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It makes no difference whatsoever what analogy is used. The point is that the result is more important than the process.

If I need to be at a wedding / show / event in 1 hour, and I spend 3 hours driving along the coast, then that's a problem.

The only time your drive matters is when time is irrelevant, and the journey is the actual objective. But most of the trips we take, we focus on the destination.

And I would argue that the result matters more in 40k as well. 40k is played for a limited amount of time. If it took a whole 3-day weekend to play a game, instead of a couple hours, I doubt 40k would be played nearly as much as it is.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Realism should be about achieving a plausible end result.

That’s smacks of one-true-wayism… that you’ve found your favourite way to play and decided it’s entirely superior for all people. This can be proven absolutely wrong by the number of people who have expressed an interest in processes that closely simulate other actions.

Deciding that one’s own preference is a common mistake made by games designers and pundits.

If you have the choice of spending 8 hours in 2 trips over 5 days at the DMV to renew your driver's license, or 5 minutes, which do you prefer? Does your license make you feel better simply because it took longer? If you had to talk to a dozen clerks to answer various questions and pay various fees, to watch clerks carrying folders and making little piles of papers would you really appreciate the process? Or do you just want your license renewed?

People have different tastes and find all sorts of different things fun and anti-fun. I don’t want to drive for 4 or 5 hours, pitch a tent, sleep on hard ground, then sit by a lake for a whole day trying to catch a fish, then drive all the way back again. I want to buy a fish from the market and cook it. Other people want to do the whole fishing trip thing.

If you look at FoW vs the high detail WW2 games, it's no accident the streamlined game with the nicer, more expensive minis is winning.

Not really, no. There’s probably 1,000 amateur WW2 wargames floating around the internet. Heaps of them are higher detail, plenty have a lot less detail. Some are even pretty well executed.

But one of them has a model range and books available in hard copy. Anything beyond that is speculation, especially considering the FoW rulebook, for all its strengths, has a lot of strange inconsistencies.

Building a game with elegant rules with strategic depth that gives a strong level of simulation is a an easy thing if you know what you want to simulate.

Only if you ignore the actual level of simulation a large portion of the 40k market has expressly stated they want to see in the game.

You can state the system is better off focused at a lower level of detail. You can certainly claim the end result will better model the 40k world. But you can’t claim people don’t want detail in the processes. They simply do, they’ve said as much, constantly, on every 40k forum you can find.

JohnHwangDD wrote:It makes no difference whatsoever what analogy is used. The point is that the result is more important than the process.

If I need to be at a wedding / show / event in 1 hour, and I spend 3 hours driving along the coast, then that's a problem.

The only time your drive matters is when time is irrelevant, and the journey is the actual objective. But most of the trips we take, we focus on the destination.

And I would argue that the result matters more in 40k as well. 40k is played for a limited amount of time. If it took a whole 3-day weekend to play a game, instead of a couple hours, I doubt 40k would be played nearly as much as it is.

That's one extreme - but the 3-day weekend is no more representative of my views that the 'roll a die at the start, higher roll wins the game' is representative of yours. When I play another experienced player, we can get a 1500 point game done in about an hour. I'd have no problem with a more complex rule set that would take two hours for the game to resolve but would add more verisimilitude and depth to the experience.

For me, 40K is all about the journey (the game) and only minimally about the destination (who wins or loses in the end).

Asmodai wrote:That's one extreme - but the 3-day weekend is no more representative of my views that the 'roll a die at the start, higher roll wins the game' is representative of yours.

When I play another experienced player, we can get a 1500 point game done in about an hour. I'd have no problem with a more complex rule set that would take two hours for the game to resolve but would add more verisimilitude and depth to the experience.

For me, 40K is all about the journey (the game) and only minimally about the destination (who wins or loses in the end).

I dunno. An awful lot of 40k3 games devolved to "roll a die at the start to determine who gets first turn turbo-boost / shooting / charge, higher roll wins the game after we go through the motions for the remaining turns"...

We tend to play larger games at a more leisurely pace, so 2 hours is typical.

Oh, I'm past the whole "must win" thing, too. But I see no reason to spend time or energy on trivial details that serve no purpose but to increase complexity or fill space. If GW is going to have space-fillers in their books, let it be more Fluff, rather than bad rules or useless options.

sebster wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Realism should be about achieving a plausible end result.

That’s smacks of one-true-wayism…

It's more definitional than anything else. If you talk about concept of realism (or pseudo-realism in the case of 40k), then the end result should be plausible / believable.

People have different tastes and find all sorts of different things fun and anti-fun.

Yes. But given the choice, people also prefer convenience most of the time, because time is a limited thing.

If you look at FoW vs the high detail WW2 games, it's no accident the streamlined game with the nicer, more expensive minis is winning.

