• Vito
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2011-03-30
  • Posts: 32

Topic: Preparing for a Carcosa Game

I just got back from my vacation and I've just moved into my huge (by Korean standards) new apartment.
There's enough space in here for a D&D game, I'm close enough to Seoul for people to come out and play, and there are some people around here that are interested.
Maybe I'll share the game with the world via podcast or something.


So here's what want to do with Carcosa:

1) Convert Keep on the Borderlands to the Carcosa setting.
The Keep in question will be changed to 'Cave Town' though. The +1 plate armor that every single NPC seems to wear around town will be turned into powered armor with dinosaur skull pauldrons.
The goblins and other humanoid monsters of the Caves of Chaos will be changed into tribes of chaotic humans. The minotaur, owlbear, ogre, and medusa will all be changed into spawn of shub-niggurath.

2) Use luck points from the old Conan Unchained! supplement so fighters will have some interesting stuff to do. And I want to use the old orgy rules for recharging luck points.

3) Hack Fate zones into D&D, because I like to be really strict about positioning in combat but without using a battle mat and miniatures.

4) I want to use music from the following bands in my playlist:
Earth
Hawkwind
The Sword
Black Pyramid
Dark Quarterer
Emerson Lake & Palmer
Joe Meek & The Blue Men
Moondog
Smoking Spore
Simon and Garfunkel


Alright, so here's some questions for you guys:

1) Should I tone down the number of magic items/alien artifacts in the keep?
2) Where should I set the keep and the caves on the big hex map?
3) Any suggestions for converting the caves of chaos?
4) What should I do with that weird hermit guy?
5) Should I change the lizard men into deep ones?

6) Should I use luck points? Are they too meta-gamey? Are fighters cool enough in Carcosa without that extra help?

7) Can you recommend some music for my Carcosa playlist? Make it weird.

  • Registered: 2011-11-15
  • Posts: 12

Re: Preparing for a Carcosa Game

Vito wrote:

Alright, so here's some questions for you guys:

1) Should I tone down the number of magic items/alien artifacts in the keep?
2) Where should I set the keep and the caves on the big hex map?
3) Any suggestions for converting the caves of chaos?
4) What should I do with that weird hermit guy?
5) Should I change the lizard men into deep ones?

6) Should I use luck points? Are they too meta-gamey? Are fighters cool enough in Carcosa without that extra help?

7) Can you recommend some music for my Carcosa playlist? Make it weird.

1) I say nay.  Just weird them up a bit like you did converting the +1 plate to power armor.
2) Perhaps the keep borders the mutant-filled radioactive desert in the north?  Really any geographical feature that you designate as being more monster-filled will do.
3) All the humanoids become men of various colors, the dregs of their society, united by the sorcerer who runs the Shrine of Evil Chaos (which I would rename if I was you), the Ogre, Minotaur and Meduse become hideous mutants.  I'd probably make the medusa into a woman whose entire head is just a mess of snakes, no human face at all.  Maybe the snakes spit petrification venom.  The skeletons become Terminator robots.
4) Keep the weird hermit guy as is.  Maybe make his pet something different.
5) Sure, sounds perfect to me.
6) Fighters don't need any particular mechanical help, in my opinion.
7) If I recall correctly The Residents' album Hell! had some pretty creepy 'anti-music' tracks that might work.

  • Vito
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2011-03-30
  • Posts: 32

Re: Preparing for a Carcosa Game

Thanks! I love that medusa idea.

So I'm going to start this game on April 7th.
I've already recruited a few players. I know most of them from an AD&D game I was playing in up until recently (we finished the adventure module in January).
One of the guys wants his AD&D monk transported into the world John Carter style. I think I'll allow it.

  • Vito
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2011-03-30
  • Posts: 32

Re: Preparing for a Carcosa Game

We all had a lot of fun, but there were a few disappointments.

Pete was sad that his ulfire-skinned sorcerer "The Black Wallet" didn't get to do more magical stuff. He was expecting to summon random demons in every battle, but he did have fun swinging his two-handed sword around and acting as the party scholar (I let everybody pick 'general skills' from the Rules Cyclopedia.)

Adam was sad that his green-skinned brother of the skull "The Green Jewel" wasn't as powerful as he was expecting, but he did have fun picking enemies off from a distance with his needle rifle.

Micah seemed sad that his orange-skinned hoplite "Mamodese the Bull" didn't get to kill enough things, but he seemed pleased with his  business as a slaver.

Wade was pleased as punch. He was playing a level 4 monk "Aloon, the cream-colored-man" transported in from the AD&D campaign (called to Carcosa by a botched summoning ritual conducted by The Black Wallet.) He killed an 8-hit-die spawn of shub-niggurath in one hit (we were using the Carcosa die mechanic) and he had a bunch of pet dinosaurs.


I was sad that the game wasn't fatal enough. The only PC deaths occurred during character creation (the brother of the skull). Between Mamodese using his white slaves as bait and decoys to lure in enemies, Green Jewel picking off the weak ones with his needle rifle and whittling down the strong ones with poisoned needles, Aloon decapitating foes with his bare fists, and a bunch of domesticated velociraptors running around, the party was able to massacre everything I threw at them.
They killed six purple men, a hulking brute of a mutant, two giant spiders, and an amoeboid spawn of shub-niggurath.

  • Vito
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2011-03-30
  • Posts: 32

Re: Preparing for a Carcosa Game

I felt that the die mechanic was a little cumbersome though. It did slow things down a little bit. We ended up rolling for damage dice only once per combat and letting those results stick through the whole fight.

The first half of the session was a really fun comedy of manners. Aloon was new to the world and couldn't speak the common language of "Babble" until he was able to obtain an alien translation module. The rest of the party was guiding him along and discussing how much he might fetch on the auction block.

The last half of the session was just combat, wilderness exploration, and a little bit of dungeon crawl. This part of the game just didn't flow as organically as the other part though. The level of disconnect reminded me of 4E. We still had fun though. I'm going to need to work on my DM'ing skills here.