Do explain why you disagree then.

He thinks you're all morons and thus your opinion is invalid. Heh.

Opinions usually begin to lack merit when they fly in the face of facts or are in willful ignorance of other opinions. Say what you will about my tone and phrasing, but I've done my best to at least address every main point and argument I've seen.

There is a win condition in "don't have a gimped character" or "have the most narrative control" or "be the best at <task>" all of which are determined by player decisions.

You're confusing the goal of playing the game (fun) with the goals laid out by the system (get the most bang for your XP buck).

As I said before, the goal of the system is to adjudicate character actions in a consistent manner. All the goals and win conditions you name are self-imposed by the player, in the name of having fun - which is great if that's your cup of tea, but it's by no means universal.

Getting the most bang for your buck is itself heavily dependent on the environment. If you're alone in the middle of the Sahara desert with a thousand bucks in your pocket, would you rather buy water at $500 a bottle or sand at five cent per ton? Likewise, if you're in a campaign focused on intrigue and espionage, with a thousand exp to spend, what will give you more bang for your buck: buying Stealth, Charm and Deceive at 300 exp per skill, or five Tier One combat talents at 200 a pop?

Bear in mind, 1000xp is the amount you'll get in two to three game sessions using the abstract method of experience rewards, so it's not exactly an astronomical sum, and as presented it allows you to cover the basic competencies outside of your Aptitudes quite well.

Here's the thing: Most people do have a rudimentary idea how to interact with another person.

Either you live in a much better part of the world than I do or you don't interact with very many people. Either way; there's a difference between being civil and making somebody like you, and that's what the Charm skill is actually for.

I already gave a quantifiable win condition: being able to impose your idea onto the game-determined part of the story eg succeeding at a roll or using a special skill. That is your win state and that is your reinforcer. The game gives you dozens of ways to make this more likely and it is very obviously portrayed and assumed to be what the player wants.

Again, this depends on your play style. Some players are only going to be happy if they can kill more pretend bad guys than all of the other players. Others couldn't care less. And then there's everything else in between. This insistence that the Aptitude system is functionally the same as the old class system rests on the assumption that all players place a minimal amount of importance on numerical capability. They don't . Many do, certainly; but far from all.

Do explain why you disagree then.

Oddly enough I agree with him on this one. At least in the term you used.

Merit: the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.

That's just not true.

Everyone's opinion does deserve to be heard at least however.

Opinions usually begin to lack merit when they fly in the face of facts or are in willful ignorance of other opinions. Say what you will about my tone and phrasing, but I've done my best to at least address every main point and argument I've seen.

Disagreeing doesn't necessary mean willful ignorance.

We clearly disagree, but we all have just one point of view. It's interesting to see other people's point of view since this game isn't just designed with 1 person in mind.

If you can't get over the fact that people can have different opinions than your own, well, it's you who is being willful ignorant of other people's opinions.

Do explain why you disagree then.

Oddly enough I agree with him on this one. At least in the term you used.

Merit: the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.

That's just not true.

Everyone's opinion does deserve to be heard at least however.

I meant it in terms of, everybody's opinion is worthy to be heard. Perhaps I should have used a different word there.

Actually, it rests on the assumption that players want to succeed in the system. I've already stated this time and time again but the setting and playstyle don't matter precisely because they differ from player to player. The only constant we have to look at is the game system itself. And te game system assumes that players want to succeed. This is why fate points can be used to add to a roll or reroll it. This is why equipment all makes te numbers go up. This is why there's a system in place at all to allow players to get better.

If a player doesn't care how well his character does, then great, he or she will be happy no matter what. If a player wants to do well at succeeding by any amount greater than zero, however, then he or she is going to care about buying advances that improve that. This is how the system is designed to work, and by design the way to win the "game" part of this game system is to succeed. If it was only about reflecting a cohesive story, the randomness would be eliminated, as humans give better narrative than randomness. If the point of the system is to simulate a world, it wouldn't have things like fate points. At some level, the system is assuming a desire of players to succeed.

Another thing worth considering: environment and upbringing both play a pivotal role in the human development, and few people in the Imperium of Man have developed in conditions even remotely similar to those of the contemporary developed countries (where most research on matters of human competence will be conducted). A Hiver living in a world of metal and concrete buildings connected via an intricate web of trains, lifts, escalators and ladders, who has never seen a tree or a body of water bigger than a bathtub, will probably suck at climbing and swimming. And don't even get me started on Void-born...

It's even harder to predict anything about social competencies of the people of the Imperium, seeing how we're still figuring these things out for our own world. The human mind is a mystery we're only beginning to solve, and all RPG rules concerning that are highly abstracted by necessity.

