Quote from: misterguignol;498943Here's how I see it:

I am going to dump the yicky bits I don't like from Carcossa.  There will still be plenty there for me to plunder for my games.

If I dumped all the yicky bits from Poison'd or FATAL there wouldn't be enough left to make it at all worthwhile.

I'd disagree with that on Poison'd. I think it'd still be an interesting gritty storytelling game about pirates in the Caribbean, if you'd remove just those really yicky bits like rape and sodomy. It'd no longer be able to picket much interest though - again, like Carcosa. But Carcos and Fatal had worse, much worse, writing.

And hey - at least Poison'd was a bit more fair about treatment of those actions:

QuoteIf your pirate, having died, comes to final judgment, he leaves
play.
If your pirate retires, willingly or unwillingly, but finally, from
his life of piracy, he leaves play.
If your pirate fulfills or abandons sufficient of his ambitions
that you’re left at a loss for direction, he leaves play.
If your pirate renounces all ties to the other players’ pirates,
ship, and company, he leaves play.
If your pirate becomes so foul and ruthless a sinner that you no
longer want to play him, he leaves play

They do admit you may create a monster you no longer wish to play as. While in FATAL they are step away from creating a Gangster (Rapist) speciality class, that'd get bonus xp for raping.

Quote from: Rincewind1;498947I'd disagree with that on Poison'd. I think it'd still be an interesting gritty storytelling game about pirates in the Caribbean, if you'd remove just those really yicky bits like rape and sodomy.

Disagree all you like, but if you remove the stuff that makes Poison'd "gritty" than you're no longer playing a gritty game.  The upping-the-gross-out-ante thing is all Poison'd has.  Otherwise, why not just use a regular old pirate game like the one put out for Savage Worlds?

Also, let's be honest: by "gritty" what is really meant here is "transgressive" in a pretty obvious sense, yes?

Quote from: misterguignol;498952Disagree all you like, but if you remove the stuff that makes Poison'd "gritty" than you're no longer playing a gritty game.  The upping-the-gross-out-ante thing is all Poison'd has.  Otherwise, why not just use a regular old pirate game like the one put out for Savage Worlds?

Also, let's be honest: by "gritty" what is really meant here is "transgressive" in a pretty obvious sense, yes?

Indeed, I lacked the proper term in English to describe - so cheers for making my dictionary a bit bigger (or I forgot the term - I never had any formal education in English in dem fancy schools, bear with me). And I will agree on the way how you put it now - if you remove the Yucky stuff from Carcosa, you can still play a pretty creepy game. If you remove the Yucky stuff from Poison'd, it's just the question of mechanical preferences now. Since I sometimes like to play a storytelling game, I'd still give Poison'd a shot, with Yucky bits removed. FATAL I'd not, since I'd rather have a barebones mechanic, then overcomplicated one.

Quote from: Rincewind1;498911In my opinion, Carcosa is a mediocre supplement. Mostly because writing is rather poor for the first part. See, OHT actually's got a point, though he made it only deep into the discussion.

Holy crap. I already went on and on about it already earlier in the thread, but I actually have the completely reverse opinion, I think. That's really surprising to get such a feedback from a guy that is not ripe for the looney bin (by which I mean, I think you're a cool dude and I like you). But hey, that's to be expected from a such controversial product, not just for the graphic content, but the overall organization of the supplement as well.

Quote from: Benoist;499034Holy crap. I already went on and on about it already earlier in the thread, but I actually have the completely reverse opinion, I think. That's really surprising to get such a feedback from a guy that is not ripe for the looney bin (by which I mean, I think you're a cool dude and I like you). But hey, that's to be expected from a such controversial product, not just for the graphic content, but the overall organization of the supplement as well.

