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 Peregrine wrote:
Yeah, but the problem was that it only counted as a "conflict" when there was absolutely no way to make both sources fit. If there was any interpretation, no matter how ridiculous, that allowed both sources to be correct then that was the answer.

That's not a problem. "The new book overrides the old comic. Deal with it." Don't see a problem there.

Well yeah, that's kind of the point. Did you enjoy the story? If so, why does it matter if someone else disagrees with you about what is canon? Why does it matter if the publisher has an Official Canon Policy?

Why does it matter? You were the one griping about the Star Wars canon system and praising GW's lack of a policy. If "as long you enjoy the setting nothing else matters" is the metric we're using here, you tell me why GW's stance is superior to Lucas'.

I got out of the game because I stopped liking it.

NOT because "the creator" left the game. He is not a deity, I do not worship at his feet. That he dislikes the direction the game took after he was shunted aside is more something due to coincidence.

Personally, I would prefer a "proper" canon with clear-cut truths and facts as well, but I've come to accept that this just isn't the way the creators decided to run the IP .. and perhaps more importantly, by now there is too much silly stuff and contradictions that it is pretty much too late to try and order everything without doing a huge retcon that would likely end up having to declare 90% of the material invalid.
This way, I can at least cherrypick what I think is cool, and ignore stuff like Black Library's Horus Heresy comic-style superheroes, or the existence of divine magic and arbitrary weapon tiers in FFG's Pen & Paper, as far as my GW-studio-focused vision of the setting is concerned.

On a sidenote, I recall those old Marvel Star Wars comics were classified non-canon when Leland Chee organised the Holocron Continuity Database, for precisely the reasons Peregrine cited, and because they were made before Lucasfilm bothered with continuity in licensed products. I'm with BlaxicanX in that the setting's canon system was pretty intuitive, though I also agree that it included some stuff that really didn't have to be a thing. All in all, I still would have preferred something like that for 40k, both because it may have prevented some of the more outrageous stories that still seem to colour the fanbase's perception, and because it is my belief that canonicity is a unifying factor that truly makes every product "add to the whole" of a larger world, rather than the latter only existing in individual, customised bubbles of every fan by themselves. It would be nice to have more common ground for discussing 40k's background, but there we go.

The truly fascinating (and a bit sad) thing is that the majority of the playerbase, including the wikis so often cited as "proof" in their debates, apparently still has not realised the above.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
That's not a problem. "The new book overrides the old comic. Deal with it." Don't see a problem there.

Except, again, they only used that as an absolute last resort. If there was any way that both sources could be correct, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, then both sources were canon.

Why does it matter? You were the one griping about the Star Wars canon system and praising GW's lack of a policy. If "as long you enjoy the setting nothing else matters" is the metric we're using here, you tell me why GW's stance is superior to Lucas'.

I'm not arguing that either one is better, because that's not the point. TheKbob claimed that they couldn't enjoy the 40k stories because GW doesn't have a proper canon policy. I pointed out that this doesn't make any sense because a canon policy doesn't necessarily produce better stories. The Star Wars policy of "write whatever you want, we'll figure out a way to make it fit" isn't really all that different from the 40k policy of "write whatever you want, the fans will figure out a way to make it fit" in terms of what kind of stories it produces. You still get inconsistencies between sources and authors with different styles, all the canon policy adds is an official This Is Canon label.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

Why does it matter? You were the one griping about the Star Wars canon system and praising GW's lack of a policy. If "as long you enjoy the setting nothing else matters" is the metric we're using here, you tell me why GW's stance is superior to Lucas'.

Apples and oranges. As has been said a million, billion times the WH40K background is a setting, not a story. The reason GW's system is superior for GW is that it allows a great deal of flexibility for the players to make up their own stories. If little Timmy and his friend want to play a campaign where the Blood Angels were really traitors all along, and Dante teams up with Abaddon to take on the Ultramarines, they can, without worrying about a "canon" conflict. Every player can come up with his own story and modify the existing background material as they see fit, without worrying about a bunch of people on a bunch of forums pointing out discrepancies. That would not be possible in the Star Wars canon.

 Peregrine wrote:
Except, again, they only used that as an absolute last resort. If there was any way that both sources could be correct, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, then both sources were canon.

What?

I'm not arguing that either one is better, because that's not the point. TheKbob claimed that they couldn't enjoy the 40k stories because GW doesn't have a proper canon policy. I pointed out that this doesn't make any sense because a canon policy doesn't necessarily produce better stories. The Star Wars policy of "write whatever you want, we'll figure out a way to make it fit" isn't really all that different from the 40k policy of "write whatever you want, the fans will figure out a way to make it fit" in terms of what kind of stories it produces. You still get inconsistencies between sources and authors with different styles, all the canon policy adds is an official This Is Canon label.

Sure, a canon policy doesn't prevent dumb plot-lines and poor writing from occuring, but that's never been the intent of a canon policy- its function is to provide a clear and concise metric for the fandom of how the Universe works, which a canon policy does a better job of than a Universe lacking such a policy.

And the proof is in the pudding on that. The Horus Heresy series is the most internally consistent series of stories Games Workshop has ever produced. It's no coincidence that it's also the only series of stories where the authors are required to attend monthly meetings and put their ideas for novels through a peer-reviewed quality-control check. "No, you can't do that in your story, no you can't do that either. No, you can't give Loken butterfly wings in your book, that doesn't jive with how he's been established in the other novels", etc.

