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PenitentJake wrote:
Though somebody, somewhere at some point in time decided that was bloat too, and created a streamlined game because that's "Elegant Design" and now I settle for a monk who has exactly the same options as every other monk, despite the fact that my character fights more with teeth and tail than fists and feet.

Alice, human monk, whips her quarterstaff around and bashes it into the goblin's ribs. The goblin screams in pain and rage as it is staggered by the blow but it continues to fight.

vs.

Bob, nezumi monk, lunges at the goblin and bites down hard. The goblin screams in pain and rage as a chunk of flesh is torn from its arm but it continues to fight.

This is what I really don't get. You claim to be all about the narrative but instead of role playing you're focused completely on roll playing, to the point that the narrative only exists if the 1d4+2 you're rolling is explicitly called Bite instead of Attack. But to me that difference in description works just fine for portraying the difference in how the characters are fighting, even if none of it ever translates to how the dice are resolved. It's still perfectly clear in my imagination what the two scenes look like.

And it's not just you. I see this over and over again, people who say the narrative matters more than anything else but then completely shut down their creativity about anything that isn't explicitly stated in the rules. It's all strict by the book games like a tournament player, and they need these ridiculously complicated games where every single detail and possible action must have its own explicit rules provided. Meanwhile the most fun I've had in narrative games was with rules-light systems where you use the on-table action as a base for the story and it's up to your own creativity to fill in the details of how that die roll translates into story events. And I've never felt like my D&D character can't name his father's sword and value its history unless I can persuade the DM to give it a magic ability.

Since an Argent Shroud player can just as easily trade suicide units, what actually makes the OoOML different besides the paint job?

Because they wouldn't trade like that if you're treating it as a roleplaying game, just like it doesn't matter how good my paladin's odds of successfully stealing something are when he's lawful good and will not make the attempt. I don't need an explicit rule titled No Stealing Or Lose Alignment Points to refrain from stealing, why do you need an explicit Martyrdom Is Less Effective rule to play according to your backstory?

When every subfaction chooses from the same list of abilities only, why have subfactions at all?

You don't. Sub-factions can exist purely in the narrative, they don't need a rules representation.

Because many of the people who advocate for doing away with subfaction traits still want to have Space Marine subfactions with rules differentiation.

I don't. Space marine sub-factions can all use the same rules just like everyone else, no more special snowflakes with a separate supplement for every color scheme. The game worked just fine when most space marines had the exact same rules and which chapter you picked was purely an aesthetic and narrative thing.

There are differences between members of a given culture, but if there weren't also commonalties between them, the culture couldn't actually be said to exist at all.

But those differences are small compared to other factors. For example, an infantry squad attached to an artillery regiment to provide security for the guns will have a very different skill set from one that is part of a mechanized regiment aggressively attacking the enemy. Those differences will be way more significant than anything about which planet they were recruited from originally. A Tallarn mechanized squad and a Cadian mechanized squad will have way more in common in skills/fighting style/etc than a Cadian mechanized squad and a Cadian artillery protection squad. So why is it so important that the planet of origin be given explicit rules?

This is why I wish Inquisitor still existed. There is no room in 40k's scale for the granularity of RPG gaming. They are indeed separate and modern 40K suffers from the developers trying to cram 2nd Ed. and Inquisitor into the main game.

There are still the many 40k RPGs.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait until he learns...

I find your tone unnecessarily rude and offensive. I've apologized to you in numerous posts when I thought I went too far. I have yet to see you extend the same courtesy.

I haven't read the new book yet, because it doesn't apply to my character, but since I mentioned D&D in the context of it's impact upon my preferences during my formative years, what came out in a book released less than a year ago hardly invalidates any of the point with D&D.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

People who do narrative (hi, hello) don't want their stories needlessly constrained by rules, if it doesn't make sense.

Yesterday you accused me of telling people they were playing 40k wrong, when the statements made by me which provoked that comment were far less indicative of an "only my way is the right way" attitude than this. Seriously "People who play narrative" as if I'm not one of those even if we don't see eye to eye.

Rules are like writing prompts. They don't constrain me. They are tools I work with- which means they empower me and set me free. I've done 100's of writing projects in my life- some of the ones based on writing prompts have been among my favourites. Which is not to say that I always use prompts, merely that I never saw them as limitations when I chose to use them. My relationship with them, like my relationship with the rules in any of the games I have played, is symbiotic. Do you blame clay for not being wood when you choose clay as a medium for sculpture? No- you recognize the unique opportunities provided by the medium, and you let them influence the art you create, just as you explore pushing the limits of the medium.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Sisters of Battle tanks are gak, because "GW said so" - not for any narrative reason I can fathom.

