Reconsiderations: H.P. Lovecraft

This being the 136th anniversary of the birth of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, I thought it the perfect opportunity to write another installment in my increasingly irregular Reconsiderations series. I also think it makes sense as a topic, given that, since its inception, Grognardia has focused not just on the history of roleplaying games but also on the authors and literature that inspired those games – and there are few authors who can reasonably be said to have had more of an impact on RPGs than Lovecraft.Lovecraft is, after all, an Appendix N author and one Gygax notes as being among "the most immediate influences upon AD&D," alongside such other notables as Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Jack Vance. This alone demonstrates my point, but, of course, Gygax is not alone in having been an admirer of HPL. Innumerable RPG creators, both past and present, have acknowledged the role Lovecraft and his stories have played in their own creations. There's thus a good reason why, in my first…