the Game Master with a plot and a set of clues that the players and their characters investigate and hopefully piece together the clues to uncover the mystery. In other words, there is always a set solution as to who did what to whom and why. And in such roleplaying games, the investigators are detectives and investigators, typically young and in the prime of their careers. Neither is the case in Brindlewood Bay. Instead, Brindlewood Bay asks what if there was no set solution and instead the solution to the mystery could be constructed from the clues uncovered by the players and their characters and would be, if not absolutely correct, then very nearly so? Very nearly so that when hypothesised and put to the suspects, turned out to be case solved? And instead, Brindlewood Bay asks the players not to roleplay police detectives or private eyes, but asks them to take the roles of elderly, retired women turned amateur sleuth in the manner of Miss Jane Marple or Jessica Fletcher.

There is more to Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery than just this, but at its heart, this roleplaying game is Murder She Wrote with a semi-improvised plot/mystery and everyone being Jessica Fletcher. Of course, Brindlewood Bay offers more options than just playing Jessica Fletcher, but the idea of roleplaying elderly female amateur detectives is utterly delightful. Published in 2022 by The Gauntlet following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Brindlewood Bay is designed to be played by between two and four players as well as the Game Master and casts the Player Characters—known as Mavens—as retirees in the eponymous small coastal Massachusetts town, a former whaling port that has long since transformed itself into a charming tourist spot. The Player Characters are members of the Murder Mavens, a mystery book club that meets weekly on the top floor of The Candlelight Booksellers every Saturday evening, and has done so for a decade now. Their favourite writer is Robin Masterson, the author of The Gold Crown Mysteries series by featuring the globe-trotting super-sleuth, Amanda Delacourt. As well as their own hobbies and activities, sometimes and much to the chagrin of the local authorities who resent their meddling, the Mavens stumble onto crimes and through a combination of astuteness, savviness, and the fact that old ladies often get overlooked, solve crimes. Brindlewood Bay can be played as a one-shot, but it is really set up to played as a campaign. The campaign unknowingly pitches the Mavens against a dark cult known as the Midwives of the Fragrant Void, Hellenic death cult working to summon the ‘Children of Persephone’, chthonic monstrosities that will bring about the End of All Things. As the campaign progresses, the Mavens and the cult conspiracy will become aware of each other, and ultimately, the Mavens will not only be solving murders, but saving the world too! (Though there are possible other outcomes as well…)

A Maven is defined by five Abilities—Vitality, Composure, Reason, Presence, and Sensitivity—each rated between ‘-3’ and ‘+3’, a name, a Style that reflects her outlook on life as much as how she dresses, and a Cosy Activity that is her favourite hobby. The Style might be ‘Alexis Carrington Colby’, ‘Hippy Dippy’, or ‘Office Hours’, whilst the Cosy Activity will be something like Cooking, Gardening, Knitting, Pointing, or Scrapbooking. It should be noted that Brindlewood Bay is a very American game, so some of the references, especially the Styles may not necessarily be familiar and may require a little research. A Maven also has a Maven Move, a special action or benefit that can be brought into play. For example, the ‘Frank Columbo’ Move means that society’s elite underestimates the Maven and whenever she is amongst the rich and famous, her Meddling Move will always grant her an extra clue; the ‘Dale Cooper’ Move increases a Maven’s Sensitivity and the Keeper—as the Game Master is known—will grant Void Clues in the form of a disturbing dream at the beginning of each session; and the ‘Jim Rockford’ Move means that the Keeper narrates an answering machine message that the Maven receives asking to undertake a task that if completed will earn her Experience Points and will get odder as a campaign progresses. Ironically—and self-admittedly—all of the Maven Moves are named after male detectives, highlighting the lack of strong female roles within the genre. That said, the extra and alternative Maven Moves do include some named after female detectives. All of the Maven Moves are delightfully clever, if not actually witty, and like any good Move in a Powered by the Apocalypse they tell a lot about the Mavens.

To create a Maven, a player chooses a name, Style, and Cosy Activity, as well as defining her Cosy Little Place. She assigns a single point to one of her Abilities and chooses one Maven Move. The creation process is simple and easy and made all the easier by fitting onto a third of the character sheet that is as much worksheet as character sheet and by the step-by-step process being explained by the section that takes both the Keeper and her players through the first session of Brindlewood Bay from set-up through safety tools and character creation to the first mystery and beyond.

