Siranui said:

I agree. I think the metaplot problem with oWoD spawned from the fact that the WW writers wanted to tell stories as well as just write mechanics. Unfortunately, this lead to the fans taking every story they wrote as Gospel Truth about the WoD. Honestly, I neve rpayed any attention to the metaplot in any edition of WoD I played, and I loved it through and through. The only people I saw getting cranky about "balance" or anything, really, were the ones who insisted on adhering to the metpalot at all costs.

The nWoD decision to emphasize that "none of our little stories are set in stone" was a very good move. In addition to cleaning up the mechanics, they made clear something that most people really should have been able to see for themselves - an RPG is a framework for you to tell your stories, it isn't a straightjacket setting that your players must conform to.

Looking at the 40k RPGs, I think they have a strong danger of going down the same road oWoD did. 40k already has a strong and storied history of fluff which people naturally want to stay true to int he games they run, but if the fluff is getting in the way of the story you want to tell, you shouldn't feel constrained by it. You want to have a female space marine? Sure, whatever. You want to have a tiny 5-man space ship that's Warp capable? Go nuts. You don't need the approval of all 40k fans on this forum, you only need the approval of the people sitting at your table. Do what makes your group happy.

The 40k books are also making the oWoD mistake of describing all the rules over again in each "splatbook" and not even keeping them even between the books. People will naturally want to combine space marines and Inquisitors and Chaos and RTs, it would be better if the system jived form the get go. It took WW three full ediitons to realise that (4 if you count nWod, which I wasn't.) I much prefer the idea of a single "corebook" that describes all the basic rules and then each "splatbook" that tells you how to convert a standard "core" character into a Space Marine or a Rogue Trader. That might be trickier for aliens if FFG has any plans for an Eldar book or a Tyranid book (WW had the advantage that all of their splats started off as humans), but they could probably come up with something to make it work.

I also prefer the new approach where they offer a series of different stories which are often mutually exclusive, and are clearly labelled as suggestions. It keeps things looser and stops meta-gaming players knowing every detail of their environment.

I actually support the 'reprinting' of various 40k rules in various books, as these aren't supposed to be a completely compatible rules system, and the format allows crusty long-term fans to simply pick up the version that appeals without need to invest further. I've bought a couple of systems now, but originally only intended to buy one, and would have been aggravated at the thought of shelling out for two hard-back tomes; especially as I originally intended the book to be more of a bookshelf piece than something that I actually played heavily.

Plus they get to hone their system and make improvements and fixes: Something that could not be done so easily with a core book. The shame of it is that FFG have fluffed it slightly and not made all the changes that were needed to hone the core elements and further dropped the ball with some poor errors due to cutting and pasting old rules and passages.

I don't agree that it's taken 4 editions for WW to get it right if you are referring to inter-compatibility of systems, though. The mechanics are shared, but the systems really don't work together well, and I don't think they are really intended to be used in some mega-game. I certainly don't know of anyone who runs or plays a game with 'varied' PC types, and I don't really expect FFG to loose much sleep trying to reach the point of perfect compatibility which has eluded WW for 20 years.