Quote from: Geoffrey;257740Actually, only 18 out of 96 pages (or 19%) in my book describe the sorcerous rituals. It is some of the book's detractors who are fixating on it.

If I took a shit on your couch, only 5% of your couch will have my shit on it. But you will still refrain from sitting anywhere on the couch, I would think, and you would probably not invite me back to your house.

"It's only some of the couch's detractors who are fixating on the shit on it."

Get back in your basket, Bilal.

Honestly, I prefer the term Couchshitter to Lawncrapper. After all the former is used pretty often in gaming.

Edit: Then we can throw around the generic, he's a Cocksmock Couchshitter, which should explain it all.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Spinachcat;258009I am preparing my Carcosa campaign.   I will post about it next week.   If this makes you seethe with outrage, please visit the Dragonsfoot review forum to see the message I left for you.

I like the book and the author has been open on his blog and his forum posts regarding why he made the choices he made.   I disagree with some of the author's choices and I will be altering them for my campaign.   Oh, there will be blood, but no rape of children.   Will vile sorcerers throw babies into snake pits?  Hell yeah.  Will there be in-game, story-motivated repercussions for PC sorcerers who throw babies into snake pits?  Double hell yeah.

I like that most of the rituals require human sacrifice.  It draws the line sharply between Good and Evil in a world where these concepts do not exist.  In Carcosa, there is only those who seek power, those who are preyed upon and a miniscule few who stand righteously.

Magic is evil in Sword and Sorcery tales.  In Carcosa, you can be a righteous Sorcerer and never murder anyone by only doing Rituals of Banishing.   Banishing is a major achievement because it rids the world of one of the Cthulhoid horrors and invoking them back to Carcosa is a dangerous effort.  Most invoking rituals put the sorcerer in grave peril.

You could easily play a group of sword swinging warriors and a Lawful sorcerer devoted to making Carcosa safe for Men.  You could travel the world slaying any sorcerer devoted to Chaos and destroying every last vestige of the Snake Men and thus end the tyranny of the Old Ones...or would the heroes become tempted by the sweet lure of power?  

The fact that there are only two classes and one race is liberating.   Carcosa is a world like our own where humans have different skin colors and some people may declare attributes associated with that skin color.  However, the rules are clear than no skin color race gets any mechanical difference...except Bone Men are kinda creepy and folktales assume Jale Men are adept at sorcery.  

As for two classes, the Sorcerer comes with a big decision for the player...and the other players as well.  As for the Fighting Man, having one non-Sorcerer class means players need to take a moment to non-mechanically differentiate his character.   And isn't that exactly the Old School ethos of chargen?

Well put. Let's take as an example your "group of sword swinging warriors and a Lawful sorcerer devoted to making Carcosa safe for Men." Imagine that this group is striving to defeat some Cthulhoid entity and CANNOT do so without sorcery. Further suppose that the material components to dispel that entity are impossible to procure in short order. Then suppose the Lawful sorcerer comes across a ritual to bind that particular Cthulhoid entity, BUT it requires the sacrifice of six Blue Men.

It raises a quandary. The sorcerer doesn't want to sacrifice innocents, but if he doesn't the Cthulhoid horror will kill a LOT more than six men. So do the ends justify the means? Will he kill six innocents to save 6,000 from Cthulhu?

I think it makes for an interesting game.

Quote from: jeff37923;257993I've got a question for Geoffrey about his methodology for the spells under discussion, if he's willing to answer it.

Was it necessary to make them graphic and thus controversial content? RPGs like Call of Cthulhu have had rituals that summoned and bound Lovecraftian Horrors without going into graphic detail about the rituals themselves to dissuade PCs from using them, instead using other game mechanics to show the cost of such rituals to the PC casting them. So why did you decide to go for the controversial content?

When I first started preparing the book earlier this year, I experimented with presenting the sorcerous rituals devoid of anything that has caused controversy. But they seemed thin and weak to me. My gut told me to present them as published.

Quote from: jeff37923;258005Why put spells or rituals that you want to dissuade players from using in a setting that requires them to do so to advance in power in the game?

I like the dilemmas it poses. On Carcosa, all too often the price of sorcerous power is the loss of one's own humanity. A sorcerer has to weigh the potential gain in power against the danger to his own life and to his own humanity.

Quote from: Spinachcat;258009I am preparing my Carcosa campaign.   I will post about it next week.   If this makes you seethe with outrage, please visit the Dragonsfoot review forum to see the message I left for you.

I think that your challenge to those of us disturbed by this product to do something positive and donate to the charities you mentioned is an excellent one!  Maybe something positive will come out of this mess. Perhaps Geoffrey will also agree to donate some or all of the profit derived from Carcosa to one of those worthy charities.  It would go along way to allaying some of the concerns that some people have about his motivations.

How about it Geoffrey?

Quote from: Spinachcat;258009I like the book and the author has been open on his blog and his forum posts regarding why he made the choices he made.   I disagree with some of the author's choices and I will be altering them for my campaign.   Oh, there will be blood, but no rape of children.   Will vile sorcerers throw babies into snake pits?  Hell yeah.  Will there be in-game, story-motivated repercussions for PC sorcerers who throw babies into snake pits?  Double hell yeah.

I like that most of the rituals require human sacrifice.  It draws the line sharply between Good and Evil in a world where these concepts do not exist.  In Carcosa, there is only those who seek power, those who are preyed upon and a miniscule few who stand righteously.

Magic is evil in Sword and Sorcery tales.  In Carcosa, you can be a righteous Sorcerer and never murder anyone by only doing Rituals of Banishing.   Banishing is a major achievement because it rids the world of one of the Cthulhoid horrors and invoking them back to Carcosa is a dangerous effort.  Most invoking rituals put the sorcerer in grave peril.

