TheRPGSite

I will admit to having a certain morbid fascination with the universe of the 41st Millenium. But isn't playing an agent of the Inquisition the sci-fi equivalent of playing a jew hunter for the gestapo? Is it wrong bad fun?

Naw, the gestapo would blanche at the things an inquisitor would do without blinking or thinking twice.  Even the gestapo had oversight and superior officers to worry about.

I dont understand the hate of mystery tourism. Lots and lots and lots of books and movies are made every year where you watch a person or group go through something terrible, where nothing positive happens or is learned, where you watch people struggle and die / divorce / go to prison / suicide / whatever, the end. I love a lot of sad movies / war movies.

What is the big deal with someone wanting to have a sad or depressing rpg? It goes right along with their sad books and sad movies.

Don't forget sad songs. I love sad songs. But I don't think Dark Heresy is equivalent to a sad song or movie. In those things, you sympathize with the sufferer. In Dark Heresy, it seems, you join in with the tormentor.

Doesn't it depend on how your group runs it?

I find Dark Heresy quite entertaining, but would probably only play games that were more focused on investigation and action rather than horror and terror.

I don't think it's misery toruism so much as FUCKING METAL!

Quote from: David Johansen;474087Naw, the gestapo would blanche at the things an inquisitor would do without blinking or thinking twice.  Even the gestapo had oversight and superior officers to worry about.

Unless you're going the Indiana Jones type of Gestapo, they generally didn't have to worry about Ancient Artifacts, Space Aliens, and Daemonic creatures from the Warp trying to eat/destroy/corrupt them, either.

WH40k is a screwed up world. Men are forced to choose the lesser evil, to serve the greater good.

Nah, the RPG is about investigating bad guys and stopping evil forces from destroying the world.

I mean, yeah, there's a lot of gray morality there, but its not like they are abusing innocents for no reason - they go after people intent on doing evil (or, in the more gray case, people who could very easily become a conduit for great evil because they can't control their powers).

So what if the player are RPing the abusers? Seriously. I give that a big, "so what." I enjoy the occasional horror movie. Sometimes, I root for the bad guy. In Texas CSM - The Beginning, I cheered with everyone else when Leatherface jumped off the porch and started chasing down the damsel. Good shit. Interesting to watch.

I enjoy watching depressing movies and I enjoy the feeling of sadness when bad things happen in them. I like playing sandbox games where I run around blowing up cars and killing cops. Sometimes, I like to RP an asshole and throw innocent people in jail as part of what he does, blow up innocents to kill the bad guy, choose between saving my comrad and shooting the villain, and I like to think and talk about it later, because it is interesting.

Generally speaking, I like to play the hero. The slutty do-gooder rogue and the ass-kicking paladin are my favorite characters, but I'm not going to sit here and act like I don't get it. The bad wrong fun how dare people think they are performing art or learning about other people's pain over analytical self praise bull shit is very irritating.

In a nutshell, misery tourism is fairly unique to RPGs because it involves making yourself feel bad as a goal. (Thus the original coinage, onanistic misery tourism.) The distance between creator and audience in a movie or book is an important difference.

Dark Heresy, Inquisitor, and the like seem to be ironic to me, or atavistic depending on your viewpoint. (Ironic = getting off on seeing what a bunch of schmucks the imperials are, possibly complemented by watching them get their just deserts. Atavistic = fantasizing about freeing yourself from modern morality and getting off on smashing things and hurting people.)

Jgants suggests it's antiheroic, i.e., the Inquisitors are engaged in an unpleasant task but aren't bad, all things considered.

None of these are misery tourism.

Haven't played Dark Heresy, though I've been meaning to check it out. Based on what people have said here it sounds like a game that lets you play bad guys (or characters who walk the line). I wouldn't call that misery tourism. My understanding is misery tourism is all about emptathizing with the suffering people in a setting. As someone who runs a lot of evil character campaigns, they are really more about gallows humor and not about empathy ( think mafia movies or vader's behavior in Empire).

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;474086I will admit to having a certain morbid fascination with the universe of the 41st Millenium. But isn't playing an agent of the Inquisition the sci-fi equivalent of playing a jew hunter for the gestapo? Is it wrong bad fun?

No. PCs have agency in DH, whereas true misery tourism requires minimal agency.

Every game of Dark Heresy I've ever been involved with has dealt extensively with the moral ambiguity of the Inquisition and its members. I'd consider a DH game that didn't to be thematically lacking.

I don't think RPG's are unique when it comes to having the goal to make you feel bad. The movie, "The Fountain" makes me feel bad. I still love that movie because I enjoy the feeling.

Cash's Cover of Hurt by NI|/| makes me feel bad. I still love his cover.

That's just scratching the surface. There is a massive number of movies, music, paintings, and T.V. shows who's goal is to make you feel worse and to empathize with horrible situations.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;474137No. PCs have agency in DH, whereas true misery tourism requires minimal agency.

Every game of Dark Heresy I've ever been involved with has dealt extensively with the moral ambiguity of the Inquisition and its members. I'd consider a DH game that didn't to be thematically lacking.

What does having 'agency' mean?

Inquisitors just can't run rampant, killing anything they want. They will eventually be taken to task by somebody, especially if they screw with the wrong person, such as a high-ranking noble or priest. Politics do enter into it. Sure, they have nigh-limitless authority, but if they "go to the dark" side, other inquisitors can and will try to take them out. Dark Heresy isn't about being an all-powerful asshole so much as having the needed resources to stop very, very bad things from becoming even worse.

You can play a homicidal asshole, but that's really missing the point. If I had a player who abused his authority as an inquisitor, I'd have to question his motives and if I knew how he was beforehand, I wouldn't run it for them.

What doesn't help is that the WH40K setting is all-too-often portrayed as bleakness with a thick coating of misery, which all-but kills it for me. Dan Abnett did a wonderful job showing just how much light there is in the grimdark of the setting, which saved my perception of WH40K.

Sure, there are awful, sick, horrible things out there and the Inquistion faces them more than any human should. However, without a semblance of good and positive, what's the point? Popular WH40K has stayed stuck in its miserable point-of-view and hasn't "grown up", at least for me, but in my games, that's not the case and I have enough shiney-happy so that when the shroud does fall over things, it's that much darker.

One very cool part of Wh40K is that it isn't as black and white as it's too-often shown to be, which leads to so many amazing role-playing moments, such as when you have to balance the lives of billions of countless more.

And since I can say this here, DEAL WITH THERE NOT BEING FEMALE SPACE MARINES, RPG.NET ASSHOLES!!! :D

Compared to several Shadowrun campaigns I've been in, Dark Heresy makes Inquisitors look nice. Hand-wringing pussies would hate those games, though. Our yakuza hit team would make them cry.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;474086I will admit to having a certain morbid fascination with the universe of the 41st Millenium. But isn't playing an agent of the Inquisition the sci-fi equivalent of playing a jew hunter for the gestapo? Is it wrong bad fun?

Wow.

 No, really wow.

The OP here may have a hell of a point.

Always been annoyed with that universe - that analogy or metaphor may be why. (Okay annoyed as in dislike bordering on hate at times or disgust.)

Again there are no "Good Guys" in that universe.


- Ed C.

Quote from: danbuter;474149Compared to several Shadowrun campaigns I've been in, Dark Heresy makes Inquisitors look nice. Hand-wringing pussies would hate those games, though. Our yakuza hit team would make them cry.

Today I am making a hat-trick of agreeing with people I normally do not.

My Shadowrun PC (my own grandson, Jack Liberty Jr.) was a psychopathic terrorist organ-legger and cop-killer jacked up on stimulants whose most positive relationships were with a kid he was teaching to cook meth, a cannibal ghoul butcher, and his former cell-mate, a Triad fixer, who he ended up kidnapping as part of a cockamamie scheme. He sold out every friend he ever had, killed the innocent remorselessly when he didn't exploit them, and nearly sold a kid to some ghouls for burger meat before the whole Shadowrunning thing went sour.

In Dark Heresy, a PC of mine once killed 10 million people by blowing up a nuclear power plant next to the only source of potable water on a moon after he'd been ordered to kill the operators of the spaceport the nuclear power plant was atop. But they weren't characters, just a statistic.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;474147What does having 'agency' mean?

Agency means you can make and act on meaningful choices.

Quote from: Ian Warner;474100I don't think it's misery toruism so much as FUCKING METAL!

It is FUCKING METAL!!

Quote from: Koltar;474150Wow.

 No, really wow.

The OP here may have a hell of a point.

Always been annoyed with that universe - that analogy or metaphor may be why. (Okay annoyed as in dislike bordering on hate at times or disgust.)

Again there are no "Good Guys" in that universe.


- Ed C.

You just caught the ball, dude.

Quote from: Koltar;474150Wow.

 No, really wow.

The OP here may have a hell of a point.

Always been annoyed with that universe - that analogy or metaphor may be why. (Okay annoyed as in dislike bordering on hate at times or disgust.)

Again there are no "Good Guys" in that universe.


- Ed C.

Just as much as there are no "Good Guys" in real life.

Everyone has their own agenda, and for a great many, humanity is just an troublesome bug meant to be squashed and moved on from.

Really, what do you expect, in a universe when a daemon can pop out of someone's head, and kill a small city on it's own?

The other thing to consider is that your characters in DH aren't Inquisitors, they are the agents of Inquisitors, and thus not possessed of that same unbridled authority.

I sort of get confused by some accounts of the game I see, because it seems as if the actual Inquisitor is often relegated to a spineless puppet that the PCs can just order to do whatever they like.  

Which seems like a shitty way to GM it to me, though it is a common method for dealing with hierarchy in gaming groups.

Quote from: J Arcane;474162The other thing to consider is that your characters in DH aren't Inquisitors, they are the agents of Inquisitors, and thus not possessed of that same unbridled authority.

I sort of get confused by some accounts of the game I see, because it seems as if the actual Inquisitor is often relegated to a spineless puppet that the PCs can just order to do whatever they like.  

Which seems like a shitty way to GM it to me, though it is a common method for dealing with hierarchy in gaming groups.

In the games I've played, the Inquisitor was usually on another world and would tell us to go do his dirty work. Often, help was far away and bad guys might think there was an advantage to killing us before we got a message out. We always knew he was a bastard and he set us up to die twice: still, he was the boss man. He was such a bastard and we were so fucked by back story it was lucky he would take us back after we survived. After a year or two of playing we finally got rank and proved the bastard was a heretic.

It took a lot of getting shit on to get that far though.

I think FFG really missed the boat with Dark Heresy by not having it be about full Inquisitors and their direct retinue. They have tried to correct this with Ascension, but the game would have been much better off if the base set was about real Inquisitors, IMO.

Quote from: J Arcane;474162I sort of get confused by some accounts of the game I see, because it seems as if the actual Inquisitor is often relegated to a spineless puppet that the PCs can just order to do whatever they like.

...that seems like a sure-fired way to get sent on a spectactularly bad suicide mission, to me.

This is the dude that can order "Extermitus" on an entire planet. Your team, is a warm-up for the group below it, or an "easy day" for his Alpha group of Acolytes...

Quote from: Novastar;474161Just as much as there are no "Good Guys" in real life.

Everyone has their own agenda, and for a great many, humanity is just an troublesome b....diipity-doo blah-blah bullshit.....

And You're WRONG.

 There are LOTS of Good Guys in Real Life!!

They're known as Police officers, Firefighters, paramedics, Doctors, Nurses....various first-responders and emergency workers.

Also the men and women in the military are quite often the GOOD GUYS in all sorts of situation.

Also, Red Cross volunteers, Salvation Army workers...and oh yeah bodyguardsw at Plannened Parenthood clinics that escort women in past angry protestors......folks who join the Guardian Angels or similiar neighborhood watch groups in their home towns....


- Ed C.

Quote from: danbuter;474166I think FFG really missed the boat with Dark Heresy by not having it be about full Inquisitors and their direct retinue. They have tried to correct this with Ascension, but the game would have been much better off if the base set was about real Inquisitors, IMO.

