Retrospective: Trail of Tsathogghua

I continue in my Quixotic quest to find RPG products that show the influence, explicit or otherwise, of Clark Ashton Smith. As I wrote last week, this has proven a surprisingly difficult endeavor, so I hope I can be forgiven for grasping at whatever straws I can find, which is why, this week, I'm taking a look at Trail of Tsathogghua, a scenario pack for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, first published in 1984. 

Now, as I've mentioned many times before, the Dungeons & Dragons module, Castle Amber, is probably – probably – what first introduced me to Clark Ashton Smith. I can't say that for certain, especially after forty-five years, in part because Call of Cthulhu was released the very same year, 1981, and it includes a number of references to Smith and his creations, most notably Tsathoggua. Having been a devoted CoC fan since its initial appearance, it's just possible that it was this game rather than Castle Amber that turned me on to CAS, but I think that unlikely.

Speaking of Tsathoggua, perceptive readers will no doubt have noticed that I spell the name of the Hyperborean bat-toad god differently than does the title of this scenario pack. For reasons unknown to me, author Keith Herber inserted an "h" into the deity's name, an addition not attested in Smith's own work nor, for that matter, in Call of Cthulhu itself, whose entry on him spells it as I do. Given that CAS includes a mangled spelling of the name (Zothaqquah) in his Averoigne stories, this isn't a particularly unusual variant, but I nevertheless can't help but wonder why it was used here.

Trail of Tsathoggua is a 64-page book, featuring a terrific cover by Steve Purcell, an artist who, in his later career, would work for LucasArts, Nelvana, and Pixar. The book consists of three adventures, the first two of which are loosely connected to one another, while the third stands on its own and is, by far, the best of the trio – and indeed widely regarded as one of the best Call of Cthulhu scenarios of its early years. 

The first adventure shares its title with the book itself, albeit with the definite article added, "The Trail of Tsathogghua." It concerns an Miskatonic University archeological expedition to Greenland, where a massive stone slab carved with a giant bas-relief and odd hieroglyphs has recently been discovered. As it turns out, the slab is an artifact of ancient Hyperborea, as described by Clark Ashton Smith, providing information not just about the prehistory of the region but also about the location of a temple to Tsathoggua that is strongly implied to be the same one Satampra Zeiros attempted to plunder untold millennia ago.

The second adventure, "The Curse of Tsathogghua," moves to Canada, British Columbia specifically, as characters investigate rumors of the Sasquatch and a connection to the Greenland expedition from the first adventure. Like the first scenario, this one has a connection to Smith's work, albeit a more tangential one, since the Sasquatch are depicted as present-day descendants of the furry Voormis of Hyperborea. The adventure also includes the possibility that, if successful, the investigators might draw the attention and patronage of the Canadian prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King (incorrectly called simply William Lyon McKenzie [sic] in the text), who, in real life, was secret Spiritualist with a keen interest in the occult. 

The third and final adventure, "The Haunted House," a title it shares with the classic adventure found at the back of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, takes place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has little to do with the other two. Instead, it focuses on the Van Laaden Mansion, which is plagued by all manner of unusual and possibly supernatural events. The explanation for this is a clever and genuinely spooky one: centuries ago, a druid merged his consciousness into a tree that was later felled and shipped to America as some of the lumber used to build the Van Laaden Mansion. Now, his spirit possesses the place and wreaks havoc.

Taken as a whole, Trail of Tsathogghua is a mixed bag, but there are enough good ideas here to make it useful to almost any Keeper running a Call of Cthulhu campaign. As a fan of Clark Ashton Smith, it's nice to see ideas from his Hyperborea cycle incorporated into the game, even if the incorporation doesn't have a huge overall impact. Too few RPGs look to CAS at all, so I suppose I'm naturally inclined to give bonus points to products like this one that make even a small effort to do so.

Retrospective: Call of Cthulhu

"Didn't James already do a Retrospective on Call of Cthulhu?" After four hundred posts in this series – this one is, in fact, the four hundredth – you would understandably think that, but it's not true. As I've discovered in the process of choosing the contents of my Grognardia anthologies, I didn't start writing Retrospective posts until September 17, 2008 and, even then, those posts didn't become consistent, weekly features of the blog for a while longer. 

Now, I did write a post – my first one on the subject – about Call of Cthulhu on October 31, 2008 that definitely has something of a Retrospective vibe about it. Indeed, I regularly link to that post as a kind of substitute for the fact that, even after all these years, I'd still never written a Retrospective on CoC, despite my immense affection for the game, which I consider among the greatest and most influential games and game designs in the history of the hobby.

Since I'm now nearly halfway through my The Shadow over August series honoring the memory of H.P. Lovecraft, I thought now might be the perfect time to rectify this very old oversight on my part. However, since my original post from 2008, "A Game for Grown-Ups," already covers much of the ground I'd usually cover in a Retrospective post, I've decided that this one will instead focus on a different aspect of Call of Cthulhu, namely, its place in the history of the hobby.

When the game first appeared in 1981, it was unlike anything that had come before it. Published by Chaosium and designed by Sandy Petersen and Lynn Willis, it was the first fully realized horror role-playing game. There had, of course, been fantasy games with horrific elements before it. Dungeons & Dragons, for instance, had more than its share of shambling undead and sanity-blasting monsters, but Call of Cthulhu was the first to make horror not merely an atmospheric seasoning but the whole meal. In doing so, it did more than simply introduce a new genre to the RPG marketplace; it reframed what a role-playing game could be.

The significance of being first is hard to overstate. By 1981, science fiction, post-apocalypse, superheroes, and espionage each had their own dedicated RPGs, often more than one. Horror, however, remained conspicuously absent, perhaps because many assumed its central emotion, fear, couldn’t be easily conjured at the table. Petersen’s ingenious solution was not to frighten the players directly, but to have them role-play fear. Dread emerged from the slow unravelling of an investigator’s mind, the accumulation of forbidden knowledge, and the grim realization that the forces at work could never be overcome in the usual, heroic way.

This approach has since become the template for almost all horror games, even when they are self-consciously attempting to distance themselves from it. Just Alfred North Whitehead famously called Western philosophy a series of footnotes to Plato, the same can be said of Call of Cthulhu's place in the realm of horror RPGs. The sanity mechanic, the emphasis on investigation over combat, and the focus on player knowledge versus character fragility all flowed from Petersen’s design choices in Call of Cthulhu. Nearly every horror RPG since has grappled with or responded to this foundation.

For Chaosium, Call of Cthulhu was similarly transformative. Before 1981, the company was best known for RuneQuest and its Glorantha setting, along with Basic Role-Playing, the streamlined system that powered it. These were critical successes but niche compared to the behemoth that was TSR. Call of Cthulhu changed the equation, thanks to its much wider appeal. By the mid-1980s, Call of Cthulhu was outselling everything else Chaosium produced and it became the company’s flagship line for decades. In many respects, Call of Cthulhu was Chaosium in the public mind and arguably is still the game most closely associated with the company.

It’s telling that Chaosium survived rough patches in its history largely because Call of Cthulhu never went out of print. Where other RPGs waxed and waned in popularity, CoC had a steady, international audience. Indeed, its scenarios and campaigns became not just supplements but cultural touchstones in RPG history. Many are considered landmarks whose influence extends far beyond their original audience, much like Call of Cthulhu itself. Looking back, the game’s influence is visible everywhere. Here are just a few that occur to me:

Dungeons & Dragons modules before 1981 were largely site-based adventures. By contrast, CoC’s scenarios pioneered investigation-driven play, where clues, interviews, and research were central. This structure seeped back into other genres, shaping how adventures were written.