The static rules for a tank on a datacard are a bit outside the scope of the discussion thus far... though I myself often meander, so I'll indulge you.

You can rest assured that once my Immolator is built and painted I will enjoy the tools at my disposal to grow the tank into what I want it to be- including any availaible equipment upgrades or synergies in game or battle honours. The fact that the tank sucks before any of these synergies are applied will be part of the tank's story... Which will be only one of the stories being told by each battle. If I could just pick the traits I wanted from the dex at list construction, or if it had stats that made it a killer, would that be more or less narrative than starting weak and earning upgrades based on the results of games- you tell me.

And whether it's competitive or not won't matter because I don't care if I win- that's the part of the story that's beyond my control as it should be.

Either way, it sounds like I'm going to have more fun doing that than you're going to have sitting and waiting for GW to wave a magic wand and make it all better or complaing on the internet... But hey, running back to 4th so that it can be exactly what you think it should be at list construction is just as valid as my choice to immerse myself in the ongoing story of the tank's development over time. Just as I wasn't telling people they are playing wrong before, I'm not telling you that you're doing it wrong now.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Eldar tankers can't actually embark on any path at all - in fact, they probably aren't real Eldar! Even the people who don't like the Path system and don't obey it get to walk the Path of the Outcast...

Well since a tank is a non-sentient machine, I wouldn't expect it to have a path. The guardian who pilots it is free to walk a path if you want him to get out of the tank and join the battle in the games where the tank isn't on the field, while the tank itself can grow via battle honours without a path. There's also nothing stopping you from writing a "Path of the Pilot" just like you used to write your own rules in 4th ed, the only difference is that now you have the other paths as a guide to how it might be done and you don't have to ALSO write the Path of the Warrior, Seer or or Outcast, which you would have had to do for 4th since those things didn't exist (to my limited knowledge of 4th ed Eldar anyway).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

... GW's rules used to help you tell the story.

No, GW's rules gave you a rough set of guidelines for tree campaigns and map campaigns, which I personally knew how to do with any game system before I played my first game of Rogue Trader in '89 and didn't need GW to teach me. They also contained three tables with six battle honours each which you would have to apply to your units whether they were humans, robots, pain elves or planet killing bugs. You didn't seem to mind modifying those extremely limited materials to fit your needs then, but now somehow you seem to feel like the presence of actual material prevents you from doing the same thing now. It doesn't. I've made rules for a type of GSC kill team that will allow you to tell the story of a GSC's development from a single fire team of purestrains to a full scale apocalypse army. I didn't let the GSC crusade rules or the kill team rules stop me from doing that- I used them as examples, and created my material to work within the excellent framework they provide.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Now, they ARE the story. "Oh you brought Eldar tanks? There is no story here." - the Eldar Crusade Rules. Thanks GW.

As explained above, eldar tanks do have rules that support a story being told about them, just not path rules. They are still eligible for battle honours from multiple sources, equipment upgrades which can be selected narratively (ie. spend the RP for the crystal targetting matrix or whatever after a battle in which the tank plays a pivotal role in securing an objective which IS that crystal targetting matrix rather than just selecting it when you add the tank to the list). I'm not sure if the crystal targetting matrix is currently an upgrade mind you- I'm pulling a name from memory to illustrate the point. You could achieve the same effect with a weapon swap- the point is you pick an objective on the field to represent the weapon you want to sub in, and you try to claim that objective- if you succeed, you apply the swap. That feels more narrative to me.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

"Oh you brought BR flamer Retributors? Wow what an idiot, should've played Ebon Chalice.

You should have played Ebon Chalice if you want to min max, for sure. But we're story telling, not min maxing. So if I want my BR flamer rets to distinguish themselves, I'll make them use the ret strat every chance they get, I'll tweak their battle honours as they grow, I'll use a requisition to purchase the sacred burden strat so that I can give the superior a relic, I'll make sure they bring armorium cherbs and a simulacra, though since I'm a narrative player, they'll probably have to earn all of those things as part of the story, rather than be equipped with them out of the gate. It won't take long until they're better than Ebon Chalice flamer rets... Unless the Ebon Chalice Rets have a story that causes them to grow in similar ways, and if they do they SHOULD be better than mind because the synergy their order trait provides is representative of a cultural predisposition toward fire that none of my BR possess.

