The nature of evil in early 1E

[Mythmere]

What is the criterion for “the level of art,” anyway?

I think that all other authors of RPG products have made game products, and nothing more. (Which is fine: a game needn't aim to be anything more than a game.) M. A. R. Barker's RPG products, however, are not only games but the sub-creation of a fantasy world which has only one peer: Tolkien's Middle-earth. Both of these fantasy worlds I consider to be substantive additions to the world's artistic creations, and as such deserve to be treasured and read in all eras and all places.

Okay, I think I just snapped to a better understanding of all this, and also why Foster keeps pointing out Barker's academic background, which seemed irrelevant to me up until now.

So, what we're looking at here is a world setting that's geared to being fiction-in-game-manual presentation, a complete world with an "outside existence" rather than one specifically designed for gaming. For some reason that makes it more acceptable to me on several levels, although it's still something I would never read beyond the excerpt I have already read. Simply because I don't like splatter-horror even in narrative fiction form, and especially when it employs children as a cheap shock device.

It still leaves Carcosa as a type of fiction that as a reader I find icky (and in terms of traditional narrative fiction, an indicator of very weak authorship skills). But Carcosa tends to drop back, for me, from being abhorrent (which, when it's viewed as a fantasy-game resource, it is). Nevertheless, it puts it merely into the realm of "I wish people didn't get off on this stuff" as opposed to "this should never have been written."

It's not a huge paradigm shift for me, but it's still a paradigm shift. I was judging it based ENTIRELY on the way I judge a game resource -- a primary and all-important design focus on its use as the springboard for table-top adventure gaming -- which Geoffrey sees as precisely what makes a game product generally lackluster. No depth to it. Fair enough; I agree that it's a different design focus than should be used for fiction.

Still. I wish people didn't get off on this kind of stuff. But at least when it's printed by Raggi, it will be less mantled as a pure gaming aid, because Raggi is very clear that his material is an art/game fusion more than a pure gaming resource.

[T. Foster]

Yeah, that's the difference in perspective. When these books are viewed more as fiction/art than gaming aids, then more stuff is permissable and acceptable. The horrifying content in Tekumel doesn't raise eyebrows because so few people who buy and read it are using it to run games (FWIW I own a dozen or so Tekumel books that I bought back in the 90s, including the Book of Ebon Bindings (I think), but I've never run, or even really seriously considered running, an actual game of it, nor have I ever played in an rpg session of it (though I did play in a couple Tekumel miniatures battles at GenCon) and I strongly suspect most Tekumel fans are in the same position -- it's something you admire more than participate in).

So we come to an agreement something like "as long as you treat this as fiction or art rather than a game aid it's okay," which is kind of a strange position for something that's published as a game aid (and especially something like Carcosa that is so sparesely written and presented that it's pretty much solely a game aid and has no value as fiction and negligible value as art (which, as you say, may change with the LotFP edition if the production values are substantially upgraded) -- which is why the negative reaction has been so much stronger, because the way it's presented seems less like "here's a work of art that includes some horrifying stuff" and more like "here's some rules for doing depraved and reprehensible shit in your game") but that's the paradoxical situation we're in, and have been in ever since D&D's audience crossed over from gamers to fanfiction writers (with Barker being probably the first published instance of the latter -- yeah labeling his work "fanfiction" is reductive and inaccurate, but is does fit insofar as Tekumel's existence as a literary construction long preceded its existence as a game, and the game was never more than a small part of Tekumel, more a "gateway" drug into the larger world of Tekumel than an end in itself, which is a very different approach than D&D had).

[EOTB]

and more like "here's some rules for doing depraved and reprehensible shit in your game"

But that's exactly the problem with calling it Supplement 5. It really leaves no other place to go than "this is designed to be gamed" instead of "here's literature/art/game fusion". I think 90% of this would have gone away except that the author tried to link it to the original game in a way that his inspiration never did - even when his work was being released by the same company.

I considered buying the Carcosa to mine all the rest of it for ideas. I hear there's a lot of other great stuff in there that is worthy of being labled supplement 5. It's the title (and the "what's everyone so upset about when a paragon of RPGing and humanity like MAR Barker did worse" bit) that rubs me the wrong way.

[Geoffrey]

Eye of the Beholder, I think you will be glad to hear that the "Supplement V" part of the title will be dropped when Carcosa is published by LotFP.

[Benoist]

I know where the open sewers (both literal and figurative) are in my town. That doesn't mean I want to go play in them. *shrug*

It's like zombie nazis vs. real world nazis, to me.

