Character Creation: Bluebeard's Bride

Been a bit. I picked up the 3.5 version of Iron Kingdoms, read part of it, and then realized I don't actually have D&D 3.5, so I can't really make a character (which is fine, because the book was boring me, which is why it was taking so long to get through). Consequentially, however, I needed something quicker and more familiar, so here we are.

The Game: Bluebeard's Bride
The Publisher: Magpie Games
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I played it a couple of times at GenCon some years back
Books Required: Just the one.

I've been played RPGs since I was 11, and I've been played horror RPGs since I was about...18, I guess. In that time, I have occasionally experienced a game that shifts the foundations of my understanding of "horror RPG." Chill 2nd Ed did it because it was my first horror game (so less "shifting" the foundations than "laying" them, I guess). Wraith: The Oblivion, Dread, and Slasher Flick all changed my perception of the genre a bit, too. Bluebeard's Bride is definitely another such game, because holy shit, it captures "horror" in a way that very few other games can. 

In the game, you're playing various facets of the personality of the titular Bride, and experiencing wandering through your new husband's house. Sooner or later you're going to open the final door and learn what's become of your predecessors, and then you might be able to get away with your life. The game is tragic, brutal, and provocative, and I both love it and am terrified to run it. (I would need players that I trusted implicitly, and vice versa.)

Anyway! Let's make a character. First step is to choose a Sister (that is, a facet of the Bride's psyche). Hmm. I know I played the Fatale the first time I played this, but I don't remember which one I played the second time. Animus, maybe? I think this time I shall choose the Virgin. 

First, Wedding Prep, which consists of several questions. 

What do the Bride's eyes look like? They are brown and soulful, but often downcast, and have bags under them as though she hasn't slept. 

How do others know you want them when they gaze into your eyes? A slight widening of the iris, subtle but unmistakable, before my eyes dart away.

What are you leaving behind from your provincial life to become Bluebeard's Bride? My best friend and lover. She and I promised we would write each other.

When you first met, what loving gesture did Bluebeard make that won you over? He was kind to my dogs. He patted their heads and learned their names.

What gift did you present to Bluebeard before the wedding? Why did you choose this? A sachet of herbs taken from my garden and around my home. I did it because his odor is very strong.

Do you trust your generous husband, Bluebeard, or do you hold unkind suspicions? Why is that? I trust him. He is strong and gruff, but I saw his true nature when he played with the dogs.

The next bit is Sensory Bonds, but I'm skipping that because I'd need other Sisters for it. 

Stats! My Resilience is +1, and then I have 0 and -1 to put into Blood or Carnality. Hmm. I guess 0 in Carnality and -1 in Blood, though honestly I could kinda go either way.

Finally, Choose a Face. This is basically a playbook move, but also a way to pick an expression of the (in this case) Virgin. My options are the Lily, the Moth, or the Victim. They're all interesting, but I think I gotta go with the Moth, based on the decisions I've made so far (I suppose Victim would also work, but I like moths anyway). 

And that's it, actually. I don't even have to come up with a name, since I'm just one part of the Bride. 

GenCon 2015: The Sweatening

When people asked me how I was or how my con was going this year at GenCon, my go-to response was "sweaty." For the first several days, it was hot as balls and I was running around crazy-like getting and keeping the IGDN booth going.

But this was the best GenCon I've had in years. It's the first time in quite a while that, when Saturday night rolled around, I found myself thinking "aw, I'm not done yet!" rather than "OMG I WANT HOME."

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. I didn't take a lot of pictures this year, but I took a few.

Wednesday

Michelle and I got into Indy on Wednesday afternoon after a thoroughly uneventful drive. No traffic to speak of, no construction, it was glorious. We were driving a cargo van, stuffed to the gills with material for the booth and several boxes of Chill. 

Wait, do vans have gills?

First order of business: Set up the IGDN booth. We had help from lots of lovely people including Joel Sparks, Andreas Walters, Jesse Butler, and others I'm forgetting, I'm sure. We only managed to get it about 70% done, though, because folks had to scatter for the evening (including me - I had a Chill game for backers that night!). 

But before that, a quick look at Cardhalla, under construction: 

And then a quick stop at an awesome little food truck called Karma Kitchen. 

And then the game! The game went really well (this was the "Regional Coordinator: Indianapolis" backer level; folks make characters, the incomparable Timm Henson illustrated them, the equally incomparable [see what I did there?] Thomas Deeny laid them out, and I ran the game). I whipped up a game set in Milwaukee (their HQ of choice) involving a Spectral Remnant shoving drunk college students into the river so it could "rescue" them, and then failing miserably. They managed to get it to actually save someone, and it passed on peacefully. 

