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Hello, I am Oh God It's Him Run; feel free to call me OGIHR (pronounced just like "ogre") for short. I got into 40K because I really like the aesthetic of the Tyranids (including the Genestealer Cults branch thereof), and I see such potential in their story, if GW would assign them a writer capable of imagining that they have any motivation beyond simply being the villain of their own story.

But I lost my enthusiasm for the hobby earlier this year, because I noticed that the text of the GSC's official errata file matched the text of one particular fan-blog from last year; not just word-for-word (which could have been a coincidence of mutual efforts at emulating the diction of a single source), but typo-for-typo, which is clearly evidence of copy-pasting. The writer of the fan-blog confirmed that he did not work for GW, and then I forwarded the evidence of plagiarism to their customer service department. And in response, GW did nothing. The same plagiarized content is still there in the current official errata file.

And yes, I will gladly share the aforementioned evidence with anyone who asks for it; I do not wish to be seen as badmouthing GW for the sake of being pointlessly antagonistic.

Please understand, my grandmother was a librarian (and I'm not talking about a Space Marine psyker), so I have always believed that plagiarism merits an automatic zero regardless of circumstances (but I make no judgments on anyone who continues to patronize GW's various product lines). So I doubt I'll ever resume work on assembling that box of Purestrain Genestealers, let alone ever spend another dime on any of GW's product lines ever again. Which is a genuine shame...

Because I do still enjoy their aesthetics and the potential for a good (or at least competent) writer to explore their story more deeply than "they're the bad guys, so the good guys kill them and stuff". And it occurs to me that I don't need to give GW any more of my money to make use of the licensed RPG systems that Fantasy Flight Games used to sell.

So I've decided to take all the worldbuilding-design I did for my Genestealer Cult army, and repurpose it for an RP campaign of Only War. But with the Genestealer Hybrids being the protagonists rather than the enemy force, because I see the Emperor of Mankind as a franchise-defining necromancer villain, rather than any sort of a heroic or tragic figure. Die for the Emperor; kill for the Emperor. Murders for the Murder-god.

And that's why I've created an account here. To seek the input of people who know the game Only War, so that I can get some help adapting it to the assumptions of the GSC rather than the IG proper.

So, beyond starting a thread in the "Board Games, Roleplaying Games & Card Games" section of the forum, what advice would anyone have for me?

Thank you for your consideration.

It sounds very odd that GW would simply copy-paste a document found online by a random user for their official Errata document. Whilst there are debate as to the quality of their rules writing they wouldn't want to leave themselves open to legal challenge in the least.

It's more likely that the user didn't work for GW but got access to an advanced copy (maybe they are friends or family with a GW worker) and posted that online in advance of the official release (since one would assume GW would prepare most documents well in advance of the official release date).

 Overread wrote:
It sounds very odd that GW would simply copy-paste a document found online by a random user for their official Errata document. Whilst there are debate as to the quality of their rules writing they wouldn't want to leave themselves open to legal challenge in the least.

It's more likely that the user didn't work for GW but got access to an advanced copy (maybe they are friends or family with a GW worker) and posted that online in advance of the official release (since one would assume GW would prepare most documents well in advance of the official release date).

The blog in question is at http://www.wuffell.com/category/40k, the "FAQ Predictions" post was up there months before the official errata were released, and to quote from the blog's writer's own words on the subject (after I alerted him to the apparent copy-pasting of his material), "One other thing to note, the team actually found my blog page and used the exact wording of some of my answers. I never expected this to happen, but I have no issue with it. I’m quite pleased actually."

And in case anyone things this is a gaslighting thing, on the Tyranid Hive his username is russellr and mine is OhGodItsHimRun; our conversations on the subject are a matter of public record there on that forum.

But I'm entirely happy to leave the copy-pasting issue aside, and just focus on the question of using Only War to model a GSC thing. Does anyone have any reason for me not to start a thread about it in the RPGs section of the board?

Hi,

Welcome to Dakka