I don't believe they play-tested anything. I think they just played.

This is my opinion, and I stand beside it.

If anyone takes insult from it, methinks they protest too loudly.

Dude, that's really unfair. The game could have undergone the most meticulous playtest in history of RPG playtests, and it would still mean diddly-squat if someone higher up chose to ignore the input for whatever reason. Because that's how playtesting works - people submit reports, developers decide what to do with them.

Seriously, you're laying the blame on the wrong people, and it's not earning you brownie points with anyone. Sometimes, it's better to accept you made a mistake.

I don't believe they play-tested anything. I think they just played.

This is my opinion, and I stand beside it.

If anyone takes insult from it, methinks they protest too loudly.

I've always said that someone's opinion can't be wrong. I stand corrected.

I don't believe they play-tested anything. I think they just played.

This is my opinion, and I stand beside it.

If anyone takes insult from it, methinks they protest too loudly.

Dude, that's really unfair. The game could have undergone the most meticulous playtest in history of RPG playtests, and it would still mean diddly-squat if someone higher up chose to ignore the input for whatever reason. Because that's how playtesting works - people submit reports, developers decide what to do with them.

Seriously, you're laying the blame on the wrong people, and it's not earning you brownie points with anyone. Sometimes, it's better to accept you made a mistake.

Don't feed the troll...

D&D4E didn't die because of 'marketing' or failed web support, it died because the changes made to the system- while possibly good ideas in and of themselves- were not what the fan base wanted from a game called 'Dungeons and Dragons'. Re-working combat to incorporate World of Warcraft -style 'Roles' dictated by character class (rather than player intent) was just not popular. It may play smoother than 3/3.5, but at the price of removing one of the key elements of D&D : the ability to completely define what kind of a character you are playing, rather than being forced into a video-game archetype.

DM: "Okay, Joe, you want to play a Fighter? That means your official Role in combat is Meatshield for the spellcasters-"

Joe: "What? No- I was picturing my character as a duelist-type. You know, a charismatic swashbuckler..."

DM: [flips through rulebook] "No, sorry, that's not a Role, and combat is based entirely on fulfilling these established Roles. Now, Steve, you want to play a Cleric? That automatically makes you the party Leader."

Steve: [spit-take] " Huh? I was planning on playing my character as a parody of a televangelist- a smarmy weasel that everyone hates, who only pays lip-service to his faith while actually being obsessed with his own personal wealth."

DM: "No, that's not going to work with your class's Role. So, Janet, you want to play a Wizard? Are you a Blast Mage or Crowd Control?"

Janet: "Um... Seeker of ancient knowledge...?"

DM: [pause] " Blast Mage or Crowd Control ?"

I've played D&D off and on since the Gygaxian days of yore, and absolutely nothing about the 4E changes appealed to me. That doesn't mean that 4E doesn't work or isn't sound game design, it means that if you don't appeal to your core fanbase, those things become irrelevant.

I didn't read all 19 pages of this back-forth economics/marketing/WotC+D&D4.0, (only the last 3 pages, hence the intro) lecture, but this post here reflect what I felt from this book, apart from the inhabitual way combat was planned to be.

The character generation felt like it nudges the PCs into a particular role with little moving room. I see for example my current DH game, where the player playing the Psyker (with his loads of fellowship boosting powers) dropped out, leaving the assassin and the Tech-Priest all alone.

The assassin had to fill in the role of the cell's face and pursue the more social branch of her career. With the 2.0 method, this option was open of course, but it may have taken a large XP payment to make her even half competent.

Granted it is not as clean-cut as D&D 4th, but it still sit into giving each player a fixed role in the team, and limiting 'playable' options one can get with a DH1-style branching career

D&D4E didn't die because of 'marketing' or failed web support, it died because the changes made to the system- while possibly good ideas in and of themselves- were not what the fan base wanted from a game called 'Dungeons and Dragons'. Re-working combat to incorporate World of Warcraft -style 'Roles' dictated by character class (rather than player intent) was just not popular. It may play smoother than 3/3.5, but at the price of removing one of the key elements of D&D : the ability to completely define what kind of a character you are playing, rather than being forced into a video-game archetype.

DM: "Okay, Joe, you want to play a Fighter? That means your official Role in combat is Meatshield for the spellcasters-"

Joe: "What? No- I was picturing my character as a duelist-type. You know, a charismatic swashbuckler..."

DM: [flips through rulebook] "No, sorry, that's not a Role, and combat is based entirely on fulfilling these established Roles. Now, Steve, you want to play a Cleric? That automatically makes you the party Leader."

Steve: [spit-take] " Huh? I was planning on playing my character as a parody of a televangelist- a smarmy weasel that everyone hates, who only pays lip-service to his faith while actually being obsessed with his own personal wealth."

DM: "No, that's not going to work with your class's Role. So, Janet, you want to play a Wizard? Are you a Blast Mage or Crowd Control?"

Janet: "Um... Seeker of ancient knowledge...?"

DM: [pause] " Blast Mage or Crowd Control ?"

I've played D&D off and on since the Gygaxian days of yore, and absolutely nothing about the 4E changes appealed to me. That doesn't mean that 4E doesn't work or isn't sound game design, it means that if you don't appeal to your core fanbase, those things become irrelevant.

I didn't read all 19 pages of this back-forth economics/marketing/WotC+D&D4.0, (only the last 3 pages, hence the intro) lecture, but this post here reflect what I felt from this book, apart from the inhabitual way combat was planned to be.

The character generation felt like it nudges the PCs into a particular role with little moving room. I see for example my current DH game, where the player playing the Psyker (with his loads of fellowship boosting powers) dropped out, leaving the assassin and the Tech-Priest all alone.

