It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show

It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show is a role-playing game published by Stellar Games in 1989.

It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show is a humor/horror system in which the PCs are actors in bad horror movies come true.^[1] There are many skills, a combat system, and many monsters.^[1]

It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show was designed by Bradley K. McDevitt and Walter H. Mytczynskyj, and published by Stellar Games in 1989 as a 56-page book.^[1] A follow-up second edition was published, and two scenario/expansion books.

Richard Thomas reviewed It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show in White Wolf #18 (Nov./Dec., 1989), rating it a 3 out of 5 and stated that "Overall [...] a funny game which can be tailored to any bad movie or genre that the players desire. I wonder how often the game will be played in the long run, but for the price it seems a pretty good deal."^[2]

In the September 1990 edition of Dragon (#161), Jim Bambra was amused by this game which "lets you play second-rate actors in some of the worst movies ever produced." He recommended it, saying, "Cheap tongue-in-cheek fun, this game is well worth a look."^[3]

In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, game critic Rick Swan found that this game "only hints at the potential of the premise." Swan called the character generation rules "mundane", the list of character skills "unimaginative", and the combat system "convoluted" and "desperately out of place in a game this simple." Swan concluded by giving the game a poor rating of 2 out of 4, saying, "There are a lot of good ideas lurking in Late Show, but the game can't seem to find them."^[4]

In his 1991 book Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games, Lawrence Schick commented that "the rules are really secondary to such guideline sections as 'Acting Appropriately Stupid' (explaining why you shouldn't run away when you suspect there are blood-sucking monsters around) and 'Crummy Endings' (tricks for the GM to pull when a scenario goes wrong, e.g., 'Suddenly the sun rises and all the monsters shrivel up and die')."^[1]

• Windgeflüster (Issue 28 - Dec 1994)