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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Calling D&D a "skirmish-scale wargame" is a bridge to far on the road to reductive descriptions for my liking...

Why? D&D started as an expansion for adding fantasy characters to a wargame and it retains an overwhelming focus on the mechanics of combat, with its storytelling aspects being little more than a framework to justify the combat. Countless pages of elaborate combat mechanics, every social encounter reduced to "roll Diplomacy against DC 35".

Have you played modern D&D?

You CAN play it that way. Just like you can play 40k with a GM adjudicating out-of-rule actions.
But that's not how I or anyone I know plays it.

PenitentJake wrote:
Don't get me wrong: Improv is an important ELEMENT of an RPG, and you don't actually have an RPG without out it. But Role-Playing GAMES, as an artform, DO include both Role Playing elements (varying degrees of of immersive Improv) and game-mechanic elements.

I think you're getting confused between two things: mechanics and advancement.

An RPG absolutely requires mechanics of some kind for it to be a game, rather than just a free-form improvisational writing exercise.

An RPG does not require advancement in the traditional D&D sense where your character grows by improving its capabilities within the dice game. You do not have to start at the bottom and work your way up to max level/skill. In fact, for many stories this would be completely inappropriate. A trained professional soldier is not going to get meaningfully better at shooting just because he has a few fights. Skill advancement in shooting would be purely a matter of the player wanting a reward for their time invested: bigger numbers in the combat system, even if it makes no narrative sense for those numbers to increase. And it encourages a GW bolter porn style of story where characters are defined by their equipment and combat statistics, not by their personality or social relationships or anything else that can't be quantified in a stat line.

Or, to put it in 40k terms, a typical space marine squad is already a veteran of countless battles. Crusade's XP system makes no sense in a narrative context for the marine squad, by that point in their careers they are not gaining any meaningful improvement in skills from fighting one more battle. The XP system is meant to appeal to the character optimization types who enjoy tinkering with exactly what combination of buffs is better. It's no better from a purely narrative point of view than using a named character that does not participate in the advancement system, it's just more interesting for the build optimization fans.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
Have you played modern D&D?

You CAN play it that way. Just like you can play 40k with a GM adjudicating out-of-rule actions.
But that's not how I or anyone I know plays it.

Yes, I've played modern D&D and it's exactly as I described: elaborate rules for combat and optimizing your dice math, with anything outside of combat either treated as another dice math optimization problem or handwaved away as "the DM should do something here". It still very much encourages a gameplay style of kick the door down, kill the monsters (generated from a random encounter table based on the party's level), take the loot, with characters being defined by what they are capable of doing in combat rather than who they are as people.

I won't knock you for enjoying that style of D&D, but again-it's not the norm where I play.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I won't knock you for enjoying that style of D&D, but again-it's not the norm where I play.

I didn't say I enjoy it, I said that's what the rule system encourages. D&D can have more than that but it's almost always a case of success in spite of the rules not because of them.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Why? D&D started as an expansion for adding fantasy characters to a wargame and it retains an overwhelming focus on the mechanics of combat, with its storytelling aspects being little more than a framework to justify the combat. Countless pages of elaborate combat mechanics, every social encounter reduced to "roll Diplomacy against DC 35".

You're sidestepping the fact that many rpgs which don't focus on combat have progression systems as well, and it makes it look like you're being deceptive in your argument.

Hecaton wrote:
You're sidestepping the fact that many rpgs which don't focus on combat have progression systems as well, and it makes it look like you're being deceptive in your argument.

The fact that some less-popular RPGs have non-combat progression is irrelevant because my whole point is that progression systems are not required for a story. Named characters not getting Crusade progression is bad for people who care about tinkering with buff combinations to figure out the best dice math, it's completely irrelevant for narrative purposes. And in fact the entire Crusade progression system is bad for most narrative purposes and should be discarded.

That they are not necessary doesn't change the fact it is a satisfying aspect of narrative play.

The thing is you're trying to argue about tastes here. You can't argue about tastes. You can argue about how objectively bad a design is because it has this or that consequence (as others in this thread have done) however.

