About Me
I’m Michael LaBossiere, a guy from Maine who went to school in Ohio and ended up in Florida.
Professionally I am a philosophy professor at Florida A&M University. I started teaching there in the Fall of 1993 and greatly enjoy my choice of careers. I teach a wide variety of classes that range from Aesthetics (theories of art and beauty) to Theory of Knowledge. My course pages are here.
I started gaming (Dungeons & Dragons) when I was 15. I fell in love with the idea of creating worlds and stories and ended up writing professionally for several game companies including Chaosium. I still game as hobby.
I created this blog to make my Call of Cthulhu adventures available to fellow gamers.
The adventures are sorted into two categories: the 1920s and Modern. The 1920s adventures are set in the “classic” Call of Cthulhu time period. The Modern adventures are set, obviously enough, in the modern era of today.
These adventures may be freely distributed, converted to other formats (such as HTML and even translated into other languages. The only limitations are that 1) Chaosium’s rights must be respected, 2) I must be identified as the author and 3) the adventures may not be distributed for commercial purposes. Uploading to a web site that has advertising or sponsorship is acceptable, provided that the adventures are not being exploited for profit. In short, if you like the adventures, feel free to pass them on to others.
The adventures can also be freely converted to other game systems and distributed. The only limitations are 1) the rights of the owner of the game system must be respected, 2) I must be identified as the author and 3) the adventures may not be distributed for commercial purposes. Uploading to a web site that has advertising or sponsorship is acceptable, provided that the adventures are not being exploited for profit. In short, if you like my adventures and want to convert them to other systems, feel free to do so and share them.
Shadows of Maine 
Hello Mr. LaBossiere.
I wish to clarify the limitations on your Call of Cthulhu modules, because I don’t want to misuse or abuse the fact you’ve created such great pieces.
Along with translating the adventures into other formats, are you open with translating the BRP stats into other game systems? I’ve adapted ‘I Want to Kill The Icecream Man’ with my players under a game called ‘NEMESIS,’ which uses a system called the One Roll Engine (ORE) for Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green style games. However, it occurred to me that placing such an adaptation online – even with all credits left to you and with no text altered beyond the numerical information – was a significant enough change that it would be polite to contact you and ask first.
As a secondary question, if you _don’t_ mind such an adaptation, would it be acceptable to post it within a website dedicated to game resources for the NEMESIS system? I thought I’d clarify that because although the website is free, there is advertising.
Thanks again for all of the adventure modules you’ve written, and thanks for your time.
Yours,
Kevin Veale.
Kevin,
Feel free to convert the adventures into other game systems and post them on the website you mentioned. As long as there is no charge for the actual adventures and as long as my credit information remains intact, of course. Naturally, you can remove the Chaosium legal stuff when you convert it and give yourself credit for the conversion.
I’ll update this page to state these policies.
Thank you very much for the prompt response! I will do exactly that.
Yours,
Kevin Veale.
It’s been a few years since I’ve browsed your material, but I am glad to see your adventures are still up. Thanks for this labor of love.
Cheers,
A fan
Hi, first can I say that I love your adventures. I am currently in the process of starting a campaign based on your war buddy adventure and the following tales. But I have a question, did you ever write anything to follow from the 3rd part, The Bog?
Many Thanks
Paul T
Thanks for your wonderful contribution to the RPG and CoC community. I know I’ll be running one of your adventures for my group tonight (not sure which yet).
Michael, I am not sure if you still reply here or not but wanted to thank you for all this amazing content for CoC. I am about to begina campaign based on your “The Bookstore” series followed by your “War Buddy” series. At the end of “Tomb of Ash” you reference a follow-on adventure “Raising Up & Putting Down.” I can’t find it anywhere and would love to get a copy (even if I must pay for it). Do you have a copy?
Regards,
Michael
I should have added, I did convert “The Bookstore” into early 1920’s and made the original bookstore owner “Don Wedenberg” a friend of the players.
The complete adventure series was published as a monograph by Chaosium and is here: http://www.chaosium.com/raising-up/
Thanks
Another quick question, are there just the 3 modules in the “War Buddy” series?
I had intended to do a complete campaign, but only did the three-so the series is incomplete.
Do you ever write on the aesthetics of (playing, running, designing) RPGs like CoC, D&D, etc., or using RPG settings like GURPS Transhuman Space to explore philosophical issues like the personhood of artificial intelligences or the morality of uplifting animals?
I’ve made references to gaming in my philosophical writings; gaming is what got me started thinking about such issues. I’d say it was my gateway drug into being a professional philosopher.
I’ve got chapters in two forthcoming books that explicitly reference gaming; one is about robots and ethics, the other about virtual reality.
Hi Michael. I had always intended to buy Once Men ( i was slowly getting all the monographs ) But they were withdrawn before i could do so.
i was wondering if you had considered releasing Once Men under the Miskatonic Repository community publishing programme that Chaosium operate over at Drive Thru RPG ?
Kind regards,
Clive