Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Zweischneid wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:
That's just laziness on their part. They've written a pretty great piece of fiction, and instead of keeping it moving along they say, "now it's your turn!" They're storytellers who've abandoned their story, it shouldn't be the fans' job to fill in the blanks.

You think so?

I doubt it is laziness. It was the entire reason of writing the story in the first place. They never did, as a novel-author would, sit down and plan a story that would end. They wanted to create a story, any story, that could end at this precise moment of precipice. That was the whole point. Do you think they left out, to return to the example, 2 founding legions because they couldn't come up with another 2 (or 20 or 200) silly names like Space Wolves or Iron Hands? Or because they couldn't just say there were only.. dunno 18 or 15 or whatever Primarchs to begin with? Surely not. They left it blank because they wanted the blanks to be there. They took alot of effort to create these blanks. They are a result of conscious effort to provide narrative space for their "customers", not a symptom of lacking imagination.

The same applies to the "current state" of 40K. It has been, since its inception, hyped as the "pivotal moment" in the Galaxies history, precisely because that is where people presumably want to play. GW puts you into the final showdown of the great 40K epic saga, because that is what they sell you... the opportunity to play it with your minis through the final stages up to the rolling credits at the end.

There's a difference between leaving mysteries in the background like the missing primarchs and not advancing the story. I only started playing in 5th so I could be wrong, but hasn't the plot come a long way since the beginning? Races appeared and disappeared, the 13th crusade was started, Armageddon started. I'm not asking for them to destroy the universe or anything, just to do what they've presumably done before and give us some resolution or advancement from what's come before.

MandalorynOranj wrote:
There's a difference between leaving mysteries in the background like the missing primarchs and not advancing the story. I only started playing in 5th so I could be wrong, but hasn't the plot come a long way since the beginning? Races appeared and disappeared, the 13th crusade was started, Armageddon started. I'm not asking for them to destroy the universe or anything, just to do what they've presumably done before and give us some resolution or advancement from what's come before.

Yes and no.

They have obviously added and changed alot in the background over the last decades. But they have never "advanced" the storyline.

For example, there were no Necrons in original 40K. They were one of the last entirely new additions. They first appeared in some white dwarf articles as raiders, but little background. Later, they got their own Codex which massively retconned the entire "ancient history" of 40K, introducing the war in heavens, the idea of Eldar as an artificially created race, Dragon of Mars, etc.. . Now, with their recent book, Necrons again got (a much, much less invasive) retcon giving them more variety and personality outside the Star Gods, which in turn got retconned into fragments, rather than true gods.

They've been shifting alot of things around like that. But it is always a "change to the status-quo" in the sense that the "static" story of 40K was changed. It never evolved along a time-axis in a sense that you could say Codex X of Faction A represents the year 40.010 and Codex Y for Faction B represents it a hundred years later or so.

Zweischneid wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:
There's a difference between leaving mysteries in the background like the missing primarchs and not advancing the story. I only started playing in 5th so I could be wrong, but hasn't the plot come a long way since the beginning? Races appeared and disappeared, the 13th crusade was started, Armageddon started. I'm not asking for them to destroy the universe or anything, just to do what they've presumably done before and give us some resolution or advancement from what's come before.

Yes and no.

They have obviously added and changed alot in the background over the last decades. But they have never "advanced" the storyline.

For example, there were no Necrons in original 40K. They were one of the last entirely new additions. They first appeared in some white dwarf articles as raiders, but little background. Later, they got their own Codex which massively retconned the entire "ancient history" of 40K, introducing the war in heavens, the idea of Eldar as an artificially created race, Dragon of Mars, etc.. . Now, with their recent book, Necrons again got (a much, much less invasive) retcon giving them more variety and personality outside the Star Gods, which in turn got retconned into fragments, rather than true gods.

They've been shifting alot of things around like that. But it is always a "change to the status-quo" in the sense that the "static" story of 40K was changed. It never evolved along a time-axis in a sense that you could say Codex X of Faction A represents the year 40.010 and Codex Y for Faction B represents it a hundred years later or so.

