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Simple enough query I guess.

If you could use your models and books, but somebody codified an alternate ruleset which was, in essence, still 40K, but altered to solve at least some of the issues and eliminate some of the common complaints and required little or no further investment, would you go the extra mile to encourage people to adopt it?

I'm always up for trying a new take on things. One Page 40k was a fun alternate way to play with my toys.

As far as promoting it that would depend on the quality and ease of learning the new rules. The easier and more streamlined a home brew is the more likely I am to try and get people to try it.

I feel like they could clean up 40k a lot. Way too many special rules and bookkeeping for my taste.

This is one of the reasons I started working on my Errata project, the goal was to have something that was close to 40k and outside of army building changes at the codex army building level had very few major changes.

Depending on what it tries to fix, how it fixes things, how (dis)similar it is to the core and how well written, I'd give it a pop.
I still enjoy 40k but things like the over emphasis on shooting, lack of clarity around terrain/ruins and some of the whackier army builds irk me.

I chose yes, simply because I love variety. If there was an 'unofficial' source of solid, fun sounding rules and I could use all the materials I had now, I'd definitely give it a shot. Likely, I wouldn't make it my norm though, as by and large, people (myself included) tend to want to play the official rules, even if they might not be the best.

But I deeply enjoy variety, which was why I like to play 1 Page 40k a lot with my buddy, as it's quicker, simpler and lets us get a couple games in as opposed to the traditionally longer games with my local club. Not to say either is more fun than the other, but I can't lie and say official rules aren't severely bloated/convoluted at times.

I'd play ones that would be "realistic".

gak, I'll try anything once. Except sky diving. Terrified of heights, and why jump out of a serviceable aircraft?

I'm sure many people would prefer a variant that minimizes changes of how 40k fundamentally plays.

I would if my local players also played.

so probably not.

 Blacksails wrote:
gak, I'll try anything once. Except sky diving. Terrified of heights, and why jump out of a serviceable aircraft?

I'm sure many people would prefer a variant that minimizes changes of how 40k fundamentally plays.

Ha! When I sent skydiving I was happy to jump out of it. I trusted the parachute more than the plane.... even the pilot was wearing a parachute and there was literal duct tape all over it including the wings!

I'd vote for the first two if I could. I'd love better rules but would prefer an official source to avoid having to convince people to play a homebrew 40k.

 Desubot wrote:
I would if my local players also played.

so probably not.

Every new system needs an advocate!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

lustigjh wrote:
I'd vote for the first two if I could. I'd love better rules but would prefer an official source to avoid having to convince people to play a homebrew 40k.

Do you think it would need to be GW, or do you think an actually professionally produced book from a third party would be sufficient for the majority?

 Zagman wrote:


Ha! When I sent skydiving I was happy to jump out of it. I trusted the parachute more than the plane.... even the pilot was wearing a parachute and there was literal duct tape all over it including the wings!

Yeah...I'm going to fly a 50+ year old aircraft shortly...but I'd trust that thing more than free falling with a chute on my back. Helps I rarely go above a few thousand feet. Autorotate baby!

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
I'd play ones that would be "realistic".

By realistic I assume you mean logical and didn't contain things which broke your suspension of disbelief? Or are you saying you wouldn't play a game that didn't give heavy weapons all infinite range because in reality they'd be effective over far greater distances than the tabletop portrays?

I wish GW would just outsource their rules and codexes to another company, like Fantasy Flight and be done with it. They've been shotgunning out their IP to every video game studio they can, and they're clearly intent on marching down the "Models not Games" mentality theyve been trumpeting. Just make the damn models, and partner up with someone with the wherewithal to make a real tabletop game!

 McGibs wrote:
I wish GW would just outsource their rules and codexes to another company, like Fantasy Flight and be done with it. They've been shotgunning out their IP to every video game studio they can, and they're clearly intent on marching down the "Models not Games" mentality theyve been trumpeting. Just make the damn models, and partner up with someone with the wherewithal to make a real tabletop game!

