Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, a slice-of-life RPG from the makers of Wanderhome, gets an official release date
Warm stories for warmer weather.
Two years after funding, cosy and inviting tabletop RPG Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast has announced a May 22nd street date for physical books. Designed by Possum Creek Games, the slice-of-life title takes its well-established aesthetic in a more chill, chapter-based direction that doesn’t skimp on interesting mechanics.
Possum Creek Games crowdfunded Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast in August 2022 on the odd-duck-out platform IndieGoGo during the height of the tabletop industry’s turn away from Kickstarter due to its development of blockchain technology. It raised over $300,000 to create the studio’s vision for a highly detailed and gorgeous book containing 48 chapters of collaborative story that take place in the eponymous old house that is home to a found family and their many misadventures.
Each chapter contains a 1-2 hour scenario wherein players control one of the seven semi-permanent residents of Yazeba’s, alongside an expanded roster of 50 guests who will flit in and out of their lives and have their own storylines to explore and discover. Players do not have a dedicated character who levels up and gains more abilities along a set power curve. Instead, the group expands the emotional lives and connections of all characters as a shared group, more akin to a mapmaking game or (loosely) a West Marches RPG campaign with an open table.
Chapters all have different mechanics that guide that specific chunk of Yazeba’s overarching story and are fairly easy to pick up, according to the designer, taking as little as 15 minutes to parse. Some chapters will be frenetic competitions, tackling a mountain of chores or exploring the hidden fears of the old home’s basement. Others will cover nights under the stars or gathering wild berries from nearby bushes. What ties all of this together is an emotional core and gradual changes to the characters that will eventually congeal into a unique artefact coloured by the group’s decisions.
Some characters might form indelible bonds or shift their beliefs as they grow closer to the quirky members of their found family. Others might grow up in tragic but understandable ways, setting aside facets of their younger selves for tools that help them deal with reality. Since a playgroup can swap around characters, and the book has been designed to facilitate low-commitment play without sacrificing high reward, the resulting dynamic is like watching a carefully cultivated terrarium fully bloom with life - even around and amongst the imperfections.
“M Veselak and I started writing Yazeba's back in November 2019 (before the pandemic, before wanderhome, before the vast majority of my career as a TTRPG creator), and it's been a wild ride, with an incredible team of writers, designers, artists, and creatives making this happen,” Dragon wrote on Twitter. “I think the process of making this game real has been one of the hardest and most strenuous activities I've ever done. But I played it with Steve Jackson at GAMA and fell in love with it all over again. I'm so fucking proud of this game.”
Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is now available to purchase, and you can find out more on Possum Creek Game’s website.