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1.) They ignore fluff in their own rules
2.) They constantly "RE-WRITE" fluff and ignore all previously written fluff
3.) Games workshop no longer writes its own fluff but allows independent writers who probley never played the game write fluff
4.) Fluff has always been written from the "Evil" empires point of view and never form other points of views. Space Marines/Imperial guard are combination of the worse of both Nazi Germany and the USSR

well, you go ahead and do that..... most people when reading a book like ENTERTAINMENT instead of adherence to rules and previous fluff

Cool story bro, you get a ticket to the corner where people don't post about it.

1) See pretty much any hybridization of content and system pretty much anywhere.
2) See pretty much any hybridization of content and system pretty much anywhere. To expound upon this, I could refer you to a couple Star Wars or D&D novel readers who you could hyperventilate sympathetically with.
3) See pretty much any hybridization of content and system pretty much anywhere. I doubt that Gary Gygax ever wrote a D&D novel. (Are you referring to codex stuff, or BL Books?)
4) See pretty much any... uh, well, so? That's the organization the "narrative" is being written from the point of view of. When did this become a surprise to you?

I am sorry for you because things make you angry.

I write my own fluff because Games Workshop ENCOURAGES me to make up my own backstories.

And I enjoy a positive outlook, despite the bleak setting.

daniel79 wrote:
1.) They ignore fluff in their own rules
2.) They constantly "RE-WRITE" fluff and ignore all previously written fluff
3.) Games workshop no longer writes its own fluff but allows independent writers who probley never played the game write fluff
4.) Fluff has always been written from the "Evil" empires point of view and never form other points of views. Space Marines/Imperial guard are combination of the worse of both Nazi Germany and the USSR

1) So? Its not that unreasonable with the exception of how SMs are no where to gods of war in TT as they are in books... which makes the books better in my eyes.
2) See ANY SERIES EVER
3) So? Also many of the writers actually DO play the game
4) So who should it be written by? Considering EVERYONE is evil/bad in 40k. The 40k novels are about the basic soldiers (who are good guys) or Space Marines who fight with honor. So this point is kind of invalid

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
I write my own fluff because Games Workshop ENCOURAGES me to make up my own back stories.

And I enjoy a positive outlook, despite the bleak setting.

Yeah well I started playing games workshop games in the early 90s and me and my friends wrote up are own chapter fluff and backgrounds, but since then most rogue trader games and stuff seem to frown on not fallowing published fluff... get bad scores for using my own fluff... of course main reason I stopped playing official Games workshop ran and supported games.

To many stuck up 40K players who try pressuring other players to stop playing because they don't fallow the fluff that they read.

You go do that and have fun.

Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported[/quote

I have discussions with British 40k players about this topic, and he talks about how the British government actually supports everyone in a way, they both helped the USA and the USSR during the cold war.

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

Are we really going to turn this into one of these threads?

daniel79 wrote:1.) They ignore fluff in their own rules
2.) They constantly "RE-WRITE" fluff and ignore all previously written fluff
3.) Games workshop no longer writes its own fluff but allows independent writers who probley never played the game write fluff
4.) Fluff has always been written from the "Evil" empires point of view and never form other points of views. Space Marines/Imperial guard are combination of the worse of both Nazi Germany and the USSR[/b]

Whoah. Slow down there.

1.) Can't agree to this. A lot of people take some of the fluff to literal when it's just meant to be some legend or whatever. Maybe you can elaborate on what you are actually referring to here?
2.) Ever since the big shift from 1E to 2E, the setting has actually remained pretty consistent, except for some very few major changes such as the Newcrons and GK Sorcery. I think the main issue for people's perception is actually ... ->
3.) Yes and no. GW grants license to some freelance authors and external companies to publish "their" fluff, but this in itself has zero effect on the setting as propagated in GW's books. You have to understand that there is no canon - everyone just publishes interpretations of one and the same setting. Depending on the authors involved, sometimes they fit together well, and other times you're left to think "wtf this doesn't fit into the 40k I know at all". This artistic freedom doesn't sit well with the fans who would prefer each official source adding to a consistent setting, but at least this way you can cherrypick which version you prefer. For example, I'm rolling with a personal "GW first" rule, only occasionally adding some interesting ideas from licensed sources which I deemed fitting. And just like every Black Library author has his own idea of the setting, so is every player left to decide how he or she would want it to look like.
4.) I think a few of the codices actually incorporate some fluff from the perspective of the other factions, and if you want to delve into the outsourced material, I definitively know of Black Library novels who do so. That there is a general focus on the Imperium, however, should not be surprising - we are human beings ourselves, after all, so it is easier for us to relate to the IoM. This goes for the average author as well as it goes for the average reader. The majority of fantasy and sci-fi settings "suffer" from this phenomenon.

