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I will say that Dragon Age, though from a developer whose prior games were based on D&D and other settings with character morality axes, chucked the concept of 'alignment' completely and was much stronger for it. A lot of depth in character and conflict gets squashed when you define an absolute moral system and start stuffing characters into mental pigeonholes based on their place on the alignment axis.

GW's efforts to push the game more into a black-and-white space are part of their efforts to make the game more 'family-friendly' and rely on the assumption that people are stupid and find moral complexity confusing. Trust the players, I say, let us decide where the moral line becomes too much for us to laugh off with 'it's just a game' for ourselves. And/or remember that the central point of a wargame's lore is to provide a framework in which there's a good reason for everybody to be fighting everybody else, and thus everyone in the room is going to be a d***.

The tertiary problem to all this is that one of the great strengths of the Imperium is that the fluff is broad enough that there is no underlying morality to a faction as a whole. If you find what your army does in their books objectionable it is absolutely within your power to make up a planet, Chapter, Craftworld, etc. full of nicer people who for one reason or another do things in a way you find less objectionable. Trying to describe any absolute, monolithic, or otherwise all-encompassing cultural/moral traits of any 'faction' so large as to have their own Codex is fundamentally misguided. We hate Matt 'Spiritual Liege' Ward so much because he tried to dictate all Space Marines' attitudes towards the Ultramarines at least as much as any other mistake he made in the lore, he tried to tell us what our armies thought.

The weakness of trying to smooth out the game lore to avoid moral complexity is that it involves creating a hard-and-fast alignment system and shoving everyone into alignment boxes. Your a**hole Imperial forces and friendly Chaos warbands get told (by implication) they're not allowed to think that way because it doesn't fit into their faction's alignment box. And whatever the particulars of the alignment boxes I can guarantee you that will piss off a lot more people than will be happy about the fact that everyone else is being ordered to fall into line with their specific moral compass.

CommanderRednaxela wrote:
Can't speak much on DnD, but 40k defiantly should remain in shades of grade, with no good or evil. Holy and good are not the same thing, and shouldn't be. Let the Guard send millions to their death, let the Imperium be brutal, and militant, let them be the nessercy empire to hold Mankind together, and let Space Marines and Guardsman (and plastic SoB, please) be the bringers of order in a galaxy of true heresy. Let them do good and bad like all empires. Take the Soviet Union (which the IoM is based off), they let millions die to save their soveity, and brought the end to the Nazis(no Murica didn't stop them, the Soviets did, 27 million dead russians to 420,000 thousand americans. These statics include all deaths related to the war, shuch as being shot or dieng of disease in the terrible conditions), and liberated the Jews from the concentration camps. They also killed millions in Stalin's purges. Or the Roman Empire (which it is also based off) who would conquer all, but would be willing to merge your religions, and give your tribe (planet) its own goverment (temporaly) and bring your people more wealth and trade. Ther should be no good and no evil, we do good and we do bad, it is the truth. Humans aren't perfect, (except the Emperor!Well, not really, but that's heresy) and niether are our empires, let 40k reflect this.

Well, yeah, of course. 40k is fiction, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to play a generally-evil faction in fiction if you want to. It's not like anyone reasonable is gonna start treating the Imperium like something that any country in real life should make happen, and the few that do are typically dealt with by police before they get too far, usually without the, erm, can I call them nutjobs? nutjobs, being harmed by police in the process.

My point is that the Imperium and war are bad. But I think we all know that war is bad, which is why we try really hard to avoid in real life and have great respect for those who are willing to fight it when it becomes a necessary evil. You could consider the violence in games to simply be an homage to all of those who fought and died to secure the place we have in this world right now. Not to glorify it, simply to never forget their sacrifices, regardless of who they fought for.

Like Sabaton sang about in their song "Hearts of Iron", and I'm paraphrasing here, "This song is not about the Reich, it's about the men who fought and died for it simply as soldiers who were asked to fight a war they may not have believed in by their government. What peace can they expect?" The actual lyric in the song is much shorter of course.

 Pouncey wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
That I get.
But the Wolves and Inquisition aren't currently in a civil war, they've called ceasefire and continually try to get the other to re-instigate it.

So they decided to stop fighting.

Hence innocents die less often, because the war is not happening anymore.