From the beginning you've more or less been arguing I don't like it therefore this can't be good. Bad foundations for a healthy discussion.

I'm not the one trying to impose my tastes on anyone else. If you need character advancement to enjoy the game then don't play named characters in your Crusade army. That doesn't justify making a house rule banning other people from taking them.

It does. It's a proposition of a rule you make to other, considering they will be like minded and accept, even enjoy it. If they don't like it then they should let you no and not play. Simple.

You know, people relationships are not computers or codex articles, you're always free to walk up to somebody and discuss the matter with them. Douches of such stratospheric levels they wouldn't hear out "I only have that named character as a HQ may I play him as a warboss anyway" and tell you to gak off I assume must be few and far between.

You're turning this simple question into a lawyers argument. Really, I don't think it deserves it. Then you may dislike it. I have no problem with that.

So, no offense, but trying to explain to people their tastes and preferences in running their campaigns are unsound and illegal is lame.

If it's all about personal taste then why do you need to dictate what other people play in their own armies?

You misunderstand how it works. You do not dictate because people do not have to play with you in the first place. You dictate if you round them up with a gun and tell them they're gonna play your game, that they like it or not. Which I'm pretty sure never happens.

In our case, every one is free to house rule stuff and all others are free to refuse and walk away or agree and play.

Then what, X tournament wants me to play 2k games but I want to play only 500 points games so their dictating me their rules and so it is bad? Ridiculous. I'd turn the offer down and say I'm not interested and let people who are have fun. Piece of cake.

That's dodging the question. Why does it matter to you that other people use named characters? Why would you refuse a game against someone who does? Why do you need this "no named characters" house rule?

That's not dodging the question at all. My answer to it is considering their is no rule police out you are free to attend what event you like and skip what events you don't like. And if need be talk about it like well behaved and respectful people to see what the organiser is willing to change.

That is my point.

As for what does it matter to me? It doesn't. I'm not in support specifically of this rule but of people being totally legit about implementing it if they wish so.

As for why people would impelment such a rule, examples and thoughts from people who did would have been cited across all the topic. If you've at least tried to read them I haven't got more than they do to say why I wouldn't mind such a rule.

I'll make a quick summary because otherwise you are going to whine that I dodge something.

-Feeling your battle is not the concern of bigger official characters to make more focus on yours

-Have them get skills/weapons/special rules good or bad to reflect their character development

-going full RPG and using them as an avatar

-playing in a timeframe or place that would more or less invalidate a character in some way shape or form.

You might like them or not but in and on themselves none of this is illegal or dumb.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
That's not dodging the question at all. My answer to it is considering their is no rule police out you are free to attend what event you like and skip what events you don't like. And if need be talk about it like well behaved and respectful people to see what the organiser is willing to change.

"You don't have to attend if you don't like the rule" has nothing to do with the question of whether or not it's a good rule. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play in the event, and also water is wet.

As for why people would impelment such a rule

Those are reasons for choosing not to take a named character in your own army. They are not valid reasons for banning other people from taking named characters in their armies.

Why should it not be valid? It is a choice made in amending the rules it is as valid as any.

I consider any ruling valid as long as it is not abusive of other players by being a way to have them lose to you or take their fun out of the game at your profit. Apparently, that's not the point made so far by anyone saying that you may implement such a rule.

Give us the full list of set valid and not valid possible alterations to the game in that case if it is set in stone, clear cut and being out of it is being dumb and not valid.

You keep confusing "I don't like" with "it's not good".

Personally, I would prefer if characters could be customized with war gear and named characters would be a possible combination of this gear. Unfortunately that's not the path GW has taken.
I can understand people not wanting to fight against characters that have no reason being where the campaign takes place. Guilliman hasn't fought in the Badab wars so why would he be there. (Primaris weren't there either, but this is a separate discussion).

I'm rather lenient and have used Azrael a lot, because I liked the character. I even converted a Primaris version before GW released one. In my group of players the discussion about named characters hasn't come up, but most of us pay factions that don't really have named characters or can be played without them very well.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Why should it not be valid? It is a choice made in amending the rules it is as valid as any.

