Grognardia comes through, as it often does, as the voice of reason and it has examined Carcosa in-depth, and more importantly, rationally. No agendas.
Here are the four parts of the review:
One
Two
Three
Four
And here are the quotes I find most important:
and
And with that, I think there's been enough Carcosa coverage on the LotFP: RPG blog (barring extraordinary developments or additional releases to review, of course) for the time being. Two final notes though...
... there should be a Carcosa adventure anthology, or something, released. I can look at Carcosa and think I can grasp all the "big picture" stuff, but I can't figure out how I would start a fresh new campaign with first level characters on that world. Just putting Keep on the Borderlands in some random hex and playing normal D&D in Carcosa seems to miss the point of having such a rich, different setting.
... Grognardia gave Carcosa 3.5/5... but the Creature Generator got 4.5/5. Neener neener, I win. ;)
Here are the four parts of the review:
One
Two
Three
Four
And here are the quotes I find most important:
What it says to me is that the old school community is, at this time, too insular and inbred for its long term health... I'm not sure the old school community really is interested in doing much more than rehashing the past, forever plowing the same creative fields.
and
I know that future posts to this blog, as well as future old school projects of mine, will benefit from ideas sparked in thinking about and critiquing Carcosa. Few products can say that -- even fewer published in the last 10 years.
And with that, I think there's been enough Carcosa coverage on the LotFP: RPG blog (barring extraordinary developments or additional releases to review, of course) for the time being. Two final notes though...
... there should be a Carcosa adventure anthology, or something, released. I can look at Carcosa and think I can grasp all the "big picture" stuff, but I can't figure out how I would start a fresh new campaign with first level characters on that world. Just putting Keep on the Borderlands in some random hex and playing normal D&D in Carcosa seems to miss the point of having such a rich, different setting.
... Grognardia gave Carcosa 3.5/5... but the Creature Generator got 4.5/5. Neener neener, I win. ;)
Yeah, a great review by JM. I can't say it there :) so I'll say so here.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention it, my friend is going to be starting up a little side campaign using Carcossa this week. I was reading Jack Vance last month, and got the idea to make a character who is a construct/homonculus/whatever (in the vein of T'sais or T'sain) of a sorcerer. The campaign basically will initially feature my character being sent hither and yon on missions to collect the various ingredients needed for various rituals.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, the DM merely has to scan the rituals and note the ones that require a certain component from "hex XXXX" and base sessions around hexes of his choice.
That way, I as a player get to explore the world through the eyes of a character equally as naive.
James did a great, even-handed job on the review. Its a shame more rational conversation wasn't forthcoming from either "side", and that he ended up choosing because of that to turn off comments.
ReplyDeletesir larkins, that sounds like a great way to structure a Carcosa campaign!
ReplyDeletehi……………………
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