Freddie:So wait Abbadon was really Mr Scruffly the janitor!

Wellma:Yes. He wanted to take over the Blackstone Fortress because it was an abandoned gold mine.

Freddie:That makes no sense.

Wellma:really? That's your problem with this cross over setting.

Although if you want to blow your mind then did you know that Dan Abnett actually wrote a Scooby Doo comic episode so a cross over is not as far fetched as you might think (for clarity it's still very far fetched lol)

EDIT: Possibly it was an actual cartoon episode?? He's definitly written scooby doo comics. You sometimes forget that these are professional writers and a comission is a comission

I imensly like the idea of Scrappy Doo charging an Ork nob, chaos daemon, or carnifex, going: "Puppieeeee power!"

Oooookay, happy as I am to see conversations flow and branch out, I'm gonna have to draw the line at Scrappy Doo. If this conversation gets any more heretical someone's gonna tell the Sororitas and we're all gonna get the Blams. Anyone got anything else to say, on topic or otherwise?

Like zoinks, sorry Ramellan ol' buddy!

Ok ok I'll stop with the scooby stuff.

Let's ask the people how noblebright or grimdark are DH, RT, OW and how batshitinsanedark is BC?

The thing is that horrific things happening isn't by itself 'dark'

Or rather it might be dark but it isn't unnerving

Paranoia features a society probably as bad as some Hive worlds but the setting is hilarious. Equally 1984 is not a million miles away from real life and frankly is far more unnerving than wh40k for exactly that reason.

It's that reason I've never been able to get into Black Crusade, I just think the idea of playing the actual villains in the Wh40k setting a bit over the top. When I play Rpg it is invariably to have a bit of fun on a weekend morning/afternoon and relax with some friends roll a few dice etc

etc describing the horrible things my Tzeentch sorcerer did doesn't necessarily meet that criteria. I think if I did play Bc it would probably descend into cliché with moustache twirling villains.

You have to play the villains as if they're the good guys basically and not as the over the top cartoony villains. There is enough grey zone in 40k to allow for such a setup, the emperium aren't exactly "good guys" either for instance. There might always be exceptions, but it's a very harsh regime overall so you can focus on that and become heroes, or at least normal people who look to themselves, but not like "MUST DO EVIL DEEDS". At least not necessary, some people will love to play "Chaotic Evil" bad guys, but you don't HAVE to do that.

I believe this thread also discusses this:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/43082-good-portrayals-of-the-bad-guyroleplaying-the-forces-of-darkness/

The thing is that horrific things happening isn't by itself 'dark'

Or rather it might be dark but it isn't unnerving

Paranoia features a society probably as bad as some Hive worlds but the setting is hilarious. Equally 1984 is not a million miles away from real life and frankly is far more unnerving than wh40k for exactly that reason.

It's that reason I've never been able to get into Black Crusade, I just think the idea of playing the actual villains in the Wh40k setting a bit over the top. When I play Rpg it is invariably to have a bit of fun on a weekend morning/afternoon and relax with some friends roll a few dice etc

etc describing the horrible things my Tzeentch sorcerer did doesn't necessarily meet that criteria. I think if I did play Bc it would probably descend into cliché with moustache twirling villains.

I made an imperial guard regiment for OW based on the Trouble shooters.

You have to play the villains as if they're the good guys basically and not as the over the top cartoony villains. There is enough grey zone in 40k to allow for such a setup, the emperium aren't exactly "good guys" either for instance. There might always be exceptions, but it's a very harsh regime overall so you can focus on that and become heroes, or at least normal people who look to themselves, but not like "MUST DO EVIL DEEDS". At least not necessary, some people will love to play "Chaotic Evil" bad guys, but you don't HAVE to do that.

I believe this thread also discusses this:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/43082-good-portrayals-of-the-bad-guyroleplaying-the-forces-of-darkness/

Agree: Nobody thinks of himself as the villain. Even the traitor Primarchs tought they did what was best (especially poor Magnus)

Don't get me wrong I am not saying don't play BC or anything like that. More that for me personally I can't buy into Black Crusade because part of the horror of the Imperium is NOT that they do horrific things. It is that those horrific things are arguably the best way of dealing with the enemies that humanity faces.

