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.

I've just been toying around with this idea after reading the "lack of progression in the 40k storyline" thread. But basically the idea is this:

Why not create an open source 40k progressing story? Battles can all be reported to a central website/webblog in battle report format, and then battle reports can be voted on based on their quality and relative importance. So a 500 point well written report could have more sway than a 2k point terribly written report, or something along those lines. Everything will be done on a volunteer basis of course, including a core of volunteers to write the fluff behind the progression based on the submitted battle reports.

We could then have the world reset every 4 months or so, so that any character that died, worlds that exploded, etc. would be started over and we'd get an entirely new story arc to embark upon.

Is there any interest in something like this? I'm a software developer with a lot of experience in web/mobile design, so I can bare the brunt of the coding for the site itself, but we'd need further volunteers for writing the actual fluff/being mods/helping maintain and add on to the code base.

Thoughts?

You sir are a genius , but you would only have an elite few actually reporting

Nice idea. You could even couch it in terms of a Farseer divining the future and checking possible lines of fate, so it doesn't even have to properly exist in the timeline

I love the idea of the farseer divining the future, I think that'd tie in really well with the whole idea and means that people can submit in non-linear fashions.

Hmm, well I'll have some down time in the next couple of days, please if anyone is interested in writing fluff or doing graphic design/artwork for the site pm me or just post in this thread.

Where can I send my 4000 battle reports with Tau winning over Grey Knights?

Be glad to help in a fluff/ battlereport events , area, just let me know what you need , we have a group of newish players that may be doing a campaign (narrative) with marines , Orks, Tau, guard, and various soon, so that may be fun to contribute with.

again just let me know whats needed.

Bah only 4000 Kroothawk?, you need to get to playing more

What was the name of the guy who did the progressing 40k storyline in Background for a while that was really good?

You mean that Dark Lord Seanron fellow?

Time permitting, I will probably be able to help out with fluff writing. This sounds like it could be a great project.

 Accolade wrote:
You mean that Dark Lord Seanron fellow?

Yes, him.

I think itd be neat to do some campaigns based on progessive 40k, maybe like a few month strech of X does this and Y responds in other words,

Campaign
Orks and Nid's stalemate at Octarius

The Imperium's gambit to play the Orks and Tyranids is a horrible failure, resulting in massive WAAAGHHH and Tyranid fleet fighting and producing newer and more terrifying Xenos. Octarius could have been ignored, however rumors of a lost STC found in the system has drawn groups from the Imperium. After losing several groups of Deathwatch, the Imperium has launched a full blown crusade to recover the lost STC. Meanwhile rumors of Necrons awakening on some of the Octarius worlds, Dark Eldar raiding parties, and Chaos Warbands in the area have been circulating.

Then maybe run narrative with rewards for each sides over a period of several months to a year. Have sanctioned games every month like for example

Tyranids vs Orks 2000pts, Killpoints
So players have to play that battle then send in reports of it, this can be a "notable" battle that gives rewards to whoever wins, so for instance

Nids win and for the reminder of the campaign can add 1 unit of 'Green Skin Nids" an unstable but dangerous mixture of Ork and Nid genes

Then for any other battles just add up total victory points to determine the "winner" of the whole campaign.

You could save the results and use them to influence other campaigns so using this example again

The Imperium is victorious in Octavius and regain the STC enabling them to produce Imperial Jetbikes, so in the next campaign you can allow Space Marines or Imperial Guard to take one unit of "Imperial Jetbikes"

Everyone would have to agree on the rules for the special units and such but it would be neat to have a longterm organic story like that.

Ohh and maybe another rule like any SC's lost during a notable battle cannot be used for the reminder of the campaign (as they are healing, being resurrected, turned into gibbering chaos spawn, is a Dark Eldar Gimp, etc.)

Sounds like fun. I'm in. I can write fluff.

My friends and I have been wanting to do a campaign of sorts dealing with Tau, Chaos, Tyranids and Space Marines.
I'll see if they're all up for it.

Excellent, ill love to add my chapter's fluff and battles to it.

Didn't GW do something like this a while back for the 13th Black Crusade?


I love the idea but it will be a bit of work to implement. Start small, maybe with only a few planetary systems to iron out any wrinkles. It might be a good idea to create defined groups and teams of people involved (and add any new ones as they join). It might also be a good idea to create some sort of basic scoring system or defined objectives that will give every faction a chance at its own brand of victory (ie tyrannids want to eat a planet, Chaos seed rebellion, maybe Space marines need to retake a planet in rebellion while holding on to others). If its a straight up fight, I imagine the number of space marine players will out weigh any progress the xenos/nids/chaos could make in a few bat reps.

SO game for this. Sounds awesome.

I'd love to help in anyway i can...maybe try fluffy writing...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
what about mixed objectives? for instance

a chaos detatchment heads to planet Q in search of some ancient daemon artifact...
but some Nid's decide to om nom said planet at same time...

so during the game, the chaos army would be attempting to hold the objective and not die, while the tyranid army is going for kill points...

i'm sure someone could balance this out with a little more thought, and it would make for more interesting games/stories

I love the idea. If you really want to make this fly then you could perhaps have the voting tied into reporting the batrep results so the batrep writer does not report the result but rather the reader who votes. This would keep the already busy people who spend all their time writing batreps from having to put more work into this. This would also add a component of user interaction to the website.

I would also recommend an active battlezone mechanism on the site where the batreps can only be posted against opposition that is also posting. If you have 100 SM batreps report against 0 orks then the battlezone will be completely one sided and will be no fun at all. Some sort of weighting mechanism would also help as IoM armies are vastly over represented vs orks. Funny thing is there are probably more eldau armies out there than there are eldar in the fluff.

Your should really try to get some of the prolific batrep writers on this board involved. Though you may have to make it extremely fast and easy to link it up. They would have to be contacted for the most part as many of them almost exclusively do batreps here and so may not see this post(s). Some of the people of note would be; Jy2, Reecius, mercer, 4plus, SkaredCast, Tomb King, and Ailaros if he has time these days.

And where can I see this epic story unfold?

Plus send in my epic losses to Necrons.

Reaching out to the bigger gaming clubs out there would be a good idea

This sounds quite interesting and I'm keen to see how this idea evolves. Any thoughts on an official reaction from GW? Not support neccesarily but at least finding out if they'd shut down such a site?

Maybe start a website and do it as a fanon thing, GW probably wont budge on doing anything with the story - you'd have to get Black Library to do that.

 ansacs wrote:
Your should really try to get some of the prolific batrep writers on this board involved. Though you may have to make it extremely fast and easy to link it up. They would have to be contacted for the most part as many of them almost exclusively do batreps here and so may not see this post(s). Some of the people of note would be; Jy2, Reecius, mercer, 4plus, SkaredCast, Tomb King, and Ailaros if he has time these days.

miniwargamming perhaps?

I'd be down for writing the fluff

Best way to handle lack of progression imo is to do alternate timelines/possible future scenarios that the reader somehow sees. Marvel/DC do it all the time. Can have Primarchs returning, Emperor dying, Cadia falling, Terra under siege, lots of gak hitting the fan without changing the overall story status quo, because it's just a possible future if x, y, z plays out.

Could make for some interesting BL books. And what is probably the best 40k fan-fic of all time is a similar setup.