I haven't read all of the new Necron fluff but I thought the only major retcon was regarding the C'tan, and the old Necron codex was basically stated to be the first wave of Necrons just waking up from stasis? I could be wrong however, just want to make sure.

And even if they haven't advanced things before, that doesn't stop people from wanting it to happen. If anything, the constant retcons and additions have built things up behind the line of he current setting to bursting point, where it's only natural for something to break through and advance.

And even if they don't do it, which they probably won't, can you really tell me you wouldn't want to read about what happens next? Even from Black Library?

Would I read it? Sure.

I am just saying it wasn't the intention. The story-lines are not set up to have a LOTR-style conclusion and then everyone goes home. The story-lines are set up to be where they are... with everyone in eternal conflict.

But the debate was whether or not this permanent cliffhanger was "laziness", and I tried to point out that it wasn't. The permanent cliffhanger was the reason they wrote the entire thing. It is - until their core philosophy towards the background changes - the raison d'etre for the whole thing and they put in A LOT of work to create this permanent cliffhanger.

That's fair a fair point. But given what they've done crafting this cliffhanger, why can't an advancement lead to another? People don't want resolution, just progress. I think where our points of view differ is where you may see them progressing the story as necessarily leading to an endgame, I just see it as resolving some current conflicts and then creating new ones, or bringing current conflicts to a new level.

What happens at the end of the 41st millennium has always been, and always will be, deliberately ambiguous. The fact that people are dying to know what does happen is testament to how well this ambiguity works as a fascination within the background.

If no advancement to the background interests you besides adding on to a linear narrative you should probably try soap operas.

That doesn't make any sense. Privateer Press, a much younger company, has shown that a linearly progressing story can work very well as the setting for a miniatures game.

There is no progress. The "cliffhanger", such as it is, cannot be resolved without one faction or another being severely hampered or changed in some fundamental way that would, basically, cut that faction out of the game for however long it takes between "chapters". This is not good business sense for GW.

DeffDred wrote:

SaintTom wrote:I just wanna see Chaos make it past Cadia. I really don't understand why they would bother besieging the planet instead of just destroying it. I mean its not like Abbadon doesn't have Planet Killer to do the job, but I suppose using it on some random planet to kill off some Karskins is a better use than to get rid of the planet that is always defending against his forces.

They did make it past Cadia. Typhus especially. The Planet Killer was able to destroy Cadia... but instead the prison colony exploded?

Abaddon: "Cadia is within range! Destroy them!"

Dark Mechanicus guy: "Your Greatness, there appears to be something wrong with the weapon... Strange... A completely different planet just exploded... in favor of the Imperials!"

Abaddon: "CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!"

Lol

Yes, I know some chaos fleets get past Cadia, but I mean they never destroy it, they're beaten back or have to escape and Cadia is just always there hampering the larger fleets from being able to actually go crusade around the Imperium some.

With them being able to apparently hold off so much doesn't really makes things very "dark" for the Imperium to me. On an individual level I feel the tension, but as an empire, they seem to be doing just fine.

MandalorynOranj wrote:Maybe it's a testament to their story-telling abilities, or just my own need to see how things turn out, but that's really unsatisfactory. If they never advance the story, then there isn't any tension or potential to it. Nothing else can happen because they refuse to move forward, so where is the potential? You know nothing else will happen and this is just the way it is, so where is the tension?

Because the conflicts are grand in scale, and are unresolved.

I mean, that's the whole point of the setting. And it's important to note, the background is a setting, not a story. It doesn't have a start, a middle and an end.

It sets us up to be able to play games within that setting.

Moving it forward would remove all that potential (because instead of ANYTHING being able to happen, we got told what happens) and tension is removed (because instead of not knowing how it will all go down, we are TOLD what will happen). And that resolution will invalidate many of the individual stories we as players have created, fundamentally change the way many of the current factions exist, and generally piss a lot of people off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MandalorynOranj wrote:That doesn't make any sense. Privateer Press, a much younger company, has shown that a linearly progressing story can work very well as the setting for a miniatures game.

