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Why wasn't it, or isn't it (or is it in fact), possible to do the exact same game as WFRP but for the 40K universe, without focusing solely on the shelf stackers of the Inquisition? I mean isn't it more or less the same thing? :)

THe assumption appears to be that in fantasy the world is more unsettled so some degree of 'class' mobility is possible.

Whilst in 40k, the oppressivly overwritten Imperium is such a beaurocratic mess that you can never leave your starting profession, not even if you become an inquisitor.

There are a few problems with that:

One: Its not strictly true according to the novels. Hab prole laborers become guardsmen, streetgangers become guardsmen. foresters become guardsmen...ok, it might only be true for the guard ;)

Two: it really doesn't make sense for the 'Inquisition'

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;281976Why wasn't it, or isn't it (or is it in fact), possible to do the exact same game as WFRP but for the 40K universe, without focusing solely on the shelf stackers of the Inquisition? I mean isn't it more or less the same thing? :)

This was my basic argument throughout the entire process. Essentially, it is perfectly possible, but the choice was made against it for purely game-theory-ideological reasons.

RPGPundit

Or wait to see what rogue trader has to offer for the career paths.

However incase with the fiction it's seldom that most people ever get out of their station in life to do anything truly heroic.  Most worlds are more oppressed and constrictive then the WFRP Fantasy setting.  In most ways while the technology of 40k is increased the social freedoms have decreased.

So generally in 40k there are only a couple paths you either stay in your chosen near death like life or you get luck and get picked up by the imperial guard as parth of a tithe or in Dark Heresy's case an acolyte for the inquisition.

You would never for example go from pauper to bartender to bouncer to noble suddenly that just doesn't happen in the setting.  Likewise you would never go from one career and then into being a Space Marine.  Space Marines are grown from birth you are born a Space Marine and you Die one.

So really the whole career system in WFRP doesn't really make sense in 40k if you look at the galaxy as a whole and not one isolated world.  But like I said first, if you want more freedom wait a few more months until Rogue Trader comes out.  It'll have a wider range of choices for your Dark Heresy characters to roll into or as starting points for a Rogue Trader game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;282020This was my basic argument throughout the entire process. Essentially, it is perfectly possible, but the choice was made against it for purely game-theory-ideological reasons.

RPGPundit

Nah, it was made for purely monetary and marketing reasons.

Quote from: kryyst;282024You would never for example go from pauper to bartender to bouncer to noble suddenly that just doesn't happen in the setting.  Likewise you would never go from one career and then into being a Space Marine.  Space Marines are grown from birth you are born a Space Marine and you Die one.

So really the whole career system in WFRP doesn't really make sense in 40k if you look at the galaxy as a whole and not one isolated world.  But like I said first, if you want more freedom wait a few more months until Rogue Trader comes out.  It'll have a wider range of choices for your Dark Heresy characters to roll into or as starting points for a Rogue Trader game.

Nah, I can think off hand of more than a few examples of people 'retiring' to a bartenders life, of slave miners turning into bounty hunters and from thence to acolytes...  maybe its not quite a freewheeling as WHFRP, but then again, we are supposedly portraying the above average sort... you know, player characters.

I think, personally, the class structure would be less offensive if your characters prior life had more influence as well, such as we see with, say, the Tanith guardsmen, who universally have more background than normally seen in the fiction and who, as a regiment, exercise those backgrounds regularly to be better than average grunts.

I can't see them actually doing a rogue trader game since even 40K long abandoned the whole notion of rogue traders (without really explaining what one was) along with the idea of 40k being a small skirmish scale game.

Quote from: Spike;282050Nah, I can think off hand of more than a few examples of people 'retiring' to a bartenders life, of slave miners turning into bounty hunters and from thence to acolytes...  maybe its not quite a freewheeling as WHFRP, but then again, we are supposedly portraying the above average sort... you know, player characters.

I think, personally, the class structure would be less offensive if your characters prior life had more influence as well, such as we see with, say, the Tanith guardsmen, who universally have more background than normally seen in the fiction and who, as a regiment, exercise those backgrounds regularly to be better than average grunts.

Well the Inquisitor book does provide alternate backgrounds that do ad other features to make more distinct characters beyond whats in the core book.

However I still stand by my original point that a bartender in a scum hole isn't going to really provide all that much skill wise to a starting character even if they started out as a ditch digger, then became a waiter, then a bar wench, then a bartender then a bar owner etc.... It's really a blip on the grander scheme of things.

Sure some people may turn bounty hunter then acolyte. But the Scum career pretty much covers all of those.  The point of DH is that this is your characters new lease on life, their jumping point.  It's not about the beginning grind.  That can easily be tied up in a background description because it's pretty much unimportant mechanically.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;282122I can't see them actually doing a rogue trader game since even 40K long abandoned the whole notion of rogue traders (without really explaining what one was) along with the idea of 40k being a small skirmish scale game.