I don't think full Inquisitors would be as fun. Being on the very bottom of the Inquisition food chain with pretty much no back up is a lot of fun and encourages creativity.

Having said that I did make it about the Inquisitor and Retinue in my spoof but that world has it's own rules which make no sense.

The whole thing to remember about the 40K universe is that it was written by Brits.

It's really a bit of a silly heavy metal piss take. Gross gallows humour is where it's coming from. Or where it was originally - I don't know the rpg, so FFG probabaly changed some things and treated the setting more seriously than it deserved.

As originally written the setting was a splatter movie where any PCs would be arseholes and you probably cheered when you finally fucked up and got what you deserved. If you can't see the appeal in that (and it doesn't work for me at all) then you weren't going to like it.

As I say, I don't know the current game, so I'm probably talking out of my arse as regards the rpg. But above was, I believe, the original theme of that setting.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;474086I will admit to having a certain morbid fascination with the universe of the 41st Millenium. But isn't playing an agent of the Inquisition the sci-fi equivalent of playing a jew hunter for the gestapo?

Well, taken with a straight face, Warhammer40k is definitely Nazis: The RPG, down to the flimsy justifications of "men are forced to choose the lesser evil, to serve the greater good" and "its not like they are abusing innocents for no reason", which are right out of the SS songbook, and someone who could quote Goebbels or Heydrich chapter and verse could find the exact equivalents where they admit they are doing terrible things on the Ostfront because they have to. Chaos is a literal Evil for the Warhammer universe, and an existential threat to humankind. Which, after all, is not all that different from the danger The Jews were supposed to represent for the Third Reich et al. (These are also standard excuses of the RIFTS Coalition States of America, who are similar nazi stand-ins, and also fan favourites.) Simultaneously, Wh40k is also a satire of these attitudes, and may make for a great game if you run it like Gruntfuttock suggested.

Of course, most fans of the setting, who are after all 14 years old boys or the equivalent, miss both the downright nasty themes and the satire.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;474086Is it wrong bad fun?

It is on the level of ironically dressing up as an SS officer for a costume party. It is in bad taste, but not socially dangerous. And let's admit it, those are some snappy uniforms.

This thread is now about:

Are the Jews represented by Chaos or the Orkz, and who represent the Soviet Union in WH40K?

I thought that was obvious and completely uncontroversial:

The Jews = Chaos
The Soviets = Tyranids
The Urban Proletariat (without appropriate racial consciousness) = Orkz

:hatsoff:

Quote from: Koltar;474170And You're WRONG.

 There are LOTS of Good Guys in Real Life!!

They're known as Police officers.

I take it you haven't actually met many real cops.  Or soldiers for that matter.  For every "good guy" cop/soldier I bet I can find 2 that are corrupt, 5 who just like the rush / power trip, and 10 who could care less and just want to stick around long enough to get their pension.  

And I say that as someone who has a significant portion of his family in the law enforcement and military fields.

Quote from: Gruntfuttock;474195The whole thing to remember about the 40K universe is that it was written by Brits.

It's really a bit of a silly heavy metal piss take. Gross gallows humour is where it's coming from. Or where it was originally - I don't know the rpg, so FFG probabaly changed some things and treated the setting more seriously than it deserved.

Here's something that annoys me every time the 40K universe is brought up.  Yes, way back when the original thing was written, that stuff was true.  However, it hasn't really been that way anymore since at least the early 1990's.

The wargames, the books, the video games, etc, have changed the universe away from the silly heavy metal half-joke half-satire thing and made it into a real SF universe.

So please, for the love of god, could people stop judging the setting based on 20+ year old outdated book.

Quote from: Melan;474201Well, taken with a straight face, Warhammer40k is definitely Nazis: The RPG, down to the flimsy justifications of "men are forced to choose the lesser evil, to serve the greater good" and "its not like they are abusing innocents for no reason", which are right out of the SS songbook, and someone who could quote Goebbels or Heydrich chapter and verse could find the exact equivalents where they admit they are doing terrible things on the Ostfront because they have to. Chaos is a literal Evil for the Warhammer universe, and an existential threat to humankind. Which, after all, is not all that different from the danger The Jews were supposed to represent for the Third Reich et al. (These are also standard excuses of the RIFTS Coalition States of America, who are similar nazi stand-ins, and also fan favourites.) Simultaneously, Wh40k is also a satire of these attitudes, and may make for a great game if you run it like Gruntfuttock suggested.

Of course, most fans of the setting, who are after all 14 years old boys or the equivalent, miss both the downright nasty themes and the satire.

It is on the level of ironically dressing up as an SS officer for a costume party. It is in bad taste, but not socially dangerous. And let's admit it, those are some snappy uniforms.

Again, morons who somehow missed the 20+ years of setting development should probably just STFU already.

Dark Heresy is very clearly written to be "Eisenhorn: The RPG" and Eisenhorn was barely even an anti-hero (I'd say he qualifies more as a tragic hero).

My sources are the Ian Watson novels (which are written by a real writer instead of Fan McHack, and it shows) and some of the earlier books, yeah, so I am mostly talking about that era, and the setting may have changed since then. I don't know why that matters, though. Star Wars has also changed with The Phantom Menace, but that doesn't retrospectively apply to the qualities of The Empire Strikes Back, or even Return of the Jedi (although those ewoks are pretty suspect). With an evolving, canon-based intellectual property, you have to accept that not everyone will look at it at the same stage of the "metaplot" or "setting evolution".

[therpgsite]So fuck off.[/therpgsite]

Quote from: Koltar;474170And You're WRONG.

 There are LOTS of Good Guys in Real Life!!

They're known as Police officers, Firefighters, paramedics, Doctors, Nurses....various first-responders and emergency workers.

Also the men and women in the military are quite often the GOOD GUYS in all sorts of situation.

Also, Red Cross volunteers, Salvation Army workers...and oh yeah bodyguardsw at Plannened Parenthood clinics that escort women in past angry protestors......folks who join the Guardian Angels or similiar neighborhood watch groups in their home towns....


- Ed C.

None of that proves anything and is totally conjecture.  If every single one of those people were really "good" in real life all the time nothing bad would ever happen.

I happen to personally know a great many folk in those professions you named.  You're just shitting those words out because that's how society wants you to feel about those professions, but in reality they are just like everyone else.  Fucking period.

While we're on the same subject, most Inquisitors SAVE more worlds than they destroy.

So that makes most of them them better (more "good"?) than first responders in so many ways.

This thread is filled with heresy.

Also, I just wanna run this past you, in light of recent comments.

This saturday I'm going to see a buddy of mine.

He's in the county jail for a few more months.

He was picked up driving drunk, and already had a breathalyzer machine rigged into his pickup.  What a fuckup.

He's a combat paramedic for the S.W.A.T team.

Quote from: Blackhand;474258Also, I just wanna run this past you, in light of recent comments.

This saturday I'm going to see a buddy of mine.

He's in the county jail for a few more months.

He was picked up driving drunk, and already had a breathalyzer machine rigged into his pickup.  What a fuckup.

He's a combat paramedic for the S.W.A.T team.

Good to know.

Quote from: Blackhand;474258Also, I just wanna run this past you, in light of recent comments.

This saturday I'm going to see a buddy of mine.

He's in the county jail for a few more months.

He was picked up driving drunk, and already had a breathalyzer machine rigged into his pickup.  What a fuckup.

He's a combat paramedic for the S.W.A.T team.

LOL

Just in the last few months around here we had the cop who used his squad car to drunk drive to the bar with his two drunk groupies, the cop who was photographed sleeping in his squad car, and the cop who was arrested for breaking into a guy's house and stealing his dogs.

Quote from: Blackhand;474258Also, I just wanna run this past you, in light of recent comments.

This saturday I'm going to see a buddy of mine.

He's in the county jail for a few more months.

He was picked up driving drunk, and already had a breathalyzer machine rigged into his pickup.  What a fuckup.

He's a combat paramedic for the S.W.A.T team.

Cops, doctor, soldiers and paramedics are all people like the rest of us and with all that entails. But when you are in a bad situation there is nothing like being helped by a good cop or good paramedic. Going back to the original point koltar was trying to make I do agree with his fundamental observation that there are plenty of good people out there. That doesn't mean they aren't flawed (everyone is flawed). In my own life I feel the good people I know far outweigh the bad.

Quote from: jgants;474262LOL

Just in the last few months around here we had the cop who used his squad car to drunk drive to the bar with his two drunk groupies, the cop who was photographed sleeping in his squad car, and the cop who was arrested for breaking into a guy's house and stealing his dogs.

The point you're missing is that those stories because they break the norm.
The News in most cities is defnied with "If it Bleeds, it Leads" ...NOT All the Good stuff going around here all the time that WE at station or Newspaper think you will find boring.

At least 50% to 85% of police, Firefighters are on average GOOD people doing their best to do the right thing.

Getting back to DRAK HERESY/ WH40K - its a mostly evil universe with corrupt and vile people in it. There are no Good Guy factions or groups at all in that universe. If I ever contemplated running anything in that universe I'd have to create a new group/faction for my players just so I wouldn't have to take a mental/spiritual shower after and during every game session.

- Ed C.

Tau are technically the commies in the 40k universe, they even have the commie style motto's and such in their codex.

Interesting thing is they are also probably the closest to good guys the 40k setting has(if you ignore the stupid retcons Gw made to try to make the space marines seem better), i'd also say your avarage imperial guardsman is pretty much neutral on the good/bad axis as they're generally the poor gits sent to fight a war when the marines are busy elsewhere.

Quote from: Koltar;474287The point you're missing is that those stories because they break the norm.
The News in most cities is defnied with "If it Bleeds, it Leads" ...NOT All the Good stuff going around here all the time that WE at station or Newspaper think you will find boring.

At least 50% to 85% of police, Firefighters are on average GOOD people doing their best to do the right thing.

I agree there are good people (though as Brendan says, they are flawed).  I disagree they are the majority (I'd say the majority are "neutrals" just doing a job).


As for DH, the more morally questionable aspects of the setting shouldn't really come up in play anyhow unless the group wanted to include them.  There's no reason why you can't just play it as a straight-up investigation of evil cultists game ala Cthulhu in Space.  Kind of like how gamers ignore the social evils of pretty much every genre they play in.

I love the 40K universe, simply for its hugely militaristic asthetic. Really, its just fuckin' cool in my book.

If you can't think of ways to run a campaign of "good guys" in the 40K universe, that's a lack of imagination on your part, not a flaw in the setting.

I always thought it was very macho in a kind of Verhovan like way too.

Even relatively non combatant characters in the artwork look like they could beat the shit out of you.

Quote from: Koltar;474287There are no Good Guy factions or groups at all in that universe.
- Ed C.

Incorrect sir.  Saying all Inquisitors are bad is like saying all people on Earth are bad, except there's probably more Inquisitors.  There are entire cabals of Inquisitors who think the current state of the Imperium is about as far from the Emperor's vision as you could possibly get and want to bring the whole thing down and rebuild.  The you have the Sensei, the literal descendants of the Emperor who share some small measure of his power and work for the good of humanity, and as such are usually branded as criminals and heretics by the Imperium.

Dark Heresy is definitely an Abnettian Inquisition and not a Watsonian one.

Quote from: Koltar;474287There are no Good Guy factions or groups at all in that universe.

If I ever contemplated running anything in that universe I'd have to create a new group/faction for my players just so I wouldn't have to take a mental/spiritual shower after and during every game session.

- Ed C.

Lies and Hilarity.

I'd say I'd like you to play in my game man...but I've never run a PbP before you you live FAR away from me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;474363Dark Heresy is definitely an Abnettian Inquisition and not a Watsonian one.

But there's room for both flavors!  And more.

Quote from: Blackhand;474381But there's room for both flavors!  And more.

