I'm playing on a Rogue Trader game right now. It's probably the one 40K game that gives players a chance to break away from the grimdark bullshit (sort of; the Universe is still a fairly unforgiving place) and do their own stuff, as they are essentially explorers operating outside the usual boundaries of Imperial authority, with a lot of autonomy.

Quote from: Koltar;505215Whats stopping you from doing that with HERO system, GURPS, or SAVAGE WORLDS?

How about TRAVELLER?
Technically its a 'current game' via the Mongoose take on it.

OR you could play one of the RPG variations of the STAR TREK universe.

- Ed C.

Hero, Gurps, and Savage Worlds are all generic. Traveller by default has the players being in debt and without a large ship. In Star Trek you're bound by the lame-ass Federation rules, and are certainly not an independent force.

Rogue Trader has you being powerful with at least one huge ship by default, which is what I'm getting at. The others, you have to bend or break the rules to do it.

In Traveller the New Era you can pool ship shares to get a patrol cruiser or mercenary cruiser.  The only ships left with crews in the tens of thousands are in the Regency or controlled by Virus.

T5 will also have that feature IRRC.

You can certainly do a big ship game in GURPS, though the best way to get it is by taking a patron.  A party of multimillionaires might manage it too.

Quote from: danbuter;505196Rogue Trader is the only current game I know of where you are a serious player, with a giant spaceship and a huge crew that are all yours.

I still need to get this game at some point. That's the only WH40K game I don't have, AND I'm hugely interested in the premise.

As for the OP, yes, Grimdark doesn't mean that you have to make it all about the Magical Misery Tour. It's all in the way you use the setting, for God's sakes. Some GMs will suck at it, or will engage in various fantasies based on the setting's premise, but then, you can have great games with Twilight 2000 and other games, so why not 40K?

Quote from: Koltar;505215Whats stopping you from doing that with HERO system, GURPS, or SAVAGE WORLDS?

How about TRAVELLER?
Technically its a 'current game' via the Mongoose take on it.

OR you could play one of the RPG variations of the STAR TREK universe.

Somtimes I think there are GMS (or maybe just people) who aren't even attempting creativity because it might involve a little bit of work on their part.

- Ed C.

I am perverted enough to enjoy W40k universe. That's why I'd rather just go with Rogue Trader. It's really well - written RPG too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;504707Not quite. I liked the 40k of Rogue Trader. I don't much like 40k as it is today.

RPGPundit

I prefer the flavor of original Rogue Trader game as well, primarily because it doesn't take itself seriously and isn't so locked into every game involving some aspect of the Imperial bureaucracy... it feels less rigid and more exotic in the corners (like a dystopian Star Trek).
I don't see any reason though, why I couldn't capture that with Dark Heresy or (new) Rogue Trader... except maybe that I'd be making up some stats for aliens beasties on my own, which isn't a big deal. The idea I get from the original game is that the setting is so vast I can pretty much set the 'grimdark' dial however low/high I like. I could make it feel like Star Wars if I wanted to.

Quote from: danbuter;505247Traveller by default has the players being in debt and without a large ship.

Rogue Trader has you being powerful with at least one huge ship by default, which is what I'm getting at. The others, you have to bend or break the rules to do it.

How large of a ship in Traveller would you want?

Adventure 4 Leviathan for Classic Traveller had the PCs in an 1800 ton exploratory merchant that was cruising beyond the Imperial borders to find new markets. Amusingly enough, it was also designed by Bob McWilliams and was produced and edited by Albie Fiore, Ian Livingstone and Andy Slack of Games Workshop Ltd., England. It came out in 1980 and is pretty obviously the basis for Rogue Trader.

You can do the same with the current Mongoose Traveller if you like without bending or breaking the rules because they are incorporated into them.

So does Zombie Apocalypse qualify as grimdark, or is it borderline? I guess with zombie comedies suggesting that ZA is survivable goes against tradition. But I rarely found any ZA worthwhile of holding my attention for very long because my apathy meter filled too fast. Too much about relentless hopelessness and protagonists holding the stupid ball for me to bother. I just found most of these movies shocking and gross and not really horrifying, regardless of atmosphere.

Quote from: jeff37923;505407Adventure 4 Leviathan for Classic Traveller had the PCs in an 1800 ton exploratory merchant (snip)... It came out in 1980 and is pretty obviously the basis for Rogue Trader.

Hmmm... interesting. I quite liked 'Leviathan' back when... the books with lots of deckplans were always favorites... but I'd never considered it might be an inspiration/relative of RT... but now that I think of it, the Leviathan is much closer to what I originally pictured a Rogue Trader's ship being like, compared to the cities-in-space described in the current RPG.

Quote from: jeff37923;505407How large of a ship in Traveller would you want?

Adventure 4 Leviathan for Classic Traveller had the PCs in an 1800 ton exploratory merchant that was cruising beyond the Imperial borders to find new markets. Amusingly enough, it was also designed by Bob McWilliams and was produced and edited by Albie Fiore, Ian Livingstone and Andy Slack of Games Workshop Ltd., England. It came out in 1980 and is pretty obviously the basis for Rogue Trader.

