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.
Getting back into 40K recently, I discovered that the fiction written for the game had finally made the jump from “setting” to “storyline”.
I have a lot of thoughts on this, and I am going to spoiler them so that I don't put people off contributing their own responses as I am interested in other points of view.
Spoiler:
When I started, 40K was definitely heavier on the “setting” side of things. It was presented as a vast place full of people, but we knew very few named characters. There might be quotes in the books attributed to one or other person, but presented without context, leaving you to wonder about the person and what they might be like. Units were described in general terms, evocative writing but detached and not telling a story as much as describing a world. There were bits of fiction, but they tended to be mood pieces, designed to show the mindset of the combatants and the sorts of things they cared about. One that stands out in my memory is the Goff Boss sitting in a trench thinking about the fact that they might be losing the war written by Bill King. That Boss was clearly just a random Boss and not a character I could buy, but he gave me an insight into how the Orks saw the war. Similarly, Sargeant Raphael on the Blood Angels showed the point of view of a marine, and alluded to mysterious stuff like his life on Baal, it's ruined state and the differences between him and a normal human that fired my imagination like nothing else in the book.
This impacted on how we played and thought about the game. A setting is a place to make your own stories, to play them out on the battlefield and develop the experiences of your army. My brother realised quickly there were no “good guys” in 40k, and so he made up a background for his Imperial Guardsmen that they were trying to secede from the Imperium and find an uninhabited world to hide on and get on with their lives. My loyal Blood Angels were tasked by the High Lords of Terra (another anonymous but sinister sounding group) to hunt them down and exterminate them for treachery.
Over time, Games Workshop started to focus more and more on “Special Characters”. Originally, the idea was that your commander represented you on the field, and you should customise them to represent yourself. But they saw a desire from the fanbase to know more about the cool heroes in the background and to use them as archetypes representing the factions. Gradually, more and more Special Characters got added to each army, even stuff like the Tyranids and Necrons, for whom individuality was fairly meaningless. I remember Jervis Johnson talking about this, saying how he had been influenced by how cool his son thought Mephiston was (to be fair, I had thought Commander Tycho was equally cool as a kid).
This lead to a feeling of the universe being more personal, but it also started to shrink the setting. The background became more of a backdrop for the escapades of these characters, and began to feel less like a vast place full of inumerable people pursuing their own (often futile) goals. As time went on, pressure mounted from fans of this more character and story focused approach to “advance the timeline” and tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. Warmachine was launched as a game that promised to do exactly that, after the success of games like Legend of Five Rings with this approach.
Seeing the success of this, GW embarked on a few grand scale campaigns of their own. The first were small in scale, a sector or an island (the Albion or Third Armageddon War campaigns). Some really awesome and creative stuff came out of this, and it was super enjoyable. But the next campaign had to be even bigger – the Storm of Chaos and 13th Crusade Campaigns. Even at the time, I felt this was jumping the shark, as one of the core conflicts of the setting was about to be resolved in a way that would change the setting forever. But as it happened, the campaigns were both damp squibs, with the writers realising that they could not destroy the setting by allowing the forces of destruction to triumph, and neither could they allow their arch villains to be destroyed.
And so, gradually, the background material started to take the form of narratives focused around characters you could buy. Army construction, as in, ways of customising your army, began to depend on buying a particular special character to lead your force. (Want Sternguard Veterans to be Troops? You will be playing Crimson Fists under the direct command of Chapter Master Pedro Kantor then!).
I left the game around then. Coming back in 8th, I heard the great buzz that the setting had been advanced! Things had changed!
