I am at a loss for words. Which doesn't happen very often.

No wait, I'm not.

You can't be serious, mate. You're complaining because there's crunch included in the Jericho Reach, and it shouldn't be there? Or that there's a book about the background setting which you have to buy but don't want to buy? That there is crunch that you need and fluff that you don't need, and you have to pay money for it all?

Well, you can relax because, hark my words: you don't have to buy anything! And you don't need any books besides the Core Rules! And if you don't want a specific supplement, it is perfectly within your rights to actively not buy it! Amazing, isn't it.

I for my part appreciate the way FFG handles these things, because to me it makes sense. There's a book about the Jericho Reach with fluff and crunch about the Jericho Reach. If it's not your Jericho Reach, then you probably won't need the book.

There's an entire book full of monster stats, and it is called Mark of the Xenos. Go get it.

And forgodssake come back down to Earth, ok? This discussion progressed to a level of silliness that's not even funny anymore.

I'm going to try to say this in the least inflammatory way I can.

It seems odd to me to complain that an official book contradicts your setting. Or that a setting book has setting specific rules in it. Is your Reach better than the official one? If yes then why not try a career in the game industry? If no then why are you angry that now you have access to something better?

Even if your material contradicts the official material are you telling me that you are such a good writer and so full of plot and story hooks that you couldn't use more? Just because the martial is presented with a certain story or theme in mind doesn't mean that you can't kitbash it and use the parts you like. Even if you have your own story and NPCs doesnt mean you cant steal the stats or ideas presented in the book. My point here is that no matter how good a GM you are The Jericho Reach can still be a useful book and a worthwhile purchase.

And just to put this on the table, I don't own the book and haven't looked through the rules in it, but I'm willing to bet they are tied to certain locales and events, which means they are situational, and IF that is the case I can't see how those things would be a "must have" bit of info. Because if you're a GM that is so good that you don't need a setting book then you should be good enough not to need setting based rules in said book as well.

Zappiel said:

D'ya see that? You get what it means? Yeah?

When FFG releases Dark Heresy expansion books, anything from DotDG, Radical's Handbook or even more recent stuff like BoJ or Blood of Martyrs, a lot of it, or in some cases most of it does not apply to our own home-brew setting. As I've said before, we don't use the Calixis Sector, so when they explain the Calixis Sector Synod or the history of the Calixis Arbites it doesn't really resonate with me that much because it's apart from our own setting. But I don't decry FFG for having the gall to release something that isn't specific or relevant to me. The game has a setting. That setting is the Calixis Sector. Their releases will be tied to that setting. I expect this and have accepted this. For me most DH books are just places to grab new rules to feed into our own setting . If we use the Calixis Sector, then great, we will, but if we don't, it's not a huge problem and it's not FFG's fault for not catering to my specific way of playing the game.

And what's this 'non-canon' nonsense?


"It has been asserted that FFG ain't out to gouge our money...if this is the case, then why, oh why, do they include additional rules for general use in a setting supplement of a very specific nature? Seems they'd want to release setting info in one book, and supplemental rules info in another book, so we may choose what we need, instead of being forced to buy crap we don't need in order to get at what we do. But no! Instead, if you want the additional rules, you ALSO hafta buy their setting book, whether you want their setting or not...this is not choice! This is not value! This is a gouge!!!!"

No... that's an expansion. What's what supplements for games do. They're not going to present crunch without fluff and the other way around. You're essentially saying that because there's rules in my setting book, or setting in my rulebook, that it's a 'gouge'. Honestly...


"Not all of us get free stuff for playtesting this...stuff......some of us actually hafta pay FFG $ to acquire these books..."

That couldn't be more irrelevant if you'd tried. Nice attempt at a red herring though.


"And we love paying for spelling/grammatical mistakes, and poorly thought-out rules, and rules that just don't work all that well, it seems."

And another. Was there a special at the fish market today?


"So treat us with a bit of respect, yes?"

When did this become about 'respect' . Your attempt at a point is becoming hopelessly lost in this drivel.


No one is 'forcing' you to buy anything. All that's been created is a book that takes the setting introduced in the DW Core-rule book, whose history was expanded in The Achilus Assault, and expanding it further from the PoV of the Deathwatch. That's all this book sets out to do, and it's what it delivers. How is a setting expansion a 'price gouge'?


"Oh, and thanx for the Archer comparison, big guy! You're clearly a man of insight and taste!!"