Well, no. They've shown that you can do it, not that it works well or is popular.

Personally, it gaks me to tears. And I love the Iron Kingdoms.

Kaldor wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:That doesn't make any sense. Privateer Press, a much younger company, has shown that a linearly progressing story can work very well as the setting for a miniatures game.

Well, no. They've shown that you can do it, not that it works well or is popular.

Personally, it gaks me to tears. And I love the Iron Kingdoms.

What do you mean that it brings you to tears Kaldor? I used to play Warmachine a few years back and stopped after the 2nd Hordes expansion so I don't know what has happened story wise since then. Has it gone down the tubes?

I actually converted to 40k because I liked the setting much better than Warmachine. That and I had wanted to have a Ork army since I first saw some at a game store as a kid.

Brother Thomas wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:I want them to advance the fluff because they've set the current fluff up as a precipice. We're not at the final destination, all the pieces are being put into place for bigger and better things.

The current fluff is the cliffhanger in a season finale of a tv show, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next season.

Me too, I really want the emperor to be reborn via "star child". But it doesn't seem like it is ever going to happen because gw is too scared to upset the die hard "its a setting for my board games" people.

Yeah the background was created just as a setting for the tabletop game. But tbh, I barely play wh40k(among other things I don't have much time and people to play with), I'm mostly interested in the background and the books. I think it's a fantastic story.
The game is cool too of course

Zweischneid wrote:
Yes and no.

They have obviously added and changed alot in the background over the last decades. But they have never "advanced" the storyline.

For example, there were no Necrons in original 40K. They were one of the last entirely new additions. They first appeared in some white dwarf articles as raiders, but little background. Later, they got their own Codex which massively retconned the entire "ancient history" of 40K, introducing the war in heavens, the idea of Eldar as an artificially created race, Dragon of Mars, etc.. . Now, with their recent book, Necrons again got (a much, much less invasive) retcon giving them more variety and personality outside the Star Gods, which in turn got retconned into fragments, rather than true gods.

They've been shifting alot of things around like that. But it is always a "change to the status-quo" in the sense that the "static" story of 40K was changed. It never evolved along a time-axis in a sense that you could say Codex X of Faction A represents the year 40.010 and Codex Y for Faction B represents it a hundred years later or so.

This is a pretty "creative" interpretetion of events. The Necrons were inserted into the universe late. That is true. It was no real "retcon", though. Prior to the Necron codex, we knew almost nothing about the ancient history of the 40k galaxy. We knew the Slann/Old ones had either created or guided the evolution of the Eldar, humans and Orks (the "Brain Boyz" - Snotlings feeding on intelligence-boosting fungus (!) - of the old Waagh the Orks! books were implied to be the result of Slann manipulation, which in turn created the Orks) and we knew that the Slann empire fell in the distant past as their genetic manipulation of psychic races drew the attention of the Enslavers. Almost nothing was known of the Machine Cult, and the psychic nulls were unexplained. They then fitted the Necrons and the C'tan into this narrative in a way that explained events in detail and hinted at a C'tan plan for the universe that opened another major conflict in the 40k universe beyond Chaos vs Everyone.

That was fleshing out the universe, giving a deeper background setting for 40k. What happened with the last Necron codex was that the future potential of this conflict was more or less erased in a penstroke, and the Necrons reduced to a bunch of non-Imperial robot Space Marines without any interesting motivation beyond reconquering their empire. Now that is a retcon if I ever saw one.

And if the 13th Black Crusade and the worldwide web campaign that was supposed to influence the progress of the universe wasn't an advancing of the storyline I don't know what is. It was definitely about moving the universe ahead and it created a lot of enthusiasm. Nothing major happened, of course (even if the real-world events pretty much had Chaos win on Cadia but ending up being so decimated in Space they had no way of pushing deeper into imperial space).

