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 Grey Templar wrote:
For what its worth, I do think their RPGs are better when you are not playing as space marines ... Black Crusade as well has a similar potential, even with Space Marines being involved still, because being the Bad guys is a cool twist and Chaos Space Marines have more potential for individuality.

It can be. GW has decided to make Space Marine characters into giant hams yelling at one another, so there's not really much you can do. I've had some groups that were a bit boring, and some groups that were a blast- mostly military guys in a group can somehow make playing Astartes more fun, given both tend to trash-talk one another a bit.

Black Crusade, on the other hand, was quite a bit more fun. I've played two- in one campaign, we were far less serious in our roleplaying and played it up for laughs and snark- and it was honestly a blast.

Our current Black Crusade campaign is a blast. We're a not-quite-trusted rag-tag group of Chaos Marines who have been roped into a Word Bearer invasion of a world, and are being used as a special forces/distraction team.

We've been quite good at bluffing our way of out things, but our team 'face' has some appalling rolls, so much so when we were sent to one space station at the start of the invasion we ended up at the wrong space station and somehow managed to convince everyone that it was a cunning strategy.

In the last game we helped take down an Imperator Titan by... being the bait in an ambush.

 warboss wrote:

Out of curiosity, what didn't you like from a GM perspective? (Given that it's obviously not a "narrative" system of course) From a GM perspective, I had trouble finding specific rules when I needed them on the fly initially and, from a personal preference angle, wasn't a fan of the Palladium style pages and pages of random tables. I'll admit though that my animosity towards Palladium may have colored my views on that last part as my much younger players with no experience with that had no issues with them. YMMV.

I like the FFG games, on the whole. They're gold mines of setting ideas, and the system is.....workable. But here are my issues with it. No one of these is a deal-breaker, but they add up:

--The rules assume the PC's should be fishing for bonuses at all times, but that's not stated very clearly, and it's a departure from most other RPG's where your base stats usually aren't modified very much. A degree of system mastery is needed to know where most of those bonuses are meant to be coming from in the first place, and some players can be reluctant to constantly ask if they get +10 for their Talented / Peer / Voidborn Background Trait / Gotta Get Down On Friday ability in this situation. It also increases the GM load if the "standard task" modifier needs to be adjudicated every time before the players know what they actually rolled.

--In a system with a lot of intricate player options and discrete abilities / Talents, you need a simplified system for NPC's, especially if you're going to be running a lot of them in one scene.

--All the player options increases the potential for min-maxing, or just plain breaking the game. I remember trying to talk an RT group down from their super-carrier ship that could one-round nearly any other ship with massed bomber attacks, and a DH tech-priest who was a demigod at repairing stuff, and terrible at absolutely everything else.

--And it also increases the importance of system mastery, such that one player can find themselves lagging behind another player with the same character concept, simply because one of them knew the rules better.

Overall, I like the FFG games, but I was very ready for something lighter and less clunky, that still had 40K flavour.

I've received a copy as material for a review and to be honest it's not bad. The flavour is spot on, the balancing is okay. I mean it´s not a competetive game, you & your GM can work out all the potential rough edges on the fly.
What really grinds my gears though is the lack of material. They came in swinging with lots of stuff like cards, a gm screen and an adventure but after that? Nothing. And don´t get me started on the adventure. While it has a decent story it is by far the railroadiest adventure that I have seen in years. Such a waste of opportunity...

 warboss wrote:
Out of curiosity, what didn't you like from a GM perspective? (Given that it's obviously not a "narrative" system of course) From a GM perspective, I had trouble finding specific rules when I needed them on the fly initially and, from a personal preference angle, wasn't a fan of the Palladium style pages and pages of random tables. I'll admit though that my animosity towards Palladium may have colored my views on that last part as my much younger players with no experience with that had no issues with them. YMMV.

Well, it's an accumulation of things. From the player side I felt that the class system didn't really did justice to the setting, and that mostly pidgeon holed characters just because. That, combined with talent tree "tiers", which is something I loathe, and the fact that the XP spenditures on skills very often impacted less the rolls that equipment did ended up with an, IMHO, very unsatisfying experience.

On the GM side, well, it started with the games not explaining well their assumptions for rolls and proper challenges and it went on from there to NPC stats with scads of talents that you needed to go check out in other chapters of the book instead of being integrated with the NPC rules (this is a big pet peeve of mine, NPC stats should be as playable as humanly possible without cross referencing), rulebooks that are very hard to navigate during a game (seriously, they have small rule blurbs scattered all over) and flavorful but ultimately not very practical books from the perspective of using them to prepare a game, and preparing a game was, in all honesty, an annoying experience.

I agree about the NPCs as much info for running them as possible should hopefully be baked into the rules/stats without further page flipping. I could see some core rulebook stuff being glossed over if rarely used but definitely anything not in the core book or the book the NPC appears in should be described at a minimum.

Um... should we be worried that the Wrath and Glory RPG pages on the Ulisses website have been expunged in such a thorough way that even the Inquisition would be proud?

https://www.ulisses-us.com/games/warhammer-40000-roleplay/

Page not found. Previously, it had the FAQ, news, etc. that you can still see on cached versions that show up on search engines. Wrath and Glory isn't even listed on the "Games" pull down tab any more...

 warboss wrote:
Um... should we be worried that the Wrath and Glory RPG pages on the Ulisses website have been expunged in such a thorough way that even the Inquisition would be proud?

https://www.ulisses-us.com/games/warhammer-40000-roleplay/

Page not found. Previously, it had the FAQ, news, etc. that you can still see on cached versions that show up on search engines. Wrath and Glory isn't even listed on the "Games" pull down tab any more...

I emailed to ask and got this reply.