The assassin had to fill in the role of the cell's face and pursue the more social branch of her career. With the 2.0 method, this option was open of course, but it may have taken a large XP payment to make her even half competent.

Granted it is not as clean-cut as D&D 4th, but it still sit into giving each player a fixed role in the team, and limiting 'playable' options one can get with a DH1-style branching career

Adeptus-B's little dialog you've quoted is a complete misrepresentation of how 4E works. Roles in D&D did not lock you into a character or play style, they simply defined how your character operates in combat. The cleric isn't the party leader because his Role says Leader. Leader characters have abilities that help the rest of the party (healing and buffs). That's it - nothing about their character or role outside of combat. For the guy who wants to play a swashbuckling Erol Flynn type there's a dozen ways to build that character. In 4E you can build two characters of the same race and class that have nothing at all in common in terms how they behave in combat.

I've said before that one can safely ignore anyone's opinion who uses MMOs to discuss tabletop gaming mechanics and this post only serves as an example of that. It's clear he has very little idea how the game actually functions.

Another point is that character creation in 4E is almost exclusively focused on how your character behaves in combat. In DH, in-combat and out of combat abilities are intermingled (Careers in DH1, Roles in DH2). It's not easy to compare a game the focuses almost exclusively on combat to one that also focuses on investigation and subtlety.

It still puts your character in a distinctive role in the team rather than a broad career in which you can play in.

but that's me talking, you guys have been at it for it seems close to 20 pages, so I'll fade away.

Dude, what does that even mean? That reads like a meaningless tautology.

It still puts your character in a distinctive role in the team rather than a broad career in which you can play in.

but that's me talking, you guys have been at it for it seems close to 20 pages, so I'll fade away.

Every edition of the system has done this. 1st Edition Dark Heresy was no exception. All incarnations of the system has been based around the idea of teams of specialist skirmish combatants. So much so that the non-combat stuff got organised along similar lines.

DH2.3b Roles are in no way a new thing conceptually, but it's the first time they're formally recognised by the system, and limited to a purely meta existence. In all the previous incarnations of the system, right back to 1st Edition Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay, roles have been a more or less unnecessarily complicated mess that more than half existed as in-fiction things.

DH1e is, in my opinion, the worst example of this in the history of the system. Both Careers and the individual Jobs were purely meta entities, but many (probably most now after 20'ish books in the line) had very strong in-fiction ties as well. More, if you more or less ignored the fiction side of them (which you almost certainly would, because otherwise you'd have to have just about the strangest campaign ever played, or a table full of disappointed players), you still ended up with players wishing they could write their own **** advancement tables and traits, because the best approximation of what they wanted for their character completely screwed them one way or another.

If you were trying to argue that a career and/or job system existing purely as a fiction-side thing, as part of a cover identity system, within the framework of a formal Acolyte Cell sub-system that also managed stuff like Subtlety and Influence, then I'll readily agree with you. But that's a very, very different thing from what the Career system in DH was and from what the Role system in DH2.3b is.

It still puts your character in a distinctive role in the team rather than a broad career in which you can play in.

but that's me talking, you guys have been at it for it seems close to 20 pages, so I'll fade away.

I believe your trying to say 'it puts you in a role within your team as opposed to general what is your character like?'

This isn't what happens in the slightest. A role simply helps to inform you of how that class tends to position itself in combat. A fighter is a defender since they tend to get stuck into combat. This is more to indicate to an inexperienced player that the class is going to have mechanics which help that, such as higher health. There is very little to stop you turning that into an archer who hangs back or the like or playing your character as the arms master or whatever else you wanted.

It's purely there to help inform you in a combat game, that involves lots of combat, what that class helps with in combat. Its not even relevant to what your doing in a group, as if you have a group of 4 defenders, any relationship dynamic doesn't mean anything. The 'Leader' role keyword can be replaced with 'this class tends to have lots of healing and/or buffs that make their allies better', though thats a long winded explanation and its obvious why it's not used.

Your confusing the role keyword as being something to do with your character and what they are going to do as opposed to simply being a handy tool to explain how the system's math and mechanics support this character. There are legitimate reasons to not like 4e but because classes have a keyword associated with them is not really one of them.

I will be honest here. I left the community and the 40K RPGs after teh Only War Beta-test because I hated it. I realize I am in the major minority here but what I wanted and hoped for was a continuation of what was started in DH1E and RT and not the changes that began in DW and reached fuition in BC and OW.

The major things I wanted changed in DH for the 2E was careers and Ranks. I wanted the careers renamed to be less specific (Warrior instead of Guardsman) and I wanted some more freedom in ranks and skills but not the way it was presented in BC and OW. I liked the alternate ranks and background packages once presented in The Inquisitor's Handbook and think DH2 could take a approach along those lines from the start (multiple starting packages per career, more starting XPs, requirements to rank up beyond spending X number of Experience).

However, while I may have stopped with my support of DH and the 40K games from FFG (please god let that contract end) it does not mean I want it to fail or for other fans to dislike it.

I accept that the Dark Heresy I like is pretty much dead, but I have the books and can always play it the original way or even adjust the rules myself.

Making Careers less vocation-specific and giving more freedom in purchasing advancements is pretty much what DH2 did, and according to the last announcement, this model is supposed to survive the reworking of the beta.

please god let that contract end

A little harsh, no?

BYE

Peacekeeper_b, maybe you'd like one of the *World games, since those are tied fairly heavily around having very niche-based player classes that are made to be unique from each other. That system does take a more narrative approach to combat, but it's honestly not much less tactical than the 40k rpgs if you don't use a grid map in the latter. There's a hack of Apocalypse World out there for Rogue Trader, and it might be fun to try working something out for Dark Heresy. The system is pretty drastically different from the 40k line, but if what really appeals to you is the idea of having very unique and flavorful classes, I'd give it a look.