Not really, no.

When I go to cons, I see more FoW energy than non-FoW energy in the WW2 gaming space.

Building a game with elegant rules with strategic depth that gives a strong level of simulation is a an easy thing if you know what you want to simulate.

Only if you ignore the actual level of simulation a large portion of the 40k market has expressly stated they want to see in the game.

Realism? With Eldar, Tau and Plasma guns?

I think it's not so much about realism that attracts players, but the diversity of your army. how many times have you talked to another player and you basically exchange sentences talking about your choices in making your armies? 'I took a Leman russ to take care of infantry' 'I don't really like leman Russes, I perfer Bassies, and guard it with a unit of veterans' 'veterans? I field a unit of ogryns protecting my griffon in my army'

Really, people like choice and creative freedom, or the pride of using their tactical prowress. Games Workshop makes a variety of units, in a variety of armies with a variety of options to take with them, and try to make everything fair. boiled down, their explainations don't need to make sense, but they need to be, at least vaugely, justified.

it makes little sense that Guard require 2 men to take a heavy weapon, but one seems to do just fine firing it himself, or that a laspistol can't be fired in combat. it doesn't matter though, it's justified by basic explainations.

"Realism? With Eldar, Tau and Plasma guns?"

I think people use realism when they mean verisimilitude. They're two rather different concepts and the presence of fantastic elements in no way lessens the desirability of verisimilitude.

I dont know if I would want to see the an Epic style turn structure. Ive played Epic, Twilight Imperium, and other games with that turn structure and it can get very tireing. You are constantly 'on', having to think about your next move and adjusting your plan. You can never really just sit back and relax. The Epic turn style is good for smaller, quick board games, but with some 40k matches lasting more then 3 hrs I dont want to have anything to do with it.

The going first advantages, and the going second advantages can be minimized if they used the rules of Apocalypse for deployment and determining first turn. If you know you are going second, you can deploy your skimmers behind terrain. If you know you are going first you can deploy your units in risky positions, knowing you will beable to move them out of harms way immediatly.

The player who is going first will not know where the enemy will be deployed, while the player who is going second will know exactly where his opponent is.

sebster wrote:...especially considering the FoW rulebook, for all its strengths, has a lot of strange inconsistencies.

Such as? I've just got back into FoW and I've found it to be a pretty solid system.

Something I would have loved to see in 5E is increased effectiveness of Sniper weapons against targets that didn't move last turn. Just makes sense.

It would be more record keeping though.

Space Marine Missile Launchers should be barrage weapons.

Nurglitch wrote:Space Marine Missile Launchers should be barrage weapons.

Why, or more specifically why just Space Marines and not any Imperial missile launcher. I could definitely see Tau having a man (or drone) packed indirect Krak rockets.

Why? I need to have reasons for things?!

I figure high-tech guided missiles were the kind of thing to separate the Space Marine Missile Launcher from what I usually refer to as the Imperial Guard Rocket Launcher. Technically the Imperial Guard has a Missile Launcher, but it seemed flavourful to me. And since the name of the game doesn't include reference to reality I thought I might thrown in my two-bud on the topic.

Spaz Marines are just Guardsmen with better stats.

The guys with the high-tech MLs are the Eldar, and their Exarch can take the indirect option.

Imperial Guardsmen have "And They Shall Know No Fear"? And single-squad troop choices? And Rhinos and Land Raiders? I did not know that Space Marines were just Guardsmen with better stats. I thought they were troops in a separate army.

Grignard wrote: Ok, I can see that. I think to some degree GW does this already. I'm pretty sure that is how they train their salespeople, because Ive seen them give a pitch to adults that sounds as if it is tailored for the young teen set, which ends up just being embarassing for all involved. But I definitely agree that bringing new ( young ) players into the game is the only way to keep it alive. That is how I got in to it. That said, I really hope that 40k can maintain its mature flavour, particularly where the fluff is concerned.

I'm with that 100%; I'd be sorely disappointed if 40k lost its mature flavour, not to mention rather surprised that they could manage doing it considering the intensely gothic fluff 40k is built from.

Sorry, 40k has a "mature flavour"?

it has no shortage of tortured slave minions and cruelly slaughtered guardsmen.

it's PG-13 at the least.

Unsuitable for children does not 'mature' make. It looks to me like a typical adolescent fantasy world, something all surface and no depth or insight as a piece of art. That's why the background is called 'fluff'. It's eminently disposable packaging, something that sells the little lumps of plastic rather than something that informs us about the human condition. Warhammer 40k is about as mature as the 13 year old emo kids that clogging up the stores that sell it.

Nurglitch wrote:Sorry, 40k has a "mature flavour"?

Yes, in the same way that you can get chocolate flavour products and chocolate flavoured products. 40k has a mature flavour. Big difference.

Which is...? What exactly?

chocoloate flavour = might be mistaken for chocoloate
chocoloate flavoured = uses actual chocoloate

Nurglitch wrote:Which is...? What exactly?

40k appears to have mature themes but on closer inspection there are no actual mature themes in 40k, no more than all those 70's war comics I used to read as a child. How are there any people in the 40k universe? Because nobody seems to have relationships (or god forbid, sex) ever, or even discuss it in any way. No-one has a wife or children in 40k. All human women are either nuns or amazons, someone behind 40k never quite got over puberty, or that silly English post war concept that S&M is more sexy than other kinds of sex (repentia ).

flavour/flavoured (for reference)

[edit] JohnHwangDD hit the nail on the head.

George Spiggott wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Which is...? What exactly?

40k appears to have mature themes but on closer inspection there are no actual mature themes in 40k, no more than all those 70's war comics I used to read as a child. How are there any people in the 40k universe? Because nobody seems to have relationships (or god forbid, sex) ever, or even discuss it in any way. No-one has a wife or children in 40k. All human women are either nuns or amazons, someone behind 40k never quite got over puberty, or that silly English post war concept that S&M is more sexy than other kinds of sex (repentia ).

flavour/flavoured (for reference)

Commissar Gaunt has sex. So does Rawne and a few others in the Gaunt's Ghosts books. I'll avoid naming names to avoid spoilers. Eisenhorn had a secret lover that he tried to keep separate from his work as an Inquisitor. The fluff also talks about the train of courtesans that follow most Guard Regiments. Sexual tension and forbidden love is a plot element in both Eisenhorn and Ravenor.

Due to the nature of the Guard, children aren't addressed much - although there are a couple. Necromunda is essentially a coming-of-age game about juvenile delinquency. The Gaunt stories also talk a bit about his life as a young child and his education at the Schola. Andy Chambers' Survival Instinct talks about growing up in a Noble House, social status and gender roles.

There's a few female Commissars, female Arbites and hunt team leaders, many, many female Inquisitors. Women are medics, soldiers, fighter pilots and technicians. There are at least a few Generals who are women, not to mention leaders of Noble Houses, factory workers, Navy Captains and Rogue Traders.

You're pretty much spectacularly wrong in your assessment - or at the very least extremely superficial. There are sexist tropes in 40K. 40K is by no means limited to them.

And then, of course, there are Orks.

(Actually, I really like the idea of Orks as the only truly happy race in the 40K universe, free of fear and angst. makes me feel better playing in the otherwise stupidly "grim" setting)

And for Gothic themes: Skulls and gothic architecture make stuff gothic now? Wow, that genre really underwent some changes from what I understood it as.

40K is pulp science fiction. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

So outside of Dan Abnett it’s non existent, I’ll pick out my favorites.

Asmodai wrote: The fluff also talks about the train of courtesans that follow most Guard Regiments

Whores? I forgot about that archetype.

Asmodai wrote: Necromunda is essentially a coming-of-age game about juvenile delinquency.

What a joke, no it isn’t.

Asmodai wrote: There's a few female Commissars, female Arbites and hunt team leaders, many, many female Inquisitors. Women are medics, soldiers, fighter pilots and technicians.

The word you’re looking for here is token.

Asmodai wrote: There are at least a few Generals who are women, not to mention leaders of Noble Houses… …Navy Captains and Rogue Traders.

There are only a few of these ranks in the fluff anyway, how many of this few are women? A very small number I suspect. Where are these characters you mention?

Da Boss wrote:And then, of course, there are Orks.

A race that has had all the female concepts systematically removed over the years.

JohnHwangDD: Thank you, since you put it that way I'd have to agree that 40k has 'mature flavour', if you're 14. But I'd agree with the Spiggott that actual adults would not detect any. One only has to compare Dan Abnett's writing with that of Vladimir Nabokov, for example, to see the difference. A book written by the former might be mistaken for being mature because it touches on subjects of violence, sex, and disney-esque 'gothic' themes, while a book written by the latter is mature because of its sophisticated treatment of its subjects lends us insight into our own humanity.

That said, I don't like 40k because of its 'mature flavour', I like it because it's incredibly silly and fun, a bizarre pastiche of sour candy fluff rather than anything to satisfy a mature palette.

Nail on the head as usual, Nuglitch - why else would grown men spend hundreds of dollars to play what is basically 80's-metal-themed Yahtzee?

wight_widow wrote:Nail on the head as usual, Nuglitch - why else would grown men spend hundreds of dollars to play what is basically 80's-metal-themed Yahtzee?

thank you for that.

it made my day.