Author Topic: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers  (Read 14868 times)

Offline jeditigger

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2015, 12:17:29 AM »
Hey, out of interest, did you grab the updated PDF that was posted on 3/18?

http://www.evilhat.com/home/paranet-papers-pdf-updated/
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #16 on: April 21, 2015, 05:50:52 AM »
Not until now. I'm doing this read-through with the original PDF.

I thought about getting the updated one when I first heard about it, but it seemed the changes were minor so I decided to go ahead with the original. Upside is it's consistent, downside is there are a few more typos.

Anyway, now for Goes Bump. The final chapter.

Good margin-humour here.

There's a spacing error in Ancient Mai's Lore skill. Also, her notes say that she can casually control 6 shifts in elements she doesn't specialize in...but she's specialized in every element she can use.

Maybe I should revise my Bob stats to include the Sight or some Supernatural Senses.

I like Butters' I Have Just The Thing stunt. I may have to steal it. Some of this other stunts look rather narrow though.

A little uncertain about Molly's "Spell" power option. It's an interesting idea, and I've tried making something similar myself, but I think it might be exploitable.

This is more of a general comment, but it kinda bugs me how anti-optimized the canon characters are. Seems to me like the Dresden Files Role-Playing Game should encourage playing characters similar to the people in the Dresden Files novels. But in practice, being like Harry means wasting lots of Refresh...so the system discourages it pretty strongly.

While I'm on the subject of general comments, I'm liking the non-mechanical stuff here. The writeups are generally informative and interesting. Aspects are pretty solid too.

Wait, they're letting people Declare enchanted items mid-session? It's like they think Wizards are underpowered or something. Also, Harry's bear buckle and unicorn hair rope don't actually follow the rules. Can't say I approve of this nonsense.

I'm not very impressed by the claim that it would be a terrible thing if wizards tried to improve society. Generally speaking, people who try to make the world better make the world better. Heroism works.

Huh, the Gatekeeper looks nothing like I imagined him.

"We don’t really want to speculate on what a -100 refresh character might look like (and you shouldn’t either)"...sez you. I wrote up a -100 Refresh character a while ago, and I'm still satisfied with those stats. If Scion ever shows up in either of the Worm games I'm in, I'd be happy to see that character sheet used.

The plot device section is reasonably well-done even though the philosophy behind it is silly. Interestingly, the quality of the section shows the silliness of the philosophy pretty well; if you follow its advice, a plot device basically becomes a regular character with very high stats. Which is exactly what it should be...

I really think Listens To Wind should have the Doctor stunt. His description specifically notes multiple medical degrees! Also there's a spacing error in his Discipline. And I'm not sure whether these stats are up to the challenge of fighting that skinwalker...but whatever, the skinwalker stats are bad anyway.

I think Martin's a bit understatted. His crazy triple-agent gambit indicated some serious skill at manipulation, and he seemed to be well-connected in the Fellowship. Give him some stunts, I say.

Spacing errors in Ebenezar's Conviction and Discipline. And the costing on his staff is messed up.

Nice to see that they revised Sacred Guardian. Shame they didn't do the same with The Bark. Also, I think Unity of Senses is redundant with those Supernatural Senses.

"In fact, why do I even need to be in your game?" You tell 'em, Murphy.

Like Martin, Peabody could use a stunt or two to represent his mundane skills.

Does Thomas really deserve Fantastic Resources?

Susan is missing a Catch for her Recovery.

Not sure why Sanya has Fantastic Endurance. Stamina isn't really his main thing, is it?

Also not sure why anyone would find Harry killing Slate hard to believe. Morally, I'd say killing Slate is considerably better than killing a lot of supernatural monsters.

I wonder if that Terry Pratchett line predates the man's death.

I think Binder deserves better skills. He's a reasonably competent guy. Kind of a shame that they didn't include minion rules for him, but I can see why they didn't. Minions are hard to make rules for.

I don't think Warden Chandler's specialization pyramid works. He's got four +2s and only two +1s on his evocation.

Kind of odd that guys like Harry and Morgan have no Mental Toughness, given how many newly-statted characters have it. But I guess that's unavoidable when you're writing the rules as you go along.

