The forums moved on March 1, 2021. Please read this page for more information.

Lovecraftesque storytelling RPG on Kickstarter

1 post / 0 new
Silverleaf
Silverleaf's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 11 months ago
PlaytesterBolster Allies
Joined: Apr 10, 2013
Lovecraftesque storytelling RPG on Kickstarter

I meant to tell you guys about this a couple of weeks ago but life got in the way, so please forgive the fact that there's only a week left in the campaign!

Anyway, I know a lot of you love RPGs and storytelling and horror, so I thought I'd bring Lovecraftesque to your attention. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1122788890/lovecraftesque

Lovecraftesque wrote:
"Lovecraftesque is a GMless storytelling game of brooding cosmic horror. You and your friends will each contribute strange clues to a slow-building mystery, culminating in a journey into darkness that ends in a climactic scene of horror. You will be surprised and creeped out by your friends' contributions, but the game is designed so that it will feel like one person was GMing it, even though you never had to break the tension by pausing for discussion. In short, Lovecraftesque is the GMless, indie-style Lovecraft game you've been waiting for.

When you play Lovecraftesque you'll be creating your own mystery, and your own unique monsters that will feel like something out of Lovecraft's notebook. There won't be any Mi-Go or Deep Ones - you'll get a completely fresh take on the genre.

The game focuses on a single Witness, who is at the mercy of strange and terrifying events. Lovecraft's stories rarely featured parties of investigators, and the hero rarely wins - that's how our game works, too. You rotate responsibility for playing the Witness, but the role is much more about revealing their inner thoughts and fears than solving the mystery or beating up cultists."

Disclaimer: The writers Josh and Becky are RL friends of mine but I wouldn't spam the forum unless I thought the game was really good. I've playtested it and the game's really good! My storytelling ability isn't the best and I'm very out of practice at improv, but as a group we created stories that were genuinely creepy and disturbing and interesting, and I really enjoyed the process.

My favourite part is that at the end of every scene each player secretly writes down what they think is going on, based on the clues that have been given in the game (by the players). It's really cool trying to tie new clues into your concept of what the story is about, or realising that the latest clue gives you an entirely new idea for what's going on - this mechanic means that whenever someone introduces a clue it kind of fits without you having to have any kind of discussion about what the plot is, or is going to be. That's really neat, and very hard for me to explain!

There are bare-bones rules available to download (link on the KS page) if you want to try it out. They've very close to reaching the last stretch goal - they already have some awesome people commissioned to write essays and modules including Jason Morningstar (of Fiasco fame), who loves the game.


Just assume I'm always doing that.

Damn it, Ronway!