Despite your claims, having a reinforced canon policy does result in generally less inconsistencies within a Universe.

tgjensen wrote:
Apples and oranges. As has been said a million, billion times the WH40K background is a setting, not a story. The reason GW's system is superior for GW is that it allows a great deal of flexibility for the players to make up their own stories. If little Timmy and his friend want to play a campaign where the Blood Angels were really traitors all along, and Dante teams up with Abaddon to take on the Ultramarines, they can, without worrying about a "canon" conflict. Every player can come up with his own story and modify the existing background material as they see fit, without worrying about a bunch of people on a bunch of forums pointing out discrepancies. That would not be possible in the Star Wars canon.

Doesn't matter. I can "make my own story" in the Star Wars setting just as easily as I can in the 40K setting. If Games Workshop established a canon policy tomorrow and started dictating what does and what doesn't make sense within the scheme of the 40K universe, it wouldn't impede on Timmy's ability to make his own fluff in the slightest.

The concept of fan-fiction existed long before Games Workshop did. Allowing their players to make fan-fiction with their IP doesn't give them a pass for being lazy in establishing their Universe.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Doesn't matter. I can "make my own story" in the Star Wars setting just as easily as I can in the 40K setting. If Games Workshop established a canon policy tomorrow and started dictating what does and what doesn't make sense within the scheme of the 40K universe, it wouldn't impede on Timmy's ability to make his own fluff in the slightest.

The concept of fan-fiction existed long before Games Workshop did. Allowing their players to make fan-fiction with their IP doesn't give them a pass for being lazy in establishing their Universe.

It isn't laziness, it is a choice. And it isn't fan-fiction, it is a legitimate interpretation of intentionally vague or otherwise open to interpretation of fluff.

Despite your claims, having a reinforced canon policy does result in generally less inconsistencies within a Universe.

There isn't a single inconsistency anywhere in the 40k fluff. Only seeming inconsistencies.

tgjensen wrote:It isn't laziness, it is a choice. And it isn't fan-fiction, it is a legitimate interpretation of intentionally vague or otherwise open to interpretation of fluff.

Though you are correct about the choice, you can have "intentionally vague or open to interpretation" background within a proper canon. These two things are not mutually exclusive - and is in fact a tool which, in the Star Wars EU, has been used in the past to reconcile seemingly contradictory sources (what Peregrine criticised, I guess).

tgjensen wrote:There isn't a single inconsistency anywhere in the 40k fluff. Only seeming inconsistencies.

Only if you label each product regardless of its nature unreliable. There are many cases where a codex, a novel or an RPG book provide information in a manner that must mean that one or more of them must be "wrong", rather than merely providing a possible explanation by having it come from a possibly biased or misinformed in-universe source.

Marc Gascogne actually makes it sound as if any and all of the books we read, including the rulebooks and codices, are shaped by fallible in-universe knowledge - but in this case, the problem would be that the information isn't actually presented that way. Usually we read the fluff from the perspective of the omniscient observer, with only bits of subjective in-character fluff added in the form of in-universe documentation or personal memories/retellings.

All that matters is your own opinion about 40k. No one needs a guy to tell him what to like and what not, even if the guy is the founder of XYZ.

Given the quality of the writing involved in some of the Black Library and a great deal of the main studio, it's laziness. Or else you'd not have the Tyranids sliding further into derpville or get get very silly Ward fluff.

They have "loose fluff" so they can write in crap like Murderfang and Rowboat Logan and then say "It always existed, it was just a secret! Ha-HA! Cheers!" Yah, no. I also see it as a cop out from doing the hard work. It ruins all the mystery that they know what the secret note that was left by the Emperor to the Grey Knights is. What's in the "literal" Black Library. Where's some of the Primarchs, etc. If it's all effectively hearsay that can be changed on a lark, then you have no consistency. No consistency ensures that there's a cognitive disconnect and disallows suspension of disbelief. It all becomes made up nonsense versus a story or fluff.

And setting it is not. Ravenloft is a setting. Dark Sun is a setting. This isn't an RPG but a war game with named characters and grandeur. It has multitudes of characters in 30k and 40k that they can add or delete at will regardless of someone's enjoyment. There's no way to recreate Marbo in the new IG book. As silly as he was, I like him, and his removal was a reason I sold off that allied detachment. Killed my fun.

I'm liking Warmachine more and more with the setting AND narrative that, while still a silly power escalation fantasy, is moving forward and provides reasonable room for army additions and character growth. Not "propoganda!"

Since the topic is quite off as it is, I may as well inquire - what instances, exactly, of 40k lore don't fit together to make it non-canon? I haven't been able to read much Black Library, I'm afraid :( (Is it only Black Libary?)

I think having a loose cannon is desirable. I don't believe having an absolute, consistent cannon of truths is necessary or even a good idea. We don't have such clarity about our own history, so if writing the history of another world, there should be some blank spots, some areas that are just vaguely known.

When you read a historical fiction novel, you know that the events depicted in the novel are not literally what happened in 'real life' all those decades or centuries ago. The same should apply when you read a story set in a fictional world. Imagine the author is just writing a more cinematic version of what actually happened. (of course, the codices depict things more like a history book so those should be 'accurate', relative to the novels)

That being said, if other people want a set of universal truths that's fine by me, and I really think GW has its current policy on cannon simply out of laziness.