Bluebeard’s Bride: A Challenging Dance Between Horror and Trauma
Bluebeard’s Bride
Written by Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Marissa Kelly, and Sarah Richardson
Magpie Games
October 24, 2017
Bluebeard’s Bride is an extremely unusual tabletop roleplaying game in many ways. It recreates the fable of Bluebeard, a wealthy nobleman who marries women and then kills them. All 3-5 of the players work together and against each other to play a single character, the Bride. The game is built around telling variations of one single story only, rather than the free-form campaigns of traditional roleplaying games. It always ends horribly for the Bride; there is no “winning,” only an exploration of her choices and experiences as she investigates the house of her serial killer husband. Plus, it’s printed on square pages. Who does that?
Annie Blitzen is Sidequest’s Resident LARP Expert, an inveterate player of tabletop roleplaying games, and a fair hand in video and board gaming. Sidequest writer since 2017.
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