For the same reason that "squats can only bring 1500 points to a 2000 point game" is a stupid rule.

or take their fun out of the game at your profit

And right there is your reason why it's not a valid rule. You are taking away their enjoyment of using the named character because you want them to play the game your way instead of accepting that named characters are part of the game.

Give us the full list of set valid and not valid possible alterations to the game in that case if it is set in stone, clear cut and being out of it is being dumb and not valid.

No.


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Brickfix wrote:
Guilliman hasn't fought in the Badab wars so why would he be there.

Because the character is not Guilliman, it's the chapter master of one of the involved chapters using the rules for a named character to represent a different character.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

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Brickfix wrote:
Guilliman hasn't fought in the Badab wars so why would he be there.

Because the character is not Guilliman, it's the chapter master of one of the involved chapters using the rules for a named character to represent a different character.

I would think a different profile would work better but if someone wants to pay a character with a rare and powerful armor, it can be justified. It's just something to discuss with the campaign organiser.
Different tastes and what people want out of the game, I suppose.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


I think you're getting confused between two things: mechanics and advancement.

This is a fair statement, but it's also true that progression uses existing mechanics to express itself. To use the D&D example, getting a stat adjustment or feat every 4 levels isn't something that would be possible if stats and feats didn't exist as core mechanics to the game.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

An RPG does not require advancement in the traditional D&D sense where your character grows by improving its capabilities within the dice game.

This is true too- one off role-playing sessions (convention style RPGing) certainly exist, and those absolutely don't need progression. And yes, it's true you can run a campaign without progression if you really want to- I would choose not to play in such a campaign, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't run one if that's the way you and your group want to play.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

You do not have to start at the bottom and work your way up to max level/skill. In fact, for many stories this would be completely inappropriate. A trained professional soldier is not going to get meaningfully better at shooting just because he has a few fights.

That a progression system exists does not mean you are required to start at the beginning; it provides a mechanism for differentiating experienced characters from inexperienced ones. If you run a campaign where the party consists of trained professionals, the fact that a progression system exists allows you to say, "Okay guys, create level 6 characters." A progression system allows you a way to reflect any experience level within the range it covers.

And yes, a trained professional WON'T gain as much by having a few extra fights, which is why MOST progression systems are designed with arithmetically increasing experience thresholds. To go from level 1 to 2, you might need 1k XP. To get from 19th level to 20th, you might need 100k xp. This is a mechanical way to reflect the real world phenomenon of diminishing returns on skills training.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And it encourages a GW bolter porn style of story where characters are defined by their equipment and combat statistics, not by their personality or social relationships or anything else that can't be quantified in a stat line.

Some people will think of progression in mechanical terms only; others will incorporate the progression into their character. And progression based mechanics CAN affect the role-play conditions of the game regardless of whether the player chooses to reflect the mechanics in the personality they exhibit.

For example: if an encounter is set up so that 3 successful persuasion checks to get the information from the NPC, a level 6 character who has funelled points from progression into their persuade skill to reflect their experience in the art of persuasion will have an easier time getting the information than a level one character. And this isn't arbitrary, it's a mechanic that represents an element of the story- at level 1, a character hasn't done a whole lot of persuasion, so they aren't as good at it.

This prevents the player/ character mismatch situation. Some of my friends are good liars, and some of them are bad liars. But in an RPG, what's important isn't how good a liar the PLAYER is, it's about how good a liar the CHARACTER is. So if my good liar is playing a level one character, the progression system gives me a method to separate the player's skill at lying from the character's ability to lie. And conversely, it allows the level 20 character, who has a ton of experience and practice to successfully lie, even when the player lacks the skill to adequately roleplay an effective lie.

Real world sports have a progression system- not a lot of high-schooler basketball teams are playing against NBA teams, and yellow belts don't spar with 5th dan black belts. It's ridiculous to contemplate building rules for an RPG that don't reflect this real world truth.,, But again, if you choose to set a campaign in bizarro world where experience doesn't play a role in the development of expertise, that's fine- the rules of whatever game you are playing should be flexible enough to allow you to do that.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Or, to put it in 40k terms, a typical space marine squad is already a veteran of countless battles.

