WH40000 - what's your opinion?

Started by Beorning, August 09, 2014, 03:58:53 PM

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Inkidu

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on May 19, 2015, 05:03:13 PM
And if they can't separate even that bit of character knowledge from player knowledge, they might just not be a good fit for RPGs in general.
Oh when I DM and players used knowledge their characters couldn't have they often met with lithological accidents.
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deadmanshand

Quote from: Beorning on May 19, 2015, 04:50:34 PM
That'd be my approach, yes... my problem is that the "ordinary" lives of the Imperial citizens are quite awful, too. How can I convince the player that it's worth to defend a society, where people are kept in ignorance and spend their lives on thankless drudgery?

You are looking at things all wrong. You are viewing the Imperium through the lens of all the terrible stuff that does go on (and your own views on things that you seem to have some trouble separating here) but not the fact that that isn't the norm. The average citizen lives no better or worse than we do. They have jobs and families and friends. They go out to bars and concerts and go to church. They don't know that they live in ignorance of the terrors of the universe. They are literally able to be happy because they don't know about those things. They don't need or want to know that Tyranids want to devour them all and may just have the power to do it.

In W40k there are millions of inhabited worlds. Maybe only 5% are at war. The rest lead simple, drudgery ridden lives. Not too different from how the real world works. The average life is still average life. The citizens of the Imperium on most worlds live very normal, not at all awful lives. The books just don't talk about that much because that's not a selling point but it's there in between the lines.

And honestly if you are having that much trouble figuring out how to motivate a player to do something that is that integral to the game... don't run it. You honestly don't seem to care for the Imperium of Man at all so I don't understand why you are trying to run a game set in it. It would be like me running a Dark Eldar or a Tombcron or a Game of Thrones game. If you can't wrap your head around the setting and it's themes or you can and don't like them nothing we can say will help you.

eBadger

Quote from: deadmanshand on May 19, 2015, 05:44:15 PM
You are looking at things all wrong. You are viewing the Imperium through the lens of all the terrible stuff that does go on (and your own views on things that you seem to have some trouble separating here) but not the fact that that isn't the norm. The average citizen lives no better or worse than we do. They have jobs and families and friends. They go out to bars and concerts and go to church. They don't know that they live in ignorance of the terrors of the universe. They are literally able to be happy because they don't know about those things. They don't need or want to know that Tyranids want to devour them all and may just have the power to do it.

Hmmm...I'm certainly not well read on all the canon, but my impression was much the opposite: that the Emperor ruled largely out of fear, that the omnipresent threats on all sides made dissension unthinkable, that discipline and loyalty were instilled because the only alternative was annihilation.  It certainly doesn't seem bound together by hope, idealism, or prosperity. 

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: eBadger on May 19, 2015, 06:30:30 PM
Hmmm...I'm certainly not well read on all the canon, but my impression was much the opposite: that the Emperor ruled largely out of fear, that the omnipresent threats on all sides made dissension unthinkable, that discipline and loyalty were instilled because the only alternative was annihilation.  It certainly doesn't seem bound together by hope, idealism, or prosperity.

Not so much fear of the Emperor, fear of the unknown and the outside. The Emperor is a benevolent figure, and the only entity who can possibly protect the people from those ominipresent threats. Harshly benevolent at times, in a 'for your own good' sense - but sacrifices must be made sometimes.

Now, that is only the average - millions of worlds, remember. There are savage/feral worlds where the Emperor is a savage, blood-hungry deity a la the Aztec pantheon, worlds where he is a cruel and terrible figure the way you imagine, and everything beyond and in between. But the official Imperial Creed makes him out to be a protector, not an oppressor.

deadmanshand

Quote from: eBadger on May 19, 2015, 06:30:30 PM
Hmmm...I'm certainly not well read on all the canon, but my impression was much the opposite: that the Emperor ruled largely out of fear, that the omnipresent threats on all sides made dissension unthinkable, that discipline and loyalty were instilled because the only alternative was annihilation.  It certainly doesn't seem bound together by hope, idealism, or prosperity.

Most of the Imperial citizens don't know about the omnipresent threats. They may have heard the word Ork before but unless they came from a system that had been at war with them that is it. Most citizens will never see a Space Marine. They know a few words about xenos but that's it. They don't know shit about Chaos. The Emperor is their protector and father figure.

