Geoffrey McKinney’s Carcosa, an independently published accessory for the 1974 version of Dungeons and Dragons (and audaciously labeled as Supplement V), has created a firestorm of controversy and moral grandstanding that has unfortunately overshadowed the content itself. This being the case, a thorough look at both the product, and the outrage, is warranted.

Carcosa exposes the schism within the Old School D&D community, and in my opinion shows the failure of at least part of that community. Instead of being seen as a toolkit to use for ideas, as is the OD&D way, the book is being largely decried as morally bankrupt by people who, for the most part, have not seen it, and of those that have, are concentrating on minute details (the above quote is the worst Carcosa has to offer), or one bit out of many presented. Is the traditional (or “old school,” or “grognard,” or whatever) movement based on willful ignorance? Is it based on the inability to think through the unspoken meaning in source material? Is it based on the whitewashing of what existing game mechanics and setting description mean in game-world terms? Is it based on the rejection of verisimilitude in favor of mindless escapism and “adventure”?

Can it be that the traditional revival is not built on quality games that stretch the imagination, but rather the wish of its aging players to retain their childhoods? In addition to preserving the games they played, are they also wanting to preserve their juvenile sense of innocence and refuse to let their gaming tastes broaden with them? This whole thing really isn’t about nostalgia after all... is it?

It’s one thing to think, “That’s icky, I don’t want to use that sort of thing in my games,” and not buy the product. It’s OK to state that. Nobody should feel compelled to like or participate in a game or setting (whether originating with the rules or the individual game group) that makes them uncomfortable (and for you, there is an “Expurgated Edition” of Carcosa which omits the most egregious descriptions of violence, an amount of text so insubstantial that the book’s page count does not change for their absence). But actual outrage and condemnation of fictional circumstance? Ridiculous! And worse than the morality police that take offense at atrocities (which don’t really happen) against people (that don’t really exist) are those who seek to “protect” our hobby by trying to kill anything that might be noticed by outsiders and regarded as “abnormal.” They aren’t personally offended, but they worry when someone else might be. “The accusations will start again! It will be the Bad Times again!”

Cowards!

Those who seek to imprison our minds and define “good thoughts” and “bad thoughts” should be ignored in our daily lives, defied in our imaginations, and fiercely fought, in real life by real means, whenever they seek to limit us.

This fear of attention and censure and the horror at the idea that maybe, just maybe, we really are different because we pretend to be elves on the weekend, it needs to die. At once. Completely. Let your imagination go and damned be those that say no. We should welcome fights against imagination killers simply because it is the right thing to do. Those that stand up and dare to be targeted should be praised, not vilified.

But we, as a community, obviously haven’t learned a thing from the controversies of the 1980s. Gamers of the 70s and 80s survived the persecution and ignorance and harassment only to grow up and often become exactly what they once fought. Like the definition of becoming mature is being willing to embrace your parents’ mistakes or something.

The problem with the 1980s attacks on D&D wasn’t that they were wrong about the content – although the fact that they often were made it easy to totally dismiss them – it was the fact that the content of the game and the fictional environment of the game has absolutely no influence concerning the real-life mentality, ethics, or health of the person playing the game. People influence the game being played, not the other way around. Milquetoast gamers will have milquetoast games, and only those already of a mind to entertain uncouth elements will insert those elements into play.

To be very clear: Nothing in Carcosa even suggests that anything within its pages is anything but pure fiction. The setting is an alien world, with reptile men and Cthulhu and ray guns and tanks and people with transparent skin. It’s all fiction.

And nothing in fiction can ever be as immoral or harmful as the real life censorship of ideas.

So then. Sword and sorcery, as a genre... what does it mean? Dungeons and Dragons and its mechanics and process of play... what do they mean? Are Carcosa’s methods and details in line with either, both, or neither?

Then there are the jokes about not naming characters until third level since they often don’t survive that long anyway. The comments about how D&D characters really aren’t “heroes” as a default.

Really, what does that say about D&D?

What moral, civilized characters and plots do we get from Anderson (fornicating paladins, incestuous lovers, baby-napping, genocide, war brides, opposition to the White Christ), Howard (“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the wim of circumstance. And barbarism must ultimately triumph.”), Vance (Cugel and the virgins, for just one example, the fate of Liane the Wayfarer for another, and many more charming tales), Lieber (Fafhrd is introduced by cheating on and abandoning his pregnant woman), Lovecraft (uncaring universe where mankind is but a speck and to have true knowledge of reality means to be a raving, violent lunatic)? These are core influences on D&D.

And... for crying out loud. The very name Carcosa is taken from work by Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers. Hello?

In the D&D game itself (and we’ll talk about AD&D as well here), if we’re going to ignore the precedent set by Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker’s Book of Ebon Bindings (which Carcosa’s author claims as his guidepost for what was or wasn’t acceptable in his own work), let’s see what wonderful things we can find there. Violence, death, and murder are a given. Stealing and thievery are right there in the rules as an activity of a character class. Mental domination and slavery are detailed as well (what exactly do you think is involved with a Charm Person spell?). Summoning extra-planar creatures is A-OK. And where do half-orcs come from, anyway? The assassin is right there as a playable class, and with that comes thorough discussions on the use of poison. Necromancy (every spell caster gets the ability to animate the dead!) is there. Evil exists as an objective, living force in D&D.