Or I could just have a 4th ed style dex that lets me pick from a list of traits available to every order and select the one that makes flamers cool cause that's SOOOO MUCH more narrative than the process I described above. I mean, I'm not going to do that because it doesn't appeal to me, but again- you do you because I'm STILL NOT TELLING YOU THAT HOW YOU'RE CHOOSING TO PLAY IS WRONG, just in case you get confused and decide to put your words in my mouth (AGAIN).

Was that heavy handed? Have a second apology, because if you're still reading, you've earned it.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

And what's this about Argent Shroud Repentia? Should've just handed them to the bloody rose. Deeds not Words indeed."

Well again, if your intent is to min max. But if your intent is to tell a story, what I'd recommend is wait until a non repentia unit does something in a game that requires them to swear a Penitent Oath at which point they stop being whatever they were and become repentia until they redeem themselves, at which point they can reclaim their former designation or, if the circumstances of the redemption suggest it would be more appropriate to come back with a different designation you can do that too. It's a usually a 4 or 5 game story arc that involves an Agenda and two requisitions. But yeah, you're right... being able to just simply choose the BR trait instead of the AR one when you add them to the list would be SOOO MUCH MORE NARRATIVE.

But again dude, if you honestly believe it's more narrative you do you. Whatever makes you happy is right for you.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Alice, human monk, whips her quarterstaff around and bashes it into the goblin's ribs. The goblin screams in pain and rage as it is staggered by the blow but it continues to fight.

vs.

Bob, nezumi monk, lunges at the goblin and bites down hard. The goblin screams in pain and rage as a chunk of flesh is torn from its arm but it continues to fight.

No... I'm not sure you get it.

It's more like:

T'Chak-tik's fur bristles and he kicks up a dominance pheromone as he sights his foe (intimidation check as a free action in 3.5- racial trait, Nezumi Paragon- no 5th ed eqv), then drops to all fours to increase the speed and diminish his silhouette on the charge. As he reaches his opponent he Leaps into the air, flying over the enemy's left shoulder (jump as part of move action- clearly defined in 3.5, vaguely worded so as to to rely on GM interpretation in 5th) catches his opponent under the chin with a knee for his first attack (for bludgeoning damage); as he begins his descent on the other side of his enemy, he coils his gnarled tail around the enemy's neck as a second attack, pulling the enemy down (trip attack- possible in 5th through the use of ki, but available in 3.5 without it- which better suits T'Chak-tik's personality for reasons you'd understand if you were familiar with L5R Nezumi Chitachikan); as he lands, he reverses his momentum and plunges his teeth toward the eyes of his foe's upturned face (called shot, Mochatchikan feat in 3.5, not possible in 5th) for piecing damage (not possible in 5th).

Now, the best I can do is a flurry of blows for the bludgeoning hits- that's right- you read that correctly... I do bludgeoning damage with my teeth, because that's all the rules of 5th allow me to do. I know, pretty fluffy, right? One of those attacks can be a trip attack (but only because of the spiritual power of KI, which, again does not suit a Chitachikkan). I can tell you where I'm trying to hit, but there are no called shots, so it's just words without effect. I do it anyways, because I like to entertain people... But the rules are literally incapable of making it matter.

Now of course, this sequence is actual a T'Kir (the Nezumi word I invented to replace the Kendo term Waza, which is similar to a kata, but much, much shorter). T'Chak-Tik practiced this exact sequence with the other two Monks in the party during a previous session, which was actually a four hour role play without any combat at all. Because to just do it because it was what occurred to me in the moment is more narrative, right?

CadianSgtBob wrote:


This is what I really don't get. You claim to be all about the narrative but instead of role playing you're focused completely on roll playing, to the point that the narrative only exists if the 1d4+2 you're rolling is explicitly called Bite instead of Attack. But to me that difference in description works just fine for portraying the difference in how the characters are fighting, even if none of it ever translates to how the dice are resolved. It's still perfectly clear in my imagination what the two scenes look like.

Role playing vs. Roll playing?

