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Akiasura wrote:
I'm not saying there aren't alternate rule set communities. I'm just saying that, outside of few exceptions, they are not widely spread enough to be commonly accepted and worth discussing much.

Yeah I don't disagree, I'm just pointing out there is "a large alternate ruleset community", it's just not the sort of community that tends to get together and produce wide spread changes outside of some tournaments.

The 40k community is a strange one and was always different than the WHFB community.

While army restrictions or rule changes were always accepted in WHFB, it was nearly impossible to get he players to accept a simple tournament FAQ.
Mostly because there is always a group which want to read the rules differently and get the others to accept their version.
So instead of playing a game with a community FAQ they want to stay with the broken rules because everything is perfect.
There has also never been a hype for community rules like it happened for Blood Bowl or WHFB.


I tried, or was part of a group which tried, to get a kind of LRB Project to the community several times.

First attempt was in the 5th edition were the Austrian tournaments used different scenarios winning conditions and used fantasy like army restrictions which balanced the game up to a point.

But because our tournament scene is rather small no one else gives a damn and just continued complaining about the bad rules.

With 6th edition, everything was forgotten because the new rules are better and we will see the golden age of 40k (like every time a new edition comes out)
But soon people realised that it was not and me and some german players tried to merge the best of 5th and 6th edition to an alternative rule set.
We made surveys and polls in different forums and based our rules to them.
With 7th edition, no one was interested any more because the new edition will solve all problems 40k ever had and it will become the best game ever.

So now with the new Tau Codex and the possibility of 40k going the AoS way, I try again to get a LRB Project running.

A new Rulebook, based on wishes, surveys, polls and discussions during/after tournament and club games (this time written in English first and started with the German version) and maybe I can get a foot in the door before 8th is coming out.
A lot of older players are interested and see it as a chance to get back to the game, while newer players think that the rules a good as they are (and random missions and tables are perfect to balance the army lists)

- Do you think it will be tough to "sell" a rule system based on D10?

- Do any of you know persons/groups who are interested and open-minded towards new rule systems and who actively seeks new systems to try out?

D10's aren't practical to roll in large numbers. They're bulkier, more prone to cocking since there's more sides and there's visual issues with the 6 and 9 faces. D8's would be about as high as you could get away with I think

Every D10 I've ever seen marks the 6 and/or the 9, and you can get small D10s. Void certainly managed, back in the day.

No-one's going to get a replacement for 40k instantly accepted globally. GW didn't do it, so why would anyone else expect to? However, that shouldn't stop you starting smaller. See if you can make changes your group is happy with, discuss it online and see if it grows.

I'm sure more than a few people have come up with alt rulesets, whether they're heavily modified versions of GW's ruleset, based off another system,or scratch written. Getting one out there in widespread use is another story though, the main challenge being the sheer amount of material to be incorporated. Establishing a fun and balanced core ruleset is challenging but manageable. Working every existing unit and formation into that ruleset and maintaining balance is a mammoth task.

Secondly, there's the challenge of getting any sizeable proportion of the gaming community to agree / subscribe to that ruleset, as a lot of gamers have their own particular fixations on how things should be. In all likelihood if someone came up with a system that was widely accepted to be superior to 40k, becuase it's not official, you would find it being taken by a thousand different gaming groups and modified to their view. Which isn't a bad thing, but the end result is you still wouldn't have an alternative 40k ruleset...you'd have a thousand variants of it.

The ideal thing would be if someone were prepared to take the wheel and establish an official alternative ruleset website. They'd need to dedicate large amounts of time to writing and maintaining the ruleset -including the gritty work like number crunching, asking groups to playest, then taking feedback from them and fine tuning the rules and unit values to suit. If all this was well done, then other gamer's would subscribe to the rules site, not because they have to, but out of a sense of confidence in them. It would be a full time job though, and require a host of volunteer playtesters.

I'm not sure 40k could take successful legal action, so long as you don't step on their toes. Brand it is a generic sci-fi ruleset. Avoid trademarks, and come up with alternate names for things where neccessary. I've seen this already on 3rd party miniature sites -space wolves are "Space Vikings," and melta guns are "fusion rifles."

The difference between a game without a large homebrew ruleset community and a game that does have that is the difference between 40k and D&D.

40k has a huge playerbase, but you're almost never playing with the same group over and over again. Usually people play pick up games with random people or they play tournaments. Aside from tournaments, which have their own FAQ usually, nothing else is regular enough to provide the acceptance of new or changed rules. If you play with the same group all the time, you probably have some homebrew stuff, but for people who walk into a FLGS for a game or two with whoever is there, it simply isn't practical to ask each person each time to go over and accept your new rules.

