Our game group is having a spooky blast playing Paranormal Inc.! It's a really good use of Carved from Brindlewood and I especially like how it works GM-less. Honestly I think Brindlewood Bay should be GM-less too using this same technique. It's all very much zero-prep — just pick a mystery and go — and quick playing which works well for us.
The playbooks are great. Our group has both the Skeptic and the Ghost and it's a continual source of comedy that one member of our ghost hunting team doesn't believe the other member is an actual ghost. The Ghost talks through electronic devices and the Skeptic is convinced that they are a hacker.
So far we have played 3 mysteries and for the most recent game we added a new player (now we have 4 players) — it's easy to slot new players in which is great. We plan on doing at least a couple more mysteries as we have come to love our group of odd ball ghost hunters!
The only criticisms I have are:
- None of the moves give ideas for what happens on a 6 or lower. We've made do but it would have been nice to have some examples.
- The Ghostly Encounters move is a bit wonky. All the other moves play like PbtA in that it is obvious when to use it and how it leads to the fiction. Ghostly Encounters seems more forced. We've used it but it seems more a move that you have to choose to use it and shove it into the story like a block that doesn't quite fit. Interestingly it seems to work a bit better when you relate it to a personal haunting. Not sure how I'd tweak it if we house ruled it. Anyways.
- The Intern playbook's moves are missing the narrative flavor of the moves that the other playbooks have. They are also strangely overpowered? Like Coffee Runner, an "automatic 12+ where you act quickly" just makes it too easy.
These are all fairly minor nitpicks for what is great game. Since it's possible to update PDFs here I'd love to see a 1.1 version of this with the errata (linked in the comments here) added to the main PDF. A version 2 with some of the kinks worked out would be awesome too, but I get calling a game done and wanting to move on to other projects.
Anyways thanks for making this! We've been loving it!