I'm genuinely curious now.

How would one go about portraying a standard citizen of the imperium then? Some, to us, alien customs and mannerisms seem plausible (and I already do that to varied extent). But is there a general attitude among the various classes of imperial society or does it genuinely differ from world to world? How crass are the differences there? Or did galaxy-wide compartmentalisation and lack of education turn the workers of a hive world into little more than living cattle? Do people learn both low gothic and their local language? Or is cultural assimilation so complete that low gothic is spoken everywhere?

Getting the most bang for your buck is itself heavily dependent on the environment. If you're alone in the middle of the Sahara desert with a thousand bucks in your pocket, would you rather buy water at $500 a bottle or sand at five cent per ton? Likewise, if you're in a campaign focused on intrigue and espionage, with a thousand exp to spend, what will give you more bang for your buck: buying Stealth, Charm and Deceive at 300 exp per skill, or five Tier One combat talents at 200 a pop?

It still sucks when your best buddy (who also has 1000$ in his pocket) walks alongside you and gets to buy water at 100$ per bottle. He can get 10 bottles while you can get only 2, thus drastically increasing his odds of survival in the desert.

If you are in an intrigue and espionage campaign as a combat character you will get left in the dust by characters who are focused on intrigue and espionage. They will probably have maxed out both the skill and relevant characteristic by the time you get your first advances in each. With 1000 xp a character with 2 matching aptitudes can get the relevant skill at +20 and the relevant attribute at +10, while a character with zero matching aptitudes can only get the skill at +10. Even assuming equal values in the relevant stat (which is probably not the case), that's a +20 difference in the first 1000 xp, so I'm willing to bet your expertise in the field won't be called for very often, unless the GM specifically engineers for situations where the better trained guys can't contribute.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I feel the aptitude system is great at allowing you to pick one or two skills/talents you might want, but it completely sucks at allowing you to build a competent character outside the boundaries of your aptitudes. That and it rewards character pre-planning to a level I haven't seen since D&D 3.5.

This could go two ways:

- A GM announces the kind of campaign he's going to run, players can adapt accordingly.

- The GM adapts his campaign around the characters themselves

It still sucks when your best buddy (who also has 1000$ in his pocket) walks alongside you and gets to buy water at 100$ per bottle. He can get 10 bottles while you can get only 2, thus drastically increasing his odds of survival in the desert.

Or, you can do the wise thing, give your supposed best buddy your thousand. Have him by 20 bottles, and then you can both share since you're going to want each other to survive.

While everyone can get everything they don't all have to be the best in the same way.

If a player wants to do well at succeeding by any amount greater than zero, however, then he or she is going to care about buying advances that improve that.

Any advance that a PC buys is going to increase his or her chance at succeeding at something . If a character comes close to getting killed because they failed an untrained Stealth test, there's a good chance that they're going to see a rank or two of Stealth as a good purchase; even if they don't have the aptitudes for it. Now, compare this to a class system where they flat-out can't buy a Stealth skill because it's not in their career package. Even if the choice is 'less viable', how is it not an improvement over having no choice at all?

If you are in an intrigue and espionage campaign as a combat character you will get left in the dust by characters who are focused on intrigue and espionage.

If this happens because your GM didn't tell you ahead of time that it was an intrigue and espionage campaign, that's on him. If you knew that you were going into an intrigue and espionage campaign and you made a combat character anyway, I don't see how that's a flaw in the system.

If a player wants to do well at succeeding by any amount greater than zero, however, then he or she is going to care about buying advances that improve that.

Any advance that a PC buys is going to increase his or her chance at succeeding at something . If a character comes close to getting killed because they failed an untrained Stealth test, there's a good chance that they're going to see a rank or two of Stealth as a good purchase; even if they don't have the aptitudes for it. Now, compare this to a class system where they flat-out can't buy a Stealth skill because it's not in their career package. Even if the choice is 'less viable', how is it not an improvement over having no choice at all?

We're talking in circles at this point.

There are ways to have open character creation and not have the problems introduced by the Aptitude system. But the Aptitude system is what we got and there's really no changing that. Whether you agree that these problems exist is academic.

I'm genuinely curious now.

How would one go about portraying a standard citizen of the imperium then? Some, to us, alien customs and mannerisms seem plausible (and I already do that to varied extent). But is there a general attitude among the various classes of imperial society or does it genuinely differ from world to world? How crass are the differences there? Or did galaxy-wide compartmentalisation and lack of education turn the workers of a hive world into little more than living cattle? Do people learn both low gothic and their local language? Or is cultural assimilation so complete that low gothic is spoken everywhere?

