First Impressions: Brindlewood Bay

Brindlewood Bay is a RPG written by Jason Cordova where you play as the Murder Mavens, a club of old ladies solving cosy mysteries in a small fishing town. Little do you suspect that there's a dark conspiracy connecting these mysteries, tying into the lovecraftian horrors that lurk beneath the waters of this town...

It's Murder She Wrote mixed with Lovecraft. The most unique thing about it is the way you actually solve the mysteries. There is no pre-planned solution: Even the GM doesn't know who actually committed the murder. 

When they've gathered enough clues, the players put forward a theory of who they think committed the murder. They make a Theorize roll, with a bonus for each major clue they've tied into their theory, and if it succeeds - they were right! That theory they put forward was correct, and they now have to bring the murderer to justice.

To make this work, the GM is meant to deliberately keep things a little vague until the players make that decisive Theorize roll. The clues aren't meant to point to any particular suspect. You may find a note saying that someone was removed from the will - but the last page is ripped, so you don't know who exactly it was. If the killer attacks you, they'll be veiled in shadow the whole time. 

It's a really interesting trick. I've played 2 sessions of the system now, so here's some of my first impressions of how this unique approach plays out in practice. 

1. "Solving" the mystery is surprisingly engaging.

In most mystery RPG's, the core driver is the mystery itself. That's what keeps the players coming back, hungry for the next session - they want answers. Who was the one armed man? What happened in Buenos Aires in 1959? What is the true nature of the World Beyond Heaven? 

At first I thought that driver wouldn't really exist in Brindlewood, because the players make up the answers themselves. You can't be excited to discover the truth when there is no real truth, right? 

But I was proved totally wrong. In our second session, we decided to end on a cliffhanger just as the killer had struck again. As soon as the session finished, everyone immediately got wrapped up in an animated discussion of their theories. Why did the mayor have forged ID documents and a briefcase full of cash? Was he the killer's accomplice, or a red herring? What was the deal with his cryptic comments about the bottom of the ocean, and why did he die saying "Beware the One Eyed Jack"?

This really started happening in the second session once I started giving more concrete clues. The book tells you to keep them vague, but I found that the more vague a clue is the less interesting it is. If you find a threatening letter but it's not clear who wrote it or who it was addressed to, that means nothing. Of course you don't want a clue to give away the mystery on its own, but theorizing became a lot more exciting once I started giving specific details about what size the footprints were or which characters were in the right position to shoot the victim.

Once it got rolling, I was shocked by how well it all worked. It felt just like the discussion at the end of a well-made pre-planned mystery. The players and I are genuinely excited to find out the truth when we finish off this case next session - even though we all know that there actually is no truth. 

2. ...But the system could easily make straightforward, dull mysteries.

Let's say the Butler immediately seems shifty, right from the start. The players jump to him as their first suspect. In most mystery stories we would expect some kind of twist - the Butler's a red herring, and he only seemed shifty because he was covering up for someone else. The character who seemed completely innocent was actually the true culprit! 

In this system though, the players decide who committed the murder. So... they can just say the Butler did it. The shadiest, most suspicious character actually was the murderer. As long as they succeed the roll (which is likely), that's it. Case closed. It ends up being a completely straightforward, dull mystery. 

And it's totally natural for the players to do that! If they're just trying to come up with the theory that makes the most sense, of course they'd say it was the most suspicious character. The players find clues wherever they look, so the more they investigate the Butler the more clues they'll find. Those clues are all deliberately vague to make sure they could point to anyone, so it's really easy to just pin them all on the Butler. It's a logical path for the players, but it creates a boring mystery. 

To avoid this, the players and GM all need to fight against it together. If the players are narrowing in too much on an obvious suspect, the GM can just say "There's no more clues to find here" and move them on to investigate someone else - or even just flat-out kill the prime suspect as the consequence of a failed roll. It's not just on the GM though - the players also need to take a writer's room approach and try their best to make the mystery interesting, even if it makes more likely to fail.

In my first session, one of my players had a special ability that let her introduce a new clue to the mystery. She could have used this to sew up a straightforward theory - you know, "I've found the Butler's diary, this 100% proves he did it like we thought!" - but instead, she decided to introduce information that went totally against their prevailing theory. This made their lives a lot harder, but it also made the mystery a lot more interesting when it was threatening to be pretty basic.

The rulebook says that when you make the Theorize roll, everyone must "Reach a consensus" - but it never gives any more detail about exactly what that means. Most people online seem to interpret this as "Everyone must agree that the theory makes logical sense" - but I think a better interpretation might be, "Everyone must agree that the theory is interesting and makes a good story (Even if it isn't the most logical conclusion)". To me that feels more like the spirit of the game. 

3. Emotionally, it can kinda feel like being a crooked cop.

A good investigator tries to find the truth. A bad investigator makes up a theory, and then tries to make the facts fit their theory. 

That second one is exactly what you do in Brindlewood Bay. You make up a theory, and then you try to fit as many clues as possible into it to get the maximum bonus to your theorize roll. That bloody knife? We don't know who it belonged to, but let's say it was the Butler. Threatening note? Butler. The footprints in the flowerbed? Well, they didn't match the Butler's shoe size, but let's say the Butler wore the wrong size to throw us off. 

The game even allows players to add critical context to the clues to make their theory work. They can say they found the Butler's fingerprints on the knife, even if the GM hadn't mentioned anything about that. This makes it really easy to twist the clues to fit whatever theory you want. 

Emotionally, this process felt a lot like being a bad scientist or a crooked cop framing a suspect. You aren't trying to find the truth, because there is no real truth - you're just choosing someone to pin the crime on. My players felt a bit like they'd framed someone, and then coincidentally it turned out that person actually did commit the murder. Other groups may feel totally differently, but that's how my group felt after the first session.

You could argue this is true to the source material. Sherlock Holmes says "Aha, your shirt is unironed so naturally that means you must have recently separated from your wife!" and it just happens that he's 100% correct. In reality, having an unironed shirt could mean anything, but the world twists to fit his deduction. Brindlewood Bay does allow you to make these dramatic leaps of logic and be completely right, just like that style of detective in a mystery story. 

4. The characters really make the game.

The thing that made me decide to have a second session is how much I loved the Mavens. Betty Anne, the cardigan-lover who developed a crippling insecurity about her ability to solve mysteries. Meredith, the grumpy old angler with mysterious dreams. The interplay between these characters, the jokes, the sassy comments they made as they got on each other's nerves, all of that was the real heart of our session. 

The character creation system is simple, but does a great job of generating interesting characters that you can fall in love with quickly. The real key here though is the basic conceit of having everyone play old ladies. It just inherently pushes people to explore interesting, unusual characters, something a bit different to what they usually play. 

It's really fun to play in this small town setting where your characters already have a long-standing relationship with every NPC they meet. I do think it would be fun to have a bit more mechanical support for this - like a move where the players can make up an NPC they're friends with to ask for help - but even just the basic setting on its own is a great recipe for getting some rich character relationships going super fast.

Developing these character relationships really feels like the heart of the game, and I'm really excited to see how these old ladies develop as they start to face down the more terrifying lovecraftian elements of the game. I'll see how it goes, and I may post more if my thoughts have changed once the campaign wraps up!