Though frequently imitated, few mechanics have been as thematically perfect as CoC’s sanity rules, which track not just the erosion of mental stability but the cost of knowing too much. It’s become almost impossible to design a horror RPG without addressing the question: what’s your version of this mechanic?

Translations of CoC played a huge role in spreading RPGs worldwide, especially in countries where Lovecraft’s stories already had a foothold. In France, Japan, and elsewhere, it rather than, say, Dungeons & Dragons was often the gateway RPG.

More than four decades later, Call of Cthulhu is not merely Chaosium’s flagship; it is "the Dungeons & Dragons of horror gaming." It has become the lingua franca of the genre, the common framework through which players, Keepers, and designers alike approach tales of the uncanny and the unknown. It remains the benchmark for how to adapt a literary source faithfully without becoming a prisoner to it, preserving the essence of Lovecraft’s cosmic dread while evolving into a style of play all its own.

Like D&D, it has been endlessly imitated, parodied, expanded upon, and reimagined, yet the original endures – still recognizably itself and still drawing new players into its orbit. For many, it is not simply a horror RPG; it is the horror RPG, the game against which all others are measured. As long as players gather to face ancient secrets and watch their fragile investigators descend into madness, Call of Cthulhu will remain the universal tongue of tabletop terror.

Of Periwigs and Pallid Masks

Virgil Finlay's depiction of Lovecraft as an 18th century gentleman

Since its initial publication in 1981, the default setting of Call of Cthulhu has been the 1920s, reflecting the decade in which many of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories take place. Over the years, however, Chaosium has greatly expanded the scope of the game through a variety of alternate historical settings. Beginning with Cthulhu Now in 1987, these supplements have offered Keepers and players the chance to explore the Mythos in different cultural and technological contexts, each one shedding new light on Lovecraftian horror by viewing it through a fresh historical lens. These settings reveal how the themes of cosmic dread and forbidden knowledge persist across the centuries.

Yet one historical period remains conspicuously absent: colonial America. To the best of my knowledge, Chaosium has never released a full supplement set in 17th- or 18th-century British North America. That strikes me as a peculiar omission, especially given Lovecraft’s own lifelong fascination with the 18th century. Lovecraft spoke often and fondly of the colonial era, which he regarded as the last bastion of esthetic and intellectual refinement before the coarsening of the modern world. His affection for 18th-century diction, architecture, and worldview was not mere antiquarianism. It was, in his mind, a form of temporal displacement. In a letter, Lovecraft wrote:

"I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. ... Everything I loved had been dead for two centuries

His disdain for the Revolution and American independence from Britain was equally unambiguous. In another letter, he declared:

“When my grandfather told me of the American Revolution, I shocked everyone by adopting a dissenting view ... Grover Cleveland was grandpa's ruler, but Her Majesty, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain & Ireland & Empress of India commanded my allegiance. 'God Save the Queen!' was a stock phrase of mine.”

When others rose to honor The Star-Spangled Banner, Lovecraft would famously remain seated or, in some cases, sing “To Anacreon in Heaven,” the 18th-century drinking song whose melody Francis Scott Key had used as the basis for his poem, later adopted as the U.S. national anthem.

More than a personal affectation, Lovecraft’s British colonial sympathies run deep in his fiction. His only novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which I discussed in my earlier post today, is perhaps the clearest example of what I am talking about, but it's far from the only one. In Dreams in the Witch House, for example, the 18th-century witch Keziah Mason enters into a pact with Nyarlathotep and survives (at least in some form) into the modern age. The Shunned House delves into the lingering corruption left behind by late 17th century Huguenot émigrés to Rhode Island. Over and over, Lovecraft imagines New England not simply as a place with a long history, but as a place haunted by its own past of Puritan zealotry, pre-Christian beliefs, and unsettling imports from the Old World.

With that in mind, I began to toy with the idea back in the 1990s of writing a Call of Cthulhu supplement set in 18th-century British America. To be clear, I don't mean Revolutionary America. As I've already noted, Lovecraft had little patience for the mythology of 1776. What intrigued him (and me) was the world just before that rupture, when Boston remained loyal to the Crown, when the frontier still loomed dark and unknown, and when superstition and science existed in uneasy proximity. It’s a setting steeped in ambiguity, where the Enlightenment had only just begun to push back the shadows and had not yet succeeded.

Beyond Lovecraft’s own writings, there’s ample real-world history to inspire such a setting. The Salem witch trials, with their mix of religious hysteria and communal fear; the First Great Awakening, with its itinerant preachers stirring up visions of damnation; the beliefs of cunning folk in rural hamlets; and the syncretic spiritual traditions that arose from the cross-pollination of Europe, America, and Africa. All offer rich material for investigators to explore. The coast is dotted with smugglers' coves, abandoned forts, and plague ships quarantined offshore. Whispered rumors persist of forgotten Norse ruins in the north, ancient earthworks in the Ohio Valley, and strange lights dancing over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In my own early drafts, I imagined that investigators might include skeptical physicians educated in Edinburgh, disgraced ministers fleeing scandal, or agents of the Crown sent to look into troubling reports from the hinterlands. They might chase whispers of beings haunting the Green Mountains or discover ruins whose builders are unknown to any tribe or settler. A frontier printer might find references in colonial pamphlets to the Sussex Manuscript or a Dutch merchant in Albany might acquire a fragment of a tablet whose script matches that of no known human tongue.

One of the things that initially drew me to this idea was the clarity of the colonial setting. It offers fewer technological conveniences, fewer societal safety nets, and fewer distractions, all of which I felt heighten the tension and sense of isolation. Even so, the setting is anything but simplistic. The early 18th century was a period when science, superstition, and theology all vied for dominance in the human mind. A figure like Emanuel Swedenborg, for example, could be taken seriously not only as a scientist and engineer but also as a visionary who conversed with spirits. That intellectual ambiguity suits the Mythos perfectly. What better era than this to imagine the slow, dreadful replacement of the Puritan conception of God with something darker and utterly indifferent to mankind?

As I said, I never got very far in developing the supplement, mostly because I became absorbed in another, related idea for Call of Cthulhu (more on that in a future post). However, I still think about it from time to time. Given Chaosium’s longstanding embrace of historical settings, I remain surprised that colonial America has yet to claim its rightful place among them. If nothing else, such a setting would offer a subtle tribute to Lovecraft’s own longing for an age of powdered wigs, flintlocks, and candlelight.

Were I not already neck-deep in other projects, I might be tempted to take the idea up again. Perhaps one day I will, assuming, of course, that some other industrious soul doesn’t beat me to it ...

Retrospective: Alone Against the Wendigo

I've mentioned before that I'm really quite fascinated by the concept of solo roleplaying games and solitaire adventures. I don't have a lot of experience with either of them, aside from my teenage forays into the Fighting Fantasy and related series. From what I understand, they've made a big comeback since the late unpleasantness, so much so, in fact, that quite a few RPGs now include explicit rules for playing the game alone. 

Consequently, I missed out entirely on Chaosium's forays into this genre back in the early to mid-1980s, starting with SoloQuest for RuneQuest in 1982. A few years later, the company decided to expand the experiment to include Call of Cthulhu. Given that most Lovecraft stories typically involve a single protagonist, this makes the concept of a solitaire adventure very well suited to its source material, at least in principle.