Christos might deserve some political stunts...but maybe this is just my own stunt-happiness talking.

Missing period at the end of the margin note on page 348.

Father Roarke suffers no penalties due to range...does this game even have range penalties? Also, guy probably deserves better Contacts.

Stevie D's notes say that he has Good defence, but I don't think that's true. Guy's got Mediocre or Average Athletics, after all.

Those new Power options for Flesh Mask are just terribly written. Vulnerability to sunlight is a matter of compels and Catches...so if you want to change it, change Aspects and Catches. Cover and Shelter are a bad idea executed badly.

"Obviously, the energy required for such a spell is massive and its particulars can’t really be statted in game terms." Not so! I statted it up a while ago, it wasn't that hard.

"Psychomancy" is misspelled in the Baroness Leblanc's statblock.

"But really, why would you bother?" I think this line belongs in the little blue box to the left.

There are some minor errors in Mag's statblock. Superhuman Mental Toughness should be Supernatural Mental Toughness, he has only two Evocation elements before his Sponsored Magic is taken into account, and the description of his staff says "offensive" once and "offense" once. The asymmetry bugs me.

On a related note, why is "Control" bolded in all these thaumaturgy specialization lists?

There's an extra space above Marcy's high concept. And her notes don't perfectly align with the description of her beast form skills, but honestly some complaints are too pedantic even for me. So I won't go into detail.

Nothing has "Superhuman Strength" and "Inhuman Reflexes", which aren't actually things. His notes get his initiative wrong and have a page XX error.

Interesting that Arianna turned herself white to talk to the White Council. Are they a bunch of racists? That aside, I don't think she deserves a statblock this powerful. I mean...Mythic Strength and (two kinds of) Toughness? Really? Two Epic Skills and a Legendary? I don't think she was that powerful. Also there's a page XX error and some skill spacing issues. And her mental and hunger tracks should have two extra mild consequences, not one.

The Mythic Recovery and Concession sidebar is sensible, but doesn't go far enough. Inhuman and Supernatural Recovery have similar issues. And even without Recovery, having concessions pay FP is kind of a silly rule.

"Marcone even set Maria"...I think "set" should maybe be "sent" here, but I'm not sure.

I like the Fully Auto Florentine stunt.

I think making Tilly a mortal was a good call. I could see this guy as a PC.

"Well, it’s more of a reference book. People don’t usually read it from cover to cover…" I don't know why I find it funny to read this after doing exactly that, but I do.

"Just seems odd for it to end so abruptly." Same goes for this thread, actually. So I'll make a wrap-up post after this one.

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #17 on: April 21, 2015, 06:08:46 AM »
Well, I'm done. Not sure how productive this was; when I write down my thoughts as I go, it really emphasizes my nitpickiness. And that's not a trait that needs much emphasis.

Anyway, overall I'm fairly happy with the book. But not thrilled.

There's some great setting material here and some great adventure ideas. The writing is generally solid, and it's fun to read. Thing is, the crunch is a mixed bag. I feel like the people writing this didn't really have the best grasp of the system's weak points. And there are quite a few minor errors here and there that could've been caught in editing.

I wish I hadn't been so busy recently, because if I had had the time to do this whole read-through in a day or two I could've caught a lot of stuff that ended up going to print. Ah well.

Hey, jeditigger. Is there some way I can apply to be a proofreader or a beta tester or something?

Because I think I could've improved the editing (and maybe also mechanical rigor) of this book if I had gotten an earlier look at it, and I'd like the chance to do just that if Evil Hat puts out another DFRPG book any time soon.

Offline jeditigger

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #18 on: April 22, 2015, 01:45:34 AM »
Hey, jeditigger. Is there some way I can apply to be a proofreader or a beta tester or something?

Because I think I could've improved the editing (and maybe also mechanical rigor) of this book if I had gotten an earlier look at it, and I'd like the chance to do just that if Evil Hat puts out another DFRPG book any time soon.