Name: Pearl
Style: Jackie O
Cozy Activity: Charity Events

STATS
Vitality 0 Composure +1 Reason +1 Presence +2 Sensitivity -1

MOVES
Jonathan Hart

Mechanically, Brindlewood Bay uses a stripped down version of Powered by the Apocalypse, the mechanics first seen in Lumpley Games’ Apocalypse World. To undertake an action or ‘Move’, a player rolls two six-sided dice, adds one of his Maven’s Stats, adds his Maven’s Investigative Style and aims to roll high. The results are either ‘No’, ‘Yes, but...’, ‘Yes’, and ‘Yes and…’. A result of six or less is a ‘No’ and lets the Keeper add a Complication; roll between seven and nine, and the result is ‘Yes, but…’, and successful, but comes with a Complication; a roll of ten or eleven and the result is a ‘Yes’; and a result of twelve or more and the Move is ‘Yes and…’, indicating that there is a bonus to the Move. A Complication hinders the Maven’s investigative efforts and is primarily played by the Keeper as a Reaction to a Maven’s action. This Reaction can be environmental such as the Maven getting lost, aggressive and have the killer attack the Maven or sabotage her efforts, or social, like being threatened with being blackballed at the country club. A Reaction at night will place a Maven in greater danger than one in the day, and it even possible for a Maven to be killed. One special Reaction, allowed just once per mystery, is ‘Cut to Commercial’ when the Keeper lets the player of an imperilled Maven narrate a commercial of some kind (there are prompts), when the story returns, the Maven will have found a way to succeed.

Unlike most versions of Powered by the Apocalypse, the rules in Brindlewood Bay include an Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Thus, when a Maven has the Advantage, which can come from her Style, Cosy Activity, one of her Maven Moves, or the situation, three six-sided dice are rolled instead of two, and the best used. Conversely, when she is at a Disadvantage, her player rolls three dice and keeps the lowest two. Another difference between other roleplaying games using Brindlewood Bay and Brindlewood Bay is that it does not make use of Playbooks, each of which provide an archetypal character and its associated Moves. Instead, Brindlewood Bay provides a standard set of seven Moves that all of the Mavens can use. The first four Moves—‘The Day Move’, ‘The Night Move’, ‘The Cosy Move’, and ‘The Meddling Move’ are all to do with collecting Clues. The primary difference between ‘The Day Move’ and ‘The Night Move’ is that failure and Complications are likely to be more dangerous at night. ‘The Cosy Move’ is when the Mavens share a moment over a Cosy activity and in the process discover a clue that will help, but not conclusively, solve the mystery. ‘The Meddling Move’ is when the Mavens actively look for a clue.

The fifth and sixth Moves are more specialised. ‘The Gold Crown Mysteries Move’ occurs when a Maven says, “This reminds me of something that happened to Amanda Delacourt!” and together the players work out how the current situation recalls a scene from one of Robin Masterson’s mystery novels. It can only be done once per mystery and must refer to previously unmentioned entry in the series, but always results in a Yes and…’ outcome, whether an action or an addition to the mystery. It is thus a powerful move. ‘The Occult Move’ is used whenever a Maven attempts an action related to the occult and somehow tied to the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. This is unlikely to be used in the opening stages of campaign as the Mavens are unlikely to be aware of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. It will often justification as why a Maven might attempt it and it is not without its dangers.

The seventh Move is the ‘Theorise’ Move. This happens at the end or near the end of the game when the Mavens gather their collected clues and deduce the identity of the murderer. The roll is only modified by the number of clues and secrets found so far, minus the Complexity of the murder. This is most radical and innovative element of Brindlewood Bay. The Keeper will have a body and then lists of locations, suspects, and clues that make up the mystery, but will know neither which of the suspects committed the crime and which of the clues are important. In fact, when the Keeper does give the players and their Mavens a clue, she picks a clue from the given list based not on which seems the most significant, but on which seems the most interesting. The Mavens are free to search for clues and talk to suspects and when clues are revealed, it is the players and their Mavens that assign them meaning and significance; effectively ‘play to find out what happens’ through the emerging story of the investigation.

There are two further actions which involve a Maven ‘putting on a Crown’. ‘The Crown of the Queen’ explores the femineity of the maven via a flashback to a scene involving the Maven’s late partner or a relative, a private moment, a recent romantic or sexual situation, and so on. Each can only be used once and enable a Maven to escape adversity or a dangerous situation as well giving the player to think about and roleplay a different side to his Maven. ‘The Crown of the Queen’ actions can be triggered in any order, whereas ‘The Crown of the Void’ must be triggered in order. There are fewer of them and they represent the growing influence of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void’s upon the Maven. If they are all ticked off, the last one forces the Maven to retire from play as she is lost to the Void…

Brindlewood Bay includes several ready-to-play mysteries. Each includes a description of the mystery, a way to present it, moments that the Keeper can use to set the scene or add tension, lists of suspects, clues, and locations, and a Complexity value. This ranges between six and eight and represents the number of elements of the solution that the players and their Mavens need to discuss and hypothesise before they can make the ‘Theorise Move’ without a penalty.

