''De Profundis'' is a role-playing game by Polish designer . Players create the game's narrative by writing each other letters in the style of horror author H. P. Lovecraft. The game has practically no

game mechanics In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide the player's actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, a ludeme is an element of play like the L-sha ...

. Rather, it emphasizes character and atmosphere, and attempts to blur the line between play and real life. There is also an option for solo play.

History

''De Profundis'' (2001), designed by Michael Oracz, was the final New Style role-playing game published by

Hogshead Publishing Hogshead Publishing was a British game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements. History In October 1994, James Wallis founded Hogshead Publishing, a company which specialised in role-playing and storytelling games. Wallis b ...

. According to Shannon Appelcline, "It was a Lovecraftian-styled game but about as far from '' Call of Cthulhu'' as you can get. It is best remembered for its correspondence rules, which allowed players to rather uniquely play the game through the exchange of in-character letters. Like most of the other New Style games, it did not include a Games Master and was oriented toward telling stories." ''De Profundis'' was reprinted by

Cubicle 7 Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd is an Irish games company that creates and publishes tabletop games. Best known for its ''Doctor Who'' and ''Lord of the Rings'' games, Cubicle 7 offers titles covering a range of licensed and self-developed properties ...

in 2010.

Game system

The game has almost no game mechanics. There is no

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apparatus, no die rolls, no statistics, no

gamemaster A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...

. The game is like freeform role-playing games in that its rules are minimal, but differs from them in that players provide their own character details, there are no referees, and players interact via

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...

rather than face-to-face. If freeform RPGs are like improvisational theatre, ''De Profundis'' is like an improvisational

epistolary novel An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...

. The sourcebook recommends that players communicate through physical correspondence in order to capture the mood of Lovecraft's stories, to encourage the players to take ample time in crafting each response, and to allow for the exchange of props or strange artifacts between players. However, nothing in the rules precludes playing through other mediums, and games have been adapted for play by

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

posts, or any combination of methods. The blog ''De Profundis'' (Che 2002) is an instance of solo

play-by-post gaming A play-by-post role-playing game (or sim) is an online text-based role-playing game in which players interact with each other and a predefined environment via text. It is a subset of the online role-playing community which caters to both gamer ...

via a blog. The use of correspondence does not necessarily mean the game is play by mail. The

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committee has said the game instead reinvents the roleplaying form. Designer Michal Oracz wrote the sourcebook as a series of letters in Lovecraftian style. Hogshead marketed ''De Profundis: Letters From The Abyss'' with the tagline, "This game is intended for mentally stable adults".

Publication history and awards

Polish game company Portal published ''De Profundis'' in 2001. British game company Hogshead Publishing translated the game into English and published it as ''De Profundis: Letters From The Abyss'' as part of their New Style imprint in 2002. The game was shortlisted for the 2001 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. In November 2002, James Wallis, Director of Hogshead Publishing, announced that Hogshead was leaving the adventure gaming industry due to boredom, creative frustration, and increasing despondence about the future of the specialist gaming industry. Hogshead returned the rights of the New Style games to their creators. As of 2006, ''De Profundis: Letters From The Abyss'' is out of print, although Portal is still offering the Polish ''De Profundis'' on its website. As of 2009, ''De Profundis'' second edition is being published in English by

, as both book and PDF, although as of October 2014 the book is marked as "Temporarily OUT OF PRINT", but the PDF is still available.

Reviews

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Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

References

Sources

* * * *{{cite web , author=Wespenklatsche, Paul, date=May 24, 2015, title=Bridges of Maastricht , format=http , work=De Profundis by blog, url=http://bridgesofmaastricht.tumblr.com/tagged/maastricht/chrono , accessdate=July 8, 2015 British role-playing games Hogshead Publishing games Polish role-playing games Role-playing games introduced in 2001