Review: Carcosa Supplement V by Geoffrey McKinney
As with most things, I'm usually a bit late to the party and my perusal of Geffrey McKinney's Carcosa is no exception. In fact, there are many reviews out there already on this one supplement and I was a bit reluctant to do an essentially superfluous review. Mr. McKinney's work has brought about some strong reactions and controvery. In fact, due to the number of reviews, I'm going to take the incredibly lazy and seriously egregious breach of any sort of tact or class route and link back to Korgoth's review on dragonsfoot here so that I can lay the basic ground work and expound upon it because that review pretty sums up most of my thoughts on the matter.
Did you finish reading yet? OK, good, let's continue. Let me go ahead and say that I want to completely avoid any of the morality agrguments surrounding the supplement and investigate its merrits as a gaming supplement. Carcosa really impressed me with some of the things it brings to the table, namely new approaches to some standard gaming assumptions that are at once completely revolutionary and at the same time, stay very much in the vein of old school hobbyist gaming. Carcosa offers the potential for a complete sand box campaign within the strange and horrific world of Carcosa, or it can provide a framework from which to add some very interesting mechanics to any OSR gaming rules set. I think the whole dice convention is very clever and certainly provides a new spin on an old subject. I for one think it is quite in line with the setting that Mr. McKinney has laid out. I never know if my dagger will do 1d4 die of damage or 1d12. This also adds a nice challenge and throws out encounter preconceptions such as the peasant only having 1d4 hp. This system can easily be ported to any other setting. In fact, there really isn't much in Carcosa that can't be ported. From psionics, the ritual magic soncept, the high tech devices of the "space alien culture" (the robot generation tables are just flat out cool),and monsters (from the Cthulhu mythos with some additions). I own the non-expurgated edition (you know, the one with all of the rather horrific rituals) which, I'll admit made me a bit uncomfortable - as I think it was intended too. Sorcery is a nasty bit of business on this world (much as it is in the Cthulhu writings and Swords and Scorcery on which this work is in the mold of). I have not seen the expurgated edition so I can not speak as to its contents(refer to Korgoth's review linked earlier). I think that as of this writing, Carcosa is out of print. However, James Raggi has announced that Carcosa will be re-released by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I will definitely check that out. One thing that did seem to be missing was insanity rules. The setting does seem to warrant it. However, If you look at it from the standpoint that this horrific setting is the norm, then the inhabitants just look at it as their normal; then I guess that insanity rules are not necessary.
In the final analysis, I find Carcosa a very welcome addition to the OSR. As I said earlier, it brings some new spins on the old school gaming front but still stays close to the spirit. I know the setting content might not be to everyone's tastes, but there are some truly great concepts here. I probably would not have an extended CCarcosa campaign, but I am eager to explore some of the new rules. I give this a four and a half out of five stars.
Did you finish reading yet? OK, good, let's continue. Let me go ahead and say that I want to completely avoid any of the morality agrguments surrounding the supplement and investigate its merrits as a gaming supplement. Carcosa really impressed me with some of the things it brings to the table, namely new approaches to some standard gaming assumptions that are at once completely revolutionary and at the same time, stay very much in the vein of old school hobbyist gaming. Carcosa offers the potential for a complete sand box campaign within the strange and horrific world of Carcosa, or it can provide a framework from which to add some very interesting mechanics to any OSR gaming rules set. I think the whole dice convention is very clever and certainly provides a new spin on an old subject. I for one think it is quite in line with the setting that Mr. McKinney has laid out. I never know if my dagger will do 1d4 die of damage or 1d12. This also adds a nice challenge and throws out encounter preconceptions such as the peasant only having 1d4 hp. This system can easily be ported to any other setting. In fact, there really isn't much in Carcosa that can't be ported. From psionics, the ritual magic soncept, the high tech devices of the "space alien culture" (the robot generation tables are just flat out cool),and monsters (from the Cthulhu mythos with some additions). I own the non-expurgated edition (you know, the one with all of the rather horrific rituals) which, I'll admit made me a bit uncomfortable - as I think it was intended too. Sorcery is a nasty bit of business on this world (much as it is in the Cthulhu writings and Swords and Scorcery on which this work is in the mold of). I have not seen the expurgated edition so I can not speak as to its contents(refer to Korgoth's review linked earlier). I think that as of this writing, Carcosa is out of print. However, James Raggi has announced that Carcosa will be re-released by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I will definitely check that out. One thing that did seem to be missing was insanity rules. The setting does seem to warrant it. However, If you look at it from the standpoint that this horrific setting is the norm, then the inhabitants just look at it as their normal; then I guess that insanity rules are not necessary.
In the final analysis, I find Carcosa a very welcome addition to the OSR. As I said earlier, it brings some new spins on the old school gaming front but still stays close to the spirit. I know the setting content might not be to everyone's tastes, but there are some truly great concepts here. I probably would not have an extended CCarcosa campaign, but I am eager to explore some of the new rules. I give this a four and a half out of five stars.
Carcosa might be my favorite setting of all times. it's an amazing setting for long term sand boxing (especially if you have a few Sorcerer PCs,) as well as one shots. I love the post Apocalypse horror meats Sword and Planet feel to the setting.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would run an extended campaign in Carcosa, but I definitely like some of the ideas Geoffrey has presented. Like with most things, I'll mine it for ideas.
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