Also, sheesh, why the big font? Our eyes aren't that bad ... yet.

 Darth Bob wrote:

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

Are we really going to turn this into one of these threads?

He has a real thing about both Nazi Germany and the USSR...
Like a 'thing' kinda thing...
It's a bit odd.

1. Some of this is for balance. If Space Marines in the game were as broken as Space Marines in the fluff, nobody would play any army besides Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines.
2. Sometimes previous fluff needs a rewrite. The Necrons are a good example, going through a massive rewrite that gave them more variety and personality, while still retaining some of the old flavor in the form of crazy tomb worlds.
3. Games Workshop does write its own fluff for things like the codex. It also hires independent writers because, frankly, those independent writers tend to be better at the job.
4. Fluff has been written from the view of the other sympathetic factions such as Tau and Eldar. I certainly would like seeing more fluff written from the point of view of those factions, but xenofiction is hard and neither of them are particularly popular like Space Marines are. Note that, while pretty much every main organization in Warhammer 40,000 is morally repugnant by modern standards, there are still good and decent individuals in those factions.

As for which factions I'd like to see more fluff from, Sisters of Battle and the Ecclesiarchy in general really need some more love. The Tau have some potential which was sadly wasted by the forgettable Fire Warrior book. Oh, and Orks! Why isn't there a hilarious series of comedy books from an Ork boss's perspective?

Eh everyone knows GW are a joke at what they call Canon. You get used to it..fix the flaws and more or less ignore it anyhow.

It's there setting. They can change it however the heck thy want to, and in whatever way they want. Canon is overrated, because this isn't a religion. It's a game.

The 'changes' rarely bother me for the most part because in broad strokes, the universe itself is more or less the same. It's only in the 'lesser' (and I'm using 'lesser' in a very open ended manner) details that things change, and IMHO that's a good thing. It keeps some semblance of change in the universe since the setting isn't going to move past 999.M41 anytime soon. And as someone noted, keeping things mutable promotes that 'make up your own background' stuff for the armies, games, etc. which is hardly a bad thing.

If anything bothers me about 40K its the grimdark and the way its taken far too seriously despite lacking anything resembling drama. It's just totally unappealing (which is probably why I prefer the novels of people like Abnett or ADB - constant NEGATIVE gets repetitive and dull, and some of the writers at least realize that.) But the grimdark is part of alot of 40K and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

I am just annoyed at how they simplify planetary wars and condense them into quick skirmishes for one place. Agri-worlds are treated like medieval hamlets, fortress worlds are basically fortified towns and forge worlds are treated like an industrial district. No continents, no nations, no hemispheres. The whole planet is a few square miles of battlefield.
What about this new story in the new chaos codex with a single renegade from the Ebon Knights space marines forcing the evacuation of an entire planet just because he was having a Khorne-induced temper tantrum? That's not a story, that's a bad Chuck Norris joke. Get rid of that kind of fluff.

Its a game. Simplification and streamline and even outright caricature is bound to happen. It's like with a movie adaptation of a book. you can't expect it to pick up 100% of the depth and detail and nuances, at least not within the attention span of a normal human being (think of the 3 hour LOTR movies and that was pushing it.) Things get simplified and condensed as part of the process to keep the pace going.

Besides its a fundamental aspect of the Codexes and Core rules to take a very broad 'top down' view of the factions in 40K (Galactic perspective, if you will. contrasted with the 'slice of life/eye level' view you might get of a particular planet, subsector, etc. from novels, for example.) and that by nature means things tend to be very simple, broad, and generalized (you only have so much space to cram fluff into.)