Does this change anything about what I said?

Yes.
What you said was - That's what happens in war - the point being made is that these "allies" are not at war, at least not with each other. They're trying to reignite the war but still be the justified side.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
Recent GW fluff has drawn an explicit, clear, black and white line between good and evil. The Imperium is good and Chaos is evil.

I kinda disagree with GW's simplistic mono-axial approach. In D&D they already had two axes of alignment, Order vs Chaos and Good vs Evil.

What do you guys think? Should be a simple clean line, or should it be more complex?

Of course, the Imperium is good and just. To question this is treason. And treason is HERESY.


Please report to your unit Commissar. He or she will help you....clear up... any uncertainty on your part.

There is only evil in dark future.

Who is good depends who you ask, Many books are written by imperium point of view. Maybe Eldars are closest of good people. You can see even Necrons good when you look grim dark.

The whole basis of the setting is that no one is good, and the most instantly recognisable 'heroes' are cannibalistic inhuman monsters working for a decaying fascist empire. The beautiful thing about the setting, though, is that there is so much more to it than that, the Imperium gets less easy to pin down and more complex and fractured the closer you look at it. Making it, or any of the Factions, more obviously heroic or villainous would be to the setting's detriment, in my view.

Well I'm normally for seeing the good in everything, but chaos is so evil it's not even funny. At one point I heard in the old lore each chaos god represented good traits and bad and then I might be swayed to them. So Khorne is the god of slaughter but also honor. Slaanesh is excess but also perfection in any and all forms (even combat or singing).

Now however GW has taken out any sort of nuance to chaos and they are just dumb idiots following uncaring gods who are going to eat them all.

 Gamgee wrote:
Well I'm normally for seeing the good in everything, but chaos is so evil it's not even funny. At one point I heard in the old lore each chaos god represented good traits and bad and then I might be swayed to them. So Khorne is the god of slaughter but also honor. Slaanesh is excess but also perfection in any and all forms (even combat or singing).

Now however GW has taken out any sort of nuance to chaos and they are just dumb idiots following uncaring gods who are going to eat them all.

I think there's a lot of room for chaos to represent the untamed and unexamined impulses of mortals. Sure, let each god be so vast and extreme that they go beyond the ability to interact with mortals. Let their greater and lesser daemons do that. Let the daemons have every set of characteristics the god as a whole pulls to them. Let's have bloodthirsters that are raging monsters, ones that are ruthless strategists and ones that are grumpy quartermasters. Let's have lords of change that can be anything from manipulators, to insular sorcerers and even genuine teachers. It'd be better if the danger of chaos was its enormity and uncontrollability, while holding infinite potential. If you don't udnerstand that you can't master chaos, only your own chaos-self, you'll eventually be doomed in your interactions with it. But if you do understand and have the courage to face your inner demons, you can take the next step of mortal existence.

The legions of space marines deal with the militaristic and power-hungry aspects because that's what they are interested in and can understand. Regular cultists and wizards in civilian contexts would have a much greater spectrum of experiences.


The Imperium should also be vast and non-human in its scope, and the greatest waste of potential in the history of humanity and possibly the galaxy. Not because of the heresy but because of its fundamental goal of conquering and meeting everything with mistrust.

I think "good or bad" is too reductionist for 40k. Also kind of dull.

 Gamgee wrote:
Well I'm normally for seeing the good in everything, but chaos is so evil it's not even funny. At one point I heard in the old lore each chaos god represented good traits and bad and then I might be swayed to them. So Khorne is the god of slaughter but also honor. Slaanesh is excess but also perfection in any and all forms (even combat or singing).

Now however GW has taken out any sort of nuance to chaos and they are just dumb idiots following uncaring gods who are going to eat them all.

Yeah this is one of the more disappointing directions the fluff has taken.

'They're all MAAAAD from warp exposure' makes for a boring villain.

Give them nuance. Make us think that maybe, just possibly, they might be right about the Imperium. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

I'd also love to see some more 'reasonable marines' Chaos forces, or chaotic civilisations that are actually stable and organised. Things like the Blood Pact and suchlike

Have you read any of Aaron Dembksi-Bowden's Black Library novels with Chaos Space Marine protagonists? they're nuanced.

