De Profundis (role-playing game)

De Profundis is a role-playing game by Polish designer Michal Oracz. 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. 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.

De Profundis (2001), by Michael Oracz, was the last of the New Style role-playing games published by Hogshead Publishing. 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 in 2010.

The game has almost no game mechanics. There is no wargame apparatus, no die rolls, no statistics, no gamemaster. 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 rather than face-to-face. If freeform RPGs are like improvisational theatre, De Profundis is like an improvisational epistolary novel.

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, blog posts, or any combination of methods. The blog De Profundis (Che 2002) is an instance of solo play-by-post gaming via a blog.

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