Benoist - I mean only his point about how the shopping list is unnecessary. It is to me, as I found it boring and just skipped it in half. And that's the brutal version - I only read the first 5 spells of the cleaned up one. In fact - if each of those spells had just "Blood of the Virgin 11 years old Girl & Fungi from place X" I could live with that much better, as it'd not bore me with prolonged details of Things, Things and Things - which as you read my review, I call Carcosa's main sin. Not the controversial material, but overdetailing where it's unnecessary. For that matter, it is why monsters pages are great, because there's just the amount of detail I need there - descriptions and simple stats in a table.

I should've probably specified which point I referred to. In fact, I'll bring an edited point about "Carcosa could be great" back to the review.

Quote from: soviet;498931I haven't read Carcosa or Isle of the Unknown, and so don't wish to condemn either, but I can't help but wonder if you would be saying the same things had someone associated with the forge been the author.

You're confusing me with the Pundit. We're not the same persons.

I have to say that a game like Poison'd does give me pause in a way that Carcosa does not (here's the kicker though: I did not read or play Poison'd. So I might be wrong about my perception of it. I would actually check out the game if given the occasion to check my opinions about it).

Assuming that I'm playing for one team rather than the other here is doing me an injustice, however. I'm a rather straightforward guy. When I don't like something, I say it. And I'm not known to play to a particular team, but rather to be kind of blunt and independent in my thinking (ask a guy like jdrakeh, James Hargrove, with whom I'm a pal on the net, though we don't agree on much together, or others here, from Pseudoephedrine to Werekoala to Jeff, on politics particularly, where I disagreed vehemently with some stuff and can still be friends without thinking much of it. I do have my limits, like anybody else, obviously, but I'm not the kind of guy you are wondering about, I think). One thing I don't have patience for is slithering dishonesty, and people generally taking me for a moron. That does not play well with me at all.

Now, let's say I'm proposed to play a game of FATE, and I have a good feeling about the GM. I'll play it.

I for one believe that the morality of the product is irrelevant to it's quality.

FATAL is written like shit, it's ideas are shit, it's mechanics are shit, it uses transgressive material to capture audience, it's shit.

Carcosa is written so - so, it's ideas are good, it's mechanics are terrible, it uses transgressive material mostly to capture audience, it's mediocre.

Poison'd is written quite well, it's ideas are decent but not so good as Carcosa, it's mechanic is decent for a storygame, it uses transgressive material mostly to capture audience, it's mediocre.

Just in case there was a misunderstaning: I was talking about FATE mechanics in my previous post, not FATAL. I would not play FATAL. Period. And I read it.

Quote from: Benoist;499049Just in case there was a misunderstaning: I was talking about FATE mechanics in my previous post, not FATAL. I would not play FATAL. Period. And I read it.

Poor you. I'd rather just take the gentler method and expose myself to Cthulhu's sight, in terms of SAN damage. I only stomached first 50 - 60 pages, as I have decided that cutting my own wrists'd be a more pleasant and useful way to spend time.

Quote from: Rincewind1;499052Poor you. I'd rather just take the gentler method and expose myself to Cthulhu's sight, in terms of SAN damage. I only stomached first 50 - 60 pages, as I have decided that cutting my own wrists'd be a more pleasant and useful way to spend time.

Yeah I joke about that a lot too. In all seriousness though, it felt like reading the immature, teenage fantasies of a retard who watched way too much hardcore porn for his own good. That's basically what the game feels like.

Quote from: Benoist;499059Yeah I joke about that a lot too. In all seriousness though, it felt like reading the immature, teenage fantasies of a retard who watched way too much hardcore porn for his own good. That's basically what the game feels like.

I'd rather get back to Carcosa - talking about FATAL gives it needless credit, and proves that such controversial tricks are successful. In case of FATAL, we were simply lucky  that people managed to call bullshit back then, or we'd catch a serious bullet.

Edit: In a way, this is why I will say  that Poison'd is better then FATAL, if only (and not only but that's another thing) because FATAL was 1000 pages long, and Poison'd's just 28 including cover.

