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.

It would not stop me playing it either, but I think it is worth thinking about and talking about. I spend a lot of time on this hobby and I like to think about it (probably much more than I should to a silly toy soldiers game).

What I am doing myself is re-organising the setting in my headcanon (which will be used for introducing new people to wargaming and also as a setting to run roleplaying games in) where it is obvious that the Imperium are the bad guys, and where alternatives exist (just alternatives that are not as powerful or influential, thus giving players an underdog faction to control and root for against the evil empire).

Edit: I started with GW games when I was 11 or 12. And back then me and my older brother could see that the IoM were the baddies. I played Blood Angels back then and he played Imperial Guard, but specifically a rebel faction that had deserted and were trying to find a new home outside of Imperial Space. The story behind our games was that my Blood Angels were coming after them to capture them and execute them. We understood in our games that my guys were the baddies, and I had fun playing them. But we got that, even back then. We understood that, as children. So I think we don't need to worry TOO much about the kids playing the game, but then again back in 2e it was a bit more obvious that the Imperium were not the good guys. But to me as soon as they were executing people for genetic "flaws" it was clear who they were.

DaBoss, that doesn’t even sound like “head canon” inasmuch is certainly true, within canonical 40k, that the IoM is horrendous, and it is at least arguable that there are alternatives to “how things MUST be” — and in fact, the latter informs the former, because any discourse whatsoever about alternatives is considered treasonous and blasphemous by TPTB.

For me, it's just a matter of understanding it as something that should be approached critically (which is a fancy word for "don't assume the Imperium, or any other faction, is justified in what it does"). I don't know about introducing kids to it - I don't have any of my own, and I started playing 40k when I was eight, and I turned out ok, but I was a bit precocious with understanding when something isn't meant to be taken seriously.

Aye, I just want to introduce more of those human societies into the setting so that they exist as examples and it is not as hopless to go against the IoM. But OT for this thread, just an example of what you can do as a gamer if you don't like this stuff.

 Da Boss wrote:
Aye, I just want to introduce more of those human societies into the setting so that they exist as examples and it is not as hopless to go against the IoM. But OT for this thread, just an example of what you can do as a gamer if you don't like this stuff.

Don't associate with those people and don't encourage them. Also, when you get the chance, call GW out on how they're steering too hard into a heroic IoM.

 Da Boss wrote:
It would not stop me playing it either, but I think it is worth thinking about and talking about. I spend a lot of time on this hobby and I like to think about it (probably much more than I should to a silly toy soldiers game).

What I am doing myself is re-organising the setting in my headcanon (which will be used for introducing new people to wargaming and also as a setting to run roleplaying games in) where it is obvious that the Imperium are the bad guys, and where alternatives exist (just alternatives that are not as powerful or influential, thus giving players an underdog faction to control and root for against the evil empire).

There is no evil, because there is no good anymore.
Simple as, someone named it corectly, a crapverse. Where everything has gone so to gak that the alternative of morality isn't even a consideration anymore, because the universe was at one point selfaware enough to satirise everything, heck take a look at orks, the "commedic relief faction" would be in any other universe be the BBG.

The imperium was once obvious, a corrupt totalitarian and needlessly cruel , to the point of selfsabotaging feudal wanna be Utopia ending in the worst dystopia to ever exist. Because the ends did justify the means approach got taken. I wonder where that comes from:... hint look at any historically totalitarian state in our history and i bet you find a corresponding 40k IoM faction.

Tau, mindcontroll, 1984 or whatevs+ police state+ feudal cast system, in which just practicising a hobby may get you killed because you are not in the correct class to craft.

Necrons: oh look we are the epitome of useless absolute monarchy throwing a hissy fit and beeing baseline responsible for the whole mess.

Eldar.... yeah we fethed , tortured and excessed to the point we tore the galaxy a new opening to "literally hell, but worse" which reflected our behaviour....

Chaos? Well all off the above, except we take your soul aswell. Also there's no healthcare... otoh it's equal opportunity but only if you have a soul--- so rip Tau, nids and Necrons , you don't get hired.

OP, don’t let other people spoil your fun. You won’t stop people like that playing the game by stopping yourself.

Just choose who you associate with, and game with, carefully and don’t engage with bad people.

There’s a lot of racism and thuggery and just unpleasant people in the football (soccer) fan base but it doesn’t mean we should stop watching it. We just tell those idiots they are wrong.

These people are committed to their ideals regardless of what games they play.

Hecaton wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Aye, I just want to introduce more of those human societies into the setting so that they exist as examples and it is not as hopless to go against the IoM. But OT for this thread, just an example of what you can do as a gamer if you don't like this stuff.