Agreed.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;474086I will admit to having a certain morbid fascination with the universe of the 41st Millenium. But isn't playing an agent of the Inquisition the sci-fi equivalent of playing a jew hunter for the gestapo? Is it wrong bad fun?

Disclaimer: I know only the rudimentary basics about the 40K universe. Never read a novel or Codex or even a whole game (just player-relevant bits of RT and a few DH freebies).

You know, I'm vaguely turned off by the oblique references to Nazi Germany and the Holy Inquisition (aesthetic and otherwise). I'm the kind of guy who uses the Coalition from Rifts mostly as a villain (a complex, thought-provoking villain -- what would you do if your country was torn apart by supernatural forces and flooded with alien monsters? --, but a villain nonetheless).

But I see no reason you can't spin it as Call of Cthulhu in space. CoC and other investigative horror games often involve difficult moral choices (Delta Green springs to mind) and there's no reason DH should be any different, without necessarily getting into moral slippery-slopes.

Even the DH books say that the reason everyone sees Inquisitors as homicidal fanatics is because those are the ones that draw the most attention to themselves. For every witch-hunter who bombs planets to death there are at least five others who would rather try to get the job done as discreetly as possible WITHOUT having to murder several billion people just because there happened to be a single heretical cult on the same planet.

Whenever I GM Dark Heresy (as a matter of fact we just finished one little scenario last monday that took about five sessions) I try to portray the Inquisitors as people who are willing to fight for the Imperium and genuinely want to protect it, but sometimes the odds are so heavily stacked against them that they need to do some really nasty shit to get the job done. Inevitably some are going to get corrupted or jaded or just fucking insane.

Quote from: The Butcher;474422Disclaimer: I know only the rudimentary basics about the 40K universe. Never read a novel or Codex or even a whole game (just player-relevant bits of RT and a few DH freebies).

You know, I'm vaguely turned off by the oblique references to Nazi Germany and the Holy Inquisition (aesthetic and otherwise). I'm the kind of guy who uses the Coalition from Rifts mostly as a villain (a complex, thought-provoking villain -- what would you do if your country was torn apart by supernatural forces and flooded with alien monsters? --, but a villain nonetheless).

But I see no reason you can't spin it as Call of Cthulhu in space. CoC and other investigative horror games often involve difficult moral choices (Delta Green springs to mind) and there's no reason DH should be any different, without necessarily getting into moral slippery-slopes.

I'm beginning to find the nazi references tedious, I must say.

Quote from: Koltar;474287The point you're missing is that those stories because they break the norm.
The News in most cities is defnied with "If it Bleeds, it Leads" ...NOT All the Good stuff going around here all the time that WE at station or Newspaper think you will find boring.

At least 50% to 85% of police, Firefighters are on average GOOD people doing their best to do the right thing.

Getting back to DRAK HERESY/ WH40K - its a mostly evil universe with corrupt and vile people in it. There are no Good Guy factions or groups at all in that universe. If I ever contemplated running anything in that universe I'd have to create a new group/faction for my players just so I wouldn't have to take a mental/spiritual shower after and during every game session.

- Ed C.

Well...
Inquisitors and their Acolytes are not police and firefighters. They're more like Black-Bag Special Forces, or SEAL Team Six. Or a team of "The Operative" from Serenity. Do these people think they're "evil"? Most probably not. And even the one's like The Operative think they're doing it so children won't know that kind of evil.

But 99.99% of humanity? Most are decent enough people just trying to make an honest living in the galaxy. But shit just wants to eat them, or corrupt them, or use them as slave breeding stock (i.e. "They'll torture us, rape us, and kill us. Not necessarily in that order...").

It shares a common theme with RIFTS in that regard: how much of your humanity are you willing to sacrifice, to protect humanity? Poison your body? Replace it with unfeeling machinery? Fry your mind? Consort with the enemy?

Where do you draw the line?
And that, makes for some great drama and character motivation.

Okay Novastar - then why the hell do the 'Inquisitors' (or other player group) have to wear outfits that look like Nazi uniform knockoffs or Soviet-era bargain bin uniforms?

Think I am also getting sick of games that think 'Nazi/Commie' clothing = 'edgy/Cool/fashionable/Trendy.

No it just looks stupid.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;474593Okay Novastar - then why the hell do the 'Inquisitors' (or other player group) have to wear outfits that look like Nazi uniform knockoffs or Soviet-era bargain bin uniforms?

Think I am also getting sick of games that think 'Nazi/Commie' clothing = 'edgy/Cool/fashionable/Trendy.

No it just looks stupid.


- Ed C.

Dude - you wear plastic foreheads and fetish leather for FUN.. And you question the cool uniform mystique?

Bear in mind, the side with the snazziest uniforms invariably loses...

Quote from: Werekoala;474596Dude - you wear plastic foreheads and fetish leather for FUN.. And you question the cool uniform mystique?

Bear in mind, the side with the snazziest uniforms invariably loses...

First,  NO I don't.

 Second - we're not talking about Star Trek or anything connected to Star Trek - the discussion was the bullshit WH 40K/Dark Heresy universe.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;474593Okay Novastar - then why the hell do the 'Inquisitors' (or other player group) have to wear outfits that look like Nazi uniform knockoffs or Soviet-era bargain bin uniforms?

Think I am also getting sick of games that think 'Nazi/Commie' clothing = 'edgy/Cool/fashionable/Trendy.

No it just looks stupid.


- Ed C.

They don't look any more like nazi uniforms than any other military dress, which is all they are. The only difference is they have more skulls. There is, i suppose, a russian front vibe to the imperial guard because of their winter grey colours and the caps that commisars (and the name commisar) wear.

Most games pick things because they think they are cool. The author wouldn't design them to look stupid.

Quote from: Melan;474215I thought that was obvious and completely uncontroversial:

The Jews = Chaos
The Soviets = Tyranids
The Urban Proletariat (without appropriate racial consciousness) = Orkz

:hatsoff:

Oh, Soviets = Tyranids, sure. (Even though and argument could be made in favour of the Yellow Scare.)

However, I feel that in some Nazi propaganda at least, the Jews are represented not so much as the all-consuming inimical power (that Chaos would be), but as pests. Consider the segment starting roughly around the 15 minute mark in Der Ewige Jude (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5849499994484879153), rats come in around 16:20. And that's more like Orkz with their spreading by spore infection (of course, the Orkz also have the whole American Redneck thing as well).

40K Guard Uniforms are quite varied.

*Cadians have a US Marine Corp look to them
*Catachans are all aping Rambo (which is appropriate considering their backstory)
*Praetorians look like Rorkue's drift era British Army (intentional, they were introduced for an Ork scenario called Gork's drift)
*Mordains look more like Traffic Wardens than soldiers. In fact a GW manager in Brighton decided to paint his Mordains in the distinctive Black and Yellow of the Warden Uniforms of the time.
*Tallarhans are very Laurence of Arabia
*Death Corp, Chem Dogs etc have a WWI asthetic
*The Vallhallans and Voystovians are Soviet knock offs yes but they come from cold planets. According to Ciaphas Cain Vallhallans in particular seem to be constantly deployed to temperate and tropical regions meaning the kit the models are in is rarely worn.

Comissars are nakedly fascist in their uniforms yes but they are political officers.

Civilian dress is even more varied from raggedy robes to a more modern look.

Personally I think it's a shame that the Marine Helmet seems to have gravitated towards the "Vader mask" varian. I prefered the old beakys.

Quote from: Koltar;474597First,  NO I don't.

 Second - we're not talking about Star Trek or anything connected to Star Trek - the discussion was the bullshit WH 40K/Dark Heresy universe.


- Ed C.

Alright, here comes the forehead fucking.  And I had this streak going where I was pretty much nice to you all this time.

You can shut your fucking mouth now.  Nobody bashes that retarded ass Star Trek shit because it's literally too stupid to bother with.  And it sure as fuck is some pussy ass fucking bullshit, all the fucking way around.  That shit would never go down like that because humans aren't that morally fucking good.

Movies, comics, tv - all that fucking Star Blecch shit is right out, because it's just straight liberal pussy shit.  Makes my fucking eyes bleed, especially the new movie.

You know what they taught me in military history (since we've been talking about degrees)?  That modern militaries idolize the Nazi regime as the epitome of military effectiveness.  Yep that's right - the U.S. wants to be fucking Nazis.

Maybe that's why all the hate on 40k - the attitude is generally more prevalent and real than the overly idealized Star Trek stupidity.

The reason everyone wears those fucking uniforms is for the sheer power they present.  They represent a real thing in our real history and invoke certain feelings thereby.  The two biggest ones they are going for :  GRIM and DARK.

Are you that fucking stupid?

If you don't like it GTFO.

I might also add that it explicitly lets you know all that shit is in the universe right on the fucking package.  It fucking tells you straight out there is no hope and no light, and all you can do is fight the good fight.

And you bitch when you read/play it and find out its the truth?

Dude, what?

I'm trying to figure out if there's a coherent point in that, but...I just don't know.

QuoteAnd you bitch when you read/play it and find out its the truth?

The mistake you've made here is assuming that Koltar has either read, or played it, before going all fucking Church Lady on this shit.  

This is just what Koltar does.  He's an ignorant, clueless, moral majority slackwit with a deeply confused set of personal politics and a sycophantic streak that runs yellow from Mars bar forehead to simpering puppy's tail.  

I suggest that if staggering ignorance combined with naive moral indignation annoys you, you should IL him now because you'll never get more out of him than that.

Quote from: Axiomatic;474653Dude, what?

I'm trying to figure out if there's a coherent point in that, but...I just don't know.

You're right Blackhand had no point in what he posted.

 I'm knocking a setting he likes that is filled with dark and hateful images, so he decides to knock a setting I like that is filled with hope and optimistic images.


- Ed C.

Quote from: J Arcane;474657The mistake you've made here is assuming that Koltar has either read, or played it, before going all fucking Church Lady on this shit.  

That's what annoys me the most - he's not even bothering to learn anything about the game.  He's bashing it only on some half-understood gossip and maybe a piece of art he saw once (though even then it seems he can't tell the difference between German and Russian).


If people weren't so ignorant, they might actually notice there are a lot of different European influences to game.  Why, it's almost like it's a sci-fi equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy.  :rolleyes:

And people should quit shouting Nazis! like some moron at a political rally who doesn't know what he's talking about.  The Empire in 40K is a lot closer to the Holy Roman Empire than it is Nazi Germany.  Anyone half-reading the setting and with any knowledge whatsoever of history should be able to figure that one out.

Quote from: jgants;474671That's what annoys me the most - he's not even bothering to learn anything about the game.  He's bashing it only on some half-understood gossip and maybe a piece of art he saw once (though even then it seems he can't tell the difference between German and Russian).

Bullshit on your assumptions.

 There are at least 20 to 30 WH 40K items in colorful boxes across from my cash regioster every day when I work at the store. We also have pl;enty of Dark Heresy RPG books. I've looked it up on wikipedia before and heard regulars talk asbout that 'universe'.

That thing is so evil Grim/Dark that you have to light a match to find a flashlight to light your way to find a light bulb that may or may not work.

Again, there are No Good Guys in that universe. Every damn faction is corrupt, twisted, or evil in some fashion


- Ed C.

Meh, I wouldn't mind it if Koltar was saying "I don't like the artwork." or "I think the artwork has a subtext I'm not terribly comfortable with..."; those are subjective opinions, which we could argue the merits and flaws of, and ultimately everyone goes home with their opinion.

I'm just not appreciating being told the ONLY way to play Dark Heresy is to play an evil neo-facist, goose-stepping curbstomper who microwaves babies "for the Emperor". Just as it's possible to play a good Coalition soldier in a RIFTS game, or a good Imperial in a Star Wars game, or a good Klingon in a Star Trek TOS game.

People are people; they run the gamut of good, bad, and everywhere in between. Just because the universe is a distinctly f'd up place, doesn't mean that all the people are "irredeemably evil". It just means the universe is much more a place "that tries men's souls".

Just like countless war memoirs relate, even in the very worst of times, most people are merely trying to do the best they can, with what they've got.

