As I continue my journey throughout the various games this world has to offer, I am continuously impressed by what I find out in the indie space. These games which a lot of people may not have even heard of, continue to amaze and impress with innovations. Some of these, as I talked about in my previous post, should be examined for continuous improvement of our Gamemastering skills. Brindlewood Bay offers enough that it can stand alone as something worthwhile to be examined. So today, let’s crack this nut open and talk about what a “Carved from the Brindlewood Bay system” looks like, why it’s impressive in its own right and what you can learn from its game design philosophies.

Before we can start lifting some ideas, first we need to understand how these systems work so we can dig into how to port them. Brindlewood Bay pioneered a few concepts (at least as far as my research goes). It is powered by the apocalypse, but don’t let that fool you. It has some amazing stuff to offer. The ones we are going to talk about are “Paint the Scene”, “Explain how X” and “Setting the Real Stakes”.

Paint the Scene

Whenever a new scene is established for the characters the GM lays out the basics of the scene. This is the breath and soul of the scene, enough to hopefully firmly establish it in the mind of the players, but every player is then asked to provide some amount of garnish.

How does it work in play

Whenever a new scene starts, each of the scenes have a line for the players to add notes too. It’s well established for what the scene should be before having lines added, but I will give you a few examples. We will keep to the Shadowrun theme.

Dante’s Inferno

The hippest club in Seattle is pumping tunes that cover the dangerous discussions that happen at the tables surrounding the dance floors. The fixer is late, but you don’t mind, the drinks are good and the music is nova.

Paint the Scene: Dante’s Inferno is a place where everyone can show off the newest and wildest fashions. What trends seem to have taken the streets by storm that are on full display here?

Cargo Container Meet Site

The cool air of the night and the smell of rusted metal, spilled oil and sea finds you at the docks. The meet is a quick one, such a little turn around puts you and your team on edge. You need to make this drop before the liquid nitrogen in the samples tank runs dry and you and your team are left with nothing but spoiled samples. The Johnson and his guards wait in an open cargo container, weapons drawn but not pointed.

Paint the Scene: This isn’t the first time this container has been used, what remains do the runners notice that shows not every negotiation here ended peacefully.

Corporate Lab Extraction Site

Cold stainless steel covers every part of this lab. Various lab equipment rests atop it looking well worn and used. In one corner of the lab is a synth-wood desk covered in papers and notes wedged in out of place.

Paint the Scene: The desk contains notes on various experiments carried out by the team here. What’s on the desk that shows that the extraction target has checked out of these experiments a long time ago?

Why is this important

Often whenever there are scenes with players not being active in them (such as when players are split up) the other players tend to mentally check out. This isn’t always a bad thing but if you want more buy-in from your players, allowing them to add these details gives them stakes in the scene instantly. It also gives the players something to grab onto in the scene if they are lacking some investment in the scene. Finally, it gives you extra flavor in every scene that you don’t have to write!

Explain How X

We have seen this pretty often in many kinds of D&D games, often when a player defeats a monster, the GM will ask something like, “How do you do it?”. Brindlewood Bay teaches that you can apply this to anything. It doesn’t really impact the end result, your player still failed or succeeded, but allowing them to explain WHY it happened the way it did adds some grounding in the scene.

How does it work in play

Whenever you want to add some extra zest to the scene or just on every major roll, you can ask your players how they achieve it or what they do to make this roll fail. It puts some cognitive load on your players while giving them freedom to add some pieces to the scene. It’s pretty simple to add into every scene, but we can do a few examples.

A player rolls a negotiation to convince a guard he should be here. The player rolls a failure, the GM then asks: “What did you say that tipped him off you aren’t who you say you are?”. It sets the outcome already, no wiggle room for someone to try to snake a change in the scene, but it gives them control over WHAT happened to bring that outcome.

A player rolls an electronics roll to crack a maglock and succeeds. The GM then asks, “This was easy for you, what about this kind of maglock made it so easy?”. This again, sets the outcome but allows for the player to set the details. Maybe this was the first kind of maglock they ever practiced on. Maybe it is notoriously cheap. Whatever the case, you now have a concrete detail in your story.

Why is this important

As with everything these rules bring together, this will bring players deeper into the game. It adds to a group story. This gives some ownership back to the players which in turn I’ve seen gives them a greater desire to tell a better story. Each detail that’s added makes every scene going forward that much richer and that much more “your table”.

Setting the Real Stakes before you roll

Roleplaying games are often at their greatest when tension between the scene and an upcoming roll can change the course of the game. This is always due to the table understanding what’s at stake for the upcoming roll. I think this is often undervalued or potentially just lost in the grind. I believe as well that all too often, we as GMs call for rolls for scene pieces or details that we should be awarding our players due to their characters being as skilled as they are. I think this is something we should also be doing a lot more of.

How does it work in play

Whenever a player is going to make a roll that feels important to the story or the session, take the time to establish the stakes before the dice hit the table. Often we make success or failure pretty bland — yes, the door opens and the players advance, or no, it doesn’t. But what if before that roll you said: “If you fail this, the guards on the floor above are going to hear it. You’ll have maybe thirty seconds before they’re on top of you.” Suddenly that electronics roll means something.

Do this for both directions. What does success look like? What does failure cost? It doesn’t have to be a long conversation — sometimes it’s one sentence — but that sentence does enormous work at the table. It transforms a dice roll from a mechanical speed bump into a moment the whole table leans into.

Here’s a Shadowrun example: a player is about to roll Stealth to slip past a patrolling guard. Before they roll, you say: “If this goes sideways, the whole building goes on alert and your extraction window closes for good.” Now everyone at the table is holding their breath. That’s the feeling we’re chasing.

Why is this important

Stakes give failure meaning and success weight. Without them, rolls become noise — just numbers that occasionally inconvenience the players. When everyone at the table understands what hangs in the balance, even a mundane roll becomes a story beat. It also keeps players from feeling blindsided when consequences arrive, because they already understood what was on the line.

This pairs beautifully with the other two techniques in this post. Paint the Scene puts players in the moment, Explain How X gives them ownership of the outcome, and Setting the Real Stakes makes them care before the outcome even happens. Together, they pull players away from passive observers and make them active co-authors of the story unfolding at your table.

Final Thoughts

Brindlewood Bay doesn’t just offer a fun mystery game — it offers a genuinely different way to think about the relationship between GM and player at the table. These three techniques cost you almost nothing to implement. You don’t need a different system, a different adventure, or a different group. You just need to start asking different questions at the right moments.

Give them a try at your next session. I think you’ll be surprised at how quickly your players start leaning in.

-D