Let me put this clearly.  They next big rule book for the Dark Heresy/40k RPG line is Rogue Trader due in 2009 Roguetrader RPG (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/12129.page).  

It'll be a stand alone game but also an extension of Dark Heresy.   Following that will be Death Watch which will be the 3rd big rule book game covering the space Marine Chapter, which probably is a 2011 release.

I don't think Rogue Trader will be as open ended as it seems.
A friend and I have discussed this on many a car drive (from Florida to Georgia). I don't think that the career method would totally work in the Warhammer 40k setting. First, there are very few careers in which a player can just get on a space ship and go off player. If a campaign were to take place in a single planet, then I could see a Fantasy-esque game taking place, then I could see a game working. Another problem is the party diversity. The Imperium of Man's xenophobia would prohibit multiple races in the same group. Furthermore, even within an all human group, there would be problems justifying diversity: A Space Marine wouldn't hang around someone of the Scum career. Neither would an Arbitrator without an Inquisitor to glue the party together.
I'll be honest, I think the Inquisition is pretty damn functional way of keeping a party together in the 40k university. Rogue Trader may be pretty good as well.

Rogue Trader's career system will be similar to DH's.  You pick a career archetype and progress through it.  It's not going to be of the WFRP career hoping style.  If you come from DH then you'll transfer into a rogue trader career scheme.

Which is fine if they'd allowed a lot more room for the characters background other than class to play a much bigger role in character creation.  Right now its pretty fucking notional for the most part, it doesn't even properly give you skill... it just lets you roll on certain skills that require training as 'untrained'... which is a:Weak shit and b:monkeys up the character creation process a bit.

Let us not talk about the fact that many of the 'career progressions' don't actually match up with how the setting supposedly works.  Stormtroopers and Commisars don't get promoted up through the ranks, they come from teh Schola Progenium, just like Sisters of Battle do.  Temple and cult assassins are recruited as children and raised to that life and so on... I mean, if they honestly felt a straight jacket class system was the only way to go to fit the setting then why the hell did they ignore the actual... you know... setting?

I personally don't care which way they went, but they needed to pick one, this half assed middle of the road shit? As Miyagi says: Squish, just like Grape.

Quote from: kryyst;282170Rogue Trader's career system will be similar to DH's.  You pick a career archetype and progress through it.  It's not going to be of the WFRP career hoping style.  If you come from DH then you'll transfer into a rogue trader career scheme.

That's kind of cool.
 
Black Industries original idea was to publish a trilogy of games: Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch. I don't really see Deathwatch's appeal as anything more than really cool one-shot dungeon crawls. Rogue Trader has a lot of potential. I think of it as as very Battlestar Galactica in structure and format. Rogue Trader's relationship to xenoforms is not as rigid as that of the rest of the Imperium, so different races could be brought into the mix more rationally than something set deep closer to the Throne at Terra.
I'm such a Dark Heresy junky. I can't wait for the Creatures Anathema book to come out.

Quote from: Spike;282172Which is fine if they'd allowed a lot more room for the characters background other than class to play a much bigger role in character creation.  Right now its pretty fucking notional for the most part, it doesn't even properly give you skill... it just lets you roll on certain skills that require training as 'untrained'... which is a:Weak shit and b:monkeys up the character creation process a bit.

How much effect do you want a background to really have for a starting level character?  Seriously?  I can't comprehend what your ranting about with any kind of logic.  You want to play a developed character, then start your characters out with 1500xp.  Also using trained as untrained is actually a rather big deal because it's the difference between a) not being able to do something and b) being able to do something, which can be the difference between a) dying and b) living.  

QuoteLet us not talk about the fact that many of the 'career progressions' don't actually match up with how the setting supposedly works.  Stormtroopers and Commisars don't get promoted up through the ranks, they come from teh Schola Progenium, just like Sisters of Battle do.  Temple and cult assassins are recruited as children and raised to that life and so on... I mean, if they honestly felt a straight jacket class system was the only way to go to fit the setting then why the hell did they ignore the actual... you know... setting?

Commisars are an odd inclusion I get why they put them in but they don't jive as a background, they should have been a fully independent class.   Stormtroopers I fail to see the problem stormtroopers are a specialized member of the guard same as a sniper or heavy weapons member is.

Assassins by the description can be either the classical temple assassins or just people who have taken to doing assassinations as a living.  Where it does break down isn't in the mechanics but the rank names.  One is clearly a structured order fitting for a temple assassin it's not so fitting for just a trained killer.  However the inclusion of any of those examples hardly breaks down the system or the setting.

Leaving aside the simple fact that I've always found the D&D style of class structure and more importantly 'less than zero' to 'hero' progressing remarkably unnatural and 'immersion breaking', thus finding more of that philosophy added to WH of any sort without much rhyme or reason?