Now Brindlewood Bay can be played as a one-shot mystery in which the mavens investigate a mystery, but that mystery is always going to be mundane, because in the long term there is the greater mystery, the conspiracy and aims of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. That conspiracy is the most detailed part of the Brindlewood Bay background, but unlike the clues of the mundane mysteries, the clues behind the conspiracy and its Mythos—known as Void clues—slip out inadvertently, sort of accumulating to the point where the Mavens and their players being to realise that something else is going on. It is likely at this point that the ‘Occult Move’ comes into play, it is likely that the Mavens being to dabble in occult in order to understand and stop the Midwives of the Fragrant Void, it is increasingly likely that a Maven might die, and it is even likely that a Maven might join the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. The descriptions of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void and The Children of Persephone do flirt with Lovecraftian influences, and perhaps one group might want to bring those into play more, but the Midwives of the Fragrant Void is more of cosmic threat than a Lovecraftian one. However without this conspiracy, Brindlewood Bay cannot be anything other than best suited for one-shot play as narratively it has no scope for development.

The advice for the Keeper in Brindlewood Bay is extensive and detailed, and particularly helpful in guiding the Keeper through the shift in perspective and playstyle that Brindlewood Bay demands. And then helpful in guiding her player through that same shift. Storytelling games have been around for over two decades now and when first published, they also represented a shift how a roleplaying game was played and considered, but the shift that Brindlewood Bay demands of its Keeper and player is even bigger. Not just how a roleplaying game was played and considered, but also how a mystery is investigated and played out and how the decisions of the players and actions of their Mavens determine the story and build the world around them. The advice also covers the structure of play and the structure of the campaign, it breaks down the anatomy of a mystery, and it gives an extensive guide on how to run the first session and thus first mystery of Brindlewood Bay. It takes the Keeper and her players through the Maven creation process, explains to them what to expect, and shows the structure of play, providing a template that the Keeper will return again and again.

There is not so much a learning curve to Brindlewood Bay so much as an adjustment, and the book does a fine job of helping everyone through that. However, the downside is that upon first reading Brindlewood Bay, the reader is left wondering how to create a Maven. Literally everything in the game—the situation, the Moves, the Conspiracy, and the given Mysteries—is presented before the actual process of Maven creation. This is given in the ‘Session One’ guide at the very back of the book. It is fine once you know it is there, but there is also nothing at the start of the book to say that it is. The character sheet for the Maven does help with her creation, but neither that or other sheets for the roleplaying game, like ‘The Dark Conspiracy’ worksheet is included in the book.

Physically, Brindlewood Bay is clean and cosy. It is well written and engaging, but the illustrations by Cecilia Ferri are stunning, veering between showing the Mavens joyously having the time of their cosy lives and the foreboding nature of the conspiracy at the heart of the roleplaying game.

There are moments in a roleplaying session when the players will say something about the current storyline or situation and the Game Master will think to herself, “Oh that’s good. That is so clever and better than what I had thought of, I am going to steal that.” Brindlewood Bay does not so much make that implicit as make it part of its play. It shifts the standard mystery roleplaying set-up from having to find the clues and work out what they mean with the Game Master knowing the answers to finding the clues, working out what they mean, and then giving them meaning. And then it hands the process of that deduction not into the hands of traditional action hero detectives, but to grannies and little old ladies, asking the players to roleplay from the perspective of the older woman and use charm and wits and insight to solve the crime rather than fists and guns. Both demands are radical, but delightfully so. Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game is a wonderfully cosy, brilliantly innovative game that genuinely asks us to think differently about how we play and who we play.

Friday Filler: Dying Message

Dying Message is an Oink game with a difference. Notably, it comes in a bigger box than the standard size for a title from the Japanese publisher. It is also particularly gruesome. Even bloody in its own way. Which is to say, a ‘felt’ way. Dying Message is a party game, a social deduction game with a classic theme. That is, to find out who committed a murder. The identity of the murderer—because this is a game—is determined randomly, but the role of the victim is always one of the players. In fact, the players take it in turns to be the victim, each time their killer being randomly determined. Only as the victim, a player does not start the game dead. Only dying. In classic murder mystery style, the victim gets to leave a message for anyone who finds his body. In blood. His own, of course. Only in the moment of death, he has forgotten the name of his murderer, so can only draw vaguely helpful clues that might help the authorities—as represented by the other players—identify who did the deed. At which point, the victim is dead and as his player, he can only listen in, keep his mouth closed, and try not to get too frustrated as the other players play detective and fail to detect any clues in his otherwise brilliant ‘dying message’.

