The Paranet Papers

It’s been some time coming, but the new Dresden Files Roleplaying Game volume, The Paranet Papers, is more than worth the wait. I have to say that I am greatly in favour of publishers taking the time needed to put out such high-quality, meaty books as this. As with the first two volumes, the book is thick and colourful, 370-odd pages of full-colour illustrations and annotations. Not to mention the dense information.

The book takes the conceit of being a collection of information gathered by the Paranet ((An organization of minor practitioners in the Dresdenverse.)), and edited into RPG format by Will Borden ((Alpha of the Alphas, a crime-fighting werewolf band.)). As with the original books, the in-game rationale  is to get important information about the spooky bits of the universe out to the public under cover of a deniable RPG book.

This approach makes for a lot of flavourful fun in the book – there are notes from Will Borden, Waldo Butters, and Karrin Murphy discussing the information, illuminating and clarifying it. The authors have got the voices of these characters down to a tee, and it’s a lot of fun to read.

But what’s in the book?

Settings

There are five settings in the book, taking up about two-thirds of the page-count, and they do a lot to show the wide variety of settings you can use for the RPG. The range of different locations, time periods, and dimensions give you a ripe field of choices, but it also should serve to spark some ideas for your own settings.

Each of the entries is written up in about as much detail as Baltimore in Your Story – enough detail to hook in lots of story ideas for lots of different characters. There is also plenty of room for a gaming group to fill in, adding their own hooks and ideas. So, each is rich with ideas, while still allowing groups to customize it to fit their own tastes and preferences.

Las Vegas: The first setting is Las Vegas. The city is a precariously balanced place, where a network of competing interests are wrapped tight in a supernatural tangle. Unfortunately, the central bit of this tangle, the element that kept everything in balance, has recently gone away ((Yeah, I’m doing me best to not give too many spoilers.)), and the various factions are starting to spread their wings, expand their influence, and settle scores.

Las Vegas, as written, is all about hard moral choices. What sins will you commit in order to for good to triumph? When you understand the purpose that the corruption of Sin City serves, will you become complicit in the misery that is required to stave off destruction? I think it would be a fairly dark campaign, but as long as everyone’s on board with that, I also think it could be a very dramatic, intense game.

Russia: Specifically, Novgorod, in October 1918, just after the revolutions of 1917. There’s rich history ((And mythology.)) surrounding the revolutions and the aftermath, in addition to the folklore of Russia itself. The entry makes good use of both history and folklore, drawing in both Red and White Russian factions, along with Baba Yaga and Koschei ((I would point out actual historical figures, but honestly, I am not up on this era of history, and I can’t really identify which ones are real and which are made up.)).

This entry is a wonderful study of how to set a DFRPG campaign in a different time period. It shows how to pick the interesting bits of history to add to the game, how to leave things open-ended enough to fit in the PCs, and how to weave in the supernatural.

The setting is dark and paranoid, though it’s the sort of stoic, noble darkness of Russian literature ((Of course.)). It does have a range of options for play, from the noble revolutionaries to loyalists trying to undo – or just survive – the turning tide. And, of course, the supernatural set, who are not supposed to take sides, but still wind up at the mercy of mortal politics.

The Neverglades: A little, out of the way tourist town in Florida, Okeeokalee Bay has the mixed blessing of being near the Fountain of Youth. There’s an explanation for the fountain that fits very well into the Dresdenverse ((

Spoiler

It’s a fountain that acts as a conduit to a world of vital energy, probably Summer.

)). There’s also a wonderful assortment of quirky characters, notes on the manners and mores of rural Florida, and a couple of pretty nasty monsters.

The default assumption in DFRPG is that the campaign is set in a city. The Neverglades shows what setting a campaign in a rural area looks like. There’s even a note in the write-up about The Neverglades Twist: focusing on the Faces rather than the locations, and tracking how the PCs’ actions change relationships. Having grown up in a small town, I can vouch for the fact that the terrain of interpersonal relationships – friendships, feuds, grudges, debt, alliances – shape the community at least as much as the physical terrain.

A campaign set in the Neverglades can be lighter than the previous two entries, drawing on the quirky nature of the locale and NPCs. That’s not to say it needs to be a comedy game – the TV shows American Gothic and Twin Peaks shows the kind of more serious, intense story that can take place in small, quirky towns.

Oh, and also the Fomor are involved.

Las Tierras Rojas: The Red Lands, the parts of South and Central America (and parts of Mexico) that were formerly controlled by the Red Court Vampires ((Up until the events of Changes, of course.)). It’s written from the point of view of the surviving Order of St. Giles. In many ways, the area is sort-of post-apocalyptic, with the aftermath of the sudden and complete removal of the Red Court leaving the area in turmoil.

