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In this month's Echoes from the Warp article in WD, Robin Cruddas, lead WH40K developer at GW, talks about judging and speaking at the NOVA Open convention in the US.

To elicit feedback on WH40K, he asked the following questions as ice breakers at his seminars, and also said that these same questions are asked when interviewing for the role of rules writer at GW:

1) "If you had a magic wand, and with it you could change one thing about WH40K, what would it be?"

2) "Using the same magic wand, you can safeguard one thing about WH40K and make it so it can't be changed - what would that be?"

How would you answer?

(I'll post mine answers below too when I've decided.)

1. I'd remove the focus on a handful of specific, apparently functionally-immortal individuals, and instead concentrate on conveying the vast scale of the setting. Doing the former makes the galaxy feel a lot smaller and less dangerous than it should be.

2. Keep the Imperium as nasty and unpleasant as it's always been, rather than turning them into the de facto "good guys".

1. I'd make in considerably less Imperium centric and far more egalitarian regarding faction focus.
2. I'd keep it a setting, not a story, but it's too late for that.

 Nazrak wrote:
1. I'd remove the focus on a handful of specific, apparently functionally-immortal individuals, and instead concentrate on conveying the vast scale of the setting. Doing the former makes the galaxy feel a lot smaller and less dangerous than it should be.

2. Keep the Imperium as nasty and unpleasant as it's always been, rather than turning them into the de facto "good guys".

Good answers.

1) Give Xenos more time in the limelight. Sure, Imperium vs Chaos is the classic. And the closest 40k comes to good vs evil. But the Xenos at the moment just show up as thorns in the side.

2) The sheer inhumanity of The Imperium.

1) Seriously limit, but not eiliminate, the amount of souping which is possible.

2) Keep the CP/stratagem framework (though allow it to evolve)

That's a hard one for me because I absolutely hate what 8th has done to the game and it would take a massive amount of work to unfeth the game. Simplist answer would be to change the game from 8th back to the beginning of 7th but that is a massive reset.

Also what to protect is very difficult because change isn't inherently bad but protecting one thing isn't worth a hill of beans if they completely change everything else adjacent to it which will indirectly impact the protected thing.

what's kinda concerning to me is how absolutely simplistic the concept is and how removed from reality it is when it comes to game design. A game system such as 40k is a web of interconnected sub systems that interact and impact how everything else works. Changing one thing can have catastrophic effects on everything else and you couldn't truely preserve one thing if everything that interacts with that system can be changed. To change an aspect of the game requires lots of tweets of various things to dial in the intended result without breaking other things.

Granted it's used as an insight into the thought process of a (potential) rules writer but I hope the desired answer is not the simple one because simple answers don't bode well for developing a complex game system.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
1) Give Xenos more time in the limelight. Sure, Imperium vs Chaos is the classic. And the closest 40k comes to good vs evil. But the Xenos at the moment just show up as thorns in the side.

2) The sheer inhumanity of The Imperium.

This.

The unrelenting focus on Imperium vs Chaos could do with a mix up. E - both in terms of narrative and models.

1. I'd loosen up the translation from fluff to tabletop with rules for unproduced/oop units and increase focus on personalisation, conversions and kitbashing.

2. I'd safeguard the notion that there are no good guys (at least on a faction scale, individuals may vary).

Make terrain meaningful - perhaps cover affects the "to hit" roll.

Keep the 8th edition streamlining: no templates, special vehicle rules etc. I was skeptical at firs, but now I like it!

Okay, so here are mine:

1) Change how the FAQs and errata are managed (move from scrappy PDFs to an app so they can be filtered and searched during a game)

2) Safeguard classic SM (i.e. keep Primaris as reinforcements)

1) Remove all manner of soup/CP abuse.
If you play army X, you play army X - not army X, Y and Z.

2) Make sure that the current trend of unique rules for all chapters/legions/craftworlds/clans, etc continues, and isn't only a 8th Ed. thing.

1: Increase the size of die from d6 to d10 or d12. At this point, superheavies and Guardsmen are in the game to stay. Right now, those interactions have 5 grades of difficulty (2+ to 6+) and that’s just not enough.

2: This is tough. Nothing about 8th edition as-is feels inviolable to me. It feels like a very good step in the right direction, but that many things could be tweaked towards improvement. I guess I like that a person *can* build a list without troops, through the “focused” detachments. While I always like to include troops, I have never felt it should be required. I would keep the openness of what Battleforged means. (Though to be honest, I’d get rid of FOC altogether).

1: Drop the IGOUGO
2: keep the fact that there are no good guys.

Those last two posts are good answers that I totally agree with.