Well, I'm not a PM; I'm just a creative monkey on the EHP team who lends a hand with the other tasks when needed. :) But you can check the Evil Hat site for when Fred and company mention needing help. And I know fresh rounds of testing are about to happen on some games. :)
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Offline vultur

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #19 on: April 23, 2015, 03:06:55 AM »
I think they're overselling the Lords of the Outer Night here. Harry and company aren't much stronger than a Submerged group, and they beat those guys. Sure, they had help, but so did the Lords. That aside, the advice to run is bad given how Speed and spellcasting work. Better to surrender and try talking.

Eh, I'd argue that Harry, Sanya & Murphy at least are well above Submerged (probably ~17 base Refresh/Fantastic skill cap) by Changes, and all three plus Susan are drawing on quite a bit of Sponsor Debt and/or Temporary Powers in that fight.

Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #20 on: April 23, 2015, 03:38:16 AM »
They are indeed well above Submerged, but they've spent their Refresh and skill points in suboptimal ways. So they're not actually much more powerful than sensibly-built Submerged characters.

Well, I'm not a PM; I'm just a creative monkey on the EHP team who lends a hand with the other tasks when needed. :) But you can check the Evil Hat site for when Fred and company mention needing help. And I know fresh rounds of testing are about to happen on some games. :)

Alright, noted. I'm not so keen on helping with other Evil Hat games, though; this is the only one I'm really into.

Fred's note on the updated version says "Any errors that remain will have to go into an errata file."

Is there a special place for me to submit the other errors I've found? Or should I just email them over?

Offline jeditigger

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #21 on: April 24, 2015, 01:42:56 AM »
Already on it. But thank you!
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Offline zakmo86

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #22 on: April 24, 2015, 01:39:16 PM »
Before I bought the book, I thought @santaphrax's critique was a little harsh. Since buying it, I have to almost agree with most of the things he's saying. The book feels rushed and like the creators lost excitement about it before they began (I can imagine creative meetings going something like, "We'll start on our part once the art starts coming in. I know we've been waiting, but there's not a lot we can do until we have the go ahead from legal and approval on the art. The fans will just have to deal. Just check email the designer to remind them. Now shhh; Kickstarter."). The best: the new settings/cities. The characters and settings are really cool and it's sort of nice/very interesting to see all the variety.

The worst part: if you're sensitive to editing and consistency in layout, this book will drive you nuts. The stat blocks don't always match. This is minor for me, but some people will find it very annoying. The worst part for me is the "clarifications" on spellcasting and new powers. After my first perusal, and even now after reading and re-reading, I have more questions than answers. My impression is that the creators got fed up with opinionated players posting about rules and criticism from the most avid fans of the game (which should be a good thing; people really care about the universe and game setting and that's why they criticize even if we might sound like trolls). It's like the creators wanted to just put something out so people would shut up about it. This is most clear in the stat blocks for some of the characters from the book. Binder for example: he has one power that costs an insane amount of Refresh. It was like someone said, "Our deadline was a year ago, just throw some $*i! skills in, make it sponsored magic (or call them Plot Level NPCs), and let it fly. We've got to get back to our Kickstarter."

Even the tone of the writing sounds like someone speaking to an audience they're annoyed with in later sections.

Maybe my expectations were too high because Your Story and Our World were so good and because Fate as a system is my favorite system. I was left feeling a little disappointed, though.

Offline potestas

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #23 on: April 25, 2015, 09:37:19 PM »
i love the new book I love the clairifications especially the ability to use spells to duplicate powers. Its an excellent addition and I look forward to more...probably in a while. Thank you

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Offline jeditigger

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #24 on: April 25, 2015, 10:25:45 PM »
Just speaking for myself, I appreciate constructive feedback of any variety, because it helps me do better next time. :)
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Offline Sanctaphrax

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #25 on: April 26, 2015, 04:44:54 AM »
Before I bought the book, I thought @santaphrax's critique was a little harsh. Since buying it, I have to almost agree with most of the things he's saying.

Thanks. In an odd sort of way, that's high praise.

The book feels rushed and like the creators lost excitement about it before they began (I can imagine creative meetings going something like, "We'll start on our part once the art starts coming in. I know we've been waiting, but there's not a lot we can do until we have the go ahead from legal and approval on the art. The fans will just have to deal. Just check email the designer to remind them. Now shhh; Kickstarter.").

