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BTW, is there any other 40k RPG system beside Rogue Trader with possible Xeno PCs?

Nope

Aside from Tome of Excess and a presumptive Nurgle book, is Black Crusade going anywhere? So far, it's my favorite of the 40k RPGs.

 Valhallan42nd wrote:
Heaven forfend that a company gives us additional background and rules options for play.

Heaven forbid that someone use dramatic exaggeration for comedic effect on the internet. People might fail to grasp it.

You were trying to be funny?

 Manchu wrote:
Aside from Tome of Excess and a presumptive Nurgle book, is Black Crusade going anywhere? So far, it's my favorite of the 40k RPGs.

Define "going anywhere" please.

Are there vehicle rules in any of the BC books yet?

There are bike rules in Tome of Blood, but that's as close as it gets right now.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There are bike rules in Tome of Blood, but that's as close as it gets right now.

Sigh. I have the first book, and it seems pretty skeevy that i need to buy at least two more books to have rules for vehicles. Especially when they will probably be mostly a copy and paste from the other systems

They are a pretty huge part of the universe after all

You don't have to buy anything. There aren't any vehicle rules for Black Crusade. If you want to adapt vehicle rules from a different RPG line, then that's up to you.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Aside from Tome of Excess and a presumptive Nurgle book, is Black Crusade going anywhere? So far, it's my favorite of the 40k RPGs.

Define "going anywhere" please.

I mean, getting supported with more books.

 Manchu wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Aside from Tome of Excess and a presumptive Nurgle book, is Black Crusade going anywhere? So far, it's my favorite of the 40k RPGs.

Define "going anywhere" please.

I mean, getting supported with more books.

Yeah, I thought that was kind of obvious.

No idea why H.B.M.C. is playing dumb on this all of a sudden...

I'm not playing dumb, but let's rephrase Manchu's question a little:

"Aside from the new books coming out, are there any new books coming out?"

I mean... what?

The new books we're talking about are part of a series ... in which there can be only four books. So all defensiveness aside, I think what I mean remains pretty obvious.

 Manchu wrote:
You were trying to be funny?

It does occasionally happen. Admittedly, it's rare. Like a planetary alignment, or Matt Ward writing quality fluff.

BTW: as far as copypasta rules, to get the bike rules from ToB just take the mount rules from OW and add the word Bike to it every now and then, and remove any mention of the mount using any actions. Other than that, the mount rules in Hammer of the Emperor are almost (there are a few extras and a few rewordings to make them for live mounts only instead of for live mounts and bikes) entirely ripped from the bike rules in ToB.


What he was asking was are there any new books that are not already announced in the works. To which your response is 'No Comment'.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
BTW: as far as copypasta rules, to get the bike rules from ToB just take the mount rules from OW and add the word Bike to it every now and then, and remove any mention of the mount using any actions. Other than that, the mount rules in Hammer of the Emperor are almost (there are a few extras and a few rewordings to make them for live mounts only instead of for live mounts and bikes) entirely ripped from the bike rules in ToB.

As the person who wrote both the ToB bike rules and the HotE mount rules I can say that yes they share similarities because, well, they should! The bike rules are adapted from the OW vehicle rules, and the mount rules are adapted from the ToB bike rules. I figure why reinvent the wheel when it isn't necessary?

 BaronIveagh wrote:
What he was asking was are there any new books that are not already announced in the works. To which your response is 'No Comment'.

He might as well have just said "Hey! Break your NDA's and tell us some stuff!". Yeah. That's going to happen.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You don't have to buy anything. There aren't any vehicle rules for Black Crusade. If you want to adapt vehicle rules from a different RPG line, then that's up to you.

True, i could. But its a bit cheap that such a huge thing has been left out.

 Manchu wrote:
The new books we're talking about are part of a series ... in which there can be only four books. So all defensiveness aside, I think what I mean remains pretty obvious.

There can be lots more than 4...

