Recently I read The Thrill of Dracula: Two Lifetimes of Playing with the Dracula Story by the redoubtable Kenneth Hite. While it's meant to work with Pelgrane Press's Night Black Agents game and that game's Dracula Dossier campaign (guys, I totally want to run that if I can find the players for it!) it could be read just for entertainment or general gaming. It focuses on film versions of Bram Stoker's novel through the years, and includes simple summaries and reviews of various films and brief discussions on elements of it that could be adapted for gaming.
Since he only had limited time to write and limited space to write in, he included some films even he would rather not have (like Mel Brooks' reportedly very awful Dracula Dead and Loving It over George Hamilton's fantastic Dracula rom-com Love at First Bite). Basically, he summarizes the various films, reviews them, and breaks down what elements of the Dracula or vampire mythos each film omitted or added, and concludes each section with a list of cool stuff from the movie to explore in a game.
Hite, incidentally, is pretty amazing. He explores ideas like the link between vampires and pestilence that Nosferatu explored. He also points out how few films or stories really explore the economic and social link between the vampire in his castle and the town below. Especially in those weird cases where the townsfolk seem to be benefiting from it! He even admits that some movies are bad, but can still provide some ideas that could be just plain awesome at the game table. For example, Van Helsing is a terrible movie, but there is very little in it that can't be mined for a good gaming session, even if just for the "that's cool!" factor.
Why should players and DMs read this? Well, Curse of Strahd, what I'm running now, and its precursors, Ravenloft, are D&D's take on the Dracula tale. Of course, since D&D is tech light, it couldn't have the "modern technology trumps ancient evil" theme you get from Stoker's original novel. But since PCs are generally from down-on-their-luck circumstances you can still get that "middle class defeats aristocracy theme." Although, if not careful, you might still find yourself playing the particularly odious "west defeats east" theme.
Going back to technology v. the ancients, since D&D lacks the high tech (in most settings, anyway), it instead has the PCs questing for artifacts of good. More recent editions of Ravenloft even added a Van Helsing archetype (Van Richten). Alec actually managed to compare the current thread of the story: the PCs questing for items and allied against Strahd to Simon's Quest, a classic Nintendo Metroidvania.
So, we've walked a curious path. Hite focused on film, but bringing up a video game let's us know that just Dracula has influenced film, he's influenced gaming. Hite's little book reminds us of the curious interplay between literary classics and pop culture like films and gaming, as well. Ultimately worth a read and worth a think.
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