Published in 1985, Alone Against the Wendigo is the first of two solitaire adventures for Call of Cthulhu. Written by Glen Rahman, perhaps best known for the fantasy boardgame, Divine Right, which he co-designed with his brother, Kenneth, the scenario puts the player takes in the role of Dr L. C. Nadelmann. Nadelmann's initials can stand for either Lawrence Christian or Laura Christine, depending on whether the player wishes to play a man or a woman. Dr Nadelmann is a Miskatonic University anthropologist leading a six-person expedition into the Canadian wilderness to investigate tales concerning a monstrous being, the Wendigo. The adventure begins with the assembling of the expedition and the journey northward into the wilds of Northern Ontario, a place of vast snow-covered forests, ancient legends, and unsettling silence. As the days progress, the expedition begins to unravel. Strange noises are heard in the night. Members disappear. The weather turns deadly. In the growing cold and fear, the line between reality and madness begins to blur. Ultimately, Nadelmann must survive not only the physical dangers of the wilderness but also unravel the truth about the Wendigo, an entity tied to cannibalism, madness, and the insatiable hunger of the void.

Like all solitaire adventures, Alone Against the Wendigo sought to provide an experience of playing a RPG, in this case Call of Cthulhu, to players who didn’t have regular gaming groups. How well it succeeded in this is difficult to say objectively. My own experience with solo adventures is that they're really their own thing, distinct both from traditional adventures and from literature, even though their format draws from both. In the case of this particular scenario, which I played through in preparation for this post, I would say that it does an adequate job of conveying a mix of isolation, existential dread, and Mythos-inflected horror. Its remote, frozen wilderness setting does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of tone, creating a believable and menacing backdrop that mirrors the psychological disintegration of the player.

Like every solitaire adventure with which I am familiar, Alone Against the Wendigo consists of a series of numbered paragraphs that the player navigates in response to choice and the results of dice rolls. Some of the latter are skill rolls (e.g. "Try a Psychology roll. If you succeed, go to –27–; if you fail, go to –29–."), but some are simply random (e.g. "Roll a die; even go to –4–; odd, go to –5–."). This gives the scenario a decent amount of replayability, with branching narratives, multiple choices, outcomes, and side paths. Different decisions, like what gear to bring, how to interact with team members, where to explore, not to mention the aforementioned dice rolls, can thus radically alter the experience. In that respect, I think Alone Against the Wendigo is pretty good.

The adventure's integration of Call of Cthulhu mechanics, like skill and Sanity rolls are handled with a fair degree of elegance. Playing through the scenario still feels like you're playing Call of Cthulhu rather than some inferior imitation of it. That's an impressive feat in itself and I appreciate the care with which the rules were employed here. To be fair, Call of Cthulhu is a pretty mechanically simple game, especially when compared to, say, RuneQuest, but, even so, I think Rahman did a solid job here in translating its gameplay to a solo environment.

Aside from the inevitable limitations of the solitaire format – no game book, no matter how lengthy, could provide for every possibility available in face-to-face play – the main problems with Alone Against the Wendigo, in my opinion, are its underdeveloped NPCs. While all of the expedition members accompanying Dr Nadelmann have distinct roles, few are given much personality or depth, certainly not enough to make their loss (or survival) truly arresting. Again, that's perhaps an inevitable limitation of its format, but, for me at least, I felt it much more keenly than the limited array of choices in many circumstances.

That said, I like Alone Against the Wendigo for its ambition, if nothing else. As the first solo Call of Cthulhu scenario, it deserves credit not only for innovation but for capturing some of the spirit of Lovecraftian horror in a new and accessible format. Despite falling short of its mark in many ways, it demonstrated that horror roleplaying could be a solitary, introspective experience rather than being a group exercise in monster hunting. In that respect, I think it's much truer to its source material than many Call of Cthulhu adventures, even well-loved ones, are. Viewed from that perspective, I can't judge it too harshly. 

Interview: Mike Mason

One of first things I wanted to do with the The Shadow over August series was to interview roleplaying game designers and creators who'd worked on RPGs influenced either directly or indirectly by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Obviously, this meant reaching out to Mike Mason, the current creative director of Chaosium's venerable Call of Cthulhu, perhaps my favorite RPG to deal with Lovecraftian themes. Mike kindly agreed to answer my many questions about CoC, Lovecraft, and his own experiences with both.

1. What was your first exposure to H.P. Lovecraft’s writing and how did it shape your personal approach to horror and game design?

I was an eager reader of paperback horror stories in the 1970s, and I imagine I probably read at least one HPL short story during that time without realizing. A few years later in the early 1980s, I discovered the Call of Cthulhu RPG and HPL’s place in the creation of the Cthulhu Mythos, which then sent me off on a mission to track down HPL’s stories as well as those by August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Ramsey Campbell, and so on. That was my first proper dive into Lovecraft’s writing. At that time in the UK, Granada had just published most of HPL’s works in a series of paperback books, which made it all very much easier to read them.

In reading these stories, I found these were not tales about murderers and crazed killers, or ghosts and goblins, which was the standard fare from popular horror anthologies the era, such as the Pan Horror series of books. The stories from the Lovecraft Circle were something different, dealing with bigger (cosmic!) themes, and were not really about petty human considerations (revenge etc.). The monsters were truly monstrous and unknowable (not mutated animals from atomic bomb testing) and alien. The books had strange books and lore which went well beyond anything I’d read before. All in all, this combination raised the Mythos stories above what I’d been used to reading, so they were more exciting, more involving, and made a deeper impression. It opens the door beyond “horror” fiction into “weird” fiction and I never looked back.

2. In what ways does Call of Cthulhu seek to capture the essence of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror that differs from other horror RPGs?

Being the first TTPRG to bring HPL’s creations into games, Call of Cthulhu was entirely different to every other RPG available. Here, the player characters were normal, average people, not superheroes or muscled-up barbarians, and so on. Here, the characters risked everything to save the day, with little more than a notebook and a pen, they delved into forbidden books for secrets, spells were deadly, and they could lose their minds when confronted with alien Mythos terrors. None of this was like bashing monsters to steal their treasures – the monsters in Call of Cthulhu were often more intelligent than the player characters, which added a new dimension, as the opponents were not only reactive to the players but also proactive. This dynamic shift elevated the game play and made the game stand out from the crowd. 

Today, these same considerations continue to make Call of Cthulhu stand out and attract new people to play. I think Call of Cthulhu is the second most popular game on online platforms like Roll20, and it’s the most played game in Japan. The game’s easy to learn rules and enthralling game play captures the imagination and keeps people coming back for more.

The game is very flexible, so people can play all manner of horror tropes and mysteries with it – be it slow-burn cosmic revelations, one-night only survival horror, or pulpy two-fisted action – people are able to find and develop the style of game they desire with Call of Cthulhu, making it very accessible and broad in scope, unlike many other horror games that tend to narrow their focus down to a single style of play and a single type of experience.

3. Lovecraft’s protagonists are often passive or doomed. How has Chaosium adapted this narrative fatalism into something playable and engaging for decades?

The game is about the players, who are usually the opposite of passive! We’re not retelling a HPL story – together, the players and their Keeper (game master) create a story – built up from the foundation of a pre-prepared scenario, which sets up a mystery or situation that the players engage with, and offers possible solutions to help guide the Keeper, and thereby the players, through to a satisfactory conclusion. The mechanics of the game mirror certain aspects from Cthulhu Mythos stories – humans are vulnerable, weak, and sensitive to the Mythos, which can both kill and corrupt their minds. There’s a downward spiral the player characters can find themselves on, however things are not set in stone and the characters can, sometimes, overcome and win the day with their minds and bodies intact. 

But it is a horror game, so character deaths and awful in-game events do happen too – often to the great amusement of the other players! While it’s horror, it is a game and meant to be fun too. Each group of players finds the right level of game for them. 

The key to the game is ensuring the players have the potential and possibility to win out, even though the odds are against them. This ensures the players have a chance to succeed, even if it’s minor victory. The players have to feel their actions can made a different, otherwise they become passive observers - and that’s no fun for anyone. 