Actually a pretty sound idea. This would allow the company to focus entirely on what they claim they want to focus on. Models. Put all their thought into producing even better, more interesting and dynamic models and the fluff behind them, while leaving the heavy thinking to a seasoned rules company who can do the models justice in the game and not just justice on a display shelf.

How about adding the option "I would if my local meta does, but I wouldn't push new rules on to them."

SJ

I personally am slowly working on Bolt Action 40k. I think those rules are a good basis for 40k but it requires a bit more work than I initially thought.

Sure, I'd like a better ruleset, but I also want it to be well thought out, logical, and relatively balanced. Unfortunately a lot of the ones I see here on Dakka (barring a few like Zagman's) are none of those things. There's a lot of bias, specific army love/hate, and radically different ideas of how even certain core mechanics should work. It doesn't help that some of the people proposing rules also have very little experience (relatively speaking) with 40K and base their changes on small local-metagame issues. And even if you come up with a ruleset, everyone will have an opinion about it...I myself am in no way qualified to write an alternative ruleset, but I definitely have my own ideas about the game I'd like to play.
Games Workshop's rules are terrible, but the fact that they are universal means that I can take my codex and army to a game pretty much anywhere and it will work basically the same, barring a few local FAQs. Supplanting said ruleset would require massive publicity and acceptance; even if BAO, LVO, Adepticon and NOVA all adopted the same modified ruleset there would still be a sizable group of players that never visit these forums and would be ignorant of such changes, cutting down on the number of pickup games available. Though in the long run it would probably work out, for a while it would be rough while people transition.
I agree with McGibs, a third-party company would probably be the most appealing solution moving forward, since no one feels like they're buddy-buddy with them (unlike people with close ties to some of the big TOs) and would cut down on weird "council shenanigans".

I personally am slowly working on Bolt Action 40k. I think those rules are a good basis for 40k but it requires a bit more work than I initially thought.

I was looking at bolt action as a surragate 40k ruleset as well, but like you realized that it would take some pretty heavy reworking (mostly that it's a system designed around regular humans with no armour)

But then I found Beyond the Gates of Antares (http://www.warlordgames.com/gates-of-antares/), which is warlord's sci-fi bolt action, essentially. It's currently in beta, and you can download all the rules for free. It plays VERY simmilar to bolt action, but looks much much easier to adapt 40k units to its use (something which I've been tinkering with). It's basically bolt action with the addition of 40k style statlines, so it allows for a much greater range of characters.

 McGibs wrote:

I personally am slowly working on Bolt Action 40k. I think those rules are a good basis for 40k but it requires a bit more work than I initially thought.

I was looking at bolt action as a surragate 40k ruleset as well, but like you realized that it would take some pretty heavy reworking (mostly that it's a system designed around regular humans with no armour)

But then I found Beyond the Gates of Antares (http://www.warlordgames.com/gates-of-antares/), which is warlord's sci-fi bolt action, essentially. It's currently in beta, and you can download all the rules for free. It plays VERY simmilar to bolt action, but looks much much easier to adapt 40k units to its use (something which I've been tinkering with). It's basically bolt action with the addition of 40k style statlines, so it allows for a much greater range of characters.

You keep telling me, I think I may finally give in and give it a go.

I'd prefer it was official, but any game I could use my 40k figs with would be one I'd try.

I would play it, but seeing how I only play pick up games at the moment (the gaming club near me meets on an evening that I work, so when I rarely do get to play it's pretty unplanned) it would either have to be official or really widespread for me to be able to.

This is the outstanding question of dakkadakka.

Given so many people think the existing rules are terrible, and they could do better... I would love to see them prove it. What's to lose?

Definitely worth starting with a skirmish-style game, reduced scale and model count, 1000 points or less. If that can work well it's a good basis for a bigger game.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Given so many people think the existing rules are terrible, and they could do better... I would love to see them prove it. What's to lose?