Archer is an excellent show.

BYE

Dok Martin said:

As a customer I am entitled to whine. Everybody else is entitled to ignore it. Beyond that whining isn't a term of relevance in my world. I uttered criticism, criticism that I still consider valid.

Alex

I'll try it again, in case the subject of complaint hasn't been sufficiently clear:

That there is official fluff on worlds and whatever is great. I don't think anyone is complaining about that. The problem arises when a GM has been homebrewing stuff over the course of the last year or so and now has official fluff that contradicts his inventions. While for a number of GMs this isn't a problem, other GMs would like to be abler to invent stuff and be consistent (=non-contradictory) with official products. That can only be done if a GM knows which worlds will be relevant in official publications and which just have a bit of background for the GM to spin further.

To provide this meta-gaming information is very important for a fair number of GMs, I will dare to assert. To be fair , I don't think I have ever seen an RPG that has been giving this meta-information - but there's no reason to not do better than other companies. Right?

tl;dr = The discussed problem does not arise with GMs who only play official stuff nor with GMs who homebrew the Reach completely (or mostly complete) but with those GMs who mix and have to try to match official and homebrew.

Alex

PS As for FFG's money-grubbing scheme: I think FFG is entitled to pursue that. It's called good business practices. Personally, I love books that mix crunch and fluff; reading such books is like treasure-hunting.

ak-73 said:

Thing is, there's already 'white space' on the maps. It's the worlds that aren't listed, the dozens of systems and planets and warzones that haven't been thought of. Every sector is bigger than the worlds on the map, which leaves plenty of room - an essentially infinite amount of room, in fact - for people to develop their own things in. My Deathwatch campaign has been focussed primarily on the war effort surrounding the world of Theron in the Canis Salient... it doesn't exist anywhere in the official version of the setting, doesn't appear on any map of the Reach, and will never do so. It's mine, for my campaign, to do with as I please without risk of contradiction or interference by anyone else. Even given the opportunity - and I've actually had that opportunity - I wouldn't add it to the official Jericho Reach, because that's not what I created it for.

Beyond that, any given world is far bigger than even the most lengthy description can fully encompass. They are, afterall, worlds, rather than cities or nation-states. Even amongst official description, there's ample room for personal development and expansion and for the integration of personal ideas with official material.

I don't post very often, more of a forum reader than sometime who regularly says things. But I just wanted to give my 10 cents.

There is a lot of ways a 40k RPG could have been done. The way it was done was a bunch of independant, but closely related systems and settings. Is that how I would have done it? Probably not. But my group still has fun slaying my tyranids every week. I'm very glad the game was made.

My campagin takes place on the world of Norclen, an agri world providing for Castobel. So overall setting stuff on the various worlds doesn't help me much. But it can give me ideas on how to make my world and campagin better. As a tabletop wargaming tyranid player and life long GM, I homebrewed tyranid stats for things like hive guard, malanthrope, and heirophants. But if FFG has it's own stats on them, I happily want to see them. Maybe they have some good ideas I didn't think of, to make my stats better. I'm always looking for inspiration and new ideas.

Mixing setting fluff and new rules isn't really new, is it? Hell, DnD has been doing it for a long time! The way I think of it, it's kinda like how they would add new creatures, prestige classes, feats and spells into the new Forgotten Realm's books in 3rd edition. Sure they can be used for everyone, but they were made with the setting in mind. You get something for playing homebrew, but you get more if your also using the system. For a specific setting based game, that seems like that's how it should be.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of 'only fluff'' books. I'd perfer fluff books to also have new rules and additions. So far FFG has done a pretty good job at that, with only the occasional book being a little absent on new rules. But that's fine, that's just a book I don't need.

I always like to take new inspiration from places. Heck, my Deathwatch campagin is using mostly Black Crusade rules, and my tyranid stats are very varied from the what is in the book, using it as a template and modifying the creature's to use Black Crusade unnatural rules, natural weapon damage and penetration based on size that I got from the forums, and bits here and there I got from N0-1_H3r3's website.

Anyways, I'm getting off point. Anyways, this is a specific setting RPG (Jericho Reach, Faerun, etc), not a general setting RPG (Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer 40K Universe). FFG expanding on the fluff and the setting of an exact setting RPG is really just natural and normal. If it contradicts with ones personnal homebrew; no doubt, that sucks, but it's just a matter of unforunate timing regarding ones campagin and book release, really. No one's fault, imho.

