Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast

by Jay Dragon, M. Veselak, Cibby Acosta

Our story begins in a sprawling old house outside time and space, where it’s always September 15th and there’s always room for a new visitor. A teen girl sits on the windowsill, reading a well-worn paperback and listening to the splashy-crashy rain come down. She's alone in the world, but soon enough the strangers who reside here will become her closest friends, family, and mentors.

If you love slice-of-life fantasy, queer found family, and cutting-edge game mechanics, then read on!

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is many things. It’s a bed and breakfast, of course, but it’s also this book. And this book is a book, of course, but it’s also a role-playing game—the sort of game we can play with our friends around a table, or on a voice call while hanging out, or even very, very slowly by mail.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy

469 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Jesper · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When we were little, we were taught that a story is a sequence of events with a beginning, middle and end. But that's not how all stories work: some loop around on themselves, some are told out of sequence, and some never end."

This is a role-playing game unlike any other you've seen. Its existence feels magical, impossible even. It defies all common sense of how these games are supposed to work. It's cozy. It's queer. It's silly. It's deep. And I am all here for it.

So what *is* this game like, really? It's a "slice-of-life legacy tabletop role-playing game about a found family and their magical home." It revolves not around heroic deeds like your typical RPG but instead around small everyday moments. Each session you choose one chapter from the book to play as a group, and each chapter (48 in total) has its own simple but unique rules. You don't create your own character but choose each session one of the residents or guests of the B&B to play. After each session you get stickers to place in the book which can unlock new characters and chapters.

The characters range from an insecure teenager to a knight-turned-frog who is now a cook, and from a rambunctious demon child to the heartless witch Yazeba herself. Each of them has their own personality and their own options for growth. There are also a TON of guests each with their own personality so not creating your own feels like a liberation rather than a constraint. But the real highlight are all the chapters which come with their own story, their own rules (yes, really), and their own rewards. I should also mention that the book has a number of secret, unnumbered pages with additional backstories and chapters, as well as a separate "forbidden envelope" with even more secrets.

Honestly the thing I like most about this game is how easy it makes everything. There's no need to do any preparations, to come up with your own characters, or to count squares on a grid. You just read the opening text, pick a chapter, pick characters, and you're already playing. Yet at the same time the progression - both on a global level by unlocking new chapters and guests and on an individual level by making progress on the resident's paths - makes the game feel epic in a way I thought wasn't possible for a silly rules-light RPG like this.

I believe I will be playing this game for a very long time.

[Courtney Cullen]

I'm reserving judgement on this one until I actually play the game, but it seems very promising for a particular kind of playstyle. I am a bit nervous about the complete absence of any cohesive rules though.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This game sets a new standard for roleplaying games.

I can't wait to play it.