B&B Nightmare is a highly experimental horror micro-wargame published as a zine. The game tasks players with surviving a horrific vacation stay at a haunted short-term rental property.
Game Overview and Objective
The Premise: You and your friends play as 1 to 4 vacationers checking into an internet-listed Bed & Breakfast.
The Goal: Instead of gaining points, your objective is to defeat the entities lurking inside to lower the property’s online review from a 5-star rating down to 0 stars.
The Victory: Once the rating hits zero stars, a deadbolt slides open, allowing the surviving vacationers to escape and win.
Core Mechanics & Rules
Dice Pool System: Players start with a shared pool of six-sided (d6) dice used for moving, investigating rooms, attacking, and defending. The pool shrinks as more players join the game.
No Smoking Rule: If you roll a higher frequency of ‘1’s than any other number during a turn, your vacationer breaks the property rules and takes immediate damage.
Procedural Nightmares: Every room contains hidden, procedurally generated monsters. Monsters have diverse stats (Attack, Defense, Wounds) and unique modifiers like Rage (dealing more damage as the B&B rating drops) or Lurk (staying pinned to their spawn location).
Ganging Up: If multiple nightmares trap a single vacationer, the player’s defense dice pool is penalized for each extra monster attacking them.
Components & Miniatures Required
The Zine Booklet: Contains the core rules and scenario generation charts.
The Terrain Layout: The game does not ship with built-in terrain boards. Players must provide a tabletop building miniature or map tiles containing at least 5 distinct rooms: a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.
Weapons Selection: At setup, vacationers choose from 5 unique weapon profiles, each granting different combat advantages.
