[X] My Assistant

[DTFarstar]

I was just wondering if anyone has tried out the Warhammer 40k PnP RPG system that came out recently. It looks interesting, and I love the universe, but I don't know anyone who has played it. Impressions? Good, bad, wonderful? I've always liked it so I'm interested to get your opinions. A little starter set is downloadable called the Black Crusade I think.

Chris

[Critias]

I've run several sessions so far, and I'm enjoying it. I am finding certain spots that are vague with the rules that I'm house-ruling to smooth over (much as I hate house ruling), spots where certain abilities seem to clash with other certain abilities, etc, etc. I'm also having some issue with the damage system, in that firearms seem grossly underpowered compared to (a) your average combat-oriented mook from the back of the book and (b) the damage melee weapons can do.

I know the 40k wargame itself is similarly slanted towards hand to hand combat since they think it's more "dramatic" or whatever, but it bothers me in an RPG. I hate house rules, and I keep having to apply them just so a few things don't feel stupid. I had one bad guy get shot point-blank with two lasrifle shots (from two PCs), both ended up being head shots (which was unarmored), and he took no damage, because he had an impressive Body/Con sort of attribute and they rolled below average on their d10 for damage. Meanwhile, another party member with a nice sword was hacking and slashing merrily away, killing guys left and right.

Overall, though, I quite like the system. I don't remember where you are (geographically, IRL), but if you can make it to GenCon Indy this year, I'll be running several sessions of it there.

[SuperFly]

If you're referring to the 'Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy' RPG, then I personally have not played it, but there is a campaign running in that system today in the #S-Run Community starting at 6pm EST. We're on IRC's Undernet (us.undernet.org) in #S-Run and #Shadowrun.

For those not familiar with IRC, there's a handy and fully functional JavaChat available through the website @ www.s-run.com.

You're more than welcome to come by and scope out the game. All the players seem very keen on the system, and I've heard little in the way of complaints about it so far. There is also another GM looking to start up a second WH40K RPG in the near future, and a Warhammer Classic RPG campaign that runs every Sunday @ 6pm EST.

Hope to see you around!

[DTFarstar]

The books tend to have that emphasis on hand to hand as well, high volumes of gunfire with bolter pistols and people who are really skilled or lucky getting the only las rifle kills. Of course, in all the books I've read you can vary the output of your rifle to conserve ammo vs. do a lot more damage. I'm not surprised to find you've played Critias. As for Gen Con Indy, if I wasn't broke as hell and in school during it(I forget the exact date, but so far I've always been in school I would love to go. I live in Northern Alabama, specifically in Florence, and I have a very hard time finding anyone besides the 4 or 5 people I know personally to game with. Most of the other people I know around here that play are really power monger-ish and quite immature. It is irritating.

Chris

EDIT: Superfly, I know little to nothing about IRC, but the chat on the website just
Connecting...
Unable to connect : java.net.UnknownHostException : oslo.no.eu.undernet.org 6667
Connecting...
Unable to connect : java.net.UnknownHostException : oslo2.no.eu.undernet.org
Connecting...
Logging in...
-- *** Looking up your hostname
-- *** Checking Ident
-- *** Couldn't look up your hostname
-- *** No ident response
-- *** Your ident is disabled or broken, to continue to connect you must type /QUOTE PASS 10302

So... no idea what to do with that.

[Critias]

My gripe aside, I certainly don't mind the game. I just feel they underpowered ranged weapons, to an extent. Especially for an RPG, where often "range and firepower" are the only advantages a tends-to-be-small gaming group can have against tends-to-be-larger groups of opposition.

A boltgun, for instance, does 1d10 + 5 damage. My gaming group's Imperial Guardsman starting character, as of yet without any special abilities to bolster this damage (and without yet spending any XP on enhancing his strength, without any combat upgrades on the weapon like mono-edged, etc), does 1d10 + 5 with a one-handed axe.

The reason for it is simple, they were concerned with game balance, I'm certain. Boltguns (and lasrifles, and all sorts of similar fun stuff) has very nice options for burst fire and semi-automatic fire and full auto fire and all that fun stuff. I LIKE their rules for autofire and suppressive fire and all the rest, don't get me wrong. I like them quite a bit, in fact.

