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I love investigative games and a sprinkling of horror on top is like icing on a cake.
When I heard about Brindlewood Bay, I was skeptical. What type of mystery game is it when you find clues and just make up the solution and then roll dice to see if you are correct? It felt antithetical to every procedural investigative game ever. I wanted to avoid it like the plague. Then one of my friends played it and he loves investigative games and roleplaying. He loved it. He told me, "It's more about nosey old ladies getting into trouble." Hmmm. So, I got an opportunity to try it at a private gaming convention and I loved it also.
So, I purchased both Brindlewood Bay and Nephews in Peril! And it sat on my shelf. Then the designer KickStarted Public Access based on the same system Carved from Brindlewood (CfB) which in turn is based on Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA). I had played PbtA a few times at conventions, but never GMed it. I was excited about running Public Access when it comes out at the end of 2026, but I wanted to grok how to run Carved from Brindlewood games.
I knew I had a learning curve. I watched a few episodes of live play of Brindlewood Bay GMed by Jason Cordova, the game designer. After running a few sessions, I watched another episode, looking to see how Jason navigated various issues I had while GMing. I didn't watch the whole series, 14 episodes, because they're about 2 hrs each and I don't really like watching live plays.
CfB dice mechanics: Roll 2d6 + ability modifier (-1 to +2, generally +1). 6- = failure. 7-9 partial success, 10-11 success, 12+ success with bonus. Disadvantage (conditions): roll 3d6, take the worst 2 dice. Advantage (cozy item): roll 3d6, take the best 2 dice. Disadvantages don't stack. Advantages don't stack. Disadvantages and Advantages cancel each other; for example 2 disads and 1 adv = 2d6 (neutral).
CfB basic moves: Meddling Move, find clues by snooping or chatting up NPCs. Day/Night Moves, basically do something that isn't Meddling that could be potentially dangerous such as sneaking into a location. Cozy Move (healing), remove a Condition and find a Clue. Theorize Move, solve the mystery. There are other Custom Moves (based on TV show characters) and a Golden Crown Mystery Move which is basically a get out of jail free card which can be used only once per mystery.
This is basically how the game works: There's a list of suspects (NPCs) and locations. Each NPC has a description and a few lines of canned dialog which you can read as is or adlib. Each location has a short evocative description and a Paint the Scene prompt for Players to add details. PCs Meddle, stick their nose into stuff by snooping or chatting up NPCs, looking for a Clue. Generally, the die roll is a partial success, so there's a Complication (more drama) plus a Clue (advancement to end of scenario condition). Once enough Clues are gathered, the PCs decide to Theorize (end game) and if successful the suspect(s) get arrested. If they partially succeed, there's some added tests as the suspect tries to get away or hurt the PCs. On failure, bad things happen (real suspect tries to hurt the PCs or kills their main suspect) and the mystery continues. Mechanically, the game isn't that interesting. Collect clues, find enough of them, mystery is solved. Solve enough mysteries (collect Void Clues) to unlock the finale, end of campaign.
How many Clues are enough? Complexity is how complicated the mystery is, from 6 to 8, generally 6. PCs must have at least half the Complexity level in Clues before they can Theorize. When they Theorize, roll 2d6 + Clues - Complexity. You want to get a 7+, but shoot for a 10+. In practice, the Players go for a total of +3 (or better) before they Theorize.
PC generation. Character generation is pretty fast. Most items are listed on a play sheet. Pick Name, life/clothing Style, Cozy Activity, +1 to one Ability (stat), and 1 Custom Move (this takes the longest time as people look over all the Custom Moves). Then invent a dead spouse, children or pets, and previous occupation before retirement. Afterwards, all the other Players get to add a Cozy Item to your home (this is the best part of PC creation).
Overall. Where the game shines is the PC interactions with NPCs and locations, the Meddling. The reward centers of the brain are activated when Clues are found. Interactions with another PC, the Cozy Move, also affords roleplaying. You still get an aha-moment when you Theorize and try to fit all the Clues together into a coherent story. Paint the Scene also lets your imagination run wild. Overall, a very satisfying roleplaying experience.
Cautions. Brindlewood Bay isn't for everyone. One of my Players dropped out after only a few sessions. Brindlewood Bay isn't about finding as many Clues as quickly as possible. It isn't a min-max game, trying to avoid consequences. If you analyze the system, you have to get a 10-12+ to get away scot-free without consequences. The game system is designed to give you consequences on most of your actions. At one point, the Player who quit, tried to Theorize that the murder was a suicide, assuming if the Theorize failed (or partial success), nothing bad would happen, as the killer was dead by suicide. I told him that wouldn't be the case, bad things would still happen. You can't game the system.
