The decisions FFG have worked out in the sense they are able to (presumably) continue making these books and such.

I feel they could easily choose a better path and still have things work out. IE, the 40k fans being such would have supported pretty much anything.

In many ways it would be easier for me to jsut download the supplements and print out the parts i want (again assuming they are as cross compatible as has been claimed - there's no real way to test that other than play). All of the books are available online as pdf's to purchase or to pirate. I don't think4chan could give a shit what business decisions FFG take.

Of course someone will now come on and claim i'm making threats of piracy - woo! woo!

Quote from: Blackhand;452904I'm just going to let you know that you're way off base here.

I'd be pissed if they put all xenos / chaos antagonists in one book.

I don't think that volume would sell.  It would be entirely at odds with the design and the line would suffer for it.

I'd buy a Xenos book in a heartbeat. So would everyone at my LGS who is playing. It's our one gripe about the game.

Quote from: Blackhand;452936/fail



Maybe my opinion is skewed because I'm rich and you're a poor loser.

FTFY

Quote from: Windjammer;453034Yes. So we got a person here who not only doesn't know how to operate Ebay, but also argues that disproportionately priced RPG books are fine marketing policy because them webshops will provide them at significantly reduced pricing.

It's pretty clear at this point that FFG has made a couple of important decisions on the 40K RPG lines based on the main strategy of catering to a small segment of dedicated fans. Those fans don't mind the pricing, or the shoddy editing, or the at times dubious selection and distribution of content. Apparently, those decisions have worked out for FFG, or otherwise they wouldn't follow them so rigorously. In that sense, I think it's pointless to vent anger over these decisions, especially towards people who've accepted them.

Rogue Trader's the only line that's been mishandled IMHO (too many modules, not enough new crunch). DW is still pretty early in the cycle (adventures, overflow, monsters, theme splats).

DH's line development is actually really well done. One of the few games where I look forward to the supplements and find them good value. Also the game with the most useful supplements for the other two games. Disciples of the Dark Gods, for example, is one of the best enemy books I've ever read. I adapt ideas and stats from it in almost every 40K campaign I run.

Regarding a new monsters book, I'd like one with all the monster races, with statted-out troops, specialists and a major NPC or two for each race. It would make my life much easier. For example, while I would never use necrons or tau, I'm sure someone else would, so why leave them hanging?

Quote from: danbuter;453038I'd buy a Xenos book in a heartbeat. So would everyone at my LGS who is playing. It's our one gripe about the game.

has anyone tried asking FFG why they don't (or didn't) do this? I can't find any such comment.

Quote from: danbuter;453043Regarding a new monsters book, I'd like one with all the monster races, with statted-out troops, specialists and a major NPC or two for each race. It would make my life much easier. For example, while I would never use necrons or tau, I'm sure someone else would, so why leave them hanging?

Sounds entirely reasonable to me. I thought about how i'd use Tau:

1. A commander unit that becomes a Red Baronedque rival to the kill team (I'd do the same with Eldar tbh), like an honourable Samurai they meet in battle endlessly polite and determined. A master strategist.
2. An ethereal type (don't know much about this part of the Tau) serving as a prophet type rallying worlds to the Greater Good that have long been cut off from the Imperium, promising protection against other threats (like chaos, or a waaagh).

The first is not impossible out of the book as they give you a Tau Commander unit.
The second isn't possible with the material as written. I know Rites of Battle mentions an Ethereal the DW have prisoner, but there's still no rules or stats for their kind and their abilities.

Both seem equally reasonable ideas to me, but one would seem to be beyond FFG's capability and is thus highly contentious even though it's just as in keeping with the setting.

Quote from: Blackhand;452870I actually agree.  I don't believe ANY xenos should be a playable character.

And I don't have a personal problem with that idea as a simple fan of the game. As a GM I have a problem with it because I have players that just won't play humans.

QuoteWaaagh! is a group bellow that used by GW to create momentum at the tournaments and at Games Day.  It's not strictly indicative that those players are playing that army.

That first line? That's why I respond with snark about how little I apparently know about 40k.  Duh.  The second line, also duh. We both know what a Waagh is.   My point is that I understand that Orks are both popular (many players) and more importantly, Iconic.  

QuoteA series of "campaign settings" each detailing a specific point in the Imperium where these xenos interact with the Imperium might be nice.

Then we could all be happy.

Or maybe instead, a more flexible character creation system from the start so that GM's could set up their own campaigns just fine. A die hard fan of the setting doesn't need a good point in the setting to figure out how an Eldar might be working with an Inquisitor (There are novels for that already), and a non-fan who likes the aesthetics doesn't care.

QuoteSorry you gave up on the rules.  Maybe you need a better wargames club?

