Bath Imaginable

I have a lot of opinions but that doesn’t mean I’m a good critic. I think if you want to know whether you might like Public Access, you need to watch this video by Quinns Quest. You probably already have.

I agree with many of Quinns’s takes on the game, and the Brindlewood Bay mystery engine as a whole (which I already wrote about, here), so I’ll just get right to my aforementioned opinions.

It does at times feel like the designer is handing you his personal game notes and saying “you figure it out,” but that is also what is truly so good about it. If you put your faith in the system and allow yourself to be as surprised as the players, you’re going to have a good time.

I had to change the way I thought about running RPGs. I realized, I don’t need a map of the house on Escondido Street to have a really chilling horror scene take place there. With the right clues and the right attitude amongst the players, the scenes just flowed.

And of course… the notes that Cordova has handed you are airtight; modular clues, each of them chilling in their specificity and a number of flavorful vignettes at your fingertips let you riff effortlessly while staying in the moment with your friends.

Still, I felt myself missing my locations’ based adventures over scenes’ based improvised play. I loved being a player in Brindlewood Bay, but as the Keeper in Public Access I often missed what good environmental storytelling has to offer when every clue is in its most plausible home.

Another major difference between the locations-based, more OSR-style games I’m used to is that Public Access has a very rigid play structure. It doesn’t have many rules; you’re almost always just rolling 2d6 and adding a modifier, hoping for a high result, but the day/night phases, the way that watching a TV Odyssey tape is meant to be its own, structured mini-game, and the rules around the inventory items in your corner of the house all compound to strip away the immersion of exploring a ~real place~ in favor of collaboratively constructing scenes.

In other words, the roleplay feels less like being an actor immersed in a character and more like being a showrunner in a writer’s room. Your mileage will vary.

But then I played my sixth session, and something clicked into place…

Public Access (Returning Series)

(1) Pilot/the House on Escondido Street. In the summer of 2004, three young adults—Stefani Oakes, Erika “Spud” Serrano, and Timothy “Skywalker”—rent a house on Rodenbecker Street in Deep Lake, New Mexico. Calling themselves the “Latchkey Kids,” they investigate TV Odyssey, a defunct public access studio from their childhood that the rest of the town insists never existed. When an old friend, Casey Wilcox, drops by with stories about the Rappaports—a family that vanished from their home on Escondido Street—the group investigates the abandoned property. There, they contend with supernatural threats and discover a horrifying connection to TV Odyssey, ending the night with an unexpected visit from the local police.

Needle Drop. “Toxic” by Britney Spears

(2) Greetings, Travelers. The Latchkey Kids are pulled into a local crisis when Sheriff Bill Hanscom enlists their help to find Amelia, a missing teenager who recently lived on Rodenbecker Street. Their investigation leads them to Serpents and Sepulchers, an underground table-top roleplaying game linked to historical disappearances in Deep Lake. As the mystery deepens, Stefani revisits her old campsite at Pine Rock Ridge and uncovers urban legends about the “Deep Lake Lurker,” while Spud seeks spiritual aid from Father Lopez to cleanse the Escondido Street house. Meanwhile, Timothy makes a dangerous decision to watch a newly recovered TV Odyssey tape alone. The Latchkey Kids’ search for Amelia leads them to a late

Needle Drops. “Cute Without the ‘E’ (Cut From the Team)” by Taking Back Sunday, “Ocean Breathes Salty” by Modest Mouse

(3) The Whisper. Following a chaotic late-night confrontation with a local cult known as the Black Leaf Circle, the Latchkey Kids scramble to cover their tracks. A power outage on Rodenbecker Street leaves Spud home alone to face an eccentric electrician and the haunting memories of “The Whisper”—a psychological supernatural phenomenon that tore her family apart years ago. Timothy encounters an enigmatic figure known as the Big Man, who offers a cryptic warning about an imminent threat at the lake. Racing against time, the group heads to Pine Rock Ridge to save a camp counselor from the shifting dangers of the Deep Lake Lurker, only for the environment to turn deadly.

Needle Drop. “Take It Easy (Love Nothing)” by Bright Eyes

(4) Deep Lake. In the immediate aftermath of the lake incident, the Latchkey Kids scramble to find a way to break the regional curse of the Deep Lake Lurker. Uncovering hidden diaries and anomalous coordinates left by a mysterious benefactor, the group begins to piece together the true identities of the people running the Black Leaf Circle. While Spud and Timothy launch a raid on the cult’s headquarters, Stefani finds herself caught in a deceptive trap out in the New Mexico desert. The three friends must reunite to face the ancient, predatory force behind the town’s disappearances, resulting in a traumatic confrontation that changes two of the Latchkey Kids forever.

Needle Drops. “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Electric Light Orchestra, “Mad World” by Gary Jules, Michael Andrews

(5) Starlight Kingdom. While dealing with intense police scrutiny from Sheriff Hanscom regarding the recent violence in Deep Lake, the group attempts a dangerous cleansing ritual to finally put the Deep Lake Lurker’s restless spirits to rest. Seeking a distraction, Casey Wilcox invites Stefani on a date to Starlight Kingdom, an abandoned local theme park. Convinced the park is tied to the broader TV Odyssey mystery, the entire group tags along. After interacting with eccentric locals and consuming a strange psychoactive beverage, the Latchkey Kids take a ride on a defunct attraction, unlocking a terrifying ability to decipher the supernatural forces surrounding them.

Needle Drops. “Clumsy” by Our Lady Peace

(6) Los Ojos. Father Lopez recruits Spud to help him investigate a series of gruesome animal attacks around the county. The two search a local cave system and discover the nest of a local cryptid, the Deep Lake Devils. The hunt takes a deeply personal turn for Father Lopez. Meanwhile, Timothy and Stefani go to the Playa Morado housing development to find the man-made source of the Whisper. Their meddling leads them to an underground data bank and an encounter with the Big Man. After the data is destroyed, Timothy and Stefani watch a TV Odyssey tape at home. Spud stays out late to help save a trapped spelunker, recruiting the help of an eccentric, thrill-seeking rancher named Glenn. The next morning, Stefani learns that a childhood friend might be in danger.

Needle Drops. “High and Dry” by Radiohead, “Crash into Me” by Dave Matthews Band

Epiphany

If you’d asked me at Session 4, I would have said Public Access was a fascinating experiment that just wasn’t for me. I missed my personal joy of OSR-style prep–keying rooms, the objective truth of a dungeon map, the feeling of players discovering a world I had crafted like a creepy little dollhouse. At times, the ~writer’s room~ vibe felt like a compromise, trading deep character immersion for collaborative screenplay writing.

But now, something has shifted. In an episode we had Father Lopez and Spud hunting cryptids in the caves, Timothy and Stefani breaking into a corporate data bank, the sudden, weird appearance of a thrill-seeking rancher named Glenn–it started to feel like a real TV show, with weird highs and weird lows (think Supernatural or Buffy). I stopped trying to force the game to be a traditional mystery with a neat, pre-planned solution, and just let the chaotic, nostalgic, 2004-era weirdness wash over us.

And that, I think, is the point of sharing this mid-season reflection: you have to unlearn your old GM habits to let this engine work its magic.

If you try to fight the structure, or if you spend your prep time wishing you were running a hex-crawl, you’ll miss the emergent horror TV vibe this game is designed to create. But once you surrender to the ~showrunner mindset~ the payoff is incredibly rewarding.

We are more than halfway through the campaign, I plan to finish it before the end of summer. The tapes are spinning, the Latchkey Kids are in deep, and for the first time, I am genuinely dying to see how this weird, terrifying story will end.