HARKEN!

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14930.phtml

L

A peer to whom?

Kage

Good informative review.

Kage2020 said:

He wets the bed

Nice review.

As I plan to play a Dark Angel Deathwatch Librarian, I'd love to know what powers Dark Angels get.

BYE

I'm somewhat unimpressed with the review feeling that it is entirely directed at the "fan" of the 40k RPG system. I will wait for less impartial, or at least contrary, reviews.

Not a good review.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

I liked it because I have been getting some new information. Chapter-specific psi powers. The modularity of the char gen allowing for non-Deathwatch roleplay. Relics, modifiers for non-marines using astartes weapons, etc.

Alex

I don't see how you can call it a "bad review" just because it's a positive review written by someone who likes the other 40K RPG titles. It went into appropriate depth, gave examples, and the reviewer explained why he liked the things he did, not just that he liked them.

That's what a review is or should be.

BYE

I can call it a "bad review" since it didn't really treat it from the perspective as someone "new" to the setting. It was clearly targetted at fans of the setting. So, yes, bad review. On the other hand, those aspects that you identified as "good" were, indeed, good. At least IMO.

I'll still wait to see a "good" review, but I'm sure that such would be decried as "not understanding" or some-such, just like anyone that questions the official line.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Oh drop the conspiracy theory. It's not as if the guy's at RPG.net have an FFG-serving agenda. And targeting a review at those familiar with the system, or even 40K in and of itself is hardly a flaw in the review itself. Besides, I'd consider any review that says "I don't understand the setting" to be a bad review because you don't need to understand 40K to enjoy these RPGs - you can just read the information that comes with the book as it seems (to me, at least) that FFG spend quite a bit of time introducing the setting within the book itself.

If you want to be critical of gameplay mechanics, that's fine - I know a number of people who really dislike D100/percentile systems - but "I don't understand/I am not familiar with the setting" doesn't suddenly make a review more valid.

BYE

When I was writing the review I spent more time with the mechanical aspects of the game as opposed to the setting materials. Overall the setting material was excellent, it provides a good overview of the Imperium and its many faces, the Deathwatch and the Jericho Reach. I know a lot of players who will ignore the default setting in favor of thier own sectors of space and a lot of it was review for me personally. I did, however, applaud them for keeping the flavor present:

"The next few chapters cover setting information, so I will be covering them all together. Chapter Ten cover the Imperium of Man. This is more or less what you would expect; it’s a good overview of the Imperium works for those who are not familiar with Warhammer 40K background. It reviews the different organizations and how the Imperium wages war. Chapter Eleven covers the Deathwatch organization in detail including its history and practices. Chapter Twelve covers the Jericho Reach, the default sector of space that the game is set in. We get the history, key worlds in the sector, and a detailed examination of the Deathwatch’s holdings and operations in the Reach. Each of these chapters is well written, informative, and presents a lot of ideas for adventures both in the Jericho Reach and outside of it."

I really enjoyed reading the chapters, but the setting is largely a matter of taste. My buddy John is going to run "Dude, wheres my Chimera" at some point in the future and I quit a game where the Inquisitor was comic relief because that sort of game is not my cup of tea.

But the rules... Those are largely universal. No matter how kookie your game may be your still going to be rolling the Balistics tests the same way, if not with the same results.

Oh, and I guess the peer is me.

ak-73 said:

All of those have been covered in the Q&A thread, to my knowledge.

Hey Inquisitor! Decent review IMO. I noticed your comment about how a fantastic attack roll with a heavy bolter (7 degrees of success) could be negated by one successful Dodge roll from the target. According to the rules in Final Saction that's not quite true. You actually only dodge one hit with a successful Dodge attempt, and then negate one additional hit for each degree of success. Not so terrible.

By golly, your absolutely correct! Its right there on page 238, while the normal text reads that the attack is missed there is a special section on Auto-fire and Area attacks that state that autofire hits are negated with raises! Sorry about that, I totally missed that!

Inquisitor Huntingmoon said:

Some feedback to your review:

- You gave an early hint to your not being fully proficient as to the setting by the spelling Ordo Mallius too.