In D&D you're playing with a set group for months, if not years, regularly. A DM can homebrew changes to rules as they see fit, and players can homebrew classes or races they think would be interesting. It is regular enough and usually long-term enough that people can read, accept, and see how your new stuff plays out.

Really great feedback from you guys - thank you!

Good thing to know about those D10, AndrewGPaul. I was a bit worried about the size of D10.

@thegreatchimp: Very helpful what you posted, thank you very much! My codices use the real names of the models and I've used a lot of the actual background text, so I guess I can't openly distribute these documents of mine? I've also used fan-made pictures found on the internet, so I guess artists should be mentioned somewhere, if I were to openly distribute my codices?

@D10
I see no problems to use a D10 System, but 40k itself don't need it
Because for comparing 2 values, a D6 system is fine and D10 would only have an advantage

 thegreatchimp wrote:

The ideal thing would be if someone were prepared to take the wheel and establish an official alternative ruleset website. They'd need to dedicate large amounts of time to writing and maintaining the ruleset -including the gritty work like number crunching, asking groups to playest, then taking feedback from them and fine tuning the rules and unit values to suit. If all this was well done, then other gamer's would subscribe to the rules site, not because they have to, but out of a sense of confidence in them. It would be a full time job though, and require a host of volunteer playtesters.

Planning do to this or something similar.
At the moment I am talking with the admins of a tabletop forum to use their site (getting an international/english sub-forum for alternative 40k rules) to discuss things.
I am searching for playtesters outside my local group and talk with the writers of the (local) tournament FAQ's for their support.

 McNinja wrote:

it simply isn't practical to ask each person each time to go over and accept your new rules.

But you already have to do this to play 40k outside your local group.
Just because there are no official FAQ's unbound, LOW or FW Lists are not everywhere treated the same etc.
Without discussing the rules before playing with a new person it is not possible to play it without running into problems during gameplay.

So using alternative rules is more or less the same like using different tournament FAQ's.

Because alternative rules don't have to change that much, just bring the rules back in line and remove unnecessary parts.

Chaospling wrote:
Good thing to know about those D10, AndrewGPaul. I was a bit worried about the size of D10.

Now I think about it, I'm not sure I can back it up. :( Iused to have a pair of "tubes" of polyhedral dice - you know, for RPGers, with a D4, a D6, a D8, etc, etc, that were smaller than usual; the D10s in there are probably about the size of the D6s GW include in 40k and Warhammer. I'm not sure where they came from, though, and if you could buy just D10s in bulk.

 kodos wrote:

Planning do to this or something similar.
At the moment I am talking with the admins of a tabletop forum to use their site (getting an international/english sub-forum for alternative 40k rules) to discuss things.
I am searching for playtesters outside my local group and talk with the writers of the (local) tournament FAQ's for their support.

Could you write me a message if this goes through or otherwise announce it here on dakka? Would be great to get one's work out there and hear people's opinions about it.

There are various obstacles to writing a completely new system. Writing the core rules, movement, combat, etc isn't too hard and there are alreay lots of SF rulesets out there that would be used more or less off the shelf.

The problem would be how to account for all the special rules for different monsters, weird vehicles and things like Space Magic.

Once you do all that there is the points system to worry about.

Finally, when everything is ready, GW will probably hit you with a S&D.

It's a lot easier just to play a different game altogether. A lot of the 40K figures and models will work in other SF rules.

Makumba wrote:
Please, ITC is fair? They had crazy ruling that made no sense, like the buffmander one.

I'm assuming you mean the fact that o'vesa can't join a unit with another independent character?

Good, that was filth. Especially when you could run o'vesa, a riptide, and buffmander all in one unit back in 6th.

Or o'vesa dropping in the o'vesa star...

 awbbie wrote:

Deadza wrote:
The "One Page 40k" project seems way more reasonable than the actual 40k rules I have ever seen ha.

Yeah they look really good to me. In fact here's the link: https://onepagerules.wordpress.com/

I agree, this looks like a pretty decent rule set. It's a bit too abstract for my tastes, but it really succeeds as a "kings of war/40k" mashup.

Chaospling wrote:

Could you write me a message if this goes through or otherwise announce it here on dakka? Would be great to get one's work out there and hear people's opinions about it.

Of course I will.
At the moment the main problem at the moment is that the admins don't want to do something before it is really necessary (while a people arguing that there should already be something before they invest time into it).