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

In that fact that the Imperium is a conglomeration of Communism/Socialism/Theism taken to implausible extremes, there's quite a semblance there. It's a fair comparison.

To OP:
There's no such thing as "concrete" fluff in the 40K universe. It's 10,000 years of history spanning an entire Galaxy. Everything and nothing GW's ever printed about events is equally plausible. 10k years is an inconceivable amount of time. Look at how much we truly know about our own history. Exactly how were the pyramids built? Was there really an island/continent we know as Atlantis, or not? What's the deal with Stonehenge? What are the Nazca lines all about? We only recently realized that the Easter Island Heads are actually connected to bodies.... None of these things are anywhere near10,000 years old and only concern a single planet, yet we are woefully ignorant of them. Our own history gets re-written frequently as we discover new information; now imagine that inconsistency multiplied by several orders of magnitude and add in a dogmatic Government continuously wagging the dog to keep its citizenry in line and to maintain power/ stability...... and GW needs to sell the new hotness.

 purplefood wrote:

 Darth Bob wrote:

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

Are we really going to turn this into one of these threads?

He has a real thing about both Nazi Germany and the USSR...
Like a 'thing' kinda thing...
It's a bit odd.

It's not based on the Third Reich, it's based on the German Empire. It's a fairly trivial difference to anyone who has not studied the subject, but it's enough that it demonstrates that I want to make a fictional civilization based on German culture, rather than trying to find a way to play a Nazi army in 40k, unlike certain other armies.

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 Darth Bob wrote:

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

Are we really going to turn this into one of these threads?

He has a real thing about both Nazi Germany and the USSR...
Like a 'thing' kinda thing...
It's a bit odd.

It's not based on the Third Reich, it's based on the German Empire. It's a fairly trivial difference to anyone who has not studied the subject, but it's enough that it demonstrates that I want to make a fictional civilization based on German culture, rather than trying to find a way to play a Nazi army in 40k, unlike certain other armies.

What in hell are you talking about and what does it have to do with the topic at hand?

 Darth Bob wrote:

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:

 purplefood wrote:

 Darth Bob wrote:

 Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:
Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

Are we really going to turn this into one of these threads?

He has a real thing about both Nazi Germany and the USSR...
Like a 'thing' kinda thing...
It's a bit odd.

It's not based on the Third Reich, it's based on the German Empire. It's a fairly trivial difference to anyone who has not studied the subject, but it's enough that it demonstrates that I want to make a fictional civilization based on German culture, rather than trying to find a way to play a Nazi army in 40k, unlike certain other armies.

What in hell are you talking about and what does it have to do with the topic at hand?

How my army of Pariahs is better written than some of what is canon.

I thought his question was what does 'rather than trying to find a way to play a Nazi army in 40k, unlike certain other armies.' have to do with it

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:Please, do not ever attempt to compare the Imperium to Nazis or the USSR. While you can make the argument the the Imperium has killed far more pretend people, there is an important difference that the Imperium does not actually exist.

Reported

All of your posts are about Nazis, from real life Nazis to Tau Nazis to Zombie Nazis. Don't be so hard on daniel79 for talking like you do.



More on topic, I take the current fluff 95% as it is. But I like to pretend the universe my toy soldiers fight in is slightly different from Gamesworkshop's universe. Here's the list on the subject...