Yeah, let me tell you some other things about T'Chak-Tik:

He has 42 siblings from 4 litters including his own, and I've named them ALL. There were 3 fathers- the first two were killed. His mother is full blooded Chitachikkan and tough as nails. When he left his village, his family gave him gnawed sticks to remember them by- one is the Sister stick and one is the Brother stick. You see, the place T'Chak-tik comes from is toxic, and many Nezumi don't survive their first year- so many die in fact, that Nezumi do not name their young until they've survived a year. On their name day, they gnaw the symbols that represent their names into a stick. As others are born, they add their names to the stick. When T'Chak-tik left his village, the siblings that were still alive gnawed their names into the opposite end of the stick. So one end of T'Chak-tik's sister stick has 19 names. The other has 8. It took five games for a party member to ask me about my sticks; even though T'Chak-tik is TERRIFYING in a fight, his accent and character voice are adorable, and when I told them the story, I let my voice get shaky like I was crying (I did a double major in English and Drama so I can make myself cry at the drop of a dime if I'm in character deep enough)... By the time my story was over, 3 party members were crying. We took 5 so they could recover from the emotional intensity.

It is stunningly presumptuous of you to assume that because I like the combat sequences I narrate to have the capacity to be reflected with rules that I don't role play.

I've actually drawn all of my sticks (BTW, the other two are the mother stick and the father stick). Because of the gnawing, I decided that I would make T'Chak-tik unable to read or write in common (a handicap which I did not have to take- in 5th, if you know a language it's assumed that you can speak, listen read and write- I chose the handicap for RP reasons). One of the characters in the party is a Cobalt Soul archivist, so she eats, sleeps and breathes books. She inspired T'Chak-tik to learn to read. When most people learn skills through down time, they just track the in-game down time hours until they achieve a target. T'Chak-tik went to a store and bought a childrens book written in common (The Pine Cone Book). Instead of tracking hours, I wrote the children's book, then translated it into Nezumi gnaw marks (a written language I developed specifically for the character).

I'm currently trying to decide whether I'm going to make one of my sticks or a copy of the Pinecone Book for my GM's Christmas present.

I've only played in 2 40k tourneys, but I've been to 20 or so RPG cons. You know how you win a session at an RPG con?

Players vote for the best role player. Of all the cons I've been to, I've come home without a prize twice. I've been roleplaying for 41 years- as I said in a previous post, I started in grade 3. Naming your sword? I was doing that when I was ten. And sure, I know, that was just a convenient example, and I'm sure you have plenty of other cool things that you've done while roleplaying, but if you're going to be rude to me and make assumptions without a scrap of evidence, what's my incentive to leave the kid gloves on when I respond?

With all due respect, if you ever suggest again that I am a roll player and not a role player because I like my combat rules complex enough to reflect the scenes in my head, I will spam you with PAGES of character histories until you're forced to put me on ignore or the mods drop the ban hammer. You literally could not be more wrong about me.

I won't belabour the point by responding to the 40k parts of your post, because I believe that the responses that I gave to Unit above will be sufficient to respond to your further "insights" about the way I choose to play 40k, and I've already punished the other readers of this forum with enough text that they deserve a break. Play 40k your way- it's no less valid than mine.

I made the offer to both of you before that we agree to disagree. Either of you ready to take it yet, or shall the tire fire continue, catching everyone who isn't you, me or Unit in the stink of it? Ball's in your court. Penitent out.

PenitentJake wrote:

Rules are like writing prompts. They don't constrain me.

Looking at your replies during this thread, nothing could be further from the truth. There's even a whole bit at the end of your last post (snipped for brevity) about how all the rules that you no longer have in D&D constrain your character choices. For an avowed roleplayer it's absolutely staggering to me how dependent you seem to be on the specifics and minutiae of the rules.

On top of that, you take this frustrating and contradictory stance on rules depending on which argument you're presented with. Either we need specific rules to represent everything for the sake of narrative or, when we don't have them (like with the Eldar Crusade rules and tanks) we need to invent our own, but apparently only when it suits your argument.

Why is it a good thing to have GW decree that all Cadians fight the same way? Why is the best artillery sub-faction the jungle fighters? Why are Imperial Fists the only chapter that excels at siege warfare? You say sub-faction rules are so much better for narrative, but they constrain you more because you either have to not use them if they don't fit your vision, or you get lumbered with rules that don't work for you. That's not even taking into account the number of sub-faction rules that are just bad, or that exist merely to fill space because the army in question never had a large number of sub-factions with fleshed out information in the background.

If my tone seems unnecessarily rude, it's because your argument screams "feth you, got mine".

You can't SURVIVE without sub-faction rules for Sisters, but when I want Crusade rules to take Eldar tanks into account, suddenly I am asking to much and should write my own - after all, the generic rulebook traits are good enough for an 8th edition book and they should be good enough for me!

It just strikes me as incredibly self-centered to say "my army, my toys, they got things they didn't have before. And that makes this edition the BEST EVER, despite your army losing things and being less fun." It comes across as blatantly "feth you, got mine" and is incredibly frustrating.