Anyway, that's all. Not trying to start an arguement or point fingers. Take it as you will.

ak-73 said:

To which I can only say:

So what? Why does this matter? They (or anyone) writes something that doesn't sit nicely with your own fluff... so you either ignore what they did or adapt. I don't see how this is a real problem.

BYE

Y'see, a lotta people are, unfortunately, sick and twisted enuf to want to support somebody who's giving them somethin' they desire...we WANT to support FFG...we WANT to give them money to help them give us more grimdark rpg goodness...and you're pissing in our faces, thank you very much! (especially you, HB; yer a real piece o' work. FFG oughta be proud to have you fighting on their side......seriously, don't respond to this, yer only hurting yourself and FFG...)

Why do you attack us when we are trying to help you? Why do you spit in our eye when we, the paying customers, are offering you our take on what will make this game work better? Huh?? You have absolutely no frellin' idea how many decades--centuries?--of rpg experience you're ignoring and ridiculing. ANd why? Because our unsolicited offerings offend you? Because our nitpicks threaten the sanctity of your preciousss? Or is it just because you're right and we are all wrong?

Now, I have no problem with new fluff having new fluff-specific rules...my problem is with new general rules being included in a setting/fluff book...I WANT new general rules for my game...I WANT to PAY for same...I do NOT want to buy yer setting fluff...but I HAVE TO if I want the new rules...so I pay for what i don't want just to get what i do...naw...how is this not clearly designed to rip my money out of my grip....? I don't like package deals where I get a little of what I want and a little of what I don't - i want what i want. Not one iota more; I ain't greedy.

Now, please, let us not devolve into a discussion of capitalism, profit, and business...as an investor, I've examined the FFG model and it's not sound, but that's completely beside the point...I think it fair to say that we all understand that a company must be profitable to survive (this is an extremely general statement, of course; we're just talkin' basics) But how to make said profits.....by providing paying customers with hacked together products, a little of what they'll need mixed with a little of what we gotta move out the door? Or by crafting a quality product that will stand the test of time, by earning the trust of our customers, and by exceeding their expectations? Y'all tell me, cause clearly i'm out to lunch....

Zappiel said:

At least you said one honest thing in that post.

You gotta quit grindin' that axe, buddy! Attack my words, not me personally, mate. There's rules 'n such. Oh, and maybe read my posts again. I think you missed something....

Zappiel said:

Because he is content with the way FFG shapes DW (and the other lines) in favour of the freelancers ideas!

There were a lot of issues with W40K RPG books in the past, but the really annoying things started with the advent of some freelancers who have more fun writing fluff than work through a mountain of tables and do the math for new crunch. As long as these can manipulate the forums so it appears that a majority is satisfied with the new products their cash is flowing in and they only have to do the work which suits them.

I admit I'm a little bit jealous because no employer has ever paid me for having fun.

Ok. I'm done arguing this, so I'll leave with the following comments:

Zap - The little call to attack your words and not you is amusing given your own posts. You're making a lot of very strange assumptions that are, if not insane then quite unreasonable. It's a simply case of "If you have your own fluff... then have your own fluff?" . There are only so many ways I can type out "We don't use the Calixis Sector for our DH campaign and what FFG does with the Calixis Sector doesn't bother me, nor would it if we did" . Don't give me a 'you're ignoring the fanbase' speech because mate, I'm part of the damned fanbase! I'm no different from you in that respect. I still look forward to new announcements and previews, for whatever the next cool book will be. These days I'm in a lucky position where I get to be involved, but I'm still a 'fan' and I'm still a 'player'.

Kain - You're easily one of the more amusing people at this website, with all sorts of funny theories and assumptions that never fail to make me smile. Your attempts at belittling people by calling them "free lancers", as if it were some form on lesser being unworthy to meddle in your game is also amusing (and has all that rampant gamer entitlement that is often so hilarious). I will say one thing though - you are correct about me being content with the way FFG is moving their fluff along. When I get a new FFG book I have no real expectations of what it is going to have. I didn't pick up Daemon Hunter thinking "It better have XYZ!" or "It better not contradict my own fluff!" . Instead I picked it up with a view of "What cool stuff do we get this time???" . I'm very open to whatever gets given to us because I can always find a way to use it, or just ignore it. It never bothers me (that much...). To put it to an analogy, each FFG book to me is like a new pack of trading cards (or CCG cards). I open it up, skim past the fluff to the new adversary profiles, and see what we 'got' this time. Then I go back and I read the book properly. I've yet to be disappointed with what we've got, and so far only the accuracy of the rules has actually annoyed me (like the daemon profiles in DH or the adversary profiles at the back of BoJ, which are both full of mistakes).

