kenshin138 said:

Curses. Foiled again.

Lightbringer said:

Well played sir!

Now if I can convince my wife to allow me to move out to another state...without triggering a divorce.

kenshin138 said:

Fair questions, due to the crappiness of this forum software quoting i'll just put your questions in italic and reply below.

1. "it lacks a setting explanation/background" - Last time I checked Dark Heresy included a full chapter about the Calixis Sector, Rogue Trader had a full chapter about the Koronus Expanse, and Deathwatch contained a full chapter about the Jericho Reach. So I'm not sure where you're coming from on this.

Well first of all, according to your third question they are actually different games. So technically i don't much care what's in DW or DH from a RT perspective. So let me stick to the RT perspective for now.

It's nice that there is an entire chapter on the Expanse, Reach and Calixis Sector in those books. However, while that is the region of space things are taking place in, the actual setting of the game is not detailed. I'm talking about the 40k verse here and more specifically: the Imperium. In the RT CRB the Imperium itself gets a mere 16 pages of explanation. Most of the major factions in it get one paragraph consisting of 3-4 sentences. I'm quite sorry, but no that's not a good explanation. If i am a layman to 40k - which i was when i bought RT - then i simply don't know enough of the setting based on that information. More over even: there is information in there that is at the very least misleading or if you interpret it rigidly it's downright wrong. The Admech for example is made out to be a division of the Adeptus Terra. It is not mentioned that they are in fact an allied empire, which has its own rights/laws/belief. It is mentioned briefly in the exlanation of world types that the forge worlds are the sovereing domains of the Admech, but then no explanation is given as to the why. There are a myriad of questions which are important for role-play that are not answered in the RT CRB. Nor in the rest of the RT book nor even in the rest of the DH/DW books. Some even don't get answered in the fluff to a satisfying degree. To give you a few examples:

• What does the imperial creed entail: is it the same everywhere?(AA for example have a different version, but good luck finding that out. The Admech has a different creed but then it is only mentioned in passing)
• How come those living in the imperium, especially those in hive worlds with lots of interstellar trafic, don't know jack **** about the imperium (CL imperium), or the imperial creed (CL Imperial creed), or the basic threats that are threatening it (no such thing as CL Xenos) or the laws they are subject to or the how their police force works and so on and so on.
• Why does the imperium maintain feudal worlds rather then lift them up to a space & warp-age level? Even if they only do so slowly?
• What kind of augmentations to the body are acceptable and what isn't? If i play a genetor from ItS, then i need to know this, yet it isn't in the RT books.
• What constitutes tech-heresy?
• What exactly was the deal made with Mars? To what extent has that changed over the millenia?
• What is the law system like on a common world? Is it legal in the imperium at large to hold slaves, to kill people that work for you, what is the stance on mutants, what can a planetary governer do and what can't he? I don't need indepth analyses here, i need a rough idea so that i know how to rp these guys and how to react to the shenanigans my players get into.
• How does the Imperium make first contact? Is there a standard method, what is permitted what is not?
• In what way is it prohibited for the Admech to do original research and invent new ****, or modify existing machines? I ask this question because one of our players read a bit of fluff somewhere that said that to a tech-priest a machine is holy and therefore it could not be modified to improve the function it serves. On the other hand you have RT's modifying their space ships all the time, you can add a red-dotter to guns as well as scopes.
• Are there any allies of the imperium, any mini-empires of survivors of old night for example, that are protectorates rather then an actual part of the imperium? Have there ever been any (Ultramar would seem to be one)? Is it conceivable that there ever will if the answer to the previous was no?
• What is the rough history of the imperium. In the CRB you see hardly anything on the Dark Age of Technology (or even nothing, i was to lazy to check all chapters, it's not in the Imperium bit though, or the KE bit) or the Age of Strife or the Heresy and so forth.
• What's the deal with chaos/psykers? (chaos doesn't even get a mention in the index)
• What genetic variations exist within the Imperium? How exotic in other words can one's character be?
• Was it the Emperors intent to create such a nightmarish imperium, or was it his intent to establish something different? If so to what extant are there factions to reflect this?

So yes, i do think it lacks a propper setting explanation. If you buy a RT book then you should get enough information to have a rough idea of what 40k is like and what are for all intents and purposes major issues in the propper portraying of the setting. Additional books can then give more indepth information, but really: if i play RT with only the info in the CRB then it won't be 40k at all. And i discovered this by reading up on the fluff through sites like this, lexicanum, dark reign as well as other books from the DH or DW line and from black library.