4. The Mythos has been diluted in pop culture to the point of parody in some circles. How does Call of Cthulhu resist that trend and maintain Lovecraft’s original tone?

There’s loads of advice we’ve written into our game books and the Call of Cthulhu rulebooks on exactly this subject– too much to write here! But, in essence – by staying true to the concept of the game and the stories its based upon – keep the horror horrific, ensure the player characters have something worth fighting for, and ensure that the Mythos (be it monsters, cultists, spells, and tomes) remain mostly mysterious and unknowable. From time to time, a situation in the game may be amusing and funny - that’s great, as the players let their guards down a little, which means the next scene, where they face some form of horror, can hit harder. The monsters in the game aren’t plushies! 

5. What do you think Lovecraft would have made of Call of Cthulhu and its popularity? Do you think he would’ve approved or even played it?

I have no idea. HPL was a curious and strange person. I think the game would have amused him – seeing his creations sort of come to life, but then he’d probably get annoyed as we “weren’t doing Cthulhu right!” Or something like that. 

6. What’s one underrated Lovecraft story you think deserves more attention, especially from Call of Cthulhu players?

"The Music of Eric Zann." But, for players, I’d be pointed to "The Dunwich Horror," "The Call of Cthulhu," and At the Mountains of Madness. Perhaps also "The Colour Out of Space."  But then you really should go read some other Mythos authors, like Ramsey Campbell, Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, T.E.D. Klein’s The Ceremonies, and so many more!

7. What do you think the continued popularity of Call of Cthulhu says about the enduring appeal of Lovecraft’s vision, even a century later?

That cosmic horror is something that continues to be relevant to us – perhaps even more so than in HPL’s time. Lovecraft imagined humanity as insignificant in the greater cosmos. Everything we’ve seen and experienced over the latter 20th century and into the 21st has reinforced that idea. Once, we believed the Earth was the centre of the universe – now, we actually realize how small our planet is in relation to everything else, and how precious our planet is – it’s the only one we know that sustains life. Thus, the fear of losing it all, whether by cosmic whim or self-destruction, continues to impact upon us. The world has dramatically changed since Lovecraft’s time and our collective fear is so much greater now. Lovecraft foresaw a glimpse of that fear and channeled it into his stories.

The Shadow Over August

August marks the birth month of H.P. Lovecraft, whose peculiar vision has cast a long and often unsettling shadow over the realms of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. In recognition of this, I’ve decided to devote the coming month here at Grognardia to what I’m calling The Shadow Over August, a series of posts exploring the life, legacy, and influence of the Old Gent from Providence.

As I mentioned earlier this week, Pulp Fantasy Library will be returning in August on a trial basis, in part to honor Lovecraft and his contributions to the weird tale. However, I’ve since come to feel that this alone isn’t enough. Lovecraft’s presence deserves to be felt more widely across the blog. In addition to literary retrospectives, I’ll be delving into Call of Cthulhu and other Lovecraft-inspired roleplaying games, considering both their origins and their enduring impact on the hobby. I’ll also be sharing thoughts on Lovecraft’s broader influence on gaming, fantasy, and science fiction, along with outlines for two Call of Cthulhu projects I began many years ago but never finished. With luck, they may yet prove useful (or at least thought-provoking) to others.

This isn’t intended as an exhaustive or scholarly treatment of Lovecraft’s work. Rather, The Shadow Over August is a personal exploration of the ways his idiosyncratic imagination continues to shape the creative pastimes so many of us enjoy, often in ways we scarcely notice. Whether you’re a long-time admirer of Lovecraft or simply curious about his lasting presence in the hobby, I hope you’ll join me in the weeks to come as I shine a light, however briefly, on this strange and enduring figure.

Speaking of Call of Cthulhu ...

... what's the general opinion of its current (7th) edition, especially among long-time players? 

As I've explained many times before, I got into Call of Cthulhu with its first edition all the way back in 1981 and I've owned and played every edition of the game up through sixth, all of which were essentially identical rules-wise. However, I haven't played the game in many years, but I've lately begun thinking about the possibility of returning to it in some fashion. Chaosium has released some rather nice-looking supplements and adventures over the last few years, suggesting that this new edition has been well received, hence my curiosity.

At the same time, I'm a grumpy old man. I remember that, when 7th edition was announced, I was none too keen on many of its purported rules innovations (like percentile characteristics) or by the tone of its designers regarding how they had "improved" upon Sandy Petersen's classic game. Consequently, I haven't picked up the latest edition or any of its supplementary material. Am I mistaken in having avoided it thus far?

I'm quite keen to hear more from old timers who've played the new edition. I have long considered Call of Cthulhu to be close to perfect in the melding of its rules, content, and presentation, so I am naturally skeptical of any attempt to change it, even a little. If you've played and enjoyed this edition, please tell me why my concerns are misplaced. In this particular instance, I'd love to be shown the error of my ways.

Call of Cthulhu Advice

I was recently asked for some advice from a younger Call of Cthulhu Keeper who wishes to introduce the game to newcomers to both the game and Lovecraft: what adventure would I recommend as a good introduction to it? That's when I realized that I haven't played Call of Cthulhu in more than a decade, unless you count Delta Green, which I don't. Consequently, I don't have any good answers to this question. However, I suspect many of my readers might. 

So, if you were going to introduce new players to Call of Cthulhu, what adventure would you use? Bonus points if the scenario can be reasonably completed in two 4-hour sessions or less. It can be for any edition of the game or any publisher. Just don't say "The Haunting," because, much as I like it, I don't think it's all that representative of what Call of Cthulhu is about.

Thanks!

Vague Recollections

One of the many downsides of our increasingly disembodied, virtual existence is the ease with which everything disappears into Orwell's memory hole. Anything produced online, especially on a platform you don't own – like this blog, for instance – could go away tomorrow if someone in an office somewhere decides it should be so. Those of us who can still recall the existence of Google Plus know all too well what I am talking about. Now, it's true that nothing lasts forever in the sublunary world, but I can't help but feel this is especially so when it comes to Internet scribblings.

I thought about this yesterday, as I tried to locate something I remember reading online back in (I think) the 1990s. Yes, I know: in Internet terms, the '90s might as well have been 300 years ago, not merely 30. Furthermore, the thing I want to find had been posted to one of the many Usenet newsgroups dedicated to roleplaying games, like rec.games.frp, so the odds of my finding it were never great to begin with. Still, I held out hope that, with enough perseverance, I might succeed. Since I was unsuccessful on my own, I thought I'd turn to my readers, many of whom possess far greater skills than I when it comes to locating obscure information.

I recall reading a narrative from the perspective of a Call of Cthulhu investigator. Unlike his colleagues, this investigator didn't go out into the field. Instead, he stayed safely at his home in Arkham or wherever and communicated with his comrades via telephone. In his phone conversations, he made certain that his interlocutor never told him too much about what he had seen or done, lest he have to make a SAN roll – "Don't tell me what you read in the book. Don't even tell me the title of the book," "No, I don't want to know what the creature looked like," etc. The whole thing was a meta-commentary on the way to "win" at Call of Cthulhu. I remember finding it quite amusing when I first read it.

Now, it's probably gone and I have only my increasingly hazy memories of it. Does this ring any bells with anyone else? Might anyone be able to suggest how I might find it again? I don't hold out much hope of ever reading it again, but I figured that, if anyone could aid me, it might be my readers.

Thanks!