Don't associate with those people and don't encourage them. Also, when you get the chance, call GW out on how they're steering too hard into a heroic IoM.

I disagree. I think this has been established in this discussion already, GW is under no obligation to make the imperium more or less heroic since it's fiction and they have no political agenda.
Also, portraying the imperium as heroic does not take away the awful stuff they do. It's not just one or the other. Heroic deeds of characters within a faction does not mean that the faction is suddenly good or right.
Sororitas can be heroic and selfless, they are however still utterly bonkers religious zealots. A dark Eldar incubus can do heroic deeds in combat and uphold some form of martial honor, that does not make him less of a torturing sadist.

I always considered the Black Crusade RPG one of the odd places gamers could find heroism in the 40k setting. Of course, you play Chaos-tainted characters, who are known to get up to some pretty vile stuff. But the overriding idea of the game (so far as I understood it) was not so much to rehabilitate chaos as to remind us that the IoM is actually a ton more scary than the gross-looking misfits.

Tiberias wrote:


I disagree. I think this has been established in this discussion already, GW is under no obligation to make the imperium more or less heroic since it's fiction and they have no political agenda.
Also, portraying the imperium as heroic does not take away the awful stuff they do. It's not just one or the other. Heroic deeds of characters within a faction does not mean that the faction is suddenly good or right.
Sororitas can be heroic and selfless, they are however still utterly bonkers religious zealots. A dark incubus can do heroic deeds in combat and uphold some form of martial honor, that does not make him less of a torturing sadist.

Depends on your definition of heroism i.e. "great" vs. "good."

That the Imperium is "great" is fine, that the Imperium is "good" is obviously in question and portraying them as unironically good oftentimes comes off as a right wing wet dream.

I thought the Black Crusade RPG skated around that stuff but ultimately chickened out. They came close to what I wanted but just missed the mark in a lot of ways unfortunately. I must take another stab at it myself sometime.

Hecaton: Well, yeah, if I know someone is a fascist no way am I hanging out with them at all. But I run RPGs for kids in school and will also be introducing them to wargames, so I just like to think a bit about stuff from that angle sometimes.

 Da Boss wrote:
I really enjoyed reading this thread, and I think the level to which everyone is so tense in replying is sad. Everyone who has replied basically agrees with how to deal with the problem, they basically only disagree on the extent of the problem or whether GW should bear responsibility.

I think that GW bears a little responsibility because the later writers (from 4e/5e onward) have written the background in a way that justifies the Imperium and makes them into more of a "good guy" faction. I think it is mostly clumsy writing and some less thoughtful designers after the old guard left and is not malicious.

But the Imperium is a pastiche of both fascism (and this should be really obvious, people who don't see it must be being a bit wilful to my mind!) and totalitarian communism as well. It is sort of a pastiche of all the worst stuff from the 20th century overlaid onto the Holy Roman Empire, in space! Which is a cool idea for a setting, to be sure.

I think if we accept that fascists like 40K a lot (and those who haven't encountered it, it does exist) then we can examine why that is. And yeah, we can do something about it.

As for free speech, that is a very parochial american point of view. Most of the world doesn't work like that, you guys are the weird outliers, it's just that you are used to considering yourselves the default more. Pro-Nazi stuff will get you in trouble with the law pretty easily where I am, for sure.

It's nice to see some good discussion.

I disagree with this notion that 40k has some weird fascistic craw though. The only superiority elements are that of humanity over any other races. There is no real racism in as much as the imperium doesn't care what race you are, as long as you do your duty. In that it's more totalitarian if anything.

If 'fascists' (and I put that in quote because I really don't think there are that many) do like 40k I'd imagine it's got more to do with the aesthetic of marching infantry formations, massed tanks and the Gothic imagery than any ideology.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hecaton wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Aye, I just want to introduce more of those human societies into the setting so that they exist as examples and it is not as hopless to go against the IoM. But OT for this thread, just an example of what you can do as a gamer if you don't like this stuff.

Don't associate with those people and don't encourage them. Also, when you get the chance, call GW out on how they're steering too hard into a heroic IoM.

Why? People naturally want to see people being heroes and reading about heroic characters kicking the ass of evil or threats to other humans. It's a key part of the genre/setting, and one of the big draws of a lot of fiction. Nobody watches lord of the rings and complains that the good guys were too rough on Sauron.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I disagree with this notion that 40k has some weird fascistic craw though. The only superiority elements are that of humanity over any other races. There is no real racism in as much as the imperium doesn't care what race you are, as long as you do your duty. In that it's more totalitarian if anything.

