The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep is by far one of the greatest roleplaying campaigns ever commited to paper. I've started running it 6 times now and even finished it once. (Failing to finish Masks has less to do with a lack of information and a lot to do with its sometimes excessive bodycount.)
In brief Masks takes you around the world, stopping off at various locations and visiting many strange and dangerous places in a desperate bid to stop the world from ending. Pretty standard stuff these days but when it was released it was huge. Even today there aren't many campaigns that can rival it for length or breadth. In fact it was inspirational to the creation of The Enemy Within Campaign for WFRP, which is another of my favourites.
What it lacks though is depth of background detail. The campaign lacks information about those locations in sufficient depth to really bring them to life. Although each chapter starts with a write up, I never felt there was enough there to satisfy my needs.
So here's a list of links to interesting and helpful stuff for Masks that I've found over the years. Beware though, some of this material is spoilers so don't go looking if you're going to be playing. To begin with, we’ll cover the location that the campaign starts, New York.
Secrets of New York
(http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?cPath=41&products_id=668 [1]) by Chaosium contains all the background information you might require here. To be honest the New York chapter is one of the shortest and I never really felt I needed much more information than what was in the campaign itself but this book does add some extra flavour to whats happening. It also has 2 adventures set in 20’s New York one of which can be easily converted to give the PC’s another route into the campaign.
I know I listed this before in the previous column but its worth having a look at the inof about the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers that met in the Algonquin Hotel. If you have any literary characters in your party they’re likely to have heard of these guys. One of my last group was playing a writer who was a member. Needless to say, the reports she kept sending back made interesting reading.
http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade20.html [2]
Ever wondered what the subways looked like and what subway maps were like back in the 20’s? Have a look here and you’ll be amazed
http://www.nycsubway.org/maps/historical.html [3]
Fancy some genuine sound recordings from the decade to play to the PC’s while they traverse the city that never sleeps?
http://archer2000.tripod.com/1920.html [4]
Baseball was huge then and its huge now. The baseball almanac is an archive of baseball related information that covers plenty from the 20’s too.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ [5]
for example, here’s the New York Yankee’s team roster for 1920
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=1920&t=NYA [6]
America on the move opens with a beautiful picture of Manhattan Island in 1927 from the air and is full of information about how New York was changing as a city. It focuses mainly on the changing culture of the city.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_6_2.html [7]
Googles image results for 1920 New York. Says it all really.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=1920+new+york&hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLR_enGB220GB220&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title [8]
Characters fancy hitting Broadway while they’re in town? Musicals 101 is a good place to start for information about what was happening
http://www.musicals101.com/1920bway.htm [9]
Wikipedia’s entry on New York and on the history of New York
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City [10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_York [11]
A site full of genuine period maps including New York State as well as the city
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/new_york.html [12]
Some sites covering the Cotton Club, which if you don’t know why its so important you shouldn’t be running a game in 1920’s New York.
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/HAR/HAR055.htm [13]
Swing has its roots based in the Harlem Renaissance of the 20’s and in particular the Blues and Jazz revolution that accompanied it. This site has a history of swing, with a focus on New York, which makes it all good
http://www2.kenyon.edu/depts/IPHS/Projects/swing1/history/history.htm [14]
Interested in what might happen if the players cross the wrong person in Harlem while hunting for cultists? The crime library has an excellent series of articles on black gangs of the 20’s and what they got up to
http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/gang/harlem_gangs/index.html [15]
So there we go. This list is far from comprehensive but it is a start. Please feel free to post links of your own below and if we get enough then I’ll maybe look at doing a more comprehensive breakdown later.
LiAm