 Kilkrazy wrote:

The problem would be how to account for all the special rules for different monsters, weird vehicles and things like Space Magic.

Once you do all that there is the points system to worry about.

A lot of work and a lot of playtesting, but all the special rules for different monsters are not needed.
There are ways to get the same result with less special rules and effects and the real problem is the time needed to write everything down.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

It's a lot easier just to play a different game altogether. A lot of the 40K figures and models will work in other SF rules.

But there are people who want to play their specific army
I like my Space Wolves and the only reason doing this is to see them on the table again.

Of course I can play them as Forge Fathers or Enforcer in Warpath, but it would not be the same.
(the only reason I play Kings of War with my Warhammer miniatures is that the Warhammer fluff changed to much the last years and I actually like the Mantica fluff more)

And yes, playing a different game is the easy why and that's why most the old 40k players in my club play X-Wing or WM/H now

 kodos wrote:

Chaospling wrote:

Could you write me a message if this goes through or otherwise announce it here on dakka? Would be great to get one's work out there and hear people's opinions about it.

Of course I will.
At the moment the main problem at the moment is that the admins don't want to do something before it is really necessary (while a people arguing that there should already be something before they invest time into it).

Yes, I'll probably finish three codices besides the rulebook before I can say that it's ready to go out.

Chaospling wrote:

My codices use the real names of the models and I've used a lot of the actual background text, so I guess I can't openly distribute these documents of mine? I've also used fan-made pictures found on the internet, so I guess artists should be mentioned somewhere, if I were to openly distribute my codices?

Glad to be of help. I wouldn't be the best person to ask about the finer points of copyright infringement, I just know that GW can will pursue any perceived theft of their trademarks with an idiotic tenacity (read about the "Spots the Space Marine" case. Even if your hypothetical ruleset were being given for free, I imagineGW would be quite relentless in trying to stamp it out if it in any way looked like a variant of their own rules. For this reason the wisest thing could be to only take the vital mechanics you need from 40k, then write the rest of the rules, coining your own terminology and generally putting enough original mechanics into it that you have a solid defence against them claiming you've plagiarised their material.

I'm currently writing up the bones of a D10 sci fi battle system. It's fundamental differences from 40k are that it utilises a combined turn system where specific orders are given in secret, and then resolved one action at a time by each player. Emphasis on actual tactics, units supporting one another and keeping your units from being wiped out. I Personally am convinced that working off a D10 is vital, a D6 is just too limiting.

I really like the minis, maybe to use another rulebook.

 Capt. Camping wrote:
I really like the minis, maybe to use another rulebook.

If you are a big fan of the minis, and don't mind smaller games, I strongly encourage you to try the specialist games.

Gorka Morka and Necromunda are amazing games, with a good set of house rules being readily available. The rules naturally forge the narrative and the balance with the house rules is very excellent. With the house rules nearly any faction can play and do fine in, though some have a stronger model count than others.
I've never had so much fun playing a game as a league of Necromunda. It's probably the best table top game out there if you really like narrative skirmish games at all.

This thread inspired me to check out 1 page 40k, and I am totally liking what I am seeing.

What about Killteam ruleset? Particularly the Heralds of Ruin variant. What do you guys think?

I still enjoy the game, we use some minor house rules but that is about it.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

Chaospling wrote:

My codices use the real names of the models and I've used a lot of the actual background text, so I guess I can't openly distribute these documents of mine? I've also used fan-made pictures found on the internet, so I guess artists should be mentioned somewhere, if I were to openly distribute my codices?

I'm currently writing up the bones of a D10 sci fi battle system. It's fundamental differences from 40k are that it utilises a combined turn system where specific orders are given in secret, and then resolved one action at a time by each player. Emphasis on actual tactics, units supporting one another and keeping your units from being wiped out. I Personally am convinced that working off a D10 is vital, a D6 is just too limiting.

I'm also very focused on actual tactics and I'm also doing a combined turn, though to keep it in the spirit of 40k I've kept the phases which both players take before the next is reached. Looking forward to hear more of your system.

I prefer One Page 40K, these rules are based in FUBAR

 mathaius90 wrote:
What about Killteam ruleset? Particularly the Heralds of Ruin variant. What do you guys think?

It's well worth checking out. Has some rules that should be standard in 40k. The cover rules are particularely good. I've pulled a fair few ideas from it.

That said, I'm browsing through the rules for Infinity at them moment, and it seems like a superior ruleset to anything I've read yet.