Wow had they. The background now reads like a comic book or soap opera based around a small cast of super human characters. The plot was advanced pretty much only by these larger than life (literally) characters and everything important happening in the setting revolves around them. It no longer feels like a vast place where entire empires could disappear into the darkness of the galaxy. It feels like a story about these particular characters, where everyone else is reduced to bit part players in their narrative. Added to this, the amount of customisation possible for “homebrew” leaders allowed by the model kits has declined with the increase in monopose, difficult to convert kits and a decline in unique options available to take in game. Age of Sigmar suffers even more from this problem, not having the decades of development of a fantastic setting to draw on like 40K, the setting feels even more like a playground for a small number of heroes and villains, who mostly come from the supposedly destroyed “World that Was”, in what is a very depressing lack of vision or originality. Years into the game we have very little idea of what is going on in the Realms themselves, merely the high level machinations of various god like beings with the temperment of bad comic book villains or heroes.
I often wonder if the incredible success of the Heresy series of novels was to blame for this change. In a novel format, bombastic larger than life characters and stories with a very tight narrative are obviously great, and I enjoy reading about the exploits of the ridiculous Primarchs and their gene-sons as much as anyone else. But for a game, where you want to create your own story and express yourself, the move toward Story over Setting is a huge let down and I am sad that kids joining the hobby today will not have as much of a chance to develop their own ideas and get lost in the rich and dark setting I fell in love with.
After all...
For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh eaten. Human blood and human flesh – the stuff of which the Imperium is made. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. This is the tale of those times.
It is a universe you can live today – if you dare – for this is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. If you want to take part in the adventure, then prepare yourself now. Forget the power of technology, science and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods.
But the universe is a big place and, whatever happens, you will not be missed…
How do you feel about the change from Setting to Storyline? Do you prefer it, or would you rather things were closer to how they were back in the beginning? I would love to read peoples experiences with the setting and whether their ideas have changed over time about this.
For me, the "golden standard" of seting a rich background but leaving enough space for players imagination is 2nd ed Eldar codex. IMHO it was way better as a setting and frankly speaking, deep down I have never accepted the change and still treat it as such. Mostly because 40K fiction is, for the most part, a horrible read and fluff pages/stories in codices or FW books are contained enough to not be treated as anything more than an illustrations of the setting.
The "setting not story" approach would also make introducing most new units less awkward, as GW could always simply expand on what is known about the setting, not having to retcon any story elements (just as expanding on Harlequins lore when they got separate codex). But then there are things like Primaris or Ynnari, which could hardly be introduced that way. So I get why GW did what it did having to mantain a product line for 30 years. I just whished they found another way...
It's interesting that 40k has moved away from the sandbox to the more modern 'story-line' thing, but the fact is that if people are going to make up their own stuff they're not going to be deterred by the 'official' or 'canonical' stuff.
I hate the Tyranid fluff, for example, so I ignore it in favour of my own head-canon.
Doesn't mean I don't enjoy the various tyranid-related stories, but for me 40k is a sandbox for telling stories and there's a set of 40k myths and stories to be told.
Even among the writers of the Black Library there's different ways of telling stories, and subtle differences between how writers conceive of an tell of that universe. In some stories Typhon is a Terran veteran and in others he's a Barbaran half-breed. In some stories Abbadon is an unwitting dupe of Chaos and in others he's shorting Chaos for his own ends. It's nice to have that universe big enough for everyone.
It is true that those of us who are minded to can easily make up our own stuff, but I feel like the way things were when I started pushed you toward that, encouraged you to do it and left space for you to do it without having to feel like you were contradicting the "official" stuff.
Now, I feel like people are encouraged to take part in the pre-set story with pre-set heroes instead.
I do think the former is a lot better than the latter, because creativity is a big part of this game for me, and I am definitely more engaged by dreaming up things myself than reading someone else's ideas. But I have seen people talk pretty dismissively of that sort of stuff here, so I wonder if the culture has shifted over all.
A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
Hmm, I would definitely disagree with that. Solving mysteries in settings is invariably disappointing. I prefer to solve the mysteries myself, and if I get bored of one solution, to invent another.
