Atheosis said:

That'd be a nice change.

To me, these Designer Diaries are quite exciting. I'm really looking forward to the Blood Angels and Dark Angels, because they're my favourite Chapters. I can only imagine that Space Wolf and Ultramarine fans have been pretty thrilled by the last couple of diaries.

At this stage, I don't expect to see FF giving up the real details of content and mechanics (though, of course, I await those as eagerly as the next guy). I'm just keen to see which Chapter will be next. I see roleplay potential for all of them! Maybe it would require more thought and ultimately be more rewarding to come up with a deep and multifaceted Ultramarine character than a Blood Angel...

Darn, I'm excited about this release. However busy my friends are, everyone has already assured our GM (who seems to end up GMing everything) that they will make time for DW!

Wilfred Owen said:

On the other side of the coin, can't a person voice his criticisms of something without being attacked? I guess not.

Wilfred Owen said:

Thanks.

Atheosis said:

It's the internet. So no, not really.

In any case, if you want to complain about something, you shouldn't be surprised when someone complains about your complaining. And now you are complaining about someone complaining about your complaining. And now you have me complaining about your complaining about someone complaining about your complaining...

Or at the very least, you shouldn't be surprised if someone points out flaws in your complaints. There is only so much room in the corebook. It may be 400 pages, but that wasn't enough to provide everything people wanted in the DH or RT corebooks. 6 chapters is plenty, more than that is surplus to requirements and would take up valuable space. Most of the 6 chapters chosen will of course be iconic, to do otherwise would be foolish. They will be providing a chapter creation system for those who want it.

As for printing the core rules separately in another book, some people like it, others don't. For one thing paying another $30 for the system would be annoying. For another, re-releasing the rules allows them to update them with new mechanics, fixing flaws in the previous editions.

macd21 said:

I would say Atheosis was attacked on a personal level, rather than had any flaws in his complaints pointed out. He was accused of whining, and basically (I paraphrase) told to shut up and get a life, as he should be grateful FFG are good enough to provide us with product.

I think Atheosis is not saying he's unhappy 6 Chapters are detailed, he's unhappy (as am I btw) that the inherent variety the Deathwatch concept offers (ie Marines from almost any Chapter can theoretically serve with them) is not reflected in the core rules where a choice of 1000 Chapters is crushed down to 6. The Chapter creation system you mention is not (afaik) going to be in the core rulebook, it needed to be. It didn't need to be massively space consuming, it certainly didn't need to cover details on 1000 Chapters, we all have access to the internet to look up what's known canonically on a given Chapter, it just needed a solid set of rules for allocating powers, traits and skills, that would allow players to fit specific powers, traits, and skills around known or made-up Chapters.

Atheosis, is I believe I'm right in saying, of the opinion losing one or two (already widely detailed) Chapter write ups, would happily have freed up this space.

I agree with him.

I'm not sure how FFG could have done the rule repetition, but I do think it is far from ideal to have to keep buying the same rules over and over again if you want to have a broad 40k roleplaying system.

Adam France said:

Wow...someone actually agrees with me...lol. Thanks Adam.

What amazes me is how many people think they couldn't cover their core six Chapters and provide a Chapter creation system within a whopping 400 page book, or that we have no right to expect such a thing from a book that costs sixty bucks. I guess FFG can simply do no wrong in some people's eyes.

@Atheosis

What amazes me is how many people think they couldn't cover their core six Chapters and provide a Chapter creation system within a whopping 400 page book, or that we have no right to expect such a thing from a book that costs sixty bucks. I guess FFG can simply do no wrong in some people's eyes.

I'm sure they could do that. Oh, wait - you mean, do six chapters, chapter creation, career ranks, skills, talents, equipment, psy rules, astartes-specific rules, game rules, combat rules, (dare we say it?) vehicle rules, fluff and enemy rules plus a starting adventure within a "whopping 400 page book"? I don't know about you, but I didn't find too many blank pages in RT and DH. So how about you tell me what should be left out instead? I'd assume a halfway decent make-your-chapter rule package would take about... seven pages. Two for basic rules, five for mix&match traits so you've got some variety. Which chapter is currently seven pages too long?

As for leaving out the basic game rules... wait a minute. Weren't you the one complaining about paying more than 60$ for a game? Because unless you expect every gamer to pick up all three games, this sounds like making the game even more expensive. Please explain how that makes sense from a business point of view when you want as many people as possible to get into your system and start playing it to know if its worth buying a few more supplements instead of being scared by the large up-front price.

@Adam

I would say Atheosis was attacked on a personal level, rather than had any flaws in his complaints pointed out. He was accused of whining, and basically (I paraphrase) told to shut up and get a life, as he should be grateful FFG are good enough to provide us with product.