[TRP]

Sorry. Not buying it you guys. No, a gaming aid is not "art" no matter how well written, and let's make no bones about it, Carcosa IS a gaming aid, and it's always been marketed as such.

Really, I guess it's some post-modern, or post-post-modern, concept to label anything 1) well-done, 2) outside of mainstream or 3) abhorrent as being "art", and sorry, but that's hogwash.

Art is something that's conceived as being art, not something conceived to be functional. That's about the only definition that seems to stick to art throughout the ages.

[geneweigel]

I started reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe last week because I vaguely remember something clinging in regards to this thread. I found it:

A great crowd of people were standing all round the Stone Table and though the moon was shining
many of them carried torches which burned with evil-looking red flames and black smoke. But such
people! Ogres with monstrous teeth, and wolves, and bull-headed men; spirits of evil trees and
poisonous plants; and other creatures whom I won't describe because if I
did the grownups would probably not let you read this book - Cruels and Hags and
Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins.
In fact here were all those who were on the Witch's side and whom the Wolf had summoned at her
command. And right in the middle, standing by the Table, was the Witch herself.

I know its aimed for a younger crowd but you still fill in QUITE A LOT there, right?

[brasspen]

I think Geoffrey's reasoned and evenhanded defense is amazing. I should be so poised under fire.

I'd like to say that there's something really American about this debate - Americans loving a moral panic about something that doesn't contribute to any lawbreaking. I'd like to say that, but I've seen fellow Torontoian James M. at Grognardia stir controversy with Carcosa.

I think that Carcosa is a sign of real creativity in the revival of old school games. You don't have to buy it. Attacking the creator for moral latitude you don't agree with is ... quite feeble. To think it will contribute to actual evil in this world is silly.

If you'd like to explore real evil may I recommend: Bloodlands, The Holocaust Industry, and The Rape of Nanking. Available at bookstores everywhere.

When you've silenced or censored Geoffrey, you'll be well on your way to becoming Hasbro. And you know it.

"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid. " Q

[AxeMental]

Wow! Thanks Brasspen for enlightening us on our flawed ways. I think, collectively, we'll try to do better in the future. After all we certainly don't want 1E to make a come back if it means discouraging things like child rape/murder...that would be an artistic crime...right?

The fact is, this garbage (child rape and things on that level) is offensive to sane people. K&K is a sight dedicated to (among other things) the restoration of 1E/0E in the public arena, and thus we do try to encourage good modules and supplements threw peer review and standards (ie. we will let those looking know what we think). I doubt any of us will loose any sleep if we offend writers of violent child porn or their customers. There are triple X rated seedy sites for this sort of thing, this isn't the place nor the hobby. His claim to artistic expression is an excuse for violent smut. No sane culture (American, European or otherwise) would condone this sort of material in a gaming product.

[AxeMental]

wtf

[AxeMental]

I have no idea why I keep getting double posts.

[thedungeondelver]

someone press the reset switch on the Axemental - it's stuck.

also: brasspen, fuck off.

[Mudguard]

someone press the reset switch on the Axemental - it's stuck.

also: brasspen, fuck off.

This site is beautiful...

[James Maliszewski]

I'd like to say that there's something really American about this debate - Americans loving a moral panic about something that doesn't contribute to any lawbreaking. I'd like to say that, but I've seen fellow Torontoian James M. at Grognardia stir controversy with Carcosa.

If it makes you feel any better, I am an American, though I can't fathom what "controversy" I've supposedly stirred with Carcosa beyond saying -- two years ago, I might add -- that I felt it presented a bleak, amoral vision of fantasy that ran counter to the implied moral structure of every version of D&D to date, including OD&D to which it presents itself as a supplement. I think it's a sad day when merely expressing reasoned dislike of a creative work is deemed controversial.

[PatW]

I'd like to say that there's something really American about this debate - Americans loving a moral panic about something that doesn't contribute to any lawbreaking

As opposed to "if you can't get locked up, it's all good"? You may as well have no opinion at all. Morality, ethics, and legality are three completely different things.

When you've silenced or censored Geoffrey, you'll be well on your way to becoming Hasbro. And you know it.

That's absolutely ridiculous. How would we silence or censor Geoffrey? The only way that could happen is if some argument or another changes his mind about the appropriateness of his material. Any changes would be self-imposed. All that I can do, or anybody else, is ask him to reconsider.