In my opinion, being a 40k fan for a long while now, the Eldar if they ever get a core book, would need a THOROUGH background section. I don't mean just craftworlds or history etc. I mean a comprehensive section on their mindset and how they think. For those players who want to roleplay Eldar, me slightly included, we'd need a really really firm idea as to how different the Eldar from us.(general fluff both new and old), They have the attention spans of a knat at times. Those locked on their path are those who don Aspect Warrior Exarch armor, the Farseers, Autarchs to name a few. An eldar citizen may go on a 100 year bout of being an Aspect warrior, and later get distracted by something and go study music. Though they share common feelings and certain facets with humanity in the end their minds are different from birth, from humans. This is a race that is dying out, and they know it. Humanity in 40k is blind to this ultimate truth, they dnt except it. Eldar however know they are dieing. These few reasons listed is why if an Eldar book is to be created it needs to have a comprehensive section to help players and the gm understand HOW different the eldar are from humans in 40k, or in general. Other than that the mindset of the different existing craftworlds in general should be gone into detail as to how a character from that wolrd feels. In closing if an Eldar books is to be done it needs a thorough section on how fundamentaly, psychologicaly, and morally the Eldar are different from humanity, or in my opinion it will fail. Cheers!

P.S. Bump on the possibility of an Ork core book, their cunning and brutality would be a real fun game to roleplay WAAAAAAAGHH

Inquisitor Augustus Pike said:

And that's important in any game! And a big reason I'd love buying such a book (Or helping write it). I love stuff like that. It's a fun part of everything. It's a big part of Tekumel and any other setting heavy game. And in general fun to read!

AluminiumWolf said:

Okay Aluminium, you've convinced me.

Well.. not really.

Blood Pact said:

I'm just saying, all you gotta do is act like Elrond from the LOTR movies. This is not difficult.

+++++I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.+++++

Is it possible that the FFG contract with GW prohibits development of certain intellectual properties? I remember for along time that the Black Library submissions page would not accept any stories with Eldar as main characters. It seems like GW likes there to be some areas of mystery in their universe.

AluminiumWolf said:

Wasn't that quote from the Matrix?

Darck Child said:

Look up Agent Elrond.

tuco said:

... That would explain a great deal unfortunately. On the flipside there's really no way of knowing for sure as it's not exactly our business to know the nature of their agreement.

AluminiumWolf said:

Do you even know where Elrond is coming from in the movie? Why is he motivated to do the things he does? I have some insight into his character, but the movie doesn't do his character much justice. He's not even the oldest elf in the movie. That title probably goes to Galadriel. Needless to say even in the LotR the elves are different and not easy to understand. Elrond is quite the patronizing ass to Aragorn, his future son-in-law. Even more so in the books. Given his background I woudl have thought he woudl more understanding to Aragorn's real plight.

andrewm9 said:

And yet Cubicle 7 seems to think Tolkein elves are perfectly playable in their RPG...

Honestly, I'm thinking GW Fiat is probably the real reason we haven't seen them as PCs yet, and the overly antagonistic Gen Con 2011 answer about no Alien Games EVER in 40k RP was just a very undiplomatic answer because they might not be able to admit the stricture of no aliens.

Personally, I understand the "no playing Eldar" point. The usual argument against it is that no, Eldar are not that alien - after all, it was us that thought them up. And that's right.
However, there's a second side to this: A story can posit there's the greatest and most dangerous creature ever to walk the earth behind that door. As long as the door is never opened, the story author doesn't need to know what the creature looks like. He doesn't even need to be able to imagine it - that was a large point of H.P. Lovecraft's stories, after all. Thus, as long as a certain distance is kept, Eldar can appear within stories. Just like the author, the GM needs to know only about the parts of them that directly impact the players and can shift the rest around to his liking if and when he needs it, altering the game world if necessary to preserve continuity (such as a Farseer predicting a clumsy ambush and only sending a psychic double even if the GM found out about it rather late). However, as a player, I ideally know everything about my character. And "everything" might not be possible while letting the Eldar remain a mysterious race that truly deserves being called Xeno : the alien, that which is not us.

