A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Dateline: Lovecraft #1: Arkham, 1928

Dateline: Lovecraft #1: Arkham, 1928 by Dean Engelhardt is a role playing game supplement published by Cthulhu Reborn. This is a generic supplement that is intended for use with horror roleplaying games based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It is a prop supplement, a newspaper, that can be used in a variety of different ways.

The supplement is available from RPGNow for $14.99 but was purchased for $11.99 during a sale. It consists of two PDFs, the Guidebook and the Newspaper.

Guidebook

This is a 58 page PDF with one page being the front cover and one the front matter.

It starts with the Introduction which explains the purpose for creating the prop and that there are many ways of using it.

A sidebar, What’s a “Self-Perpetuating Product Line?”, explains that the profits from the core supplement – this – will be used to develop further free (or, rather, Pay What You Want) supplements to support it. For example, Dateline Lovecraft EXTRA! – Help Wanted, the first of these, develops an adventure from material from the newspaper.

The Newspaper Prop PDF has extensive instructions on using Adobe Reader to print out the newspaper, whether this be the entire paper – and each page is approximately the size of 6 A4/U.S. Letter sheets – or individual articles. Printing out an entire page scaling to fit on a standard sheet will make the text unreadable, which is why there are extensive instructions. Also discussed are the “bleed-through” and “paper texture” printing options and that, although the paper is itself an image, there is a hidden text layer that allows it to be searched.

Next is Finding Clippings in the Dateline: Lovecraft Newspaper which explains how clipping identifiers work, which are strings that identify the document (all for this supplement are the same), the page number, the column, the location within the column and the article title, and that there are also clip maps for each page. A sidebar on racism and sexism explains how such – which were far more common in the period – are handled in an attempt to be reasonably authentic whilst not outright offensive. The publishers also state that of course they do not endorse or condone any such behaviour.

The clip maps referred to are next. There are 12 of these, each taking up a full page. These are reproductions of each newspaper page with each clipping coloured to make them identifiable and linked to their clipping identifier.

Nine Ways to Use (Or Abuse) the News has ways in which the paper can be used. These can be as colour, scenario starters and mid-scenario clues, with different ways for each. A sidebar, From News to Clues, has ideas on using the newspaper as a prop during a scenario.

Inkhounds of the Miskatonic Valley: A Campaign Frame has a potential starting point for a campaign with all of the characters being linked. In this case, all the investigators would work for or be associated with the papers of the area. In particular, the Arkham Advertiser, the prop newspaper itself, and there are details on the paper, staff and services it provides. This includes suggestions for starting scenarios.

“To Touch the Untouchable” – A Dateline: Lovecraft Scenario is an adventure taking place in Arkham that involves two of the clippings directly and there is a third related one. It expands on articles in the newspaper and turns them into a short scenario. There are three different Mythos motivations for the scenario, and therefore three different outcomes. The general progress of the scenario is the same for each motivation.

Indices has lists of the different items to be found in the paper, arranged by topic and alphabetically, with their clipping identifiers given. These are People, Places (in the vicinity of Arkham), Miskatonic Area Businesses, Facilities, & Organizations, Arkham Addresses, Advertiser & Postal Boxes and Strange Terms, Curiosities, and Mythological References. Many are marked if they have been mentioned in previous game publications about Arkham and People are also marked if they are not likely to be found in 1920s Arkham.

Newspaper

This is the actual newspaper. It is 12 pages long and each page is 16.54″x23.29″. The pages consist of articles, stories, news, classifieds and such, interspersed with which are advertisements, many of which are actual advertisements from the period that have been added into the paper.

Dateline: Lovecraft #1: Arkham, 1928 in Review

The Guidebook PDF is decently bookmarked, with the major and minor sections linked but not the sidebars for some reason. There isn’t a table of contents but navigation is generally decent. The text maintains a two column format and appeared free of errors. There are actually some custom illustrations as well as copies of parts of the newspaper.

The Newspaper lacks bookmarks. Perhaps they could have been added, but this isn’t really the way is supposed to be used. With it being a printable prop, it is intended to be printed out, whether in part or in full, rather than read digitally. The paper consists of so much stuff it’s nearly impossible to take it all in at once. There are period appropriate illustrations – some of which are from the period – and a host of stories and material written in different, and appropriate styles.

This paper is a big resource that can be used, as mentioned, for a host of different reasons, from scenario starters to simply making Arkham look like a living place. One minor niggle – and it is really minor – is that, with the paper having a specific date, it can give the impression that it is largely viable only around that date (it’s mentioned that the paper could be used in a later time period if investigators are digging through archives for information) as otherwise the stories could get too dated. However, this is minor and otherwise this is an excellent and well-developed prop. Dateline: Lovecraft #1: Arkham, 1928 can be found by clicking here.