I dunno. It's possible that there was some rushing, but I think the main problem is just that Evil Hat doesn't do rigour very well.

Your Story and Evil Hat have many of the same problems as the Paranet Papers. For example, look at the example spells and magic items in Your Story. They frequently ignore the rules. And IIRC the version of Fate Core that went out before the fan-editing process was pretty messy.

Some people are really into numbers, game balance, and getting the crunch exactly right. I'm one of them. I'm not sure if anyone like that works at Evil Hat.

After my first perusal, and even now after reading and re-reading, I have more questions than answers. My impression is that the creators got fed up with opinionated players posting about rules and criticism from the most avid fans of the game (which should be a good thing; people really care about the universe and game setting and that's why they criticize even if we might sound like trolls).

If they were responding to opinionated players, it probably wasn't the ones around here. Because if they were responding to us, I think they would've explained how Feeding Dependency was intended to work. And some other stuff like that.

Offline zakmo86

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #26 on: April 26, 2015, 11:49:28 AM »
Just speaking for myself, I appreciate constructive feedback of any variety, because it helps me do better next time. :)

The book really did have some awesome sections; I particularly liked almost every piece of artwork (I think Evil Hat has some great art directors), the stories and characters in the new locations were really interesting, and some of the new rules were informative, if a little confusing.

Particularly the Spell power on Molly's write up that gives you a rebate on a Power (I think that's where it's at). Does anyone have clarification on how that's suppose to work? I guess the number one question I asked myself with the magic addendum was usually along the lines of, "Why would they make it work that way? It makes it worse, not better." It just sounded at times like the authors were thinking of a particular situation when writing things. Like they were irritated someone out there wouldn't understand their creative genius and they had boundaries-pushing greatness to work on instead wasting their time on clarifying something that was perfect the first time.

Offline jeditigger

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #27 on: April 26, 2015, 06:49:49 PM »
If they were responding to opinionated players, it probably wasn't the ones around here. Because if they were responding to us, I think they would've explained how Feeding Dependency was intended to work. And some other stuff like that.

Just to be sure, I want to say I'm speaking only for myself here. :)

I don't post here much - too busy with a full-time job and working on two other projects for EHP right now - but I like to read what's going on, see how people are using the games. I know other Evil Hatters are lurking, even more sporadically than me in posting. So we see the feedback, read the suggestions here and on other forums...just not everything will make it into a game for a variety of reasons. Jim's work is so flaming popular (Harry? Flaming? Get it?) that we could probably have two 2K tomes and just scratch the surface of what people want to see!

If you guy feel really passionate about helping out, keep an eye on evilhat.com's news to see when the next round of playtesting comes up.

:)
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Offline zakmo86

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #28 on: April 27, 2015, 02:16:33 AM »
Just to be sure, I want to say I'm speaking only for myself here. :)

I don't post here much - too busy with a full-time job and working on two other projects for EHP right now - but I like to read what's going on, see how people are using the games. I know other Evil Hatters are lurking, even more sporadically than me in posting. So we see the feedback, read the suggestions here and on other forums...just not everything will make it into a game for a variety of reasons. Jim's work is so flaming popular (Harry? Flaming? Get it?) that we could probably have two 2K tomes and just scratch the surface of what people want to see!

If you guy feel really passionate about helping out, keep an eye on evilhat.com's news to see when the next round of playtesting comes up.

:)


For the record, the people behind Evil Hat and all the people who work on the different products they put out are super talented. DFRPG is by far my favorite TTRPG out there, followed by anything else Fate. It's also the only game studio that I know anything about besides the guys behind that one the dungeon and fire breathing lizards game. When I got my hands on Fate, it was like a light shining down from the heavens pointing me home.

Z

Offline black omega

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Re: Where I Read: The Paranet Papers
« Reply #29 on: May 01, 2015, 04:44:41 PM »
I've just glanced over the finished product, I'll get around to really digging into it this weekend.  Las Vegas just doesn't click for me, I'm not quite sure why yet. I was surprised and pleased to see something on the Russian Revolution.  But I'm a history buff, I'm not sure how many groups will actually have use for this section.

I have to admit, after playing Fate Core for a bit, it's hard to go back to the skill set of Dresden.