This is incorrect on a lot of levels. In the Space Marine army list, there are Scouts- folks so green they don't even have the full suite of Space Marine extra organs yet; there are tactical marines, who can use bolters, there are Assault Marines who can use pistols and close combat weapons, there are devastators, who have extra training with heavy weapons, there are bikers, who have training to ride vehicles in combat, there are veterans, there are lietenants, there are captains, there are chapter masters.

The fact that these units exist implies that there is a path from Scout, to Tactical, to Assault, to Devastator, to Lieutenant, whether there are mechnics to reflect that or not. What Crusade does is to provide a way for people to explore that if they choose to; as an optional system, it also allows people to choose to ignore that element of the fictional universe.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Crusade's XP system makes no sense in a narrative context for the marine squad, by that point in their careers they are not gaining any meaningful improvement in skills from fighting one more battle.

There's an assumption here. In 40k, a Scout who completes the final operation, gets the full suit of armour and goes through the Chapter's Ceremonial acknowledgement is represented by the Tactical squad profile, as is a unit that has fought five battles in the same theatre of war, as is a unit that has fought dozens of battles in multiple theatres of war.

What Crusade does is allow differentiation between those three types of unit without creating a new unit entry to do it.

I'd argue that the base 40k rules are the things that don't make sense in a narrative game, because a green tactical unit should NOT perform at the same level as a battle-hardened unit with combat experience in multiple theatres of war. The base 40 game is the game that insists those two things are the same, when clearly they are not. But again, people who aren't interested in exploring that level of minutiae in their games should not be compelled to do so, which is why Matched Play must continue to exist alongside Crusade play.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

The XP system is meant to appeal to the character optimization types who enjoy tinkering with exactly what combination of buffs is better. It's no better from a purely narrative point of view than using a named character that does not participate in the advancement system, it's just more interesting for the build optimization fans.

Also inaccurate, or at least extremely oversimplified. Yes, some "character optimization types" will be drawn to Crusade's progression system to facilitate their interest. People who enjoy abilities being connected to story events that are played out on the battlefield will also be drawn to Crusade's progression system. All rain is precipitation, but not all precipitation is rain.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Yes, I've played modern D&D and it's exactly as I described: elaborate rules for combat and optimizing your dice math, with anything outside of combat either treated as another dice math optimization problem or handwaved away as "the DM should do something here".

A person who is telling their first lie is not as good at as someone who has been lying for six months and that person is not as good as someone who has been lying for two decades. I would say that anyone advocates for a game system that does not acknowledge this fundamental truth is the one who is "handwaving things away" as opposed to the people who desire a system complex enough to express this.

What would you propose to mechanically reflect the fact that practice affects skill level? Should a yellow belt and brown belt and a blackbelt be three different character classes? And if so, do the people who want to play a story where their characters start as yellow belts and finish as black belts tear up their yellow belt character sheet and generate a new character from the brown belt character class once they arrive at that point of the ongoing story? And if so, isn't that just a slightly different progression system ?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Why should it not be valid? It is a choice made in amending the rules it is as valid as any.

For the same reason that "squats can only bring 1500 points to a 2000 point game" is a stupid rule.

or take their fun out of the game at your profit

And right there is your reason why it's not a valid rule. You are taking away their enjoyment of using the named character because you want them to play the game your way instead of accepting that named characters are part of the game.

Give us the full list of set valid and not valid possible alterations to the game in that case if it is set in stone, clear cut and being out of it is being dumb and not valid.

No.


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Brickfix wrote:
Guilliman hasn't fought in the Badab wars so why would he be there.

Because the character is not Guilliman, it's the chapter master of one of the involved chapters using the rules for a named character to represent a different character.

1- In the absence of a clear cut list or valid/not valid chart, therefore nothing is valid or not and it doesn't make it an issue. It's entirely subjective.

2- If you say 1500 ptd squats Vs all others 2000 points, and a squat player shows up and plays for any reason, we'll assume his agreeing otherwise he'll tell you te get stuffed.

