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I was just thinking, what kind of entertainment or games do citizens have in the Imperium? I know it most likely depends on what world, but let me be particular on what I am asking:

Sports: Any type of traditional sport, nothing resulting in the death of the other team. (Like European Football)

Video Games.

Television.

The classic board game, I imagine those would be popular, considering how dated the culture of the Imperium can be in certain places.

What do you guys think of this? how would these certain things look like in the Imperium if they are actually still around?

Well, Blood bowl would be an option on some worlds for a contact sport. The game Regicide is mentioned in many books and is chess like.

I like to think the game "Ring and Cudgel" is a popular game on more civil Imperial worlds.

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While in the books there are lots of over the top blood sports, sure there’d be regular recreational sports. In form of the rules and play they might not be too different from sports played around the world, although you might look up sports like Kabaddi and precolombian American sports since they won’t all look like euro-settler sports.

However who plays them and who watches them will be very different than what we think of as the usual place of sports in society, since they haven’t got conventional finance capitalism. Teams will usually be local amateurs, possibly based around a trade guild e.g. hat makers or stevedores. There isn’t exactly room for hyper competitive helicopter parents driving kids to practice in minivans, buying expensive equipment and sending them to summer clinics, or for mass market professional teams with licensing deals. You’d look more at the step 7 and lower leagues in English football, the amateur clubs based around amateurs in a particular town or pub or workplace.

There is would also be sports for social elites, like polo or horse racing. This is where you might get something approaching conventional sports heroes, the kind where their images are broadcast on the propaganda screens.

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Well, Blood bowl would be an option on some worlds for a contact sport. The game Regicide is mentioned in many books and is chess like.

I like to think the game "Ring and Cudgel" is a popular game on more civil Imperial worlds.

Interesting, so that's where they got the name for that Warhammer chess game that nobody plays?

I'd imagine there would be regular sports.

I'd also imagine that the nobles of the world would probably take an interest, and try to keep a stable of players for their team. I could easily see them treating players like one might treat a thoroughbred horse or something. They'd be augmented and on a ton of PED's too. Probably would be competition between nobles to see who can have the best team.

 Jazzylee wrote:

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Well, Blood bowl would be an option on some worlds for a contact sport. The game Regicide is mentioned in many books and is chess like.

I like to think the game "Ring and Cudgel" is a popular game on more civil Imperial worlds.

Interesting, so that's where they got the name for that Warhammer chess game that nobody plays?

I don't know the first reference to Regicide, but it's at least as old as the Eisenhorn books. Someone even made a video game out of it.

Football (soccer) and rugby are played just under different names.

 Jazzylee wrote:
I was just thinking, what kind of entertainment or games do citizens have in the Imperium? I know it most likely depends on what world, but let me be particular on what I am asking:

Sports: Any type of traditional sport, nothing resulting in the death of the other team. (Like European Football)

Video Games.

Television.

The classic board game, I imagine those would be popular, considering how dated the culture of the Imperium can be in certain places.

What do you guys think of this? how would these certain things look like in the Imperium if they are actually still around?

Entertainment? Games? Sport? Aren't those all just synonyms for heresy?

Regicide is basically the same as chess as far as I understand and is a go-to way of recreation.
Dark Heresy 2 mentions upper hive on specific planet having a lot of masked musicians, acrobats etc who get money from performances.
Various holidays are a thing, most notable are the Emperor's feast and Sanguinala when common folk gets some room for breathing. Obviously local holidays dedicated to planet's saints or heroes are not impossible, complete with parades or mass prayers.
I bet recreation on feudal/feral worlds is not so different from old days of Terra.

Cain plays regicide in several of his books. Mention is made of hunting expeditions by wealthy nobles in Catachan fluff.