The Tome of Indecisiveness for Chaos Undivided?
The Tome of Malevolence for Malal or whatever his name is?
The Tome of Infinity for creating your own chaos gods?
The Tome of Order for the Necrons ?

 ChocolateGork wrote:
True, i could. But its a bit cheap that such a huge thing has been left out.

Nothing's been "left out". Vehicles are not currently part of the Black Crusade RPG.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

The Tome of Malevolence for Malal or whatever his name is?

Tome of Spite for Malal. Not that GW would ever allow it.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

The Tome of Malevolence for Malal or whatever his name is?

Tome of Spite for Malal. Not that GW would ever allow it.

IIRC GW does not actually own Malal. A shame really. If they were smart they'd roll out Nalal or something.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

The Tome of Malevolence for Malal or whatever his name is?

Tome of Spite for Malal. Not that GW would ever allow it.

IIRC GW does not actually own Malal. A shame really. If they were smart they'd roll out Nalal or something.

Malal is already back under another name.

"Malice"

Malice is a terrible name for a Chaos God. Might as well call the others Blood, Change, Disease and Excess.

Malice, like Malal, isn't really a fully formed Chaos God but rather a lesser God or something of that nature.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Malice is a terrible name for a Chaos God. Might as well call the others Blood, Change, Disease and Excess.

Personally I prefer Rage, Deception, Fear and Greed.

Honestly there are lots of direction for Chaos to go in. I would personally like to see more progression towards fleshing out the system rather than just adding new tidbits. More rules, more options, more tools for the DM and more power to the player.

That said they are at the mercy of GW, so I am hesitant to make any guesses.

How would you flesh out the system?



And yes Kan, I know what Malice is. It's just a terrible name.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
How would you flesh out the system?



And yes Kan, I know what Malice is. It's just a terrible name.

Let's see what this system lacks: an actual fleshed out vehicle system, an economy (technology, and other 'items' which I will not go into in this forum, which can be used for bonuses to trade), more freedom and depth about the dark mechanicum and the ability to customize and do whatever you wish with your weapons (make deals with chaos gods, enslave daemons into your weapons), the ability to transition characters from regular humans to CSM (in full colour detail), more depth on undivided legions rather than simply going for the devoted legions, more in depth packages about classes such as corrupt arbites and noblemen/how to establish cults on planets and subvert the imperium and many more little things which bug me about this system.

You are supposed to be chaos, none of these Imperial restrictions on items or crafts. You can be really creative with this system, and I just don't see that coming through.

NOTE: 'you' in this case is collective, not specific.

Ok, from the top:

 Ehsteve wrote:
Let's see what this system lacks: an actual fleshed out vehicle system

Given the style of game it is, I ask why it would need a vehicle system? Not saying it wouldn't be good to have one, but I'm not sure it's a necessity.

 Ehsteve wrote:
an economy (technology, and other 'items' which I will not go into in this forum, which can be used for bonuses to trade)

‘Cause nothing says Black Crusade like “trading RPG”.

 Ehsteve wrote:
more freedom and depth about the dark Mechanicum

The concept of the “Dark Mechanicum” is far looser and less cohesive than you might imagine.

 Ehsteve wrote:
and the ability to customize and do whatever you wish with your weapons (make deals with chaos gods, enslave daemons into your weapons)

You’ve been able to create Daemon Weapons since the Core Rulebook came out. As each book has come out the options here have increased. The Legacy weapon rules add even more to that, allowing your weapon to grow with your character.

 Ehsteve wrote:
the ability to transition characters from regular humans to CSM (in full colour detail)

I very much doubt such a thing would be possible within the scope of the game.

 Ehsteve wrote:
more depth on undivided legions rather than simply going for the devoted legions

Simply going for the devoted legions? What does that mean?

 Ehsteve wrote:
more in depth packages about classes such as corrupt arbites and noblemen

That’s different. That’s not really expanding the scope of the game. That’s just wanting more Archetypes (which is fine, but it’s just ‘adding stuff’).