The fact that you apologize makes it worse. Like a billionaire being conciliatory to a pauper. "Look I even gave you $1 that one time!". Deeds, not words. Try to make the game better for everyone, don't just lay back and shrug because "sisters have sub-faction traits and nothing could ever possibly improve this edition at all. Certainly not 10th. Or 4th."

I've long been inclined to believe that a significant proportion of 'narrative' players who claim that GW's current (and to be fair, past) ruleset(s) provides an actually good narrative experience do so less out of any real concern/consideration for the merits of the system, and more in order simply to defend GW/40k.

I think it just highlights that a lot of people don't understand rule mechanics all that well. It is a huge gap in wargaming

talk about building, converting, 3D printing, Army list critique, painting, terrain work, table building. All those topics are super well covered; ask a question and you will likely get an answer - probably several.


Ask about game tactics; ask about how to deploy or move or make tactical choices and suddenly even the crickets are silent. You get generic cover-all terms "go for the objectives" but for actual drilling down into depth its very hard to find and to get. The result is that we have a lot of community knowledge over most of the hobby and then one massive glaring black hole.

This creates a community where there's a big gap in understanding the game side of things at a higher level. Both in terms of understanding it and in terms of having the language and understanding to communicate that understanding to others.



It's what makes balance and mechanic chats hard. It's why people can feel such vast variation in impressions on the rules. How the same rules can be "super fun and great" and "Super trash and not worth it" all in one breath.

I feel like "have you tried just playing with good friends who will let you alter the rules and spend lots of time discussing beforehand" is the 40k equivalent of "have you tried not being poor"? In terms of the amount of awareness.

 Overread wrote:
I think it just highlights that a lot of people don't understand rule mechanics all that well. It is a huge gap in wargaming

talk about building, converting, 3D printing, Army list critique, painting, terrain work, table building. All those topics are super well covered; ask a question and you will likely get an answer - probably several.


Ask about game tactics; ask about how to deploy or move or make tactical choices and suddenly even the crickets are silent. You get generic cover-all terms "go for the objectives" but for actual drilling down into depth its very hard to find and to get. The result is that we have a lot of community knowledge over most of the hobby and then one massive glaring black hole.

This creates a community where there's a big gap in understanding the game side of things at a higher level. Both in terms of understanding it and in terms of having the language and understanding to communicate that understanding to others.



It's what makes balance and mechanic chats hard. It's why people can feel such vast variation in impressions on the rules. How the same rules can be "super fun and great" and "Super trash and not worth it" all in one breath.

Part of the issue with that is the fact it boils down to “it depends”.

You need to take a look a the big picture, evaluate everything going on, and take a corse of action that has the best odds of victory. You either end up with vague fortune cookie like advice, or some many asterisks and exceptions about why what you are saying could potentially be a bad idea.

Most of the time the good stuff is obvious at a glance. how long does one have to think about what ever warriors for nids are god and what every you should be running void weavers, specialy at the very moment the codex were leaked? 10 min assuming english is a problem, and that is a maybe.


But stuff is often the stuff that requires "research", but if it has a good stand in, then it is mostly an academic thing to do. Someone can try to check what happens if they run termintors and land raiders out of the GK codex. they can tweek and test, all they want, but in the end the conclusion will be that the army is just bad, and there is no way to fix it on your own.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I've long been inclined to believe that a significant proportion of 'narrative' players who claim that GW's current (and to be fair, past) ruleset(s) provides an actually good narrative experience do so less out of any real concern/consideration for the merits of the system, and more in order simply to defend GW/40k.

Its more a case of. "THis is basically the only bone GW is throwing us so we defend it with all we got" kinda situation. Like GW has done great things with crusade, they could be better, but they have done good. If we could get an AoS style Path to glory or something in 40k that would be amazing. Its my hopes, and expectations that we will see something like this happen in HH, considering the AoS team wrote the HH rules.

However i have seen other groups do far better nerrative content. Like i have defended before, Herald of Ruin back in 7th was like. probably the best RPG/narrative game for warhammer i ever did, it was like someone remade mordheim but for 40k.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nevelon wrote:

Part of the issue with that is the fact it boils down to “it depends”.

You need to take a look a the big picture, evaluate everything going on, and take a corse of action that has the best odds of victory. You either end up with vague fortune cookie like advice, or some many asterisks and exceptions about why what you are saying could potentially be a bad idea.