 Gamgee wrote:
Well I'm normally for seeing the good in everything, but chaos is so evil it's not even funny. At one point I heard in the old lore each chaos god represented good traits and bad and then I might be swayed to them. So Khorne is the god of slaughter but also honor. Slaanesh is excess but also perfection in any and all forms (even combat or singing).

Now however GW has taken out any sort of nuance to chaos and they are just dumb idiots following uncaring gods who are going to eat them all.

Chaos has always been a force for evil, but not all of its followers are necessarily so too, at least initially; at first they may be simple renegades who have been outcast by the Imperium, evidenced in many cases, including the Thousand Sons. However, all of these people end up being twisted by one of the gods one way or another over time.

There's very little good in the whole of the 40k universe, and that which is there is not really scattered evenly across the factions we know. I'd find it hard to argue that the Dark Eldar have any good left in them, or the Tyranids, or the Orks (who aren't evil, but certainly aren't good either).

Nurglitch wrote:
Have you read any of Aaron Dembksi-Bowden's Black Library novels with Chaos Space Marine protagonists? they're nuanced.

I haven't, but it's exactly that sort of thing that's made me realise what was missing from the codex/game's depiction of CSM. Reading about the Horus Heresy novels with nuanced traitor primarchs and other such kickass stuff has opened up to me the sheer potential there is for Chaos Marines (and other chaotic factions too).

Chaos is Chaotic evil (Big surprise there)
IoM is Lawful Evil

 General Annoyance wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Well I'm normally for seeing the good in everything, but chaos is so evil it's not even funny. At one point I heard in the old lore each chaos god represented good traits and bad and then I might be swayed to them. So Khorne is the god of slaughter but also honor. Slaanesh is excess but also perfection in any and all forms (even combat or singing).

Now however GW has taken out any sort of nuance to chaos and they are just dumb idiots following uncaring gods who are going to eat them all.

Chaos has always been a force for evil, but not all of its followers are necessarily so too, at least initially; at first they may be simple renegades who have been outcast by the Imperium, evidenced in many cases, including the Thousand Sons. However, all of these people end up being twisted by one of the gods one way or another over time.

There's very little good in the whole of the 40k universe, and that which is there is not really scattered evenly across the factions we know. I'd find it hard to argue that the Dark Eldar have any good left in them, or the Tyranids, or the Orks (who aren't evil, but certainly aren't good either).

The FFG rpg black crusade said they wanted to try and bring back old lore for the rpg to make the chaos gods more nuanced. Being the newbie here I can't say if they are correct or not but they said back in the day chaos gods had some other aspects to them rather than all being strictly evil (just mostly like 80%). I have no idea how cannon that is or what old lore they might be referencing, whatever it is seems to be retconned.

 Gamgee wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
Well I'm normally for seeing the good in everything, but chaos is so evil it's not even funny. At one point I heard in the old lore each chaos god represented good traits and bad and then I might be swayed to them. So Khorne is the god of slaughter but also honor. Slaanesh is excess but also perfection in any and all forms (even combat or singing).

Now however GW has taken out any sort of nuance to chaos and they are just dumb idiots following uncaring gods who are going to eat them all.

Chaos has always been a force for evil, but not all of its followers are necessarily so too, at least initially; at first they may be simple renegades who have been outcast by the Imperium, evidenced in many cases, including the Thousand Sons. However, all of these people end up being twisted by one of the gods one way or another over time.

There's very little good in the whole of the 40k universe, and that which is there is not really scattered evenly across the factions we know. I'd find it hard to argue that the Dark Eldar have any good left in them, or the Tyranids, or the Orks (who aren't evil, but certainly aren't good either).

The FFG rpg black crusade said they wanted to try and bring back old lore for the rpg to make the chaos gods more nuanced. Being the newbie here I can't say if they are correct or not but they said back in the day chaos gods had some other aspects to them rather than all being strictly evil (just mostly like 80%). I have no idea how cannon that is or what old lore they might be referencing, whatever it is seems to be retconned.

Your almost right, the Chaos gods dont really have any good, and technically speaking the dont have any evil either, they are simply manifestations of emotions and feelings.