Dulahan said:

Look up Agent Elrond.

Okay

Cifer said:

My thoughts exactly.

I would respectfully point out, as others have mentioned, that GW is publishing two book series that are entirely from the Eldar point of view. One is set on a craftworld, exploring the paths of a Striking Scorpion, Farseer and Ranger (also detailing others, such as artists/poets). The other takes place inside Comorragh and some of its satellite realms, giving a Dark Eldar perspective and bringing in some other Eldar elements (I will say no more, not wishing to spoil the story).

Roleplay games have been built around the worlds established in just such short series, so I don't see why a person couldn't get enough insight into the Eldar mindset to come up with their own compelling and complete character by using these books, and source material such as the Eldar codex.

To return to Only War, I am still enthusiastic about what will be introduced in this new game, and I definitely don't think its release precludes the possibility of Eldar or other RPGs in future. If anything, the success of this new line will encourage FFG to develop more 40k games.

Personally, I'd rather take the toys out of the packaging and play with them rather than leave them on the shelf and just think about playing with them.

This all has me torn regally. On one hand I would have liked to see only war as source book for DH, I certainly can see a lot of cross over. On the other hand, a huge IG fan I'm glad they are getting full scale love, rather than what they could fit in source book. If it can down to a decision to cut 400 pages of material writen by rabid games designers or to whack on 200 hundred pages of how to play and release it as a core book, I think they made the right descision.

For the Eldar, I hope it's not down to some GW fiat. I'm sure there's plenty of good reasons not too at the moment but I would like to see that eventually. Eldar re the best, most rounded Xeno's species GW have. They've come a long way from their Space Elf roots... well, in design aesthetic and background if not in character.

Love Orks too, there a perfect counter point to all other species. There's a suprising amount of background out there for them and they have a bunch of unique RP options. If a whole game is too risky I'd love to see a Black Crusade supplement to add Ork freeboota characters (or Chaos Orks, there I said it..) or run the whole thing as an Ork game. They've got all the same bases covered as a normal group an easy 6 clan but many tribes (or 7 if you include freeboota) system for character gen.

Maybe they could release Eldar as a source book for RT, concentrate of a corsair crew if life within a Craftworld is too difficult. Seems a bit weird to have an entire different race in a source book when IG get one for themselves but maybe the economics works best that way. Who know's maybe later there'll be a Tau source book for Only War eventually.

Dulahan said:

Well, not sure if there's going to be a full game on them, but I'd expect to see some of them in the Rogue Trader game. Most Eldar wanderers would be at around this level of power - not space marines, but not the near-nameless servants of the Inquisition, either. In fact, RT is planning to include Dark Eldar PCs, so the indication is there - though to me it makes little sense to start with dark eldar, of all things. It is probably the race least likely to play around in realspace, what with their soul-leeching problem that all but prevents long-term stays in realspace. The roleplaying implications aren't much better either - to a human, all eldar are inscrutable and capricious, but at least most don't go out of their way to kill you in a particularly painful manner or to drive you past the emotional event horizon to get their metaphysical boner. Those same addictions make you jump through hoops to create a 3D character, too. Oh, X is a dark eldar? Okay, so they kill and torture people in a gruesome fashion, and most likely like it. Why? Because they literally must. So you get most of the problems of having a regular eldar with the party, and then some, and few of the benefits (like that sweet psychic mojo of the psykers or the scouting/infiltration experience of the rangers).

From a RP perspective, any xenos should have a completely different perspective to most imperials. Yeah, sure, Eldar are alien - as little as I know about them, they seem to be geared towards behavior we today consider obsessive and sociopathic, and have some pretty weird structures to cope with it. On the other hand, Orks and kroot have value systems that are no less alien, and they made the second or third RT book - the differences there may be less subtle than with eldar, but are certainly there. And let's be honest, I think most players wouldn't dig that far - I imagine a likely thought to be "Screw the socio-political implications of the war persona, I can have a jumpjet walker with two laser chainguns and I want to shoot stuff!"