I greatly preferred the setting. I think things like the Startide Nexus should have been introduced so every faction can meet every other faction but the overall plot shouldn't have ever moved. No Custodes, no SoS, no Primaris, no Ynnari and so on.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
LunarSol wrote: A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
I really wish they had never „solved” the mystery of Rhana Dandra. That was my favourite bit of fluff, 40k version of Narnian Last Battle or Ragnarok. Right now it either was a dud to show how important Deathwatch is, or is happening right now but nobody cares or notices even...
2019/10/03 21:55:17
Subject: Re:Warhammmer 40K - Setting, or Storyline?
seriously, why can't it be both, storyline events driving the release of new stuff new factions etc. which yes is nesscary (yes yes I get it some people would be perfectly happy with an unchanging world, but by and large people eventually do lose intreast in that) but also the sandboxyness is also important. give us both. storyline events that add new and exciting things, and reveal fun new mysteries, but also don't remove the sandbox element that is so critical.
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
I suppose it would be possible to do both, and have various different settings at different time periods (Heresy, Age of Apostasy, M40, M41, post death of the Emperor). I would like that a lot.
But the way it is currently done with the focus on a small number of super heroic characters makes the universe seem very small to me, small and limited and without space for my own protagonists and so on.
LunarSol wrote: A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
I really wish they had never „solved” the mystery of Rhana Dandra. That was my favourite bit of fluff, 40k version of Narnian Last Battle or Ragnarok. Right now it either was a dud to show how important Deathwatch is, or is happening right now but nobody cares or notices even...
Seems like Ive been out of the loop a little too long. How did they solve Rhana Dandra?
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
15k 10k
2019/10/04 13:07:12
Subject: Re:Warhammmer 40K - Setting, or Storyline?
The idea of multiple settings would be really cool. There already kinda is, but the concept gets no support from GW.
Background books like 'Golden Ages of the Imperium' (sketching some broad details of the Imperium's most successful crusades), 'Imperium Divided' (sketching some broad details of the numerous civil wars that have wracked the Imperium) etc. would really help to flesh out the faux historical periods.
2019/10/04 13:45:28
Subject: Re:Warhammmer 40K - Setting, or Storyline?
Storylines have a place at a lower level IMHO. They are just the POV of a few. You can't write a story to cover everything, because this is a whole Galaxy ( filled with adventures if you want ).
Storyline driven may work for smaller set-ups, like RPG's and the little lands with a few settlements. Its nice for TV series about a handfull of characters. But that isn't WH40k.
The basic element of a story would be heros and villains? But are these "heroes" and "villains" important in a place where time is measured in Aeons? A Galaxy doesn't have to have everyone "alive" at the same time, many civilizations would rise and fall and many may never see anything but ruins of each other. Exactly as the old BRB said. A cycle, maybe endless, of rise and fall.
Your little tabletop figures as your own "heroes and villains" , or if some can't get creative themselves and need pre-made events, sure yes, do it.
But please, don't let the general course of the Galaxy depend on playable characters written at low-level Quality.
Target locked,ready to fire
In dedicatio imperatum ultra articulo mortis.
H.B.M.C :
We were wrong. It's not the 40k End Times. It's the Trademarkening.
LunarSol wrote: A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
I really wish they had never „solved” the mystery of Rhana Dandra. That was my favourite bit of fluff, 40k version of Narnian Last Battle or Ragnarok. Right now it either was a dud to show how important Deathwatch is, or is happening right now but nobody cares or notices even...
Seems like Ive been out of the loop a little too long. How did they solve Rhana Dandra?
Eldrad tried to rush the whole „coming of Ynnead and end of all things when all Eldar spirits are in Infinity Circuits” thing and performed a summoning ritual, interrupted of course by Imperium’s finest Cpt Artemis and that is how we got Deathwatch ws Harlequins box and then fracture of Biel-Tan and Yncarne soon after. So instead of glorious end of times we got the whole Eldar civil war we live in now.
Of course one could interpret all those shattering events as a prelude to „real” Rhana Dandra, but the name has been utilized and mutilated already.
LunarSol wrote: A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
I really wish they had never „solved” the mystery of Rhana Dandra. That was my favourite bit of fluff, 40k version of Narnian Last Battle or Ragnarok. Right now it either was a dud to show how important Deathwatch is, or is happening right now but nobody cares or notices even...
Seems like Ive been out of the loop a little too long. How did they solve Rhana Dandra?
Eldrad tried to rush the whole „coming of Ynnead and end of all things when all Eldar spirits are in Infinity Circuits” thing and performed a summoning ritual, interrupted of course by Imperium’s finest Cpt Artemis and that is how we got Deathwatch ws Harlequins box and then fracture of Biel-Tan and Yncarne soon after. So instead of glorious end of times we got the whole Eldar civil war we live in now.
Of course one could interpret all those shattering events as a prelude to „real” Rhana Dandra, but the name has been utilized and mutilated already.
Now I'm totally against pretty much everything the Ynnari did but they haven't really done anything with the Rhana Dandra or mentioned it much. At worst GW have forgotten it IMO.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
I much prefer it as a setting rather than a story. Similar to the OP I got into 40k when it was more setting than story ( 2nd ed) and left halfway through 4th before returning when 8th launched.
I feel there isn’t a lot of room to tell your own stories anymore and you can all to easily end up contradicting established canon. I enjoy the Horus heresy novels, but prefer not to look at them as strictly canonical and I haven’t read any 40k era novels outside of the Eisenhorn trilogy, but I prefer to think of the fiction as mood pieces and myths and legends as opposed to in-universe factual. The same way I could read a book about Greek myths and it would outline the general stories and characters involved but I could read two different novelisations of the trials of Hercules or the Trojan war and be quite happy if they contradicted each other.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/10/04 15:29:09
The story doesn't touch on most of the galaxy or any characters other than a small portion of the named ones.
The galaxy is really big and what Bobby G and Abbie are up to don't really matter, don't have any table impact, and what players do in games has never mattered to any 'stories'
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/10/04 17:14:09
LunarSol wrote: A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
I really wish they had never „solved” the mystery of Rhana Dandra. That was my favourite bit of fluff, 40k version of Narnian Last Battle or Ragnarok. Right now it either was a dud to show how important Deathwatch is, or is happening right now but nobody cares or notices even...
Seems like Ive been out of the loop a little too long. How did they solve Rhana Dandra?
Eldrad tried to rush the whole „coming of Ynnead and end of all things when all Eldar spirits are in Infinity Circuits” thing and performed a summoning ritual, interrupted of course by Imperium’s finest Cpt Artemis and that is how we got Deathwatch ws Harlequins box and then fracture of Biel-Tan and Yncarne soon after. So instead of glorious end of times we got the whole Eldar civil war we live in now.
Of course one could interpret all those shattering events as a prelude to „real” Rhana Dandra, but the name has been utilized and mutilated already.
Now I'm totally against pretty much everything the Ynnari did but they haven't really done anything with the Rhana Dandra or mentioned it much. At worst GW have forgotten it IMO.
Rhana Dandra was the core narrative accompanying Death Masque box set that introduced Deathwatch model range and set ground for Gathering Storm. So no, GW did not forgot about it and such use pissed a lot of Eldar players back then.
LunarSol wrote: A good setting periodically needs a storyline to evolve the setting into something more modern. Mysteries that drive players need to be solved and replaced with new mysteries before people start to realize the box is empty. Ideally, a storyline seeks to create a new setting when its done.
I really wish they had never „solved” the mystery of Rhana Dandra. That was my favourite bit of fluff, 40k version of Narnian Last Battle or Ragnarok. Right now it either was a dud to show how important Deathwatch is, or is happening right now but nobody cares or notices even...
Seems like Ive been out of the loop a little too long. How did they solve Rhana Dandra?
