Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Which of the big three Weird Tales writers would've made the best DM?

Aww, jeez, of all the impossible questions.

I'm gonna say, in order, REH, CAS, and HPL.

I think primarily because the "heroes" are more likely to stand a chance of actually winning in the literary mindset of REH. HPL and to a somwhat lesser extent CAS had a focus on the inevitable pointlessness against elder powers and were about doom and hideous realizations of the insignificance of that tiny and powerless beast known as man.

HPL as DM: What do you do next?
Me: Well, I didn’t find any traps. So I guess I’ll open the chest.
HPL as DM: The nameless entity within is beyond description. Your pc’s puny mortal mind is unable to process the implications of such a thing existing. Save versus Death Ray or Yorgnus the Bold becomes a gibbering mouth breather.



That would be pretty awesome.

In my mind’s eye (ear?) HPL speaks just like Vincent Price.

I think I'd like to play AD&D with REH and CAS as co-DM's.
Call of Cthulhu with HPL as the GM would probably induce actual insanity.

Heh, HPL hated table top games, so I would say probably REH.

I'm going with REH as well. Reportedly the guy loved dramatizing at the drop of the hat - so I'd guess he probably had some flair for really making something like a D&D scenario come alive - as in the other thread here - and if that film is to be believed, he also enjoyed presenting his work to other people that way.

Lovecraft seems to me to be the introverted writer-type of the three. I'm not saying he would have been a bad DM but I'm not sure if he really had the same effect in conversation as he did with his written work.

CAS - this is the guy I would peg as the flamboyant PC. He's that guy who would insist on using a Vincent Price voice at the table - all the time. He's also that guy who would make his own character portrait and a soap carving of his deity's holy symbol.

REH had the best sense for action and colourful adventure, and he let his protagonists make a difference, making him a perfect DM. CAS had a playful sensibility in his stories, and his Hyperborea cycle would make for a hell of a D&D world (The Tale of Satampra Zeiros is the story of a dungeon crawl gone horribly wrong), but he wasn't too concerned about PC survival, or PCs achieving anything of consequence. Could be a fun killer DM (he'd also supply his own drugs, which may or may not be a positive).

HPL's hatred of games is often brought up in these discussions, but it is hard to tell what he'd make of RPGs. The games he was commenting on would have few parallels with the likes of D&D. For the reord, here is the original quote:

All these things are, in their superior forms, simply by-products of excess intellectuality—which I haven’t the honour to possess. In their inferior forms they are of course simply avenues of escape for persons with too poorly proportioned and correlated a perspective to distinguish betwixt the frivolous and the relevant.

He might or might not have enjoyed them.

On the other hand, it may not be accurate to judge them on the basis of their prose. As an experienced fantasy novelist had once told me, if he wants to write a story, he'll write a story, and if he wants to run a game, he'll run a game. Different pursuits, different needs.

After further reflection, y'know who I think would have made an excellent Dungeonmaster? Lin Carter. He would have thrown the whole kitchen sink in there and it would have been derivative of every damn thing from King Kong to Tarzan but he would have done it over and over again and by god, you'd love it - assuming you survived the oppressive cloud of cigarette smoke clouding the table.

CAS. The other two would have been offputting as referees: their character quirks would have made them too much to deal with. REH was suicidal (in modern terms, perhaps manic-depressive or bipolar or even autistic); HPL had extreme ichthyophobia and who knows what else. The last thing the world needs are "odd" DMs.

I went with REH. Of the three writers, I've read more of his work than the other 2.

HPL, if he ever deigned to play D&D, would've loved throwing players into the astral plane, outer planes, & probably would've expanded the original version of Deities & Demi-Gods to include a lot more C'thulhu weirdness.

HPL is the odd man out in this. With some exceptions, he just wasn't that much into the type of fantasy that would suit an O/AD&D game. So, I'll go with an adventure written by CAS and run by REH.

REH. The guy would have been a great DM.

I'll stick with CAS as my top choice, but I'm also less familiar with REH as a person/personality, save through his fiction (I've only read the old LSdC biography of REH, not the better, newer ones yet).

I think HPL would probably have been a good DM too---he was highly social, just in a epistolary mode vs. a more-modern mode, and I think he would have appreciated the mutual building-upon-each-other's efforts that RPGs are based on (re: his fiction revisions, his helping of young writers, etc.). I think all three of them could have planned a grand campaign that would have been fun to play.

Allan.

rogatny wrote:Vincent Price.

This is the one and only correct answer to this poll.

I was trapped! (See Admiral Ackbar)

I have not had the pleasure of CAS yet (BTW..anyone point me to an omnibus?)

I like REH (Wow!), but what I would really like to add to this thread is how HPL liked to just close out a story with a sentence about going insane...madness! In truth, it is very DnD as we have all fallen in the pit if not a million times, and started a re-roll. So is REH the popular choice with HPL probably closer to reality?




Madness!