Proposal for a fairly simple non-RPG gamer’s fun Lovecraft board-game…

The board-game to be based on Lovecraft’s many long night-walks in New York, walks made frequently when he lived in the city for several years in the mid 1920s. Devise a simplified Monopoly-like version of New York City circa 1926, based on appropriate places found on maps and guides to the city at that time, and in the Lovecraft letters etc. The board-game would then have Lovecraft and his New York friends (maybe also a few cats from Ulthar, Detective Malone from “Red Hook”, and the old man from “He”) encountering mysterious atmospheres in NYC locations as they circle the squares at the edge of the board. The “hall of mirrors in Coney Island at night” would be an example of the sort of location to use (Lovecraft visited Coney Island several times), as well as the more obvious graveyards and museums etc. By landing on and answering knowledge questions about these places the players collect cards. When they have a certain combination of cards, this lets them into the tunnels or crypts or abandoned subway stations on the board. All tunnels emerge in the raised centre of the board — where players have a dream-encounter / psychic battle with Cthulhu. Perhaps they have to escape from the dream that Cthulhu is ‘sending’ to them. Perhaps Cthulhu is hanging off the Empire State Building, to which he is gripping King Kong-like. Players can only escape him via answering strange riddles, which would fit with Lovecraft’s concern with unspeakability and madness. The goal of the game would be to complete a tour of the Lovecraftian places in New York at night without going insane from too many Cthulhu dream encounters.

Feel free to take this idea and run with on Kickstarter. Just send me 10% of the take 🙂