 Ehsteve wrote:
how to establish cults on planets and subvert the Imperium

Surely some of that is situational and up to the GM to determine? Besides this new book has a lot of rules for social interacting and influencing people.

 Ehsteve wrote:
and many more little things which bug me about this system.

Go on. This is fun.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ok, from the top:

 Ehsteve wrote:
Let's see what this system lacks: an actual fleshed out vehicle system

Given the style of game it is, I ask why it would need a vehicle system? Not saying it wouldn't be good to have one, but I'm not sure it's a necessity.

Are you telling me that whilst other systems enjoy dedicated vehicle rules that suddenly BC is incapable or unfit for vehicle rules? Seem like more of a cop-out than a valid argument.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
an economy (technology, and other 'items' which I will not go into in this forum, which can be used for bonuses to trade)

‘Cause nothing says Black Crusade like “trading RPG”.

A single roll should not determine something with so many factors beyond its rarity. Give them even as a suggestion to the GM or as an alternate system. Put in a table of determinants such as planet, economy, size of black market, depth of chaos influence and other factors to make it a bit more involved than the DM tossing the players a roll every now and then which is so very, very binary. Players should be far more involved like adding elements of intimidation or bargaining rather than 'oh hey, I know that guy, here, have a bolter' (simplified, yes and I know you will try to break this example down but it's no more over the top than your usual rhetoric).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
more freedom and depth about the dark Mechanicum

The concept of the “Dark Mechanicum” is far looser and less cohesive than you might imagine.

It does not mean it cannot be quantified, put in depth or otherwise explained. Give examples of either lone or collaborative Dark Mechanicum systems and the kinds they might encounter, what they might want (see: economy) and create actual interaction beyond another single, utterly bland roll.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
and the ability to customize and do whatever you wish with your weapons (make deals with chaos gods, enslave daemons into your weapons)

You’ve been able to create Daemon Weapons since the Core Rulebook came out. As each book has come out the options here have increased. The Legacy weapon rules add even more to that, allowing your weapon to grow with your character.

My mistake I will concede this point (not begrudgingly).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
the ability to transition characters from regular humans to CSM (in full colour detail)

I very much doubt such a thing would be possible within the scope of the game.

I would very much disagree with you here. It will give some players something to work and allow GMs the ability to work in legion/warband relations for a more immersive experience. More options to work with, less work for the GM, more power to the player, more ideas and content. It would at least be a very interesting work through of the process.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
more depth on undivided legions rather than simply going for the devoted legions

Simply going for the devoted legions? What does that mean?

The focus upon god-specific abilities and daemons rather than attempting to really define or get even a broad concept of undivided chaos. What it means to be undivided, the reasoning behind this decision rather than going in depth about devotion to the main 4.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
more in depth packages about classes such as corrupt arbites and noblemen

That’s different. That’s not really expanding the scope of the game. That’s just wanting more Archetypes (which is fine, but it’s just ‘adding stuff’).

More options, more ideas, less work for the GM and more power to the player in terms of selecting content. Suddenly you have this broad range of choices rather than pigeon-holing all of your starting skills and talents into the main archetypes (which I still to this day begrudge due to their lack of initial starting freedom regardless of how much you can fluff around later).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
how to establish cults on planets and subvert the Imperium

Surely some of that is situational and up to the GM to determine? Besides this new book has a lot of rules for social interacting and influencing people.

It would be impossible to throw this in even as a tag-on to a campaign? We need to look at big picture for later on and flow on effect rather than what the player can do to individuals. Let's say there are rules for targeting different sectors (underclass, nobility) how you would go about doing so, establishing secrecy and remaining inconspicuous whilst doing so, how it will grow, what effect it will have, chance of it being discovered, what happens if it is discovered (moles, all out civil war, gang warfare, exterminates etc)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ehsteve wrote:
and many more little things which bug me about this system.

Go on. This is fun.