What's a Campaign? (Part II)

Yesterday, I pointed out a section in The Traveller Adventure that describes it as a campaign and then defines a campaign as "a complete set of adventures which provides a slowly unfolding drama to explore, investigate, and conquer." As I reflected on this, I was reminded that the subtitle for Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, the first stand-alone adventure for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, is "A Global Campaign to Save Mankind." So, what exactly is a campaign, at least in the view of Chaosium, circa 1982 (a year before the publication of The Traveller Adventure)?

The introduction to Shadows of Yog-Sothoth includes a "How to Use This Book" section that provides some insight into this matter, though, as we'll see, there are still complexities to be explored.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is divided into two main sections. The first part is a lengthy campaign of seven scenarios, from which the entire book takes its name. The second part is much shorter, and is a pair of bonus scenarios; unrelated to the first part, or to each other.

The first part of the book is meant to be played as a fully campaign, and those scenarios should be followed in the order that they are laid out in this book ...

As with The Traveller Adventure, we say a campaign as being defined as a collection of linked scenarios built around a common focus, in this case defeating the plans of "a sinister occult organization, led by the evil Lords of the Silver Twilight," as the introduction goes on to explain.

Speaking of the introduction, a later paragraph sheds some further light on the meaning of a campaign. After discussing how the campaign is structured – seven scenarios, each of which leads into the next one – it goes on to say:

If your particular mode of play is not suited to a series of linked adventures, such as this book consists of, the individual scenarios may certainly be played by themselves.

This sentence suggests that Call of Cthulhu has two "modes" of play: one based around individual scenarios and one based around "a series of linked adventures," which is to say, a campaign. Interestingly, the back cover of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth describes itself as a "scenario book for the CALL OF CTHULHU role-playing game. SHADOWS OF YOG-SOTHOTH is a seven-chapter tale of horror and suspense." Here, each integral scenario of the campaign is likened to a chapter, the whole – the campaign itself – being called a "tale of horror and suspense." 

Chapter VII of the second edition of Call of Cthulhu bears the title "How to Play the Game." Here, we once again see that a "campaign" is defined as being made of several scenarios that 

ought to be arranged like the branches of a tree. The players start out fooling around with the very tips and edges of the mythos, where there are dozens of myths, legends, clues, and adventures. As they gain knowledge and experience, the investigators will work their way inwards, where there are fewer happenings, of greater importance. At the center of the mythos reside the hideous Elder Gods in all their reality. The final goal of play may well be to save this planet and force the retreat of Cthulhu and other space beings. Becoming powerful to do that may take years.

Words like "scenarios," "adventures" and even "play" are used without precision. Are they all the same thing or are there fine distinctions between them? Where does a campaign fit into all this? That's why I find myself wondering whether anyone at Chaosium at the time had a clear sense of it themselves or whether we, in the present, are expecting a degree of clarity that no one at the time needed, let alone expected. Still, it's yet more grist for the mill as I delve more deeply into campaigns, their meaning, and how they were run during the first decade of the hobby.

The Articles of Dragon: "Call of Cthulhu is a Challenge"

"Dragon's Augury" was the name given to Dragon magazine's recurring review section. At the time I first encountered it, "Dragon's Augury" had no single, dedicated reviewer. A different contributor reviewed each featured gaming product, though there were often contributors whose names I'd see quite regularly, such as Tony Watson and Ken Rolston. 

Sometimes, though, there'd be a review from a notable figure within TSR, like Gary Gygax, and these naturally caught my attention. A good example of this occurred in issue #61 (May 1982), in which David Cook, author of one of my favorite AD&D modules, wrote a review of the newly released Chaosium RPG, Call of Cthulhu. By the time this review appeared, I already owned a copy and was a great fan of it. Nevertheless, I was very curious to hear what Cook might have to say about it.

Though Cook had a lot of positive things to say about Call of Cthulhu, the overall tenor of his review could probably be called "mixed." After providing a nice overview of both the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the intended playstyle of CoC, he launches into his dissection of the game's flaws. For example, he points out that, while short, Basic Role-Playing, is not very complete, with many ambiguous rules. The same is true of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook itself, which, in addition to ambiguity, includes editorial errors that further contribute to its lack of clarity. In particular, Cook notes that the game's combat system lacks, among other things, "rules for how to deal with cover, movement, surprise, or other situations" that might come up in a fight. 

Cook singles out A Sourcebook for the 1920's as "the weakest part" of the boxed set. Its contents, he believes, appear to be little more than "notes and unfinished design work." He finds the alternate character generation rules – one of my favorite parts of the book – to be "inadequately explained" and a source of confusion. Another bone of contention is the game's lack of rules for generating and handling human NPCs, whom Cook imagines will play important roles in any Lovecraft-inspired adventure. Speaking of which, Cook speaks highly of the sample scenarios included in the rulebook.

The review is fairly lengthy and detailed, but it generally goes on in this direction. I get the impression that Cook, as a fan of Lovecraft, may have had high, or at least very specific, hopes for what Call of Cthulhu should have been like and those hopes were not fully met. Even so, he acknowledges that "when played, it's fun." He does caution that, because of its rules gaps, it demands a lot of the referee. Consequently, Call of Cthulhu "is a good game for experienced role-playing gamers and ambitious judges, especially if they like Lovecraft's type of story." 

As I mentioned, I already owned a copy of Call of Cthulhu by the time I read this review and was slightly baffled by it. My friends and I had been enjoying it without noticing any of the problems Cook pointed out in his review. That's probably because, as young people – I would have been twelve at the time – our grasp of the rules as written was not always the best and so we frequently made things up when we needed to do so. By contrast, Cook was already an accomplished game designer with a lot of experience both as a writer and a player of both wargames and RPGs. This undoubtedly colored the way he wrote his review, something I didn't appreciate at the time.

I also couldn't fathom why Cook had so many critical things to say about the game, despite his admission that he had found Call of Cthulhu fun in play. If he enjoyed the game, I thought, why point out its flaws? For that matter, how had he even noticed them in the first place? I thought about these and other related questions for some time afterward, which is precisely why I still remember this review more than four decades later. David Cook challenged my own assumptions and blind spots. He'd dared to say critical things about a new game my friends and I had enjoyed. In retrospect, I realize I learned a lot from his approach, even if, in 1982, it made little sense to me. 

The Cost of Power

One of the many ways that fantasy roleplaying games differ from their pulp fantasy inspirations concerns the use of magic. With comparatively few exceptions, pulp fantasy depicts magic as, at best, wild and unpredictable and, at worst, as outright diabolical. RPGs, meanwhile, treat magic almost as a form of technology, an instrument that is neither inherently good nor bad and that, if used with appropriate training, rarely if ever presents any danger to its user. 

The most obvious exceptions that come to my mind are Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer, both of which explicitly caution against the use of magic by characters, precisely because of its inherent danger. A more recent exception is Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game. Of course, two of the aforementioned RPGs are based directly on foundational works of pulp fantasy, while the other self-avowedly looks to pulp literature for its inspiration. There may be a few other contrary examples here and there, but, for the most part, fantasy roleplaying games have followed the lead of Dungeons & Dragons in treating magic purely instrumentally – differing from safe, reliable technology only in esthetics.

Back in Dragon #65 (September 1982), Phil Foglio lampooned this to good effect in his What's New with Phil & Dixie. In this particular strip, Phil claims that the differences between medieval and science fiction RPGs can be summed up in one word: none. When Dixie objects, he then provides her with a series of examples to prove his point that, while tendentious, nevertheless contain a ring of truth. The comic even invokes Clarke's Third Law for additional support.

If you look at the history of the hobby over the last half-century, the paradigm of magic-as-technology has clearly been the most common. Whether that's because D&D set the pattern by adopting it or because it's just a simpler and perhaps even more fun way to handle magic, I can't say. Still, as a fan of dangerous magic, it's hard not to be a little saddened by how rarely it's been employed in RPGs over the decades. Perhaps it's time for a change ...