Eldrad tried to rush the whole „coming of Ynnead and end of all things when all Eldar spirits are in Infinity Circuits” thing and performed a summoning ritual, interrupted of course by Imperium’s finest Cpt Artemis and that is how we got Deathwatch ws Harlequins box and then fracture of Biel-Tan and Yncarne soon after. So instead of glorious end of times we got the whole Eldar civil war we live in now.
Of course one could interpret all those shattering events as a prelude to „real” Rhana Dandra, but the name has been utilized and mutilated already.
Now I'm totally against pretty much everything the Ynnari did but they haven't really done anything with the Rhana Dandra or mentioned it much. At worst GW have forgotten it IMO.
Rhana Dandra was the core narrative accompanying Death Masque box set that introduced Deathwatch model range and set ground for Gathering Storm. So no, GW did not forgot about it and such use pissed a lot of Eldar players back then.
I don't think something that is at most a prelude counts as mutilating it. But tbh I don't remember a massive amount beyond the massive idiot that was Artemis.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
2019/10/04 18:38:23
Subject: Re:Warhammmer 40K - Setting, or Storyline?
seriously, why can't it be both, storyline events driving the release of new stuff new factions etc. which yes is nesscary (yes yes I get it some people would be perfectly happy with an unchanging world, but by and large people eventually do lose intreast in that) but also the sandboxyness is also important. give us both. storyline events that add new and exciting things, and reveal fun new mysteries, but also don't remove the sandbox element that is so critical.
I've always looked at 40k as both. You need to have the setting establish the locations/timeline/stakes and you need the storyline to establish the actors/motivations/etc.
The real problem with pre-maledictum 40k was trying to cram more and more events into a finite period(i.e. last decade of 41st) which forced GW's hand. They had to move forward with something to "freshen" 40k, some would say they screwed the proverbial pooch, other state differently.
Personally, nothing has really changed, just more story hooks, events etc...to build off of.
They could easily have solved that with filling in the past. There's no need for every Marine vs Chaos fight to be in 40k when it could easily be in 36k or something. Then you could go full madness and have Marines lose.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
I would definitely love to see some "historical 40K" stuff. I am another person who sees the novels as one suggested history and one persons take, rather than "canon". Given the number of inconsistencies between novels in the 40K universe I feel pretty okay with that.
pm713 wrote: They could easily have solved that with filling in the past. There's no need for every Marine vs Chaos fight to be in 40k when it could easily be in 36k or something. Then you could go full madness and have Marines lose.
That's a very Marine and Imperium centric view. There are other factions in the universe that weren't active until the last 254 years before the end of M41. Not every faction has millenia to play around with.
Tau only recently came on the scene. Tyranids were not present before Tyran. Necrons were mostly inactive prior to Sanctuary 101.
Such factions would be permanently left out in the cold with just revisiting the past.
Yes some might argue one could have an isolated splinter fleet vanguard or a single Necron dynasty, but the issue is then these outliers would then have to fall inactive again, be defeated, or otherwise wiped away so that when the Tyranids and Necrons really show up, the Imperium is caught by surprise.
For much of the 1990's the timeline WAS advancing steadily at the rate of 1 game year to 1 real year. 40K was not static. It was the timeline advancing that allowed for the possibility of character development. That was how Tycho got maimed, became embittered, and finally died. That was how Yarrick chased Ghaz, got captured, and then released, to fight him again when the 3rd War for Armageddon occurred.
A steadily advancing timeline didn't break the 40K universe then and there is no reason advancing it should suddenly break it now.
GW had written themselves into a corner with the end of M41, with numerous and important events packed into literally a few weeks of the last year. There wasn't time for characters to actually do anything like travel to a warzone and fight before they would have to travel elsewhere in order to make their appearance at another event.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/10/05 00:17:56
pm713 wrote: They could easily have solved that with filling in the past. There's no need for every Marine vs Chaos fight to be in 40k when it could easily be in 36k or something. Then you could go full madness and have Marines lose.
That's a very Marine and Imperium centric view. There are other factions in the universe that weren't active until the last 254 years before the end of M41. Not every faction has millenia to play around with.
