De Profundis First Look

Center stage on the mic… and we puttin it on wax… it’s the New Style. This latest in Hogshead’s line of boundary-pushing RPGs is perhaps the most rules-light of the whole line. It isn’t necessarily the lightest reading, though, as it outlines the “psychodrama” approach to role-playing in text that started out pretty ponderous, and then underwent Polish-to-English translation. So, the style takes a little getting used to. It’s important to the game, though – because it’s rules-light, it really needs to lead by example. In fact, there are three “books” in the game; you can boil the first down to the two words “correspondence psychodrama.” The second outlines the technique of “field psychodrama” that’s really only of use as a supplement to the first, and the third, solo psychodrama, is only there to give the book a nice narrative of its own. As far as Lovecraft goes, you could play De Profundis about anything, but the creepier and more secret, the better, hence Lovecraft. I am already thinking about starting a De Profundis game with some friends, and as James Wallis said in his OgreCave interview, it is indeed some fine writing. And hey, it’s cheap…