I'm the author of the book. On my blog I give a detailed explanation of why Carcosa's sorcery is so grisly:
http://carcosa-geoffrey.blogspot.com/

Short version:

1. The tone and level of graphic violence is exactly that of M. A. R. Barker's The Book of Ebon Bindings. If any line has been crossed, Prof. Barker already crossed it 30 years ago.

2. Most sorcerers on Carcosa are evil. They do evil things.

3. Nobody at my game table has ever played the human sacrifice element out in detail. Here is how a horrific ritual was actually played-out at the table:

Judge: The appointed time has come for the Writhing Sacrifice.

Sorcerer player: OK, we give her to the fighters to prepare her.

Judge (to the fighters): Do you do it?

Fighter player: We do what has to be done.

Judge: OK, and how about the rest of the ritual?

Sorcerer player: I don't forget to put that white-thing in her mouth before the knife is plunged.

Yogthag player: And I plunge the knife. Kassogtha [the entity being summoned], here you come! Ha ha!

Quote from: walkerp;257564When you talk like this, The Good Assyrian, I am much more inclined to listen and appreciate your point of view.

Thanks.

Quote from: walkerp;257564I have played evil characters, but the most evil they got was backstabbing other party members and killing supposedly "good" NPC's and generally in pretty standard D&D killing (i.e. non-graphic depletion of hit points, quickly).  The few times we had to interrogate someone for info, we always ended up backing off.  I think now that I might be able to play an evil sorceror doing all that stuff if it was off-camera, but I kind of doubt it.  I like the idea of the totally maddened magician deep into evil for power's sake, but actually roleplaying out the details of that would probably freak me out.

Ditto.  What I object to is not the playing of evil or amoral character, or exploring moral systems different than my own.  In fact, I have gone into those territories many, many times in my gaming life.  What I object to is, specifically graphic child abuse.  It serves no purpose that can be considered healthy, in my opinion.

Quote from: walkerp;257564On the other hand, the inclusion of elements of evil and truly cruel behaviour are a staple of fiction.  I just read The Vendetta for instance, a 70s paperback novel about a mafia war in the 30s, a direct descendant of the pulps.  There is a scene where a gang invades the country house of their opponent.  A rich socialite that the leader had been sleeping with is there and after killing all the men, they rape her on the front lawn.  It's a rough scene and it's set up showing her as horny and impatient as she waits for the gangster boss to come back (before the invaders arrive).  The actual raping is a couple of sentences, but the part where she is dragged out and forced to strip on the front lawn in front of all the invading men is quite drawn out.  Classic '70s mysogyny but I would say something that helped make the book tough and intense.

Quite.  But it is fiction, and there is a detachment from the events that the reader has that does not exist when the participant is initiating and participating in the narrative, as in an RPG.  I think that it is a big difference.

Quote from: walkerp;257564I would say there is room in certain RPGs for that kind of thing, if that is the content level the group has agreed on.  The PCs roleplaying out the rape, I agree would be utterly unfun for me or anyone I play with, but I could see someone playing the gangster boss who orders that the violation take place.

EDIT: I didn't actually address your point.  Yes, I believe that each group has a social contract that may include things that I consider really unfun, whether it be mindless dungeon crawl slaughter or grpahic rape.  As adults, that is for us to choose.  But when people bring it into a public forum by publishing a game or posting an AP, then they should be prepared for the heat. END EDIT

To be clear, I do not advocate the banning or destruction of such products.  I do advocate the public shunning of them.


TGA

Quote from: Fritzs;257560After rading this I held my head betweem my hands and creamed like I just saw hell for about ten seconds... then I colapsed laughting.

I can live with that.


TGA

Quote from: droog;257547The thing is that some of us don't really see what we do as 'fantasies'. That's reserved for those who are in it for wish-fulfillment.

People doing this stuff aren't necessarily wanting to be able to do it in real life.

I agree to a point Droog, in that I do not automatically draw a parallel between role-playing and wish-fulfillment fantasy, although you must admit that there are often strong connections.  And when the subject is sex, particularly forbidden sex like child abuse, there is much less of a wall of separation between these goals in my opinion.

Look, you are actually one of my favorite posters here because of your puckish ability to challenge assumptions of culture, but sometimes I think that as a result you don't fully consider that some of the standards of our culture are valid and useful.  I chafe at restrictions that others place on my thinking, but I also believe that to have no standards is just as dangerous to one's being as having those standards dictated to you.


TGA

I have a couple of issues here, which is a shame as the stated objectives of the designer (to create a more S&S feel) are ones I have huge sympathy for.

1)  The spell descriptions are not ones that I would personally feel comfortable using in my game.  I'm not making a comment here on others, just that I personally would not be comfortable using some of those descriptions, I would be even less so were players carrying out the more extreme rituals rather than off-screen NPCs.

2)  Just Fighting Men and Sorcerors is pretty limited, and means someone will almost certainly play a Sorceror.  Sorcerors need not be evil, but if they're not they lose most of their abilities, therefore the odds are anyone playing a Sorceror will eventually be tempted to evil (arguably a feature, not a bug).  That's fine, save it takes me into 1) above again, with a player at the table having to bring those rituals into the game.

Which is a bugger, as his description of what he wants the magic to be sounds damn cool, I'm just not persuaded you need go quite as far as he has to get to where he ostensibly wanted to go.

Anyway, two problems, both practical.  Spinachcat, how fixable are the more extreme rituals?

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;257586Quite.  But it is fiction, and there is a detachment from the events that the reader has that does not exist when the participant is initiating and participating in the narrative, as in an RPG.  I think that it is a big difference.