What's Behind That Door?

It is, of course, well established that roleplaying games as we know them today grew out of the hobby of miniatures wargaming. I suspect that's why 25mm miniature figures continued to be made and sold for use with RPGs, even though, in my personal experience, very few people had much use for them at the table. That was certainly the case for me. Despite this, lots of games continued to recommend the use of miniature figures as an aid to play, including some rather unexpected ones, like Call of Cthulhu. 

Call of Cthulhu quickly became one of my favorite roleplaying games and I acquired all of the support products for it that I could both find and afford – like the miniatures sold by Grenadier Models. After losing the AD&D license in 1982, Grenadier tried to maintain its presence in the RPG world by picking up licenses to produce figures for other popular roleplaying games, like Traveller and Call of Cthulhu. They also tried their hand at publishing adventures for both games, with very mixed results.

I owned the two boxed sets of Call of Cthulhu miniatures, the first of which was dedicated to adventurers (though the box says "adventures," which I assume was an error). Here's the cover, showing Indiana Jones, Al Capone, and Professor Plum preparing to burst into the room behind a closed door.

The second boxed set depicts a night gaunt, a deep one, and a ghoul, who lie in wait behind the very same door the adventurers are about to open. Taken together, they form a fun little diptych that, to my shame, I don't think I even recognized until several years after I'd bought them.

Because I rarely painted or used these miniatures, I'm not completely sure why I bought them. I suppose it's because I thought I was supposed to do so. The rulebooks recommended their use, companies sold them, and nearly everyone I knew had at least a handful of minis they'd carry around in their dice bag, even though, like me, they almost never did anything with them. Owning miniatures was simply part of the culture of the hobby at the time. Like dice, they were part of the "uniform." You had to have them, if you wanted to be part of the "team." I don't think that's as common a feeling anymore, though I still see plenty of miniatures for sale in game stores. 

What are your experiences with miniatures? Do you own many and, more importantly, do you use them? I'd be very curious to know.

Polyhedron: Issue #19

Issue #19 of Polyhedron (September 1984), like the previous issue, features a cover illustration promoting one of TSR's licensed RPGs, in this case The Adventures of Indiana Jones. The reputation of the Indiana Jones game has long – and somewhat understandably – suffered as a result of the game's narrow focus and presentation, squandering its real potential as a vehicle for pulp adventure. The scenario included in this issue, "The Temple of the Chachopoyan Warriors "(written by Doug Niles), does little to correct this. The adventure reframes the opening scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark as a means of introducing the game and its rules to newcomers. While adequate to that specific task, it also reinforces the sense that the RPG would never really rise above its limited source material and that's a pity.

This issue's "Two Cents" is a rebuttal to last issue's rebuttal to another article, appearing in issue #14 – yikes! If nothing else, it's a reminder that roleplayers have always liked to argue with another about almost anything. It's also a reminder that my patience is very limited when it comes to such things, then or now. That said, this issue's installment, by Christopher Gandy, at least makes a few solid points, most importantly that, for many players, roleplaying is an escape and an opportunity to do and experience things they'd never be able – or want – to do in real life. There's nothing wrong with this and it can, in fact, serve a useful purpose.

"Lost Ships, Madmen, and Pirate Gold" by Antonio "Crazy Tony" O'Malley is a fun article intended for use with Gangbusters, Call of Cthulhu, Daredevils, or any other roleplaying game set in the 1930s (interestingly, Indiana Jones is not mentioned). The general thrust of the three-page piece concerns the care and feeding of pulp adventure campaigns. O'Malley covers a wide range of topics – legendary treasures, historical mysteries, gangsters, and ghosts, among others – with an eye toward offering advice on how best to make best use of them in play. The article is both creative and practical and I remember enjoying it when I first read it long ago, an opinion that didn't much alter upon re-reading it.

"... And the Gods Will Have Their Way" by Bob Blake concludes the "Prophecy of Brie" series of adventures begun back in issue #16. The adventure takes up the interior twelve pages of this issue and is designed to be removeable by bending back the staples that hold it together. Though I never mad direct use of it, I appreciated its attempt to provide a consistent cultural backdrop for the scenario, in this case, pseudo-Celtic, rather than the usual vague mishmash found in most Dungeons & Dragons modules at the time. On the other hand, the fact that this "mini-module" took up half of the issue's page count was a bit of an annoyance. As always, I suspect that the editors of Polyhedron were struggling with figuring just what the 'zine was supposed to be and how it differentiated itself from TSR's other gaming periodical, Dragon.

Frank Mentzer presents the results of the RPGA Network Item Design Contest, consisting of six winners selected from a pool of "almost a hundred." The items were judged in the categories of "usefulness," "originality," and "rules compliance." The grand prize winner, whose creator received a lifetime membership to the RPGA, is the talisman of the beast. Written for AD&D, the talisman enables its wearer to shapechange into the animal associated with it, as well as to speak with animals of the same type. Usable seven times a week, any attempt at an eighth use traps the wearer in anima form until the curse is dispelled by the Great Druid. With the exception of the taser rifle, intended for use with Star Frontiers, all the other winners are for AD&D – a reminder, I suppose, of just how much more popular it was than any of TSR's other offerings.

Tim Kilpin's "If Adventure Has a Game ... er, Name, It Must Be Indiana Jones!" is a two-page overview of The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role-Playing Game. It's essentially an advertisement masquerading as an article, though I do appreciate that there are some quotes from David Cook, in which he explains his intentions while designing the game. Alas, his intentions included not just a desire for "fast action" but also hewing as closely as possible to the characters and events of the two movies released at the time. Not to sound like a broken record, but it's a real shame that TSR either didn't (or couldn't – I've seen claims that it was Lucasfilm that dictated this) open up the world of Indiana Jones a little more, so as to include original characters and situations. Ah, well!

James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month" looks at The Created, a group of sentient androids and robots that believe themselves superior to the human beings who created them. The Created make for a great antagonistic cryptic alliance in Gamma World campaigns, which is why I like them. Compared to earlier articles in this series, this one doesn't add much to our knowledge beyond making The Created even more explicitly villainous than we already suspected (their leader is android/robot hybrid called V.A.D.E.R. X and, no, there's no explanation for that acronym). 

"The Laser Pod" by Jon Pickens is a nice – and very useful – addition to the Star Frontiers starship combat system found in Knight Hawks. One of the oddities of baseline Knight Hawks is that fighter craft are too small to carry any type of laser weapons. Instead, they're armed exclusively with rockets. While this makes sense within the context of the starship construction rules, it nevertheless felt a little disappointing to those of who'd grown up imagining fighters dogfighting with lasers. Pickens presents a clever little option that simultaneously stays true to the original rules while also giving us laser fanatics what we've wanted all along. Bravo.

Finally, there's "Dispel Confusion" with more questions and answers about TSR's various RPGs. While reading this issue's sampling, a few thoughts occurred to me. First, the AD&D questions are overwhelmingly technical in nature, which is to say, they're about how to interpret the text of the rules as written, whereas the questions for most of the other games are much more in the realm of advice on how to handle situations the rules don't explicitly cover. This might simply be a consequence of AD&D having more rules than other TSR games, but I suspect it may speak to the culture surrounding AD&D as well. Second, there are no questions in this issue about Boot Hill. I can't help but wonder if this is reflective of its relatively small fanbase at the time.

As always, Polyhedron continues to be something of a moving target. Every issue offers a different mix of content, coverage, and quality, which, I suppose, is fairly typical of a zine that is increasingly relying on outside submissions for its content. Still, I find the inconsistency a little bit frustrating, making my enjoyment of this series similarly inconsistent.