Tau only recently came on the scene. Tyranids were not present before Tyran. Necrons were mostly inactive prior to Sanctuary 101.
Such factions would be permanently left out in the cold with just revisiting the past.
You wouldn't need to "just revisit the past". Exploring the history of the 41st (42nd now?) millennium doesn't need to exclude new stuff.
pm713 wrote: They could easily have solved that with filling in the past. There's no need for every Marine vs Chaos fight to be in 40k when it could easily be in 36k or something. Then you could go full madness and have Marines lose.
That's a very Marine and Imperium centric view. There are other factions in the universe that weren't active until the last 254 years before the end of M41. Not every faction has millenia to play around with.
Tau only recently came on the scene. Tyranids were not present before Tyran. Necrons were mostly inactive prior to Sanctuary 101.
Such factions would be permanently left out in the cold with just revisiting the past.
Yes some might argue one could have an isolated splinter fleet vanguard or a single Necron dynasty, but the issue is then these outliers would then have to fall inactive again, be defeated, or otherwise wiped away so that when the Tyranids and Necrons really show up, the Imperium is caught by surprise.
For much of the 1990's the timeline WAS advancing steadily at the rate of 1 game year to 1 real year. 40K was not static. It was the timeline advancing that allowed for the possibility of character development. That was how Tycho got maimed, became embittered, and finally died. That was how Yarrick chased Ghaz, got captured, and then released, to fight him again when the 3rd War for Armageddon occurred.
A steadily advancing timeline didn't break the 40K universe then and there is no reason advancing it should suddenly break it now.
GW had written themselves into a corner with the end of M41, with numerous and important events packed into literally a few weeks of the last year. There wasn't time for characters to actually do anything like travel to a warzone and fight before they would have to travel elsewhere in order to make their appearance at another event.
The only faction that can't have been used for campaigns in the past is the Tau. Necrons could easily have been early wakers or simply disturbed and it's a canonical fact that Tyranids have been in the Galaxy long before Tyran. Them being encountered before their "introduction" doesn't mean that the Imperium can't be surprised by them later seeing as they're so bad at governing they lose literal planets. They can also just win and do things like carve out empires of their own. The galaxy is big and the Imperium is forgetful.
There's a very good reason advancing can break it now. GW aren't that good at writing. New things have to be dramatic and over the top. Just look at Cawl, he could easily have been a reasonable enough character by just making new weaponry and armour and being a specialist at that but for some reason he has to have made half Primarchs, better weapons, two new armour marks and several specialist armours, be the oldest tech priest there is, get away with heresy and not have any serious consequences for it beyond being disliked.
tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam
As I see it, it's not changed. Sure, there's some big named characters running around doing things in it, but then, there always were. Unless you were setting your narrative pre-Calgar, you couldn't have "Your Dude" as the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines. You couldn't have your guy supplant Abaddon or the Emperor (or at least, no more so than you currently can!)
However, there's nothing stopping you from doing what people always have - setting their narrative in the infinite times and spaces between other characters. There's pretty much always been named figures in the 40 universe - you can ignore them or work around them as people always have.
It's both a story and setting - you can set your own stories in the setting that other stories are taking place in.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/10/05 16:34:59
Since the beginning, it’s just been a sandbox with a loose backstory. And a very large sandbox by accident or cunning design.
Recently? It’s had an ongoing story. One of many.
Oddly, it’s stagnant first few decades mean we as gamers or hobbyists have 10,000 years of mock history to explore. Because few things are new, particularly for the classic armies.
Marines, Eldar, Orks, Dark Eldar and Chaos can all battle it out in any of these eras, with only the odd thing being out of place (such as Centurion Battle Suits).
Tau, Necrons and Tyranids, in-universe are more modern encounters. But even so, there’s little stopping Tau being used as any nascent would-be civilisation, Necrons could pop up anywhere (Sanctuary 101 being the only time anything was recorded and confirmed). Nids? Bio Horrors of a Death World system, perhaps the results of Terraforming and world making from the Dark Age run rampant.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Since the beginning, it’s just been a sandbox with a loose backstory. And a very large sandbox by accident or cunning design.