I agree that it is a big difference, but I'm not so sure about how it is different.  For instance, wouldn't one generally feel more comfortable about consuming impure stuff in the privacy of their own home?  Is it possible that someone may actually be more restricted in how far they go if they are sitting around with a bunch of other people who might be shocked at their behaviour, then if they are  by themselves or in front of a computer screen.

How different is the engagement when reading child porn (or looking at it) versus acting it out with other people?  I think that for someone who is wired that way, either activity would be just as bad for them (in that it may encourage the actual behaviour or loosen whatever disciplines were preventing them from acting on their proclivities).

As I type this, though, I realize that there seems to be this underlying sense that there is a loosely-organized group of "lawncrappers" who tend and prefer to do their nasty things together.  But when you think about it, it seems like most pedophiles must be pretty solitary.  I would imagine that the networks that keep getting busted out there thrive mainly on the internet, where you can pass data (and money) but that they rarely actually hang out together.  

Kind of a harsh subject that I don't like thinking about too much actually.

Quote from: Balbinus;257602Anyway, two problems, both practical.  Spinachcat, how fixable are the more extreme rituals?

It's fluff. You could swap out "sacrifice x person in y manner" in favor of "eat exactly 45 of your favorite potato chips" and nothing changes but the atmosphere. The effects of most of the rituals are even described as fluff, with very little in the way of game mechanics at all.

All of the rituals involve either summoning Great Big Cthuloid Monsters With Weird Names, controlling them, or dispelling them. You're not killing girls to cast regular D&D spells - they don't exist in Carcosa.

I'm the author.

1. The level of grisly detail of my book is exactly that of M. A. R. Barker's The Book of Ebon Bindings. Any line that has been crossed was already crossed by Prof. Barker 30 years ago.

2. Carcosan sorcerers are evil. They do evil things.

3. No one at my table has ever gone into detail on human sacrifice during the game. For example, when a PC performs a ritual requiring human sacrifice it goes something like this:

Judge: The sun has just set.

Player: OK, we do what has to be done. We utilize all the material components as described in the ophidian runes, and we kill the sacrifice in the required manner.

That's it.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;257596II chafe at restrictions that others place on my thinking, but I also believe that to have no standards is just as dangerous to one's being as having those standards dictated to you.

But from my point of view it has nothing to do with standards. If I put child abuse into a game, it's because I think it's appropriate to do so. Maybe it makes the game R instead of PG, but so what? I happen to be an adult.

In fact, I don't believe I've ever used that plot element as either a GM or player (I did have a chr who pushed a kid over), but I'm not ruling it out. It's fiction. Some fiction goes to ugly places, and sometimes it's better for it.

I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be a slippery slope to perdition. Perhaps I just have some faith in the strength of my own character.

Quote from: Geoffrey;257617Testing.

(My previous post never showed up.)

Probably got hit by the spam filter.  The mods are pretty good about following up on that problem.


TGA

Quote from: Melan;257518Here is what the author has to say on the subject.

Uh huh. This sounds like a petty excuse to me.  "Its not my fault that the Carcossan sorcery system is full of virgin-rape! It was invented by the Snake men! They did it!"

Huh? Nevermind that this doesn't even hold up as a rational argument (why the fuck would a bunch of snake-men be interested in raping, as opposed to just killing, human sacrifice victims?!), YOU invented the fucking snake-men, you cunt.

Nor does this explain why you feel the need for the protagonist PCs to play the guys who do these rituals (as opposed to say, horrific NPC villains), nor does it explain why you felt the need to be so elaborate in describing the particular method of rape and murder of young girls in your "rituals" (rather than just saying "this ritual requires human violation and sacrifice").

So yeah, bullshit justifications.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;257423To be honest, given the blog and the review, it sounds about 95% kosher to me. The guy is a long-time Dragonsfoot regular, and that the book is self-published is neither here nor there. That he found Sorcerer inspiring may or may not set off the creep-o-meter.

Wait, what? "He found Sorcerer inspiring"?
What Sorcerer are we talking about here? Ron Edwards' Sorcerer?

RPGPundit

Quote from: Geoffrey;257617I'm the author.

1. The level of grisly detail of my book is exactly that of M. A. R. Barker's The Book of Ebon Bindings. Any line that has been crossed was already crossed by Prof. Barker 30 years ago.

2. Carcosan sorcerers are evil. They do evil things.

3. No one at my table has ever gone into detail on human sacrifice during the game. For example, when a PC performs a ritual requiring human sacrifice it goes something like this:

Judge: The sun has just set.

Player: OK, we do what has to be done. We utilize all the material components as described in the ophidian runes, and we kill the sacrifice in the required manner.

That's it.

Thank you for coming here to give us your POV.  

A question, however.  Although you say that your players never go into grisly detail in your sessions, why did you feel the need to create a actual play thread in which you describe their actions in prurient detail in fiction based on their POV?  And that was the edited version.  Can you see where this might call into question your detachment, or lack thereof, from truly vile wish fulfillment fantasies?


TGA

Quote from: RPGPundit;257653Wait, what? "He found Sorcerer inspiring"?
What Sorcerer are we talking about here? Ron Edwards' Sorcerer?

RPGPundit

That's correct.

Quote from: Geoffrey;257617I'm the author.

1. The level of grisly detail of my book is exactly that of M. A. R. Barker's The Book of Ebon Bindings. Any line that has been crossed was already crossed by Prof. Barker 30 years ago.

"It's ok, someone else did it before me" is a stupid defense...