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Welcome to Desert Bluffs: original longform sandbox MOTW mystery
You've had a phone call. Raj Patel is dying in a small desert town in Arizona. He wants you there, to tell you about something left unfinished.
About the adventure
Welcome to Desert Bluffs (Monster of the Week) 🔎 A Longform, Narrative-Rich, Sandbox Mystery Welcome to Desert Bluffs, a small town hiding big secrets. This isn’t just a monster hunt—it’s a living, breathing mystery where your choices shape the story. 🕵️♂️ What to Expect: Steady pacing with a learner friendly team who have just come together to start deciphering what Desert Bluffs is hiding. Plenty of scope for new characters to join and be welcome. A Deep Sandbox Mystery – 20+ locations, 100+ NPCs, and no set path. The mystery unfolds how you decide. Heavy Roleplay & Storytelling – As players, you’ll help craft a narrative reminiscent of a season-long TV show. This game is more roleplay than roll-play. Freedom of Investigation – Clues are scattered throughout the town, but where and how you look is up to you. Exceptional Roleplay Rewards – Play well, and you may earn Luck point rewards. 🎭 Game Details: System: Monster of the Week (Standard Rules) Platform: Discord (Theatre of the Mind) Schedule: Every other Tuesday, 9 PM – 12 AM UK time. Seats: 6 total (game has started but still plenty of time for new characters to join and have lots to do). Safety Tools: Pre-game safety checklist, skip/rewind/pause mechanics, and an open-door policy This is an original play-tested campaign, written and refined to deliver a compelling mystery. If you love collaborative storytelling, investigation, and a town full of secrets, then Desert Bluffs is waiting for you. 🔗 Join Now!
Game style
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
2 years on StartPlaying
6 games hosted
Highly rated for: Creativity, Sets the Mood, Inclusive
About me
Hello there. I’m Suse, and I’m here to guide you through worlds where the weird and wonderful collide. For more than 25 years – one does never ask a lady her age – through character sheets untold and game systems unnumbered, I have played and GM’d my way here to the StartPlaying portal to now share some of those worlds with you. Roll sanity checks for me in Delta Green, indulge me as to how your ogre sous chef wishes to cook up a storm in Troika!, or roll +Cool in Monster of the Week for your Mundane to Act Under Pressure after I’ve made a Hard Move against them. I’m a ‘yes, and’ kind of ref with a dash of ‘rule of cool’. I believe the best stories are those we tell together, where your wild ideas are celebrated and your characters truly shine in their spotlight, in a safe and welcoming environment. Who will you play at my table?
View Profile →Reviews (2)
Proficiencies
Players say this GM is great at:
Creativity
Sets the Mood
Inclusive
Suse is a fantastic GM. She did a thorough and streamlined session 0, had clearly put in a tonne of work in preparation, and had us onboarded and ready to go smoothly and easily. Now that we have begun the game proper, the story is interesting; the atmosphere is thrilling; the use of art, music, and effects is impressive without being distracting; and the overall experience has been incredible. I cannot recommend Suse' games enough - a wonderful experience all-around!
So far only just on session zero, so a lot of it was the initial setup but Suse was very good, she ran through and clearly described how everything was going to work, she talked through rules, code of conduct and checked in with everyone with a survey on any potential trigger subjects. She worked with us all both in public and in private channels to help us finish off our characters, their back stories and individual hooks into the game. This gave us some time for all the players to get to know each other as well as to understand the game. Because she gave us our hooks and so forth individually, once everyone was setup and we started to play, we were able unveil our characters to each other so there is still a fair amount of mystery about them, so you get the joy of that slow reveal. Not only that but she had prepared background music to set the tone, and materials showing us the places and the NPC characters that we were meeting and a map of the town, but she only revealed these to us as we encountered each of the places and people. Overall very happy with the story, and excited to see where it's going!
Character creation
Creating your character
Players will have access to available character playbooks as soon as they join the Discord server. Choices will be confirmed and posted to Discord using form fillable PDFs during session zero. Starting level characters only. Stats are chosen by player from those available on the playbook. Welcome to Desert Bluffs is an entirely original mystery. Players are welcome to read the main rules if they have them prior to the game starting, all core mechanics will be provided on the Discord server as a memory aid.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Players will need a stable internet connection, a relatively quiet place to play from, and a Discord account. Invites to the Discord server we will use in play will be sent when you've signed up. You do not need a webcam, but a microphone/headset is very useful to reduce background noise. We use form fillable PDFs for character sheets. All core mechanics of the game system will be provided on the Discord server as a memory aid.
What Suse brings to the table
I’m a ‘yes, and’ kind of ref with a dash of ‘rule of cool’. I believe the best stories are those we tell together, where your wild ideas are celebrated and your characters truly shine in their spotlight, in a safe and welcoming environment. You can expect plenty of room to tell your own part of the collective story and an equal share of the spotlight.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Microphone
Computer
Platforms used
Safety
How Suse creates a safe table
Players have access to their own private Discord server. Safety information and safety checklist which all players must contribute to before play is available as soon as players join the server. This will be talked through during session zero in conjunction with character creation. During play we will have a few minutes at the beginning of each session to get comfortable before play and a few minutes for debrief at the end. A scheduled break halfway provides decompression space. Players may ask to skip, rewind, or fast forward to avoid points of discomfort that come up in game session (verbally or by message on Discord), and there is an open door policy (any player may step away without notice without prejudice). The Keeper will check in for bleed during play during particularly intense moments.