I actually think the "everyone gets Low Gothic" in DH is just for gameplay purposes, same as with the sector-wide currency. It's quite the same as in D&D's Forgotten Realms, except there everyone can speak the Trade Tongue and accepts gold, silver and copper coins (minted to exact specifications agreed upon by all human, dwarven, elven, orc and drow nations).

If we really were to take the setting to its extremes, ... well, as per the SoB codex, the main task for Adepta Sororitas Orders Disalogous is to serve as translators, just to make sure that two regiments of Imperial Guard can actually talk to each other. Think of how very different Japanese culture is in our real world, then add several millennia of technological innovation and you might vaguely approach the crazy differences between the planets in 40k. You literally have Shadowrun megaplex denizens on one world, and friggin' cavemen on the next!

The "average Imperial citizen" has two legs, two arms, a head and somehow pays taxes. I'm not sure if we can really agree on anything beyond that.

1) I don't think game design is the most important thing, but it should be held in equal measure as the story and feel. In addition, these two things should compliment each other as much as possible.

2) I didn't tell people that they're having fun wrong. I said that the game limits choices and when people claimed that TRUE ROLEPLAYERS wouldn't care about xp costs, I brought up the science of decision making and how some variables are discarded due to certain assumptions.

Maybe the reason why I'm not the height of diplomacy when arguing with people is that I feel they're arguing in bad faith by accusing me of being a bad GM/player, saying I have failed the game, ignoring the points I've made, trotting out decades old arguments about game design being the GMs responsibility and not the person writing the game? Maybe because if the suggestion is made that FFG could have designed their game a bit better, the same group of people keeps coming out and declaring that any game be great and fun with a good GM?

1. An interesting thought none the less. Not how I feel but, hey we've all got different ideas.

2. You insinuated that the system limits players too much in certain ways and making certain choices were just wrong. Which there isn't a wrong.

Any game can be great and fun with a GM Nim.

1. This I will admit is a differing opinion thing. Curious what your reasoning against it is.

2. Some choices are wrong in the context of the system itself and trying to meet the goal of succeeding at rolls. You can bring up over and over that players won't always just want to succeed at rolls or that the GM can always just make up different skills to use, but those are all contexts that aren't applicable to how the game system is designed, as the game system has no effect on either of them.

3. If any game can be fun, then why bother buying a new edition of dark heresy? Why not just play monopoly? Why not just spend the money on booze with friends? Just because a good GM can make anything work doesn't mean you should ignore design flaws or not try to fix them. Or that criticism/critique of a system has no place.

Opinions usually begin to lack merit when they fly in the face of facts or are in willful ignorance of other opinions. Say what you will about my tone and phrasing, but I've done my best to at least address every main point and argument I've seen.

Disagreeing doesn't necessary mean willful ignorance.

We clearly disagree, but we all have just one point of view. It's interesting to see other people's point of view since this game isn't just designed with 1 person in mind.

If you can't get over the fact that people can have different opinions than your own, well, it's you who is being willful ignorant of other people's opinions.

I'm perfectly fine with other people having opinions, and like I said I do actually listen/read them. I just don't think they're always good opinions or correct. That's a valid opinion as well, you know.

@Lynata:

Honestyl, I like that approach, and I think I'll start letting it seep into my game. "There is no average" can be heaps of fun.

If you are in an intrigue and espionage campaign as a combat character you will get left in the dust by characters who are focused on intrigue and espionage.

This could go two ways:

- A GM announces the kind of campaign he's going to run, players can adapt accordingly.

- The GM adapts his campaign around the characters themselves

But at the same rate, it IS Dark Heresy, investigation is a cornerstone of the game, like looting is the D&D.

I did had in my campaigns a few characters who were combat-centric; first was a feral guardsmen sniper (he didn't talked much, since he didn't understand half the technology he saw, and the other reason is that he obeys orders, not talk like a shaman, it wasn't his place to talk and have ideas and think)

Second in my current is a guardswoman, plasmanut. She spend most of the first mission driving the car and acting as the bodyguard (of course,when combat showed up, watch out!) she pitch in in talks, but the PC, the player- pretty sure about that- and everyone in in the setting knows that the char is a combat type, and won't survive much mundane conversation at the Duke's annual ball.

That's like getting in a Call of Cthulhu game, putting everything in submachinegun, pistols, brawling, then wonder why you're bored when 85% of your game is searching for old dusty tomes in some library, or translating an ancient text from 3 dead languages and not crapping your pants.

Same with DH: you make a combat monster, don't be shocked to see that he'll be part of the scene during most if all social situation (except that old dirty dive filled with thugs with bad hygene and worse attitude)

The "average Imperial citizen" has two legs, two arms, a head and somehow pays taxes. I'm not sure if we can really agree on anything beyond that.

