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Lovecraft and RPG's?

DEP

First Post
So, I have played RPG's and have been reading Lovecraft alot recently. I love his writing and see his name as an influence and was just wondering what about his writing?

Thanks alot
 

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Nikosandros

Golden Procrastinator
Call of Cthulhu is the classic Lovecraft inspired RPG from Chaosium. It uses a very simple percentile based skill system. CoC also had a d20 version some years ago, but it is now out of print.

More recently, Pelgrane Press has put out Trail of Cthulhu, a RPG with a completely different system, centered around investigations.

Besides this specific games, there's quite a bit of Lovecraft influence in the RPG world... for example, the Far Realm in D&D and the Star Pact for warlocks in D&D 4e certainly owe a lot to his writings.
 

DEP

First Post
Call of Cthulhu is the classic Lovecraft inspired RPG from Chaosium. It uses a very simple percentile based skill system. CoC also had a d20 version some years ago, but it is now out of print.

More recently, Pelgrane Press has put out Trail of Cthulhu, a RPG with a completely different system, centered around investigations.

Besides this specific games, there's quite a bit of Lovecraft influence in the RPG world... for example, the Far Realm in D&D and the Star Pact for warlocks in D&D 4e certainly owe a lot to his writings.

I know many of the folks at Paizo are influence by his work, and there is the Star Pact in 4e which is awesome. I have played the percentile CoC game, and enjoyed it quite a bit.

I was just wondering what sort of modules are influence by his work, or give an overall Lovecraftian feel of cosmic horror.
 


Crothian

First Post
Freeport has a good Lovecraft feel in the orginal trilogy of adventures and in the set up of the Cyults. Great setting!!
 

tylerthehobo

Explorer
I think a lot of DMs took note of his concept of not describing the horrors that confront the players in detail, and instead hinting at them. That makes things more terrifying! :)
 

Ariosto

First Post
The 1st ed. AD&D module "Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun", by Gary Gygax, has quite a weird atmosphere in its most hidden precincts. There are earlier touches in the Giants-Drow series.

A story by Abe Merritt, "The People of the Pit", is in rather Lovecraftian vein. There's a module with (as homage) the same title, but I don't know at first hand how it delivers on the expectations thus raised.
 

I know many of the folks at Paizo are influence by his work, and there is the Star Pact in 4e which is awesome. I have played the percentile CoC game, and enjoyed it quite a bit.

I was just wondering what sort of modules are influence by his work, or give an overall Lovecraftian feel of cosmic horror.

I'd say Lovecraft is deeply influential, going to the core of D&D (much like Tolkien). Lovecraft was an influence on Gygax (as pointed out in a post above, it's clear in The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun), and I think almost every fantasy RPG author has read and absorbed a bit of Lovecraft.

So it's kind of like asking "what TV comedies have been influenced by The Honeymooners". The answer is: pretty much all of them.
 

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