Quote from: Koltar;474668You're right Blackhand had no point in what he posted.

 I'm knocking a setting he likes that is filled with dark and hateful images, so he decides to knock a setting I like that is filled with hope and optimistic images.


- Ed C.

No, there was a point, it's just that you didn't get it.  That point is not the one you illustrate in this quote.  It was an answer to your idiotic questions, like "why do they do that?".

Quote from: Koltar;474672Bullshit on your assumptions.

 There are at least 20 to 30 WH 40K items in colorful boxes across from my cash regioster every day when I work at the store. We also have pl;enty of Dark Heresy RPG books. I've looked it up on wikipedia before and heard regulars talk asbout that 'universe'.

That thing is so evil Grim/Dark that you have to light a match to find a flashlight to light your way to find a light bulb that may or may not work.

Again, there are No Good Guys in that universe. Every damn faction is corrupt, twisted, or evil in some fashion


- Ed C.

Nobody gives a shit how many you sell.  

You say this like it's only describing the 40k universe, and has absolutely no connection to our own.  You must be living in a dream reality where these things don't exist.

The other point here is one you should have learned as a child.

If you don't like the way it tastes, don't fucking eat it.

Quote from: Koltar;474672Bullshit on your assumptions.

 There are at least 20 to 30 WH 40K items in colorful boxes across from my cash regioster every day when I work at the store. We also have pl;enty of Dark Heresy RPG books. I've looked it up on wikipedia before and heard regulars talk asbout that 'universe'.

That thing is so evil Grim/Dark that you have to light a match to find a flashlight to light your way to find a light bulb that may or may not work.

Again, there are No Good Guys in that universe. Every damn faction is corrupt, twisted, or evil in some fashion


- Ed C.

I refer you to Dan Abnett. Read Brothers of the Snake and tell me that Brother Seargant Priad is not an honourable and decent sort.

It's Grimdark but it's also heroic. You miss the point if you analyse it that closely you can find nazi parallels. The stakes are just extremely high: the Imperium doesn't discriminate against people on the basis of colour or creed. It doesn't propagate the idea of a master race (well, not really). It believes mankind is superior because, in the setting, it is. This isn't because it's intended to be taken as some kind of thinly veiled crypto fascist treatise, it's because the stakes are that high: the Xenos will lay humanity low, humanity's evolution will be its undoing if unchecked, and chaos gnaws at the corner of every human being's mind. It's a setting for great heroes and that's what the space marines are meant to be: they are no more evil than the Spartans when they cast infants out to die because they are born deformed. It's not pleasant, but no one complains about heroic greece.

You can take the setting on all sorts of levels. If you want to play a noble Imperium agent then that is entirely possible. Or you can play an apostate (soon) and decide that maybe there's a third way that isn't blindly following the Imperium or becoming a slave of the Chaos gods.

Quote from: Koltar;474672Again, there are No Good Guys in that universe. Every damn faction is corrupt, twisted, or evil in some fashion


- Ed C.

Section 31.

Quote from: Novastar;474674Meh, I wouldn't mind it if Koltar was saying "I don't like the artwork." or "I think the artwork has a subtext I'm not terribly comfortable with..."; those are subjective opinions, which we could argue the merits and flaws of, and ultimately everyone goes home with their opinion.

I'm just not appreciating being told the ONLY way to play Dark Heresy is to play an evil neo-facist, goose-stepping curbstomper who microwaves babies "for the Emperor". Just as it's possible to play a good Coalition soldier in a RIFTS game, or a good Imperial in a Star Wars game, or a good Klingon in a Star Trek TOS game.

People are people; they run the gamut of good, bad, and everywhere in between. Just because the universe is a distinctly f'd up place, doesn't mean that all the people are "irredeemably evil". It just means the universe is much more a place "that tries men's souls".

Just like countless war memoirs relate, even in the very worst of times, most people are merely trying to do the best they can, with what they've got.

I wouldn't care to run/play the 40k game that Koltar thinks exists.

I don't think there is a definative good and evil. Just human or inhuman stupidity.

Quote from: Koltar;474672Again, there are No Good Guys in that universe. Every damn faction is corrupt, twisted, or evil in some fashion


- Ed C.

That's a pretty narrow-minded view of the entire setting. Humans are corrupt, twisted or evil in some fashion, but that doesn't make each faction any of those things by design. The Inquisition truly feels it's doing what best for the Imperium, but there are some bad apples, of course. Again, take a look at Dan Abnett's work.

Now, if you're saying there are no flawless, shining, smiling paragons of perfection, then you're correct and I'm glad so. Those kinds of characters are flat and boring. I can't think of a single setting worth its salt where truly "good" characters exist in a realistic/interesting fashion. Of course, that opens the "What is good and evil?" can of worms.

While I agree 100% that too much of WH40K's art is pus-filled, hateful, grim poop, that's not the only aspect to the setting. I can't stand the anachronistic mind-set that people and technology are that backwards. Take Rogue Trader, where they have hundreds of people on a giant treadmill so that some starship's attitude thruster can move. Um....what?! Really? You have genetically-modified super-soldiers, laser weaponry, giant battle-mechs, interstellar travel, etc, but hydraulics are above you?! As I've mentioned, much of WH40K seems to be stuck in the past and thrives all-too much on showcasing the suck more than the reasons those fighting and dying for the Imperium do so.

And being from a hive-world and thinking there's a fucking spirit in your lasgun makes you a moron. :D

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;474683I refer you to Dan Abnett.

His work should be required reading. :)

Quote from: Koltar;474672Again, there are No Good Guys in that universe. Every damn faction is corrupt, twisted, or evil in some fashion.

Again, incorrect.  You just don't know of any, and to be honest, neither to the kids talking about the game all the time in front of your counter, but they're there, albeit very rarely mentioned these days if not outright retconned.

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;474733And being from a hive-world and thinking there's a fucking spirit in your lasgun makes you a moron. :D

Actually there is a spirit in the lasgun.  Why do you think an Admech can wave his hand and make it work again?  Because he has implants that are capable of communicating with the self-diagnostic circuits in the lasgun itself.  He might even believe that he "communes with the war spirit of the weapon" but he's basically just wirelessly remoting in and running a program.

Quote from: CRKrueger;474738Actually there is a spirit in the lasgun.  Why do you think an Admech can wave his hand and make it work again?  Because he has implants that are capable of communicating with the self-diagnostic circuits in the lasgun itself.  He might even believe that he "communes with the war spirit of the weapon" but he's basically just wirelessly remoting in and running a program.

I meant literal spirit. I can see a Tech Priest believing in it or a person from a feral world who didn't grow up with technology. But to know about tech and think that it's a spirit is stupid. When said individual waves his hand and readjusts weaponry remotely, that's pretty high-tech and not some "ghost in the machine".

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;474735His work should be required reading. :)

There are class acts on RPGnet who complain through Eisenhorn he made Inquisitors too sympathetic and human.

Well frankly most of them should be. They're not Genetically Engineered and Pscyho Conditioned. They are all abused children becoming abusers but that's very sympathetic.

Quote from: Koltar;474668You're right Blackhand had no point in what he posted.

 I'm knocking a setting he likes that is filled with dark and hateful images, so he decides to knock a setting I like that is filled with hope and optimistic images.


- Ed C.

Star Trek is hopeful and optomistic?

Sure, if you buy the communist utopia that began with ST:TNG where you have an empathic ship's counselor who ensures that everyone on board is thinking "healthy" thoughts and remains at their assigned station in life while the good ship goes to defeat the forces of capitalism (Ferengi). Of course, Klingons (who were representative of random violence) are OK now since they have been spayed and neutered by their contact with the Federation.

Yup, that is truly hopeful and optomistic to anyone who hates Free Will.

Funny also how the Cardassians were first called the Cardassian Union then suddenly became the Cardassian Empire.

Quote from: jeff37923;474777Yup, that is truly hopeful and optomistic to anyone who hates Free Will.

or testicles.

Quote from: jeff37923;474777Sure, if you buy the communist utopia that began with ST:TNG where you have an empathic ship's counselor who ensures that everyone on board is thinking "healthy" thoughts and remains at their assigned station in life while the good ship goes to defeat the forces of capitalism (Ferengi). Of course, Klingons (who were representative of random violence) are OK now since they have been spayed and neutered by their contact with the Federation.

Yup, that is truly hopeful and optomistic to anyone who hates Free Will.

This has got to be one of the great parodies of our time.

I honestly don't give two shits about who is supposed to be Nazis, or 1950s era Soviets, or which group is a thinly veiled version of the Guelphs and which are blatantly Ghibellines.  If I want despair and/or torture porn, I can pick up a newspaper.  I don't need to play depressing games or watch sad movies to be reminded that 'the world is a fucked up place', or that 'most people are flawed'.  No fucking shit, Sherlocks.

It too much reeks of 'edgier than thou' or 'internet tough guy'.  Plato was right; don't fill kids' heads with constant misery stories where the hero is betrayed and loses while the villain suffers no consequences.  This perverse social Darwinism crap (that goes against human nature) is bullshit invented by those with power to keep everyone under them distracted by scrabbling and clawing at each other for that extra shiny pebble.

The Daleks are far nastier than any agent of the Imperium. Yet they routinely feature in the machinations of a small minded gangly immortal accompanied by a cartoon soundtrack who won't let humanity defend itself.

Except Dark Heresy is really no more full of despair and torture porn than, say, Call of Cthulhu: Delta Green or Shadowrun or any other paranormal-investigation game.

This is basically what happens:

Your boss, the Inquisitor, has received some intelligence that Bad Shit is About to Happen in a Certain Place. He sends you to investigate.

You go there, and discover that some Really Bad People are planning to do something Really, Really Bad that will endanger the lives and souls of countless millions. You find out where the Really Bad People are hiding, collect some insanity or corruption points from witnessing the depths of the depravity of the Really Bad People, and then shoot all the Really Bad People and set fire to their remains.

You take a few months off for R&R, and then repeat the process.

You don't go about imprisoning peaceful protesters practicing civil disobedience because they want their local planetary governor to reduce graft by 12%, you go about shooting cultists who have pledged their bodies and souls to the forces of Ultimate Corruption and are planning on dragging the entire planet into the Hell Dimension.

Delta Green blows 40k/DH out the water for dark. Lovecraft's entire worldview makes Games Workshop's ideas look like fucking playschool!

And he was a racist to boot.

Quote from: Ian Warner;474774There are class acts on RPGnet who complain through Eisenhorn he made Inquisitors too sympathetic and human.

Well frankly most of them should be. They're not Genetically Engineered and Pscyho Conditioned. They are all abused children becoming abusers but that's very sympathetic.

They're probably the same snobby-ass douche-canoes who feel that all psykers are 100% evil and should never be viable as anything more than psychic slave-dogs.

Anyhoo, Inquisitors ARE human and should strive to be the best among them. Now, as to how...

The thing with psykers is that every time they do ANYTHING, they have a 1/400 chance of being instantly consumed by daemons who will then proceed to slaughter the rest of the party and everyone else around.

This makes them understandably unpopular.

Quote from: Axiomatic;474805Except Dark Heresy is really no more full of despair and torture porn than, say, Call of Cthulhu: Delta Green or Shadowrun or any other paranormal-investigation game.

Mea Culpa, I wasn't specifically referring to Dark Heresy up there.  I am fully willing to believe you or J Arcane regarding the game.  It's the recurring "I iz tuff guy, cuz I looks into abyss! LOL!" miasma that swirls around such endeavours that gets to me.  Once in a while, the dark story serves as a bridge (vis. Empire Strikes Back) or contrast for the 'heroes' (cyberpunk genre).

But the constant "the world is a shitty place, and all my games are a reflection of that" really isn't much more than misery tourism.

Well, Dark Heresy is explicitly not set in the real world nor does it follow the laws of the real world, because in the real world, you don't summon armies of flesh rending daemons by masturbating too hard.