I get the impression that entertainment for the masses is in the form of festivals/parades. It wouldn’t surprise me if mummers plays were a thing, along with the 40k equivalent of bear baiting, to fit the ‘medieval’ theme. If this were the case, local foot-ball games (in the old sense of the term) would be a local tradition.

the Imperium of mankind is a VAST VAST VAST empire, made up of little islands of humanity contact between these worlds is often pretty minimal there may be some "higher forms of entertainment" common among thsoe few lucky eneugh to travel amongst the Imperium, such as Regicide, but at the same time most worlds are isolated and likely have their own sports. that said these sports proably have some things in common, think for example how many of our sports involve "hit the thingy into the target zone, within these limits" you have basketball (move the ball into a hoop, you can only move while bouncing it with your hands) Soccer/European Football (move the ball into the net using only your feet) Hockey (move the puck into the net with your stick) etc.

This BTW is a GREAT oppertunity for a GM in a dark heresy game. give your players a game that at first glance seems familer but has some strange arcane rules and exceptions.

There is no sport in the grim darkness of the far future, only WAR!


And chess.

I basically picture recreation in the Imperium as a mix of feudal/Napoleonic European culture with some 80s/90s style futuristic bloodsports mixed in.

Your average citizen probably favors physically demanding but simple sports like football, organized around local social structures like tradesman guilds as others have said. As JawRippa notes, there are probably sports that are tied to particular festivals, so you'd only see them played a few times a year.

Nobles would likely hunt (game, xenos, or criminals, depending on how decadent the world is), fence, or have other arcane/baroque contests that showcase their finesse and double as a platform for social sparring.

On worlds where life is cheap, you'll see blood sports of some variety: fighting/wrangling dangerous animals or other physical sparring all the way up to techno-barbarian mortal combat gladiators being splayed on screens around the hive.

Simple games of chance, cards, or dice are probably just as common in the Imperium as they are now. Regicide sounds like a "middlebrow" type of board game played by military professionals; nobility might play more complicated games of bluff or cunning but again they're as likely to be vehicles for social intrigue as they are games in and of themselves.

I could see tech-adepts on a forge world playing some kind of complicated holographic logic game, but that's as close to a "video game" you're like to see.

Television as we understand it doesn't really fit with the Imperium at all. Modes of mass communication are probably heavily controlled by the state and focused on propaganda, industry, and piety. Passive entertainment would take the form of small or locally-organized troupes of mummers, puppeteers, minstrels, jesters, dramatic actors, and dancers. Again, a lot of this would be related to regular festivals. Life would be pretty hardscrabble for these folk. You'd see a lot of slapstick comedy, light satire, tearjerker dramas, and other crowd-pleasing material mixed with enough saint worship and praise of local heros to keep the Arbites off their backs.

I'd love to see Necromunda have a Vidicast Games™ expansion that revolves around the idea that sometimes the gangers compete against each other in a televised arena battle, to win prizes and glory for their house. The promotional material could be done in the style of the Running Man or something similar.

 Jazzylee wrote:
I was just thinking, what kind of entertainment or games do citizens have in the Imperium? I know it most likely depends on what world, but let me be particular on what I am asking:

Sports: Any type of traditional sport, nothing resulting in the death of the other team. (Like European Football)

Video Games.

Television.

The classic board game, I imagine those would be popular, considering how dated the culture of the Imperium can be in certain places.

What do you guys think of this? how would these certain things look like in the Imperium if they are actually still around?

Wherever there are people there will be some form of recreation or entertainment.

Boxing was mentioned in the Macharius trilogy.

Card games are played .

There will be some form of soccer.

 Ginjitzu wrote:
I'd love to see Necromunda have a Vidicast Games™ expansion that revolves around the idea that sometimes the gangers compete against each other in a televised arena battle, to win prizes and glory for their house. The promotional material could be done in the style of the Running Man or something similar.

That's exactly the premise of the "gauntlet" scenario published in White Dwarf alsongside the release of the Badzone Delta-7 tile set.

I think any (literally) sport or recreational activity that is performed today or was in the past.
From jousting to Ludo!, From Blackjack to Valhallan Roulette, From Tallarn Rallye championship to illegal hovercar street racing. (Need for Speed: Aboveground 40'000)

Depends on the world.

New sports and activities might be 3D football, quidditch-equivalent or "Don't wake an Ambull" sport if you are in a need for some grimdark.

 Hawky wrote:
...or "Don't wake an Ambull" sport if you are in a need for some grimdark.

Reminds me of this: