I tried The Yellow King RPG (YKRPG) in 2019 and finally got through all 4 books, mainly because I've been playtesting Cassilda's Song, a campaign for YKRPG.
I did a review of the Paris book here: QuickShock and Paris.
Chambers wrote The King in Yellow in 1895. He introduced the ideas of the two act play, The King in Yellow, the Yellow Sign, masks, and connections to Carcosa, spawning the a whole mythology about The King in Yellow. Since then, The King in Yellow has been associated with the themes of mental viral memes (not called that at that time), surrealism, and dreams.
Paris is set in 1895 Paris with the PCs being American art students studying abroad. It's the Belle Époque period with Absinthe, Cezanne, Debussy, Rodin, etc. In this golden age, Impressionism flourished. Could the mind bending effects of The King in Yellow intruding into Paris at this time be the cause? I love the setting.
The Wars is set in 1947 Europe during a delayed WWI. The PCs are French soldiers fighting with HG Wells-ian and Jules Verne-ian weapons. Trench warfare, tripod tanks, poisonous gas, ornithopters, wireless typewriters, and strange creatures from Carcosa stalk the PCs. It is a war between the daughters of The King in Yellow. Europe is their chessboard.
Aftermath is set in modern day America (with stunted growth, a mid-1970s feel) after one of the two daughters of The King in Yellow has won their war, but finally overthrown. Various factions fight for control of a new free America. Remnants of the previous rule dot the land such as Suicide Booths, leftover Carcosan entities and artifacts. The PCs are members of the resistance who suddenly found themselves part of the new world order. This setting is based on Chamber's short story: The Repairer of Reputations.
This is Normal Now is set in a parallel modern day America where The Wars and Aftermath didn't happen. But The King in Yellow is slowly permeating reality using modern technology such as memes, the internet, the dark web, Instagram influencers, killer apps, and SRIs (Safety-Related Incidents). SRIs are Carcosan creature attacks which people don't talk about. Facing the SRIs causes mental instability, so there are apps for dealing with this cognitive dissonance. PCs are normal people pulled into the weirdness.
I did find it odd that in This is Normal Now there is advice for running the other time periods and how to run a interwoven campaign. The chapters: The Alien Truth, GM Masterclass, and Entanglement should have been in the Paris book. I strongly recommend reading these before running any of the books. There is also recommendations for linking various PCs from each time period, I'm not sure that's really necessary. As a Player, I would prefer to choose which Investigative Kit (occupation) to take in each book vs having it be dictated based on my choice in Paris, but Aftermath and This is Normal Now are connected as parallel universes, and it does add a dimension to the game if the two PCs have the same name and similar occupations.
In trying to link all 4 books into one campaign, there's a time travel thread that can be used, but I didn't quite like it. Having time travelers go to 1895 Paris just seems really odd to me. A very 12 Monkeys thing. They do recommend other ways to link the four settings. I personally prefer odd historical coincidences and dream connections instead.
Each book gives you a different game. Paris feels like Trail of Cthulhu for the Belle Époque period. The Wars is for those who want war stories. Aftermath is for those who are interested in struggling political factions. This is Normal Now feels like Trail of Cthulhu for the internet age.
There are some design philosophy clunkiness that I have issues with, mainly the Fight system (p.54 Paris). The roleplaying comes to a screeching halt every time I bring out the Fight Tracker (p.241 Paris). I do like the Relative Challenge Table (p.47 Paris, p.24 The Wars, p.19 Aftermath, p.12 This is Normal Now) and the QuickShock cards (though there are too many of them and are unwieldy to use).
The main strengths of the game are the various settings (time period, location, equipment, creatures). They easily engage my imagination on how to bring elements in an interesting fashion to my Players.
Overall, I quite enjoyed the game and do recommend it.
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