BYE

H.B.M.C. - Always happy to make other people smile.

Zappiel said:

Here's the thing... you aren't the fanbase . You are a fan. They aren't ignoring your 'centuries' of rpg experience - but they are also taking into account the experience and preferences of the rest of the fanbase, who have diverse preferences. You represent one of those preferences, but there are plenty of RPG fans who prefer the model that FFG are using.

Kain McDogal said:

The conspiracy! And it is only me who can see it!

Has it ever occured to you that the 40K product lines are this successful because the majority of customers actually likes the way FFG handles them?

DW has a distinct set of rules, laid down in the Core Rulebook. Everything else is an optional expansion. They expand on the setting, meaning they create new fluff and some crunch to go with it. To me this makes perfect sense, and I wouldn't want it any other way. To me crunch without fluff is worthless, I never liked that approach.

You can never please everyone, I guess.

Dok Martin said:

Same goes for fluff without (or very limited) crunch, And this has nothing to do with a conspiracy becaue it's to obvious that someone who has the chance to influence a RPG by actually working on it will change it into his own vision and will always defend his brainchild. As H.B.M.C. admitted he likes the way DW evolved and he uses every opportunity to argue against people who say otherwise in this forum - every.

Yes. 'Cause I'm the only person arguing all the time here, aren't I?

My arguments stem more from confusion - confusion as to why someone who's gone and done their own fluff would care what FFG does with theirs? Confusion as to why people can't get it into their heads that Deathwatch has a specific setting, involving specific adversaries, and that the inclusion of adversaries not tied to that setting doesn't make sense.

BYE

Kain McDogal said:

And time for another round of "Spot the fallacy"...

...Do you honestly believe that freelance writers have that much control over the material? Really? That after working through things like house style, vision documents, sandboxing and the approvals process, that any one writer has any grand influence in the overall shape of a game? That's the kind of thing that project leads deal with, and a lot of it happens before the individual writers are hired for the project.

I'm plenty critical of the things I've worked on... I've yet to meet any writer who wasn't critical of their own work... but I'm also bound by non-disclosure agreements that limit what I can discuss, and the discretion of professional decency where I'm not going to ***** and whine and wax vitriolic about things I've worked on in public, particularly not on an internet forum where my comments could be misconstrued as being anything more than my own opinion.

Yes, HB (if yer still here: you've conceded the field, and I accept your apology; but ye still seem to be lurking around....)

...any objective analysis of your past posts reveals a distinctive bias against naysayers....you are generally first to leap to the attack, in fact (but don't believe me; chek it out!), and are derisive out of hand, and so snide as to make poor khorne cry. So have fun with that moving forward in life.

Deathwatch is not about jericho reach: it's about the deathwatch!! The Deathwatch rpg has nothing intrinsically to do with any specific setting. Why all this focus on jericho?!!? Some focus is fine, necessary; but so much that it eclipses the rest of the galaxy? No thanx.

And, no1, it seems Kain was referring not to freelancer influence over the entire game, but merely those parts in which they find themselves. FFG didn't tell you exactly what to write, I presume....the Salamanders write-up (for example) is your work, not somebody at FFG's....they didn't tell you to put something in or take something out, i'm guessin'...did they even tell you what source material to use? or did you have to do all your own research? I'm assuming you decided these things, did your own research, then wrote out your interpretation of things. I'm assuming you are the means by which the salamanders write-up came into being. So everything every dw player knows about salamanders comes from your mind, not FFG per se. I believe that angle is what Kain was referring to, if you follow.

But, now that derisive snidery has abandoned the field to more reasonable debaters, we can move on....

I said I was done... but there’s one thing you said Zap that is too ‘out there’ for me to leave it alone.

What am I talking about? This:

“Deathwatch is not about jericho reach: it's about the deathwatch!! The Deathwatch rpg has nothing intrinsically to do with any specific setting. Why all this focus on jericho?!!? Some focus is fine, necessary; but so much that it eclipses the rest of the galaxy? No thanx.”