I ran two campaigns of Brindlewood Bay in parallel. One took 10 sessions (2 Players), the other 13 sessions (2-4 Players, number of Players varied between sessions). Each mystery took about two to three hours to complete. Session One (p.155) which included character creation, CATS, and explaining the system, took maybe an extra hour.
This is what I learned:
0. Online Character Keeper. This is a great tool for online play. Everybody can look at all the Clues. Available here: Brindlewood Bay Character Keeper. For an in-person game, I'd use 3x5 cards for Clues; then when they Theorize, I can move the cards around (or rotate them 90 degrees).
1. Paint the Scene. Paint the Scene (p.37) is for all the Players, even those not in the location. This is part of the collaborative storytelling. And the more details are created, the more creative juices flow. I was confused about this until I watched the live play and re-read the rules. At first, I thought individual PCs only Paint the Scene when they entered a location, but I realized it wasn't right when only one PC entered a location, and then a different PC entered the location later who added another detail which the first PC should have noticed.
2. Complications. It takes a bit of work to get your head space into improvising Complications (p.41). The simple solution is to just Inflict a Condition. The problem is that this gets old fast, so as a GM, you want to come up with something different. Look at what the PC is doing and then run through various options on p.41. As a GM, you still have to improvise as to how this goes about. Over time, I got better at this, about 5 sessions in.
Chaining a required Day Move after a partial success on a Meddling Move is fun. You can gate keep a clue behind a Day Move as a Complication. An example is that they see a Clue in an inaccessible or dangerous place, requiring Day Move to retrieve. The fun bit is asking the Player what their PC would fear on a failure. (Again my min-maxing Player refused to roll, the reasoning was that there's no reason to endanger the PC as all Clues were equivalent. Best to just look for another clue elsewhere with just a Meddling Move -- see my note on Show a Maven being Killed).
3. Clues. Clues are a bit nebulous and they're built that way. As a GM, you can shape the Clue based on the situation or leave it nebulous. For instance, a legal document leaving someone out of a will (p.48). Well, the PCs definitely want to know who is left out because that leaves you with a prime suspect, but it also narrows down the list of suspects too soon. An out is that the name is scratched out or the document is partially destroyed, obscuring the name. If you do specify the name, then maybe the document is a red herring, a frame job, or the person named doesn't care about the inheritance, but the person's descendants do.
Specifying the name makes it harder for the Players. When I give a nebulous Clue, sometimes a Player wants to test it or make it more definite, like call up the lawyer's office. That's when I sometimes say, sure, we can do this, but it'll just make your life a bit harder when you Theorize. Right now, that name can be anybody's, but it'll be harder to rationalize the Clue if we set it in stone.
In one instance, the PCs talked to a lone lighthouse keeper, but when they exited, they overheard the lighthouse keeper argue with someone, this was a Clue. During Theorize, the Player explained that the lighthouse keeper was arguing with someone on a cell phone, something I didn't think of, but a brilliant theory.
Some of the Clues don't match the scenario. Sometimes there's a lot of physical clues, but few locations and lots of NPCs to talk to. So, it takes a bit of mental work to fit the Clue found into the action the PC does. So, I sometimes change the Clue into a NPC talking about the Clue, for instance, "I heard someone was cut out of the will." Or the NPC's action reveals the Clue, for instance, the PCs just bought an item from a shopkeeper and was chatting with him. The item was wrapped in an old newspaper with a pertinent story which was the Clue.
4. Published NPC Quotes. A number of NPC Quotes are their reactions to questions about the murder victim. This becomes problematic when some of the scenarios start before the murder and PCs are wandering around meeting the NPCs. I read the Quotes to figure out the NPC's attitude and made something up. I also let the PCs Meddle, finding Clues before the murder. Clues are Clues even before the murder. I just pick Clues that can be present before the murder.
5. Published Void Clues. The Void Clues (p.37) for each mystery is evocative and ties into the mystery they belong to, but they don't tie into each other between mysteries. A solution is the Guided Approach (p.68), but that means you have to revise all the Void Clues in the published scenarios, that's a lot of work. And by the 10th mystery, I had too many Void Clues, 20+ in both campaigns, and it was Void Clue salad. I think if I ran this again, I'd try to curate the Void Clues better and modify them on the fly to add subtle differences to have a cohesive theme. Right now, using the Void Clues as is has created a Greek Goddess pantheon cult connected with the sea.
6. TV Show. I enjoy the meta framing of the scenario as a TV episode. As the opening credits run, I like doing the Cozy Vignettes (p.18, I hate this name because my Players confuses this with the Cozy Move and want to remove a Condition, instead I like to call this A Day in the Life between Murders). Then I run the Title page (p.36) where the name of the episode and the Complexity is revealed. After the mystery is solved, XPs are awarded, and leveling up done, I run the end credits and the Stinger scene (p.161).