From the 1e Rogue Trader rules, a Rogue Trader may command a fleet of ships able to carry a large complement of soldiers, plus settlers and technical staff to carry out his charge of discovering new worlds and either conquering and pillaging them or eradicating their population and colonising them.

The Leviathan is small - miniscule, really - compared to what a Rogue Trader is likely to command, and that's just the 1e WH40K version of him.

As an aside, my character captained Leviathan fresh off making a boatload of credits trading along the Spinward Main in Twilight's Peak. Leviathan's tiny cargo hold really cramped my speculative trading style.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;505557From the 1e Rogue Trader rules, a Rogue Trader may command a fleet of ships able to carry a large complement of soldiers, plus settlers and technical staff to carry out his charge of discovering new worlds and either conquering and pillaging them or eradicating their population and colonising them.

The Leviathan is small - miniscule, really - compared to what a Rogue Trader is likely to command, and that's just the 1e WH40K version of him.

Hmm, OK with that in mind, Leviathan is rather small. Although, I bet a well-designed exploration/colonisation ship could be used in Traveller.

(I actually have some notes for this from a long conversation on Citizens of the Imperium. I know it can be done, but it is definitely a non-standard ship  design. The colonisation can be done a la either World Tamer's Handbook, Pocket Empires, or Dynasty which are TNE, T4, and Mongoose Traveller respectively.)

Quote from: Black Vulmea;505557As an aside, my character captained Leviathan fresh off making a boatload of credits trading along the Spinward Main in Twilight's Peak. Leviathan's tiny cargo hold really cramped my speculative trading style.

Hehehe, we were using the cargo space of all the ship's boats as well to try and max out the profits.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;505557The Leviathan is small - miniscule, really - compared to what a Rogue Trader is likely to command, and that's just the 1e WH40K version of him.

Yeah, I think that... coming to it with Traveller/Star Wars on the brain  it took some of us a while to realize that the Rogue Traders weren't so much Han Solo/Millenium Falcon as they were James Lancaster/East India Company... despite that being clearly on display in the writeup.

Quote from: Opaopajr;505520So does Zombie Apocalypse qualify as grimdark, or is it borderline? I guess with zombie comedies suggesting that ZA is survivable goes against tradition. But I rarely found any ZA worthwhile of holding my attention for very long because my apathy meter filled too fast. Too much about relentless hopelessness and protagonists holding the stupid ball for me to bother. I just found most of these movies shocking and gross and not really horrifying, regardless of atmosphere.

Zombie Apocalypse is part of Post - Apocalyptic genre, and it's "ruled" by a bit different themes.

Generally speaking - no. In PA, usually the world is either doomed and best you can do is to scrape the living for the last few days, or there's hope for rebuilding the civilisation.

Quote from: Rincewind1;505592Zombie Apocalypse is part of Post - Apocalyptic genre, and it's "ruled" by a bit different themes.

Most ZA, especially Romero's stuff, tends towards grimdark, as "everybody dies, you have no chance" hopelessness is part of his schtick.

In the original cut of Dawn of the Dead, he had one of the three main characters jump into a helicopter blade and commit suicide (by chopping through his melon). Explicitly, on screen.

"Suicide is the only rational response to the world we live in. There is utterly no hope." That's pretty grimdark to me.

Moody's zombie trilogy (not Haters, the other one) ends with an explicit "the human race is extinct, and that's okay" coda. Fuck you, Moody. What a shit ending after 3 books.

OTOH, WWZ won a special place in my heart for showing people being able to adapt to the zombie outbreak, learn lessons, survive, and eventually win. It has a hopefulness most of the rest of PA lacks. Patient Zero, too. And 28 Days Later. (28 Months fell right back into the "you have no hope" shitter.)

And bear in mind I'm a fan of the genre. Seen most of the movies, inclding the infamous island one, owned and played the games (earned Zombie Genocider and Zombie Gencidest, respectively), and read the books. Also writing a zombie novel right now.

I love me some zombie fiction, just despise the preachiness and despair most authors seem to want to inject into the genre.

So, yeah, most of it is grimdark. (The Road, too for that matter.) But it doesn't have to be, as the examples I've given show. And your zombie setting can be whatever you wish.

Of the ZA films out there I dig Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" and Fulci's "Zombie" because a hopeless story occasionally is beautiful to watch. But those two films were also quite spectacular in use of visuals and soundtrack; they oozed atmosphere, and I think that's why I still like them. All this new stuff feels like trite rehashes. Perhaps because I come to expect certain tropes by now that only the atmospheric directing is left to really entertain me.

So, OK, ZA may span the gamut that may overlap into grimdark, but itself not solely be within grimdark. I can see that. Otherwise where do you put the zombie comedies. But this just seems to isolate Warhammer more and more within the sphere of grimdark-ness.