2. "It lacks a bestiary" - So, you want a single book like a Monster Manual that just details every adversary. Then have settings books that have no rules in them, just 100% fluff? That is a difference of opinion rather than a "wrong". Some people like the rules broken up within the books. Rather than a large stale book of stats. You can't be faulted for wanting this, just like you can't really fault FFG for the way they do it. Different strokes I guess.

No. A bestiary does not contain every single adversary. DnD/Pathfinder have multiple ones and several supplements'll give you new adversaries/additional rules/feats/talents/skills/ ... . What i want is a bestiary that gives you a compiled list of possible adversaries - with enough variation - and the rules to create more of them. You see: Pathfinder/DnD for example also have different species. But given they're all in the same setting they all have more or less the same classes that one can take so if you give the basic stats for an elf (something we don't have for any of the xenos species in 40k btw) then you can create your own adversaries. You know what equipment they can use and whatnot. You have classes you can modifiy them in and you know the general feel their race is supposed to give off when you portray them. Same goes for trolls/ogres/gnolls/orks/... . The bestiary gives a description with an image, a stat block and some basic info on their society that is sufficient for me to improvise the rest. If i want more fluff i can buy books on the races i want to explore/feature more indepth (that way the company can make more money of me, which i don't mind as i buy a good quality product and don't strictely need to buy the stuff).

RT however, offers no basic stats on any xenos species. It does offer a specific profile of some functions within that species. It gives us for example a Rak'Gol marauder. What it does not give me is how i can roll up a random rak'goll (eg. all stats are 2d10+15, include unnatural toughness/agility, detract 5 from intelligence). It does not tell me how that species looks to a human in the imperium. In Pathfinder for example i know that dwarves consider elves to be lazy buggers more concerned with arts then with their duties, and i know that there will be zero sexual attraction between them. Likewise i know that there is a lot of sexual attraction for a human when regarding an elf (not so much vice versa). Here i don't know any of that. I'd imagine that Eldar should look pretty sweet to a human. They're very human in appearence, just taller/thinner/far more gracefull. But i don't know. As a GM i simply lack the tools to actually expand on the Rak'Gol concept unless i work something out myself. As a player i don't know how to react, especially taking in mind that most of the CL things are not known (and there's no CL Xenos, for all those who say that there will be an innate distrust of xenos i just say what about a feral worlder who has never seen a xenos - or heard about them?) to your average citizen of the Imperium.

I don't mind one bit that there's extra info on different cool examples of eldar/tyranids/tau/whatnot in different source books. I'd expect it, it's a hook to entice people to buy it. But i also expect that as a GM i can buy one book that gives me enough info to run a myriad of campaigns without having to do all the legwork myself. One book with the basic info on eldar/ork/tau/tyrannids/necron/long lost human settlements would be golden. Give it to me for 100 $ and i'll pay it gladly. But for the love of god and this game: give it to me already. And i'm not even discussing all the possible exotic fauna and flora that we can encounter on alien planets (including virusses) that isn't intelligent enough to be a sentient species in it's own right. I'm just using my pathfinder bestiairy for that atm.

3. "it lacks coherence between the several lines" - You do realize that while there is overlap, its technically three different games right? To a point, Dark Heresy was written by Black Industries. Rogue Trader deviated from this (especially with psychic rules) to clean-up and hopefully make a better game. Would you have rather they kept the same system, even if it was flawed, just so they would be 100% compatible? Deathwatch is totally compatible with Rogue Trader, but does suffer with Dark Heresy for the same reason mentioned above. So, I don't see the problem here really. Sounds like what you really want is for a Dark Heresy 2.0 to come out that brings it in line with the others. I wouldn't mind that all all myself. Though based on what I've seen in the demo adventure of Black Crusade, it looks like some core rules are getting changed again (semi/full auto for example). Changes for the better mind you. So I think there will always be some level of inconsistency as long as the games are setup like they are. Perhaps you'd rather have a WOD style where you had a core 40KRPG rulebook, then a Rogue Trader sourcebook, a Dark Heresy one, etc. All that would do is cause an argument about how FFW was "screwing us" by making us by two books. Right now you can buy a single book and play just fine.

Honestly: i don't care if DH was written by Black Industries. Atm it seems to be in FFG hands and it seems to have been so before they brought out RT. Correct me if i'm wrong on that.

