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Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:It'd be silly to have a game about Chaos that didn't have stuff for the 4 Chaos Gods.

Yeah, it would...but starting off with the Undivided material gives a good springboard, like how Deathwatch focused on the 'Big Name' Chapters.

With Undivided, you've got the Red Corsairs, Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers and their various Cultist associations.

I think the problem with this is that there is so much redundancy and too little established variation that the distinctions are too far and few to build the core game around. I think the distinctions will be cut differently than how you're proposing. What you're saying is the equivalent of if only chapters from Codex: Space Marine had been in Deathwatch. Clearly FFG is driven by a sense of having as much distinction as possible in the core book; hence why with Deathwatch they chose Ultras, DA, BA, BT, and SW as opposed to Ravenguard, Iron hands, Imperial Fists, Salamanders for the first book. A book that leaves out the "big 4," is one that leaves out the most immediately recognizable parts of chaos for the sake of emphasizing the part that most would care least about.

I think the distinctions for Black Crusade should be based first on Chaos allegence, then class, then "origin". Thats because for chaos marines allegance more greatly emphasizes the roll than "origin" since Chaos Marines break away and form their own warbands all the time with little regard for the legion/chapter/warband they come from. What I mean by that is being a Wordbearer for example has a smaller impact on your class choices than being a Khorne worshiper who shuns magic and heavy weapons. It can't be an after thought.

I would like to see more distinctions to the beliefs of Chaos cults... you obviously have the big 4, but the Undivded cults vary more greatly. From those who worship it as a single collective entity, to those of the obliterator cult, to those who worship an archane and lesser god not as a deity but as a symbolic figure representating some nature of chaos (I'm not saying he should be in here) but like Malal who represented chaos' nature of self destruction.

A book focusing on "Red Corsairs, Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers and their various Cultist associations" would be the most superficial approach, that while thorough in representing legions does little to represent the far greate rpercentage of chaos.

aka_mythos wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:It'd be silly to have a game about Chaos that didn't have stuff for the 4 Chaos Gods.

Yeah, it would...but starting off with the Undivided material gives a good springboard, like how Deathwatch focused on the 'Big Name' Chapters.

With Undivided, you've got the Red Corsairs, Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers and their various Cultist associations.

I think the problem with this is that there is so much redundancy and too little established variation that the distinctions are too far and few to build the core game around. I think the distinctions will be cut differently than how you're proposing. What you're saying is the equivalent of if only chapters from Codex: Space Marine had been in Deathwatch. Clearly FFG is driven by a sense of having as much distinction as possible in the core book; hence why with Deathwatch they chose Ultras, DA, BA, BT, and SW as opposed to Ravenguard, Iron hands, Imperial Fists, Salamanders for the first book. A book that leaves out the "big 4," is one that leaves out the most immediately recognizable parts of chaos for the sake of emphasizing the part that most would care least about.

I think you're misunderstanding me.

I'm not saying that you just "leave out" the individual Ruinous Powers in the book.

I'm saying that the first book would work better as an 'introductory' of sorts to the Chaos forces.

In those 5 names I listed you've got the most common archetypes of all Chaos forces.

You've got the recently turned renegade Astartes, many of whom are still equipped very similar to their Loyalist counterparts, in the Red Corsairs.

You've got the 'warband leaders', the ones who most commonly strike out on their own, subject a pirate raider band or take over a warband of Traitor Astartes who've already struck out on their own, in the Black Legion.

You've got the 'manipulative character'/'stealth expertise' in the form of the Alpha Legion, with them also likely being the ones most suited to make contact with a local populace and start inquiring as to the warband's objectives.

You've got the 'raider'/'tactical specialist' in the form of the Night Lords, with the character being one of the best suited to actually organizing a plan for conducting a campaign rather than just providing the troops for it like the Alpha/Black Legionnaire would be.

And then finally you've got the 'mysticism' archetype filled in with using the Word Bearers.

I think the distinctions for Black Crusade should be based first on Chaos allegiance, then class, then "origin". That's because for chaos marines allegiance more greatly emphasizes the role than "origin" since Chaos Marines break away and form their own warbands all the time with little regard for the legion/chapter/warband they come from. What I mean by that is being a Word Bearer for example has a smaller impact on your class choices than being a Khorne worshiper who shuns magic and heavy weapons. It can't be an after thought.

That's not necessarily true. Origin and Legion play a larger part than their deities, at least from what I've seen.

Word Bearers, for example, tend towards being Sorcerers or focused more on establishing Cults/Summoning Rituals than combat.

