Bluebeard’s Bride – Horror RPG Kickstarter by Magpie Games

There is a new role-playing game Kickstarter that you will find very interesting. It is Bluebeard’s Bride, and it is a mature feminine horror themed game based on Bluebeard’s fairy tale. There are several stretch goals already met that add a ton to the game that looks to be already full of awesomeness. Here are the details from Bluebeard’s Bride Kickstarter page:

Bluebeard’s Bride is an investigatory horror tabletop roleplaying game for 3-5 players, written and designed by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson, and based on the Bluebeard fairy tale.

In this game you and your friends explore Bluebeard’s home as the Bride, creating your own beautifully tragic version of the dark fairy tale. Investigate rooms, discover the truth of what happened, experience the nightmarish phantasmagoria of this broken place, and decide whether or not you are a faithful or disloyal bride.

Back the game, download it from our first update, and give it a try!

Bluebeard’s Bride is based on the Powered by the Apocalypse system used in Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, Masks, and more. It’s a simple system; when your character takes an action that fits a move, the move tells you what happens, or you roll two six-sided dice to find out. Since this is a horror game, we have modified it so that the majority of moves use no dice; this harkens back to telling ghost stories around the fire.

Bluebeard’s Bride produces adult feminine horror fiction like Crimson Peak, American Horror Story, or The Company of Wolves, making it fun for horror fans and dark fairy tale fans alike. And the Powered by the Apocalypse system gives Bluebeard’s Bride the strong, yet flexible system necessary to tell your own flavor of horror.

The Bluebeard fairy tale is simple enough: A young bride is wed to an ugly, but powerful man with a blue beard. On their wedding night he must attend to other urgent matters. He gives her the keys to every room, inviting her to explore… but one room in his house is forbidden. The bride eventually falls prey to her curiosity and opens it, discovering the gruesome sight of former brides who had been murdered… evidence that reveals her husband to be a killer of women.

When you play Bluebeard’s Bride, you aren’t repeating the dark events of that morbid tale. You’re following the skeleton of that story to tell a new one covered in your own bloody fingerprints. The Bride’s story is unpredictable and engaging, leading her down a dark path to an unknown future. Your fate, the terrible contents of the final room, may not yet be fixed, but every step you take moves you closer to your doom.

Your experiences in Bluebeard’s house are guided by the original fairy tale, a framework that ties your story to the many tellings of the Bluebeard myth—past, present, and future. You move from room to room, gathering tokens and encountering horrors, before eventually making your way to the final room—and sealing the Bride’s fate forever. And along the way, questions arise…

What will you find in your new husband’s house?

What horrors will haunt you?

What darkness will you find within yourself?

But in the end, there is only one question for a new Bride: will you open the final door?

You can find the kickstarter here: Bluebeard’s Bride, and as of writing, the Bluebeard’s Bride Kickstarter is now at 1088% of it’s goal with 3 weeks to go.

Links

You can find several interviews and actual play podcast links here:

Podcasts: Actual Play and Talks 

• Sarah talks Bluebeard’s Bride on Misdirected Mark – Bluebeard at 13:38 (August 2016)
• Sarah runs the game for One Shot Podcast (February 2016) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• Sarah runs the game for The Jank Cast crew (February 2016) Part 1, Part 2.
• Marissa talks Bluebeard’s Bride on the Shrieker Podcast (January 2016)

Video: Actual Play 

• Sarah runs the game for the 2016 Big Bad Con Kickstarter (July 2016)

Interviews:

• Whitney, Marissa, & Sarah chat about Bluebeard’s Bride and Noir on Last Chance Noir (May 2016)
• Whitney and Bluebeard’s Bride on RPGGeek (April 2015)