I think that's a little unfair. There's a whole world of difference between "I think this is a bad idea and here's how I would have done it" and "this is all gak, I could have done so much better if I could only be bothered."

One needn't be a Michelin starred chef to know something tastes terrible, nor an Oscar winning director to see a movie is poor quality.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Given so many people think the existing rules are terrible, and they could do better... I would love to see them prove it. What's to lose?

I think that's a little unfair. There's a whole world of difference between "I think this is a bad idea and here's how I would have done it" and "this is all gak, I could have done so much better if I could only be bothered."

One needn't be a Michelin starred chef to know something tastes terrible, nor an Oscar winning director to see a movie is poor quality.

I'd love to see this done. Hope it happens.

Just like with DnD, I'm always up for trying new things or making alterations to fit the narrative. Everything is malleable as long as everyone agrees. Communication is key here.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
This is the outstanding question of dakkadakka.

Given so many people think the existing rules are terrible, and they could do better... I would love to see them prove it. What's to lose?

Definitely worth starting with a skirmish-style game, reduced scale and model count, 1000 points or less. If that can work well it's a good basis for a bigger game.

What's to lose? Hours and hours of your time for no real gain to release something to a hyper-critical audience so that they can savage it like a pack of rabid dingoes.

Another vote for "would happily play homerules if can find people interested in them"

Also BtGoA looks mint. I was looking at a bolt action port of 40k too but this is definitely better

 Psienesis wrote:

What's to lose? Hours and hours of your time for no real gain...

The following is somewhat of a repeat of something I said in an earlier thread, but I think it's relevent here, since I'm pretty sure this thread was inspired by what I said earlier:

Actually, you could create and sell the rules to be used with GW models so long as you don't take fluff or rules from 40k books. You COULD use the names of existing GW models, so long as it was clear that you were referring to the GW product when you used the name. GW has made the claim over and over that they're a modelling company that makes toys for kids. They've said they don't care how the kids play with their toy models, or what(if any) rules they use to do so. But even if they HAD NOT said that, a second company could produce rulebooks for a game that allowed the use of GW models, and it wouldn't be copyright infringement or a violation of trademark. As part of the "Fair Use Exception", you can both depict a product and list the name of said product in a publication when mentioning said company's product. And GW does NOT have any legal control over how someone plays with their toys, or any other company that creates rules which are meant to be played with those toys.

EXAMPLE: It'd be like me creating a game that requires you to own a Rolex as your game piece. Rolex would have no say over anything I did with the game, as I wouldn't be infinging on the business of creating expensive watches, but rather a game that called for the use of said watches.

There ARE, however, things that would need to be addressed. You'd want to use completely different names for things that were entirely made up by GW, such as Melta-bombs, krak grenades, etc. You would likely win a legal battle using things like fusion guns, plasma pistols, and things of that nature because they're too vague and they use real scientific words, AND GW lists the names of those things in their model packages, which are completely seperate from the 40k game. Trademarking Plasma Pistols or Laser Cannons would be the equivalent to trying to trademark the words: "Pepperoni Pizza". You just can't do it. That said, GW is still GW, and they'd sue you for it even if they knew they wouldn't win, because it will hurt a startup's pocket more than theirs. So, it would be in the best interest of anyone doing this to minimize any rules similarities between 40k and the new rules set created.

Furthermore, on the fluff side, they'd want to be extra careful not to use any fluff at all from 40k. My personal way of handling it would likely be to take a very minimalistic approach to fluff to start out with, giving basic backgrounds for factions and units, and that's it. I'd also have a preamble about it at the beginning of the book, encouraging players to make up their own fluff, or feel free to draw fluff from other sources, as "Betray's Workshop" is in the business of making rules for games, and leaves the job of telling stories to game masters, roleplayers, and modelling companies.


P.S. If anyone legitimately wants to do this, I may be available for assistance with rules-writing, and legal research/advice.