I would like to see more distinctions to the beliefs of Chaos cults... you obviously have the big 4, but the Undivided cults vary more greatly. From those who worship it as a single collective entity, to those of the obliterator cult, to those who worship an archane and lesser god not as a deity but as a symbolic figure representating some nature of chaos (I'm not saying he should be in here) but like Malal who represented chaos' nature of self destruction.

And that's where the actual cultists themselves come into play. You've got the Dark Mechanicus, you've got the Word Bearers' cultists, you've got the Alpha Legion's cultists/militias, you've got the Black Legion's large amount of renegade Guardsmen that they've armed up and have broken to their will, etc.

A book focusing on "Red Corsairs, Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers and their various Cultist associations" would be the most superficial approach, that while thorough in representing legions does little to represent the far greater percentage of chaos.

Yeah, if you just focus on the overall aspect of these associations, rather than using them as 'archetypes' to establish a framework and just kind of 'touch base' on the Ruinous Powers in the book.

You could have a Black Legion Marine who's devoted to Tzeentch/Nurgle, a Night Lord who's devoted to Khorne, etc--things like that.

The Death Guard, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and the Emperor's Children--along with the specialist Cultist formations organized like the Blood Pact would make for a great'expansion' book, don't you think?

Yeah, I would think becoming part of one of the Cult Legions would be like a Prestige class. You wouldn't start as one, but aspire to be.

I hope the FFG books explore the idea that you can be of the Big Four Legions and not be a Cult follower.

I'd like to see a World Eater that is a leader and makes the party better, like a Paladin in Diablo2, or an Emperor's Child who isn't a Noise Marine, for example.

Also the fleshing out of the "normal" stuff. Like a Blood Pact type of military, or those who have followed Fabius Bile's path, human and superhuman.

Sorry for wishlisting, but I really don't want Codex Chaos Marines in RPG form. I want CHAOS.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19517.html

puts the release in August.

..but they also say that it's GW releasing the book, so...

What does that mean reds8n ?

EDIT

I do understand now, they got wrong who's going to publish the game. FFG is not GW.

Kanluwen wrote:

I think the distinctions for Black Crusade should be based first on Chaos allegiance, then class, then "origin". That's because for chaos marines allegiance more greatly emphasizes the role than "origin" since Chaos Marines break away and form their own warbands all the time with little regard for the legion/chapter/warband they come from. What I mean by that is being a Word Bearer for example has a smaller impact on your class choices than being a Khorne worshiper who shuns magic and heavy weapons. It can't be an after thought.

That's not necessarily true. Origin and Legion play a larger part than their deities, at least from what I've seen.

Word Bearers, for example, tend towards being Sorcerers or focused more on establishing Cults/Summoning Rituals than combat.

My point was more that if allegance to a chaos god excludes or prohibits a particular class, it has to happen before the character chooses their class. That based on the patterns of exclusion presented in the codex, it has a more prominent impact on classes, abilities, and skill choices than their past affiliation.

Unlike deathwatch, you aren't a marine from "X"-chapter, you're a chaos marine whose struck out from "Y"-chapter/legion to do your own thing. With that there is an inherently greater disconnect from your origins.

The Death Guard, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and the Emperor's Children--along with the specialist Cultist formations organized like the Blood Pact would make for a great'expansion' book, don't you think?

The point is, you're leaving out too much of the most richly characteristic aspects of Chaos. Its the equivalent to Deathwatch being released without the main space marine chapters and only the secondary ones. FFG will have plenty to release for Chaos without doing something that keeps the "big 4" out.

aka_mythos wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

I think the distinctions for Black Crusade should be based first on Chaos allegiance, then class, then "origin". That's because for chaos marines allegiance more greatly emphasizes the role than "origin" since Chaos Marines break away and form their own warbands all the time with little regard for the legion/chapter/warband they come from. What I mean by that is being a Word Bearer for example has a smaller impact on your class choices than being a Khorne worshiper who shuns magic and heavy weapons. It can't be an after thought.

That's not necessarily true. Origin and Legion play a larger part than their deities, at least from what I've seen.

Word Bearers, for example, tend towards being Sorcerers or focused more on establishing Cults/Summoning Rituals than combat.

My point was more that if allegiance to a chaos god excludes or prohibits a particular class, it has to happen before the character chooses their class. That based on the patterns of exclusion presented in the codex, it has a more prominent impact on classes, abilities, and skill choices than their past affiliation.

Not necessarily. The problem with trying to establish exclusions based on the Codex is that the Codex is overly simplified. You're not getting even a quarter of the background necessary to really establish a 'themed' force, there's no restrictions overall for a force, etc.

Ex: a Death Guard themed force should never have Thousand Sons within their ranks. They're Legions that have butted heads since the Council of Nikea, and it just makes no sense.