For me there are shades of grey within the Imperium but not when compared to what they are fighting. Least of all Chaos. Again this is a take on the setting but there is never a 'another side of the story' when it comes to Chaos. Don't get me wrong, it lies to people, it plays on worthy emotions such as duty or appeals to beauty or change but Chaos at its heart is madness and evil. That's why I find it hard to get excited by something like BC.

Agree: Nobody thinks of himself as the villain.

Ah, it depends. You can have purely psychotic sociopaths who do. More often, however, bad guys are "somewhere in-between". You can absolutely do evil stuff without really considering it. Most prominently because you believe you deserve it.

For example, Horus didn't make a conscious decision to become a villain - he thought he deserved better, and anyone who stood in his way would have to pay the price for this perceived "injustice".

Pride, Fear, Vengeance .. all these can turn you into a bad guy, and I'd even say the chargen of BC does a good job at trying to make you consider these things. This isn't about "shades of grey", it's about the villain being so egocentric and self-absorbed that they don't realise what a **** they've become.

For me there are shades of grey within the Imperium but not when compared to what they are fighting least of all Chaos. Again this is a take on the setting but there is never a 'another side of the story' when it comes to Chaos. Don't get me wrong, it lies to people, it plays on worthy emotions such as duty or appeals to beauty or change but Chaos at its heart is madness and evil.

^ This. Chaos is like the Dark Side in Star Wars - it's not inherently evil for evil's sake, but it is the utter absence of morals that would make any normal human being recognise it that way. The interesting thing here is the journey, the downfall of a once pure individual into a state of corruption and self-deceit.

Except on worlds already dominated by Chaos, where it is simply a way of life, many followers of Chaos may pledge their allegiance to the Ruinous Powers out of personal motifs like revenge or jealousy, sometimes even a sense of justice or honour. These are the most tragic servants of Chaos, for they will not realise how their minds will be absorbed in their quest, and how they will slowly change, reveling in their newfound power, their souls corrupted until they, too, do not care anymore and have forgotten all about their old ideals. Take, for example, the honourable warrior who has dedicated their life to Khorne, who fights only duels and respects their enemies - not realising the true nature of Chaos, they stand at the start of a slippery slope that will ultimately lead them to become more and more like their patron, until all they care about is shedding blood, no matter whose.

I remember one of the Chaos army books for warhammer, possibly a Chaos Codex for Wh40K talking about Khorne and about how his followers often try and mask the sheer madness of worshipping him behind a facade of honour or martial prowess but it is the ones who realise that yes Khorne will happily accept blood from any source be it a defenceless granny or a kid or whatever that really on the fast track to demon princedom.

Not sure if that;s explicitly stated in the present GW stuff anymore but it is how I play Khorne. I always have a few layers for each of the different Chaos gods, each a new layer of well chaos.

For Khorne it would go something like

1. Warrior lodge member

2. Deathcult

3. Blood Cultists (like a death cult but explicitly worshipping Khorne)

4. Bezerkers (but still Champions killing in Khornes name)

5. Complete deranged lunatics who will butcher anyone.

Some other groups that have fallen to Khorne, sometimes not your average warrior types even.

Order of the Crimson Walkure,

Imperial priestessess (because no adepta sororitas has fallen aparently) tasked with ending the suffering of mortally wounded wariors on the battlefield. After centuries of service they first stopped caring about the "moratlly" and then the "wounded" part, slaying friend and foe alike to send them to walhalla. (No not that one! the mytholigical one!- bloody ice planet.)

The Houndsmen,

Imperial aristocrat hunting lodge on Baskerville VIII, became obsessed with hunting ever more dangerous prey untill they went after the most dangerous human and xenos they could find. Reports mention giant red hounds accompanying them.

The Skull wardens

Adeptus Arbites that were badly mouled in planet wide riots, surrounded and besieged with their precinct burning around them they sent for help. Khorne answered. Filling their bruised and exausted limbs with new strenght and vigor they quelled the uprisings in the most brutal and bloody fasion possible. Later reported to have met their demise fighting against a chaos invasion led by the Night Lords legion.

The Children of Bodlam

64 children between 8 and 16 years old were all that remained of a large shola progenium complex on the backwater planet of Bodlam. It remains unclear what transpired on that grim world, all that is know is that the 64 were found drenched in blood, standing completly still with tranquil expressions, holding bloodied melee weapons and surrounded by the corpses of their fellow pupils, drill abots and a score of dark eldar raiders. Theories abound how the dark eldar slaughtered the adults and pupils alike but no one knows how the 64 surviving children became devoted to the blood god. Neither is it know what happened to them after they slaughtered the Adepts who logged the report.