True but what he said is also true. The amount of players that dont understand the importance of a lot of base things like proper cohesion, positioning of characters with in a unit and spreading them out, knowing how to position to think about what your oponent is going to do/move, making it so just a specific model is in LoS to give a buff/act as a target.

A lot of players dont do this, Like hell in 40k, i had a few games were people did not understand why i laced 2 units together putting them in a line of unit A and B alternating ABABABABA, it was not until they tried to cahrge me they realized why i did that.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

True but what he said is also true. The amount of players that dont understand the importance of a lot of base things like proper cohesion, positioning of characters with in a unit and spreading them out, knowing how to position to think about what your oponent is going to do/move, making it so just a specific model is in LoS to give a buff/act as a target.

A lot of players dont do this, Like hell in 40k, i had a few games were people did not understand why i laced 2 units together putting them in a line of unit A and B alternating ABABABABA, it was not until they tried to cahrge me they realized why i did that.

@PenitentJake

I have a question for you. You talk about the importance of being able to distinguish subfactions with rules and such. However, why should this only apply to the main subfactions for any given army?

To take the example of Dark Eldar, if I play Kabal of the Black Heart, I get a couple of universal bonuses plus a unique warlord trait plus a unique relic plus a unique stratagem. However, what if I want to play a different Kabal? What if I want to play Kabal of the 13th Whisper? Or Kabal of the Wraithkind? Or Kabal of the All-Consuming Darkness (which I just made up)?

If I pick any of those, I either have to choose two custom traits (even if they weren't universally arse, this still means I lose out on a stratagem, a warlord trait and an artefact), or else I just say that it's actually identical to one of the four pre-chosen Kabals (thus invalidating the whole point of having Kabals be functionally different from one another).

Does this not seem almost antithetical to the whole idea of 'your dudes'?

I suppose what I'm asking is whether you'd accept subfaction rules that were more in line with custom traits? As in, you get to pick a couple of traits (or one stronger trait), to help differentiate your army. However, there is no penalty for using a smaller or custom subfaction, nor are any warlord traits, relics or stratagems locked to a specific subfaction. You'd just choose whatever best fits from the full pool.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I feel like "have you tried just playing with good friends who will let you alter the rules and spend lots of time discussing beforehand" is the 40k equivalent of "have you tried not being poor"? In terms of the amount of awareness.

Nobody has said that, you don’t need to spend lots of time discussing before hand. They can be very brief discussions, they can be ongoing from game to game. Wargaming, to me is a social thing. The discussions and interactions are all part of the experience. Rolling dice in silence because we all know the rules and don’t need to talk to one and other sounds crap.

Playing with friends is better, doing most anything with friends is better than with strangers.

This typical “your just defending gw” is pointless too, it makes any discussion where you don’t just moan about the usual things pointless. It’s just dismissing opinions you don’t like with out valid counter to them.

PL work for me, the lack of balance doesn’t bother me at all. The layers of complexity are annoying but I am happy to ignore any rules I don’t like. What has kept me playing 40k is the setting and the models, the whole hobby.

It’s clear though that at least on dakka, there is a whole side to the community that just loves to moan and just will not accept that someone else has fun doing things differently to them. So it’s not worth engaging because no discussion can be had in gods faith here.

PenitentJake wrote:
One of those attacks can be a trip attack (but only because of the spiritual power of KI, which, again does not suit a Chitachikkan).

So don't call it ki? Call it rage, or stamina, or whatever thematic name you want to give to the concept of having a limited reserve of energy before you're exhausted and unable to fight with more than the basic techniques. You're again getting bogged down in strict adherence to the precise details of what the rules say.

And yeah, 5th edition is not 3.5 and some details will change. It sounds like your problem is less the narrative potential of 5th and more that one specific character build didn't translate perfectly between editions. Some things don't go the other way though. In 5th I can step out into a doorway, fire a shot with a bow, and then step back behind the wall. In 3.5 I can't do that without a specific feat (and its prerequisite feats) even though it's a basic thing that any reasonably trained archer should be capable of doing.

I can tell you where I'm trying to hit, but there are no called shots, so it's just words without effect. I do it anyways, because I like to entertain people... But the rules are literally incapable of making it matter.

And this is exactly what I mean about roll playing. Why does something only matter if the rules explicitly tell you that it does? Why is "words without effect" such a bad thing when the only reason any of the rules exist at all is to assist you in coming up with words to tell your story?