To those offended by Carcosa yet still play D&D, how do you justify your involvement with a game that includes all of this, and draws from such depraved sources in the first place? Orc children are in the Monster Manual, but just because you abort them (sorry... “house rule them out”) so your players can more guiltlessly slaughter their entire race doesn’t mean you’re doing anything to eliminate moral issues from the game.

All Carcosa did was show you what had previously been referred to but not revealed. What do you think was happening all the time in Melniboné? In Stygia? Hell, in the Temple of Elemental Evil? In Erelhei-Cinlu? Just because you try not to think about it doesn’t mean somebody is mentally ill if they have, because the implications were there all along.

Dungeons and Dragons, and the core activities done within the game, no matter how Lawful or Good the characters, are ugly and brutish and repugnant when looked at through real-world modern Western morality. Most D&D players sidestep the issues and don't focus on then. Carcosa not only does not avoid them, it takes pains to point them out.

I like that Carcosa presses contemporary buttons (without even intending to; it really is just presented matter-of-factly and not in a lurid manner) involving violence, racism, rape, and children, and ended up raising issues of “media responsibility.” I can't imagine reading this book and remaining neutral to its contents. This is 100% confirmation that OD&D can be vital, vibrant, and relevant here and now.

I think the real problem is not the descriptions of the rituals or any content whatsoever. The problem is an issue of character action in relation to player complicity. Intense and memorable play comes from engaging players. They must be taken out of their comfort zones and removed from autopilot D&D expectations. “Challenge the player” doesn’t just mean logic puzzles and tactical difficulties. Morally uncomfortable situations excite the emotions, and for the quandary to be meaningful, the “wrong” (in real-world, or romantic, or heroic terms) choice must be a viable option. It must convey benefits equal to, or greater than, doing the obvious “right” thing. Heroism’s first requirement is sacrifice, after all.

“Challenge the player” can confuse a player’s involvement in who their character is, both narratively and persona-wise. But there should be no confusion – what players do in RPGs should never be confused with who they are or what they do in real life. Fiction. FICTION. FICTION.

And sexual violence? Reactions are completely out of whack. That South Park episode from last year, around the time of Carcosa’s release, showing George Lucas and Steven Spielberg raping Indiana Jones in scenes taken from Hollywood rape scenes (The Accused, Deliverance, etc), caused a stir. Yes, sexual violence is serious. I’ve been in relationships with more than one person who has been raped. Those are not fun stories to hear, to understate the obvious. But rape is not a sacrosanct subject beyond comment, examination, fictionalization, or even parody. Especially from a game and genre that often features mass slaughter. There are even joke D&D videos out there where rape happens in-game, and it’s played for laughs.

Yet Carcosa takes these elements and plays them straight and in an entirely neutral manner. There is not one word of suggestion that any of this is good or bad. In Carcosa, it just is. And it’s just the magic-users (or “sorcerers”) that have to deal with such unpleasantness, and only if they so choose. Players have come to feel entitled to play a magic-using class in D&D that is completely divorced from the conditions or consequence that have traditionally afflicted such characters in literature (Faust!) or history (witch hunts!) or in source fiction (Lovecraft, Howard, etc etc etc). Magic, by definition, is transgressive. That players have traditionally gotten to present their magic-user characters in D&D as Gandalfy or Merliny is irrelevant. Many things can be done with D&D.

It’s a minefield, and not "family entertainment" to be certain. But there is much more to the book than unpleasant magical rituals.

So what is Carcosa?

It is a 96 page booklet for use with Dungeons and Dragons (the 1974 edition), formatted and published to appear as one of the original books. However, it dismantles and reconfigures the D&D rules for its own purposes. The “OD&D is a toolkit” philosophy has been used to great effect here. Only the core rules are necessary, as Supplements I - IV are not used here.

There are but two classes in Carcosa. Fighting Men (standard from D&D), and Sorcerers. Sorcerers are a new class which cast no spells (the entire traditional D&D magic system does not exist in Carcosa), but rather perform rituals, which all involve summoning, controlling, or dispelling Great Powers, which are taken from the Cthulhu mold.

Immediately, on the page the sorcerers are introduced, the downsides to their magic are described. The rituals are quite unreliable, and performing the rituals ages the caster a random number of years. Doing these things harms the sorcerer.

Then described are the races of Carcosa, which are pretty much all human, but color coded 13 different ways, including with colors that don’t exist in real life.

A two-page new psionics system is then described.

Then it really gets wild. New ways to throw and read dice are introduced. Hit points are rolled at the beginning of every combat, and it is randomly determined what die type is used every time! That’s right, if you have six hit dice, you never know if you’ll be using 4-sided, 12-sided, or whatever sided dice to determine your hit points. And the monsters use this same method as well. It looks to be close to impossible to determine who might win a combat... there are so many variables that won’t be determined until that combat starts.