Well, those at my nightmares for the next few hours. O.o

I remember, one of the things that attracted me first to Warhammer was the flipping of a few conventions I'd seen in other settings. Star Wars, D&D, final fantasy, a lot of those stories always seemed to center around a group of rebels or outcasts, living on the fringes and fighting against these colossal empires of tyranny, whether they were kingdoms or corporations. Warhammer caught my eye by turning all that around; for once, You are the Empire, the massive army, the tyrant, and all those rebels and outcasts on the edge are often greater evils than you could imagine.

I like that there are not really any goodygoody factions. None are flawless, every one of them has a dark side. Shades of grey.

I have never really liked the "shades of grey" for Chaos. It's a set of extremes, for regular adversaries, absolutely, makes perfect sense, but once you start down that path it's one of absolutes, there is no flexibility in the worship of Khorne, it's all blood and skulls, and occasionally kittens, but mostly blood and skulls.

I just keep thinking of the novel Wrath of Iron. Probably the most grimdark book I've read so far from this setting. I'm sure there are loads of others, but I don't go seeking them out.

Other novels, like Valedor and Legion of the Damned have more my style of Warhammer story. Dark, desperate, with the end upon us. But victory is possible, even though the price is high.

I have never really liked the "shades of grey" for Chaos. It's a set of extremes, for regular adversaries, absolutely, makes perfect sense, but once you start down that path it's one of absolutes, there is no flexibility in the worship of Khorne, it's all blood and skulls, and occasionally kittens, but mostly blood and skulls.

50 Shades of chaos

We were talking about Khorne right?

Yes.

Because Slaanesh thinks 50 shades of grey is boring and tame

Yes.

Because Slaanesh thinks 50 shades of grey is boring and tame

You sure? I thought it was a compulsary manual that all Slaanesh worshippers had to read. And then act upon...

It's a beginners guide to Slaanesh. All initiates must first master all acts described in the book before being allowed to join the sororfraternity.

It's a beginners guide to Slaanesh. All initiates must first master all acts described in the book before being allowed to join the sororfraternity.

Available at all good Chaos Bookstores. Just ask our kind Tzeentch staff for the Slaanesh section. Only 3 souls and 1 jar of... you don't want to know. Remember we do have a fighting and reproductive section if you wish to hire.

chaos bookstores...Is it odd that this concept makes sense in my mind?

Now with all new medical facilities staffed by our kind and gentle nurgling staff.

The idea that the Imperium is justified in its extreme measures has always struck me as very repugnant. Not because I'm opposed to grimdarkness, but because it carries the implicit notion that the things the Imperium does are actually efficient or effective. And they aren't. At all. Like, we've tried this stuff in real life and the end result is pretty much that a bunch of people died for no reason. The real world's most terrifying war machine runs on the fact that weapons engineers want the new iPhone and will invent new and exciting ways to murder people to get it, which in a lot of ways is a lot more grim than anything the Imperium gets up to. On the other hand, we've seen the longterm dividends of the Imperium strategy in the real world too, in the form of North Korea. During the Korean War, just a few years after going fascist? Terrifying. Fifty years later? A technologically outdated, economically crippled joke that people only care about because of their ability to potentially set bigger nations with meaningful force projection capabilities against one another. What emergency measures do is burn your longterm economic viability in exchange for a short term burst in productivity (this is why they are reserved for emergencies), and the Imperium doesn't fight short wars.

And the Imperium is unable to realize this because those same emergency measures (plus the instability of faster-than-light travel and communication) choke off their ability to collate data and analyze data, and in any case the High Lords would probably rather execute any scribe who comes to them and says "the evidence suggests you're all morons doing almost literally the exact opposite of what you should be" than admit to perpetuating a system that qualifies for the galaxy-spanning empire version of a Darwin Award. So the Imperium is slowly strangling itself. And now it's too late. They no longer have the breathing room to back up and rebuild reserves. The galaxy is going to die in screaming agony not because the Imperium couldn't stop it, but because a hundred generations of its nobility chose to pass the buck for getting to work on a longterm solution to the next generation and now there are no generations left.