Right now I find two starting characters of the same class, regardless of background virtually identical in terms of mechanics.  Obviously the player can bring a lot of differention to the table, certainly, but lets pretend that a lot of players are not that interested in developing non-mechanical differences that are entirely unsupported.  Given the powerful straightjacket of the existing classes, its actually more important that character background take a role. The existing structure has more akin to a 'race pick', and a very weak one at that.  Oh... feral worlders are half orcs, woo woo...  its bullshit.

While it is certainly possible to start at 1500 or more xp that answer is bullshit too.  If the genre of the game is 'highly competent recruits to an inquisitor's retinue', as... amazingly.. it is, the mechanics should support that.  Why, then, are we recruiting 'guardsmen' who haven't even gone through 'RIP' in canon terms, or 'boot camp' in modern terms?   Character creation should at least produce 'common man' levels of competence as a default, which we simply don't get even with the 400 xp we start with (honestly, if starting characters have to be given XP to get them up to default speed, maybe you should either rethink your default or beef up creation a little. Seriously.)

By Canon, Stormtroopers are predominantly seperated from traditional guard, just as the Commisar's are.   And presumptively, they would never appear in the game until fully qualified... which currently means they've already filled their class tree... sort of like the Commisars.

Now, you may think 'less than zero' is fun. Bully for you. I think, however, as a default you'd find you are in the minority and its more appropriate that you have the ability to strip things out of the game to 'lower' the starting level, rather than forcing the rest of us to kludge up to what should be the default... by the setting even as presented by the game book.  

Don't be fooled by the page count of the class trees, its an insultingly simple character creation system and it produces insultingly simple characters as a result.

You are entirely overstating the competency of the entire populace.  The populace are peons little better the fodder.  Guardsmen are a dime a dozen conscripts.  With the exception of a few specialty societies like the Space Marines, most people are good at their one task be it digging a ditch or charging and firing.

Acolytes are a margin above useless, some spark that makes them suitable as a potential tool for the inquisition.  They are not full fledged inquisitors.  The starting guardsmen career is representative of someone who has seen battle and isn't fresh out of the academy.  400xp and a few fate points is pretty much about right.  

You are living in some fanboy fantasy that is under the delusion that the games default setting should actually be end level characters.

I summon Erik Boille! (where's he gone anyhow?)

I was waiting for him to show up.

Quote from: Spike;282223Right now I find two starting characters of the same class, regardless of background virtually identical in terms of mechanics.  

That's common to every game.   Even in point based systems.   Compare 10 superhero characters who are bricks or mentalists and you are going see huge overlap.   Even in fantasy, most GURPS characters I have seen are just builds of D&D classes...usually Fighter Mages.

Quote from: Spike;282223Character creation should at least produce 'common man' levels of competence as a default, which we simply don't get even with the 400 xp we start with (honestly, if starting characters have to be given XP to get them up to default speed, maybe you should either rethink your default or beef up creation a little.

I don't fault the game for this.   I fault the writers for not discussing starting campaign levels more clearly and discussing what XP levels would create XYZ power levels.

Starting at higher XP has been a time-honored answer to the zero-to-hero concern for 35 years and it works fine.

If they were but Zero's I might not object so much, but...


... by my own account, long before I was even so much as, say, a raw conscript in the Guardsman path I had racked up several hundred xp in such odd tasks as... I dunno... driving cars and prestidigitation, not to mention being able to handle animals, ride horses and even, yes virginia, hunt and kill my own food with nothing but the Emperor given abilities of a young Pika... ok, maybe that doesn't apply to you pinkskins.

Seriously... by comparison the average denizen of an Imperial Shrine world has something on the order of a 15% chance to know any given thing of the Imperial Creed.  Thats like asking a Southern Baptist to name the son of god and having a one in six chance of them saying 'Jesus' and a 5 in six chance of them saying anything else.

Ok... maybe not a southern baptist, but someone who grew up in the bible belt at least.

The characters are not just zeroes, they are mental defectives who have failed to learn almost anything in their lives except, if they are lucky, how to shoot a single type of gun well... and just one at that...because apparently the basic principles of marksmanship are radically different between regular guns, las guns and bolt guns and so forth to the point where it takes MONTHS of study to figure out what you are doing wrong!  You know, the equivilent of becoming fluent in another language...

As I said: LESS THAN Zeros. Seriously, i expect the default starting characters to be prepubescents.

And seriously Spinachat: If the writers failed to discuss starting campaign levels, then yes, the game is at fault. It is the product of a flawed writing process.  How can it be anything but?

Quote from: Spike;282266If they were but Zero's I might not object so much, but...