3-What's more in narrative playing a side in disadvantage can totally be a thing under certain circumstances.

You're gatekeeping while we say anybody is free to get what it wants from the game with like minded peers. Because it's not a constitution it's a game.

Then you might not like it and say no, I wouldn't play this way, which nobody has anything against.

Little digression as far as "professional soldier doesn't get better at shooting because he saw a fight". Indeed it freaking does. Because shooting at the range with the adjudant is telling you that you suck and shooting in the middle of a firefight were the other side is actively trying to kill you is not the same. Better BS totally represents tougher nerves to get better concentration and shots in combat.

There is an old, often misquoted, saying that applies here:

In matters of taste, the customer is always right.

If the group enjoys playing a campaign in the far reaches of the Galaxy where the named characters are not around, then they are right to enjoy it. No other reason for banning named characters is necessary.

 alextroy wrote:
There is an old, often misquoted, saying that applies here:

In matters of taste, the customer is always right.

If the group enjoys playing a campaign in the far reaches of the Galaxy where the named characters are not around, then they are right to enjoy it. No other reason for banning named characters is necessary.

That's a non-issue though.

The issue at hand is that quite a few people have voiced that they are in favor of excluding even fully committed narrative players from narrative events unless they change their army and leave their beloved models behind, even if the named character fits the setting.

That is not acceptable behavior, period.

PenitentJake wrote:
This prevents the player/ character mismatch situation. Some of my friends are good liars, and some of them are bad liars. But in an RPG, what's important isn't how good a liar the PLAYER is, it's about how good a liar the CHARACTER is. So if my good liar is playing a level one character, the progression system gives me a method to separate the player's skill at lying from the character's ability to lie. And conversely, it allows the level 20 character, who has a ton of experience and practice to successfully lie, even when the player lacks the skill to adequately roleplay an effective lie.

You're still missing the point here.

An RPG requires mechanics that separate character abilities from player abilities. Your character can be good or bad at telling lies regardless of the player's talents, just like you don't resolve a character's attempt to break down a door by having the player break down a door. And obviously for the game to make any sense different characters will be better or worse at different things.

An RPG does not require a progression system where those abilities improve over the course of the game. It is perfectly fine, and often most realistic, for characters to have fixed abilities at the start of the game and never make their numbers bigger.

But again, if you choose to set a campaign in bizarro world where experience doesn't play a role in the development of expertise

It's not bizarro world, it's simply a story that doesn't capture the initial training period. For example, in standard 40k there is no progression. Your Eldar do not start off at level 1 fighting against PDF, improve their skills to level 2 and fight guard, then level 3 and fight marines, etc. It's presumed that every army in a tabletop battle is well trained and at the height of their skills. And the same can happen in any other setting. You simply assume that by the time characters are involved in the story they have already developed their skills to the point where no meaningful improvement will happen over a time period as short as the average story.

But this is what I mean about struggling to see beyond the concepts of D&D. Because D&D does this way you're assuming that pretty much every setting must have characters starting as fumbling newbies and an exponential growth curve from level 1 to max level where a max level character is an untouchable god of whatever they have chosen to focus in rather than being 5% better than a trained but inexperienced starting character. It's only in this D&D mindset that a progression system is an important part of the game, that as you play the game you unlock significant buffs to your chosen focus and vastly outperform a lower-level character.

This is incorrect on a lot of levels.

No it isn't. You simply missed that I said a typical squad, not every single squad. A typical marine squad has already had considerable experience and is not going to gain a 15% improvement in melee and shooting effectiveness (re-roll 1s) from fighting a couple platoon-scale skirmishes. They are already at the point where a platoon-scale skirmish might improve their effectiveness by 0.000001%, where playing a game a week for the entire life of the edition might with some luck give enough experience to justify adding a single Crusade rank to the unit.

There's an assumption here. In 40k, a Scout who completes the final operation, gets the full suit of armour and goes through the Chapter's Ceremonial acknowledgement is represented by the Tactical squad profile, as is a unit that has fought five battles in the same theatre of war, as is a unit that has fought dozens of battles in multiple theatres of war.