BUT...the fact remains, we're talking about a .75 caliber exploding round, here.

And, just as much as that issue (comparing what should be truly devastating-per-shot ranged weapons to melee combat), is the overall damage issue. Again, for game balance reasons (to keep parties from being wiped out, I'm sure), all around damage is kind of...well...low.

Half the "default mook" type of schmucks from the back of the book -- nameless, faceless, grunt-trooper NPC types -- have a good 5-6 points worth of damage resistance built in. Considering it takes a solid 8-10 adventures before any character of any archetype (oh, and yes, this IS very much a class-based system) is trained in how to use bolter weapons, most of your boys are gonna be toting las weaponry around for a good long time. Most las weapons do 1d10 + 2. Simple grunt schmucks in my last game were regularly taking 5-6 shots just to reduce to 0 wounds (at which point you start rolling critical effects, normally needing a good 3-4 more shots before they dropped).

It just makes guns take quite a back seat, to me, which I dislike. There are ammo options that can bolster it a bit, and aforementioned autofire and whatnot that help it hold it's own -- but it feels silly to me that a normal human can take 4-5 square shots to the face with a sniper rifle, and not drop.

So a little tweaking may be in order. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[swirler]

I've been going to get it but instead bought my 5th print copy of SR4
gotta have priorities (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
we've been playing WFRP though and its similar
I'm interestead in seeing what fantasy Flight Games does with both games since they are now taking it over

[DTFarstar]

Yeah, seems like they overcompensated on the balance aspect. I mean, I can see Space Marines and Chaos Marines and whatnot needing several shots to drop, but unaugmented Guardsman? I'll have to think about it. Not that I have the disposable income right now anyway. Migraine + school != job, ya know? I think trying to balance all the options got them where they are. Probably would have served them better to do it more SR4-like and make close combat have insane damage potential, but have firearms have less damage potential but still be deadly.

One thing I am excited about is the announcement of a WH40k MMO, though I fear that in attempting to balance all the possible classes and pathways they will nerf some thing down into unbelievability. Sounds like they did something similar here. What are all the archetypes? With the class segregation in the universe I'm not surprised they went that way with it. I mean, obviously, Imperial Guardsman is one. What else? Most of what I know about WH40k comes from Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series or books about the Space Marines. The gap in power between a Space Marine and an Imperial Guardsman is so great I can only assume if Imperial Guardsman is a starting class SM is a prestige(or advanced or whatever they call it) class later on.

Chris

[PBTHHHHT]

Ah, in one of my gaming groups, we're going to start a WH40K game in June, once one of the guys gets back from overseas. Doing the character creation all via rolls was crazy and hilarious, some of the oddest combinations.

[Fix-it]

My gripe aside, I certainly don't mind the game. I just feel they underpowered ranged weapons, to an extent. Especially for an RPG, where often "range and firepower" are the only advantages a tends-to-be-small gaming group can have against tends-to-be-larger groups of opposition.

A boltgun, for instance, does 1d10 + 5 damage. My gaming group's Imperial Guardsman starting character, as of yet without any special abilities to bolster this damage (and without yet spending any XP on enhancing his strength, without any combat upgrades on the weapon like mono-edged, etc), does 1d10 + 5 with a one-handed axe.

The reason for it is simple, they were concerned with game balance, I'm certain. Boltguns (and lasrifles, and all sorts of similar fun stuff) has very nice options for burst fire and semi-automatic fire and full auto fire and all that fun stuff. I LIKE their rules for autofire and suppressive fire and all the rest, don't get me wrong. I like them quite a bit, in fact.

BUT...the fact remains, we're talking about a .75 caliber exploding round, here.

that is, as they say.. "Farked up"

aren't bolts supposed to be gyrojet 30mm grenades? that should be able to fark up just about anything.

[Wounded Ronin]

No, see, ranged weapons do dinky damage because Wh40K was written by Europeans, who load 9mm instead of .45.

ZING!!!!