... by my own account, long before I was even so much as, say, a raw conscript in the Guardsman path I had racked up several hundred xp in such odd tasks as... I dunno... driving cars and prestidigitation, not to mention being able to handle animals, ride horses and even, yes virginia, hunt and kill my own food with nothing but the Emperor given abilities of a young Pika... ok, maybe that doesn't apply to you pinkskins.

Don't try and pass off your clear lack of knowledge of the mechanics as a fault in the mechanics.

Any task roll required is because there is a consequence for failure, hence stress, hence the need for a roll.  To use your lame arguments.  Asking a person a question about the imperial creed in casual conversation they'll either know it or they won't, no roll required.  Sitting that person down in a chair with the spot light on them and an Inquisitor with a bolt gun pointing at them.  Well now you've introduced stress and an implied risk of failure into the equation so now we call for a roll.  Then you apply modifiers to that so something simple everyone should now +30 to their chance...something challenging it's a flat roll something obscure -30.   Of course the modifier could be anywhere in between.

Now we move on to our hunters.  First we'll assume that we have our peon existing on a world were he'd have access to a gun.  Then he's taught the proper rituals to not jam the thing up every time he's firing it.  Now we have him at a shooting range.  Aiming at a target probably at close range to boot, right there that's +20 to his chances.

We take him out hunting he's still going to be aiming there's that +10 again most of the time and he's not having to dodge around or worry about that bird shooting back at him.  But that's not even a real comparison or proper use of the rules.  Hunting for food's not even a WS check it's a survival check, if you even called for it.  So you oh great back hunter hunting for food in your element with the right tools, routine survival check +30, meaning the average hunter's going to succeed at least 50% of the time he goes out.  Which is a hell of a lot better ratio of success for most hunters I know.

No WS checks for our hunter are because he's tracking his dear and suddenly runs into a xenon trying to eat him.  That's when the bird hunter forgets which way is up, which end of the gun to hold and what the hell he's doing.  That's when your training and WS come in.

As for all your day to day crap, why would you gain experience for working within your abilities.  I can drive my car to work every day and never become a better drive.  Take it to the track though and that's experience worthy.  I can do routine math equations all day long and I'll never grasp a firmer understanding of mathematics because I'm not pushing myself.

The gen pop are peon's they have a set station in life and very few ever go beyond that.   Or do you want to play in the 40k equiv to Forgotten Realms where every town guard is a 5th level warrior and every bartender is a 14th level retired adventurer.....

Clearly DH isn't for you, that's perfectly clear.  Wait another few years until Deathwatch comes out and you can frap off in your full combat issue power armour with a bolt gun in each hand.  But what you are trying to point out as a flaw in the system just doesn't exist.

Have fun with your strawmen Kryyst.  I ain't buyin' it.  I loved the cute little dig at the end too, that was a classic.  

Just because I think the average starting character should be more competent than an utterly untutored 12 year old doesn't mean I need to go full on heavy metal gwar! powermad to get my thrills on.  I, for one, never complained about having to play a rat catcher or rake in fantasy.. hey! they at least got a few SKILLS.

Every.Single.Background. only provides 'basic untrained skill' levels to otherwise advanced skills with the exception of the occisional language.  Even, you know, a lifetime of monastic training from the Schola Progenium, or growing up on a feral deathworld, or being a former Juve ganger from deep in an underhive...

The Inquisitors handbook did address many of my complaints about the lack of versimilitude to the setting, though it shouldn't have needed to be squeezed into a second book.  Character creation is just weak sauce here.

WFRP characters and DH characters have pretty much the same number of skills/talents.  You have no issue with one but a HUGE problem with the other.  You are contradicting yourself.  

I like the little digs, they are fun late at night.

I don't think that's really fair; the two settings are different in a number of ways that make 40k a lot more unforgiving as a game setting.

Looking back at 1st ed. 40k (Rogue Trader), that seems more of a suitable 40k rpg than Dark Heresy and it's narrow focus.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;282353I don't think that's really fair; the two settings are different in a number of ways that make 40k a lot more unforgiving as a game setting.

How so exactly?

Is anybody here excited for Rogue Trader? I'll be honest: WHFR & DH system is one of the best newer systems out there. Rogue Trader also appears to solve the narrow focus that sometimes get in the way of Dark Heresy's potential.

Quote from: vomitbrown;282372Is anybody here excited for Rogue Trader? I'll be honest: WHFR & DH system is one of the best newer systems out there. Rogue Trader also appears to solve the narrow focus that sometimes get in the way of Dark Heresy's potential.

Despite that narrow focus, as well as a temporary out of print status, and a change of publisher, DH has managed to replace WW as the number 2 game on the market, so I think their potential is about as good as it's gonna get, but hey, Rogue Trader certainly can't hurt.  I'll be getting it.