You could easily play a group of sword swinging warriors and a Lawful sorcerer devoted to making Carcosa safe for Men.  You could travel the world slaying any sorcerer devoted to Chaos and destroying every last vestige of the Snake Men and thus end the tyranny of the Old Ones...or would the heroes become tempted by the sweet lure of power?

That is the real tragedy of this situation.  I agree with Melan when he said that what could have been an outstanding Sword & Sorcery product was ruined by the totally unnecessary inclusion of material the author should have known would draw sharp criticism.  Again, all for no reason.

I am a huge fan of S&S.  It is my default genre for fantasy roleplay. I have written articles about it (and posted them on this forum) which in no way shied away from the sometimes dark themes that are integral to this genre.  Playing amoral characters doesn't bother me, playing "evil" characters doesn't bother me, but the elements that Geoffrey consciously decided to include for no reason that he has cared to share with us do bother me.

If he would have left out the gratuitous details I would have been a customer. I am still very curious as to his plans for any changes to his product, if any, in light of this, surprising to him, negative reaction to it.


TGA

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;258085If he would have left out the gratuitous details I would have been a customer. I am still very curious as to his plans for any changes to his product, if any, he plans in light of this, surprising to him, negative reaction to it.

I hope there aren't any changes besides a strong warning that it is too strong and morally offensive for many readers. I haven't got a copy yet, but from everything I've read it looks like a great OD&D supplement with a lot of good ideas. Would I play it exactly as written? No -- but then few play OD&D exactly as written. It's an RPG toolkit, not a RPG bible.

If I run a campaign based on this, the PCs would be good guys out to stop the evil sorcerers and resist the temptation to "turn evil" bit by bit in the process (all for the immediate good, of course).  The descriptions of rituals sound like great motivation to stop such rituals before they start. While I would not graphically act them out in game, players researching what some perverted sorcerer is trying to do would probably run across them in musty books. But then I only game with mature, adult players and could care less what influence my campaigns might have on impressionable youth as I don't run campaigns for impressionable youths.

QuoteI like the dilemmas it poses. On Carcosa, all too often the price of sorcerous power is the loss of one's own humanity. A sorcerer has to weigh the potential gain in power against the danger to his own life and to his own humanity.

OTOH, in REAL LIFE you should weigh the ego massage value of publishing your personal porn against the danger of losing your reputation as a sane human being.

Quote from: Geoffrey;258082I like the dilemmas it poses. On Carcosa, all too often the price of sorcerous power is the loss of one's own humanity. A sorcerer has to weigh the potential gain in power against the danger to his own life and to his own humanity.

What mechanic are you using to track this humanity loss?

Quote from: Geoffrey;258076Well put. Let's take as an example your "group of sword swinging warriors and a Lawful sorcerer devoted to making Carcosa safe for Men." Imagine that this group is striving to defeat some Cthulhoid entity and CANNOT do so without sorcery. Further suppose that the material components to dispel that entity are impossible to procure in short order. Then suppose the Lawful sorcerer comes across a ritual to bind that particular Cthulhoid entity, BUT it requires the sacrifice of six Blue Men.

It raises a quandary. The sorcerer doesn't want to sacrifice innocents, but if he doesn't the Cthulhoid horror will kill a LOT more than six men. So do the ends justify the means? Will he kill six innocents to save 6,000 from Cthulhu?

I think it makes for an interesting game.

So what this means is that all that noise about these rituals being so graphic and horrific so that players could understand viscerally just how villainous the villains were and have that much more desire to defeat them was a smokescreen and the real point of the graphic detail is to throw a sadistic mindfuck on the players by tricking them into "moral traps" in which they're forced to commit graphic atrocities "for the greater good." HPL and CAS my ass, that's straight Saw plus White Wolf angst, with a touch of Manson family emotional manipulation for good measure. "Yeah I'm raping an disemboweling this 11 year old girl, but I'm doing it to save the village! I'm an unspeakable villain because I'm a hero! Oh, the irony!" Fuck that shit.

Quote from: walkerpIt can actually exacerbate the problem as the psychological urge is still there, but not the physical outlet.

Actually, chemical castration does remove the urge, because it removes sexual urges by... blocking productiond of hormones/neurotransmiters, whatever I don't know the exact chemistry behind it. Not sure about how good mechanical one is, but it would probably result in production of less hormones, so the sexual urge would be at least lowered.

Quote from: CavScoutAfter seeing you ride to the defense of pedophiles everywhere, I don't doubt it.

I am not defending child molesters, I am defending pedophiles, who haven't molested any child. I't you know paraphilia, which means deviation from common sexuality, here si your definition of pedophile from: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, a pedophile is an individual who fantasizes about, is sexually aroused by, or experiences sexual urges towards prepubescent children (generally <13 years) for a period of at least 6 months. That definition doesn't include molesting children.

Quote from: Fritzs;258141I am not defending child molesters, I am defending pedophiles, who haven't molested any child.

Kyle Aaron: You failed at reading definition of what pedophile is, here, try again!

-pedophile is an individual who fantasizes about, is sexually aroused by, or experiences sexual urges towards prepubescent children (generally <13 years) for a period of at least 6 months.
-Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition

That manual is quite official stuff, published by American Psychiatric Association.

Quote from: Fritzs;258141I am not defending child molesters, I am defending pedophiles...

Well fuck me... you're only a level 4 douche-bag then, not a level 5.

Quote from: Fritzs;258149Kyle Aaron: You failed at reading definition of what pedophile is, here, try again!

-pedophile is an individual who fantasizes about, is sexually aroused by, or experiences sexual urges towards prepubescent children (generally <13 years) for a period of at least 6 months.
-Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition

That manual is quite official stuff, published by American Psychiatric Association.

And you're defending them why?