Um... no. He was attacked on a personal level and his arguments were criticized, although he hasn't bothered to refute the latter criticism, instead focusing on the personal attacks.

As for me... assuming they cover a relatively wide variety of chapter archetypes, I think I can live with the chapters presented, especially since abstracting from them and changing parts of their traits to represent other chapters doesn't sound too difficult.

Cifer said:

So you think seven pages couldn't be scrounged up out of a total of four hundred? That's less than two percent of the total. If you're going to try and undermine my arguments you really shouldn't provide numbers that bolster them.

As far as yours and others' criticisms, I've addressed them where I felt necessary, but for the most part they boil down to "don't be stupid there's no way they could fit Chapter creation rules in the core book". Sorry to say it, but that's not really a position worth debating against being that it's nothing more than a rationalization of FFG's design process. As you yourself established: less than two percent.

I know it makes you uneasy that others aren't all blindly swallowing the swill you think tastes so good, but you really should allow for the views of others. It's a much richer way to live life.

So you think seven pages couldn't be scrounged up out of a total of four hundred? That's less than two percent of the total. If you're going to try and undermine my arguments you really shouldn't provide numbers that bolster them.

Ok, do it: Scrape together seven pages of text in Rogue Trader. Remove only things that won't result in cries of "How could they leave that out?" from fans. Show us how it's done. Remember that you can't take out half-pages from a single chapter since every chapter starts on a new page.

As far as yours and others' criticisms, I've addressed them where I felt necessary, but for the most part they boil down to "don't be stupid there's no way they could fit Chapter creation rules in the core book". Sorry to say it, but that's not really a position worth debating against being that it's nothing more than a rationalization of FFG's design process. As you yourself established: less than two percent.

So the question about that idea of yours of outsourcing the core rules wasn't even worth a "that's not worth a comment"? I'm saddened. Deeply.

I know it makes you uneasy that others aren't all blindly swallowing the swill you think tastes so good, but you really should allow for the views of others. It's a much richer way to live life.

As soon as you can show how it's done instead of just asking for having your cake and eating it...

If people feel strongly about having more chapters available, and would like to give something to the community at large rather than just making in-house rules (which would also work), sites like Dark Reign would be a great place for a custom ruleset for creating them. Someone already did their own mini-Deathwatch, which must have taken them a lot of time, and was quite cool. I'd be really pleased to see something like that once Deathwatch is actually released.

I don't know why people insist that creating and playtesting a balanced system for designing your own Chapters/Marines, that uses mix and match traits (and without having seen how the iconics are laid out, we're assuming at this point that this is all that is needed), and doesn't duplicate the niches of the iconic Chapters, is easy and would only require 7 pages!

What is the fixation with the number seven? Is it some massive resume of game designer experience that allows for the determination that 7 is the magic number and 7 pages all that's needed? I suppose if/when they release a robust system for Chapter/Marine creation rules in a supplement and it takes up more than 7 pages, FFG will be accused of rules bloat and/or padding the book with unnecessary material.

mac40k said:

Oh, almost certainly. I very much doubt the rules will only cover 7 pages. I'd say more along the lines of... say... 15-20? That's the minimum I'd expect for a decent selection of rules, trait, etc.

@Niqvah: Again, almost certainly. Even if I barely play Deathwatch (loving DH and RT too much at present ), I'm probably going to make various iconic chapter rules for fun and for the community, as will most other people who enjoy Deathwatch on DR. Fan-made rules all just add to the fun!

mac40k said:

I'm actually pretty certain it could be done in less pages.

Obviously it's hard to measure without seeing the full system, it's also hard to say what could be dropped to make room without having seen the book, how much space is taken up by the fluff on each of the 6 Chapters given would be my first question. If they get 4-5 pages each, I think 2 Chapters could be dropped happily to make the room, that would still mean 4 example Chapters could be detailed up for people who lack the ability to use Google and to show how skills/traits etc work with known Chapters. Easy enough I'd say.

mac40k said:

It's Nurgle's fault!

Atheosis: I do believe you were getting hit with the personal attacks not because you've stated how you feel, but because you keep stating it, repeatedly, in nearly every thread on the forum.

Posting in one thread and trying to make a valid argument of it, no problem. People will post counter-arguments and some will actually agree with you.

Posting again and again and again and again and again, that's a problem. People stop posting counter-arguments and start posting things along the lines of "Not again..." and "Please, shut up", and eventually, even the people who actually agree with your position start posting "Not again..." and "Please, shut up".

You have made your argument, counter-arguments have been made, and none of it matters because the book has largely already been written and can't really be changed. Continuing to state how boring it is that there are only six chapters and they're mostly going to be filled with the iconic chapters that people already like is only going to lead to more personal attacks and fewer coherent counter-arguments, as people tire of posting the latter again and again and again.