Dying Message is published by Oink Games and designed to be played by between three and eight players, aged twelve and up, in roughly twenty minutes, and three modes. ‘Joint Investigation’ is the standard mode and has the players work together to solve the murder; in ‘Competitive Investigation’ the players race to be the first one to solve the murder; and in ‘Speedy Death Showdown’, the players race to create a message and be the first to die. Besides the rulebook, Dying Message consists of thirty Suspect Cards, fifty Message Cards, six Alphabet Tokens, a Judgement Card, thirty-two Score Tokens, a six-sided die, and a Dice Cover. The Suspect Card are large and each gives an illustration, the name, occupation, and description of a potential suspect. The Message Cards are double-sided and are marked with a symbol or shape or sign or line drawn in blood red. The Alphabet Tokens are marked ‘A’ to ‘F’, as is the die. They are used to indicate a Suspect Card in a lineup, whilst the die is rolled to determine the murderer and Dice Cover is used to keep its result hidden once rolled. Lastly, the Felt piece is intended to be used to enhance the theatre of the Victim’s death.

Set-up is quick and simple. The player to be the Victim draws six Suspect Cards for his cards, assigns their Alphabet Tokens, and then draws fifteen Message Cards. He rolls the die to see which of the Suspects did him in and hides the result under the Dice Cover. The Victim then has a minute to craft his message to the other players, the Detectives. Only the side of the Message Cards visible can be used, and when crafting the message, he cannot hint or point at or spell either the Suspect Card or its associated Alphabet Tokens. Otherwise, the Victim can arrange the Message Cards he uses—and he does not have to use all of them—as he wants, including covering parts of them up. Once done, the Victim essentially groans and falls dead on the table, his head resting the pool of blood (or on the felt!).

At which point, the Detectives enter the scene. They can read the details of the Suspect Cards, they can look at the Message cards in play, but cannot move them, and they can examine the Message Cards that the Victim did not use. The Detectives have three minutes to deduce who did it, at which point, they collectively point at the Suspect Card representing who they did the dirty deed. The Victim uses the ‘Judgment Card’—either its ‘Found Peace’ or the ‘Lost Hope side—to indicate whether or not they have been successful.

Once done, the next player becomes the Victim and the procedure plays out again until everyone has had a turn at being the Victim. Then each player awards points based on what he thinks was the best Dying Message using the Message Cards and which was his favourite Dying Message. The player who scores the most points at the end of the game is the winner.

The ‘Competitive Investigation’ plays out in the same fashion, but instead of the Detectives all pointing to the Suspect Card they all collectively think is the killer, they individually point to the Suspect Card they think is the killer. Scoring is more complex in this mode. No points are scored if all of the Detectives were either correct or incorrect. The Victim will score points for every Detective who correctly identifies the Suspect, whilst each Detective who is correct will score points for each Detective who was incorrect.

Lastly, in the ‘Speedy Death Showdown’, each player draws fifteen Message Cards and secretly chooses one of the Suspect Cards as his potential murderer. They then race against each other to be the first to craft a message using the Message Cards. The player to do so, takes the Felt and becomes the Victim. The other players become the Detectives. Play then proceeds as per the standard ‘Competitive Investigation’, including the scoring and winning conditions.

The heart of Dying Message is the Message Cards. Getting the most out of them and being able to craft the most effective message is the key to the game and its play. They are also where its fun lies too. Of course, sometimes a Victim will be faced with Message Cards that can easily be arranged to form a message, at other times not, and so he will be forced to do the best that he can. So, there is a luck element there, but it really is up to the Victim to do his best with what he can as after all, it is the last thing he will do. Yet even if a Victim has crafted what he thinks is a great message, there is no guarantee that the Detectives will be capable of deducing anything from it. Which leaves a lot of groaning to be done in the post-mortem as each Victim explains what he was trying to convey with his message.

Physically, Dying Message is very well produced. Everything is of a good quality and the rulebook is a quick and easy read that clearly explains the rules. The game is also easy to teach. The Felt is absurd, but fun.

With its  high number of Suspect Cards and Message Cards, Dying Message has plenty of replay value. It is a game that works better with a higher player count—especially ‘Speedy Death Showdown’—as there is more variation and more player input. At its heart, Dying Message is a classic murder-mystery, social deduction game which gets inventive by adding physical and creative elements to its play. It is clever and it is fun, and it can be enjoyed by casual, family, and veteran gamers alike.