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For a while, it's been a trend to not give the specific names of people in Warhammer rulebooks of various kinds. Personally, I think that this is quite unfair. Do you all think we would go back to crediting specific people in these publications instead of just 'The Warhammer Studio'?

No. One of the main reasons was named writers were getting death threats, and I don't want that to happen again.

beast_gts wrote:
No. One of the main reasons was named writers were getting death threats, and I don't want that to happen again.

I think that was the reason stated, but I think that the real reason was they didn't want to be called out on obvious favoritism or shoddy rules writing.

Hecaton wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
No. One of the main reasons was named writers were getting death threats, and I don't want that to happen again.

I think that was the reason stated, but I think that the real reason was they didn't want to be called out on obvious favoritism or shoddy rules writing.

It can be both. In fact, it's almost certainly both.

Don't forget that VERY RECENTLY that dude that was doing warhammer fan animations quit 40k entirely because of the death threats he got from the 40k community after that whole debacle.

beast_gts wrote:
No. One of the main reasons was named writers were getting death threats, and I don't want that to happen again.

See that? That’s the best argument, that is. On account it’s factually accurate.

Yeah this policy came in hot off the back of codex writers getting death threats, which was all very public.



I'd remind people that this is the 3rd known about time its happened

1) Against at least more than one codex writer

2) Against writers for the Warhammer Childrens books

3) Against the fan animator, who got them when they were approached by GW to work with GW. They'd not even had time to get into any agreement before they were attacked.



It's a horrible side to the community online with Warhammer. It's thankfully/hopefully a TINY number of people. But it is there and it does hurt those who create stuff that the rest of us enjoy and engage with.

ERJAK wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
No. One of the main reasons was named writers were getting death threats, and I don't want that to happen again.

I think that was the reason stated, but I think that the real reason was they didn't want to be called out on obvious favoritism or shoddy rules writing.

It can be both. In fact, it's almost certainly both.

Don't forget that VERY RECENTLY that dude that was doing warhammer fan animations quit 40k entirely because of the death threats he got from the 40k community after that whole debacle.

I believe that's a half truth, at most. Death threats can be reported and taken seriously.
If there were some sorta legitimacy to it, at minimum one person would've been called out on it and we'd know. In the age of the internet, that info doesn't stay hidden.

I think it's just mostly that the writers don't like being called out for being gakky at their job and that animation dude didn't like bring called a sell out (which we all saw compared to all these death threats)

 Overread wrote:
It's a horrible side to the community online with Warhammer. It's thankfully/hopefully a TINY number of people. But it is there and it does hurt those who create stuff that the rest of us enjoy and engage with.

Yep - go have a look at the current "black Ultramarine" social media rage if you have any doubts.


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EviscerationPlague wrote:
If there were some sorta legitimacy to it, at minimum one person would've been called out on it and we'd know. In the age of the internet, that info doesn't stay hidden.

It's out there if you can be bothered having a look. For example:

This thread needs to be locked before people come in here saying it's a good thing that GW writers get death threats. I give it a day at best.

Gert wrote:This thread needs to be locked before people come in here saying it's a good thing that GW writers get death threats. I give it a day at best.

I somehow doubt that that is going to happen.

 Gert wrote:
This thread needs to be locked before people come in here saying it's a good thing that GW writers get death threats. I give it a day at best.

chill out, were not THAT toxic

I for one would like to know who was personaly responsible for writing the Grey Knight 8th ed rules, and what projects did they write before that book.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
chill out, were not THAT toxic

It's happened multiple times in the past, recently IIRC.

I am too short in table top gaming, so I don't know. Has any game designer actually end up being hurt by a "fan" ever?

Karol wrote:
I am too short in table top gaming, so I don't know. Has any game designer actually end up being hurt by a "fan" ever?

Not sure about table-top games, but video game designers have been.

I cannot say I know of any specifically tabletop designers being injured, however...

Death threats and doxxing and gak like that should not be taken lightly, at all. It happens unfortunately often with people like Twitch Streamers, where people will stalk them to try and find out where they live, then call in a bomb threat or a hostage situation to local PD on that address, causing SWAT units to have to respond to any potential occurance. And these things can very easily become fatal for the streamer.

That is horrible, well I guess no wonder they are so careful then.

Let's be honest, if you had written some of the junk GW has put out in the last year, would you want to be credited for it?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

beast_gts wrote:
No. One of the main reasons was named writers were getting death threats, and I don't want that to happen again.

I think that was the reason stated, but I think that the real reason was they didn't want to be called out on obvious favoritism or shoddy rules writing.

It can be both. In fact, it's almost certainly both.

Don't forget that VERY RECENTLY that dude that was doing warhammer fan animations quit 40k entirely because of the death threats he got from the 40k community after that whole debacle.

I believe that's a half truth, at most. Death threats can be reported and taken seriously.
If there were some sorta legitimacy to it, at minimum one person would've been called out on it and we'd know. In the age of the internet, that info doesn't stay hidden.

I think it's just mostly that the writers don't like being called out for being gakky at their job and that animation dude didn't like bring called a sell out (which we all saw compared to all these death threats)

The dude got death threats. The writers got death threats back in the day. They were all over the place. This is a weird denial-ism hill to die on when a lot of us were in the community at that time and half of every comment in this thread is like 'oh man, yeah; I remember the death threats. Man, that was rough.'

Also, 'can be reported and taken seriously' does NOT mean 'are reported and taken seriously'. Especially when you're getting hundreds of them at once.