Buying three new space marines codexes within a space of about two years is more a deal breaker than the gaming club, though I will admit the local outrider was an asshole.  Ditto the 'whole new edition' treadmill, where Edition 4 was really like 3.1, only a few minor changes that would trip you up if you forgot about 'em, since everything else was the same, and edition 5 which, to my knowledge is really 3.15...

Never mind price bloat on things like Terminators. Sweet models but overpriced to the point where I'd rather pay a hooker to fuck me up the ass. At least she'd use lube AND charge less money for the 'privilege'.

QuoteGue'vesa are not Tau.

Again. Duh. Seriously, you really have to get over this idea that no one else knows anything about 40k.  I know what a gue'vesa is. I also know that the mere existance of former imperial servants working and fighting for filthy Xenos means that the Tau's tendancy to convert Imperials makes them just as much a threat as Chaos... and pretty much for the exact same reasons.

QuoteAlmost invariably, everything you gave as an example ends with one or both parties dead.

I'll admit that the canon has gotten much more strict about interactions in the last decade... but some of that has to do with marginalization of those instances where it is possible for peaceful interaction than outright contradiction of earlier lore.  But then, you've already admitted to a strong 'no Xenos in my Imperium' bias, so I can see why you'd chose to ignore or interpret those cases that do exist as 'always bad'.

Of course, just within the FFG line of books we have such contradictions as Halo Artifacts being extremely dangerous and trade in them banned by the inquisition, and Rogue Trader's whose fucking entire purpose, defined by their Warrant, is to collect as many as they can and sell them in the Imperium for big monies...

So contradictions regarding the acceptability of talking to a fucking space elf is to be expected.

QuoteAgain, I agree.  I'd still rather have no aliens, which is really the only design choice I have a beef with.  Not which aliens are included (which to me is irrelevant) but that they were in the first place.

And I find it silly to have a setting that includes all those aliens, and people who explicitly are above or outside the law (Inquisitors and Rogue Traders, respectively) who have to treat them like D&D Orcs... mindless drones to be farmed for XP and loots... or not loots, since its all apparently heretical to own.  I think the earlier, wilder and woolier times of 40k lore are better suited for RPG use than the current, table top dominated, total, genocidal war all the time attitude.

QuoteThe entire point of a Black Crusade (and the Chaos Legions in general) is to bring about the destruction of the Imperium.  ALL OF SPACE is the Imperium.

They are in the Imperium, even if they control a small portion of that space.  Or they are invading an Imperial world.

It is very much about the Imperium, only it's the "bad guys" that hate it and are running around in it destroying it rather than the warriors that defend it.

By that argument, a game set from the point of view of the Tyrannids is 'All about the Imperium, is in fact Imperium-Centric' because, well, the Imperium is the biggest owner of biomass in space, thus is the natural enemy the Tyrannids want to fight.

Again: Being Against something is NOT EQUAL to being about something.

I accept that they are close kin, but the argument you make is non-specific enough that it can apply to any of the badguy races in 40k, though it does sound sillier with some (as I demonstrated).

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;453041Rogue Trader's the only line that's been mishandled IMHO (too many modules, not enough new crunch).

The problem I see with Rogue Trader is that it's actually the most complicated of the 3 (soon, 4) RPGs to run and prep for, because of the type of campaigns it envisages. Deathwatch may be a bit niche, but it's comparatively well defined in its expectations towards the GM and the players. With Rogue Trader on the other hand, it was initially both unclear a) what the adventure is supposed to look like - how the Profit system creates detailed scenarios at the micro level - and b) which resources a GM would need to create and run such adventures.

In that situation, FFG's choice to provide adventures was not that odd. Lure of the Expanse showed people how one way to run RT games could look like. So people are now clearer as to the bigger picture. The problem is with b), in that some areas still lack consolidated support. If you think back to the adventure in the GM Kit, which was produced shortly after the core rulebook, it was impossible to run without expanded rules for space and on-ground combat. Now, two years later, we got Battlefleet Koronus which for the first time addresses these issues - but not entirely satisfactorily. There's a huge thread on FFG right now (iirc) where customers try to figure out the surface combat rules in that supplement. And that tells me that more work is needed, by way of supplementation and clarification.

Add to that customer's repeated queries for a supplement that expands on the trade and profit system. Like others, I'm actually consulting the Merchant Prince(s) supplement from Mongoose Traveller, but that's nowhere near a good substitute.

So - to basically agree with your point on 'not enough crunch' - ... basically two years into the line, the game lacks support in the very areas that are its selling points - space exploration and trade. And that I take to be the combined result of the game's own ambitions, which are much much vaster than that of its siblings and so require also higher designer competence (higher than FFG can muster), and of FFG's highly aggressive release pace. Rogue Trader is nowhere near being one of FFG's unwanted step children (that honor would go to, for instance, Battles of Westeros), but it isn't high up on their list of priorities either.