Basically though: when RT was brought out you already had DH. It would stand to reason that given they've copied most of the talents and skills as well as the way classes work and so forth that they would have ensured that you can play DH and then have your character progress to RT. Or at least play your DH character on a RT ship. Especially since it is mentioned in the RT CRB that several RT's get their warrant because their political rivals want to get rid of them.

And yet it turns out that RT's who are introduced as extremely capable individuals don't have half the skills a DH character with an equivalent amount of xp would have. For some reason they found it necessary to double the amount of xp everything costs (with an extra 100 xp for a lot of talents slapped on on top of that), so that you cannot even compare xp progression solidly anymore. My lvl 5 DH character with 5k xp will have a good chance of having two dodges, three-four attacks and a bunch of skills. My RT character won't have more then one attack, one reaction and only a few of the most basic skills. Despite him supposedly being - at least for a newly warranted RT - an experienced character he does not have scrutiny. So all his underlings have a good chance of getting away with lies. If he deals with others outside his ship he has very little chance of knowing whether or not they're lying to him and basically rolling his pocket. And there are many more issues but honestly to detail them all would go to far, there are quite a few threads where people go on a rant about it.

Yes, imo it should have been 100% compatible. I think it was a genius move to produce four lines within the same verse. It ensures that you can play pretty much every archetype you want . It ensures that you have the choice between a railroad game and a sandbox. It ensures you can play both good and bad and each has it's own book. So why is that genius diminished by making them not mesh together as well as they should?

4. "it lacks spellchecking" - I'll admit there are more spelling mistakes then I'd like to see. Can't really say much here. It doesn't but me nearly as much as it does others for some reason, but it is a valid argument.

5. "it lacks decent play testing" - I'll assume you are not, or have never, been part of the playtesting for their games, so how can you really fault this? How do you know whatever it is you don't like was a fault of the designers, and not the testers. Or the testers and not the designers? Or do you just mean that you dislike the product so you want to blame everybody involved since they clearly "don't get it"?

I love the products. Read back on my posts and you'll see i mentioned that several times already. But yes: i think there is a lot of room for improvement. I can definitely fault it because i am a customer who pays for a product in the assumption it is has been developped by professionals - and tested - so that is is a good product. I have as a customer a right to complain about things that are obviously not going right. And there are many such things:

• lack of a setting explanation
• acquisition rules being very complex and not worked out propperly
• ground combat rules in BFK that are totally ridiculous
• problems with the way space combat works (and it being as complex as grapple rules in the DnD editions) such as armour/lances

Basically i don't expect them to engage in 10s of thousands of playtesters. In understand - as N01-H3r3 mentioned - that more playtesters doesn't necessarily mean that the end result'llbe better. It also costs more money as you'll need more people to sift through the feedback and decide what is good and what is not. However, i do expect them to engage in sufficient playtesting (and a lot of that has to do with choosing your playtesters to be critical people who aren't die-hard fanboys. Playtesters need to be naysayers, who can point out mistakes and aren't afraid to do so) to ensure no major rewrites are necessary. A core mechanic such as acquisition should be done when it's in the CRB, bar minor alterations. It should not need a new mechanic in ItS. The same goes for the ground combat rules and so forth. The same goes for the lack of a setting explanation: did honestly nobody at FFG or the playtesters realise that the setting was impropperly explained for someone who is not yet a 40k-schooled player?

6. "it lacks decent customer management" - err..what do you mean here? You mean FFG doesn't cave to the small handful of people who seem to dislike the entire range and complain about it on their forums? Or that they don't do everything that you think they should do? Have you ever really had a customer service issue you took up with them? Ever talked to one of the employees? Again, I'm not sure what you even mean on this one.

No i mean that it is rather clear that they don't seem to think about what their customers want/need. There are problems with delivery dates & spellchecking. There are problems with playtesting and setting explanation. As my DH gm said: if i buy a book via FFG it'll end up costing me well over 20$ more then if i order it through the local gamestore (which is still 10$ more expensive then amazon). Where are the people from FFG on these forums that can answer complaints like these with their position?

Sometimes it's just random things that pretty much most companies seem to do such as not provide a writeable pdf of their character sheet (it's a small effort and it gives of huge amounts of goodwill from the customers) so instead it is taken care off by their customers/fans. I may be mistaken, but in general the feeling i get from FFG isn't that they are really monitoring the community (not even on their own forums) to see what is being talked about, what concerns are raised and so forth. I get the feeling that they're doing their own thing and as long as they sell enough they'll continue doing it. That's the same attitude taken by cable providers/cell phone companies/... which leads to people buying their service only because they are to lazy to change or because there is no alternative.