- "There is also a good discussion of the history of your individual Marine’s history." It's unclear what that means - how can they discuss the history of the Marine I am just creating?

- Your explanation of Demeanour was very good I don't quite get it previously from the description in Final Sanction (sometimes I am slow) but your example was an eye opener for me: it's supposed to make the Marines further "awesomez" in comparison to the DH and RT characters; makes sense. Speaking of Demeanours.... you roll for Personal Demeanour? Seriously? Surely the text just offers this as an alternative to picking one? Or making one up on your own? Anyway that statement was an eye-brow raiser.

- Chapter and Race comparison was good for an uninitiated reader.

- Advancement charts is unclear: do you progress all of them simultaneously or do you have to choose on which branch you progress?

- Each chapter having their own insanities was also news to me.

All-in-all a fairly informative review, I will have to point out though that a bit of skepticism always remains, I generally don't attribute too much to other people's impressions of a rpg book, I have to see it all for myself.

I suppose Kage is looking for a deeper intellectual analysis of a rpg book but I don't expect anything more than what you have written for an early, for-free review on an internet site. Thanks.

Alex

ak-73 said:

There's a single table of Chapter Advances for each Chapter, which are available at all times to a given character. The General Space Marine, Deathwatch and speciality-specific advances are arranged by rank, tied to the character's overall rank - so an Ultramarines Devastator with 18,000xp spent is in Rank 2, and can thus pick from the General Space Marines Rank 1 and 2, Devastator Rank 1 and 2, Deathwatch Rank 1 and 2, or Ultramarines advance tables.

H.B.M.C. said:

I'm afraid that it had little to do with conspiracy theory and more to do with their reception on these boards, of nowhere else. I found the review to be lacking in many regards. Others didn't. Leave it at that before you do little more than prove the point.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Some people just seek to shut down any form of dissent or debate rather quickly.

Alex

LOL!

Kage

Kage2020 said:

What can I say? I am not afraid of proving points in the minds of other people.

Alex

I thought the review was well done. It did have an approach more for the fans, i do not really care seeing as i am a fan! If it were more impartial that would probably be better, but hey that did not bug me. I thought it gave a good all around general feel for how the book would read. Thank you very much for taking the time to write that up!

Kage2020 said:

The Peer-God.

L

That explains much.

Errr...

Seriously, though, the review was informative. The problem that I had was that it revealed too much of a bias for me to be personally comfortable with. Consider, for example, that the poster was entirely comfortable with "all the enemies" being covered in the entire product line. This gives a bit of a mis-truth to the idea that they are independent systems, which once again raises the ugly head of core system and supplemental genre/setting additions. Admittedly, FFG are dealing with the remnants of BI's thrust, but... Well, there you have it.

I'm going to wait until we see the DR "double review," myself. I find that the contrasting opinions work well.

Hell, I might even do a "First Blush" of this one.

Kage

It's a bit of a rambling review, but there's enough information there (minus the spin) to get a feel for the game.

...though I enjoyed that they are defiantly looking forward to more for the game

Consider, for example, that the poster was entirely comfortable with "all the enemies" being covered in the entire product line. This gives a bit of a mis-truth to the idea that they are independent systems, which once again raises the ugly head of core system and supplemental genre/setting additions.

Please explain how it is an "ugly head" when they don't publish the same book thrice.
It's fairly clear that a system partly dedicated to travelling to new places, meeting exciting non-people and killing them in equally exciting ways will sooner or later beget a creature sourcebook which you'll have to buy if you're interested in the publishers' ideas of new killable creatures. It just so happens that the first such splat (and remember, there's already a second one announced in the DW release schedule) is already on the market. Does it matter if the logo reads "Dark Heresy"? I can send you a permanent marker to change that.
The point of the "independent" systems was all along that the content of one was useable in all three - and while the basic system has to be kept in each Core book, publishing other redundant material wouldn't serve much of a purpose except sparing FFG paying authors and alienating players who play all three systems and now can look up the same creature in three books.

But maybe you can explain how that's a good thing and how I'm only sycophantically defending Our Most Benevolent saviour FFG here.