WOW! ...... I ... I am sensing something. I can't quite put my finger on it ... but ... but it sounds like ... WISDOM.

Lyinar said:

Yeah I'm kind of getting tired of the whole argument. I think things should be done differently than they are, but it isn't going to happen. Oh well.

By the way, I've only really posted my opinions on the matter in two threads, not "every thread in the forum".

Sorry, it felt like more.

Lyinar said:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results: 1d5 Insanity Points.

Lyinar said:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results: 1d5 Insanity Points.

Sorry, SoD, couldn't resist... But honestly, there are some chapters I would like to see included, and it is looking like an extreme unlikelihood. Somewhere in another thread I listed out chapters which would be good inclusions based off of proximity to the Calixis Sector. There were, if I remember right, seven I listed... Hmm, seven. There's that number again.

-=Brother Praetus=-

This whole argument sounds soo pointles that isn't even entertaining anymore. We don't know yet which are the 6 chapters in the book, granted we can guess at least 4 for now (Ultramarines, Space Wolfs, Blood Angels and Dark Angels), but if the 2 remaining chapters are from the 1st founding Legions we don't really need much more to play.

You guys should know that from 2nd founding onward all chapters have they Gene-seed took from loyal chapters, which means a total of 9 possible seeds. Now of these 9, Salamander, Raven Guard and Iron Hands only had about a dozen or so known descendant chapters.

So if we get Imperial Fist and White Scars we have pretty much the whole 1000 chapters that make up the Astartes today. Gene-seeds is the same from 1st founding to X founding and while minor mutations are possible (which is the only thing rulewise that might be of interest), that shouldn't be that **** hard to do. Other then that it's fluff and you can make it your own already.

Again, the only thing that should really matter, as a player, are the rulesets about the gene-seed and I'm sure once the book are released it won't take long to figure how that work, otherwise with 6 of the 1st founding chapters, you can already to MOST of them regardles.

True words. Once we have the rules figuring out how to extrapolate them into other chapters based on First Founding Geneseed should be doable by most intrepid GMs, those of us who aren't afraid to toss a splash of personal in the game.

The only chapter I see being left in the dark a bit. Are the Grey Knights. But again, a well versed in lore GM could easily come up with their write up, post it to be peached, then post a final version on Reign. With rules for Librarians we should have a Psy ruleset to work off of.

Hell. Due to the nature of my campaign I will HAVE to do just that. My campaign is set to spread across all 3 systems, with the players playing a character from all 3 games that are forced to interact over the metaplot of the DH characters. Each higher tier game will be a less aired game run in vignettes and their motives may not always line up, but my game centers around Malleus. And at least one NPC or a trusted player if I allow will be forced to be a Grey Knight in the DW game.

With the rules for the right 6 chapters and some creativity we can pretty much house rule anything we need til the official supplement comes out.

Alexis

*smiles*

Atheosis said:

Every page of a corebook has to be carefully considered. Different people will have different ideas about what is a priority and what's not - personally I dislike the adventures they include and would rather see that space devoted to something else, but I recognise that some people like them. You'd like a chapter generator in the corebook - whereas I see that as a complete waste of space. I'd rather those seven pages were filled with more stats for xenos, more weapons, more background, more fluff - or even another fully fleshed out chapter. If it's a choice between 5 chapters + chapter generator or 6 chapters and no generator, I'll choose the latter. YMMV

macd21 said:

I'm curious why you would think that would be a waste of space. Not really wanting to argue about this anymore, I'm just wondering what your perspective is that you would rather have, for instance, one more fleshed out Chapter than have a system for generating many Chapters. If you're looking for background material there's already a lot out there for all the Chapters they're including.

Atheosis said:

Millandson said it best when he said that it was perhaps to get more of the new players who aren't as familiar with the fluff into the game and then bring in the DIY chapters involved in an expansion.

Yes, we all know the books are pricey, but they're of high quality and I'd rather have a rulebook last for years on end than have the pages fall out within a month of purchasing it.

Yes, we all know there are going to be rules rehashed, but if you're a new player to the Warhammer 40K universe and you find Space Marines more thrilling than being a Rogue Trader or an Acolyte of the Inquistion, would you want to shell out money for those books when you could just have the one you want and be happy?

Yes, there is a lot of information out there on the various Chapters, but do you think new players are going to know where to look for it all? Or even which sites have the best information as well as good online communities? To be honest, I've been playing WH40K for nearly 20 years and while I consider myself up to snuff on the fluff, there were things people here and on other boards posted that corrected what I thought I knew and were quite nice about it. It's the communities that these new people will be turning to for information on not only the pre-made Chapters, but on how to best create DIY Chapters. Would you honestly want one of your new players coming to a game with a whack DIY Chapter?