7. As far as another company, you may be waiting for a long time. If you check the inside cover of the books you will find the following people involved in the product: Owen Barnes, Alan Bligh, Andy Hoare, Alan Merrett, Andy Chambers, Ben Counter, etc. You may not recognize some of these names. But to say that FFG is somehow "not doing it right" is hard to stomach when some of the biggest names in 40k are either part of the actual writing, or part of the licensing/approval process. These are people who have lived and breathed 40k. They would simply not be involved if they didn't believe in the product.

Mmm, they are humans. Some of them will participate because they believe in it and some will participate because it makes them money. DnD also gave of this aura of all the big names are part of it ... right up till Pathfinder came out with several of those big names participating there and doing a better job of it. The fact that a big name is working on something doesn't magically make it right. They are just as capable of making errors as the rest of us. Also: i do not know to what extent they are making the decisions. If they're just contributing material but don't get the final say in what gets published or not... then they might be working on it but they're not the ones making the shots (meaning that they'll stay there till there's a better alternative or till a line is crossed which they think shouldn't have been). And as i said before: i'm not dissatisfied with all they've done. In general i love the products. I simply think there is much room for improvement.

Again, not doing it "the way you think it should be" does not equal "doing it wrong". Arguments such as there are too many spelling errors are totally valid. However arguments that by not doing a bestiary, for example, are fine for discussion; but claiming its "wrong" to not do one doesn't hold much weight. Opinions can't really be defended. And I'll state again, FFG is a company, which is designed to make money. The argument that "it only sells because its 40k" may hold weight for Deathwatch (marines after all). But for Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader it doesn't. I know there was quite a bit of internet hurt-feelings when DH came out since it didn't include marines, or elder, or whatever. DH and RT both focus on a part of the 40k lore that really only exists in novels. Part of the 40k universe that only an RPG can really do "right". So while the big 40k logo may get people to pick it up, your average run-of-the-mill tabletop gamer wouldn't buy it solely based on that I don't think. Hopefully though that gamer would give it a chance, and realize there is far more to 40k and the Imperium than Space Marines shooting things.

DH was the first time a 40k rpg came out. So yes it sold even if there were a lot of hurt feelings. People wanted to role-play in the 40k verse. If it was an acolyte/inquisitor rather then a space marine which they'd have preferred then so be it.

At any rate: my arguments aren't that FFG should not make money. If anything i believe it could be making a lot more money then they do now. I didn't claim that DH or RT is wrong. The exact opposite in fact. However, there have been choices made which don't make sense to me. The lack of a bestiairy is one such. Above you'll find why, or at least i hope that i explained myself better this time round.

Thing is, all that extra setting info, and a bestiary big enough to provide what you want it to provide takes extra space, in a book that's not actually got any room to spare (several sections of Into the Storm were originally planned to be in the rulebook, for example, but were cut for space reasons).

You want an extra 10 pages and a few thousand words extra on the Imperium? OK... what do you want cut to make room for it? And, if you've got an idea as to what should have been cut, start considering that you're not the only one buying that book, and your expectations and preferences are not those of everyone else. If you can find 10 pages of supposedly worthless material to free up, why should they go towards setting info and/or a bestiary and not towards, say, additional material on starships, or more psychic powers from other disciplines?

And that's even accounting for the fact that you could honestly fill a 400-page book with information about the Imperium in general (which would give no specifics, because GW won't allow specific details that apply to the entire setting; it's one of the reasons local settings like the Koronus Expanse exist) and it still wouldn't cover everything. You could easily fill a rulebook-sized tome with adversaries of all kinds, and it still wouldn't be in sufficient detail for some people.

Why do so few people get this? Why do people fail to understand that a book like this has to try and cater for an audience whose opinions differ immensely on what is invaluable and what's worthless, and so has to include a little bit of everything, and that the first few books of a line after the rulebook will probably be worked on before the rulebook is available in the shops (because if its not, there are colossal complaints about "no support" because it takes so long for a book to go from concept to finished product), and thus can't take into account customer feedback because there is no customer feedback for a book that isn't available yet .