Recently? It’s had an ongoing story. One of many.
Oddly, it’s stagnant first few decades mean we as gamers or hobbyists have 10,000 years of mock history to explore. Because few things are new, particularly for the classic armies.
Marines, Eldar, Orks, Dark Eldar and Chaos can all battle it out in any of these eras, with only the odd thing being out of place (such as Centurion Battle Suits).
Tau, Necrons and Tyranids, in-universe are more modern encounters. But even so, there’s little stopping Tau being used as any nascent would-be civilisation, Necrons could pop up anywhere (Sanctuary 101 being the only time anything was recorded and confirmed). Nids? Bio Horrors of a Death World system, perhaps the results of Terraforming and world making from the Dark Age run rampant.
I'm sure Tau players would want to play their armies as Tau, not "stand-ins" that are destined to lose or otherwise become insignificant. The Tau are a threat because of their advancing technology and their ideological threat. Any "stand-in" equivalent in the past has to basically lose or somehow fade into not being a threat any longer. I don't think it is ever a good idea demanding players play as the "losers".
Similar reasoning goes for the Necrons and Tyranids. Even if one tries to argue an isolated Necron dynasty, or Tyranid fleet ahead of all the others, what has to happen is they have to fade back into insignificance and be forgotten in the background in order for the Imperium to be surprised by Sanctuary 101 and Tyran respectively. Again it is a sort of "destined to lose and be forgotten" fate railroading the players. If the Necrons and Tyranids should happen to win their campaigns, it becomes even harder to explain why they aren't known.
Rather than having to twist and contort the writing to cram them into the past, it is far easier and less restricting to simply advance the timeline. Advancing did not break the setting in the 1990's, and it allowed for individual character growth and development even though factions as a whole largely stayed in their status quo.
"
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/10/06 00:43:23
2019/10/06 00:43:06
Subject: Re:Warhammmer 40K - Setting, or Storyline?
Also keep in mind that just because narrative camapigns done by GW exist doesn't mean much for you personally. Armageddon, Cadia etc being a thing didn't stop "your dudes" from doing your own thing elsewhere. Now if GW starts having their campaigns radicly alter the galaxy then that is an issue, but TBH it's a self inflicted wound, every time GW ahs run events like Cadia etc in the past the complaint has been the same "ohh it doesn't really impact anything" even when cadia it blown up and the galaxy split in two people claimed that. so.. GW might as a result feel like they have to up the ante.
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
2019/10/06 00:45:51
Subject: Re:Warhammmer 40K - Setting, or Storyline?
BrianDavion wrote: Also keep in mind that just because narrative camapigns done by GW exist doesn't mean much for you personally. Armageddon, Cadia etc being a thing didn't stop "your dudes" from doing your own thing elsewhere. Now if GW starts having their campaigns radicly alter the galaxy then that is an issue, but TBH it's a self inflicted wound, every time GW ahs run events like Cadia etc in the past the complaint has been the same "ohh it doesn't really impact anything" even when cadia it blown up and the galaxy split in two people claimed that. so.. GW might as a result feel like they have to up the ante.
Mind you the Eye of Terror campaign player activity generated lots of story threads that GW is still mining to this day (MoreDakka Prime, the Green Kroosade, and the Nurgle daemon world Ulthor for example). That is why I think it was a mistake for them to stop online campaigns. They just needed to set them on a more local scale so that whichever way it went, it wouldn't necessarily cause massive upheaval in the setting. Online campaigns offered a way for GW to let the players do the writing, essentially for free.
Of course, one would have to make sure smaller factions stand a chance. I still remember the gnashing of teeth from entitled Imperial players complaining about losing to the numerically smaller Forces of Disorder side as if the campaign should have automatically been a predestined Imperial win.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/10/06 00:48:01