In general, taking Wh40k too seriously is a bad idea, because in Wh40k, merely experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Insanely Scheming Bird Satan.

Of course, NOT experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Morbidly Obese Plague Satan.

And being angry about it fuels the forces of Angry Chainsaw Satan.

Etc.

I'm just saying that to take WH40k seriously as how the real world works is...absurd, because WH40k is absurd.

Quote from: Axiomatic;474848Well, Dark Heresy is explicitly not set in the real world nor does it follow the laws of the real world, because in the real world, you don't summon armies of flesh rending daemons by masturbating too hard.

In general, taking Wh40k too seriously is a bad idea, because in Wh40k, merely experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Insanely Scheming Bird Satan.

Of course, NOT experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Morbidly Obese Plague Satan.

Which actually means that I & the OP were right all along and the Dark Heresy/WH 40K universe IS a form of Misery Tourism setting.



- Ed C.




Which STILL has nothing to do with the STAR TREK universe and no connection to it.  - anyone bringing the ST universe into the discussion is hugging a distorted straw man example.

You don't actually know what misery tourism is then.

Quote from: Koltar;474860Which actually means that I & the OP were right all along and the Dark Heresy/WH 40K universe IS a form of Misery Tourism setting.

So you respond to this post, decide that it alone backs up your opinion of DH and the 40k universe despite the fact that you have never read or played any aspect of it while completely ignoring every other point made.

Why don' you go read the book i mentioned, Brothers of the Snake, and see for yourself that the 40k universe isn't 'misery tourism' or that such stories are the only ones that can be told.

Quote from: Axiomatic;474848Well, Dark Heresy is explicitly not set in the real world nor does it follow the laws of the real world, because in the real world, you don't summon armies of flesh rending daemons by masturbating too hard.

In general, taking Wh40k too seriously is a bad idea, because in Wh40k, merely experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Insanely Scheming Bird Satan.

Of course, NOT experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Morbidly Obese Plague Satan.

And being angry about it fuels the forces of Angry Chainsaw Satan.

Etc.

I'm just saying that to take WH40k seriously as how the real world works is...absurd, because WH40k is absurd.

People in 0k don't summon one of the chaos gods or its minions through just feeling emotion and certainly not hope. There's plenty of hope in the 40k universe; it's what keeps the Imperium alive. That and the Big Black Ships where all the psykers go that noone talks about.

Quote from: Axiomatic;474848Well, Dark Heresy is explicitly not set in the real world nor does it follow the laws of the real world, because in the real world, you don't summon armies of flesh rending daemons by masturbating too hard.

In general, taking Wh40k too seriously is a bad idea, because in Wh40k, merely experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Insanely Scheming Bird Satan.

Of course, NOT experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Morbidly Obese Plague Satan.

And being angry about it fuels the forces of Angry Chainsaw Satan.

Etc.

That is the kind of game play I find vastly uninteresting.  No matter what you do, everything is futile.  It's not edgy, it's not badass, it's just boring.

QuoteI'm just saying that to take WH40k seriously as how the real world works is...absurd, because WH40k is absurd.

No argument there.  

My point is I find it just a little disheartening when everyone gleefully runs to the Nazi/fascist/oppressor analogues and revels in the DarkSoul BlackHeart play ("because the world is a grim place, maaaaan") and tries to convince people how edgy and hip they are.

Again, how people play at their own table is their business; but let's not pretend that GrimDarke BlakkShado is a more sophisticated method.  That really is sliding into the worst of the Forge inspired drek.

My attitude is however crazy the world an RPG is human beings trying to make the best of it. In the 40k Universe Imperial Citizens whether military, civilian, clergy or Inquisition are just poor buggers caght up in a world that no matter how desperately they try to impose balance disorder is winning.

Among Commissars there will probably be a lot more Cains than Gaunts out there. Hell even Gaunt has been hailed as the 40k Richard Sharpe (as opposed to Caine the Harry Flashman) for all his bluster he's quite a sympathetic character.

Chaos = Muslims
Imperium = America

Now Koltar should love it.

Edit: Valentine Illst, my current Deathwatch big bad, was originally supposed to be OBL + a Cylon version of the Joker.

Quote from: Axiomatic;474805Except Dark Heresy is really no more full of despair and torture porn than, say, Call of Cthulhu: Delta Green or Shadowrun or any other paranormal-investigation game.

This is basically what happens:

**Snip**

You take a few months off for R&R, and then repeat the process.

You don't go about imprisoning peaceful protesters practicing civil disobedience because they want their local planetary governor to reduce graft by 12%, you go about shooting cultists who have pledged their bodies and souls to the forces of Ultimate Corruption and are planning on dragging the entire planet into the Hell Dimension.

That's pretty much it.  Word.

Quote from: StormBringer;474866My point is I find it just a little disheartening when everyone gleefully runs to the Nazi/fascist/oppressor analogues and revels in the DarkSoul BlackHeart play ("because the world is a grim place, maaaaan") and tries to convince people how edgy and hip they are.

Not everyone automatically drifts to that role automatically, especially if they are familiar with the setting.

Unless they just want to be dicks.  Then, I guess that's more on the player.

But the thing is you can do that to any setting.  Star Trek can be taken as Klingons as Russians and China as Romulans.  There's a Dragon article where Gary Gygax mentions basing Greyhawk's humanoids on the indian tribes in the Chicago area.

If 40k was being published by a nasty group of white supremacists or Christian fundamentalists as a lesson manual in hate I could see a problem.  But a dark universe as an indictment of narrow mindedness, racial prejudice and so on?  That's fine because while GW doesn't have a little Palladium style disclaimer in the front cover they assume we will get it because they are so heavy handed.

40k is a morality play centered on the modern great evils.  That's why the Imperium takes center stage so we can see it's futility and folly in clear relief.  Even the old moral evils are cast as powers of chaos, a secondary character that has been eclipsed by the folly of theocracy and willful ignorance.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;474878Chaos = Muslims
Imperium = America

Now Koltar should love it.

The original portrayal of the Klingon's was way worse (in a show where the main cast positively included different ethnicities): white actors with brown muddy facepaint and fu manchu moustaches representing a highly militarised culture and, unerringly, the bad guys. On the other hand, 40k's portrayal of Orks as british (brutish?) soccer hooligans doesn't really compare.

Well, I feel like my last several posts were all for naught.

Thanks, Obama! ...err, I mean, Koltar.

:p

Quote from: Axiomatic;474848in Wh40k, merely experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Insanely Scheming Bird Satan.

Of course, NOT experiencing the emotion of hope fuels the forces of Morbidly Obese Plague Satan.

That's pretty fucking funny.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;474861You don't actually know what misery tourism is then.

He doesn't actually know shit, at all.

40K is such a kitchen sink hodge-podge setting that it COULD conceivably used for just about anything you wish. Especially if you go back to the Rogue Trader days for inspiration. Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau anyone? That's the spirit of 40K to me. Gonzo before gonzo became a buzzword.

I guess over the years, and especially after GW went from an actual games workshop to miniatures shill, it all became Serious Business and the whole piss take angle fell by the wayside in favor of SPIKY GRIM DARK SKULLS EVERYWHERE.

Its Grimdark, its stupid, its pseudo-fascist fanwank. But its not "misery tourism" in the strict definition of the term.

"Misery tourism" would be if the pcs played helpless mutants with horrible deformities, condemned to live in hiding with a constant fear of discovery, bound to eventually be tortured to death by an inquisitor in graphic detail.  That's misery tourism, where you're the victim, and there's no fucking point to anything because you're doomed, so the whole purpose of playing the game is to get off on your character's horrible physical or emotional torment.

RPGPundit

'pseudo fascist fanwank'?

Even if I knew what that was i'd probably still disagree.

40k is what it is. Either like it or don't.

This has gotten beyond stupid; the people that don't like aren't going to be convinced and the people that do are now wasting their time. Especially if we're at the level of calling it 'pseudo fascist fanwank'.

And 40k was always spiky, right back when they gave away a plastic record as an insert in WD concurrent with it's release by the popular beat combo called 'Sabbat'. Oddly enough 'Blood for the Blood God' never made it into the Hit Parade.

40k fanboys have always seemed to love playing up the absolutist excesses of the Empire, with many of them expressing admiration for the excess militarism and the utter and total totalitarianism.

I talked about this in an earlier thread: the difference between the Empire and the Coalition is that while both of them seem to be advocating "fascism/nazi-analogy for the survival of humanity", and both games have players who go out of their way to defend that because of how "cool" they feel it is to play a pseudo-SS officer, in RIFTS its explicitly clear from the text and the setting that the Coalition is completely WRONG, their evil isn't justified; whereas in WFRP 40k the Empire is explicitly Right in that setting.

So in one of the two, the fascist-fanboys are acting against the (at least the stated) perspective of the designers of the setting, while in the other they are acting exactly in accordance with the perspective of the setting.

RPGPundit

Quote from: nezach;47494240K is such a kitchen sink hodge-podge setting that it COULD conceivably used for just about anything you wish. Especially if you go back to the Rogue Trader days for inspiration. Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau anyone? That's the spirit of 40K to me. Gonzo before gonzo became a buzzword.

I guess over the years, and especially after GW went from an actual games workshop to miniatures shill, it all became Serious Business and the whole piss take angle fell by the wayside in favor of SPIKY GRIM DARK SKULLS EVERYWHERE.

Yes, sadly that 40k you're talking about no longer exists, existed for only a very short time, and the fans of today want nothing to do with that setting.  They want the grimdark and the completely-justified Gestapo.

RPGPundit

Once again, Pundit makes up the opinions of a bunch of people, having found it inconvenient to discover what they actually think.

Cool story bro.

Actually Pundit, there's several Radical factions within the Inquisition itself (tasked with preserving the Status Quo) that feel the Empire is "wrong", and seek to remake it in their ideology. Some of which go against several of the tenets of the current Imperium (technology is sancrosect, the alien must be destroyed, using the Profane against Chaos, etc).

Some are "good", some are "evil", all of them come from people trying to make a go of it, in the 40k universe.

Really, the WH40k universe has become a lot like D&D or Star Wars: enough divergent material has come out, that you can run 100 different theme'd campaigns in the game universe, and they'd all work. It's just that damn big and diverse enough, that anyone's play style can really be accommodated (well, within reason. TOON WH40k is unlikely to ever happen...).

Quote from: Novastar;474966(well, within reason. TOON WH40k is unlikely to ever happen...).

I thought it already did with Blood Bowl.

It's also a setting designed for a wargame.

Complaining about the setting along certain lines, such as we have seen, is often ignorant of that fact.

40K, evne during the Rogue Trader days, was still a wargame - or a skirmish game. Combat has always been the bread and butter of the setting. Hence the bloody time of war motif.

If it was intended as an rpg or perhaps had evolved into one from a much earlier point then things probably would be different. They would be more open to change, which is ultimately what most people cannot grokk: the Imperium is a static entity wholly resistant to change on the basis that change = chaos (literally in the case of Tzeentch :D).

The question of what attitude one ought to take towards the Imperium is ultimately one for PCs in a campaign to ask. As I said, the best 40KRPG games I've been in have been ones where the question of the morality of the Imperium and its agents is a recurring theme of great importance. DH supports this best of the three, with its Inquisitorial factions and the recurring mentions of the radical "slide" many go through.

I'm currently reading a bit on the French and Indian War, and it occured to me at one point that it'd make an interesting way to map its narrative onto the 40k universe. You got two major warring factions, empire'esque and unbound in their ambition for domination and conquest, and caught between them you have these warrior tribes of uncouth natives who may be more brutal than either empire (e.g. the taking of scalps) but in other ways don't engage in colossal war enterprises (for lack of technology, and other reasons).

