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Book Organization
I really, really wish I could reorganize this book. Finding what I want is about as big a pain as it can be with a decent index - which is to say that usually I just go to the index. Trusting my instincts and turning to it doesn't work. The book layout is poorly chosen; the index is excellent. (This is superior to the reverse, a crappy index and decent layout, which has been a White Wolf trademark for a long time, and is a known pain in the backside.)
It starts off really good; it's only in the system chapters that it breaks down.
At the start, you get a brief intro to the concept and history of the world. Then you get a long chapter leading you into the depths of the world, the world of the faerie, the world in which the fae are real, the world of Deliria - which is a place and a realm and a state of mind all at once, in ways that you really need to read the book for, since explaining them clearly would require text reproduction on the level of plagiarism. It is its explanation.
Then, you are introduced to the people and types of people of the game, and the style of the game. Heroes and faerie tales. You've already got the tone - you can't have read the setting chapter and not picked it up - but here it's fleshed out and you're given reminders to guide you to the path that will let you achieve that tone, if you're not used to the tropes of faerie tales. You are given character motifs and sample characters and bits of world flavor that are just gorgeous.
Then you move on to the faerie again, this time in more focus as characters rather than in general terms of setting. They are given the same detailed and caring treatment as the mortal characters are, albeit the tone of their section is necessarily - well, more touched by what they are. It's masterfully done, too.
Then you get a section on running a story, on how to put the thing together. Still good here.
Then you get to 'challenge and chance'. This chapter discusses the use of those cards and dice in resolving conflicts. Yes, you're discussing how to resolve things based on your stats before you've discussed your stats. No, I don't know why. This is the first jarring note, and it's a big one. Lots of big charts exampling different challenge levels. This chapter would likely be fine - it's just in the wrong spot. It's true you MAY want to read such things before creating your first character, but if you haven't read character creation yet, you miss pieces of them. Because of its placement, and my desire to see the character rules, I skipped this chapter on the first read-through. And I still haven't read it in its entirety. It's almost overwhelming; for what really is a fairly simple system in play (I played it!), it's got a pretty large systems chapter. I suspect it would boil down to something smaller and be easy to keep track of once read...but I don't know that, not yet, because I haven't read it. Nor do I intend to do so just now.
After that, you get to character creation. My one complaint is detailed under stats above; otherwise, we're good here, as far as content. It gives you the overview system first, then the example, then the detailed descriptions of each trait. Well...ALMOST. They ALMOST did this right. You get to the end of the chapter, and you have seen the accords mentioned, but you have not seen any accords. You turn the page (only half-expecting them, since logically they'd be listed by the legacies, before the wyrds) and find yourself in 'Character Growth'.
Character Growth discusses spending XP, acquiring XP, and the way change really works, not just by points but in the world.
Then chapter 7, pocket full of miracles. Herein is discussed the casting of spells and, after they've given you the system, they will finally give you the accords you might buy. These, folks, belonged BACK IN CHARACTER CREATION. Not here. The system, yes, belongs here. The one-page-per-accord writeups of the accords, belonged back with the other stuff you can buy. Where THEY were written up. People triyng to create characters will reflexively look for all of that in one place - and it simply isn't there. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure what cutesy idea made putting the writeups of the accords with the how-to important; by that light, the vocational aspects for the martial vocation should be in the section on resolving combat. (But thank you for not putting them there. Now, can we get the accord descriptions back into character creation, please?)
Conclusion
I really like the game. I really, really do. The flaws I see are by and large flaws of presentation (such as the order of the sections toward the back of the book, or the favor-point cost of things requiring a guessing game or a dissection of the example - at least the example is detailed enough to be sure you have it right!). The rest are addressable with optional rules or house rules. The setting is incredible.
There's a lot of potential here, and they've mostly lived up to it. Not quite completely, but mostly. That's a lot more than many games do.
But I'd still like to see a second printing some day, that fixes some of the flaws of clarity, and if we're lucky flaws of order. And the occasional typographical snafu - any good reprint worth its name will introduce new typographical errors, so it's necessary to eject the old ones if you don't want them to stage a coup. (I've only spotted two so far, though. One was where a dash should have been, and instead a few random letters including a couple'a f's were added to the end of the word before it; the other had a degree sign where a sentence ended, and I'm still not quite sure which piece of punctuation was supposed to end the sentence in question.)
Meanwhile...I gotta figure out the best way to get my Deliria fix, because playing this once a year at GenCon is not frequent enough.