People have been cyber-bullied to the point of suicide MULTIPLE times with none of the perpetrators ever even being charged. Random online death threats will rarely raise an eyebrow unless they're against a major political figure. Or there's significant evidence they represent a genuine, imminent threat. The idea that there couldn't have been death threats because there wasn't a major investigation is naive.




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 Thadin wrote:
I cannot say I know of any specifically tabletop designers being injured, however...

Death threats and doxxing and gak like that should not be taken lightly, at all. It happens unfortunately often with people like Twitch Streamers, where people will stalk them to try and find out where they live, then call in a bomb threat or a hostage situation to local PD on that address, causing SWAT units to have to respond to any potential occurance. And these things can very easily become fatal for the streamer.

Or a random father of 3 at a house totally unrelated to anything that was going on because the streamer gave a false address and the swatter sent the cops to some random guy's house. As happened in the fatal shooting of Justin Finch in 2017. Also, just because it irritates me , the cop who actually pulled the trigger on him was never charged. He lasted 6 seconds from the moment he opened his front door.

 Gert wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
chill out, were not THAT toxic

It's happened multiple times in the past, recently IIRC.

Edgy 4chan teens and man children love doing (and denying) that stuff.

Alternate conspiracy theory (I have no evidence for this): We've had this leak that GW pays their writers peanuts, and if any of their writers got credited and we knew who they were they might start to develop fans, and if they complained about their salary and quit the fans might get angry.

ERJAK wrote:
Random online death threats will rarely raise an eyebrow unless they're against a major political figure. Or there's significant evidence they represent a genuine, imminent threat.

Because a teenager sending an angry email has no teeth to it. Swatting and doxxing are serious issues, but death threats alone are the background radiation of the Internet. Not saying it's acceptable, but there's a big difference between credible, serious threats and people just being donkey-caves behind the protection of anonymity.

I have zero doubt that GW's writers received death threats; if you do anything remotely controversial on the Internet you'll get them. But receiving threats credible enough to warrant taking their names off of all the codices is another matter; if there were fans out there looking to hurt those at GW responsible for negative changes, you'd think Jack Kirby would need a personal protective detail, and folks like Hewitt wouldn't be so candid about what they worked on (in his own words, he helped kill WHFB- talk about painting a target on your back). Alternative explanations like corporate wanting to present their products as a team effort, discouraging 'stars' (see: Chambers, Cavatore, and Priestley who went on to other projects), or just plain avoiding the morale drop that comes from seeing your name cursed by fans of the property you work on, all seem more likely to me.

But this is rampant speculation and we'll probably never know one way or the other.

As someone who has appeared in the credits of numerous 40k RPG books, can I say that I quite like having my name in there.

In fact, the one time FFG forgot to include me (The Lathe Worlds) they were massively apologetic about it and sent me two free copies, all signed by the folks in the studio, and a nice letter to go with it.

You should credit writers/artists for their work.

 catbarf wrote:


Because a teenager sending an angry email has no teeth to it. Swatting and doxxing are serious issues, but death threats alone are the background radiation of the Internet. Not saying it's acceptable, but there's a big difference between credible, serious threats and people just being donkey-caves behind the protection of anonymity.

Well I do sports, and sports mean that betting is involved. Online as it is mostly illegal to bet on stuff in Poland or extremly complicated. One of the first lessons we get from our trainers is that first ignore what other people from other school write or claim they will do and second imidiatly inform teachers and trainers, if someone involved in betting starts telling you that they will beat you up etc. One is stupid and illegal, the other is mob style groups. Both things are not the same thing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
As someone who has appeared in the credits of numerous 40k RPG books, can I say that I quite like having my name in there.

As someone who has a complete set of the FFG books, I'm intrigued which ones - and thankful - because there's a huge amount of great stuff in there.

I'll PM you so as not to clog up the thread.

 Gert wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
chill out, were not THAT toxic

It's happened multiple times in the past, recently IIRC.

Except that is not what happened in that thread you are referencing and you know it. YOU decided to tar the whole community with the same brush and those of us that quite rightfully defended ourselves from this sweeping accusaation were apparently now supporting giving out death threats. But you do you, keep forging your own narrative there mate...

I mean there were users who said that death threats were fine because its just one of those Internet things and there were others who very much said that GW writers deserved to be sent death threats.
Its not like this never happens. Every few months someone asks "why no credit", they get told its because people sent death threats to GW employees, others deny it, evidence is provided, then the others say its either not a problem to do a crime or its a good thing because "it holds GW writers to account".

There is a difference though between someone saying I kill you and doing it, and people saying the same online and there never been an example of it ever happening. One is an actual threat, and if it happens to you too, you do have be extremly worried. The other is like event talk. If everyone called when anyone else says they will seriously injure you in sports, most of the contenders in events where there is no TV would have problem with the law sooner or later. oddly enough, more often in sports that aren't combat orianted.

As far as online "death threats" goes sooner or later everyone gets them, and the more public you are the more often it happen. And again it is a question of how serious something is. I wouldn't want to have an event ,of any sports right now, that has both ukrainians and chechens in it. While getting a threat from Grzegorz Brzenczyszczykiewicz, born in 2005, that he will no scope me for a how bad, or good, a codex is, probably isn't.

beast_gts wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It's a horrible side to the community online with Warhammer. It's thankfully/hopefully a TINY number of people. But it is there and it does hurt those who create stuff that the rest of us enjoy and engage with.

Yep - go have a look at the current "black Ultramarine" social media rage if you have any doubts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
If there were some sorta legitimacy to it, at minimum one person would've been called out on it and we'd know. In the age of the internet, that info doesn't stay hidden.

It's out there if you can be bothered having a look. For example:

Spoiler:

So the proof you have is "Trust me, bro".