@c8tiff

So are you saying that at first you didn't want to get the beta because it wasn't changing enough, then you REALLY didn't want to get it because it changed a lot, but now you do want to get it because it's changing a little but not a lot?

No offense, but this is kind of what irks myself and other people about the "don't change things!" crowd, because it seems like you're not really happy with either direction for the beta, and there are a lot of people who want to buy a new ruleset that isn't just patching up the problems of a 30 year old system.

I will personally not be happy unless DH2 is literally a reprint of WHFRP2e with 40k art and based on my authoritative sampling of internet opinions and sales figures pulled from the future I can say with confidence my opinion is shared by 113% of all people everywhere and FFG would be fools to take any other course of action.

I mean, my ideal world would be a revision of the wfrp 3e and new Star Wars rules for dark heresy. Keep the basic action cards and special dice. Keep the wound cards and miscast cards and enemy cards. Get rid of all the non-basic action cards and replace them with item cards for all of the weird and wacky equipment and cybernetics, psychic powers, and faith powers. Have the party sheet be an Inquisitor sheet standup that allows subtlety to be tracked behind it. Modify the ladder to make it work specifically for investigations and have clue cards that can be marked on and erased. Abstract distances for combat and create a workable social combat simulator, investigation encounter simulator, and travel encounter simulator.

Once you do all that, release the product to much gnashing of teeth and wait until angry members of the fan community release their own version of the DH 1.0 rules with the serial numbers filed off the setting.

I'm all for rocking the boat, but my one problem with that ruleset is it's kind of hard to run it in an online setting. I'm sure it's great for tabletop (which I also play), but I'd have a lot of mixed feelings if I couldn't also play it online. It'd be great fun for my IRL group though, from what I've heard about it.

The nicest thing about the game is how you have all of the rules just sitting there on your cards. The problem that came up was that the rules were complicated enough to need an assload of cards, leading to too much clutter. I think a reimplementation would have to focus on limiting physical bits to a few crucial areas. Personally, I love having cards with the NPC stats and a picture, having location cards with a built in flavor description, having a deck of wounds and diseases, and players being able to hold the rules for play in their hands. The biggest problem with the game was all those **** action cards and the fiddliness of fatige and stress. I think limiting action cards to only basic ones will cut that problem out (expand them to something like the basic moves in apocalypse world/dungeon world). Cut it down to the basic dark heresy careers and give the careers a little progression table where each level they start with one special action and when they level up they can replace a basic action with a career action or replace their special action with a newer one. You can then have cards for new gear and so on, and just include a table with the basic info on it so you can play online.

I'd love to see those dice mechanics in Dark Heresy, that's for sure. Very iffy on the card prospect (especially considering I play exclusively online), but I absolutely love Edge of the Empire's dice mechanics. They're brilliant.

@Nimsim

No offense taken.

I have tried since eote, heck i've tried an open demo of whfrp3, with the store giving away the core box, and i cannot get these games to the table. All i have to say is that I have a pathfinder, a star wars saga, a DH1, or an nwod, heck even an nwod hash up of dragon age, mass effect or star wars, and I have 12 players who will play a story out to its completion.

I like the system for eote, i just don't think it is right for DH2.

The nicest thing about the game is how you have all of the rules just sitting there on your cards. The problem that came up was that the rules were complicated enough to need an assload of cards, leading to too much clutter. I think a reimplementation would have to focus on limiting physical bits to a few crucial areas. Personally, I love having cards with the NPC stats and a picture, having location cards with a built in flavor description, having a deck of wounds and diseases, and players being able to hold the rules for play in their hands. The biggest problem with the game was all those **** action cards and the fiddliness of fatige and stress. I think limiting action cards to only basic ones will cut that problem out (expand them to something like the basic moves in apocalypse world/dungeon world). Cut it down to the basic dark heresy careers and give the careers a little progression table where each level they start with one special action and when they level up they can replace a basic action with a career action or replace their special action with a newer one. You can then have cards for new gear and so on, and just include a table with the basic info on it so you can play online.

Have fun houseruling in that and producing your own cards.

Lots of people have fun house ruling, you know?

If you don't find that kind of process enjoyable, why post in a forum about combing through and correcting the rules for a game?

Lots of people have fun house ruling, you know?

If you don't find that kind of process enjoyable, why post in a forum about combing through and correcting the rules for a game?

Not sure if actually sarcastic or just...

It was serious. I just recognize that it's about as useful to debate rules mechanics that we don't even know about yet as it is for me to throw out how much I love the WFRP3E system. And there's a program called Strange Eons that can be used to create your own game cards.