If you look at it in depth you're right, but many of these types have their own headcanon that the Imperium is overwhelmingly white, and the iconography is uses is heavily grounded in Euro-Christian inspirations (taken to extremes). The Tau are called "communists" because people think they're supposed to be Chinese. And I've of course seen people who think that Orks or Tyranids are supposed to be an analogy for blacks or immigrants.

The Imperium get all the spiffy looking uniforms too.

Fascists like that kind of thing as well.

The IoM is all about genetic purity and so on as well, which people can absolutely twist around to fit their ideology.

It isn't racist, as such, but it does use those ideas to show how crappy the Imperium is.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Why? People naturally want to see people being heroes and reading about heroic characters kicking the ass of evil or threats to other humans. It's a key part of the genre/setting, and one of the big draws of a lot of fiction. Nobody watches lord of the rings and complains that the good guys were too rough on Sauron.

The difference is that Sauron was the one committing mass murder and with the brutal industrial war machine. The Imperium is unapologetically genocidal and xenophobic; there's issues with portraying them as heroic that don't come into play when we're talking about the men, elves, dwarves, or hobbits of Middle-Earth. Unironically, at least; the Imperium makes for great heroes if you have a sense of irony.

Hecaton wrote:

Tiberias wrote:


I disagree. I think this has been established in this discussion already, GW is under no obligation to make the imperium more or less heroic since it's fiction and they have no political agenda.
Also, portraying the imperium as heroic does not take away the awful stuff they do. It's not just one or the other. Heroic deeds of characters within a faction does not mean that the faction is suddenly good or right.
Sororitas can be heroic and selfless, they are however still utterly bonkers religious zealots. A dark incubus can do heroic deeds in combat and uphold some form of martial honor, that does not make him less of a torturing sadist.

Depends on your definition of heroism i.e. "great" vs. "good."

That the Imperium is "great" is fine, that the Imperium is "good" is obviously in question and portraying them as unironically good oftentimes comes off as a right wing wet dream.

Fair enough, but are they portrayed as unironically good as a faction in its entirety? I mean if they write about the brave selfless cadian soldier who sacrifices himself for his homeworld that could be considered heroic and maybe even "good", depending on your definition, but you can be sure that on the same time on some ecclesiarchy planet there are going to be some "heretics" strapped on penitent engines for no good reason. And my point is that they don't have to necessarily show both those things within one black library novel that deals with the heroic cadian soldier for example.

 Da Boss wrote:
The IoM is all about genetic purity and so on as well, which people can absolutely twist around to fit their ideology.

It isn't racist, as such, but it does use those ideas to show how crappy the Imperium is.

They also commit mass murder of children born with physical deformities, which mirrors the way the Nazis treated people with certain conditions.

Hecaton wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I disagree with this notion that 40k has some weird fascistic craw though. The only superiority elements are that of humanity over any other races. There is no real racism in as much as the imperium doesn't care what race you are, as long as you do your duty. In that it's more totalitarian if anything.

If you look at it in depth you're right, but many of these types have their own headcanon that the Imperium is overwhelmingly white, and the iconography is uses is heavily grounded in Euro-Christian inspirations (taken to extremes). The Tau are called "communists" because people think they're supposed to be Chinese. And I've of course seen people who think that Orks or Tyranids are supposed to be an analogy for blacks or immigrants.

Maybe, but as has already been said, that's not the problem of the setting or its creators really. It's bad enough that those things are taken seriously and then pearl clutchers in the media run with them as ways to attack the setting or people who enjoy it.

Whenever I have seen Warhammer reported in the media, it tends to be in a fairly benign way, more poking fun at how nerdy it is than being worried about the content of the background. Don't think I've ever seen a media story about that. There was a positive piece about warhammer in the Guardian recently enough, though patronizing as usual from these sorts of pieces of course.

Tiberias wrote:
Fair enough, but are they portrayed as unironically good as a faction in its entirety? I mean if they write about the brave selfless cadian soldier who sacrifices himself for his homeworld that could be considered heroic and maybe even "good", depending on your definition, but you can be sure that on the same time on some ecclesiarchy planet there are some heretics strapped on penitent engines for no reason. And my point is that they don't have to necessarily show both those things within one black library novel that deals with the heroic cadian soldier for example.

My point is that they don't show the penitent engines often enough, and what's more they don't really go into the fact that the Cadian soldier would gladly give his life to murder innocent Tau or Eldar children, or just human children who were born with physical deformities. These aren't good people.

Hecaton wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Why? People naturally want to see people being heroes and reading about heroic characters kicking the ass of evil or threats to other humans. It's a key part of the genre/setting, and one of the big draws of a lot of fiction. Nobody watches lord of the rings and complains that the good guys were too rough on Sauron.