Sencho wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

MandalorynOranj wrote:That doesn't make any sense. Privateer Press, a much younger company, has shown that a linearly progressing story can work very well as the setting for a miniatures game.

Well, no. They've shown that you can do it, not that it works well or is popular.

Personally, it gaks me to tears. And I love the Iron Kingdoms.

What do you mean that it brings you to tears Kaldor? I used to play Warmachine a few years back and stopped after the 2nd Hordes expansion so I don't know what has happened story wise since then. Has it gone down the tubes?

I actually converted to 40k because I liked the setting much better than Warmachine. That and I had wanted to have a Ork army since I first saw some at a game store as a kid.

What mostly irks me about the constant story progression in Warmachine is first and foremost, my inability to access that progression without constantly buying new rules manuals that I don't need.

And secondly, it makes it a lot harder to form a connection with my forces, and create my own narrative. I'm told exactly where my Warcasters are, and what they are doing, and that leaves little to no room for me to create my own story featuring those Warcasters. If Goreshade is said to be campaigning against Menoth in the south, it's doubly jarring to have him playing against a Khador force. Or if I want him to be working on an invasion behind enemy lines in Ord, for example. Or anything else that flies in the face of what we're specifically told is happening.

Why do the game and the setting have to be 100% connected? What's wrong with having the larger story of the universe not match up with what your tabletop experiences are, or how you want to imagine things going? Should people not recreate, say, the Battle of the Fang if Bjorn might die mid-game because that's not how the story happened? The game can just as easily be used to shw what might be or what could have been if they go on to tell us what is.

i would like to see what part alpharius has to play in 40k, rumor has it that he is secretly loyalist

People are making it sound like by advancing the story the story has to come to a conclusion. That simply isn't the case.

But proton hunter if they kill the Emperah the factions of ta' Humies wont be able to bounce around...so. If ta orkz unite they will over run ta galaxy...not gonna happen. If chaos gets off their buns and actually win a battle they will win every other battle automaticly...uh not really. If the tyranids are repelled from the eastern wing there wont be any of them left to strike somewhere diffrent...oh wait. If the Tau expand then their overwhelming tech will destroy all other races...lol at current codex winning. The eldar need to all die off to advance anything with their story right? naw b. PROTONHUNTER they'll do a Mass Effect!!!!

I hope you all see that there is a huge oh wait after these points... the problem isn't that if they advance the story the clock will strike midnight, cuz lets be honest the hour isn't even at 1 it might be at 3 (that's optimistic if you ask me, closer to 4 imho). No one is at terra, no one has even broken through IoM lines. The IoM is only beset at all sides. There is no drama if they just sit there and say well they sure are in trouble aren't they. They could still hey they might win and restore the status quo no problem. What's dramatic is if the enemies broke through and even if the IoM manage to win their would be lasting conciquences.

Why not advance the story? because you like to write your own story? Well good for you keep doing it. Advancing the story doesn't mean ending it. They wont pull a Mass Effect because there is no need for someone to win, just change the field of battle, shake things up.

That's not an advancement, that's just changing the names of things. Chaos does win battles. Tyranids are defeated. The IoM does lose worlds. It also gains worlds. None of these are advancements, simply events that don't change the overall setting.

MandalorynOranj wrote:Why do the game and the setting have to be 100% connected?

Because I like to forge my own narrative. Why bother creating a setting for the game, if the setting is irrelevant? The setting is one of the main drawcards of 40K, and if I were forced to disregard it to play my games it would stop being an enjoyable experience within the 40K setting, and instead be a jarring experience in rolling dice.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't want any massive change to the story like The Emperor getting out of his chair. I only want it to advance like 1 year so we can find out what's happens on Cadia and Armaggedon and the many other wars taking place in M41999.9999999999

This, I just want this to happen. I don't care if it is M45, there doesn't have to be a major story change. Just new crusades and blah blah. Maybe a reason for Mars to come into a army of their own.