How on earth can you or anyone say that? Deathwatch (the game) is not about the Jericho Reach? Then why are both 3-part campaign books set within the Jericho Reach? Why does most of the GM kit’s content deal specifically with the Jericho Reach? Why does the Bestiary Book deal with the creatures and adversaries within the Jericho Reach and is written from the point of view of a Codicier within the Jericho Reach? Why did the player’s/GM’s handbook (that’d be Rites) deal with the various roles within the Reach that Marine Chapters and specialities play, why did it have specific rules for Jericho reach campaign honours? Why was the first setting book focused on the history of the Imperium within the Jericho Reach? Why was the second setting book called The Jericho Reach !?!?!?!

Deathwatch (the game) is about the Deathwatch (the organisation) and the role that they play within the Jericho Reach. To suggest that the game is not about that is – in a word – ludicrous.

BYE

Zappiel said:

Umm, no. DW is about the DW in the Jericho Reach. I would have thought that was obvious by now.

Zappiel said:

Having worked as a Freelancer for other games... yeah, FFG would have told him what source material to use, certain things that he should or shouldn't include etc. The freelancer can put his own interpretation on things, but within some very strict limits. Freelancers don't have much influence on the shaping of the line, as N0-1_H3r3 pointed out most of the decisions are made before the writer is even hired for the job.

Yeah I'm not helping anyone here.


If I can't convince anyone that Deathwatch has a specific setting and that its rules/fluff are written for that specific setting with what I've said already, then really nothing I ever say will change that. I apologise for any of my own behaviour, but right now I feel that contributing another lengthy and argumentative post will achieve nothing other than digging the hole we're in a little deeper.

So I'm ejecting from this discussion with only one final statement directly related to the original topic of the thread (and not the subsequent one):


I think The Jericho Reach is a great book. I think that (for those who play within Deathwatch's setting) it is the most important book in the line. It gives us great detail on the Jericho Reach (hence its name), and gets into the details of the Deathwatch's involvement in the Reach far better than any other book in the DW line. I think the inclusion of virtually all the remaining Tyranid creatures is super-awesome, as I'm a huge Tyranid fan, and from my own experience the various Salient-specific Solo/Squad Modes and Assets were heaps of fun to play with. I don't think the book is perfect (the Bio-Cannon rules leave a lot to be desired, and the inherent problems with the Tyranid rules are even more obvious with this new batch of creatures), but then again no book is perfect and things like that are easy enough to house rule.

So that's all from me.

*drops the mic*

BYE

Zappiel said:

Except it isn't the case.

There are standing guidelines on source material - which sources are valid and which aren't (and no, I can't go into detail about that). There's an approvals process through which all material goes (which again feeds into and defines approved source material). If GW doesn't like it, then it doesn't go in the book, at least not without reworking. There's editing and adaptation of material after the manuscript has been handed in. There's division of labour as well (I wrote the rules for the Salamanders, to continue your example; Andy Hoare wrote the background for that section). I work on the sections I'm asked to work on, whatever the intended content of those sections may be, which may mean that I'm working on rules-heavy material for one project, and dealing with reams of background the next (as was the case with First Founding, where my work was almost exclusively rules, and Jericho Reach, where my assignment was primarily background).

Within those boundaries, yes I did my own research and wrote my interpretation of matters from that research... but the boundaries within which I work are narrow, and though I am comfortable working within them they can't be ignored. Personally, I tend to write rules through gut instinct and learned familiarity, and I like to think I've got a fair knack for translating background elements into mechanics (which I personally feel is the most important part of an RPG's mechanics - that they convey the narrative) and thus will often attempt to include a little background in my rules (the Oaths, Talents, Traits and Squad and Solo Modes in First Founding are all meant to convey character and theme first and foremost), and a little rules in my background (the sidebar about breaching fortifications alongside the Hethgard description in The Jericho Reach , for example).

Beyond that, I feel that Kain allows his own bias to run rampant far too often - he may find the background bit "easy" to come up with, and want nothing but the most finely-honed and mathematically-derived rules from supplements... but he fails to consider that he is not the only person these books are written for, and that just as many people find rules easy to put together but struggle with the stories that he so readily derides (which is, IMO, a bizarre mindset for anyone interested in an RPG). Given that people like myself and HBMC are visible and active parts of this community through our own choice, as well as being involved in development of these books, we end up being used as scapegoats by people like Kain who are angry that their personal preferences haven't been exclusively catered to.

And with that, I have nothing more to add to this particular branch of the discussion. Rant and rave all you want, I'll have no further part in it.

Just got my copy from the UK! Ooooooh... so much goodness!