Anywho, it seems FFG doesn't want to commit the resources to an Eldar book for now. Sad, it could be a nice supplement to the RT line. As for Only war, the mechanics can be sounds, but I'm not too keen on the premise. The whole focus on military action somewhat limits the freedom of the roleplaying experience that Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader or Black Crusade have. Besides, the Guard's "schtick" on the tabletop game is a mass army, drowning the enemy in men and ordnance. They do this because they must - as most enemies are stronger than a human one-on-one - and because they can, as the Imperium is literally a pan-galactic empire that can draw on incredible resources.

Howdy,

It strikes me as odd that 4-5 years into the 40K RPG publication schedule, we have mechanics to generate *Ork* and *Kroot* PCs, but not ELDAR.

HUGE missed opportunity. If they were planning a core game around them, I could understand the delay. At the VERY least, they could do a RT supp or a section an RT book about Eldar PCs. The Eldar are VERY popular on the tabletop, and have a popular footprint in the RPG universe (and that's the ONLY question I get at cons and game stores when I talk about 40K role-playing - "...Do they have the Eldar?").

I doubt that it has something to do with the license specifics from GW, but then again who knows....

There are some house rules on the web for Eldar and Dark Eldar, and they are serviceable. However, my players ended up choosing orthodox characters simply because there is more options and detail published by FFG. Poop!

Ken

I don't see the point in not making an Eldar rpg. I kind of understand that it may be challenging to roleplay an Eldar character, but for many players playing a servant of Chaos is probably equally as challenging. Besides, it would open up some interesting opportunities for gameplay, as stated earlier, seeing the Imperium from an outside perspective etc. Although Only War will probably be extremely entertaining, I don't feel like it has as much to offer.

Cifer said:

That is a perfectly valid point and a literary device I myself have probably used once or twice. Though the counter-arguement to this is that we have had stories told from the Eldar perspective. Novels, a campaign or two in the Dawn of War series... not a great deal but enough to start with.

I think the reason why we don't have an all Eldar game is because there just wouldn't be a game there unless you were to play a Harlequin troupe.

Seriously, hear me out. Craftworld Eldar, the 'default' Eldar, don't lend well to a roleplaying game, they just don't. A Warlock, a Guardian/Musician, a Striking Scorpion, and a Bonesinger, don't all hang out and go on adventures together. Their society is practically caste-based in nature. And yes, the arguement there is that someone could play a Ranger or other sort of Outcast (a corsair of some kind), but at that point you are no longer playing a Craftworld Eldar, so virtually everything with that goes right out the window. Exodites are out because they just all hang around their Maiden World, even if they're not socially restricted. And an entire Dark Eldar game would effectively be "Black Crusade with aliens".

Which leaves us with Harlequins, which out of all the possibilities are the best Eldar to go with. Even from a general roleplaying perspective they're great. A troupe is made up of a diverse group of individuals of varying specialities, which is exactly what a group of PC's is for the most part. They'd probably need to set the starting level the same as Deathwatch, as these are Harlequins we're talking about, and the game would probably have something of a high-level DH sort of feel (except with good mechanics, and with Eldar).

kwinland said:

H.B.M.C. said:

VERY cool! I missed that announcement!

At least it is a start....

Yeah, Eldar Rangers or Eldar Outcasts would have been the no-brainer. Harlequins have adventure potential, but usually travel in troupes - GREAT flavour for a coterie-based campaign!

Cheers,

Ken

Yeah the new adventure book might just be the first step in getting such a book. Perhaps we could just get an expansion for all the xenos playable races, like some sort of compendiary for Rogue trader.

Ie more paths, gear, cybernetics, and planets/history for Kroot, Orks, and Dark Eldar.

Reading more of Path of the Renegade, I'm getting the feeling that Ranger isn't all it's cracked up to be, in regards to integrating them in to a game. It's described in the novel (I know, I know) that it's basically just another Path for the Eldar, as restrictive and confining in its own way, and there largely just to have a place to put the "bored and disafftected".

And now I can't decide whether Corsairs would be the same (in their own way), or whether they'd have actually achieved the goal of freeing themselves from the Parths. But as I said previously, either option leaves them with less incentive to sign up with a bunch of humans, than the inherently ambitious Dark Eldar.