God, I've got the Pocket edition Merchant princes. Fuck, I hate that book... totally did NOT help me out.

Then again, contrasting what I saw in MP with Mercenary, I'd say that Mongoose never thinks about businesses in terms of Scale... or they think that players are too stupid to follow along, I don't know which.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled abusement of the local troll...

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;4530276 Xeno factions (not including Chaos if that's what we want to do) at a total of 40 pages each would be a 240 page supplement. Or you could chuck in Chaos as well to cover all bases for another 60 pages and that's still perfectly feasible. 40K isn't a setting with an endless supply of antagonists and aliens, like Star Trek. Even then there's nothing stopping FFG releasing subsequent compendiums with Xenos of their own design.

...

Holy shit.

Quote from: Blackhand;453093Holy shit.

What? The part where he says there "isn't an endless supply of aliens like ST," or the "40 page treatment for each Xeno race," or all of the points at once?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;452893Passing a higher DC would have allowed you to learn the names of multiple free resources with extensive information on the setting that are easily used instead of buying expensive books. Because of your low roll, if you want to learn more, you must pay 35gp for each book.

Krueger the Barbarian has all the books, I was trying to imagine not having all the books.  You are right, there is a large amount of free info out there, however, GW's IP policies prevent a lot of outright quotes, so many resources give factoids and summaries with page numbers for research, more canon indices then true encyclopedias.

Quote from: Windjammer;453083The problem I see with Rogue Trader is that it's actually the most complicated of the 3 (soon, 4) RPGs to run and prep for, because of the type of campaigns it envisages. Deathwatch may be a bit niche, but it's comparatively well defined in its expectations towards the GM and the players. With Rogue Trader on the other hand, it was initially both unclear a) what the adventure is supposed to look like - how the Profit system creates detailed scenarios at the micro level - and b) which resources a GM would need to create and run such adventures.

This is where I think they went awry. As someone who was looking forward to RT and planning a campaign even before it came out, my problem was never the "what" but the "how", and from what I've seen, that's the main problem with the game.

DH and DW, while differing in power somewhat, mainly focus on PCs stomping around doing things in person. You might call in a lance strike once in a while, but the core of the game is the activity of a small party and their behaviour. The two games are similar enough in their assumptions about PC capabilities that you can convert things between them fairly easily. A good antagonist in one is a good antagonist in the other, a cool piece of kit or a neat vehicle slip between the two easily and affect PC power and capabilities in a relatively straightforward way.

The core of Rogue Trader though, isn't so much about a small group of space bros broing it up as it is about a ship, and in 40K, a giant ass ship with thousands of people with all sorts of skill sets and resources to draw on. You happen to play some of the more interesting people who make decisions for the ship, but you're really as much a servant to it as it is to you.

But the supps appear to be written with the premise that you're still gonna be dealing with problems personally, and that most of the challenges and concerns you're gonna face are gonna be squad-level problems, and so the systems are built to handle those kinds of situations.

Outside of fighting other ships by flying past them and shooting broadsides, and getting you from one system to another, the ship's capabilities are much more nebulous than I would expect from a game where it's the starring entity. This is especially true outside of the raw physical capabilities of the ship, where all of the myriad possibilities of ship life aboard a giant floating city are represented by two stats (Crew and Morale) that mainly fluctuate based on equipment and damage.

e.g. I was driving a PC home after the last session of DW and we were talking about the current game. He was the RT in the RT campaign I ran last year, and we were talking about the fight that had just happened with the Titan. We were talking about the different power levels, and I mentioned that I had made some parts of this fight easier than I normally would b/c it was the first fight of the game and I wasn't 100% sure of how the whole space marine power level thing was gonna hash out in practice.

He asked a really interesting question "So, how would this game have been different if we'd been a rogue trader crew instead of SMs?" and the only response I could think of was "I don't think this premise would have even worked as a rogue trader game because of the ship. You'd just hose the Titan from orbit and teep down a regiment of guys to do the actual capture [of Titus Hyle]."

What FFG needs to do, and is only now really starting to do, maybe, with BK, is address the issue of the ship being the real locus of player action in-game, not the players' characters.

Quote from: CRKrueger;453098Krueger the Barbarian has all the books, I was trying to imagine not having all the books.  You are right, there is a large amount of free info out there, however, GW's IP policies prevent a lot of outright quotes, so many resources give factoids and summaries with page numbers for research, more canon indices then true encyclopedias.

They sneak a lot in, and TBH, most of the original content is more clearly written than GW's stuff.