The difference is that Sauron was the one committing mass murder and with the brutal industrial war machine. The Imperium is unapologetically genocidal and xenophobic; there's issues with portraying them as heroic that don't come into play when we're talking about the men, elves, dwarves, or hobbits of Middle-Earth. Unironically, at least; the Imperium makes for great heroes if you have a sense of irony.

Fair point. I actually come down more on your side thinking about it, as someone who likes heresy era traitors more than anything, they were the ones really opposing the things you mention.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Maybe, but as has already been said, that's not the problem of the setting or its creators really. It's bad enough that those things are taken seriously and then pearl clutchers in the media run with them as ways to attack the setting or people who enjoy it.

It's not the problem of the creators, but it *is* the problem of the people who shifted things to portray the full-on genocidal Imperium in an unironically positive way. They made a choice, and that choice had consequences, and I don't think it was the best choice.

 Da Boss wrote:
Whenever I have seen Warhammer reported in the media, it tends to be in a fairly benign way, more poking fun at how nerdy it is than being worried about the content of the background. Don't think I've ever seen a media story about that. There was a positive piece about warhammer in the Guardian recently enough, though patronizing as usual from these sorts of pieces of course.

Not so much Warhammer, but I've seen things in national newspapers trying to make out like Tolkien was portraying non white people when he wrote the orcs (absurd in my opinion, as they don't come from foreign lands, have their own origin myths, and other foreign humans exist in harad and umbar) it snacks more of hysteria really.

I think they didn't even realise they were making that choice. I bet no one sat down and planned it, it is more of a creative drift by people who didn't really get it in my view.

Edit: Orcs always seemed to me a pretty uncharitable take on the urban poor more than anything else (and I mean the urban poor in Britain, not "urban" in the way it might be used in the US). But I think Tolkien wasn't intentionally doing any of that really, his prejudices just informed his writing. (I love the Lord of the Rings also, btw).

Hecaton wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
The IoM is all about genetic purity and so on as well, which people can absolutely twist around to fit their ideology.

It isn't racist, as such, but it does use those ideas to show how crappy the Imperium is.

They also commit mass murder of children born with physical deformities, which mirrors the way the Nazis treated people with certain conditions.

True, absolutely true, but I've said this time and time again, this is the sort of thing that poses an uncomfortable question to the reader.
These children can in the worst case condemn an entire planet to damnation if their psychic potential goes unchecked. They can pose an actual threat to an entire population. The comparison to the nazis is fair, but they murdered people they deemed unworthy to live and exaggerated that through propaganda, those poor people never posed a threat to anyone. And the uncomfortable question that 40k poses imo is this: if those threats were real like in 40k, would we also devolve into such cruelty that easily, when we have done it for less in our real life history?

 Da Boss wrote:
I think they didn't even realise they were making that choice. I bet no one sat down and planned it, it is more of a creative drift by people who didn't really get it in my view.

Very possible! But an uninformed choice is still a choice.

Hecaton wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Maybe, but as has already been said, that's not the problem of the setting or its creators really. It's bad enough that those things are taken seriously and then pearl clutchers in the media run with them as ways to attack the setting or people who enjoy it.

It's not the problem of the creators, but it *is* the problem of the people who shifted things to portray the full-on genocidal Imperium in an unironically positive way. They made a choice, and that choice had consequences, and I don't think it was the best choice.

I disagree, in my opinion they are just stories in a setting that happens to be pretty awful. I really don't link them to anything in reality, moral or ethics wise.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Not so much Warhammer, but I've seen things in national newspapers trying to make out like Tolkien was portraying non white people when he wrote the orcs (absurd in my opinion, as they don't come from foreign lands, have their own origin myths, and other foreign humans exist in harad and umbar) it snacks more of hysteria really.

Well, Tolkien did describe orcs as looking somewhat Asian at one point. But I don't think he meant for them to be a stand-in for a race. There was a recent brouhaha that focused on Dungeons & Dragons about orcs being code for black people, which was a Twitter shitstorm that Hasbro seemed to take seriously for all the wrong reasons.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think they didn't even realise they were making that choice. I bet no one sat down and planned it, it is more of a creative drift by people who didn't really get it in my view.

Edit: Orcs always seemed to me a pretty uncharitable take on the urban poor more than anything else (and I mean the urban poor in Britain, not "urban" in the way it might be used in the US). But I think Tolkien wasn't intentionally doing any of that really, his prejudices just informed his writing. (I love the Lord of the Rings also, btw).

I just see orcs as the antithesis of the elves, being the purest form, and the orcs being their twisted opposite. Some of the origin theories even have them as corrupted elves... Again, I would hesitate to ascribe any real world influence to them.