Except Crusade doesn't do that. It gives re-roll 1s to hit at level 1, -1 AP on the sergeant's pistol at level 2, etc. There is no general mechanic for units to be promoted to veteran versions. No amount of battles fought by a LRBT will ever make it into a tank commander. No amount of battles fought will ever let a fire warrior shas'ui receive their trial by fire and be promoted to a crisis suit squad. Etc.

The base 40 game is the game that insists those two things are the same, when clearly they are not.

No, the base 40k game insists that the two are not sufficiently different to be represented in a system where a space marine veteran and a basic guardsman have a shooting skill difference of a single increment on the D6. In fact, this is an excellent example of Crusade's flaws. A terminator squad newly added to your army has BS 3+, a guard infantry squad that survives a single platoon-scale skirmish can gain the same BS 3+. Crusade caters to the people who love tinkering and list optimization at the expense of the lore.

What would you propose to mechanically reflect the fact that practice affects skill level? Should a yellow belt and brown belt and a blackbelt be three different character classes?

Simple: brown and yellow belts never leave the training gym because they aren't ready for real combat. They exist in the world but are purely background NPCs. Every character that is relevant to the story is already a black belt with extensive training and will not gain any significant improvement in their abilities over the relatively short duration of the typical story.

 Jidmah wrote:


That's a non-issue though.

The issue at hand is that quite a few people have voiced that they are in favor of excluding even fully committed narrative players from narrative events unless they change their army and leave their beloved models behind, even if the named character fits the setting.

That is not acceptable behavior, period.

I think that's being hyperbolic. Almost everyone against named characters has specified that they're against using named characters in their own army (with either no comment on tgeir opponent's army or explicitly stating they are okay with named characters in their opponent's army). One person said that they've played in a crusade where they were banned by mutual agreement (the present discussion sprung out of this). And I think there might have been one who said they would refuse to play against an army with a named character (I go back and make an actual tally, but I'm on my phone).

The key here is the mutually agreed bit

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
This prevents the player/ character mismatch situation. Some of my friends are good liars, and some of them are bad liars. But in an RPG, what's important isn't how good a liar the PLAYER is, it's about how good a liar the CHARACTER is. So if my good liar is playing a level one character, the progression system gives me a method to separate the player's skill at lying from the character's ability to lie. And conversely, it allows the level 20 character, who has a ton of experience and practice to successfully lie, even when the player lacks the skill to adequately roleplay an effective lie.

You're still missing the point here.

An RPG requires mechanics that separate character abilities from player abilities. Your character can be good or bad at telling lies regardless of the player's talents, just like you don't resolve a character's attempt to break down a door by having the player break down a door. And obviously for the game to make any sense different characters will be better or worse at different things.

An RPG does not require a progression system where those abilities improve over the course of the game. It is perfectly fine, and often most realistic, for characters to have fixed abilities at the start of the game and never make their numbers bigger.

Most long form stories include character development. I'm not talking a single novel or movie, but a series of novels or movies. A Crusade campaign is such a long form story as are many RPG campaign. Complaining about them including a standard element of long form stories is missing the point of what they are.

Additionally, advancement is a type of reward for participation in such a RPG-style game. It is something to look forward to during the journey.

A story like All Quiet on the Western Front is long-form, and could be just as much about a guardsman as about a World War 1 German soldier.

You don't need a progression system to retell All Quiet On The Western Front despite the book being a war-book, and replicable in a wargame.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

The fact that some less-popular RPGs have non-combat progression is irrelevant because my whole point is that progression systems are not required for a story. Named characters not getting Crusade progression is bad for people who care about tinkering with buff combinations to figure out the best dice math, it's completely irrelevant for narrative purposes. And in fact the entire Crusade progression system is bad for most narrative purposes and should be discarded.

You will find that your opinion that the Crusade progression system is bad and should be discarded will, in fact, be discarded, for the same reason that someone bursting into a DnD group and telling them they need to stop leveling up their characters will be ignored.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
If it's all about personal taste then why do you need to dictate what other people play in their own armies?