1) I'd change the design process to focus on the competitive environment. I've heard the argument that having "fun" units that aren't so well balanced is good for the game, and I disagree. A game that is balanced in ultra-competitive play makes for a better experience for the casual player too.

2) Models need to stay playable. There's nothing wrong with (just for example) removing old-scale marines from the codex, but you have to do it with an eye on how existing players can continue using their existing collections.

The Newman wrote:
1) I'd change the design process to focus on the competitive environment. I've heard the argument that having "fun" units that aren't so well balanced is good for the game, and I disagree. A game that is balanced in ultra-competitive play makes for a better experience for the casual player too.

Just so the process does not become a marketing tool. In many ways, this has led to the dissolution of WMH in many markets and make it a challenge to build up. When everyone in a meta will only play tournament lists, it gets hard for new people who don't have that level of collection to even try it out. And many of those feel justified in this because PP has advertised it as a game you can be competitive with (while ignoring the vast number of pages devoted to more narrative gameplay).

I also agree with the above comments about how everything changes everything else, so one or two changes is tough. I will answer the questions my way in broader terms as others have done (and ignore the basic issue GW seems to have of no one fact checking between codices)

1: De-emphasize the hero-hammer nature of the game and move it back toward company sized squad leader-esque engagements where tactics, maneuver, and goals matter more than stat-lines. The movement toward characters making the models around them better is what I like. Unfortunately they then made most of those characters absolute killing machines that are worth more for that than anything else, and the troops are just wounds/shields for them. I want to go back to where my HQ was a lieutenant in charge of a platoon of 40 models with attachments (you know, what I actually have on the board, and this does not preclude the big giant robots that are super Kewl!!! They should just be fighting each other) Yes, there are other games for this, but I like the 40k feel, armies, etc. The fluff is too dark, but the variety is good.

2: This one is much tougher for me, because the bones of the game have a lot to work with, so too many are available. I'll choose the point buy system as something to absolutely keep. It is the only way to find any kind of balance between factions (although as it is I am not claiming the game is balanced (that problem is a combination of the points AND the over-powered nature of one stat: Attacks.)). Points increases the scale you can use to compare units, although I feel anytime that scale get's beyond about 200 points between models, it becomes absolute guesswork, and you should be switching to a different "scale" for the game. (Yes, I am one of the Epic scale was better as a separate game, sue me).

Well, went a little longer than this probably warranted on a forum, but there's my two cents.

1) change IGOUGO to something more interactive.

2) ... keep the Imperium as the bad guys

1) End the obsessive focus on Space Marines and make other Imperial factions more prominent as the 'poster boys (and girls)' of the setting. This lets them make things more inclusive (e.g. female and non-white IG characters can be given more prominence) without changing the actual lore (i.e. no need to introduce female SM if SM are no longer the 'primary protagonists' of the setting).

2) Keep the basic nature of the Warp and Chaos as it is. I.e. the Chaos Gods are formed from the collective emotions of mortals. There are worrying hints in AoS that GW are trying to make them more of a generic evil outside force and I think they risk fatally undermining the awesome cosmology they've spent 30+ years creating.

 Charistoph wrote:

The Newman wrote:
1) I'd change the design process to focus on the competitive environment. I've heard the argument that having "fun" units that aren't so well balanced is good for the game, and I disagree. A game that is balanced in ultra-competitive play makes for a better experience for the casual player too.

Just so the process does not become a marketing tool. In many ways, this has led to the dissolution of WMH in many markets and make it a challenge to build up. When everyone in a meta will only play tournament lists, it gets hard for new people who don't have that level of collection to even try it out. And many of those feel justified in this because PP has advertised it as a game you can be competitive with (while ignoring the vast number of pages devoted to more narrative gameplay).

Well yes, I wouldn't put that in the marketing material.

One of the things PP got right was that games almost always turned on player skill rather than army composition, a good player could pick their army by throwing darts at a wall and still beat a mid-level player with a tuned army and a decent idea of how to use it, and that was only possible because the unit balance was closer than they normally got credit for and the Rules As Written had very few ambiguities. 40k has never been close to that state.

(They're getting better, which I applaud even if they did have to get there by iterative point adjustments.)

I'd just put tightening the rules to reduce ambiguity and counter-intuitive rules and rule interactions at the top of the priority list, and getting interfaction balance right just below that.

 Brother Castor wrote:
In this month's Echoes from the Warp article in WD, Robin Cruddas, lead WH40K developer at GW, talks about judging and speaking at the NOVA Open convention in the US.