My only concern is that not being a direct part of the Black Library anymore means they won't have the same pool of experienced 40k authors to pull from like the original DH book did.

If it's not apparent yet.  Yes I'm excited about Rogue Trader.  DH may possible over throw WFRP as my favorite system.  Even though the two are largely similar there are some rule tweaks done in DH may just give it an edge. If Rogue Trader continues down the same road of awesome that DH is then it will top WFRP.

Rogue Trader is such a silly term. It doesn't inspire the right kind of image I'm afraid :D

Quote from: J Arcane;282386Despite that narrow focus, as well as a temporary out of print status, and a change of publisher, DH has managed to replace WW as the number 2 game on the market, so I think their potential is about as good as it's gonna get, but hey, Rogue Trader certainly can't hurt.  I'll be getting it.

My only concern is that not being a direct part of the Black Library anymore means they won't have the same pool of experienced 40k authors to pull from like the original DH book did.

What is 'WW'?

Quote from: kryyst;282362How so exactly?

Primarily differences in genre. I suspect it's probably easier to be a typical rpg adventurer type in WF than in 40K because it's just easier in the fantasy genre. Even though life in the Empire is not a bed of roses it seems a lot freer than being necessarily planetbound, surrounded by unremitting hostility/the Warp, and generally ignorant of how the world works. 40K isn't exactly conducive to the Han Solo type; the independent travelling adventurer :D

Whereas in fantasy all you need is a horse!

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;282457Rogue Trader is such a silly term. It doesn't inspire the right kind of image I'm afraid :D

What kind of image are you expecting?  Rogue Trader is pretty much an accurate description for a game about, Traders in space ships dealing on the fringes of space and encountering and socializing with things that are taboo.  Think of something along the lines of Firefly, only with things scarier then Reavers.

oh and WW = White Wolf.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;282459Primarily differences in genre. I suspect it's probably easier to be a typical rpg adventurer type in WF than in 40K because it's just easier in the fantasy genre. Even though life in the Empire is not a bed of roses it seems a lot freer than being necessarily planetbound, surrounded by unremitting hostility/the Warp, and generally ignorant of how the world works. 40K isn't exactly conducive to the Han Solo type; the independent travelling adventurer :D

Whereas in fantasy all you need is a horse!

Soo.... 40k provides more freedom then WFRP because it's not planet bound, but is also completely capable of playing a game that is localized for an extended period of time.   You can actually rather easily do the Han Solo type game with Inquisitors because they are one of the few that has the freedom to come and go pretty much as they please.

Really there isn't much you can't do in a 40k story that would seem out of place.  Where as with WFRP, your playing fantasy in the Old World and that's about it.  Not that I'm knocking WFRP.   But to say that it's easier is really dependent on the preference of the GM.

Quote from: kryyst;282469What kind of image are you expecting?  Rogue Trader is pretty much an accurate description for a game about, Traders in space ships dealing on the fringes of space and encountering and socializing with things that are taboo.  Think of something along the lines of Firefly, only with things scarier then Reavers.

oh and WW = White Wolf.

Rogue Traders = dodgy builders and tradesmen, at least nowadays. :D

Perhaps not the sort of game people would have in mind when playing a 40k rpg.

Quote from: kryyst;282473Soo.... 40k provides more freedom then WFRP because it's not planet bound, but is also completely capable of playing a game that is localized for an extended period of time.   You can actually rather easily do the Han Solo type game with Inquisitors because they are one of the few that has the freedom to come and go pretty much as they please.

Really there isn't much you can't do in a 40k story that would seem out of place.  Where as with WFRP, your playing fantasy in the Old World and that's about it.  Not that I'm knocking WFRP.   But to say that it's easier is really dependent on the preference of the GM.

Given how dangerous space travel is I'm not convinced you can do a game where you traverse the galaxy as easily as something like star wars. Then you have to deal with implacable unremitting forces of evil that are a hair's breadth away from utterly destroying humanity as well as the fact every alien race is treated, by the imperium at least, with the utmost suspicion if not rampant zealous hostility.

That's great for a wargame, but not necessarily an rpg. Whereas in WFRP players can be from different races (ie men, dwarves and elves) without such emnity.

I think we can take it as read that individual players can adapt and bend things to their own interpretation. That's not really the point.

Quote from: kryyst;282473Soo.... 40k provides more freedom then WFRP because it's not planet bound, but is also completely capable of playing a game that is localized for an extended period of time.   You can actually rather easily do the Han Solo type game with Inquisitors because they are one of the few that has the freedom to come and go pretty much as they please.

Except you don't get to play an Inquisitor in the 40k RPG. You get to play his manservant.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;282475Given how dangerous space travel is I'm not convinced you can do a game where you traverse the galaxy as easily as something like star wars. Then you have to deal with implacable unremitting forces of evil that are a hair's breadth away from utterly destroying humanity as well as the fact every alien race is treated, by the imperium at least, with the utmost suspicion if not rampant zealous hostility.