H.P. Lovecraft and the Evolution of Genre

Though I'd read some of his earlier, less overtly cosmic stories beforehand, it was the release of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game in 1981 that ultimately cemented my lifelong affection for H.P. Lovecraft and his works. I doubt this is a unique situation. Indeed, I have long suspected that Call of Cthulhu has probably served as the gateway to Lovecraft for more people since its publication four decades ago than almost anything else. Consequently, on the 133rd anniversary of his birth, I wanted to use Call of Cthulhu as the springboard for some rambling thoughts on the changing meaning of literary genres and the question of the genre in which Lovecraft himself wrote.

If you take a look at the subtitle of the 1981 edition of Call of Cthulhu, you'll see that it reads "Fantasy Role-Playing in the Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft" – and so it remained for more than a decade, until the advent of the game's 1992 edition, when the subtitle became "Horror Roleplaying in the Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft." I remember being mildly baffled by this in my youth. I had assumed, based on my initially limited reading of HPL, that Call of Cthulhu would be a horror RPG. In what sense could the game be called fantasy? Bear in mind that, by the time of 1981, the term "fantasy" had already become strongly associated with stories that existed somewhere in that twilight realm located between Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Howard's tales of Conan the Cimmerian. My bafflement stemmed from this fact.

With age, I've come to understand a couple of additional details that shed some light on this matter. First, in some corners of the hobby, particularly the West Coast but also in the UK, the term "fantasy roleplaying game" – or FRP – was a generic term. In this sense, a fantasy roleplaying game was a category of game, much like a boardgame or video game. Second, and probably relatedly, the term "fantasy" itself could still be used generically, applying very broadly to any fictional work that departs from everyday reality, in one way or another. As I already noted, this usage was not familiar to me in 1981, thanks in no small part to the success of marketers and bookstore managers in dividing and segregating the various strands of fantasy into fantasy proper, science fiction, horror, and so on. I suspect that the fine folks at Chaosium, being older fantasy fans, retained that earlier, broader sense of the term when they subtitled Call of Cthulhu.

But what about Lovecraft himself? How did he view the genre(s) in which he worked? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the matter is complicated. Obviously, Lovecraft lived the entirety of his life before there were any widely accepted distinctions between different types of speculative fiction. They were all still deemed varieties of "fantasy" and Lovecraft would occasionally talk about his work or those of others in his circle as "fantasies." He would, in fact, sometimes call himself a fantaïsiste, an archaic English word borrowed from French for both a dreamer and a creator of fantasies (Lord Dunsany being one of his models in this regard). 

At the same time, one of Lovecraft's most celebrated non-fiction writings is his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." In it, he surveyed the development and characteristics of a genre to which he gives various names – the "weirdly horrible tale," the "weird tale," the "literature of cosmic fear," "fear-literature," the "horror-tale," and more. HPL seemed to use the term "weird tale" most frequently to describe his own works, most of which were published, perhaps not coincidentally, in the pages of a magazine bearing the title Weird Tales. 

Does the weird tale constitute a genre – or perhaps sub-genre – of its own? Does it have unique characteristics distinct from those of other kinds of speculative fiction? These are good questions without clear answers. As is so often the case, whether one recognizes any answer as dispositive depends on how finely one wishes to slice a great mass of literature. Further, the fineness with which one can categorize literature is itself a product of historical context. It's only with the benefit of hindsight that one possesses sufficient numbers of categories to claim magisterially that, for example, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a work of science fiction rather than fantasy. At the time the novel was written, such distinctions did not exist or, more importantly, did not matter. Even now, they have no impact whatsoever on one's enjoyment of Verne's tale.

To a great extent, that is also my judgment on the genre of H.P. Lovecraft's works: it doesn't matter. Whether one judges them fantasy, horror, or science fiction by the standards of today makes no difference to my own enjoyment of them. I increasingly feel as if this obsession with categorization, of putting everything into a clearly marked box, is folly – the pastime of pedants and advertising flacks. It's a defect of character to which I am particularly prone, which is why I feel it's important to push back against it. Ultimately, all that should matter is whether one finds a given story worthy – by whatever criteria – and not on the basis the literary genre it supposedly occupies.

All of which is to say: Happy birthday, HPL! Whether you're a writer of fantasy, horror, or science fiction, your works have immeasurably enriched my life and I am glad to have discovered them.

White Dwarf: Issue #80

And so, with issue #80 (August 1986), we come to the end of my retrospective on Games Workshop's White Dwarf. Even so, I'll likely have some concluding thoughts on the entire series next week, since I feel, after so many months of posts on the magazine, there's still a lot to be said about it. This issue features a strong cover illustration that recalls the work of Frank Frazetta – no surprise there, since the artist, Ken Kelly, was the nephew of Frazetta's wife and had the chance to study Frank's works and technique up close and personal.

Paul Cockburn's editorial focuses on a new Reader's Poll included at the end of the issue. The poll is quite lengthy, lengthier than many previous ones, in part, I suspect, because Games Workshop was trying to understand its current readership as it charted its course into the future. After nearly ten calendar years of publication, White Dwarf had changed a great deal, as had Games Workshop itself. It, therefore, makes sense that the company would want to take stock of its readers in order to better serve them.

"Open Box" kicks off with a very positive review of Games Workshop's printing of the third edition of Call of Cthulhu. Normally, I'd have a critical word or two about WD's habit of advertisements dressed up as a reviews, but, in this case, I'll make an exception. The GW hardcover printing of CoC's third edition is indeed an excellent product, one of the best versions of the game ever, in fact. I only wish I still had my copy. Also reviewed are two adventures for FASA's Doctor Who RPG, The Hartlewick Horror and The Legions of Death. The former receives greater praise, primarily because it's less complex and more suitable to referees of all levels of experience. Palladium's The Mechanoids gets a negative review, with the reviewer (Marcus L. Rowland again) suggesting that it'd work better as a war game than as an RPG. Destiny of Kings for AD&D is favored over Swords of the Daimyo (also for AD&D). Realms of Magic for Marvel Super Heroes is treated positively for the most part, though the reviewer (Peter Tamlyn) expresses some dissatisfaction with the added complexity this supplement introduces. He also criticizes the excessive use of the trademark symbol throughout the text, necessitated, no doubt, by Marvel's lawyers. Finally, there's Avalon Hill boardgame, Dark Emperor, by Greg Costikyan, which merits only middling praise.

Nigel Cole's "Combat in Doctor Who" attempts to correct some errors and oversights in FASA's RPG. Meanwhile, "Something Special" by Hugh Tynan introduces ten new special abilities for use by characters in Judge Dredd the Role-Playing Game. "Clouding the Issue" by Chris Barlow takes a look at the various detection spells available in AD&D with an eye toward sorting out the inconsistencies. "Crime Inc." by Graeme Davis presents a system for creating organized crime groups for use with any 20th century RPG. The system takes into account a group's size to give the referee an idea of how many members of various ranks it possesses, along with the extent of its reach into illicit activities. It's nothing fancy, but it looks genuinely useful in fleshing out enemy groups for a wide variety of RPGs. 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" returns to form by providing capsule reviews of a plethora of books, most of which I've never read, the exception being The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. It's funny: I've rarely been a fan of Langford's columns, but, despite that, I think I'll miss reading them nonetheless. I suppose that's mostly a function of the fact that they've been a fixture of the magazine since issue #39, which grants them an almost-venerable status. On the other hand, I've always liked both "Thrud the Barbarian" and "Gobbledigook" (the latter reduced to half a page in this issue), so it makes sense that I might feel a pang of regret in saying goodbye to them.

