Microcollections 2: Horror Role-Playing Games

One of my main collections is my archive of Lovecraft and Lovecraft-related stuff. I've been a fan of his writing almost as long as I've been a comics fan, which is to say most of my life. Part of that collection is my shelf of Call of Cthulhu role-playing game books. As I've picked up, bit by bit, CoC stuff over the years, I've also branched out, slightly, into other horror-related gaming titles. Mostly this is in an effort to find things I can apply to Cthulhu, but every now and again, I discover something really cool in and of itself.

I'll start with Chill, the books that are arranged at the bottom of the picture. These are from two different versions of the game, from two different gaming companies (and, if I'm not mistaken, another version is being released imminently). Chill, both versions, has a really cool aesthetic to the volumes, and plays more into the traditional horror genre, featuring werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and cryptids of various kinds. Also, this is from well before the White Wolf-inspired games of playing horror monsters as sympathetic characters, a boundary that defines this little collection, actually. I generally don't go in for the Anne Rice/Stephanie Meyer-style of horror game. I'm more interested in the interaction of "normal" people with the abnormal than with the abnormal as metaphor for the normal. The book at the back, Beyond the Supernatural, is of a similar ilk, and investigatory adventure into the weird.

De Profundis really ought to be a part of the Lovecraft collection, but it's got enough potential on its own to merit being thought about separately. It's a letter-writing RPG, intended to mimic the epistolary-style of some old pulp horror stories. One is meant to take on a persona, write letters on a typewriter, and engage in something called "psychodrama," that is, venturing out into the world but allowing yourself to see it through the lens of the character and narrative that you've taken on. I haven't managed a proper game of it yet, but I live in hope. In front of that is a game I'm relatively unfamiliar with. It's amongst the latest additions to this collection. Little Fears is a RPG that asks you to take on the role of small children and to fight the kinds of nightmares that such people have. I feel like it could be a really disturbing game, which may explain why I haven't given it a go yet.

Finally, Kult, arranged at the top right, is a game for which I actively seek out books. It plays with Gnostic Christian thinking, and is set in a city that is the archetype of all cities, inhabited by creatures who have been imprisoned by God, or gods. The system itself is a bit clunky, but I enjoy the background material so much that I don't mind. Kult is one of those games that I'd love to run, but that you would need a really serious group of gamers to pay. One day.