That's great for a wargame, but not necessarily an rpg. Whereas in WFRP players can be from different races (ie men, dwarves and elves) without such emnity.

I think we can take it as read that individual players can adapt and bend things to their own interpretation. That's not really the point.

The thing is, the original 40k universe posited by Rogue Trader, the original book, was totally playable as an RPG.  Its just that with each new edition, GW has made it more and more extremist to the point of being unplayable.

You used to have halflings, dwarves, humans and elves in 40K (ok, the elves were a bit freaky, but still).  And they could and did in fact travel together in certain circumstances.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;282615Except you don't get to play an Inquisitor in the 40k RPG. You get to play his manservant.

RPGPundit

I dare you to refer to a CIA field op as a "manservant" to their face at some point, and see how well that goes over.

Your asinine remark strikes me as akin to demanding to be able to play the Director of the CIA instead of an agent in an espionage campaign.

If you'd actually read the book, you might've even realized that's pretty much how the game handles it, except to make it's agents even more autonomous, and that the system itself doesn't remotely require the Inquisition conceit, and can just as easily be run without it.

But you haven't, so you'll just keep parroting soundbites you read on the internet, just like I did before I actually bought and played the goddamn game.

I notice the DH book doesn't (AFAICT) include rules/stats for Orks/Eldar/Dark Eldar and many of the other notable races as antagonists.

No the core book doesn't include those things as they weren't part of the initial scope for DH.  However is basically a monster manual coming out shortly that has all those antagonists in it.

FWIW Purge the Unclean does have Dark Eldar and Space Marine NPCs and Creatures Anathema has Orks, Eldar and Genestealers according to this review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14145.phtml).

Disciples of the Dark Gods even has stats for two Inquisitors.

However what these high level NPC stats indicate is how bad the game is at scaling.

The PtU Space Marine is so overpowered that he has to be literally forcibly separated from the PCs for most of the adventure as otherwise they'd just be his audience - and then has to magically reappear at the finale to stop them from being slaughtered by the opposition.

The Inquisitors in DotDG strike me as being fundamentally unplayable as NPCs - while their attributes are nothing at all special (all in the 36-59 range) they each have dozens upon dozens of skills, traits, talents and psychic powers.

In a game like HeroQuest with a single unified mechanic this might just work - but in DH every skill, trait, talent and power has its own rules that you'd have to look up (no easy feat when only the DH corebook has a fucking index) separately.

And then there is the Big Bad in the DotDG adventure - a Slaughth Overseer with an unnatural toughness bonus of 10 plus armour worth 3 points, 30 wounds, regeneration of 2d5 wounds per round, complete invulnerability to all psyker and force weapon attacks and a fear rating that will send most PCs fleeing in panic before they can fire a shot - which is probably just as well as the only weapon amongst all the gun porn listed in the corebook and Inquisitors Handbook that might conceivably damage it is a laser cannon.  

Much as I love the setting fluff it comes bundled with, to me the DH system looks more broken with each new release - and I just can't see how Rogue Trader or Death Watch can save it without ripping out the bloated mess DH has become and starting again.

Eh, all you've proved there is that the pre-written adventures suck.

This is nothing new with any game, which is why I don't buy pre-written adventures.

There are other, better, fan write-ups for many of the creatures and careers you mention, with none of the problems.

Oddly those are the qualities I like about it.  High leverl characters don't have ridiculously high stats they have above average stats but it's their skills and abilities that make the difference.  It gives characters depth and variety and actually simulates a characters that's been around and done everything.

Quote from: J Arcane;282639I dare you to refer to a CIA field op as a "manservant" to their face at some point, and see how well that goes over.

Your asinine remark strikes me as akin to demanding to be able to play the Director of the CIA instead of an agent in an espionage campaign.

Except its not the same, and you know it.
The closer comparison might be like playing someone akin to a regional employee without agent status; in DH its not like you're playing a "young, rookie" inquisitor, much less a trained and authorized agent with experience; the group's NPC inquisitor is the equivalent of the "Field agent", your character are at best the equivalent of the 3rd world banana republic cops the guy might comandeer to do some of his dirty work.
Not only do you NOT play the inquisitor in the game, you can NEVER get to be the inquisitor in the game.

QuoteIf you'd actually read the book, you might've even realized that's pretty much how the game handles it,

I've read the book; your analogy above is disingenuous.

RPGPundit

Quote from: J Arcane;282722Eh, all you've proved there is that the pre-written adventures suck.

This is nothing new with any game, which is why I don't buy pre-written adventures.

There are other, better, fan write-ups for many of the creatures and careers you mention, with none of the problems.

Firstly how many of us have time to write our own campaigns and adventures from scratch?

