Bluebeard’s Bride: Tell Me Your Greatest Fear and I’ll Tell You How It’s Worse
There is only one rule, and it is very clear, you are forbidden to enter one room in your new husband’s vast estate. He shows you exactly which key is not to be used. Beyond that, he bids you explore your manor and indulge in all the wonders your once pauper lifestyle could never afford you. And with that, he is off on an urgent business matter. You find many extravagances: beautiful art, decadent food, the softest fabrics you have ever felt, and some of the oils smell so magnificent and foreign that you imagine fanciful tales of adventure and wonder. But all the while, there is an itch at the back of your mind. What could possibly be in that room? At first it is easy enough to shake off. But as time passes, it becomes harder and harder. Each day you start to make excuses to pass the room, all the while wondering. Could that be where all the business documents are? Is that a refuge from the world? Why wouldn’t he want to share his whole self with you? Finally, you can take it no longer. What harm could just a peak into the room cause? You sneak from your bed in the middle of the night, sure that none of the servants will see you, and you take that little unassuming key, insert it into the small keyhole, turn until you hear the latch release, and crack open the door.
For those of you familiar with the tale of Bluebeard, you know this will not end well for the bride. And for those of you who are not familiar, let’s just say Bluebeard is not a good guy. The University of South Florida has posted a copy of Blue Beard by Charles Perrault here. This fairytale, and a serendipitous meeting between a few people at Gen Con, lead to one of my top choices for a feminine horror one shot tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG). I won’t lie, it’s currently my top choice for one shots in general.
The rule system is Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA), which is basically a hack of the original rules for Apocalypse World. Rob Weiland wrote a brief article for Forbes talking about the system and some of the games that use it. I really like the way PbtA games present character playbooks, allowing for quick character creation as you work your way through choices. Each playbook also presents the player with narrative building questions designed to bond the players together. I’ve actually worked building bonds into the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) games I run. I think it gives more group cohesion and facilitates more buy in than “you meet in a bar and decide to adventure together”. My brain doesn’t like the lack of reason behind that. Especially when I play a lawful evil character that probably doesn’t have the empathetic response to care one way or the other if these strange people I just met die.
The idea of character development and cohesion in Bluebeard’s Bride RPG is fascinating to me. Everyone is playing the same person, identified only as the bride. But everyone has a different aspect of the bride’s persona. Think of a time when you have been conflicted, maybe weighing the pros and cons of a situation, or maybe torn between what you want to do and what you think/feel you need to do. Players take on a voice: the Mother, the Virgin, the Fatale, the Animus, or the Witch. Each aspect has their own motivations, desires, and voice. And as you might suspect, those motivations don’t always align with their sisters.
The game itself is set right after the bride is married to Bluebeard, taking her (and subsequently her family) out of the clutches of poverty. He is quickly called away on urgent business and leaves the bride with the key ring to the manner. He instructs her to explore everything except for the one room belonging to this simple key. He assures the bride he will know if she dares enter the room. And that is the last we see of Bluebeard until the end of the game.
One sister is given control of the bride as a final decision maker. This is symbolized by having control of the wedding ring. There are certain moves all sisters can do at any time in a room, such as investigate a mysterious object or take stock. Then there are special things only the sister with the ring can do, such as dirty yourself with violence or shiver from fear. The ring holder is also the only one who can decide to leave the room by proposing a truth of what happened in the room and taking either a token of loyalty or disloyalty depending on who they fault for the tragedies of the room (a former bride or Bluebeard). They could also choose to just try to flee, which means the GM will offer a hard choice.
Typically, the rooms start off innocent enough. But lurking in the shadows are lessons. The spirits of Bluebeard’s former wives have inhabited a room in the house, seeking to better themselves or the new bride in some way. Maybe they will insist that you could look better, maybe they will show you their own twisted pain of fertility issues, or maybe their sexual curiosities led to madness or worse. Trauma hides within every room, and the narration from the GM (and sometimes your fellow sisters) can get downright chill inducing. Hearing someone call themself out for having a physical reaction and thus triggering “shiver with fear” is kind of satisfying from the GM seat.
Because of the sensitive, and sometimes explicit, nature of the narration this game is definitely for adults only. In fact, when I recently ran a session for Games on Demand Online, I limited my table to 21+. This is also a game that really, truly needs to have safety mechanics in place. If you decide to run this game, you should absolutely put content warnings out there and ensure people know what they are signing up for. You should also use an X card (which is discussed in the beginning of the book), lines and veils, or some other way to ensure that if the content starts to trigger someone and end their fun, they have a parachute they can use to get them out of that line of narration. Scaring your friends is fun, causing them to have a mental health crisis is not. I will also note this is the only game that I have almost X carded myself mid narration because I was freaking myself out.
I have had the opportunity to run this game several times now. And I hope to be able to run it again for Big Bad Con in October. At first, I ran it because I was the only female in the group and there were some concerns around how it would feel having one of the guys in the group run it. Questions around trauma tourism were discussed. None of my male friends were comfortable stepping into the role of narrating abuse and violence against a woman who really doesn’t have a lot of power or ability to withstand the demands of the house. And I think that is totally respectable. So I read all the material I could get my hands on. Yes, I even bought the big bundle set of things. Pro tip, the Book of Rooms is SO nice. It removes some of the burden of prepping the game by giving you a whole… book filled with rooms… that you can use to set the scene for the sisters.
I signed up to finally get my chance to be a sister at GenCon this year. Unfortunately, because COVID is still a thing (sigh) Magpie struggled arranging volunteers to fill all the spots for the LARGE demand for PbtA games. What this meant was they did find a GM to run the game, but that person only got the rules the night before and wasn’t prepped to run the game. Note to you, dear reader, one night is not enough to prep this game even if you have the aforementioned Book of Rooms. Now don’t get me wrong, I am truly thankful that people were willing to volunteer themselves into such a stressful situation to begin with, but it wasn’t exactly the Bluebeard’s experience I was looking for. So if anyone wants to volunteer to run this game for me, let me know!
I think that is really the best accolades I can give, having a maybe not so great experience as a player at the table but still adoring the heck out of the game. I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys horror, is an adult, and wants to step into a house that is constantly twisting female standards and expectations. One move in the game literally has you narrate what you are most afraid will happen and the GM is then tasked to tell you, my darling, how it is actually worse.
Finally, I am still trying to wrap my head around the potential therapeutic uses for this game. I think it is definitely ripe with content that can trigger intense, painful memories for people. I could imagine this is especially true for survivors of domestic violence as the house and its occupants inflict physical and mental trauma on the bride. It may have the ability to help identify some situations that are especially hard to sit with and allow for discussion around those topics. But I just don’t know. I’d definitely have to consult with many, many therapeutic GMs before I’d be willing to design a program around horror in general - much less Bluebeard. I know people that do run therapeutic horror. I’m just uncomfortable with the idea - much like my friends around the idea of running such a game in general. Then again, sometimes the best therapeutic work exists in discomfort.
If you choose to dive into this game with friends or at a con just remember to put safety in place and give yourself (or your table if you’re GMing) some time to decompress afterwards because in Bluebeard’s world there are no happy endings.
