Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Roleplaying Sourcebook

Every heart hides a division. Every act of reason tempts the shadow waiting underneath. This book invites you to explore that fracture. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Roleplaying Sourcebook transforms Stevenson’s tale of duality into a narrative engine built for story-first play within The Simple Approach framework. It turns inner conflict into action and consequence into story.

Jekyll & Hyde gothic horror studies the limits of morality, curiosity, and disguise. It thrives in candlelight and fog, where science questions faith and civility masks hunger. Its tone is intimate and severe, its stories shaped by guilt, secrecy, and the cost of discovery. The genre suits narrative roleplaying because it replaces victory with understanding. The dice measure not skill but self-control.

This book equips players and gamemasters to build living worlds from pressure and choice. Traits define motive, method, and temptation. Tables let you select or roll for key elements like experiments, witnesses, and scandals. You can create complex characters, shifting factions, or urban settings alive with consequence. Every tool favors story over tactics, supporting drama and reflection rather than competition.

Its structure follows The Simple Approach: narrative-based character, setting, and faction traits that adapt to any system. The content is compatible with existing mechanics yet independent enough for immediate use. The Principia core book expands your options but isn’t required. This sourcebook delivers a full framework for moral inquiry, secret lives, and transformation.

These tools reward curiosity and empathy. They let your table explore power’s decay, ambition’s reach, and the fragile ethics of invention. You can tell stories of confession, pursuit, or collapse, each scene revealing how identity bends under scrutiny. Play focuses on consequence and revelation, turning uncertainty into tension and truth into risk.

The design fits any group size, pace, or rule set that values narrative over numbers. It supports duet introspection or ensemble play with equal precision. Its adaptability lets each reader decide what the experiment costs and who pays its price.

Step inside the study and light the lamp. The instruments await. Within these pages you’ll find everything needed to shape stories of divided purpose, moral consequence, and transformation that can't be undone.

This Book Contains

Secrets breed structure. Every part of this book opens a different door into the divided world of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Together they form a laboratory of narrative tools that turn moral pressure into story. Each section builds tension between knowledge and consequence, giving your table a way to explore the gothic horror of reason corrupted by desire.

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: An overview of the novel and its adaptable core. This section traces themes of duality, secrecy, and moral decay, then shows how each can become a story framework for play within The Simple Approach.

• Characters: Examples of people shaped by repression and revelation. You’ll find key archetypes and ready-to-use traits that define identity, temptation, and transformation for use in new or existing campaigns.

• Settings: Guidance on crafting confined, gaslit worlds that hold more silence than safety. Setting traits help assemble laboratories, parlors, and streets where inquiry feels like trespass and truth demands a cost.

• Factions: Study the institutions and conspiracies that protect or exploit forbidden knowledge. Each faction entry includes traits to define their resources, agendas, and fears, making the social web as dangerous as any experiment.

• Stories: Hooks and conflicts drawn from secrecy, guilt, and exposure. These tools let you build mysteries, moral trials, and pursuits that reveal what happens when discovery goes too far.

• Genre Tools: Advice on reflecting Jekyll & Hyde’s atmosphere through adaptable mechanics. You’ll learn how to make tests feel like confessions and how outcomes reshape identity rather than score victory.

• Techniques: Practical narrative methods for tension and transformation. This section teaches framing, pacing, and revelation in ways that keep horror internal as much as external.

• Glossary: Definitions of essential terms and concepts used in both gothic horror and The Simple Approach, ensuring clarity while maintaining period tone.

• Bibliography: A curated list of verified academic, historical, and creative sources to deepen understanding of Stevenson’s work and its enduring themes of divided humanity.