It took five games for a party member to ask me about my sticks; even though T'Chak-tik is TERRIFYING in a fight, his accent and character voice are adorable, and when I told them the story, I let my voice get shaky like I was crying (I did a double major in English and Drama so I can make myself cry at the drop of a dime if I'm in character deep enough)... By the time my story was over, 3 party members were crying. We took 5 so they could recover from the emotional intensity.

See, you do get it! You had a cool character element, everyone at the table loved it, and none of this required your character to take the Dramatic Moment feat where everyone must make a DC 25 will save or cry for 1d6+1 minutes.

I won't belabour the point by responding to the 40k parts of your post, because I believe that the responses that I gave to Unit above will be sufficient to respond to your further "insights" about the way I choose to play 40k, and I've already punished the other readers of this forum with enough text that they deserve a break. Play 40k your way- it's no less valid than mine.

Your responses to them have said absolutely nothing about either of my two questions:

1) Why you can't play your faction without a specific rule titled This Is Your Faction, despite pointing out over and over again how other people can just use the existing rules and "don't need" a rule to represent the thing they want to do.

and

2) Why sub-faction rules in particular need an explicit rule to define them, despite in-narrative attributes that would make a bigger difference on a unit's abilities/fighting style/etc than their planet of origin having no mechanical representation at all.

I made the offer to both of you before that we agree to disagree. Either of you ready to take it yet, or shall the tire fire continue, catching everyone who isn't you, me or Unit in the stink of it? Ball's in your court. Penitent out.

I don't think that "let me have the last word or I'll engage in disruptive behavior and make everyone else unhappy" is really the compelling argument that you seem to think it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
I've long been inclined to believe that a significant proportion of 'narrative' players who claim that GW's current (and to be fair, past) ruleset(s) provides an actually good narrative experience do so less out of any real concern/consideration for the merits of the system, and more in order simply to defend GW/40k.

I think it's partly that, there's definitely a white knighting element from some people. But it's also a couple of other factors:

1) A lot of people have little or no experience outside the current-edition GW niche. So if something is just a bit more narrative than a game of tournament 40k it's the best narrative experience they've ever had so it must be good. They haven't seen how other narrative games do it better, or how even GW has done other narrative things in the past, and have trouble believing that their own experience isn't necessarily complete. I've seen this before with people refusing to believe things like the fact that GW used to publish narrative scenarios with no points-based list building at all, and/or with "talk with your opponent about who you think did better" as the only victory condition.

2) There's an unfortunate number of people who think that "narrative" is the opposite of "competitive", therefore anything that is bad for competitive play must be great for narrative play. And since GW's version of narrative play is absolutely not a good competitive system it must be good for narrative! The PL thing is the textbook example of this. PL is bad for narrative play, and the best you can say for it is that its flaws can be overlooked as long as nobody tries to exploit them and you house rule away any issues that come up. But because it's bad for competitive play people will insist that PL is somehow enabling and improving narrative play, almost to the point that PL is essential for narrative play. And when you ask for details on why the best anyone will ever be able to give you is appealing to PL as a gatekeeping tool for telling competitive players not to join the group.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I feel like "have you tried just playing with good friends who will let you alter the rules and spend lots of time discussing beforehand" is the 40k equivalent of "have you tried not being poor"? In terms of the amount of awareness.

Nah not really an apt comparison, because it costs you nothing to check with your opponent on an issue.
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

Like it costs you literally zero effort to clarify that with your opponent before hand.

We did this all the time in 7th, and TBH i always did this in any game i played because it was just common curtesy to run though our list with our opponent to let them know what everything does before hand so they are not blind sighted.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.

Also that's something that can get an errata in a couple of weeks. It shouldn't NEED one but that's a quick fix at least.

 Just Tony wrote:
This is why I wish Inquisitor still existed. There is no room in 40k's scale for the granularity of RPG gaming. They are indeed separate and modern 40K suffers from the developers trying to cram 2nd Ed. and Inquisitor into the main game.

The lethality in 40k means it is of little use for RPG style narrative. Most GW games have a high and random death level. The only games they have done in the 40k setting where things have a level of resilience where stories can grow as the unit survives is for me is BFG. It is relatively easy to run before getting dusted. Games like Necro attempt this, but need rules fudges to account for the pile of shot and maimed models sitting next to the board. In BFG I can spend 2 hours playing cat and mouse with two reasonable fleets and not lose a cruiser entirely and feel the scenario has played out well.