"The Reliant" by Thomas M. Price presents an escape craft, complete with deck plans, "for SF role-playing games," though the titular spaceship is presented using terminology and concepts clearly derived from Traveller. "Roleplaying for Everyone" by Peter Tamlyn is a thoughtful essay on the development and expansion of the concept of roleplaying. Tamlyn looks at the evolution of RPG design and how it has facilitated (or impeded) the adoption of the hobby by a large segment of the public. He also examines the growth of solo gamebooks, like Fighting Fantasy, and ponders what impact they, along with the then-new How to Host a Murder games might have. It's a solid piece that's mostly interesting from a historical perspective, since it was written nearly forty years ago, but I found it a worthwhile read nonetheless.

The best thing in this issue, in my opinion, is Graham Staplehurst's adventure "Ancient & Modern." Described as "a scenario for schizophrenic roleplayers," it draws on work of author Brian Lumley, specifically his tales of the primal continent of Theem'hdra, a kind of Conan-meets-the-Cthulhu-Mythos sort of sword-and-sorcery setting. "Ancient & Modern" takes place in two times, the ancient past and the present day, with players portraying two sets of characters using two different game systems, most likely AD&D for the former and Call of Cthulhu for the latter, though the scenario is written to accommodate other possibilities. The outcome of events in Theem'hdra affect those in the 20th century, so there is a direct connection between the two halves of the scenario. I've long wanted to referee a scenario of this sort before, so I was very intrigued by "Ancient & Modern."

Closing out the issue is another installment of "'Eavy Metal," complete with many color photographs of beautifully painted miniature figures. As I'm certain I've said many times before, I genuinely appreciate articles like this, because I've never been very good at painting minis. Seeing what others more skilled than I have done with them is a treat and an education about a side of the hobby with which I have very little experience.

There you have, the final issue of White Dwarf that I'll be reading as part of a series of posts. I do wish that this had been a more remarkable issue than it was, so that it might have weakened my resolve to move on to something else. Alas, it was not and so I now must bid farewell to White Dwarf. For the most part, I enjoyed this trip down memory lane and am glad that I took the time to do it. After a final post next week, in which I attempt to sum up my various thoughts about WD and its place in the larger hobby, I'll move on to another topic. Polyhedron perhaps?

White Dwarf: Issue #79

With issue #79 of White Dwarf (July 1986), I reach the penultimate issue I'll cover in this series. Though I'm glad to have done it – and I hope it's been profitable for those of you reading along – I can't deny that my enthusiasm has been waning for some time now. Sadly, this issue did little to make me regret my decision to end the series with #80, though there are a couple of bright spots – like John Blanche's cover illustration ("Amazonia Gothique"), which I like for reasons I can't fully articulate.

This issue marks the first one featuring Paul Cockburn as editor. His inaugural editorial mentions that there will be still more changes in store for the magazine, though these will "come in bit by bit." Cockburn also notes that Citadel Miniatures would, from this point on, include "a small warning, intended to prevent figures being sold to that part of the public who might actually be harmed by lead content." He elaborates that there had recently been a Citadel ad in a magazine "aimed at a very young audience," which necessitated this warning. Maybe I'm just old and contrarian, but I felt a slight pang of sadness upon reading this. By 1986, the Old Days (and Old Ways) were already fading ...

"Open Box" takes a look at two related Palladium products, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness and its post-apocalyptic supplement, After the Bomb. Both products are positively reviewed, but the reviewer, Marcus L. Rowland, expresses a preference for the "present day setting of the original game," which he feels offers "more opportunities for plot development and diversity." Also reviewed is Secret Wars II for Marvel Super Heroes, which is judged "an awful lot better than Secret Wars I." Never having seen the original, it's not clear to me whether this is faint praise or not. Two Chaosium releases, Black Sword (for Stormbringer) and Terror from the Stars (for Call of Cthulhu) get positive reviews, as does West End's Ghostbusters. Acute Paranoia, a supplement for (naturally) Paranoia earns a more middling appraisal, largely due to its "disappointing" mini-scenarios.

"Where and Back Again" by Graham Staplehurst is one of the aforementioned bright spots of this issue. Dedicated to "Starting a Middle-earth Campaign," the article lays out all the decisions a referee looking to run a RPG campaign set in Tolkien's world must make. Staplehurst covers subjects like "style" (i.e. campaign frame), rules, and even source material. He also raises the question of how closely one might wish to hew to Middle-earth as described by the good professor and the consequences for choosing to deviate from that particular vision. It's a solid, thoughtful article on a topic that has long interested – and vexed – me. 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" has only rarely been something I've enjoyed and this issue's installment does little to change my mind. More enjoyable (to me anyway) is his second contribution to the issue, an odd little article entitled "Play It Again, Frodo." Ostensibly, Langford's assignment is to demonstrate "how closely role-playing and literature are entwined" in order to help readers convince their "serious" friends that gaming isn't a silly hobby. He attempts to do this through a series of vignettes based around famous books or movies – Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Conan, The Lord of the Rings, etc. – where he postulates that events go other (and humorously) than how they do in the originals. The idea here is that roleplaying allows to do things "your way" rather than being bound by the dictates of an omnipotent author. 

"20-20 Vision" by Alex Stewart reviews science fiction and fantasy movies. The bulk of this issue's column is devoted to the film, Highlander, in which "a medieval Scottish warrior with a French accent" is befriended by "Sean Connery's Glaswegian conquistador." Stewart calls the movie "a stylish, raucous and utterly preposterous D&D scenario transplanted bodily into contemporary New York." That's probably the most succinct (and amusing) way I've heard Highlander described and it does a good job, I think, of capturing the essence of its cheesy glory.

"All in the Mind" by Steven Palmer offers an alternate psionics system for use for AD&D. Palmer's system interests me for its relative simplicity – the article is only four pages long, as well as for its more flavorful elements. For example, there's a discussion of the heritability of psionic powers, as well as the inherent connection between twins. Neither of these elements plays a major role in his system, but the fact that they're mentioned at all is in stark contrast to the dreary, tedious treatment of psionics in the Players Handbook. 

"Ghost Jackal Kill" by Graeme Davis is a Call of Cthulhu scenario that's presented as a prequel to The Statue of the Sorcerer, a Games Workshop CoC adventure. The scenario is set in San Francisco and involves not only the Hounds of Tindalos, one my favorite type of Mythos entities. It also features real-world historical figures, specifically the actress Theda Bara and writer Dashiell Hammett. Normally, I tend to be leery of the inclusion of such people in RPG adventures, but, in this case, I think it works, particularly Hammett, who did actually work as a detective for the Pinkertons and drew on those experiences for his fiction. In any case, it's a good, short scenario and another of the issue's stand-outs in my opinion.

"Think About It" by Phil Masters examines the purpose and use of the Intelligence score (or its equivalent) in roleplaying games. Because it's an overview of a large topic, it's necessarily brief in its examination, but it does a good job, I think, of presenting different options and approaches to handling Intelligence in RPGs. "'Eavy Metal" provides tips on converting miniature figures, along with some nice color photographs. 

"Psi-Judges" by Carl Sargent – a name that would feature prominently on the covers of many RPG products throughout the late '80s and into the 1990s – is an expansion of Judge Dredd: The Roleplaying Game focused on, of course, psi-judges. Interestingly, it's equal parts a rules expansion and a roleplaying expansion. There's information on how to play a psi-judge in the game, alongside discussions of game balance and other matters. "Gobbledigook" and "Thrud the Barbarian" are still here, but I can't deny that I miss the presence of "The Travellers." The comic's absence really hits home to me just how much White Dwarf has changed from the days when I read (and enjoyed) it regularly.

One more week!