7. Cut to Commercial. I also learned when to Cut to Commercial (p.43). If you get tired of handing out Conditions from a partial success, or if the PC has a partial success and the clue is locked behind a Day Move and the PC got another partial success, I sometimes just Cut to Commercial. The rules say to use this to change a Failure to a Success, but I found it fun to do this even for a partial success. And when PCs had enough moves to mitigate damage or have enough Crowns to avoid failures, I preferred to leave failures as is since the consequences were more dramatic. Commercials are fun. I tell the Players, the commercials are not based on your PC or anything, it's just a commercial and you can put on any persona you want to do the commercial. We have a blast on this as the commercials are always over-the-top funny as they're off brand and feel like cheap late night ads. After the Player is done with the ad, I generally adlib a mocking disclaimer or tagline.
8. Show a Maven being Killed. It's ok to Show a Maven being Killed (p.42) early in a mystery. Even though it's strongly advised against without foreshadowing, but it works when the PCs have a lot of Crowns or a Move that negates the death (B.A. Baracus Move). I've also done this late in the campaign when the Midwives are aware of the Mavens and when the PCs haven't progressed to the Void Crowns yet. In the live play, Jason blew up a house early in the mystery without warning -- it was fun and dramatic, so it can be done.
Also it's a TV show. You gotta put your Mavens in danger every once in a while. Also when the PCs start collecting too many Clues, I start putting pressure on them to solve it as the murderer would want them dead. I try to kill them when they fail their die rolls. Players don't seem to mind that when they roll badly.
9. Occult Move. Don't let the PCs use the Gold Crown Mysteries Move (p.12) with the Occult Move (p.12). I let them do this once and then they repeatedly used this the same way. It was ok the first time, but then it started to feel like a cheat.
10. LGBTQ+. There's a sprinkling of LGBTQ+ material in some of the scenarios, mostly non-traditional relationships, so if you're not comfortable with that, the GM can quietly modify the sex (and name) of various partners. My group played the scenarios as is. In one scenario, there was a bit of BDSM material; I mentioned this to the GM who introduced me to Brindlewood Bay. His response, "Well, there are 20 clues, you didn't have to pick those." He was right, it's just that "Ball gag, handcuffs, and a riding crop" caught my eye. That scenario veered into theories of BDSM and autoerotic asphyxiation.
11. Player Count. Two to four Players is a good limit. In the two Player game, at the end of the 9th mystery, they were both out of Crown of the Queen and into Crown of the Void (p.17), so they were ready for the finale. My 2-4 Player group (head count varied each session) only had one PC (the Player who was in every session) just taking the first Void Crown at the end of the 11th mystery; we're ready to do the finale because there's no way I can push any of the other PCs in the Void Crowns without adding a lot more mysteries. I did find more Players really does add to Paint the Scene; the input of more Players makes it more interesting. Though, I think pace-wise, two Players ups the tension for the finale. So, maybe three Players is the sweet spot?
12. Delayed Die Roll Results. Jason Cordova likes to have die rolls and then come back around with the consequences and clues later. It adds a cliffhanger vibe to the game and gives him more time to think about what to do. I love that he can do that, but I haven't tried doing this and would be afraid I'd lose the thread. Maybe some reminder tokens would work for me. This is so antithetical to my RPG training as a GM.
13. PC Conditions. I keep on forgetting to look at PC Conditions for die rolls. I think some sort of a table indicator if I ran this at a convention would be great (3x5 cards for an in-person game). I've been using the Online Character Keeper and it's great, but I tend to leave the spreadsheet on the Mysteries tab while GMing and forgetting to go back to see the PC's Conditions when asking for a die roll.
Players sometimes get tied up in the story and forget to monitor their Conditions, and then get their 4th condition before doing a Cozy Move. When that happens, they mark a Crown instead.
Once in a while, I remind them they can do the Cozy Move which removes a Condition and creates a Clue.
14. PCs splitting up. My PCs generally split up or go in pairs. The only time they stick together is when they want to benefit from the B.A. Baracus Move. My Players like to go to new locations and speak to different NPCs, so they're generally split up.
15. End of Session Questions. As each successful prompt gains an XP, they're roleplaying incentives. Players can change these incentives at the beginning of the session before the Title is revealed. Once in a while, I remind my Players to look at their prompts. It sucks to reach the end of a mystery and realize you didn't do any of your roleplaying incentives and only got 1 XP for solving the mystery.
16. Crown Markings. I wished the spreadsheet had a tri-state for marking Crowns. For in-person games, I'd recommend using a / when a Crown is used, and a X when the Crown Scene is completed.
