I’m currently making my way through Phil Brucato’s Deliria, and I have mixed feelings. I should mention, at this point, that I’m not finished with the book, though I am in chapter 6 of 7. The first three chapters are all setting and atmosphere, and they’re completely awesome. Brocato uses a lyrical style throughout that’s almost conversational, almost poetical, and very, very appealing. The ideas presented are really cool; the whole thing is basically a presentation of faerie tales in modern times, talking about how traditional archetypes have updated themselves (in some cases), and how the faerie realm fits into our modern world of magnets and miracles. Those first three chapters are just cool, in a way that few other products are.

Once he got into the mechanics of the game, my interest started to wan a little bit, though. It’s not that the mechanics are bad; quite the contrary. They seem easy to learn, simple and fast to use, and they make use of a really cool card-driven core mechanic that I find very appealing. They’re described well, even if the descriptions are a bit stream-of-consciousness and out of order. The problem is in the tone. During those first three chapters, I felt like I was being confided in, like I was being inducted into a secret society privy to esoterica that mere mortals don’t have access to. Now, in the “mechanics chapters”, I feel like I’m being talked down to. There’s a clear sense that the author thinks he knows the right way to game, and that those other role-playing games are clearly not doing things right. While I don’t fault the guy for preferring story-based games over crunchy, combat-heavy games, I can’t say I’m all that keen on the condescending tone used to present the material. I’m going to keep reading, because the content is very good and because I love the setting, but I can’t help but feel that Brucato is alienating a lot of people who might otherwise be interested in this game, if unintentionally.

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