Personally I'd rather have a solid system that didn't really need house rules than a system built to make house ruling easier. House rules exist to correct rules that don't really work out for your group for whatever reason. They're not a feature.

It doesn't have to be an either/or. See: Fate Core, Apocalypse World.

Personally I'd rather have a solid system that didn't really need house rules than a system built to make house ruling easier. House rules exist to correct rules that don't really work out for your group for whatever reason. They're not a feature.

Mind you, "easy to houserule" is effectively the same as "easy to homebrew". The latter is quite clearly a feature, and a highly desirable one.

At the risk of agreeing with cps (yikes), I have to say that I hate spending my hard-earned money on a game system only to be told by that game system "Eh, we couldn't be bothered to create rules for this particular situation so... just make it up yourself or whatever." By that logic, why not just save my money and make up my own game from scratch?

At the risk of agreeing with cps (yikes), I have to say that I hate spending my hard-earned money on a game system only to be told by that game system "Eh, we couldn't be bothered to create rules for this particular situation so... just make it up yourself or whatever." By that logic, why not just save my money and make up my own game from scratch?

Don't get me wrong, cps is totally right in that the system being easy to houserule isn't an excuse for actual rules being weak.

But sooner or later, most people I know like leaving their mark on the game they're playing by introducing custom stuff into it, whether it's a unique item, or a modified homeworld so Johnny can play that Catachan Guardsman the way he envisions it, or an awesome new spell for the team's sorcerer, or, heck, just a homemade xeno race as the campaign's BBEG. At this point, "easy to houserule" being in the system's description is a veritable godsend. It may seem like a no-brainer, but trust me, I've seen systems where creating custom content that doesn't accidentally break the metagame in half is part-chore, part-sorcery.

Hence, what I actually want are crisp, sturdy rules that'll both work by themselves and survive whatever ridiculous homebrew I throw at them.

I don't know much about *World games, but FATE is built on players' creative input. You're creating Aspects for your character, not building a system that uses Aspects. Home brewing, not house ruling. House ruling is playing DH1 core and realizing that there's literally no reason to ever not use full auto and devising a revised system that makes other rates of fire not pointless. Changing the rules for how the game works.

FATE has a solid mechanical framework that's designed to run on creative input. That isn't house ruling.

FATE does have the entire toolkit book built around adjusting the game. Of course, the game also explicitly tells you how and why the mechanics work the way they do, which DH does not.

I don't know much about *World games, but FATE is built on players' creative input. You're creating Aspects for your character, not building a system that uses Aspects. Home brewing, not house ruling. House ruling is playing DH1 core and realizing that there's literally no reason to ever not use full auto and devising a revised system that makes other rates of fire not pointless. Changing the rules for how the game works.

FATE has a solid mechanical framework that's designed to run on creative input. That isn't house ruling.

Homebrewing and houseruling both hinge on the core engine being easy to understand, and the mathematical model being solid enough that putting in one slightly off variable won't crash the whole game.

Incidentally, the old 40k engine is pretty great for both in my experience.

Incidentally, the old 40k engine is pretty great for both in my experience.

Depends. The Characteristics & Skills systems are rock solid. The rest... Not so much.

Incidentally, the old 40k engine is pretty great for both in my experience.

Depends. The Characteristics & Skills systems are rock solid. The rest... Not so much.

Meh, as long as it doesn't push the odds into auto-win territory, I can make it work.

Incidentally, the old 40k engine is pretty great for both in my experience.

Depends. The Characteristics & Skills systems are rock solid. The rest... Not so much.

Meh, as long as it doesn't push the odds into auto-win territory, I can make it work.

Sorry, I was being too harsh. I mean, we just ripped out the entire injury system and replaced it with one loosely based on the injury system from a completely different system. And even with minimal playtesting I'm confident in saying it works as well as RAW did.

I'd be lying if I said I thought we'd be able to do that kind of extensive surgery on another system without causing cascading issues.

I guess I'm just annoyed that I think the system is missing a whole bunch of stuff that I think a 40K system should have... And I'm slightly worried DH2 proper will wreck the system by making it a super-hero game (which I'm sure you'll agree isn't something this system can easily or elegantly do).

Personally I'd rather have a solid system that didn't really need house rules than a system built to make house ruling easier. House rules exist to correct rules that don't really work out for your group for whatever reason. They're not a feature.

In more cases than not, house rules exist to accustom personal taste. A house rule that's made to fix a system is -usually- errata'd sometime later by the publisher.