17. Published Scenarios. Since the books lacked a Table of Contents, I had to create a spreadsheet with the mystery titles, book, page number, complexity, prereqs/notes. The Sweeps Week Mysteries are separate from the campaign and they have no Void Clues. I also needed to keep track of which mysteries I've already run for each group. Not having a ToC was annoying. My Spreadsheet here.
18. The Village of Brindlewood Bay (Nephews in Peril! p.177). Slightly interesting, not very inspiring. Does add a few shop locations and NPCs. Additional Dark Conspirators (Brindlewood Bay, p.83) are more useful.
19. The Void Mystery (Brindlewood Bay, p.71). I took all the Dark Conspirators that were revealed as suspects, people who knew about the Midwives or were part of it. The locations would be where these people would be found and also some of the creepy locations such as the Whale Museum and the Doll Museum. For the Clues, I just took all the Void Clues that weren't revealed and put them in a list (I did drop some that I didn't like or didn't fit the theme of the previously revealed Void Clues), though during play, I did scan through the list to pick what was relevant, so I could have saved some prep time by not pre-pruning the list.
I wasn't sure how to present the mystery, so I watched the last two episodes of the live play and stole some of Jason's ideas.
I titled the finale "Something Fishy This Way Comes."
I set the season to winter and had an offshore storm approach Brindlewood Bay, an excuse for high winds, crashing waves, dark clouds, thunderstorms.
In the 4 PC game:
I had a NPC approach the Mavens and tell them the Ladies of Liberty from Fudge, Jury, and Executioner (Nephews in Peril! p.48) have been murdered and she was the last surviving member. Each died with a hole through the front and back of their chests. She feared for her life and knew the Midwives of the Fragrant Void were completing some ritual and the Mavens had to find out when, where, and what the ritual was, and stop them. Then a commotion happened downstairs in the bookshop and a unicorn (this had shown up in an earlier mystery) charges up the stairs and impales the last Lady of Liberty. PCs then had to do Night Moves to get out of danger.
The Players solved the final mystery and decided the ritual was at 1am (13 o'clock), at a ritual rock at the base of the Mucky Point Lighthouse, and it was the birth of a demi-god, Poseidon's child.
At the ritual, I added multiple layers of obstacles, so each Maven had to do Night Moves, to win the day (actually night). I added the residents of Mucky Point, a unicorn standing guard (actually a narwhal with enchanted legs, sort of like how a mermaid gets legs on land), the Midwives in robes and masks chanting, a champion of the Midwives challenging the PCs (Tobias, the sword swallower, who pulls out two swords from his throat so he can dual wield), Perserpina (NPC) giving birth to a demi-god, and the tentacle-y crab god Poseidon swimming to shore to receive his son.
It was quite action packed and the PCs saved the world. Then I let each Maven do their epilogue.
With 4 PCs, I felt putting multiple obstacles in the way made the finale challenging. I didn't have to hold back and when the PCs won, it was satisfying and epic.
In the 2 PC game:
Deputy Anderson warns the PCs that they were in danger and they needed to figure out when, where, and what ritual the Midwives were doing. At one point, the PCs go to Aubertin's Antiques and find one of the murderers they had arrested was working at the shop. Leigh tells them that she's on bail, could she help them with something?
It was a lot tougher with just 2 PCs. When they theorized, they got a partial success, but one PC was already on The Pomegranate Kernel, the other was on The Pallid Mask, so they couldn't both spend a Void Crown to get a full success.
The ritual was at dusk, at a rock inside the basement of the Brindlewood Bay lighthouse, to bring back the transformed Captain and crew of the Dark Reaver. I told them they're correct, but the storm had come in, threatening to blow them away (complication from the partial success). Things were blowing horizontally. PCs used a Gold Crown Move to steal an ATV to get to the lighthouse.
Since they were so close to spending their last crown, and there was only 2 PCs, I only put the Midwives performing the ritual as a barrier inside the lighthouse, including all the people the Mavens had gotten arrested for murder. Outside, a giant crab and other creatures that brayed like a donkey were heading to shore. Instead of fighting the Midwives, the PCs decided to pull down the lighthouse (using their 2nd Gold Crown Move from the Thomas Magnum Move from the spreadsheet, but the Move is different from the one in the book. I think a 2nd Gold Crown Move is a bit overpowered, but the Thomas Magnum Move in the book is underpowered, and sometimes the PCs never used their Gold Crown Move, so on balance, maybe a 2nd Gold Crown Move is ok). They stole a tugboat and pulled down the lighthouse which crushed the giant crab. The falling masonry and backwash of sea water took care of the remaining Midwives. The storm died down and sunlight broke through the clouds. Mavens did their epilogue.
I felt 2 PCs wasn't quite enough. The Players were of the same mind, they thought that another Maven would have helped load balance Conditions.