"Rathe and Lori you say? What's that, one them trendy new cupcake shops, ain't never heard of it."

Not a good sign.

Maybe we all imagined it. I'll double check my bookshelf when I get home.

Didn't Wrath & Glory have a multi-page article in the latest White Dwarf?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:I emailed to ask and got this reply.

"Rathe and Lori you say? What's that, one them trendy new cupcake shops, ain't never heard of it."

Not a good sign.

Maybe we all imagined it. I'll double check my bookshelf when I get home.

Checking my bookshelf wouldn't help in that regard as I didn't buy it. Someone else said it perfectly in that it felt like it was too little butter spread too thin over a big piece of toast... and I was a vocal advocate of including more than FFG's micropartioning of the IP allowed in the core book. They just took a good thing too far IMO. Not sure if you were serious about emailing but it might be a good idea to see if it bounces back (see Facebook below).

Lord of Deeds wrote:Didn't Wrath & Glory have a multi-page article in the latest White Dwarf?

Possibly but I don't buy WD currently. That said.. print magazines are typically put together a month or two in advance so if there was a sudden change then it wouldn't be reflected for a few months.

Also, the Ulisses NA facebook link on their website comes back as not found as well. It was the only "social" site that I have an account on and figured I'd try to ask what's up. The plot thickens...

This could be bad, if Ulysses is in trouble we might lose TORG too! Remember TORG? They have the rights to TORG.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
This could be bad, if Ulysses is in trouble we might lose TORG too! Remember TORG? They have the rights to TORG.

I can't tell if you're serious or if you know something that we don't and are just egging me on, lol. The drivethrurpg links still work (although I didn't log in and try to buy them though as I'm not home) and this article is the only recent "news" I can find but it's seemingly only a puff piece by a staff writer for the site and not an official press release.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?6099-Your-Beginner-s-Guide-to-Warhammer-40K-Wrath-Glory

Yes, the March issue of White Dwarf has a big article on Wrath & Glory, six pages total, where they ask the head writers to talk about it.

Bit ominous that it's no longer on their site.

I ordered it with Element Games and they have been waiting for stock for more than a month.

https://www.ulisses-us.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=3488

poking on their forum found this the above

which suggests it's being peeled off onto it's own website below

http://wrath-and-glory.com/

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Which suggests it's being peeled off onto it's own website below

http://wrath-and-glory.com/

The new site is pretty spiffy, and having already received my book, I can assure you that it's not vapor-ware.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
https://www.ulisses-us.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=3488

poking on their forum found this the above

which suggests it's being peeled off onto it's own website below

http://wrath-and-glory.com/

Nice catch. It looks like someone had the same concerns there and supposedly got an answer on their facebook... Which is now also unavailable. That's an ass backwards way of rolling out the website the game "deserves" if they're pulling the old one down without a link or even mention.

Doubly so as the White Dwarf article refers to their main site for all info and where to get the starter.

Speaking of the Starter set, my FLGS got in about a half-dozen of then. However, at $50, that’s more than most full RPG rulebooks cost themselves.

And it's a pretty bad and railroady adventure as well. I like the rules but the adventures are kinda awful.

Every time I bump this thread I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. Regardless, this came up in my youtube feed. Miniwargaming has been running a campaign for a few weeks with the ruleset and have posted a review. I'm not able to watch it right now but I'm curious to hear what folks who actually played think of the game later tonight.

 Stormonu wrote:
Speaking of the Starter set, my FLGS got in about a half-dozen of then. However, at $50, that’s more than most full RPG rulebooks cost themselves.

Got it and the rulebook. Unlikely to play but why not.....

The rulebook looks very good and seems to have plenty of options, artwork is also very good.

The starter pack was less obviously good value - dice are a bit cheap and the rest is a bit thin.

Cubicle 7 is taking over the game from Ulysses. Not sure what that actually means for us. But since it's their first post since March it's probably good news.

https://www.facebook.com/WrathandGlory

Press-Release
"We’ve been busy behind the scenes finalising a deal that’s been a long time in the making. Ulisses has been working increasingly closely with Cubicle 7 Entertainment, and so we are formalising that arrangement with Cubicle 7 taking the lead on Wrath & Glory development. This will make Wrath & Glory the best it can be, and allow us to pursue our other great game lines more thoroughly!
Dom and the team at C7 are huge 40K fans and we know the game is in good hands. We’ll keep publishing the German language edition, of course, as well as working with Cubicle 7 on the German language editions of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Warhammer Age of Sigmar. Our Wrath & Glory team will be working with Cubicle 7 to deliver the supplements planned for wave two, three and beyond. We’re really excited to be working with Cubicle 7 and about the future of Wrath & Glory!"

It's interesting that they're dumping the system less than a year after release.

Not surprising though. I don't run RPGs any more, but I know of five regular 40K groups through friends, and not one of them switched to W&G after trying it out, they all still use the FFG systems.

Not dumping the system, just putting all the RPGs under one roof. Game is staying the same.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Not dumping the system, just putting all the RPGs under one roof. Game is staying the same.

I mean they could have done that from the offset, so something must have prompted the move.

Doesn't mean much as far as the game is concerned though to me. Dark Heresy didn't die when the line went from BI to FFG. Plus I am enjoying WFRP 4th from C7 at the moment, so sure it is in good hands.

Are Cubicle 7 a larger or more well-established company than Ulysses? Perhaps Ulysses decided they couldn't / didn't want to support the game the way GW wanted them to, so let it go.

Never heard of Cubicle 7 although I wouldn't consider myself knowledgable about more recent (past 15 years) companies in the industry. Regardless, it's officially a pattern now with the company that develops the 40k RPG to hand it off within a year.

Between this and the Age of Sigmar RPG, the GW RPG section has been a complete and utter mess from top to bottom.