As for compatibility... complete backwards-compatibility is burden, not an advantage. Backwards-compatibility, when too strongly-adhered to, hinders ongoing development and prevents the introduction of new or refined ideas out of a fear of rendering previous material incompatible. Being beholden to previous material interferes with learning from past mistakes, and I don't honestly feel that it's something to aspire to.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I fully understand that. However, If you set a roleplaying game into a specific setting then it makes no sense to not explain the basics of the setting to a minimal degree. And currently that degree is way below that minimum. As it stands i'm now working on a dutch version for my own players, i'll happily translate it in English afterwards and mail it to you - will take a while though. I'm not asking for a 400 page book (though i certainly wouldn't mind). I'm asking for the basics of the setting 30-50 pages should be doable (including art) to get the basic points across in such a way that people can play and not continually have to go through painfull research to bloody well find what the setting is supposed to be like.

As for how i'd have done it? Rather simple: split the CRB into several books:

1. Player guide
2. GM guide
3. Bestiairy
4. Campaign Setting

Each'll be thinner on it's own then the CRB. You don't force players to buy a book that has large chunks of info that they aren't interested in or that they aren't supposed to read (starting adventure). None of these books'll contain everything you'd want. Especially not as a 40k vet. But, each'll contain the basics necessary for play from that particular vantage point. If you recognise the structure: it's from Pathfinder. It works very well. Even if the sum is more expensive then it is in RT now. A GM is likely willing to dish out the money for the extra info/ease. A player only needs book 1, and if he wants more background info book 4.

The basic mistake for me is this: FFG tried to lug all info into one book. Imo: that's destined to be a failure. It can never be thick enough to contain all necessary info. As it is the focus is on Player & GM guide. Bestiairy and CS are largely sacrificed for this, and i find that to be a bloody shame.

Badlapje said:

Actually that is one of the things I liked best about the CRBs. That you don't really need Sourcebooks if you don't want them. You can play using the CRB alone.

Badlapje said:

You realize this would, at the minimum, double or more, the entry price for a GM and a lot of players.

Also the Pathfinder core book is just like the 40K books. Players guide, GM guide, and basic Bestiary all in one book. You have no need to buy anything past the core book with either Pathfinder or the 40K lines.

Badlapje said:

Personally, I prefer to be able to run a game with only one book purchase. I don't want to be required to drop lots of money on multiple books that I may not use more than a few times.

Campaign settings don't interest me and most monster manuals are uninspiring. I much prefer simple, loose information that I can fill in and expand upon as I need it. I have been quite happy with the 40K rpg's content and structure when compared to 4E or some other systems. Like N0-1_H3r3 said, my view of what is good, useful, and needed in a book is seemingly radically different than yours. Neither opinion is wrong, but where you find fault, I find contentment in just enough, but not too much.

ItsUncertainWho said:

It's very different in two respects: first off the setting needs no explaining. Medieval tech world with magic. Nuff" said. It doesn't matter what organisations you put in it as a gm. You can play it in the Forgotten Realms setting, the Eberron, the one you made up or the one from Paizo. It doesn't matter how you want to organise your religions. It doesn't matter even how you organise the universe. The game system is flexible enough to account for that, because politics, religion and so forth are all there for your convenience, they're not binding in any way (other then the gods grant magic, but it's not the only way to get it spiel).

Secondly: the PF CRB is 99% player usable content. It contains only 14 pages on how to GM. That's it. Everything else is the core mechanics of the game and player classes/races/equipment/magic/items.

The same can not be said for 40K. The setting is very specific. You can off course make of it what you want, but the nature of the warp, the technological status of the imperium, the way tech-priests operate, navigators, astartes, the god-emperor and the omnissiah ... all of those things are what makes 40k into the powerful vision of a universe that it is. None of it is adequately explained in the CRB.

You may not like campaign settings. But unless you already know 40k then the CRB is not enough to play RT as a 40k game. It'll be a space-born rpg with a lot of things that make little sense as you don't know the backstory where as a GM you'll either improvise and make it something entirely different then 40k or you'll have to resort to "because i say so" explanations. And if you improvise you'll likely import a whole range of ideas from other settings that are entirely inappropriate for a 40k setting. Honestly: if i want a system that i detail all on my own i'll just use GURPS as core mechanics. It's free and far more versatile.

As to the price doubling argument: at current i bought four books from RT and there are still large holes in basic info. More books'll be bought, i reckon at least 2-3 more, before i have all the info i need that could have been contained in 4 books as mentioned.