In fact most of the published adventures are not badly written - quite the opposite from a literary POV - but several are unplayable because the character levels they are written for (starting PCs with a few hundred to a couple of thousand XPs) are completely outclassed by the opponents and challenges included.  

Your second point is so general to be meaningless - yes any fan can fix a problem - however for those of us who have jobs and lives in the real world it would be nice if you could invest £100 or $200 in a set of books and have a game that is playable without massive houseruling.

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;282876Firstly how many of us have time to write our own campaigns and adventures from scratch?

Who said anything about doing it yourself?  As I pointed out, there's sites out there, Dark Reign in particular, chock full of material better done than the "official" examples.

QuoteIn fact most of the published adventures are not badly written - quite the opposite from a literary POV - but several are unplayable because the character levels they are written for (starting PCs with a few hundred to a couple of thousand XPs) are completely outclassed by the opponents and challenges included.  

If an adventure written for a game is unplayable, it's a badly written adventure.  Don't play semantics with me, I don't have the patience for it, so you'll only disappoint yourself.

QuoteYour second point is so general to be meaningless - yes any fan can fix a problem - however for those of us who have jobs and lives in the real world it would be nice if you could invest £100 or $200 in a set of books and have a game that is playable without massive houseruling.

Again, so don't do it yourself, and don't spend money on shitty books.  

This is a problem with it's own solution, you clearly just want something to bitch about.

Quote from: RPGPundit;282867Except its not the same, and you know it.
The closer comparison might be like playing someone akin to a regional employee without agent status; in DH its not like you're playing a "young, rookie" inquisitor, much less a trained and authorized agent with experience; the group's NPC inquisitor is the equivalent of the "Field agent", your character are at best the equivalent of the 3rd world banana republic cops the guy might comandeer to do some of his dirty work.
Not only do you NOT play the inquisitor in the game, you can NEVER get to be the inquisitor in the game.



I've read the book; your analogy above is disingenuous.

RPGPundit

You're confusing scales.  By the book, many of the Inquisitors don't even do their own field work, and have massive networks of operatives scattered across their assigned sector.  Each individual inquisitor is essentially it's own intelligence agency, entirely autonomous to each other's agencies, and answering only to segmentum-wide Lord Inquisitors, or even Terra itself, depending on the influence of a given inquisitor.

And besides which, if that premise really bothers you so fucking much, there's nothing whatsoever in the actual rules preventing you from just doing something else with it, or you could always just wait for Rogue Trader or Deathwatch, but I'd be patient unless you're just looking for an excuse to rage, on account of right now they're on a pretty tight staff at the moment, and releases for Warhammer RPGs are generally sparse and well spread out.

Oh trust me, I'm not in a hurry to see them release two more incomplete micro-games that butcher the setting that could have been the best Sci-fantasy RPG ever.

RPGPundit

I'm the one just looking for something to bitch about?

Its you who is taking contradictory positions just for the sake of it.

Funny how every 40K thread seems to end up this way.

I blame the heretics.

Damn it! I had this huge post, and now it's all erased. Crap. :(

I'll just say that I would have preferred it if the publisher had devised a single volume showcasing the entire Warhammer 40k universe in one tome, and then created supplements from there. It would have opened up so many more possibilities. I also enjoyed the career system from WFRP 2e much more than the career system in Dark Heresy. Basically, I'll happily plunder Dark Heresy for ideas, though I'll probably never play it as written.

Quote from: kryyst;282309WFRP characters and DH characters have pretty much the same number of skills/talents.  You have no issue with one but a HUGE problem with the other.  You are contradicting yourself.  

I like the little digs, they are fun late at night.

Sorry it took me a week to get back to you but I've been busy so I didn't have a convienent chance to actually provide a 'backed by the research' rebuttal.

This is simply not true and easily proveable.

I picked an utterly random WHFRP career (charcoal burner) and counted the skills (seven, with a total of 11 choices available in either/or catagories).

I compared this with the 'highly educated' career of the Adept. Five skills. Pretty close. Then to the Assassin Career: Two Skills.

TWO!

Mind you in both the 40k careers, one of the skills was essentially 'Language:Common', unlike the fantasy career, where I assume language was a given.  

So... No. You do NOT get the same number of starting skills. Took ten minutes of actually looking in the books on my way out the door this morning.   Hell, if you add the 400 xp starting acolytes get (which, mind you, is one of my complaints about the failure of the system design...) Assassins are STILL short a skill from a basic starting career from fantasy, and that's being generous and allowing the ability to speak the primary language of the setting (low gothic) to count!

Less.Than.Zero.

Totally forgot about this thread.

But yet again you are off base.

If we look at WFRP racial package and compare them to DH backgrounds they are about the same each get a few skills and a few traits.  

