This one isn’t technically a “board game” but it can be played at a table and there are cards and tokens involved. Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast is a new role playing game from Possum Creek Games. The PDF is out now and you can play on the site One More Multiverse as well. I’m waiting on the massive tome to be printed, which is about 500 pages long.
No, wait, come back! I know that sounds like a lot, but the book is beautifully illustrated and this is very different from the role playing games you’re probably familiar with. Let me explain!
I had a chance to play YB&B this Saturday morning using the One More Multiverse with a couple of people I met in a discord who were also hoping to try out the game. I will tell you a little about that, but I won’t get bogged down in details because this is really an experience - not just collaborative storytelling but a bit of play and contemplation.
We chose “Gone Fishing” for our first dabble in the world. It was labeled as having a relaxed tone and only required 2 of the main residents to play, though you could add as many as you wanted. I chose Parish, the Knight turned into a Frog who is now the B&B’s head chef. Another person played as Sal, the night porter to the B&B with dreams of being discovered as the true rockstar they are. Our third player opted to be the group of rabbits that live in the garden - YES they played a whole set of little rabbits!!
The basic outline for the chapter was that we are at the local fishing hole. As our characters interacted, embracing their faults (whoopsies) and strengths (bingo) to get along with their friends, they would gain tokens, which they could turn in to pull a fish from the pond. Character sheets give brief glimpses into each residents story and attitude towards life. And that was it. We were dropped into the world on One More Multiverse, an online platform that for roleplaying games that creates a pixelated playset and our characters to move around.
We spent the next two hours just hanging out, chatting, fishing, and being our characters. Exploring how we thought they would be, describing our time at the lake side. It was a lovely experience.
This isn’t a game of stabbing and dice rolls and chance. There isn’t a game master, telling you what to do or how things turned out. At the start of the book, a comparison is made to Saturday morning cartoons or finding a book in the middle of a series and just starting to read it. You understand what is going on just from the context of that story, you don’t need pages of lore, yet somehow you are right there with the characters from the start.
There is a “Concierge” role, which falls to the owner of the book. They are typically in charge of finding items for players to use as tokens, a deck of cards and some other bits and bobs that go on the table, depending on which chapter the players have chosen. The concierge still picks a character to play, they just have these other duties as assigned, providing guidance as needed.
While the book might be 500 pages, most of that consists of pages of self-contained scenarios of just a couple pages each. These chapters are listed out of order, to make it clear this is not a campaign game meant to be one and done, but spots you can revisit later - just like you might still watch that Saturday morning cartoon rerun with the same joy as the first viewing or settle in for a third reread of that old book 7 of a series.
Though there is also a legacy element to this game, with stickers that can be unlocked and timers you can check off to show the story advancing, your characters growing, new locations appearing and new residents arrivals…but only if the players want to.
The book encourages you to swap characters from story to story. Think of it as playing with your favorite toys as a kid - you share those characters with your friends and let them have a turn. You and your friends would take turns telling that characters story together. That’s the feeling you get from Yazeba. You find a chapter that fits your mood, pick characters, and start playing.
I still see discussions about adults and gaming and attitudes that it is a “waste of time” but I am here to say that it is not. Gaming in all forms is good for us. It encourages us to think outside the box, to try being someone else for awhile, or perhaps filter our own fears and dreams through another character, in a way that might feel safer than speaking it out loud.
If seeing the involved character sheets of D&D players, filled with different dice and numbers felt intimidating to you and you’d much rather live in a Studio Ghibli world of colors and magic and diversity, this is the game you want to try. If you’d rather plan a birthday party than fight a beholder, this is a game to try. If the scariest thing you want to happen in a game is the lights going out in the basement, give this a try.
And in this modern age, you could find a group to try this out with. I can already tell it will be a main stay of Games on Demand (which at PAX conventions tend to fill up their Wanderhome slots, another Possum Creek Game, before any others).
I’ve played one game so far but I can’t stop thinking about it. There wasn’t a mystery to solve or things that didn’t go our way - we just told a story of a lazy day at the lake with friends.
Curious? Check out the Yazeba’s podcast that was put out during the campaign to help drum up interest. You can get a feel for how it all works, even just through audio.