Khorne: Violence, power, murder, bravery, and strength
Nurgal: Rot, death, disease, willpower, stalwart
Tzeentch: Change, lies, trickery, knowledge and the seeking of it.
Slannsh: Desire, lust, pain pleasure, passion, love, kindness.

Then of course there are the eldar gods while is a whole other bad of ticks, then there is also Malal

FFG i think? is still cannon at this point, but if it is, only bits and pieces of it are.

Good to hear i kinda remembered it right. More cannon than not given the fact how they wholesale ripped the DW lore from the rpg for the codex lol. Of which I am proud. They had to grudgingly admit they made something cool. I hope some other of FFG's creative seeds sprout into main stream GW. There were some warp-priest enginseer type guys on a planet who made some really interesting weapons that would be cool and unique to see chaos get.

 Gamgee wrote:
The FFG rpg black crusade said they wanted to try and bring back old lore for the rpg to make the chaos gods more nuanced. Being the newbie here I can't say if they are correct or not but they said back in the day chaos gods had some other aspects to them rather than all being strictly evil (just mostly like 80%). I have no idea how cannon that is or what old lore they might be referencing, whatever it is seems to be retconned.

Like Backspacehacker said, they can and do have traits that can be considered to be desirable (Khorne reflects honour, Tzeentch reflects knowledge and intelligence, Nurgle reflects unbreakable will, and Slaanesh reflects beauty). However, all of them amplify these traits to over excessive levels, and their followers pick up on that too, alongside all the bad traits they embody.

Technically, the gods of Chaos are not evil; they and their minions are a strange manifestation of the warp caused by all psychic beings in the galaxy and their emotions. However, their actions are and will be considered by most to be evil.

Yeap true.

 ChaosDad wrote:
Considering that the Chaos powers are fueled by the emotions, thoughts and feelings of the people of the galaxy (mainly the humans just because they are the most numerous...),

Orks and Nids are both more numerous.

Necrons in terms of number of bodies might be if they were all awake.. not that all of them are sentient in any sense that matters.

OK so first of all I am a noobie to both the game itself and the fluff, so I am by no means an expert, and as I read more fluff my opinions and judgements may change.

Having said this, as I read intros to each race in order to determine which army to collect, the more I read and deeper I delved the more i found myself disgusted by the Imperium of man.

I do not want to start a fight, just stating my views and opinions. Obviously it is an extremely complex and intricate conflict. Any conflict which has gone on as long as this, and been as widespread as this, will have atrocities commited by both sides. As such both sides will feel just in their actions and convictions.

But from point of view it is often the actions of the Imeprium which leave me feeling sickened or disgusted, and many times I have found myself thinking that perhaps the Chaos Space Marines are the better part of humanity. Also are the Xenos really all that bad? I think not.

It's worth noting that in the beginning, everything about 40k was very tongue-in-cheek. Every faction was made so dark that it was comical. There was a great interview with Rick Priestly a few years ago that had some great quotes about the development of the 40k setting:

“To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic,” [Priestly] said.

“The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they’re brutal, but they’re also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don’t know whether he’s alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There’s no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft.

“It’s got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten.”

It's certainly appropriate to find the Imperium terrible if you take it literally. Pretty much every faction (with the possible exception of the Tau, who were added much later) were designed to be equally horrible, satirical takes on science fiction tropes, religion, bureaucracy, and so forth. Like all satire, it can be quite off-putting if you take it at face value, so I can see why GW would want to try and paint the Space Marines as "good guys" because there really aren't anything in the game that you can point to as being good. At the same time, it's kind of a hopeless task unless they plan on retconning 30 years of over-the-top gallows humor.

That said, the galactic scope of the game gives you pretty much infinite leeway in how you see your own armies. There are remote worlds that don't see ships from the Imperium for hundreds of years. Even when there are crises, the fickle nature of the warp means that by the time help arrives (assuming the message gets through the imperial bureaucracy at all), it might be decades. If you want your Imperial Guard army to come from a planet where people have had peace and harmony for 200 years, I say more power to you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, if anyone wants to read the rest of the Rick Priestly interview, it's a pretty interesting bit of insight into the 40k setting, as well as the early workings of GW as a company.

http://cardboardsandwich.com/features/blood-dice-and-darkness-how-warhammer-defined-gaming-for-a-generation/