The thing is that an rpg style structure is pretty close to impossible to impose on 40k.  Really a GURPS style point buy would be the way to go.  Then you could make anything.  Mind you, GURPS does 40k fairly well and even has bolt eerrr cough storm guns in UltraTech.

I keep saying it but =][=nquisitor has a better combat system that Dark Heresy (IMO for some definitions of better) covers more hardware though fewer special abilities and does a decent job of the whole ultra violence aspect to the point where they assume you'll just narrate the dull stuff away in a hurry and get down to shooting stuff.

Yes, it has no point system or structured limitations beyond gear availablity though I think sticking to the published archetypes and the random generator from White Dwarf is advisable until you've got a feel for it.

But marines are hardcore and virtually indestructable.  There's rules for aliens and vehicles as well.

Quote from: GrimJesta8 is the "core" class, like how D&D has Fighter, Cleric, Mage and Thief as the core and then sub classes beneath that. There's branching sub-classes for each of these core 8, so IMHO I see it more as over a dozen classes. The Marshall and the Magistrate are pretty different careers, yet they both have the Arbitrator as the core career. Another example is the Confessor and the Exorcist: both are different careers, yet they both come from the Cleric core.

It also should be noted that each career has vastly more things you can spend your XP on than, say, the starting careers in WFRP, and the list only gets longer as you go up in rank. It's possible to have two guardsmen with vastly, vastly different areas of expertise.

Quote from: KrakaJakIf you want to bring WHFRP into perspective: WHFRP is admitted by you, RPGPundit, to be a great game. In the VAST universe of WHFRP they chose 4 races in the corebook. Of those three races one of them was the tabletop unrepresented halfling (oh sorry, they were available as cooks in Mordheim). How come I could NOT play a Brettonian Knight in the corebook? Or an Orc or Skaven, which are both some of the most popular armies on the tabletop.

Focus does not limit anything. It provides a cohesive, comprehendable experience. Every good game I've seen (D&D, WHFRP, V:tR, TMNT&OS) has some sort of gameplay and group focus, especially to start a line of products. Nobody called Werewolf: the Apocalypse a micro-game, and it did not have anywhere near the scope of setting or depth of character options that is provided by Dark Heresy.

Well, we know that at the very least they could have made an WH game with Inquisitors, Rogue Traders and Space Marines.

Look, its very simple: Warhammer Fantasy is a full blown game, that covers all kinds of areas.  

This game Dark Heresy? Its like if you took WFRP and had said "yeah, the ONLY thing you can do is play a group of servants for a Witch-hunter".

That's it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, we know that at the very least they could have made an WH game with Inquisitors, Rogue Traders and Space Marines.

Look, its very simple: Warhammer Fantasy is a full blown game, that covers all kinds of areas.  

This game Dark Heresy? Its like if you took WFRP and had said "yeah, the ONLY thing you can do is play a group of servants for a Witch-hunter".

That's it.

Except that doesn't really come across in the character gen and the system, just in the GM advice section. I could quite happily take Dark Heresy and use it to run a game where the PCs are the away team for a Rogue Trader, or are revolutionaries trying to bring down the Imperium, or just about anything you like. (Space Marines would be difficult, because they're genetically engineered away from the baseline stats, but doable with some rules tweaks; just about all of the other ideas I cite there can be done without any tweaks at all.)

The witch-hunter thing provides focus for people who, faced with the massive expanse of the W40K universe, think "what the fuck do I do with this?" If you already have an idea of what you want to do with it, you don't need to use the inquisition content.

How hard would it be to do marines?

+20 Strength
+20 Toughness
+20 Willpower
+2 Wounds

Powered Armour and Bolt Gun

And a few Talents

Really, the skill all comes from having been a mighty warrior before the mods.

Quote from: RPGPunditWell, we know that at the very least they could have made an WH game with Inquisitors, Rogue Traders and Space Marines.

Look, its very simple: Warhammer Fantasy is a full blown game, that covers all kinds of areas.  

This game Dark Heresy? Its like if you took WFRP and had said "yeah, the ONLY thing you can do is play a group of servants for a Witch-hunter".

That's it.

RPGPundit

Except that the scope of a Sigmarite Witch-Hunters duties is miniscule when compared to the Inquisition. Same idea, but on a totally different scale. The book readily admits that the Inquisitor is strictly a McGuffin, you are not part of the Inquisitors retinue, he's there strictly to send the players on all kinds of missions, on all kinds of planets, for all kinds of reasons. Not a Deus-ex, but strictly grease for the wheels of a stuck or beginning campaign.

Also, as Warthur wrote, there is no character mechanic that ties the characters you create to the Inquisition. you can certainly do what you want with them.

And since Games-Workshop takes their setting very seriously, having a Rogue Trader, Inquisitor and Space Marine all hanging out together is not something that makes ANY sense at all as a group of PC's, especially for a long term campaign. Even having a group of all Inquisitors would not work out very well, if played to setting standards.

Quote from: RPGPunditAs to the second claim, I NEVER, anywhere, claimed that GR had anything to do with BI's demise.

As to the first; please feel free to show me some evidence, as in exactly where it is "confirmed" that GR's people had nothing to do with the decision to divide 40k into three products?

RPGPundit

Ahhh, so I have to prove that people who get no development credit on the actual product, whose largest credited contribution was "additional writing by" and who had previously announced the end of their professional relations with the publisher of the material, weren't actually the uncredited Seeekrit Masters pulling the strings behind the scenes of a company much, much bigger than themselves...

