Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast will destroy me
Not only a TTRPG, but a bespoke dimension collapsing in on itself. I feel compelled to dive in in the hopes I find what I’m looking for, knowing I run the risk of being trapped inside, or worse, spat out. When I feel connected to a new TTRPG, I find myself bringing it with me everywhere I go. Partly to honor it’s presence in my thoughts, but also so I can show it to my friends so they have time to prepare for whatever fresh hell I intend to subject them to next. Yazeba’s cannot provide me that comfort. It’s certainly stuck inside my mind, existing as an electrified cloud shapeless and waiting, but as I write this, it’s taking root on my dining room table. Yazeba’s occupies it’s own space, pulling in on itself like a collapsing dimension. It’s also 469 pages and too heavy for me keep in my backpack. This only adds to its power. Unlike Alice is Missing and Deathmatch Island which sit on my desk, steeping in my presence as I prepare for their respective upcoming games, Yazeba keeps an unrelenting tug on my thoughts, pulling my consciousness home. This isn’t just due to it’s physical weight, the game is so much more than it’s pages, it’s hard to ignore the power in the space it takes up.
In the blog post The Book is the Game is an Object, Markus discusses the inherent power a TTRPG rulebook can hold: “I think we [should] consider the TTRPG book’s role as an art object, separate from its gameable context or use as pseudo-fiction”. I’d go a step further to say that some game books stretch beyond art object to become something more sacred. Moving from an object of art to an object of power, influence, and energy. When I connect with a new TTRPG book, it feels like electricity. A surge of possibility and power runs through my body, and I feel a rekindling of motivation and purpose. This isn’t metaphor. The energy sources from my chest and radiates to my arms and hands. It relaxes my muscles, clears my thoughts, and provides a nearly euphoric motivation. All the reading, preparation, and execution of the game’s instructions are fueled by this electricity, so long as I can maintain it. The book (or box) itself operates as a battery; simply having the game in my presence keeps the power flowing and my ideas generating. I’m particularly susceptible to Possum Creek Games. Their writing accepts the truth that a TTRPG is a powerful ritual. A game book written with acknowledgements of its own power make it effortless for me to metabolize that power. Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast has altered that process in a way that may very well destroy me.
Only the first several pages of Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast are devoted to rules, safety, structure, and gameplay, which are all very straightforward, if a little vague in a “trust the process” kind of way. The rest of the book holds the game’s power. I described it to a friend as the first legacy TTRPG as it’s filled with opportunities to irreparably mark the book (mostly with stickers) as you build out the bed and breakfast into a realized and bespoke creation of your group’s (and Jay and M’s) design. Similar to a legacy game, new groups will discover that most of the content is locked away. Chapters, characters, and other mechanics can be unlocked by playing through existing chapters and placing stickers. The game unfolds and takes new shapes over time, and unlike a legacy board game, manifests through connection, ritual, and a deep understanding of people who play. When I first read through this book, I felt the typical surge of electricity, it’s flavor unmistakably Jay Dragon and M Veselak’s. I was reminded of my first time reading one of my earliest GMless games, Sleepaway, and realizing as the electricity surged through me that it could unfold in ways I could never prepare for. Yazeba’s feels larger, more intimidating, and more importantly, impossible to fully harness. Instead of feeling the electricity manifest in my chest and arms, signaling motivation for creation, the electricity for Yazeba’s manifests in my head, something to be pondered. Yazeba’s is both complete and impossible to complete. There is no prep, there is nothing I can add in these opening stages, it’s fully ready for me to offer myself to it, but once I do, I worry it’ll never be rid of me.
As I write, Alice is Missing sits next to me at my desk. Most of my friends know that at this point I’m sick of Alice is Missing. I ran it more than 20 times since its release and I feel like I’ve squeezed out all that can be siphoned from the box. While the expansion adds more cards, it didn’t add to my desire. I’m hoping to rekindle my affair with the silent RPG, but at this moment, I feel my spiritual experience with this game, however transforming and satisfying, is complete. I don’t think Yazeba will allow me freedom in the same way. There is too much that can be offered within its nearly 500 pages, including promises that replaying to be just as satisfying in new and unseen ways. I avoided purchasing this game for a long time (the only reason the book sits on my dining table at all is I’ve been asked to act as one of multiple facilitators for an upcoming irl campaign at my local game store), I think my avoidance stems from an underlying knowledge of what I might become with this book in my life. My fate is still currently unknown but as I await the inevitable, I’ll extend my recommendation:
In the book, Yazeba sold her heart in exchange for an extradimensional bed and breakfast, a place where there is always room for everyone and the possibilities that exist within the space are endless. If you’re someone who has always secretly wished to sell your heart for something that may truly match its value (or at least wondered what you’d do if presented with the opportunity). I would hesitantly suggest that this game may be right for you. For those that seek their own downfall, it can be found in a little bed and breakfast where the cook is a frog and a young girl sleeps on top of the dryer.