Inkidu

Honestly the greatest threat to the Imperium of Humankind (Ha ha, alternate PC title ;P) is the freaking nobles.

They dick around with Chaos because they're bored. :P

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Oniya

Quote from: Inkidu on May 19, 2015, 07:17:28 PM
"Hody-do, I know I can doom all my fellow men and women to a fiery death under the horrendous and terrible might of the extermenatus, but it's Tuesday and my Netflix queue is empty."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlhOUyy4wbs
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eBadger

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on May 19, 2015, 06:33:27 PMNot so much fear of the Emperor, fear of the unknown and the outside. The Emperor is a benevolent figure, and the only entity who can possibly protect the people from those ominipresent threats.

Yes, that exactly.  Using the outside threats to create compliance no matter what horrible things need to be done for the greater good (which reminds one of certain real world dictators who used the same approach to gain support). 

The tactic wouldn't really work if Average Imperial Joe didn't know about the threats; if, in fact, he weren't constantly living in fear of them. 

deadmanshand

They know fears and names. They fear the xeno, the heretic, and the mutant but they don't know shit about them. They have never heard the word Necron or Tau or Tyranid. They may have heard the name of the Eldar and the Ork. Mostly they hear of the xeno the way most Christians hear of demons. It's the vaguest possible knowledge. Hardly knowledge at all.

Samael

Quick question, since <3 WH40k, I heard that the Fantasy line had reached it's end event.
Is there any information if something like that is planned for WH40K as well?
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deadmanshand

Not that I've heard but I really, really doubt it. GW makes way too much money from 40K to end it. Fantasy had been increasingly less popular over the years and they weren't really making their money back on it so bring on the End Times.

consortium11

Quote from: Samael on May 20, 2015, 01:32:31 PM
Quick question, since <3 WH40k, I heard that the Fantasy line had reached it's end event.
Is there any information if something like that is planned for WH40K as well?

No.

Fantasy Battle was killed off (at least in lore and quite possibly in crunch... most of the rumours/hints indicate that the next version will be a skirmish type game featuring far less units and a completely different approach) because it wasn't making money. One of the main reasons for that was because people were switching to (or at least focusing more on) 40K. As expensive as 40K is it's a damn sight cheaper than FB and it's a lot easier to get started with; depending on army choice you can likely play small games with about 30 figures while 30 figures in FB may not even constitute one unit.

As things stand 40K is still GW's biggest license to print money and with the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fading from public consciousness their only real franchise. For anything dramatic to happen to 40K something truly dramatic would have to happen to GW as a whole.

HairyHeretic

40k is doing far better than fantasy, particularly when you add in the Horus Heresy stuff.

And if anyone hasn't seen them, we've now got computer games in the works for Battlefleet Gothic and Dark Future (and that's a hell of a blast from the past).
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Inkidu

Yeah, apparently since THQ folded, Games Workshop is basically letting the 40K property be licensed for a song. Dozens of new 40K properties are on Steam, and yeah, some of them do suck, but there are some really good ones out there too.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Beorning

If you guys don't mind, I have some questions about details of the setting...

First of all: how much time does warp travel take? Dark Heresy rulebook says that travelling from a system to a system may take weeks or months. Is that true? I kind of thought the warp ships travelled faster...

Also, I could use some clarification on sorcery. Can only psykers do stuff like summoning demons etc.? Or could a normal person do it, providing they had some sort of spell book etc.?

Finally, do Chaos Gods or their daemons haunt people? As in, appear to them in dreams or through hallucinations? Could they manifest physically without any spell or psyker's help? Can they sense people who could be useful to them and try influencing them in some way? Can daemons possess people on their own?

TheGlyphstone

Warp travel is variable. It can take days, or weeks, or months, depending on the skill of your Navigator and the distance you're traveling and the currents of the warp that you find. Sometimes you arrive before you set out. Sometimes you appear a century after you left, and the ship who started after you did only took a week to travel the same distance. There is no set Warp Speed, only a long list of variables.

Beorning

Hm. Is there some sort of established average? Like, say, that travel between two nearby systems should take a few weeks, if everything goes well? Or is it all completely random?

BTW. I was wondering: when a ship travels through the Warp, what exactly its surroundings look like? I mean, is it flying through some some empty space filled with energy etc. - or is it rather flying over something more concrete, with the ground below etc.?