Again, the scope of the setting is larger than the usual assumption of a city. We’re talking an entire continent and part of another. That means the details the write-up focuses on a sort-of high-level look at the various factions, with less emphasis on individual places.

Aside from a post-apocalyptic feel, this setting also allows for high-intrigue kind of gaming, traveling the continent trying to deal with the things the Red Court left behind and those powers trying to move into the power vacuum.

The Ways Between: The Nevernever is the subject here. This is kind of a setting, and kind of a write-up on using the Nevernever for travel. It gives a framework for how to build a setting where the assumption is NOT that the PCs are set in one locale. There are suggestions on how to build a road-trip campaign, along with discussions of the kinds of themes and problems that might be central to the campaign and, of course, details on how to get around the Nevernever, and what you might find there.

The bulk of this chapter is made up of what are essentially building block encounters that you can string together to provide interesting things that happen in the Ways. Most have some crunchy stat blocks, along with some suggestion as to theme and threat for that particular item. Running through this is a set of sidebars that show how these elements can be strung together into The Faerie’s Bargain, a sample frame for the aforementioned road-trip campaign.

Of all the settings, this one offers the most opportunities to run a very classical-fantasy style of game, with questing and monsters and elves in a magical setting. Ties to the mundane ((Okay, more mundane.)) world let you set the dials on this where you like but, as they say, this dial goes up to 11.

Spellcasting

Okay. DFRPG is, in general, a fairly rules-light game. The big exception to this is the magic system ((Hence, my series of blog posts about how magic works in the game.)), and the two biggest problem areas in magic are Sponsored Magic and Thaumaturgy. The issue with Sponsored Magic is that the rules in Your Story don’t really have the precision and guidance that the other types of magic do. The issue with Thaumaturgy is that it’s complicated.

This section, running to a little more than 30 pages, do a lot to address these issues ((The chapter actually has TWO avenues for addressing the Thaumaturgy issue: a clarified explanation of the process, and a streamlined Thaumaturgy system that they call Cheer-Saving Thaumaturgy. It’s pretty awesome.)), as well as throwing in  bunch of neat Evocation tricks, some details on Soulfire, how to effectively use summoning, and the answer to the much-asked question of what sort of resistance do you face casting magic on yourself ((Official answer to this one is that you don’t resist the spell the same way an external target does, but there may be factors that increase your resistance above zero.)).

It’s a really crunchy chapter that makes running spellcasting characters a lot easier ((And more fun.)) for both the player and the GM.

Goes Bump

Goes Bump is a big section in Our World, and this is chapter updates and expands the material from that book. This brings things current with the short story Aftermath, which takes place almost immediately after the end of the pivotal novel Changes. So, that means more details where we have learned them in the novels and short stories, and brand new stat blocks for new creatures and whatnot introduced.

One of the nice bits I found here is a write-up on the Fomor, who we haven’t seen a lot of even up to the current stories. It doesn’t have a lot of solid information beyond what’s in the stories, but it does have some interesting speculation that may or may not be borne out in future case files.

Who’s Who

This expands the Who’s Who section of Our World in the same way the Goes Bump section does. Updates to a number of main characters, as well as stat blocks and write-ups for characters introduced in the newer stories.

Now, in my campaigns, I never used the characters from the books, but I still got a lot of use from this section, just changing names and sometimes tweaking a few stats. So, even if you’re not running a campaign where the canon characters appear, the Who’s Who section has a lot to offer you. Even just swiping the various stunts for the PCs to use makes things easier.

So?

Couple of disclaimers. First of all, I seem to have a credit in the book, in the Beta Review Squad. I honestly don’t remember what I might have done for this book to rate that, but I’ll take the ego boost. Second, the fine folks at Evil Hat Productions offered me a free copy of the book. I didn’t accept, but only because I had already preordered it. I love these books, I love Evil Hat, and I don’t mind giving them my money to make more of these books.

That may mean to some that I’m biased, and I’ll admit that I am predisposed to look fondly on this book. But I honestly try not to let that sway me. Still, better to be up front about this.

You don’t need this book. The two main books give you everything you need for all the DFRPG gaming you could ever want. That said, you want this book.  It provides a whole lot of new ideas for your game, more options, clarification, and raw materials to dismantle and reassemble for your own game.

And it’s a beautiful book, full of great art and fun design. It’s fun to read, and fun to look at, and just looks great on your shelf or coffee table.

So, yeah. You don’t need this book but, if you’re a fan of the game, you really, really want it. It’ll make everything better.