Quote from: Benoist;499059Yeah I joke about that a lot too. In all seriousness though, it felt like reading the immature, teenage fantasies of a retard who watched way too much hardcore porn for his own good. That's basically what the game feels like.

Hey you might not be giving the designers of FATAL enough credit.  This is from the rulebook:

Quote from: FATAL RulebookThis role-playing game is not intended for children due to violent and sexual content. It is entirely possible to play this game without a character entering a single combat or sexual situation, though information and tables for sex and violence are provided so that it may be used or dismissed as deemed appropriate by each gaming group. The information in this game does not represent the world-views of Fatal Games, nor is extreme violence or extreme sex condoned by Fatal Games. Instead, the information is included for comprehensiveness...Therefore, Fatal Games advises minors not to participate in this game, and suggests that the players and MM discuss the appropriateness and degree of sex and violence for their gaming group.

This game is almost universally reviled (and justifiably so), and yet the same logic presented above by its authors is used to defend Carcosa.  You don't *have* to go to sexual transgression when playing FATAL.  The authors suggest in fact that you discuss with your group what you find appropriate.  

It is, in fact, a shitty fantasy heartbreaker.  There are a whole lot of other equally shitty fantasy heartbreakers that don't illicit this kind of response.  But this one is different because of the specific nature of the sexual transgressions implied, ie Gor-esque misogyny, right?

Forgive me, but I think that you might have a blind spot here.


-TGA

TGA, I'd addressed the issue already, I thought well enough.

Carcosa, after you cut out the rituals, gives you still enough material to use it for an interesting campaign, even if it's drowned again in mediocre writing and organisation.

FATAL is a complete shit sandwich, and to get to it's only redeemable feature (the HP system and classes XP system), you need to wallow in the endless ocean of shit, diving into it's literally gooey debts, and then, as you see only pitch - brown for a good while, you manage to clench out a single, singular small pearl.

But as you take it out and put into your ring, you still can't help but sense that it reeks.


It all here really boils down to style. Controversial bits can be used in great way (Larrson's first part of Millenium trillogy, for example - regardless of how it went from there to part 2 and 3, first one was great, and the controversial bits helped set up the premise of the sick mind we're dealing with), or they can be used to pretend you are great.

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;499078Forgive me, but I think that you might have a blind spot here.

-TGA

I don't think I do, really. It's all in the purpose and presentation of such material, whether it has a point in the greater picture of the product beyond just reveling in this or that outrage for the sake of it. I see a purpose in the depiction of rituals in Carcosa that serves its overall dark, amoral fantasy in an outlandish world concept fairly well, whereas rolling for your anal circumference is FATAL just leaves me shaking my head in disbelief.

Now mate, you are totally entitled to say "hm nope, not for me really, I'd cringe throughout a game of Carcosa". I'm totally cool with that. It's totally understandable.

Quote from: Rincewind1;499085TGA, I'd addressed the issue already, I thought well enough.

Oh I know you did.  I am not arguing that FATAL is better or even on par with Carcosa as a practical gaming product.  Several people whose opinions I respect have found enough useful bits in it to be able to put aside the nastiest parts.  Frankly, I may very well have been in that crowd of people who purchased and mined Carcosa for my own gaming needs had the author not gone down the very specific path that he did.

My point is that FATAL is a shit sandwich amongst so many other shit sandwiches out there, and yet there is a special place for it in RPG mythology as one of the worst RPGs ever specifically because of the sexual transgressions.  I find it interesting that those transgressions (extreme misogyny) generate a response that others (child abuse) do not.  

And it is not a point directed at any specific poster here.  There is almost universal rejection of one (FATAL) and not of the other (Carcosa).  If the rejection of FATAL is the result of distasteful sexual content (otherwise why didn't it just sink into obscurity like every other fantasy heartbreaker?), then it seems odd that there is not a similar reaction to equally distasteful sexual content in Carcosa.


-TGA