In 8th when 40k burned brightly again briefly we had some fun with narrative scenarios, a couple of trip rules thrown in to move to the next phase of the scenario if it was a big game (I remember one where it was CSM joining a cultist rebellion against Guard forces, turns out the cultists in question were mostly GSC and when that was triggered and a bunch started fighting the CSM player who wasn't in on this was amused and surprised to find himself embroiled with Guard in front of him and cultists fighting his cultists behind him...), and a lot of fun 500 point scenarios you could do in an hour. The rules need so many mods now to make that viable most stopped playing or moved to playing other stuff. While we still couldn't do RPG style focuses on individuals it was possible to have a good narrative for the game. Even some of the tourney players did it (shocked, we were, shocked).

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.

But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.

Andykp wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.

But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.

Getting two people to agree on rules is a lot more difficult. Especially if you play at a local gaming store and not someone's garage.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Andykp wrote:

CadianSgtBob wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
For example, in HH 2.0, dreads have a rule that let you fire all your weapons you have. Tsons osirons can take a dicipline and in HH 2.0 psyker powers are treated as a weapon you fire.
So you could discuss with your opponent, does that mean a pysker dread that has a psyker shooting weapon gets to use that psyker weapon and all its other weapons?

That's not a fair comparison. Your example is a simple clarification of an ambiguous rule, Unit1126PLL is talking about making up entire new rules like "Path of the Tank Driver" for an Eldar Crusade force.

But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.

Getting two people to agree on rules is a lot more difficult. Especially if you play at a local gaming store and not someone's garage.

On completely new rules, yeah i agree, but on an interpretation of a rule its pretty easy to get an agreement.

Andykp wrote:
But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.

I play 40k because I want a game that is playable out of the box. If I have to make up a bunch of my own rules and convince people to use them I'd rather make a new (and much better) game.

And even if you enjoy making rules the point I was making still stands: clarifying an ambiguous rule is not the same as making up entirely new content.

CadianSgtBob wrote:

Andykp wrote:
But making up new rules is fun, it’s not a chore, it’s a laugh.

I play 40k because I want a game that is playable out of the box.

Then you are playing the wrong game, sorry, not saying it is right but it is and always has been true.

If you want the "full" experiemce at least.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

On completely new rules, yeah i agree, but on an interpretation of a rule its pretty easy to get an agreement.

Unless it is a mirror, most rules are new to each of the player. Save for those tournament ones that have to learn rules for all armies to speed up games and avoid getting cheated on. Plus no one likes when the other play is trying to force a rule interpretation that nerfs your army. Sometimes it makes playing not worth the time.

So, the answer is no, if GW went full PL, it's not likely to change much here.

So the new points changes really reinforce the argument that GW is going full PL soon. Almost all gear is free, plasma pistols are free, etc. The only things that really cost huge points are relics and traits. Which can be easily assigned PL values.

I doubt it.

Free wargear might be common now, but I don't see units that are priced every X models like in the PL system. Each model still has its points cost and I don't think this is going to change.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So the new points changes really reinforce the argument that GW is going full PL soon. Almost all gear is free, plasma pistols are free, etc. The only things that really cost huge points are relics and traits. Which can be easily assigned PL values.

It's possible, of course... But I really doubt it.

I double checked the document- points changes apply to all Matched Play games, not just Nephilim Matched Play games. So it will affect BRB and Tempest of War missions, as well as all of the missions from any of the other Matched Play Mission packs.

But essentially, in order to further distinguish between play modes, GW needs both points and PL. This doesn't stop players within likeminded groups from choosing the format they prefer regardless of mode- I know there are substantial groups of players who use points in their Crusade games for example. But the intent is that points can be a stronger tool for balance, and so changing them up 4 times a year to try and balance the meta makes sense.

Open and Narrative players, however, are not as likely to respond well to such regular change. For Crusaders, our changes come in the form of campaign resources- a Hardback and two Mission Packs per season. This updates the ongoing story of the 40k universe, gives us new missions and themes to explore- sometimes even customized mechanics like a grudge system or armies of faith... But very rarely changes to the minutiae of PL.

I think PL has been given an overhaul twice since 2016? I mean, obviously, each new dex has the chance to rewrite PL for the faction in question... But PL as a whole are rarely modified across the board. If Matched went PL, those numbers would then be updated more frequently, which wouldn't just destabilize the game for Matched players, many of whom would be disappointed with a lack of granularity- it will also destabilize Open and Crusade by putting us in the position of keeping up with constant change- the lack of which has been a part of our attraction to our chosen game mode.

Again, not saying it's impossible- GW has obviously made some very, very bad decisions before. But I think that as long as we continue to have 3 modes, I think we'll continue to see both PL and points.