1. Chaos Gods don't want to destroy the universe.
2. Chaos Gods are powered by emotion, not belief. That being said, they like worship. It requires dedicated worshippers to summon some daemons, open some portals and that sort of thing.
3. The Alpha Legion is not like how it's portrayed in canon, at all. They are villain sues, and they are worse then the Ultramarines.
4. The Ultramarines are less of sues, but they're 99% the same. Just, some of their accomplishments are downplayed, but still there, ya know? They're still pretty successful.
5. Abaddon is 100% gunna tear down the Imperium. And then he'll die or something, because once he tears down the Imperium he's no longer useful to the Chaos Gods. Maybe he'll just lose his power, maybe he'll kill himself, maybe he'll explode into a chaos spawn. Who knows?
6. The Emperor isn't holding back the warp. All he's doing is lighting the Astronomicon. After Abaddon kills him, the Astronomicon will go out and the Imperium will splinter into thousands of competing empires.
7. The Emperor wasn't a very good dude, because in 40k good dudes aren't a playable faction. Honest, hard-working and kind hearted people are too rare to be a playable faction.
8. The Great Crusade wasn't very good either. It was about killing xenos mostly, with reuniting humanity as a secondary thing.
9. But that doesn't change the fact that Chaos Space Marines tend to be eviler than Imperials.
10. The Imperium is highly prejudiced. Like, only white males can hold office and that kinda stuff.
11. The Imperium is unnecessarily brutal. Some of the horrible stuff they do is a necessary evil. Most of it isn't it.

And there ya go.

LoneLictor wrote:More on topic, I take the current fluff 95% as it is. But I like to pretend the universe my toy soldiers fight in is slightly different from Gamesworkshop's universe. Here's the list on the subject...

I'm not expert enough on some of those subjects to comment on all of them, but I know for sure that 1, 2 and 9 are actually 100% in line with what GW material tells us, whereas I was always under the subjective impression that 4, 7 and 11 are as well.

There's quite a few things that don't make a lot of sense in the fluff but overall I quite like the dark setting that 40K takes place in. The fact that the 'good guys' aren't all white knights in shining armour is a good thing, allows for more complex characters.

One thing that always made me wonder though is Chaos special characters. Unknown Lord #2993 has xyz mutations after a few centuries of service, risking spawnhood but with a chance of immortality. Abaddon, Fabius, and co. seem to have no visible mutation after millenia. Also basically everything to do with Tzeench is weird IMO, my least favourite of the 4 big names.

 LoneLictor wrote:
3. The Alpha Legion is not like how it's portrayed in canon, at all. They are villain sues, and they are worse then the Ultramarines.

I'm confused as to whether you're saying the Alpha Legion are villain sues in the current canon, or whether they'll be villain sues in your canon.

Remember, no one is forcing you to read the books or the fluff sections of the rules. If they redact parts (which has been done in gaming since the beginning), it usually has little effect on game play, except maybe new units that were "lost" or recently discovered.

Jeez...

daniel79 wrote:
1.) They ignore fluff in their own rules
2.) They constantly "RE-WRITE" fluff and ignore all previously written fluff
3.) Games workshop no longer writes its own fluff but allows independent writers who probley never played the game write fluff
4.) Fluff has always been written from the "Evil" empires point of view and never form other points of views. Space Marines/Imperial guard are combination of the worse of both Nazi Germany and the USSR

1) They have to forego some fluff so that the rules make sense, are not overly convoluted or confusing and accessible to everyone, not everyone reads fluff sadly.
2) Really? Find me any series, game or general universe that doesn't correct itself or change at some point.
3) Most of the people who write the fluff are people who play the game or at least do enough research into the topic to justify GW paying them to write fluff. You wouldn't pay a Sports Reporter to write a 500 page book on interstellar space battles, would you? They choose people suitable for the job.
4) I don't even understand how this is a valid argument..... not only is good/evil down to perspective, but the fluff in general I find is varied and represents all races, for example the Black Library fluff tends to give the views from both sides of the battle as well as outsider perspectives. In the codex's there are always fluff segments told from other armies/pov's of other characters and the fluff at it's core is rich and expansive, and even if it doesn't appeal to you GW actively encourage writing or making your own.

Admittedly there could be more for the Xeno's races but in general this is a lot harder to write, also since Space Marines and Humanity are really GW's bread and butter it makes sense to produce more fluff from that perspective as it's what sells and most fans want. (I personally only read Space Marine stuff, no Imperial Guard, I'll read any xeno's/chaos books too though (Path books are some of my favourites))

If you're specifically looking for fluff written from the freedom fighter's perspective, take a look at any of FFG's Black Crusade books. They're all from Chaos's perspective and talk about the intolerance and loss of freedom suffered by those in the Imperium.