If we look at careers though the average WFRP character starts out with 7 and 2 or 3 talents.  DH characters on the other hand average about 3 or 4 skills and 4 talents on average.  WFRP characters get 1 free advance and DH characters start with 400xp.  Which means if you work it out WFRP start out around 1050xp DH characters start out with around 1150xp.

In your Charcoal Burner vs Assassin example.  The DH assassin only has 2 skills, but gets 5 talents where as the Charcoal burner has 2.

The quantity of skills/talents for starting careers in both games is a wash.

Disagree. First of all most of those "Talents" are assumed abilities in WHFRP, namely the ability to use common weapons.  Its assumed that people can whack shit or shoot shit with their base attributes, and 'talents' only apply to more unusual weapons.

In DH, EVERYTHING is an unusual weapon, including bashing a guy with a rock (Melee weapons: primative)... that require their own talents.

Thus the number of starting talents is inflated to 'fix' this.

Fair enough All WFRP characters have access to Common Weapons Ordinary so they can uses hand weapons and a few ranged weapons.  So at best your arguing over the equivalent of 100xp - Bravo.

Quote from: kryyst;283579Fair enough All WFRP characters have access to Common Weapons Ordinary so they can uses hand weapons and a few ranged weapons.  So at best your arguing over the equivalent of 100xp - Bravo.

But WFRP and DH XPs do not have a 1:1 exchange rate

All advances in WFRP cost 100 XPs whether they are to attributes, skills or talents

Advances in DH cost between 100 XPs and 2,500 XPs depending on who is advancing what.

Give a WFRP character 6,000 XPs and they can complete the whole Troll/Giant/DaemonSlayer or Soldier/Sergeant/Captain progression.

6,000 XPs for a DH character just gets you to the start of level 6 and still leaves you 45 gaming sessions from what we now are supposed to call ascension to a medium level functionary in the Inquisition.

Back in the days of WFRP1 characters completed the whole epic Enemy Within campaign and retired as princes of the empire with fewer XPs than you need to make name level in DH.

Even the award guidelines are different: 100 XP per session for WFRP and 200 XP/session for DH.

There are also at least 100 more skills, talents and traits in DH than in WFRP - by a quick count 240+ in DH and IH compared to 140+ in WFRP (both counts excluding knowledge, lore and performance skills (of which there are properly many more in DH than in WFRP) - all making for vastly more complexity.

Sure DH should be more complex than WFRP - but DH is just Basic or at best Basic/Expert WH40KRP - how many skills, talents, traits etc will we need to remember or scrabble around our small mountain of helpfully unindexed and perversely organised books to find when Rogue Trader and Death Watch come out  - 400?, 500?

As it is I can't fit all the info for a 2,000 XP DH character on the standard two-sided sheet and am looking at a massive excel spreadsheet to keep track of a character.
scratch.

It is a mess and we really need to go back to WFRP and rebuild it from the beginning.

Quote from: kryyst;283579Fair enough All WFRP characters have access to Common Weapons Ordinary so they can uses hand weapons and a few ranged weapons.  So at best your arguing over the equivalent of 100xp - Bravo.

But WFRP and DH XPs do not even have a 1:1 exchange rate

All advances in WFRP cost 100 XPs whether they are to attributes, skills or talents.

Advances in DH cost between 100 XPs and 2,500 XPs depending on who is advancing what and when.

Give a WFRP character 6,000 XPs and they can complete the whole Troll/Giant/DaemonSlayer or Soldier/Sergeant/Captain progression and be equal to the toughest critters in the Bestiary.

6,000 XPs for a DH character just gets you to the start of level 6 and still leaves you 45 gaming sessions from what we now are supposed to call ascension to an actual full-time functionary in the Inquisition.

Back in the days of WFRP1 characters completed the whole epic Enemy Within campaign and retired as Princes of the Empire with fewer XPs than you need to make Sergeant or Veteran Guardsman in DH.

Even the award guidelines are different: 100 XP per session for WFRP and 200 XP/session for DH.

There are also at least 100 more skills, talents and traits in DH than in WFRP - by a quick count 240+ in DH and IH compared to 140+ in WFRP (both counts excluding knowledge, lore and performance skills (of which there are properly many more in DH than in WFRP) - all making for vastly more complexity.

Sure DH should be more complex than WFRP - but DH is just Basic or at best Basic/Expert WH40KRP - how many skills, talents, traits etc will we need to remember or scrabble around our small mountain of helpfully un-indexed and perversely organised books to look-up when Rogue Trader and Death Watch come out  - 400?, 500?

As it is I can't handily fit all the info for a 3,000 XP DH character on the standard two-sided sheet and am looking at using a massive excel workbook to keep track of all the skills, talent and weapon options.

It is a mess and we really do need to go back to WFRP and rebuild it from the beginning.