Douglaspocock wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:I don't want any massive change to the story like The Emperor getting out of his chair. I only want it to advance like 1 year so we can find out what's happens on Cadia and Armaggedon and the many other wars taking place in M41999.9999999999

This, I just want this to happen. I don't care if it is M45, there doesn't have to be a major story change. Just new crusades and blah blah. Maybe a reason for Mars to come into a army of their own.

Firstly, that can't happen. We've been brought to the brink. Any advancement of the timeline must resolve the issues that have been described as immediately pending.

Secondly, and just as importantly, if you don't resolve any major plot points then what's the point? You've effectively changed nothing. Why would you want to change nothing?

new crusades and blah blah. Maybe a reason for Mars to come into a army of their own

The beauty of the 40K setting is that there is heaps of scope to create your own Crusades, and of course Mars already has their own army (the Skitarii and Titan legions come to mind).

Certain things should happen for the sake of refreshing the franchise.

Doesn't have to be drastic. Emperor doesn't have to die and blah blah. However I think:

1.) Cadia should fall. Have the Cadian Shock Troopers become refugees who are fighting to reclaim their homeland. It gives them another cool angle.
2.) Have Daemon Primarchs actually do something. Unlike the loyalist MIA/stasis Primarchs, these guys aren't off limits in fluff (have been mentioned a few times already) and they aren't only returning in the End Times. Even if it's just a passage about them fighting each other in the Warp as part of the Great Game, the current BS with them sitting around doing nothing is stupid.
3.) Have a large-scale Tyranid invasion take place on the Eastern Fringes that's rampaging across everything/advancing towards Terra. Create more urgency rather then successive defeats.
4.) Some sort of major Imperial political shakeup. Perhaps 50 Space Marine Chapters rise up in rebellion over anger with the Adeptus Terra over x, y, z. Get a new Age of Apostasy going. An Inquisition Civil War between Radical and Puritan. Something like that.

All of these things of course could just begin at 99999999.M41, giving you 10,000 years of history for any other fluff scenario that you want.

Harriticus wrote:Certain things should happen for the sake of refreshing the franchise.

Doesn't have to be drastic. Emperor doesn't have to die and blah blah. However I think:

1.) Cadia should fall. Have the Cadian Shock Troopers become refugees who are fighting to reclaim their homeland. It gives them another cool angle.
2.) Have Daemon Primarchs actually do something. Unlike the loyalist MIA/stasis Primarchs, these guys aren't off limits in fluff (have been mentioned a few times already) and they aren't only returning in the End Times. Even if it's just a passage about them fighting each other in the Warp as part of the Great Game, the current BS with them sitting around doing nothing is stupid.
3.) Have a large-scale Tyranid invasion take place on the Eastern Fringes that's rampaging across everything/advancing towards Terra. Create more urgency rather then successive defeats.
4.) Some sort of major Imperial political shakeup. Perhaps 50 Space Marine Chapters rise up in rebellion over anger with the Adeptus Terra over x, y, z. Get a new Age of Apostasy going. An Inquisition Civil War between Radical and Puritan. Something like that.

All of these things of course could just begin at 99999999.M41, giving you 10,000 years of history for any other fluff scenario that you want.

1. No, it would be like Maccrage falling to the Tyranids except even worse because Maccrage isn't the only world preventing a full fledged invasion of realspace by the forces of Chaos.
2. Angron came back from the EoT at least twice since the heresy, Mortorion at least once, Alpharius is dead and I don't think he ever went into the EoT, Horus is dead, Fulgrim is content to stay on his pleasure world, Magnus attacked the space mutts, Konrad is dead. So yeah most of the chaos primarchs have been doing stuff, are dead, or don't want to do stuff.
3. They have that, it is called Leviathan, which is barely kept in check by the Orks and Eldar manipulating (currently, originally it was some inquisitor who kicked it all off) the Orks.
4. No, since that is a huge change to the fluff, which 80% will hate and 20% will love regardless of how well written it is.
5. No. I am sick of everything happening in 999.M41. Oh yeah, the wars have been going on for 10k years, but everything interesting going on (Blood Angels being invaded by Daemons and Nids, 13th Black Crusade, Hive Fleet Leviathan) all happen in the exact same year. Adding something as major as an outright civil war would only exacerbate the stupidity of such a situation.