Wajin

Quote from: Beorning on May 22, 2015, 03:31:07 PM
Hm. Is there some sort of established average? Like, say, that travel between two nearby systems should take a few weeks, if everything goes well? Or is it all completely random?

BTW. I was wondering: when a ship travels through the Warp, what exactly its surroundings look like? I mean, is it flying through some some empty space filled with energy etc. - or is it rather flying over something more concrete, with the ground below etc.?

It's flying through madness made manifest, and it's only because of the third eye of the navigators that warp travel is even possible at all
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Inkidu

Quote from: A Japanese Dane on May 22, 2015, 03:35:10 PM
It's flying through madness made manifest, and it's only because of the third eye of the navigators that warp travel is even possible at all
Heresy! *Blam*

The navigators are but conduits through with the God Emperor in his infinite wisdom, through the might of his construction the Atronomicon, guides the vast, innumerable ships of the Imperium of Man.

(The Astronomicon is actually an amplifier for the emperor's psychic powers and not a device that acts as a beacon, but it's generally played like no one actually knows that's what's happening.)
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CountessJess

Quote from: Beorning on May 22, 2015, 03:31:07 PM
Hm. Is there some sort of established average? Like, say, that travel between two nearby systems should take a few weeks, if everything goes well? Or is it all completely random?

BTW. I was wondering: when a ship travels through the Warp, what exactly its surroundings look like? I mean, is it flying through some some empty space filled with energy etc. - or is it rather flying over something more concrete, with the ground below etc.?

It's not as variable as other people are making it out to be - sure, there are a lot of instances where ships exit the warp at timings that are very odd, and this happens at a frequency that is probably completely beyond the safety parameters of our modern, enlightened society. But generally speaking, if you're getting on a warp vessel, you're going to end up at your location within reasonable time, give or take a few days/weeks. 40k has never been very absolute about warp travel times, but it's not only distance that matters, it's also 'vagaries in the warp' - navigators take into account eddying movements in that alternate dimension, avoiding the strange beasts (like warp whales) in there, while accounting for the strange way time flows there. But travelling is usually a matter of a few months, if memory serves correct from the various Black Library books. The Astronomicon serves as an 'anchor', a reference point for navigators so that they can, well, navigate in the warp; that's why it's so essential to keep it maintained. If I'm not wrong, there was an incident where the Golden Throne went 'blip' and multitudes of ships were lost in the warp.

But normally speaking, if you board a ship in 40k, you're going to get to your destination. Instances of warp-related failures are miniscule in comparison to the likelihood of being attacked by pirates, raiders, Chaos warbands, and so on - which are incidentally, not common enough to prevent a strong interstellar trade system continuing to be the economic base of the Imperium.

Looking outside of a ship is afaik not allowed, and not very wise; it is a daemon dimension after all. By right a ship has Gellar field to protect itself from the denizens of the warp; this has to be constantly maintained and kept up while in the warp. Many ships operate with arcane, forgotten, crumbling tech, so it's not unheard off that the Gellar field has collapsed while a ship has been in the warp, dooming the vessel to be overtaken by daemons. Prayer, apparently, also works. My Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer said so.

TheGlyphstone

I think it's mentioned that what the warp 'looks like' is individual to every Navigator, since what they're actually seeing is the raw chaotic warp energy filtered through their third eye into a construct they can make sense of. So for one it's like a dark and mysterious jungle, another would 'see' a tumultuous ocean storm, or a deserted and ruined city, or something else. For non-Navigators, looking at the Warp drives them insane, so it doesn't matter.

Beorning

Okay then, thank you :) That explains Warp travel to me...

(although the time it takes might make narrating a RP tricky: "You enter a ship to travel to a crime scene. A month later, you arrive...")

Now, help me out with the daemons, guys :)

Oh, and another questions: interstellar communications. It's done by specialized psykers, right? So... how many psykers of this sort are there on each world? Is there one psyker that delivers messages on the whole planet - or could, say, every noble have one of their own? Would an Inquisitor have their own psyker for this kind of communication?

I'm asking, as I'm trying to create a DH adventure. I want it to start with the Inquisitor getting a message about possible heresy in another system... but how would that message be delivered, exactly?

Inkidu

Beoring, keep in mind the only crime usually worth investigating is Heresy, and that's investigated from orbit, with ordinance more often than not.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.


Inkidu

Stuff is usually heresy, chaos, or chaos induced heresy. :)
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.