I really, really wish I could reorganize this book. Finding what I want is about as big a pain as it can be with a decent index - which is to say that usually I just go to the index. Trusting my instincts and turning to it doesn't work. The book layout is poorly chosen; the index is excellent. (This is superior to the reverse, a crappy index and decent layout, which has been a White Wolf trademark for a long time, and is a known pain in the backside.)
It starts off really good; it's only in the system chapters that it breaks down.
At the start, you get a brief intro to the concept and history of the world. Then you get a long chapter leading you into the depths of the world, the world of the faerie, the world in which the fae are real, the world of Deliria - which is a place and a realm and a state of mind all at once, in ways that you really need to read the book for, since explaining them clearly would require text reproduction on the level of plagiarism. It is its explanation.
Then, you are introduced to the people and types of people of the game, and the style of the game. Heroes and faerie tales. You've already got the tone - you can't have read the setting chapter and not picked it up - but here it's fleshed out and you're given reminders to guide you to the path that will let you achieve that tone, if you're not used to the tropes of faerie tales. You are given character motifs and sample characters and bits of world flavor that are just gorgeous.
Then you move on to the faerie again, this time in more focus as characters rather than in general terms of setting. They are given the same detailed and caring treatment as the mortal characters are, albeit the tone of their section is necessarily - well, more touched by what they are. It's masterfully done, too.
Then you get a section on running a story, on how to put the thing together. Still good here.
Then you get to 'challenge and chance'. This chapter discusses the use of those cards and dice in resolving conflicts. Yes, you're discussing how to resolve things based on your stats before you've discussed your stats. No, I don't know why. This is the first jarring note, and it's a big one. Lots of big charts exampling different challenge levels. This chapter would likely be fine - it's just in the wrong spot. It's true you MAY want to read such things before creating your first character, but if you haven't read character creation yet, you miss pieces of them. Because of its placement, and my desire to see the character rules, I skipped this chapter on the first read-through. And I still haven't read it in its entirety. It's almost overwhelming; for what really is a fairly simple system in play (I played it!), it's got a pretty large systems chapter. I suspect it would boil down to something smaller and be easy to keep track of once read...but I don't know that, not yet, because I haven't read it. Nor do I intend to do so just now.
After that, you get to character creation. My one complaint is detailed under stats above; otherwise, we're good here, as far as content. It gives you the overview system first, then the example, then the detailed descriptions of each trait. Well...ALMOST. They ALMOST did this right. You get to the end of the chapter, and you have seen the accords mentioned, but you have not seen any accords. You turn the page (only half-expecting them, since logically they'd be listed by the legacies, before the wyrds) and find yourself in 'Character Growth'.
Character Growth discusses spending XP, acquiring XP, and the way change really works, not just by points but in the world.
Then chapter 7, pocket full of miracles. Herein is discussed the casting of spells and, after they've given you the system, they will finally give you the accords you might buy. These, folks, belonged BACK IN CHARACTER CREATION. Not here. The system, yes, belongs here. The one-page-per-accord writeups of the accords, belonged back with the other stuff you can buy. Where THEY were written up. People triyng to create characters will reflexively look for all of that in one place - and it simply isn't there. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure what cutesy idea made putting the writeups of the accords with the how-to important; by that light, the vocational aspects for the martial vocation should be in the section on resolving combat. (But thank you for not putting them there. Now, can we get the accord descriptions back into character creation, please?)
Conclusion
I really like the game. I really, really do. The flaws I see are by and large flaws of presentation (such as the order of the sections toward the back of the book, or the favor-point cost of things requiring a guessing game or a dissection of the example - at least the example is detailed enough to be sure you have it right!). The rest are addressable with optional rules or house rules. The setting is incredible.
There's a lot of potential here, and they've mostly lived up to it. Not quite completely, but mostly. That's a lot more than many games do.
But I'd still like to see a second printing some day, that fixes some of the flaws of clarity, and if we're lucky flaws of order. And the occasional typographical snafu - any good reprint worth its name will introduce new typographical errors, so it's necessary to eject the old ones if you don't want them to stage a coup. (I've only spotted two so far, though. One was where a dash should have been, and instead a few random letters including a couple'a f's were added to the end of the word before it; the other had a degree sign where a sentence ended, and I'm still not quite sure which piece of punctuation was supposed to end the sentence in question.)
Meanwhile...I gotta figure out the best way to get my Deliria fix, because playing this once a year at GenCon is not frequent enough.
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