Sure the mapping of Indians onto Orcs is not pc, but then so is the mapping of France/Britain onto Empire/Chaos (or Chaos/Empire, take your pick). But the key is to see that

a) in a conflict of only evil factions the orcs come closest to being non-evil, the lesson here being that 'monstrous/uncivilized' does not always equal 'non-noble', and

b) Empire and Chaos may look on the surface as if they map onto a 'good/evil' conflict but under the surface they are quite similar w.r.t to their goals (world spanning domination) and only differ w.r.t to their means, and neither is above justifying any means by their ends (e.g. inquisitors nuking whole planets to wipe out a hive of heretics).

This is a first shot of some vague train of thought I've been having. So if there's something colossaly wrong or tasteless about it, don't hesitate to let me know. That's after all what this board excels at. ;)

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;474974The question of what attitude one ought to take towards the Imperium is ultimately one for PCs in a campaign to ask. As I said, the best 40KRPG games I've been in have been ones where the question of the morality of the Imperium and its agents is a recurring theme of great importance. DH supports this best of the three, with its Inquisitorial factions and the recurring mentions of the radical "slide" many go through.

Yeah recently in the Grey Knights Codex Toquamada Coteaz himself has begun the slide to radicalism. It seems to be something of a default now that pretty much every Puritain gets corrupted.

Quote from: RPGPundit;474949Its Grimdark, its stupid, its pseudo-fascist fanwank. But its not "misery tourism" in the strict definition of the term.

RPGPundit

So it's more like America's foreign policies?

Oh wait, that description also applies to bullshit like FtA.

Quote from: Blackhand;475100So it's more like America's foreign policies?

Oh wait, that description also applies to bullshit like FtA.

Wow...

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;475106Wow...

Methinks Blackhand hasn't read FtA.

Also, he whines like a little canon-bitch every time someone has the timerity to question his fanwank material.

Quote from: Blackhand;475100So it's more like America's foreign policies?

Oh wait, that description also applies to bullshit like FtA.

LOL weak insult is weak.

Seriously, that's the best you've got? A total non-sequitur that only highlights your own ignorance?

RPGPundit

Nonsequitur is where it's at.

I didn't really see it as such.  Maybe that actually highlights your arrogance, rather than my ignorance.

It was an insult, and an example of how rhetoric can be applied to anything you want to demean, when you want to demean it.  

I have not wasted more than a few minutes of my time with FTA, but that's irrelevant to statement.  It's just part of the comment you see as a nonsequitur.  You are the psuedo-fascist (rpg'r!), in this view.  When you apply rhetoric, you can take any view on those words you want.  The more spin, the better.

As far as fanwank goes - I think that's basically what we're all doing here, so don't get too far up on that high horse and take a look at what's actually being said - that we hate the very concepts of each other's games.

Quote from: One Horse Town;475260Also, he whines like a little canon-bitch every time someone has the timerity to question his fanwank material.

No.  I am here to remind people whenever someone has the temerity to make an argument against the setting when the crux of that argument serves as the point of the setting.

Such as the psuedo fascist Imperium.  You can't change it.  It would change the setting.

Quote from: One Horse Town;475260Methinks Blackhand hasn't read FtA.

I was referring to the ignorant statement of American foreign policies. Some are fucked-up, but still...

Oh yeah, as a tangent, why was Bush blasted for starting an illegal war (that was voted on by a Congress with members who ran like scared, little bitches once it wasn't popular), but Obama gets a pass on bombing the shit out of Libya? Anyhoo, what's FTA/fta/Fta/etc?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;474955Once again, Pundit makes up the opinions of a bunch of people, having found it inconvenient to discover what they actually think.

To be fair that does save a lot of time.

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;475312I was referring to the ignorant statement of American foreign policies. Some are fucked-up, but still...

Oh yeah, as a tangent, why was Bush blasted for starting an illegal war (that was voted on by a Congress with members who ran like scared, little bitches once it wasn't popular), but Obama gets a pass on bombing the shit out of Libya? Anyhoo, what's FTA/fta/Fta/etc?

Don't get politics in your RPG discussion please. That stuff belongs in tangency.

FtA = Forward to Adventure! Pundit's first published RPG.

No, the foreign policies remark was very much on-topic in this thread.

I really shouldn't have to explain that one.

Thanks.

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;475312I was referring to the ignorant statement of American foreign policies. Some are fucked-up, but still...

Oh yeah, as a tangent, why was Bush blasted for starting an illegal war (that was voted on by a Congress with members who ran like scared, little bitches once it wasn't popular), but Obama gets a pass on bombing the shit out of Libya? Anyhoo, what's FTA/fta/Fta/etc?

Also, unlike Blackhand's seemingly favorite setting - American citizens at least have a say and a vote in changing their leader (president).


- Ed C.

Bush sucked us into a conflict nearly without end that wrecked the lives of millions of Iraqis and injured thousands of Americans.

Obama supported a popular uprising against a dictator that has been an irritant to our leaders, murderer and terrorist for 40 years, defeated him in 6 months, and with as far as I know, zero American deaths. The rebels, contrary to earlier fear, seem to have no connection to Islamic extremism and are expressing democratic ideals.

Bush < Obama

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;475312I was referring to the ignorant statement of American foreign policies. Some are fucked-up, but still...

*Saddam Impression*

Hey guy!  Don't take it so hard!

*Saddam Smile*

(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110307191249/villains/images/1/15/Saddam-southpark.png)

Quote from: Koltar;475377Also, unlike Blackhand's seemingly favorite setting - American citizens at least have a say and a vote in changing their leader (president).


- Ed C.

Yeah, but for such a glorious and failsafe system...

There's an awful lot of "recounts" during elections.  Not to mention software or hardware "malfunctions".  

Florida, anyone?

It's a nice idea, though.

Quote from: Koltar;475377Also, unlike Blackhand's seemingly favorite setting - American citizens at least have a say and a vote in changing their leader (president).


- Ed C.

America is a real place.

The Imperium of Man isn't.

Is there democracy in the UFP? In which episode did Picard and co exercise their right to vote?

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;475392Is there democracy in the UFP? In which episode did Picard and co exercise their right to vote?

I always took it to be more of a pure communist state, myself.  It had all the earmarks.

And capitalists were always treated as the bad guys (whether it was the Mudd guy, Ferengi, etc.)

Quote from: jgants;475410I always took it to be more of a pure communist state, myself.  It had all the earmarks.

And capitalists were always treated as the bad guys (whether it was the Mudd guy, Ferengi, etc.)

Was never a huge star trek junkie, but watched a bit of next generation and many of the films. It definitely struck me as some form of democratic socialism. I seem to remember some form of elected legislature in 4 (though i havent seen it since it came out in the mid 80s so could be wrong). And in the mark twain episode when picard is trying to convinve twain how good the future is, i believe he says tgey don't use money, they don't have poverty, etc. Always took star trek to be some kind of socialist utopia.

The Federation is what comes after democratic socialism. It's a post-scarcity society. To assign an economic system to it is to misunderstand what economics is.

Quote from: jgants;475410I always took it to be more of a pure communist state, myself.  It had all the earmarks.

And capitalists were always treated as the bad guys (whether it was the Mudd guy, Ferengi, etc.)

Was never a huge star trek junkie, but watched a bit of next generation and many of the films. It definitely struck me as some form of democratic socialism. I seem to remember some form of elected legislature in 4 (though i havent seen it since it came out in the mid 80s so could be wrong). And in the mark twain episode when picard is trying to convinve twain how good the future is, i believe he says tgey don't use money, they don't have poverty, etc. Always took star trek to be some kind of socialist utopia.

Quote from: Blackhand;475380*Saddam Impression*

Hey guy!  Don't take it so hard!

*Saddam Smile*

(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110307191249/villains/images/1/15/Saddam-southpark.png)



Yeah, but for such a glorious and failsafe system...

There's an awful lot of "recounts" during elections.  Not to mention software or hardware "malfunctions".  

Florida, anyone?

It's a nice idea, though.

So come up with  better one. Nothings perfect, but I'm still quite happy to be living in the US, I've seen first hand what living conditions are like in some other countries and I'll stick with "fucked-up" America, thanks.

Trek is actually pretty supportive of capitalism - for the Ferengi, it's a viable way of life, and for those who don't dig the UFP post-scarcity utopia, they can always buy a ship and do the Mudd thing, or found a colony.  Thing is, technology in Trek is radically different than in our time, so that if people want to found their Libertarian republic or Socialist worker's state or whatever,they can.  As long as they pay their taxes and support the UFPs foreign policy, and maintain certain universal sentient rights (no slavery, right to vote, etc) the UFP can give a rat's ass how a world governs itself.  The Prime Directive and it's later interpretations lean towards this, and I can see UFP Libertarians arguing that the Prime Directive arose from small government,  respect for freedom Libertarian values.

Also, FFG materials state that the Imperium of Man doesn't gives a rat's ass how a world governs itself,so long as the Imperial Cult is maintained and the world meets it's tithes.  Usually, the fuedal system is practiced because the writers presume that fuedalism is the most effective system for raising those tithes.

When I run DH and RT, I plan on having all manner of socio-political systems in the Imperium of Man, just like I plan on having any number of interpretations of the Imperial Cult, just because the Imperium is that damned big.  Also, I use female Space Marines, because I'm a dirty hippie.

Ironically, the realm of Ultramar is described as being one of the best run in the Imperium, because of the far sightedness of it's space marine lords, with the highest technology levels and quality of life in the Imperium.

Quote from: Sigmund;475433So come up with  better one. Nothings perfect, but I'm still quite happy to be living in the US, I've seen first hand what living conditions are like in some other countries and I'll stick with "fucked-up" America, thanks.

I wasn't complaining.

I like it here.

If you had read the rest of the comments you might see how that dovetails with the conversation.  I don't feel the need to fucking explain it again.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;475460Also, I use female Space Marines, because I'm a dirty hippie.

No sir.  You are not a hippie.  You're probably just quite feminine and have libertarian views that somehow make it feel wrong to play the game like it's written.

There are no female space marines.  That is pure fanwank.

But hey, whatever you like.  Just keep it to yourself.

Quote from: Blackhand;475466I wasn't complaining.

I like it here.

If you had read the rest of the comments you might see how that dovetails with the conversation.  I don't feel the need to fucking explain it again.

I did read the rest of the comments, and don't need you to fucking explain it a first time, let alone again. Koltar mentioned the ability to vote for our leaders and you pulled Florida out of your ass in a weak attempt to "prove" his point wrong somehow. This is conveniently ignoring the fact it was largely due to voter error, rather than system error, and which was resolved legally by another part of our system, not to mention the other 49 states even. I'd say sarcastically referring to our system as "glorious" and "failsafe" is complaining about the issue you first mentioned. Then throwing in the "It's a nice idea though" is you saying it's all bullshit, which is more complaining. You'e allowed to complain, it's a free country, but then I'm allowed to point out what I did too. Trying to convince everyone that your response is somehow something more than a dig at Koltar is also weak.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;475460Trek is actually pretty supportive of capitalism - for the Ferengi, it's a viable way of life, and for those who don't dig the UFP post-scarcity utopia, they can always buy a ship and do the Mudd thing, or found a colony.  Thing is, technology in Trek is radically different than in our time, so that if people want to found their Libertarian republic or Socialist worker's state or whatever,they can.  As long as they pay their taxes and support the UFPs foreign policy, and maintain certain universal sentient rights (no slavery, right to vote, etc) the UFP can give a rat's ass how a world governs itself.  The Prime Directive and it's later interpretations lean towards this, and I can see UFP Libertarians arguing that the Prime Directive arose from small government,  respect for freedom Libertarian values.

Also, FFG materials state that the Imperium of Man doesn't gives a rat's ass how a world governs itself,so long as the Imperial Cult is maintained and the world meets it's tithes.  Usually, the fuedal system is practiced because the writers presume that fuedalism is the most effective system for raising those tithes.

When I run DH and RT, I plan on having all manner of socio-political systems in the Imperium of Man, just like I plan on having any number of interpretations of the Imperial Cult, just because the Imperium is that damned big.  Also, I use female Space Marines, because I'm a dirty hippie.