Here's an idea: how about instead, you provide even an iota of proof for your positive assertion that they were behind the decision, instead of expecting me to prove a negative.  That's how these things work, after all.

KoOS

Quote from: David JohansenHow hard would it be to do marines?

+20 Strength
+20 Toughness
+20 Willpower
+2 Wounds

Powered Armour and Bolt Gun

And a few Talents

Really, the skill all comes from having been a mighty warrior before the mods.

Trry at least plus +40 on all stats (maybe +20 on WS & BS, if you want to be nice).

Space Marines are born Space-Marines(cloned actually). They don't come out of the pod "before the Mods", they don't get their Power-Armor until they survive indoctrination (combat training and brain washing) and they don't get off the ship until they get their Power-Armor. It's not like some sort of promotion. Space-Marines were born a modified mighty-warrior and they will die one.

Really, these guys are 7 ft. tall, 500lb (before armor), cloned, Emperor serving killing machines. Space-Marine Power Armor is the socond best armor in the ENTIRE known galaxy, the best being Space-Marine Terminator Armor. Standard equip them with Bolters (Which are 78mm, fully-automatic weapons with exploding bullets) and there's a bit of a power disparity between them and Joe Void-born.

Quote from: KrakaJakSpace Marines are born Space-Marines(cloned actually). They don't come out of the pod "before the Mods", they don't get their Power-Armor until they survive indoctrination (combat training and brain washing) and they don't get off the ship until they get their Power-Armor. It's not like some sort of promotion. Space-Marines were born a modified mighty-warrior and they will die one.

I am not an expert in the 40K universe, but I have been doing some looking around lately as a result of Dark Heresy, and I think that you may be wrong on this point.  According to this Space Marines recruit from normal human stock who are implanted by a "Gene Seed" which will transform them into the murderous superwarriors that we all know and love...They also undergo a period of training and apprenticeship as Space Marine Scouts in combat before they get their power armor.

Nitpicky I know.  I think that you are probably right about the +40 on stats for these killing machines.  Maybe +30 for scouts or something?


TGA


Edit:  Fixed linky

Quote from: The Good AssyrianI am not an expert in the 40K universe, but I have been doing some looking around lately as a result of Dark Heresy, and I think that you may be wrong on this point.  According to this Space Marines recruit from normal human stock who are implanted by a "Gene Seed" which will transform them into the murderous superwarriors that we all know and love...They also undergo a period of training and apprenticeship as Space Marine Scouts in combat before they get their power armor.

Nitpicky I know.  I think that you are probably right about the +40 on stats for these killing machines.  Maybe +30 for scouts or something?


TGA


Edit:  Fixed linky

BTW your link doesn't work...but I clicked around and got it working.

I stand corrected. It looks like that's something thats changed since I started reading up on Space-Marines (something like 15 years ago). They used to be clones born in the Space-Fortress Monastaries awaiting impplantation of a Gene Seed. Although it now looks like something that would be cool for an Assassin or Guardsman to become after completing his career path (although, as Acolytes they'd probably become an Inquisitor).

Quote from: WarthurExcept that doesn't really come across in the character gen and the system, just in the GM advice section.

Prime example: I'm using the system for a Necromunda RPG. No Inquisitors, no Acolytes (which means they don't get the starting 400XP, but whatever), nothing. Just a gang trying to hack it in the Underhive.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: KrakaJakBTW your link doesn't work...but I clicked around and got it working.

I stand corrected. It looks like that's something thats changed since I started reading up on Space-Marines (something like 15 years ago). They used to be clones born in the Space-Fortress Monastaries awaiting impplantation of a Gene Seed. Although it now looks like something that would be cool for an Assassin or Guardsman to become after completing his career path (although, as Acolytes they'd probably become an Inquisitor).

Yeah, I had to manually fix the link to get it to work.  As I said, it was a nitpicky point and it was Wikipedia after all, so who knows if it is true...


TGA

Traditionally, and for some time: Space Marines are recruited from local youths (as young as 12 I think...), through a variety of means, usually brutal and violent, depending upon their chapter's traditions.  Some means include taking the last man standing from a grand melee, to viciously lethal obstacle courses to pulling fallen warriors from battlefields (Space Wolves, that one...)

A scout has all the changes that make a man into a Space Marine, they just don't get the Power Armor.

It was the original legions (pre Horus Heresy) that were cloned from the geneseed of the Primarchs... which according to the current line of novels are essentially manifested warp entities created by the Emperor...

Power Armor, in 40K, gives the wearer (space marine or not) +20 Strength (in Dark Heresy), which can account for the perceived difference between a scout and a full fledged battle brother's stregth. Out of armor they would be peers in that regard.

An old rule of thumb for 40k stats (from the rpg) was each numeric difference represented a doubling of strength, thus a Space Marine (or Scout) was twice as strong, tough and fast (initiative) as a normal man, and there was no measurable difference between a scout and a Space Marine.

Quote from: rpg.netWe had our first session just now, using an official adventure. Which featured two adjacent forced climb check events.

One of which was 'roll against your 30% success chance, if you fail by 30 or more, INSTA-DIE LOL'. The other was just the regular kind of 'roll against your 15% success chance, or fall a few meters and TAKE US MUCH DAMAGE AS FROM BEING SHOT WITH A HIGH-POWERED RIFLE'.

You know, just pure fun. A way to really grab those new people.

But, at least it got my group to agree with my stance to never try to climb or jump anywhere with this system.

Dumbasses. Sad truth is BI brought it on themselves.

We played the same scenario Sun and had a great time.