Damage in combat is similarly random. For every die of damage done, you roll every die type, with the 20-sided determining which of the other dice is to be actually used. The fundamentals of the game are being completely redone in Carcosa.

Then on page 14 begins the descriptions of the rituals. There are 96 of them, all formatted identically to the example at the head of this review, and it takes up about 19 pages. Here is another example:

As you can see, not all of the rituals involve human sacrifice, but most of them do. It is important to note that every single ritual, no exceptions, involves dealing with these Lovecraftian powers. You aren’t slitting throats to cast Magic Missile and you’re not being an evil bad guy for the purpose of Cure Light Wounds. It’s all Deal-With-The-Devil stuff. Sorcerers are Bad News. Just like in the source fiction. Yet it is possible to be a conscientious and humanistic Sorcerer… but only Banishing rituals are sacrifice-free.

You can also note here that the components for the spells are very Carcosa-specific (we’ll get to the hexes and the map in a moment). This system can’t simply be lifted out of Carcosa into your own campaign without some work.

Page 34 brings us the monster list. This, too, is Carcosa specific... the standard D&D monsters do not appear (save for oozes and purple worms). Heading up this list are Cthulhu, Hastur, Azathoth, and Nyarlathotep, just to let you know what you’re getting. The pantheon of Lovecraft and friends is here. The most numerous creatures in the world of Carcosa are the Spawn of Shub-Niggurat, with every stat randomly determined. I would have much preferred to see bell-curve tables here than straight rolls (2d10 instead of d20, for example) so some results would be rarer than others, but it creates quick stats and can be used for any OD&D game.

Then the magic items of Carcosa are described. Guess what? Throw out your existing magic item tables, because none of them exist. And in fact... no magic items exist at all. All of the “magic items” are technology left behind by space aliens! Seriously... the section is labeled “SPACE ALIEN TECHNOLOGY,” and cannons and tanks and Microwave Radiation weapons are possibilities. There are also various types of lotus powder. And a list of 94 elements which each has a different effect (half damage, two times damage, etc) on one of the 13 different races available for play. There are Black Pudding projectile weapons!

Miscellaneous items fill out the “magic” items table, including battle armor, projector shields, and the Random Robot Generator! Some weird “artifacts” fill out the section.

Next up is a page of possible mutations, and then... it goes to the hex map. “400 encounters on an outdoor hex map with an area of 34,880 square miles” is what’s advertised, and that’s what is here. The described encounters are quick and succinct. A few examples:

Yeah, that’s how sorcerers learn their rituals... and yeah, 400 of those locations, detailed in the book, and we’re done.

That’s one wild ride. Cthulhu! Space aliens! Ancient Serpent Men! Sandbox Hex Map Encounters! Drugs! Robots! Color-Coded Human Races! Mutants! Dinosaurs! Species 23750! Psychic powers! Rocket launchers! Mummy brains!

And evil sorcery rituals. Kind of seems... fitting now, knowing what it’s piled together with, doesn’t it?

Carcosa is an amazing book in every way. It stays true to its source material, embodies the creative and daring spirit that makes this hobby possible at all, eschews artificial limits of commercialism and public opinion and expands what it can mean to play Dungeons and Dragons. No OGL or other license used.

It also embodies a true DIY spirit. The product, writing, artwork (just on the cover, the rest of the book is illustration-free), layout, and cartography (the centerfold map) all, are the work of one man. The book is even printed by the man himself, with only binding and trimming being done offsite. Yet the quality is rock-solid. I’ve had my copy for about a year now, with frequent referencing, and it’s perfectly intact. The layout is very clean and tidy, and with the Table of Contents it is quite easy to find whatever you’re looking for. In some ways it’s not an impressive book to look at, but clarity and ease of use mean more to me than hardcover binding or pages of full-color artwork.

“Imagine the hell out of it” is a slogan, or battle-cry if you will, of the so-called Old School Renaissance. Well a little slice of hell has been imagined here. Happy now? But this imagination is both the entire value of the book and the obstacle for use. It parallels ideas found in Empire of the Petal Throne and the Arduin Grimoires, is a cross-genre mash of fantastically vibrant and completely crazy ideas, and it completely blows the doors off of the contemporary understanding of what D&D is or how it should play. If this book does not excite your imagination (for better or for worse), nothing will.

But... it’s all quite campaign-specific. Each of the previous D&D supplements was more modular, with each of the components able to be used or not as the referee wished. Didn’t like (the original) psionics? Or hit locations? Or a class? Use it or don’t. But Carcosa makes that difficult. The entire new magic system is tied into the monsters and the setting, and the monsters and items and such are of such a specific flavor that importing them into your game could be difficult. The psionic system here should be easily portable, in addition to the rather revolutionary handling of the dice, and various other matters... but there is a large amount of material that you simply will not be using (or using only with a lot of work) if you are not using the Carcosa setting. That, more than any “objectionable” content, may be what holds this back from reaching a lot of people.

So that’s Carcosa.

Don’t like it? Think it’s in bad taste? Not useful?

Then do it better yourself. McKinney showed us his vision of D&D. Now show us your Supplement VI.

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