Unlike deathwatch, you aren't a marine from "X"-chapter, you're a chaos marine whose struck out from "Y"-chapter/legion to do your own thing. With that there is an inherently greater disconnect from your origins.

This is a big leap of assumption. Just because mortals are involved doesn't mean that it necessarily has to be 'Chaos Marine who struck out from Y Chapter to do your own thing'. Black Legion, for example, puts their newer recruits in charge of mortal forces before ever letting them be really integrated with the rest of the Legion's Traitor Astartes

The Death Guard, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and the Emperor's Children--along with the specialist Cultist formations organized like the Blood Pact would make for a great'expansion' book, don't you think?

The point is, you're leaving out too much of the most richly characteristic aspects of Chaos. Its the equivalent to Deathwatch being released without the main space marine chapters and only the secondary ones. FFG will have plenty to release for Chaos without doing something that keeps the "big 4" out.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I see that but in Star Trek you have writers how can say the captain must beam down to every hostile world instead of just dropping 100 red shirts.

I can't watch Star Trek with my father anymore because he constantly complains about how the captain isn't supposed to be leaving the ship or something like that.

Nice, something from a non-Imperial perspective.

I'll probably roll a cultist clone or something though, to capture it for kay-oss...

The idea sounds nice. But what will be next?
A Space Orc RPG? Eldar? Tau?

Kanluwen wrote:Not necessarily. The problem with trying to establish exclusions based on the Codex is that the Codex is overly simplified. You're not getting even a quarter of the background necessary to really establish a 'themed' force, there's no restrictions overall for a force, etc.

I'm not trying to do anything. I'm just saying that based on how Loyalist marines were represented in Deathwatch relative to the source material that preceeded that game, there were restriction on certain units that translated to a restriction on choosable class. With Chaos those same type of restrictions exist fluffwise but are more a product of deity affilitation.

You can make an arguement for different things impacting class selection, but I just think the way a chaos marines beliefs manifest is a stronger indicator to the character than past affilitation. That past affiliation is still part of it, its just the next step.

Kanluwen wrote:This is a big leap of assumption. Just because mortals are involved doesn't mean that it necessarily has to be 'Chaos Marine who struck out from Y Chapter to do your own thing'. Black Legion, for example, puts their newer recruits in charge of mortal forces before ever letting them be really integrated with the rest of the Legion's Traitor Astartes

I'm all for a game that allows you to play as a Chaos cultist, but just as Dark Heresy excluded marines for balancing purpose I think its fair to believe that they'd retain that same rationale here. We could always have a progression, with Chaos Marines as ascended classes, but it puts a stronger strain on the setting to justify a ragtag group.

If they are going to bother to have different Legions and rengade groups represent, it has to make sense for how they can be working together. This either means the chaos marines are individals who've struck out on their own or some sort of a chaos marine share program like the Deathwatch. Otherwise you are talking about every player playing characters all affiliated with the same legion or renegade group.

I would almost go so far as to say, all player will effectively play Chaos marines who from other legions or groups have joined the Red Corsairs, or a similar group. Otherwise you have a very confined scope for the game.

Kanluwen wrote:Again: this is either a big leap of assumption on your part or I'm not conveying my point well enough.
You don't need the Legions that I pointed out to be present from the beginning. You can introduce Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, and Khorne easily enough without needing to introduce the Legions that singularly worship those deities.
They are, for lack of a better term, 'too specialized'. They're better used as examples of 'Prestige' or even 'Hero Specialties'.
...

I think we're kinda agreeing on this just slicing it differently. My thoughts been that these gods should be in there... and that in a very basic way these legions should be in there. I just think Plague Marines, Berzerkers, Thousand Sons, and Noise Marines should be "prestige classes" brought in later on. That until you get to a point where you can be that prestige class, you're still effectively a new recruit within that cult or legion. Just that with in the first book, by the time you reach the extent of its scope you have a character that can start to look alot like those classes... i.e. bezerker-light.

Then again this depends on the scope the game takes. Deathwatch for example, you start off as a veteran, and with Black Crusade that could well be the case. If it is than having those four in the main book is almost a necessity, though I think it makes the narrative harder to justify.

I can't watch Star Trek with my father anymore because he constantly complains about how the captain isn't supposed to be leaving the ship or something like that.

Hilarious, thanks for sharing that. They actually tried that more realistic approach in the early days on ST: TNG, but realized pretty quickly that realistic doesn't always make for good drama. The star of the show needs something exciting to do in front of the audience and they quickly had the character of Picard overrule his first officer on that idea and start going on "away team" missions. As for the original Trek, it's well known these days that Shatner tried to get in every scene possible and get as many lines as possible in every episode, so no way was Kirk sitting on the ship during most of the excitement. And it definitely made for better TV on both series.