[Shrike30]

Depends on the boltgun. Basic bolters/bolt pistols fire a .75 caliber (about 19.05mm) gyrojet, which (per fluff) packs an armor-piercing tip and a mass-reactive explosive charge (IE, it explodes just after hitting something and slowing down, which should cause it to detonate inside of a target, just in case a 19mm hole wasn't big enough). Heavy bolters (the boltgun equivalent of a machinegun, but keeping in mind that we're talking about a weapon that nromally requires a 2-man crew of normal humans to drag around and use, and is nicknamed a "backbreaker" because of the weight and recoil) fire a 1.00 caliber gyrojet (25.4mm) with similar design features (and I don't even want to imagine how bulky and heavy any amount of ammo for something like that is).

They're not grenades... they'll put a fist-sized hole in concrete when they hit, but they're much closer to what SR4 considers an explosive round. Fragmentation from a boltgun impact can happen, but it's not their primary mechanism of injury.

A note about the game: my understanding is that the studio that made the new 40k PnP has decided to discontinue the line (including not publishing the two other core books they'd intended to publish, focused on Marines and Xenos, while the first was focused on basic humans/Inquisition types) and put their efforts into novels. Not sure if that was due to poor sales or some administrative silliness, but the last I'd heard, it's an unsupported game. More info about that here.

[SuperFly]

EDIT: Superfly, I know little to nothing about IRC, but the chat on the website just
Connecting...
Unable to connect : java.net.UnknownHostException : oslo.no.eu.undernet.org 6667
-- *** Your ident is disabled or broken, to continue to connect you must type /QUOTE PASS 10302

So... no idea what to do with that.

Easily solved... just do exactly what it says. Cut & Paste or manually type in '/quote pass 10302' or whatever the new string of numbers they give you is. This happens from time to time with IRC servers, but just follow the given directions and it will handle the rest. All commands are handled by pre-fixing the line with a '/'.

If it tells you your nickname is already in use, try picking a new nickname with the /nick command.

If there's still further confusion, here is a useful link with basic IRC commands: http://s-run.com/forums/index.php?topic=55.0

Hope this helps!

[Cthulhudreams]

Yeah, I heard they cancelled the game. Alas.

[Synner667]

Very bizarre situation - spend years developing a game, release it and kill the product before it's even released properly.

Now all I need is one of the limited edition copies for my collection >sigh<

[Grinder]

Yeah, I heard they cancelled the game. Alas.

The license had been bought by Fantasy Flight Games.

[PBTHHHHT]

Aye and Fantasy Flight games are releasing new products that should be coming out soon.
Long Live the Emperor!!!

Our game is going to have 2 imperial guardsmen, an assassin and a psycher, the first three are from feral worlds, the last one is from an imperial world, all from the random roll generation. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Gonna be kinda interesting.

[DTFarstar]

Sounds awesome.

Chris

[Therumancer]

A few comments:

#1: I tend to think that the hand to hand bias in the book is largely due to what your dealing with for characters. Especially at the starting level. The "Cool" stuff was intended to be handled in later books and this kind of set the baseline for it.

In general there are numerous jokes in the 40k community about Lasguns being basically "Flashlights". Where on the other hand most of the melee weapons are comparitively
high quality. The majority of weapons (especially starting PC weapons) are only effective in the kind of mass fire that doesn't really work in an around the table RPG.

Now granted this can be dealt with by letting the PCs start out a little above the entry level, and letting them carry comparitively better weapons. Instead of Stubbers and Lasguns when they are carrying say Heavy Weapons, Meltas, Plasma Guns, etc... they tend to be more effective. As reinforced by the novels and such.


#2: I hope the "Fantasy Flight" thing comes through because it *IS* a cool liscence and a decent game. I'm mostly famliliar with the novels (having not played the tabletop game), but I'm not holding my breath.

I heard the cancellation was largely becaus of "Black Library" wanting to focus their efforts on the novels and such. Which I guess makes sense as Three Novels takes three writers and maybe one editor and nets roughly as much money (and more sales) than an RPG book which can take an
entire team of people to produce.

Not to mention the fact that PnP gaming is simply in trouble despite what a lot of people want to think. MMORPGs are a big part of it, but then so are publishing costs, and the fact that the efforts of some companies to focus on younger gamers kind of drove people out of the community in general and youth is nothing if not fickled, combined with the fact that the rising prices of books are not something many kids or teenies can easily afford.

