I’m excited to run/play this game. I may wait till the full game gets released or I may not as I also have a hack of the mechanics in mind. Looking over the prerelease I have a question:
For the Martyr move “When you offer forgiveness for a sister’s sins, mark trauma, 1 for 2, to heal that sister.” Does that mean that the Mother takes 2 Trauma to heal 1 Trauma of another sister or is it the reverse that the Mother takes 1 Trauma to heal 2 Trauma? The former is powerful. The latter is heavy but possibly fine.
Also more of a game design question for Whitney Beltrán, any reason why you choose to have the only thing that rolls are used for is the Ring Moves? I ask as I could totally see moves like the Martyr move and the Bear move be more interesting with a bit of randomness. For instance, The Bear move could be rewritten as “When a Sister incurs trauma, you can step in and punish the sister who truly deserves it. Roll + Carnality. On a hit the guilty sister to marks trauma instead, on a 7-9, and mark 1 for yourself as well, as your failure to prevent this is self evident.”
Mother takes 2 trauma for every 1 healed.
Thanks Whitney. Any thoughts you can share on the second question? As someone who dabbles in game design myself I’m curious to learn your thoughts on how the moves became how they are. I assume a lot of play testing went into all of it..
Hey Colin!
Originally all of the moves (and Faces) did require rolling, but as we worked on the game, we found that the outcomes for most moves were not uncertain, so rolling seemed really out of place and hard to GM for. In addition, the diceless moves mimic the tradition of telling ghost stories, which we thought was perfect.
You can also see a bit of the thought process that went into one move in Marissa’s blog entry here: magpiegames.com – Bluebeard’s Bride: Behind the Curtain
Awesome, Magpie Games thanks for the reply! It’s great to hear other designer’s reasonings and the hows and whys for they got to the rules as they stand.
Sorry do dig up a post from 9 months ago, but wanted to double check again on The Martyr move and find out if rules changed since Whitney Beltrán’s clarification or if there’s a typo in the book. The example given in the book has the mother take 1 trauma and the other sister heals 2. I see either option working thematically but wanted to make sure I run the game as intended.
Hey Vincent!
We did make a change, and you should follow the book. 😀 Please let us know if you have other questions, though, as we’re happy to help!