It's my personal taste that my girlfriend doesn't sleep with other men. If she disagrees with that, she doesn't have to date me. I hope you'll forgive me for imposing my personal taste on her.


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 Jidmah wrote:


That's a non-issue though.

The issue at hand is that quite a few people have voiced that they are in favor of excluding even fully committed narrative players from narrative events unless they change their army and leave their beloved models behind, even if the named character fits the setting.

That is not acceptable behavior, period.

feth yeah it's acceptable. No organizer has to let people into their league or event that they don't want to. Different events have different rules; "no named characters" is entirely reasonable considering the history of the game and the context of whatever the narrative is.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
A story like All Quiet on the Western Front is long-form, and could be just as much about a guardsman as about a World War 1 German soldier.

You don't need a progression system to retell All Quiet On The Western Front despite the book being a war-book, and replicable in a wargame.

Could use a sanity system like Call of Cthulhu though lol

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
A story like All Quiet on the Western Front is long-form, and could be just as much about a guardsman as about a World War 1 German soldier.

You don't need a progression system to retell All Quiet On The Western Front despite the book being a war-book, and replicable in a wargame.

Exactly. Nobody with any sense whines about how terrible the book is because the protagonist's skill levels don't increase over the course of the story.


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Hecaton wrote:
You will find that your opinion that the Crusade progression system is bad and should be discarded will, in fact, be discarded, for the same reason that someone bursting into a DnD group and telling them they need to stop leveling up their characters will be ignored.

Ok, let me clarify then:

If you want to add another layer of list optimization to your matched play games Crusade is an excellent system.

If you want a narrative game that accurately represents the lore of Warhammer 40k then Crusade is a terrible system, in large part because of how its advancement mechanics go blatantly against the established lore.

It's my personal taste that my girlfriend doesn't sleep with other men. If she disagrees with that, she doesn't have to date me. I hope you'll forgive me for imposing my personal taste on her.

So now using special characters is equivalent to cheating in a relationship?

feth yeah it's acceptable. No organizer has to let people into their league or event that they don't want to. Different events have different rules; "no named characters" is entirely reasonable considering the history of the game and the context of whatever the narrative is.

How exactly is it reasonable? The only argument you've been able to make in defense of the ban is pointing out the obvious fact that once you remove everyone who doesn't like the rule the remaining players agreed to use it.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
in large part because of how its advancement mechanics go blatantly against the established lore.

That's a whole different argument that you haven't supported. Come again?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


So now using special characters is equivalent to cheating in a relationship?

You misunderstood the analogy. Take another try at it. I assume you're from the West and are familiar with how relationship structures work over here?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

How exactly is it reasonable? The only argument you've been able to make in defense of the ban is pointing out the obvious fact that once you remove everyone who doesn't like the rule the remaining players agreed to use it.

And it's reasonable that a group of people would want to do an enjoyable social activity together. This isn't rocket science. Even if that was my only argument (It's not, and you keep strawmanning me, for which you should apologize), it's a great argument. Hobbies aren't about forced socialization; I'm fine with gatekeeping.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Exactly. Nobody with any sense whines about how terrible the book is because the protagonist's skill levels don't increase over the course of the story.

You wouldn't tell a story in that form in the narrative of a ttrpg or wargame, however. If you want to read a novel you read a novel.

Hecaton wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
in large part because of how its advancement mechanics go blatantly against the established lore.

That's a whole different argument that you haven't supported. Come again?

I think his point was, rather than the lore actually advancing someone along the power structure made for them (e.g. a Leman Russ tank commander becoming a Leman Russ Tank Commander, becoming a Baneblade gunnery officer, then a Baneblade commander, and becoming a Baneblade Tank Commander at the end of it, he instead learns to ignore the penalty of firing his Vanquisher cannon while in close combat or the like.

People, already highly trained in most factions, pick up skills with extreme snappiness (woo, my Keeper of Secrets born before time and with more battles under her belt than stars in the sky is Battle-Hardened after my first campaign battle, and her sword becomes Str 9!).