Ironically, the realm of Ultramar is described as being one of the best run in the Imperium, because of the far sightedness of it's space marine lords, with the highest technology levels and quality of life in the Imperium.

I was told Imperial Governors are apointed by the Administratum. When it comes to their Cabinet it may be possible to have a democratic element but the Governor is a dictator appointed off world.

Not only that but he has the Arbite's guns pointed at his back, and they have the Inquisition's guns pointed at their back. And so on up to the high lords themselves.

Quote from: Sigmund;475476Trying to convince everyone that your response is somehow something more than a dig at Koltar is also weak.

It is a dig at Koltar, and I don't think I ever pretended it wasn't.  A lil' high minded on your part, I think.

Sorry you don't think it deserves any merit, but it does.  No matter what you think, strange things are going on in America - but that belongs on another forum, really.  Playing like it's all fun and games is silly, and this will quickly turn into a dig on you.

www.infowars.com (//www.infowars.com)

You win a cookie.

As an aside - have you guys seen Hobo with a Shotgun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssHEAOrAdCU)?  Rutger Hauer's awesome new flick.  Go see it and decide if it's "misery tourism" or if it's just fucking awesome.

Quote from: Ian Warner;475485I was told Imperial Governors are apointed by the Administratum. When it comes to their Cabinet it may be possible to have a democratic element but the Governor is a dictator appointed off world.

Yes and no.  There are thousands of worlds out there that once were part of the Imperium but haven't really had connection for over 10,000 years.  When one of these worlds is recontacted, the Imperium doesn't automatically send in the dropships, they send in the diplomats.  Provided a world is willing to rejoin the Imperium, the Administratum is willing to deal with the world.  Many worlds (particularly rich ones that could fight back) have quite liberal treaties with the Imperium.

Basically the Imperium wants
1. Money
2. Soldiers
3. Psykers for the Black Ships
4. Worship of the Emperor (with a wide latitude based on local religion)
5. Non-tolerance of the Imperium's enemies.

You provide those, the Administratum could care less what you do on your planet.  Now if your expression of the Imperial Creed is a bit creative, you may run into problems with the Ecclesiarchy or the Inquisition.   The Ecclesiarchy might get the Nuns with Guns to roast some people, the Inquisition might get a Space Marine Company to decapitate your power structure, but it's the Administratum that gets a billion Imperial Guard loaded into the troopships and sent your way.

Quote from: Blackhand;475487It is a dig at Koltar, and I don't think I ever pretended it wasn't.  A lil' high minded on your part, I think.

Sorry you don't think it deserves any merit, but it does.  No matter what you think, strange things are going on in America - but that belongs on another forum, really.  Playing like it's all fun and games is silly, and this will quickly turn into a dig on you.

www.infowars.com (//www.infowars.com)

You win a cookie.

Never said it was all fun and games, I agree with you that strange things are going on in America, but that's not what ya said the first time. You also said your post was relevant to the thread, which it wasn't you now admit. It certainly isn't me being high-minded. I say, if you're gonna get political, get fucking political, I love political debates. Just don't get personal, that shit is weak. Oh, and if ya wanna dig on me, take your best shot, I'm pretty sure I can take it. I'd rather discuss the actual strange shit going on in America though and leave the Florida "hanging chad" shit in the past (the media made far more of that shit at the time than it deserved even then). Perhaps another time and thread. Oh, and keep your cookie.

I wouldn't mind a politics discussion in another thread either, but it should happen in another thread.

Quote from: Sigmund;475490Never said it was all fun and games, I agree with you that strange things are going on in America, but that's not what ya said the first time. You also said your post was relevant to the thread, which it wasn't you now admit.

*snip*

Oh, and keep your cookie.

No, it is relevant to the thread, I never "admitted" it wasn't.  Stop putting words in my mouth.

It was Koltar who brought up the real world when he started talking about good guys and bad guys, so that's what he got as examples.

That cookie is yours to keep.

Quote from: jeff37923;475492I wouldn't mind a politics discussion in another thread either, but it should happen in another thread.

Tangency's thata way stranger.

Quote from: David Johansen;475498Tangency's thata way stranger.

Sorry, I'd want a politics discussion, not one where people are trying to out-hipster one another on how they are asexual.

Quote from: Blackhand;475487It is a dig at Koltar, and I don't think I ever pretended it wasn't.  A lil' high minded on your part, I think.

Sorry you don't think it deserves any merit, but it does.  No matter what you think, strange things are going on in America - but that belongs on another forum, really.  Playing like it's all fun and games is silly, and this will quickly turn into a dig on you.

www.infowars.com (//www.infowars.com)

You win a cookie.

As an aside - have you guys seen Hobo with a Shotgun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssHEAOrAdCU)?  Rutger Hauer's awesome new flick.  Go see it and decide if it's "misery tourism" or if it's just fucking awesome.

Alex Jones? Oh FFS!

The guy's a fruitloop 'truther'.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;475502Alex Jones? Oh FFS!

The guy's a fruitloop 'truther'.

So you're going to dismiss everything because of one fruitloop theory?

Would that we could apply that to all of us.  We'd all be fucking DISMISSED.

Quote from: Blackhand;475504So you're going to dismiss everything because of one fruitloop theory?

Would that we could apply that to all of us.  We'd all be fucking DISMISSED.

He's an NWO conspiracy nutjob.  He also thinks McVeigh was an inside job, among other whackout nonsense.  

You may as well have linked to fucking David Icke.

It was simply meant as an example.  There's a lot of stuff on there that's alarmist, but real as real gets.

I've never heard of David Icke.  Something about reptilian bloodlines ruling the world.

Sounds like a game of Dark Heresy.

Quote from: Blackhand;475531I've never heard of David Icke.  Something about reptilian bloodlines ruling the world.

I wonder if that guy greets everyone asking them to say "Ka nama kaa lajerama."

Quote from: jeff37923;475492I wouldn't mind a politics discussion in another thread either, but it should happen in another thread.

One of the rare instances where Jeff & I agree on something - a politics debate IS better in another thread.
A poster brought it up in this thread because he ran out of debating points and doesn't want to admit it.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;475544A poster brought it up in this thread because he ran out of debating points and doesn't want to admit it.


- Ed C.

What the fuck?

Fuck you, too!  How's that for a debating point?

If I recall, you were the one who stopped debating when your ass started getting raped with reality.  The reality YOU decided to pursue with this comment:

Quote from: Koltar;474170And You're WRONG.

 There are LOTS of Good Guys in Real Life!!

They're known as Police officers, Firefighters, paramedics, Doctors, Nurses....various first-responders and emergency workers.

Also the men and women in the military are quite often the GOOD GUYS in all sorts of situation.

Also, Red Cross volunteers, Salvation Army workers...and oh yeah bodyguardsw at Plannened Parenthood clinics that escort women in past angry protestors......folks who join the Guardian Angels or similiar neighborhood watch groups in their home towns....


- Ed C.

We have been talking about it ever since.

We haven't seen much else on the debate from you.  You must be finished, so I can see why you'd like to get away from the subject.

Quote from: Blackhand;475495It was Koltar who brought up the real world when he started talking about good guys and bad guys, so that's what he got as examples.

That cookie is yours to keep.

Yes I did bring up the concept of "Goods guys and Bad Guys" - because that idea is relevent to EVERY Roleplaying setting.

Thats NOT bringing in the 'real word' , thats bringing in a standard cliche or trope of gaming settings - which is what we were fucking talking about. You or somebody also then did a cynical sarcastic comeback that the real world didn't have any 'Good Guys' and that the real word is a shitty place.

Which is Bullshit by-the-way.

If the world was such an 'awful shitty place', then nobody would bother having romances, making love, having babies, then creating families - and the suicide rate would be 100 times what it is now.

The Dark Heresy/WARHAMMER 40K universe on the other hand IS a shitty crapfest universe where I would expect suicide rate to be very high.

ITS A SEPERATE TOPIC:
If you want to 'debate' the STAR TREK universe and your screwed-up perceptions of it - then start a new damn thread!! I've been tempted to start one three times in the past 24 hours.  


- Ed C.





Oh and my half-apologies for not looking any sooner. One of the players from my STAR TREK RPG campaign & I were going over some details last night at the game store in preparation for next week's game session.

Quote from: Koltar;475546Yes I did bring up the concept of "Goods guys and Bad Guys" - because that idea is relevent to EVERY Roleplaying setting.

Thats NOT bringing in the 'real word' , thats bringing in a standard cliche or trope of gaming settings - which is what we were fucking talking about. You or somebody also then did a cynical sarcastic comeback that the real world didn't have any 'Good Guys' and that the real word is a shitty place.

*snip*

If you didn't double post, you wouldn't look as stupid as you do now.

Wait...

Quote from: Koltar;475546ITS A SEPERATE TOPIC:
If you want to 'debate' the STAR TREK universe and your screwed-up perceptions of it - then start a new damn thread!! I've been tempted to start one three times in the past 24 hours.  


- Ed C.

It's not a separate topic.  No one wants to talk about Star Trek with you.

Everything else you said has been bullshit, too.

You two should jerk each other off and get it over with.

Quote from: Blackhand;475548It's not a separate topic.  No one wants to talk about Star Trek with you.

Everything else you said has been bullshit, too.

I don't agree with Koltar about a great many things, but I'll talk Star Trek with him anytime. The man has a passion for Trek, which may even exceed my own.

So there is at least one person jackass.

Quote from: danbuter;475552You two should jerk each other off and get it over with.

That would never work.

 I never date angst-filled depressed pessimists - they're just no damn fun.


- Ed C.


Also, there's the fact that he's not a woman

Quote from: PaladinCA;475554I don't agree with Koltar about a great many things, but I'll talk Star Trek with him anytime. The man has a passion for Trek, which may even exceed my own.

So there is at least one person jackass.

I have a passion for GOOD Star Trek - yes thats true...and I sometimes get opinionated as to what qualifies as Good Trek stories.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Blackhand;475504So you're going to dismiss everything because of one fruitloop theory?

Would that we could apply that to all of us.  We'd all be fucking DISMISSED.

everything?

Quote from: PaladinCA;475554I don't agree with Koltar about a great many things, but I'll talk Star Trek with him anytime. The man has a passion for Trek, which may even exceed my own.

So there is at least one person jackass.

I stand corrected.

Quote from: Koltar;475558That would never work.
 I never date angst-filled depressed pessimists - they're just no damn fun.
- Ed C.
Also, there's the fact that he's not a woman

While I appreciate you acknowledging that I am not a woman, I wanted to impress something else on you, having read this statement.

I'm not an angst filled depressed pessimist.  It's the exact opposite of that, actually.  I'm a fatalist.

I think it's fucking hilarious.  ALL OF IT.  I have a great time in life, and I generally don't worry about anything.

Maybe that's why I enjoy the GRIMDARK a little too much.  I feel right at home.

I want to see and imagine things that fucking frighten me.  All the time.  I also like to fight, verbally and physically.  A lot.  

When I take a long look at some things and try to imagine the eventualities, the fact that I can see all the bad ends makes me feel like I've got a one up on the world.  

The world doesn't hate me.  I only affect my immediate environment, and it doesn't notice me, but I don't hate the world.

I love it, and I want to fight it all!

Therefore, you do not have to be a depressed person who wants to die in order to enjoy Warhammer 40,000.  You do, however, have to have either a sense of humor that's blacker than night, OR have an unhealthy love of violence.

Preferably both.

QuoteIf the world was such an 'awful shitty place', then nobody would bother having romances, making love, having babies, then creating families - and the suicide rate would be 100 times what it is now.

The Dark Heresy/WARHAMMER 40K universe on the other hand IS a shitty crapfest universe where I would expect suicide rate to be very high.

Yet people do those things in th Imperium (otherwise there wouldn' tbe a population).

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;475565Yet people do those things in th Imperium (otherwise there wouldn' tbe a population).

Yeah thats another reason it has to be a Fictional setting.