Speaking of "passing on peacefully," by that point it was late and time to sleep. 

Thursday

Thursday, we hit the booth, got the books set up, and got it lookin' pretty. 

And then I had a game to play in: World of Dew. Now, I'd run this game once, in order to review it, so I was looking forward to playing it and seeing how it worked with the creator. For the most part, it worked very much like it did when I ran it. 

The game was fun, and it was cool watching Benjamin Woerner run it. I played a police inspector investigating a murder, but the particulars of the murder unfolded as we played (with player input). The group was...just OK. One of the players was playing a smuggler, and named him Han Solo (but, like, with different vowels so it was vaguely Asian or something). I get the feeling like the group didn't quite grok the tone that we were going for, but they came around as we played. My grade: A. 

Stabbin', shootin', noirin'. 

So then I had some time in the booth, selling books. It was pretty busy, which was nice. And then later on in the evening, I ran a game of Beast: The Primordial for some folks. It went pretty well; it was the same scenario I ran here. Some investigation followed by a short fight. No one played the vampire this time, but all five Beasts were represented. 

And then sleep. 

Friday

Friday morning, after a booth check-in, I had a Chill game to run. I ran Cold, Dark Earth again. We only had three players this time, so I was a little worried about them getting killed, but the players were smart, asked the right questions, did some strong research, and won the day. 

So then, I had a panel for the new World of Darkness, and some time to sign things at the Onyx Path booth, and then a game of Bluebeard's Bride. 

Now, I'd been looking forward to this game for while. It's an Apocalypse World hack created by Sarah Richardson, Marissa Kelly, and Whitney Beltrán. In it, you play aspects of the titular Bride's psyche, and wander Bluebeard's castle on the wedding night, opening doors and experiencing the horrors therein until you reach the final room and meet your fate. This game got under my skin like very little else has in a long time; I actually wound up playing it again Saturday night. 

Anyway, in our game, I played the Fatale, and got to revel in sensuality, which is kinda what I do anyway, so that was cool. We wound up escaping, but being rejected by our family and thrown back to Bluebeard. (I love tragic games, have I mentioned?) My grade: A

Sarah, trying to make us shudder in fear.

And then sleep!

Saturday

Holy cats, Saturday already? I got up early to play in a game called Clockwork Dominion. This is a steampunk game, but with a strong existential, Matrix-if-it-understood-subtle thing behind it. The game uses cards instead of dice, but uses a custom deck with numbers from -5 to 5 on it, so you just draw and add your relevant stats. Our characters were teenagers in a gang called the Penny Reds, and there was a West Side Story plus human traffic thing going on. It was a lot of fun, the game was really nice looking and seemed to flow well. The group was nicely cohesive and the GM played well off of us. If I have a complaint, it's that she read from a script, but she had really good delivery so it wasn't as snooze-inducing as I usually find that particular practice. I went and bought a copy of the game afterwards. My Grade: A-

Game set up when we got there? Check.

Rescuing St. James from Mr. Dandy!

After that, I had a game of curse the darkness to run. I realized as I set up that it had been a solid year since I'd run the game, and I was worried that I'd forgotten how it went, but muscle memory kicked in just fine. The characters were in Vegas and searching for water, and wound up moving their whole community to a lake out in Minnesota after a disastrous run-in with some anti-Between folks looking to trade water. Chris Shaffer died twice!

And then dinner with the IGDN folks at Mikado, where much sushi was consumed. And then back over to the convention center for the second game of Bluebeard's Bride (with someone I used to know, Michelle, and Christina). We wound up getting killed outright this time. It was just as awesome. 

Sunday

So, for the first time in I don't know how many years, I was not ready for the con to be over. But c'est la vie. I ran my annual game of Clay-o-Rama on Sunday morning, for a table full of kids (unlike Origins, which was mostly adults). 

Claydonians-to-be.

The construction phase. 

The victor, the mighty Pretzel!

After that, a couple of hours in the booth, and then a scant hour wandering the dealer's room, and then tear-down, and then dinner at Weber's followed by some really awesome discussions. 

And then, then next day, Michelle and I loaded the stuff from the booth into the van and then headed home again. The dealer's room looks creepy without any dealers. 

But here is the swag pile!

 Greatly looking forward to next year!