Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw

Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw is a game supplement by Jeff Wikstrom, published by Factions and sold on the web site RPGNow. It is meant to be used with any modern-day supernatural/horror/fantasy setting.

Overview

Jeff Wikstrom's Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw outlines a family of NPCs for a modern-day horror/fantasy game. The Pranddishaws are a children's-book family made flesh, a collection of eccentrics in the tradition of the Addams Family and the Royal Tenenbaums and of the works of Roald Dahl, Edward Gorey, J.D. Salinger. The family leads a fairly stable existence, carrying out everyday family routines in its endearing, if somewhat bizarre, style. In fact, their storybook life is only interrupted when they come across the occasional outsider, whom they brutally murder. Ah, domestic life.

The nature of the family, its history, and its members are all detailed alongside pull-quotes from their "source": the children's book "Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw", a fictional tome (in the manner of Borges or Lovecraft) evocatively conjured up in bits and pieces by Wikstrom in these asides sprinkled throughout the supplement. Wikstrom outlines several possible origins and explanations for the family and the exceptional existence they lead, which vary depending on the tone and setting of the game in which they will appear: a Mage storyteller might cast them as escapees from a Dreaming Realm; they might show up in the Al-Amarja of Over The Edge as figments of a twisted little boy's imagination; or a group of Unknown Armies PCs might encounter them as a sinister experiment in brainwashing and clockwork robotics. He also provides extensive notes on how they might be used with an existing game and how they might tie in with the game's world.

Style

Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw is a joy to read. The pull-quotes from the imaginary book are hauntingly familiar and at the same time surprising; they call to mind their literary relatives but still manage their own, distinctive feel. But the real feat Wikstrom accomplishes here is his use of the novel and its characters as simply a frame-within-a-frame, resituating the charming oddballs of the Pranddishaw clan as homicidal, otherwordly monsters. The dynamics of the family are explored, therefore, on two levels: the cutesy family dramas played out in the story-within-the-story, and the metaphysical explorations of the family's myserious existence in the framing story of the game. The relations of the characters are detailed on both levels, as some of the family members have begun to question the strangeness that seems to define their lives, and the interactions between these two levels of thought provide some of the best material in the supplement.

As I read this supplement, I heard the thought echoing in the back of my head: This is what Changeling could have been! Indeed, the supplement does an excellent job of blending low and high weirdness, dark forces and light humor, in a way that should inform more of the writing for fanciful modern-day RPG settings.

Substance

As in most generic-system supplements, the game material provided is less impressive than the more general inspirational material. Wikstrom tries hard to cover all of his bases, but modern fantasy and horror is a pretty open-ended genre, especially when working with high weirdness like the Pranddishaws. Inevitably, the writer will be limited in his ability to integrate the ideas into the game framework.

That beng said, the game integration material is fairly solid. There are four informational sections on the Pranddishaws: their general capabilities and behavior; a description of each of the family members and how he or she interacts with the world; suggestions for how to fit them into a game; and possible in-game explanations for their origins. Each of these is open-ended enough to fit with most campaigns, but rich enough in suggestions and inspiration to give the GM a good starting point.

If any critique can be leveled against the supplement, it is a very general one shared by a lot of other material written for this game genre. There's a lot of modern-day fantasy RPG material that strikes the reader as having begun as a fiction project in some arbitrary genre, and then got shoehorned at some point into serving as an RPG supplement. Most modern supernatural games have a dozen or so possible explanations for a fictional character or world finding its way into the game, and it has begun to become a cliche. Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw, therefore, is treading on ground that has been trod many time before -- but it does such a masterful job of showing how it should be done that it should be used as a guide to GMs and writers who plan to make use of the device in their game material.

Conclusion

Overall, there's a whole lot of great stuff packed into the 23 pages of this $1 supplement. It's a fun read, and the characters are eminently usable in a game.

Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw
Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw Capsule Review by Wilson Norwood on 30/08/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty) "The Royal Tenenbaums" meets "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in this modern-day horror/fantasy supplement about a family of eccentric murderers. Product: Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw Author: Jeff Wikstrom Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Factions Line: Cost: $1 Page count: 23 Year published: 2002 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: yes Capsule Review by Wilson Norwood on 30/08/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Modern day Horror Conspiracy	Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw is a game supplement by Jeff Wikstrom, published by Factions and sold on the web site RPGNow. It is meant to be used with any modern-day supernatural/horror/fantasy setting. Overview Jeff Wikstrom's Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw outlines a family of NPCs for a modern-day horror/fantasy game. The Pranddishaws are a children's-book family made flesh, a collection of eccentrics in the tradition of the Addams Family and the Royal Tenenbaums and of the works of Roald Dahl, Edward Gorey, J.D. Salinger. The family leads a fairly stable existence, carrying out everyday family routines in its endearing, if somewhat bizarre, style. In fact, their storybook life is only interrupted when they come across the occasional outsider, whom they brutally murder. Ah, domestic life. The nature of the family, its history, and its members are all detailed alongside pull-quotes from their "source": the children's book "Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw", a fictional tome (in the manner of Borges or Lovecraft) evocatively conjured up in bits and pieces by Wikstrom in these asides sprinkled throughout the supplement. Wikstrom outlines several possible origins and explanations for the family and the exceptional existence they lead, which vary depending on the tone and setting of the game in which they will appear: a Mage storyteller might cast them as escapees from a Dreaming Realm; they might show up in the Al-Amarja of Over The Edge as figments of a twisted little boy's imagination; or a group of Unknown Armies PCs might encounter them as a sinister experiment in brainwashing and clockwork robotics. He also provides extensive notes on how they might be used with an existing game and how they might tie in with the game's world. Style Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw is a joy to read. The pull-quotes from the imaginary book are hauntingly familiar and at the same time surprising; they call to mind their literary relatives but still manage their own, distinctive feel. But the real feat Wikstrom accomplishes here is his use of the novel and its characters as simply a frame-within-a-frame, resituating the charming oddballs of the Pranddishaw clan as homicidal, otherwordly monsters. The dynamics of the family are explored, therefore, on two levels: the cutesy family dramas played out in the story-within-the-story, and the metaphysical explorations of the family's myserious existence in the framing story of the game. The relations of the characters are detailed on both levels, as some of the family members have begun to question the strangeness that seems to define their lives, and the interactions between these two levels of thought provide some of the best material in the supplement. As I read this supplement, I heard the thought echoing in the back of my head: This is what Changeling* could have been!* Indeed, the supplement does an excellent job of blending low and high weirdness, dark forces and light humor, in a way that should inform more of the writing for fanciful modern-day RPG settings. Substance As in most generic-system supplements, the game material provided is less impressive than the more general inspirational material. Wikstrom tries hard to cover all of his bases, but modern fantasy and horror is a pretty open-ended genre, especially when working with high weirdness like the Pranddishaws. Inevitably, the writer will be limited in his ability to integrate the ideas into the game framework. That beng said, the game integration material is fairly solid. There are four informational sections on the Pranddishaws: their general capabilities and behavior; a description of each of the family members and how he or she interacts with the world; suggestions for how to fit them into a game; and possible in-game explanations for their origins. Each of these is open-ended enough to fit with most campaigns, but rich enough in suggestions and inspiration to give the GM a good starting point. If any critique can be leveled against the supplement, it is a very general one shared by a lot of other material written for this game genre. There's a lot of modern-day fantasy RPG material that strikes the reader as having begun as a fiction project in some arbitrary genre, and then got shoehorned at some point into serving as an RPG supplement. Most modern supernatural games have a dozen or so possible explanations for a fictional character or world finding its way into the game, and it has begun to become a cliche. Who Loves Octavia Pranddishaw, therefore, is treading on ground that has been trod many time before -- but it does such a masterful job of showing how it should be done that it should be used as a guide to GMs and writers who plan to make use of the device in their game material. Conclusion Overall, there's a whole lot of great stuff packed into the 23 pages of this $1 supplement. It's a fun read, and the characters are eminently usable in a game.