Oh I will

- Chaos Marines and humans do not create a balanced party (it's not a symbiotic relationship, marines fail at interaction, humans fail at combat, and in any case where you have an encounter which focuses on either with any sort of actual challenge then most of the time the humans will wipe leaving the CSM to clean up.
- Chaos Marines lack so much more depth compared to humans (hence why a human to CSM transition would give them so much more depth).
- Confusion of ambiguity with freedom, give players a goal to obtain in game rather than simply leaving them to wallow in a system which pigeon-holes you initially then expects you to simply go from there. The process of creation in Rogue Trader has far more depth in both creation and an actual end goal (PROFIT!) which is far more to say than Black Crusade.
- The fact that you have to roll 1d10 then ANOTHER 1d10 to get a d100 result! (dw for the rest of you, in-joke)
- The lack of levels makes it more difficult to set encounter levels, then imagine if you have a mixed human/CSM party and you begin to see the ambiguity here.

That's not to say the system should be scrapped, it has it's upsides like Unnatural stats being simple additions rather than multiplications (which created all sorts of issues with encounter balance in DW), breaking out of single-class devotions (though again they sort of went too far in the other direction in this case) so that everyone can take everything and finally the fact that they actually produced a game where you get to play the bad guys. It turns out to be an enjoyable experience but these items hold back the complete immersive gameplay.

Sorry to everyone else for the wall of text

Don't apologise for walls of text. These sorts of conversations are interesting (well, they're interesting to me at least).

 Ehsteve wrote:
Are you telling me that whilst other systems enjoy dedicated vehicle rules that suddenly BC is incapable or unfit for vehicle rules? Seem like more of a cop-out than a valid argument.

I never said BC was “incapable” or “unfit” for vehicle rules, only that I don’t see it as a necessity. Vehicle rules are a “nice to have” for all the RPG systems except for Only War where they are obviously core.

 Ehsteve wrote:
A single roll should not determine something with so many factors beyond its rarity. Give them even as a suggestion to the GM or as an alternate system. Put in a table of determinants such as planet, economy, size of black market, depth of chaos influence and other factors to make it a bit more involved than the DM tossing the players a roll every now and then which is so very, very binary. Players should be far more involved like adding elements of intimidation or bargaining rather than 'oh hey, I know that guy, here, have a bolter' (simplified, yes and I know you will try to break this example down but it's no more over the top than your usual rhetoric).

Except that a single roll determines this in basically all the other 40K RPGs, so why does BC specifically annoy you here?

Besides, there’s nothing stopping you from using bartering/commerce abilities or other interaction skills.

 Ehsteve wrote:
It does not mean it cannot be quantified, put in depth or otherwise explained. Give examples of either lone or collaborative Dark Mechanicum systems and the kinds they might encounter, what they might want (see: economy) and create actual interaction beyond another single, utterly bland roll.

But this is GW fluff. It revels in how vague it can be. The only way the Dark Mechanicum would ever be quantified is if GW decided to make an army out of them (ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease!). Now that might sound like a cop-out, but it is the reality of the situation.

 Ehsteve wrote:
I would very much disagree with you here. It will give some players something to work and allow GMs the ability to work in legion/warband relations for a more immersive experience. More options to work with, less work for the GM, more power to the player, more ideas and content. It would at least be a very interesting work through of the process.

Do you want players’ end goals to be “Become a Marine!”? The goal of Black Crusade is to achieve apotheosis and avoid spawndom. Those are pretty lofty goals. I wouldn’t be opposed to a book that shifted the focus to people becoming Chaos Marines, but that’s an expansion, something that’d be cool to have, but I wouldn’t want the game’s main focus to be that.

 Ehsteve wrote:
The focus upon god-specific abilities and daemons rather than attempting to really define or get even a broad concept of undivided chaos. What it means to be undivided, the reasoning behind this decision rather than going in depth about devotion to the main 4.

I should say that all the books so far contain archetypes (even CSM ones) that begin the game unaligned.

 Ehsteve wrote:
More options, more ideas, less work for the GM and more power to the player in terms of selecting content. Suddenly you have this broad range of choices rather than pigeon-holing all of your starting skills and talents into the main archetypes (which I still to this day begrudge due to their lack of initial starting freedom regardless of how much you can fluff around later).