Unfortunately, I don't have time for RPGs any longer with all my painting projects and occasional games for Warhammer, but I did buy the first couple Dark Heresy books just to check them out and they are quite well done. Being a fan of all things Chaos I am seriously considering a purchase of this latest Black Crusade RPG book.

Fantasy Flight Games wrote:This remarkable experience offers players a new perspective on the conflict between the Imperium of Man and the forces of Chaos by delivering the unprecedented opportunity to play as a Disciple of the Dark Gods, whether as a Chaos Space Marine or a human Servant of Chaos.

Emphasis mine.

Apparently the book will have both Marines and Cultists.

But I do think we're just approaching it from different angles. I don't consider Plague Marines, Berzerkers, or Noise Marines to be 'Legion exclusive' though. I think they're just kind of the 'genericized' version of the Legion exclusive variant.

Kind of like Xerox and Copier Machines, y'know?

The Thousand Sons definitely are 'Legion exclusive' though. They're the remnants of the original Thousand Sons, and they only have come about from the Rubric of Ahriman. The Sorcerers within the Legion though...I'm not really sure how they'd fit in overall. Other than being Sorcerers with a vast pool of knowledge, maybe?

Kanluwen wrote:

Fantasy Flight Games wrote:This remarkable experience offers players a new perspective on the conflict between the Imperium of Man and the forces of Chaos by delivering the unprecedented opportunity to play as a Disciple of the Dark Gods, whether as a Chaos Space Marine or a human Servant of Chaos.

Emphasis mine.

Apparently the book will have both Marines and Cultists.

Sign me up for RPGing faceless, drooling, expendable lunatic #667!

Ha!

I think you'd do it well, Alpharius

I'm wondering if they'll have mortals, however, represented by like 'Traitor Guardsmen' and 'Psykers' as the Cultists.

The Bad Guys in the 40K Universe are, for the most part, really not that interesting to me as RPG subjects...

Alpharius wrote:The Bad Guys in the 40K Universe are, for the most part, really not that interesting to me as RPG subjects...

I agree. More of an enhanced Monster Manual for my Deathwatch game, personally. I can understand the appeal of playing bad guys but in 40k the good guys are already so morally ambiguous that the bad ones are practically caricatures of evil and where's the fun in playing Snidely Whiplash, Naughty Boy of Slaanesh?

I wonder if Black Crusade will use the psychic power system form DH or RT? I much prefer the one from RT just because you can automatically succeed at a power as long as you don't push it (and I don't think there is a chance for perils of the warp). I've yet to find a good conversion for DH though.

And shouldn't chaos psykers have something other than Perils of the Warp? Happy Thoughts of the Warp? Free Cake from the Warp? Mmm ... Warp Cake.

Alpharius wrote:The Bad Guys in the 40K Universe are, for the most part, really not that interesting to me as RPG subjects...

Don't speak bad of the Alpha Legion, Alpharius
After desparately trying to create a non-bland Deathwatch character, creating a Death Guard character would be easy and fun

Do want!

I'm not even into roleplaying, but the wealth of chaotic background and inspirational material - must have!

Kroothawk wrote:

Alpharius wrote:The Bad Guys in the 40K Universe are, for the most part, really not that interesting to me as RPG subjects...

Don't speak bad of the Alpha Legion, Alpharius

Since they clearly aren't the Bad Guys, what makes you think I was?

Alpharius wrote:The Bad Guys in the 40K Universe are, for the most part, really not that interesting to me as RPG subjects...

I don't find my Night Lords to be boring, even the actual villainous ones and not just ADB's Night Lords even though I enjoy them immensely as well. In fact I find the fact that the legion contains both rather enjoyable.

Noisy_Marine wrote:I wonder if Black Crusade will use the psychic power system form DH or RT?

It's been pretty clear to me for a long time that there are elements of Black Industry's work on DH that FFG have never liked. Branching career paths is one of them (no FFG 40K RPG product has ever contained one) and the second is the psychic power system (RT, DW and even Ascension all have their Fettered/Unfettered/Push system).

So it's a safe bet that that trend will continue in Black Crusade.

Damn. what a way to get me back into RT etc RP....

It also explains exactly what my friend had to finish to a big deadline was (he does contract writing for FFG and has featured in all the books and MM so far. It helps that his knowledge of fluff, especially Eldar, is HUGE) - this

He also runs our local RT group, so maybe we can get a set of DW vs BC groups going...set them up, have them meet a la the short stories with NL and Sallies meeting up (ADB ftw there, awesome stories) on a space hulk....and watch them fight.