[CoC] The Great Gatsby

[Kaiyosama]

I read The Great Gatsby for school awhile ago, and it got me thinking... It perfectly represents parts of the 20s and could make a great CoC adventure. Not only would it allow characters to explore 20's upper society in depth, but there are plentry of ways to introduce the mythos. Perhaps Wilson wasn't exactly himself when he murdered Gatsby. The conclusion of the book as well as the upper class's apathy fit very well with the goals of the mythos... who knows what they might be practicing.

So far, I think the adventure should start off at one of Gatsby's partys. From there, esp. if one of the characters is a police investigator, they should start to investigate the murder of Myrtle and subsequent murder of Gatsby, slowly uncovering the horrible truth of the matter. Other ways to get characters involved might include Gatsby's crime connections or old servants of his.

Maybe Gatsby's permanent house guest was involved with the mythos as well, and all the negative energys rubbed off on Gatsby.

So, any comments, ideas or stats?

 

[Shapermc]

Nix

I think that this is a great Idea, but you should just remove the word Gatsby from it. Unless you are trying to do to the great gatsby what From Hell did to the Jack the Ripper Mythos just remove the name, or change it and then use everything else.

If you leave Gatsby in there a few things can happen. 1: Your players might think that it will be boring becase they think the book sounds boring (But this is honestly based on the maturity of your group and that I do not know.) 2: If your players have read it they will draw conclusions from the book and not from their characters knowledge, and this may start some stupid arguments ("THat is not how it happen in the book!"). THere is room for otherthings to happen, but I see those as being the most prominent.

If you remove Gatsby and just take all that the book has to offer for flavor you will do great and your players will love it. If they do then you can slip in the recomendation to read the Great Gatsby and they will want to read it because it will seem o so familiar

 

[Stockdale]

As both a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald (on whom I wrote my Masters Thesis) and H.P. Lovecraft, I think this is a great idea. I also agree with Shapermc insofar as approaching an adventure based on Gatsby obliquely. Since the book makes J. Gatsby's motivation clear (get Daisy), making him the villian would not work. Using him as an unwitting pawn of the horror element may work. This could be accomplished through the Meyer Wolfshien (sp?) character. He appears only once in the novel and is noted as 'the man who fixed the world series). Wolfshein may have links to or may be one of the deep ones. He amy be collecting funds, via Gatsby, through their bond deals or through bootlegging. The bootleggingmay be a story in itself-for instance, gatsby is unknowingly distributing tainted gin for some nefarious purpose.

At any rate, those are my thoughts. Good luck with this idea.

Stockdale