Mr Nobody wrote:I'd like to see the Tau expand farther, and find more xeno allies. something to make them more competitive story wise.

I would be into a few sections of the Imperium breaking away, forming new mini empires, mayhaps giving an alternate vision of hope, second potential rising of Man.
Mostly for new codexes!

There is no hope in the 41st millennium. There is only war.

@Buttons: Alpharius isn't confirmed dead. Guilliman thinks he killed Alpharius, but it could have just as easily been Omegon, or any of the random Alpha Legionnaires posing as Alpharius on any given day. Either way, either Alpharius, Omegon, or possibly both are still out there.

@Kaldor: I'm still not sure why any change to the fluff would have to mean the collapse of 40k as we know it and make your games pointless. If parts of the Imperium fracture (which would be awesome) couldn't your Space Marines still be part of the loyal bunch, or be fighting in an area of the galaxy that hasn't really heard about it? That would at least give a justification for all the Imperial vs Imperial fights going on on the tabletops. If the Tau expand how does that hurt your game? There are always more areas of the galaxy for you to fight in that wouldn't have been too affected by any change they make.

MandalorynOranj wrote: If parts of the Imperium fracture (which would be awesome) couldn't your Space Marines still be part of the loyal bunch, or be fighting in an area of the galaxy that hasn't really heard about it?

If the Imperium fractured it would be destroyed. It's currently pushed to the limits, and dividing it's resources and giving it extra foes to fight would make it's position untenable. I suppose you could advance it for the two or three days that it would exist between fracturing and being completely over-run, but what would be the point? There's currently a tense 'showdown' feel in the background. Replacing it with a "The Imperium is boned, you've only got a few weeks at best" is something that would turn me off as a player.

Basically, if we liken 40K to a TV series, we've been set up with a cliffhanger episode. What would be the point of adding another episode without resolving that cliffhanger?

Further, resolving that cliffhanger would break the game.

Perhaps 40k could advance with every issue of White Dwarf; albeit an extended, longer version of the mag, so it can have more content.

While I recognise that a major advancement of the story would ruin the game for at least SOME people, I'd like to see some more progression along the lines that we've already seen.

There are plenty of examples in the background of individual heroes, rather than entire factions, where this is the case. To give a few examples:
Cato Sicarius - goes from being a relatively normal Captain to next-in-line for Ultramarine Chapter Master;
Captain Tycho - was written into the background as a result of a White Dwarf battle report, from there he eventually is inducted into the Death Company and dies;
Grand Master Belial - becomes Master of the Dark Angels 1st Company, partly in thanks to the Piscina campaign;
Eldrad Ulthran - went from being a very prominent figure of Ulthwe to dead/missing/floating in the ether. 40k's own Obi-wan Kenobi, if you will.

I'd also like to see more GW-run campaigns and events that shape the background. Granted, the last Black Crusade didn't actually change all that much, but going before that... Armageddon progressed the stories of Ghazghkull, Yarrick, Tycho (oh, of course, he's dead now!), and gave us rules and much more detail on Black Templars and Salamanders as well as another Guard regiment in the Steel Legion to play with. Piscina continued the stories of Ghazghkull, Nazdreg and Belial that has since become as close to official "canon" as we're going to get. Both were the results of players' games, not just a writing team.

Well it depends on how they advance the fluff I suppose. The current version is boring to a lot of people since it hasnt changed much since forever. They just add a few skirmishes and fleet battles around with an M date and thats it.

If the Emperor awakes, I'd pretty much quit 40k on the spot. We need much less SM fanfare not more. Having the God Corpse King rise with his bunch of merrymen the Primarchs would utterly shatter the world into gak.

Now You give me a rise of Chaos, Ork, or Massive Nid invasions across the map that puts EVERYONE on the back foot etc... Ill take some of that anyday! Take my money!