Ok, there are, what, 8 archetypes in the main book, 4 in ToF, 4 in ToB and 4 in ToE. That’s 20 different archetypes so far. So really they’re already doing what you’re asking here, they just haven’t make the ones that you personally want (corrupt Arbite, etc.).

 Ehsteve wrote:
It would be impossible to throw this in even as a tag-on to a campaign? We need to look at big picture for later on and flow on effect rather than what the player can do to individuals. Let's say there are rules for targeting different sectors (underclass, nobility) how you would go about doing so, establishing secrecy and remaining inconspicuous whilst doing so, how it will grow, what effect it will have, chance of it being discovered, what happens if it is discovered (moles, all out civil war, gang warfare, exterminates etc)

Fair enough, but you also have to remember the scope of the game. The game isn’t about galactic conquest. It’s about building a power base high enough to the point where you can lead a Black Crusade. It’s *tries to think of an example* Smallville! It’s all the stuff that happens before the big events we know about from history. The stuff that shapes the would-be warlord or daemon prince.

 Ehsteve wrote:
Chaos Marines and humans do not create a balanced party (it's not a symbiotic relationship, marines fail at interaction, humans fail at combat, and in any case where you have an encounter which focuses on either with any sort of actual challenge then most of the time the humans will wipe leaving the CSM to clean up.

I don’t agree here, and I don’t believe we’ve played enough BC (too much time spent play-testing Deathwatch!) to come to that conclusion. Of course, me being me, I’ve looked for a consensus on this topic to formulate a starting point, and really people seem evenly divided on this matter (Chaos Undivided, even ).

All I can say is that from my experience the minion system helps overcome any perceived or actual imbalance.

 Ehsteve wrote:
- Chaos I Marines lack so much more depth compared to humans (hence why a human to CSM transition would give them so much more depth).

I disagree vehemently here. It’s just like the arguments that there’s no role-playing in Deathwatch. It’s an RPG, you get out what you put in. If your approach is that CSM’s have no depth then they’ll have no depth.

 Ehsteve wrote:
- Confusion of ambiguity with freedom, give players a goal to obtain in game rather than simply leaving them to wallow in a system which pigeon-holes you initially then expects you to simply go from there.

Two points here:

1. Isn’t the ‘goal’ up the GM?
2. It’s interesting you keep referring to BC characters as being “pigeon holed”, which is weird as BC has the most open character creation system of any of the games (even OC is more restrictive, and it’s an “open plan” style system similar to BC’s). It’s hard to argue that BC characters are pigeon holed into a role when they can pretty much take any advance from the get go. The three games prior were far more restrictive in what you could take (You are an X, you can only take from table A, you are a Y, you can only take from table B, and so on).

 Ehsteve wrote:
The process of creation in Rogue Trader has far more depth in both creation and an actual end goal (PROFIT!) which is far more to say than Black Crusade.

You want to codify and crunch-i-fy a cahracter’s goals and motivations? Again, isn’t this something that the player should be deciding, not some chart? I’m a fan of the origin path system for Rogue Trader, but that’s the path that fits with that game. I like how every game has a different method of character creation, and BC’s is the most open as it allows you to “come to Chaos”, so to speak, via basically any means. This is why the game doesn’t have “classes” or “careers” but simply archetypes.

 Ehsteve wrote:
- The fact that you have to roll 1d10 then ANOTHER 1d10 to get a d100 result! (dw for the rest of you, in-joke)

I know right? So annoying!!!

 Ehsteve wrote:
- The lack of levels makes it more difficult to set encounter levels, then imagine if you have a mixed human/CSM party and you begin to see the ambiguity here.

I can’t disagree with you here. For games like Dark Heresy and OW it’s easier, as the bad guys range from “This will probably kill you!” right through to “This will definitely kill you!”, but for DW and BC encounter balance is a far harder task.