Agree with me or not, I understand the logic. We'll see what happens. If worse comes to worse I've got my copy of "Dark Heresy" for my collection.


>>>----Therumancer--->

[Fix-it]

I wouldn't go with anything less than a Hellgun with an under barrel grenade launcher

[Critias]

Right, but the "flashlight" jokes in the 40k community are a result of the overwhelming numerical majority of "MEQ" (Marine EQuivalent) armies, where every member of every squad is superhumanly tough compared to a normal human and wearing some of the best armor available to the entire Imperium of Man. Small arms fire is supposed to pretty much just bounce right off of 'em, that's part of their appeal.

In the actual 40k universe, however, those same "flashlights" are presented to us as the technologically superior equivalents of today's combat rifles (what the media loves to call "assault weapons"), so much so that they're the standard issue of the Imperial Guard, which (don't let the Marine fanboys fool you) does most of the Imperium's actual heavy lifting. It's normally just the backwater Planetary Defence Forces who still rely on your average "backwards" hard-ammo (read: real life rifles) type firearms, because lasguns are so much better.

In a Dark Heresy game, you're going to be shooting those sort of weapons at zany cultists in nothing but robes, hive scum in gang leathers, and feudal thugs in chainmail. Lasguns should be dropping those sorts of assholes by the dozen.

Instead, you've got burly guys going "screw that lasgun, I'm gonna grab my axe and go do some REAL damage!" It's not even the same as some Troll Cyborg with an absolutely inhuman strength doing the same thing in Shadowrun (where it can be partially excused, because he's a Troll and a cyborg), it's just some schmuck with an above-average Strength score (think 4-5 in SR), who's doing more damage than a burst of rifle fire with every swing.

[Synner667]

#2: I hope the "Fantasy Flight" thing comes through because it *IS* a cool liscence and a decent game. I'm mostly famliliar with the novels (having not played the tabletop game), but I'm not holding my breath.

I heard the cancellation was largely becaus of "Black Library" wanting to focus their efforts on the novels and such. Which I guess makes sense as Three Novels takes three writers and maybe one editor and nets roughly as much money (and more sales) than an RPG book which can take an
entire team of people to produce.

Not to mention the fact that PnP gaming is simply in trouble despite what a lot of people want to think. MMORPGs are a big part of it, but then so are publishing costs, and the fact that the efforts of some companies to focus on younger gamers kind of drove people out of the community in general and youth is nothing if not fickled, combined with the fact that the rising prices of books are not something many kids or teenies can easily afford.

Agree with me or not, I understand the logic. We'll see what happens. If worse comes to worse I've got my copy of "Dark Heresy" for my collection.

And yet, with all the planning they must have done..
..They spent months, if not years, putting Dark Heresy together - only to kill it just weeks after it was published.

Either some really bad project management and development, very bad marketing/pr..
..Or just a very coercive person pushing it through the company to get it done.

Nothing else really explains the waste of time, money and manhours.

[Critias]

And yet, with all the planning they must have done..
..They spent months, if not years, putting Dark Heresy together - only to kill it just weeks after it was published.

Either some really bad project management and development, very bad marketing/pr..
..Or just a very coercive person pushing it through the company to get it done.

Nothing else really explains the waste of time, money and manhours.

My money's on "bad project management and development."

I mean, the limited edition versions of the book sold out worlwide six minutes after they were put on sale. If that's not an indicator that a game is highly anticipated and likely to sell well, I don't know what is.

[DTFarstar]

I would appreciate it if you guys would keep me updated, I am trying to decide whether or not to purchase this system.

Chris

[TonkaTuff]

Fantasy Flight Games (who got the license from Black Industries) is, for now going ahead with their support of the system. The first supplemental rulebook (The Inquisitor's Handbook) and an adventure book (Purge the Unclean) have already been released to the European market, with a projected North American release sometime later in the month or in early May. They've finally gotten around to setting up the game's official site here: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/dark-heresy/

[SuperFly]

That's good news.