I don't buy Earth's people having any hope at all beyond a certain point in that setting unless there was a freddom or democracy revolt started somewhere.

- Ed C.

In Warhammer 40,000, hope comes in the form of planet obliterating spaceships and legions of power armored superhuman warriors armed with holy machine gun rocket launchers.

Quote from: Blackhand;475564Maybe that's why I enjoy the GRIMDARK a little too much.  I feel right at home.

I want to see and imagine things that fucking frighten me.  All the time.  I also like to fight, verbally and physically.  A lot.  

You are sooooo edgy.  I nearly cut myself just reading your post.

Quote from: misterguignol;475570You are sooooo edgy.  I nearly cut myself just reading your post.

Naaaa...edgy is my buddy who owns a head shop and has tattoos all over his arms and hands and metal all stuck in his face.  He wears all kinds of uberkewl band stuff and does all kinds of uberkewl stuff with the "edgy" crowd.

Though, he did buy me (along with some other folks) a VIP ticket to the upcoming Soundgarden concert.  I guess I get to hang with the "edgy crowd" sometimes, but I'm really more of a square.  I can't really hang out, because I want to fight people.

All I do is practice martial arts and paint miniatures.  I don't even have a tatoo, much less a piercing.

Quote from: Blackhand;475575Though, he did buy me (along with some other folks) a VIP ticket to the upcoming Soundgarden concert.  I guess I get to hang with the "edgy crowd" sometimes, but I'm really more of a square.  I can't really hang out, because I want to fight people.

Soundgarden is pretty edgy.  If you time travel back to 1992.

Quote from: Blackhand;475495No, it is relevant to the thread, I never "admitted" it wasn't.  Stop putting words in my mouth.

It was Koltar who brought up the real world when he started talking about good guys and bad guys, so that's what he got as examples.

That cookie is yours to keep.

Koltar was just comparing a real world gov. with the fictional one. It wasn't a particularly useful comparison, but at least it wasn't just pe4rsonal attacks either. You just started flinging sarcasm and insults like monkeys fling poo... stop being a monkey. Your cookie can fuck off.

P.S. If you think putting forth the Florida "hanging chad" crap as evidence that the US voting system doesn't work is actual political discussion, then perhaps I wouldn't want to discuss politics with ya after all. There's enough really serious stuff to discuss and be concerned about.

P.P.S. This post here...

Quote from: Blackhand;475487It is a dig at Koltar, and I don't think I ever pretended it wasn't.  A lil' high minded on your part, I think.

Sorry you don't think it deserves any merit, but it does.  No matter what you think, strange things are going on in America - but that belongs on another forum, really.  Playing like it's all fun and games is silly, and this will quickly turn into a dig on you.

www.infowars.com (//www.infowars.com)

You win a cookie.

As an aside - have you guys seen Hobo with a Shotgun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssHEAOrAdCU)?  Rutger Hauer's awesome new flick.  Go see it and decide if it's "misery tourism" or if it's just fucking awesome.

... is where you admit it was just a dig on Koltar. Just call a spade a spade and move on. You have decent stuff to say pretty much any other time, you don't need to bust on Koltar to make a point. Oh, and nope, hadn't even heard of that movie before. I wouldn't call it misery tourism at all... gratuitous violence for sure, but IMO misery tourism is the Steal Away Jordan game, or perhaps The Road. Hell, I'm a Rutger Hauer fan from way back, I'd see Hobo.

Quote from: Blackhand;475504So you're going to dismiss everything because of one fruitloop theory?

Would that we could apply that to all of us.  We'd all be fucking DISMISSED.

Now THAT I agree with.

Quote from: Koltar;475544One of the rare instances where Jeff & I agree on something - a politics debate IS better in another thread.
A poster brought it up in this thread because he ran out of debating points and doesn't want to admit it.


- Ed C.

To be fair Ed, you did bring up real life. The 40k thing isn't up my alley either, but trying to compare this stuff to real life is kinda pointless ya hafta admit. I prefer a little more optimism in my entertainment as well, so I know where you're coming from, but then I've lived in the seedy underbelly of real life and escaped it, so going back for fun doesn't appeal to me.

So, just to clarify because I'm fucking lost at this point, do we have actual fucking Alex Jones fans on this site?

Quote from: J Arcane;475589So, just to clarify because I'm fucking lost at this point, do we have actual fucking Alex Jones fans on this site?

I always thought of him as a comedy relief guest when he would appear on the "Coast To Coast" radio program with Art Bell or George Noory.

 Hell, because of that radio program and the ongoing humorous conspiracy/illumanati undercurrent in most SJG products I tend to think of every conspiracy theory as some sort comedy relief routine or joke.


- Ed c.

Man.  I miss Art Bell.  Bell was a showman, he knew how to play the guests and callers with just the right mix of cynicism, skepticism, and encouragement to get a good story for the audience without ever being entirely sure whether Bell himself held any credence in the tale at all.  

Noory's just a credulous sap.  I stopped listening after Bell left, because what respectability there was to the show just sort of disappeared.

Koltar is very clearly a Republican.  That's all I will say on the matter.

(http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/8/8/128942388745655900.jpg)

I don't get the complaints about misery tourism.

When we play Dark Sun, some people are literally dying of thirst.
When we play Fading Suns, most people are illiterate dregs beholden to nobles.
When we play L5R, some people are not even considered human and treated as property.

I don't see why 40k is singled out...except for its awesomeness.

I've listened to a couple Alex Jones bits. If he really believes all that stuff, he's a loon. A rich loon, but still a loon.

I'm less offended by his cartoon paranoia than his bullish shouts-the-loudest attitude. He's a serious candidate for a slap.

Quote from: Koltar;475567Yeah thats another reason it has to be a Fictional setting.

I don't buy Earth's people having any hope at all beyond a certain point in that setting unless there was a freddom or democracy revolt started somewhere.

You are aware that right here, right now in the world there are people living in other countries, right?  You are aware that some of those countries are truly awful and oppressive, right?  And yet, the people of those nations still have hope and still live lives.

Quote from: Spinachcat;475626I don't get the complaints about misery tourism.

When we play Dark Sun, some people are literally dying of thirst.
When we play Fading Suns, most people are illiterate dregs beholden to nobles.
When we play L5R, some people are not even considered human and treated as property.

I don't see why 40k is singled out...except for its awesomeness.

I think it gets singled out because people don't mind dystopian settings as long as you are "fighting the man" or whatever.  The fact that "the man" is actually on the right side in 40K is grating to people who are very anti-authority, which includes a large number of roleplayers for some reason.

Also, there are some people who appear to be imagining all kinds of extra bad things about the 40K setting and completely ignoring everything else (like the fact that the average citizen on the average imperial world lives a life more or less like the average person in our world).

Quote from: Spinachcat;475626I don't get the complaints about misery tourism.

When we play Dark Sun, some people are literally dying of thirst.
When we play Fading Suns, most people are illiterate dregs beholden to nobles.
When we play L5R, some people are not even considered human and treated as property.

I don't see why 40k is singled out...except for its awesomeness.

40k is too popular.  Popularity brings out the haterz.

Quote from: Spinachcat;475626I don't get the complaints about misery tourism.

When we play Dark Sun, some people are literally dying of thirst.
When we play Fading Suns, most people are illiterate dregs beholden to nobles.
When we play L5R, some people are not even considered human and treated as property.

I don't see why 40k is singled out...except for its awesomeness.

I don't either, to be honest. It's not to my taste really, but other than that I see nothing wrong with it, and I certainly wouldn't call it misery tourism by any stretch of the imagination.

Quote from: J Arcane;475589So, just to clarify because I'm fucking lost at this point, do we have actual fucking Alex Jones fans on this site?

I'm more of an Art Bell guy myself...but that was kinda far out there at times too.

Alex Jones just catches the most attention these days as far as "conspiracy nutjobs" go.

So Blackhand makes a total non-sequitur post about FtA!, panics, and jumps into a massive thread-derailing bout of political nonsense to try to distract from it?

Hilarious.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;475836So Blackhand makes a total non-sequitur post about FtA!, panics, and jumps into a massive thread-derailing bout of political nonsense to try to distract from it?

Hilarious.

RPGPundit

Really?

I thought we hashed this out.  I didn't apologize for fucking with you or with Koltar, but I did stop.

Fuck it, I can keep going if you can.

Quote from: Blackhand;475100So it's more like America's foreign policies?

Oh wait, that description also applies to bullshit like FtA.

In this non-sequitur, I imply that you feel that you are some sort of "Fascist Killing Machine".

I called it Pseudo-Fascist Fanwank because you wrote it, nevermind what's actually in it - when did that ever matter?  You're right however, this remark was off-kilter - I should have said "psuedo-liberal".

I think you'd admit to being more than a little "fascist" in your worldview if you weren't such a goddamn hipster.

I think if you actually encountered a real fascist that's not how it would go down.

As if your leanings are the total gospel that all men should revere, and anyone who disagrees with you is "swine".  You work very hard to discredit anyone who brings up the fact that it's simply not true and that there are people on this board who will tell you about it.

You should have just left it alone.

Shit, you are quite the embarrassment to yourself.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;475902Shit, you are quite the embarrassment to yourself.

RPGPundit

I find this statement quite ironic, coming from you.

Quote from: jgants;475662I think it gets singled out because people don't mind dystopian settings as long as you are "fighting the man" or whatever.  The fact that "the man" is actually on the right side in 40K is grating to people who are very anti-authority, which includes a large number of roleplayers for some reason.

But you can fight "The Man", depending on what your goals are. There's a ton of factions who fight tyranny and oppression. There are even those who want to change the Imperium, be in large or small ways. I agree that the general sense is you're a cog in the machine that crushes hopes and dreams and shits out crying turds, but that's a generic and rather bland way to play. ;)

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;476067But you can fight "The Man", depending on what your goals are. There's a ton of factions who fight tyranny and oppression. There are even those who want to change the Imperium, be in large or small ways.

Some think the current order is corrupt and want to get rid of it, while others think that the entire Imperium should burn in a civil war or something - if it doesn't survive, it obviously didn't deserve do. "Changing the Imperium" can mean a LOT of different things, and it's not always for the better.

The Imperium suffers a lot from sterotyping and generalizing, where most planets are thought of as polluted Hive-City factoryworlds or war-stricken hellholes or jungle planets where even the mushrooms try to eat you alive. But that's just one, very small part of the whole thing. There ARE worlds where the people live with very nice standards of life and the people running the planet actually care about those under them - it's just you're never told about these planets in the official wargame source material, since they don't really fit that purpose. You have to go looking for the novels to get a better view of the Imperium (especially Abnett's Eisenhorn series and the Ciaphas Cain novels by Mitchell, where most planets are actually pretty nice places to live in).

The Ascencion sourcebook for Dark Heresy presented Zweihann's World (might remember the name wrong here) which is a nice, comfortable planet where the people live nice lives and the governor actually cares about them. The problem is, the planet happens to be a mining planet, and the Administratum now thinks that the planetary tithes should be put way higher to get the best profit from it. This, in turn, would mean transforming the planet into a slavery-driven hellhole like Sephura(?) Secundus. The governor doesn't want to see that happen, so now he plans to secede from the Imperium, fully knowing that it will bring the Imperial Guard to stomp down on them. Is the Administratum wrong to try and get the most out of the planet for the good of everyone? Or is the governor correct in not wanting his people to suffer, even if it means that other planets may have to suffer in it's place?

There are more Agriworlds, Industrial Worlds, Feudal Worlds, and Colony Worlds than Hive Worlds, Forge Worlds, and Death Worlds.  That doesn't mean they're all sunshine and roses.  Imperial rule and the Eclesiearcy ensure that every world is a bit like a nineteen fifties theocratic hell hole.  You've got the insane returned veterans (yes some veterans return), the insane preacher always accusing people of heresy and sin, all the people hiding their secret vices and trying to turn in their neighbour.  But yeah, on the surface it looks just like Pleasantville.  Underneath Pleasantville looks a lot like it too.