To elicit feedback on WH40K, he asked the following questions as ice breakers at his seminars, and also said that these same questions are asked when interviewing for the role of rules writer at GW:

1) "If you had a magic wand, and with it you could change one thing about WH40K, what would it be?"

2) "Using the same magic wand, you can safeguard one thing about WH40K and make it so it can't be changed - what would that be?"

How would you answer?

(I'll post mine answers below too when I've decided.)

#1. AoS has rules available free for each unit, do the same with 40k. Easier to keep them all up to date too.

#2. Fluff, make it fixed. Stop BL changing/over riding already published fluff, same with different editions changing already established fluff. The story may continue, and things can change as relics, worlds and units are lost, but "historical" battles should not loose them due to marketing and OOP issues. Squats existed, want to do a battle before the Tyranids devoured them all, you should be able to.

 Brother Castor wrote:
In this month's Echoes from the Warp article in WD, Robin Cruddas, lead WH40K developer at GW, talks about judging and speaking at the NOVA Open convention in the US.

To elicit feedback on WH40K, he asked the following questions as ice breakers at his seminars, and also said that these same questions are asked when interviewing for the role of rules writer at GW:

Robin Cruddas is the absolute worst game designer on their entire staff and they put him in charge. Explains everything.

1) "If you had a magic wand, and with it you could change one thing about WH40K, what would it be?"

The turn structure. Alternating unit activation

2) "Using the same magic wand, you can safeguard one thing about WH40K and make it so it can't be changed - what would that be?"[/b][/i]

Nothing. Placing anything as a sacred cow that is unchangeable is stagnating, bad, and the reason for the vast majority of the problems in the game. It makes sense that GW would consider any other answer a good one.

 Brother Castor wrote:
1) "If you had a magic wand, and with it you could change one thing about WH40K, what would it be?"

The flow of the game. These days it seems like a turn or two of 'hit it with a hammer' followed by either an irresistible mopping up action or an ineffectual slap fight between the stragglers. There is no build-up any more.

 Brother Castor wrote:
2) "Using the same magic wand, you can safeguard one thing about WH40K and make it so it can't be changed - what would that be?"

Boobplate. The setting - don't want to get age of sigmared. Well... any more age of sigmared that it already has been.

 Nazrak wrote:
1. I'd remove the focus on a handful of specific, apparently functionally-immortal individuals, and instead concentrate on conveying the vast scale of the setting. Doing the former makes the galaxy feel a lot smaller and less dangerous than it should be.

2. Keep the Imperium as nasty and unpleasant as it's always been, rather than turning them into the de facto "good guys".

This is about what i think.

But change up 2 a bit.

Let the Imperium be nasty and unpleasant, but allow it to show its black and white sides. And everything in between.
The grim dark setting is great, To think an inquisitor could be the good guy as they order the deaths of millions on a world.

Don't know about the second question, nothing seems to be worth keeping the way it is right now, at least to me. So if GW would chance stuff I wouldn't care.

But the first one, I would like designers lose jobs for doing a bad job, same as it is in other lines of works.

1) The (lack of) respect that it is afforded by its creators.

2) The enthusiasm it is afforded by its fanbase.

On a fluff level:

I'd want more focus on things that aren't human men. Women, xenos, female xenos, etc etc.
I'd keep Primaris, and the continual work on them.

On a meta level:

I'd want some "fans" of the hobby to be less negative.
I'd want to keep the same passion and flair for creativity from both the fanbase and designers.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
On a fluff level:

I'd want more focus on things that aren't human men. Women, xenos, female xenos, etc etc.
I'd keep Primaris, and the continual work on them.

On a meta level:

I'd want some fans of the hobby to be less negative.
I'd want to keep the same passion and flair for creativity from both the fanbase and designers.

Very measured response. I concur.

I'd want more focus on things that aren't human men. Women, xenos, female xenos, etc etc.

I don't know man, I would rather have GW stay away from anything female in the fluff. A friend borrowed Titandeath to me and if female fluff is suppose to look like that, then maybe it is better to not have it. Models would be nice though.

Karol wrote:

I'd want more focus on things that aren't human men. Women, xenos, female xenos, etc etc.

I don't know man, I would rather have GW stay away from anything female in the fluff. A friend borrowed Titandeath to me and if female fluff is suppose to look like that, then maybe it is better to not have it. Models would be nice though.

I've not read Titandeath, but what I have read from the women in the fluff tells me that they're either fine, or need to be made into characters just as developed (I would say strong, but some people may interpret that to mean physical strength) as the male leads in the 40k canon.

I mean, who can say that characters like Tona Criid, Lieutenant Mira, and Lotara Sarrin aren't great examples of awesome female characters, and why we should have more women like them?