Somehow pays taxes..ha! that made my day.

If a player wants to do well at succeeding by any amount greater than zero, however, then he or she is going to care about buying advances that improve that.

Any advance that a PC buys is going to increase his or her chance at succeeding at something . If a character comes close to getting killed because they failed an untrained Stealth test, there's a good chance that they're going to see a rank or two of Stealth as a good purchase; even if they don't have the aptitudes for it. Now, compare this to a class system where they flat-out can't buy a Stealth skill because it's not in their career package. Even if the choice is 'less viable', how is it not an improvement over having no choice at all?

If you are in an intrigue and espionage campaign as a combat character you will get left in the dust by characters who are focused on intrigue and espionage.

If this happens because your GM didn't tell you ahead of time that it was an intrigue and espionage campaign, that's on him. If you knew that you were going into an intrigue and espionage campaign and you made a combat character anyway, I don't see how that's a flaw in the system.

The only flaw is that the aptitude system is built in a certain way that may lead people to think it's a true 'free' character creation. As I said earlier, aptitude system helps plug a few gaps in your skillset, not let you build a combat character as anything else than a combat character.

I'm perfectly fine with other people having opinions, and like I said I do actually listen/read them. I just don't think they're always good opinions or correct. That's a valid opinion as well, you know.

Yes it is, I don't disagree there at all.

Investigation is certainly a major part of the game, but at the same time it's not like you're gathering evidence to bring in front of a court. Certainly not without any action happening in the meantime or the constant breath of some heretical archenemy breathing down your neck wherever you go in some form or another. I think a game like this can be as action-orientated as you want it to be.

1. This I will admit is a differing opinion thing. Curious what your reasoning against it is.

2. Some choices are wrong in the context of the system itself and trying to meet the goal of succeeding at rolls. You can bring up over and over that players won't always just want to succeed at rolls or that the GM can always just make up different skills to use, but those are all contexts that aren't applicable to how the game system is designed, as the game system has no effect on either of them.

3. If any game can be fun, then why bother buying a new edition of dark heresy? Why not just play monopoly? Why not just spend the money on booze with friends? Just because a good GM can make anything work doesn't mean you should ignore design flaws or not try to fix them. Or that criticism/critique of a system has no place.

1. Just that I feel like in the end a simpler if not solid mechanic with strong story and feel is better than all being balanced. I can deal with faulty mechanics, I can't deal with boring setting or feel. I like the storytelling aspect, if mechanics have to get sacrificed (that's a last resort admittedly) for the sake of something that isn't contrived like say the DM killing a beloved NPC to try and get the characters invested. There however should always be the chance for players to affect this story, which is why I enjoy the random chance in rolling success or failure modifying the outcome.

Seriously I have a GM that will always either make us have a single father, or a beloved commander simply to kill him within the first two sessions to make us "invested" or give us a drive to do anything. Which I've come to despise.

2. We keep going like a record with this, I'm gonna just drop it.

3. Because while everything can be fun an rpg is not a board game, not everyone drinks. Why bother? New fluff, new ways to interpret old mechanics.

You are right, you shouldn't ignore flaws, or not try to fix them. But a good gm doesn't ignore or not try and fix them.

I don't think anyone ever implied that the system is immune to criticism simply the validity of the various criticisms levied at it.

This talk totally reminded me one of our experimental party, the All Aspect Warrior Versatility Team. Playing an investigation-focused Warp Spider was an... interesting player experience for me, but I think the social Fire Dragon guy had more fun - he could totally melt your face with his style (melt your face... geeeet iiiiit ?). The Eagle Pilot stole the game though, because he was the engineer/technician, but the Eagle Pilots are supposed to be engineers/technicians (at least to some degree) so he could shine brighter than the other characters. Oh yes, the fourth member of the team was a Howling Banshee sniper who spent all 5 sessions we had with collecting money for a gun, because she didn't have any thankfully to her abysmal starting resources rolls (at one point, she knifed a random mercenary to death though).

Now I totally have the urge to roll up an Ork Kommando who specializes on social interactions with his OP Intimidate skill and Might Makes Right trait. Humhum... *prepares empty character sheet and calculator*

Eldar group, Ork kommando...That sounds vaguely like the stuff of legends from the days of yore. You in Shas'o's round?

It's funny in a way that the guy who created this thread hasn't replied ever since.

Eldar group, Ork kommando...That sounds vaguely like the stuff of legends from the days of yore. You in Shas'o's round?

Nah, it is from our custom homebrew setting. It has wackier stuff than this, like sentient robots as playable characters, a weapon attachment that allows your gun to shapeshift into a different gun, and psykers being the norm rather than the oddities.