Sunday, March 17, 2013
De Profundis
I'm looking to hear from anyone who's played the Lovecraftian play-by-mail game "De Profundis". There are a few reviews scattered here and there, but most of the links that come up on Google are solicitations for players. It sounds like something I'd absolutely love to play- a slow enough pace that I can fit it in when I have time, lots of mail-friendly prop documents, and an emphasis on narrative. I just get the impression that it's great fun in theory, but actually getting a game up and running is devilishly difficult.
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Drop a line to the guys over at Miskatonic University Podcast. I'll bet they would know.
http://www.mu-podcast.com/
I've been playing with a friend, and so far it works well. However, I've found that you're paying for the presentation of the book, rather than the actual mechanics of the 'game'. Putting a Society together CAN be a bit of a challenge, but once you get one person, it becomes a lot easier to expand the Society. If you'd like to give it a try, I'd be more than happy to correspond!
There's a Yahoo! Group focused around it, though the group is only intermittently active. Personally, I have read the game book and once or twice discussed getting something going with a couple friends, but it never really took off.
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/de-profundis/
Yes, I love De Profundis, although I'm not sure calling it a 'game' is entirely accurate. The rule book gives ideas and direction but the players tell their own stories and it can be an interesting experience. I played in a game set in the 1920s with guys from the US and Eastern Europe, and I made the point of sending my in-character letters in their own period envelopes inside a separate modern envelope, so that the recipent could always choose the right moment to open and read them, so as not to break the immersion. Doing a modern version, making use of Twitter, email, YouTube etc might be interesting, although might turn into something like 'Marble Hornets'...
Yes, I love De Profundis, although I'm not sure calling it a 'game' is entirely accurate. The rule book gives ideas and direction but the players tell their own stories and it can be an interesting experience. I played in a game set in the 1920s with guys from the US and Eastern Europe, and I made the point of sending my in-character letters in their own period envelopes inside a separate modern envelope, so that the recipent could always choose the right moment to open and read them, so as not to break the immersion. Doing a modern version, making use of Twitter, email, YouTube etc might be interesting, although might turn into something like 'Marble Hornets'...
Yes, I love De Profundis, although I'm not sure calling it a 'game' is entirely accurate. The rule book gives ideas and direction but the players tell their own stories and it can be an interesting experience. I played in a game set in the 1920s with guys from the US and Eastern Europe, and I made the point of sending my in-character letters in their own period envelopes inside a separate modern envelope, so that the recipent could always choose the right moment to open and read them, so as not to break the immersion. Doing a modern version, making use of Twitter, email, YouTube etc might be interesting, although might turn into something like 'Marble Hornets'...
Yes, I love De Profundis, although I'm not sure calling it a 'game' is entirely accurate. The rule book gives ideas and direction but the players tell their own stories and it can be an interesting experience. I played in a game set in the 1920s with guys from the US and Eastern Europe, and I made the point of sending my in-character letters in their own period envelopes inside a separate modern envelope, so that the recipent could always choose the right moment to open and read them, so as not to break the immersion. Doing a modern version, making use of Twitter, email, YouTube etc might be interesting, although might turn into something like 'Marble Hornets'...
I've been playing a game of De Profundis with a friend of mine on the other side of the country for a couple of years now. We regualarly mail notebooks back and forth with our letters written in them. The tricky bit, I've found, lies in finding a kernel around which to start writing the narrative, but the De Profundis book has lots of good suggestions for doing so. The pacing of the game is only as fast as you want to make it - if you want the story to jump right in, you can do it that way, though usually the story builds slowly until things become strange. As for finding people to play with, isn't that always the problem? It's a bit easier because De Profundis is a much slower paced game than others and lends itself well to writing whenever you have a spare moment.
Well, I had played De Profundis back in Poland, where it originated from, then a bit more once I moved to UK. I loved it and I can say that it is a great story game.
I would love to play again, but I didn't had any luck with players in the US (where I am living now). Drop me a line if you are interested at cybrasty at gmail to discuss it in detail. I am happy to explain more about De Profundis to you...
There's a somewhat recent thread for this in the Silver Lodge if you are a patron of Yog-Sothoth.com: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/threads/20178-De-Profundis-Cthulhu-gaming-on-the-edge-of-madness
There's also a slightly older one in the meetup one: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/threads/21699-De-Profundis
I got a copy of the book pretty recently and I'm looking to try to start up a game once I get through it. If you want to give it a shot, feel free to let me know at robert dot biddle at gmail dot com.
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