James Nicoll pointed out this oddity: a role-playing game scenario where Robert and Virginia Heinlein are possible characters.

The site for Trail of Cthulhu: The Big Hoodoo says:

Heh. As my sainted grandmother taught me to respond to baffling news imparted by another: "Oh, how nice for {you/them}."

Aside from Lovecraft, none of whose works I've ever read, the only names in the quoted article (or in the link for that matter) familiar to me, are those in the third paragraph, the Heineins and Messrs Boucher and Dick. Sigh.

The RPGs passed over my head when they first appeared, and that has continued to this day. [An equal pass over occurred with the "War" board and later computer/online game craze, proving I can be an equal opportunity ignorer.] But it is Heinlein appearance in an, at least to me, unexpected place, so good for them.

[I fully admit that there are things in the cyber-era that I tend to be a Luddite about. Most notably cell phones, but other things too.

It seems that it is no longer possible to parody fandom; they're already doing a superlative job themselves.

No longer?

I had to Google "RPG character".

You know, I just had my 63rd birthday but some of the replies here make me feel young and hip. Perhaps they are just examples of studied aloofness from popular culture.

I love that folks here noticed my game, even if the reaction was largely a shrug. Still, I'm not the first person to use RAH as a fictional character; in addition to Larry Niven's alt-history short "The Return of William Proxmire," in which a fictional Admiral Heinlein jump-starts the Space Age, albeit off-stage, there's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. That book is mainly an homage to the pulps, but in it a young Bob Heinlein shows up incognito in NYC in the 1930s, on the lam from the Denver-based mobsters who say he owes them money from a silver mining deal gone wrong. Another minor character in that book is Ron "Flash" Hubbard, pulp writer par excellence.

If you're unfamiliar with Lovecraftian role-playing games, or with RPGs in general, that's not terribly surprising; it is rather a niche audience. Still, the particular segment of the RPG hobby that thinks it's fun to pretend to be confronted with the cosmic monstrosities that plagued H.P. Lovecraft's nightmares is a pretty interesting crowd. Its members tend to be avid readers of science fiction, aware of sf's history, and to be historically minded in general. The name "Jack Parsons" is thus catnip to most players of Trail of Cthulhu (and its older brother Call of Cthulhu), since they are delighted by the oddity of an American rocket scientist with connections to Caltech who helped found JPL also being a practicing occultist linked to British diabolist Aleister Crowley. The fact that he blew himself up in his own garage laboratory just adds to the mystique. When you add in Parsons' well-documented connection to the California science-fiction scene in the late 30s and early 40s (he was a big fan of Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think), and the possibility that their mutual friend Bob Cornog (nudist and atomic scientist) could have introduced Heinlein and Parsons to each other, then the appeal of playing Bob Heinlein investigating the explosive death of Jack Parsons in 1952 is very strong and quite understandable.

Of course, the people who want to play a young Philip K. Dick in the same circumstances--they are in fact crazy

But seriously, I'd be delighted to entertain any questions or comments that folks here have; I'm pretty proud of "The Big Hoodoo" and I'm interested in people's reactions, even if negative or non-plussed.

Bill White

Hi Bill,

I think your game sounds interesting and would be fun to play. Unfortunately, I just don't have time to invest in an RPG these days. If I did, I'd join my wife in World of Warcraft, as she hints at frequently.

Doing it, I assume, in that very subtle way wives have; and taking an innocent "who me" expression at any suggestion that she might be engaged in browbeating.

In this case, it is in no way browbeating. She enjoys the game and wants to share the fun. I appreciate the thought and probably would enjoy it but I'd have to give up some other hobby or interest since WoW can be a real time sink. Now, if it had Heinlein as a character, I'd have to rethink my reluctance to get involved (to get back on topic).