FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

mellonbread: Dec 20, 2017

MARIA IN THREE PARTS - Part 2: Setting and System

Welcome back, FATAL and Friends. In this post, we�ll see how Maria in Three Parts explains the world and mechanics for Unknown Armies 3rd Edition.

THE WORLD
We get a brief explanation of the setting metaphysics: Reality is shaped by humanity observing it. For most people, that means the world is boring and mundane, because nobody believes in magic. But beneath the skein of normalcy is an occult underground, shaped by the collective unconscious. Magick is what you call it when someone learns to shape reality deliberately. The book tells us to spell it with a K, so we�ll do that until I forget and start spelling it the normal way again.

Your player characters in a typical Unknown Armies game (and in this specific one) are �checkers� - people who discovered the occult underbelly of reality and didn�t look away and pretend nothing happened. Powerful sorcerers are referred to in the underground as �chargers� because they have lots of magical charges to spare. Inept sorcerers are called �ponies� for a reason that�s not explained in the quick start rules, but is probably in a tie-in novel somewhere.

The people who are best at magick are the Invisible Clergy. They got good at magic by embodying Archetypes - so-called human universals that appear again and again throughout history. If you�re the best Mother or the best Hunter or the best Fool in the world, you ascend to the Invisible Clergy, booting the previous guy who embodied that concept.

None of the above is directly relevant to the story of Maria in Three Parts, but it establishes the metaphysics for something that is important: the three types of Magick player characters get to use.

Avatars are incipient archetypes - people who don�t perfectly embody whatever human universal the guys at the top do, but are part of the way there. The more they act like the thing they�re trying to be, the more powerful they get. The more powerful they get, the more they can bend reality in a manner appropriate to whatever archetype they�re imitating.
Adepts aren�t on track to become Archetypes, instead focusing their energies on obsessive perfection of their chosen hobby. They get charges from performing rituals appropriate to their school of magic, then spend them on spells. Like wizards in your more conventional RPG magic system, except they specialize in things like film, pornography, clothing, alcoholism, and other �postmodern magick�.
Gutter Magick is a catch-all for any reality bending not encompassed under Adept or Avatar abilities. Think of what you want to do, make up a ritual that fits. The better it fits, the more likely you are to succeed. Not as powerful or reliable as Adept and Avatar abilities, but more flexible and less demanding from a lifestyle perspective.

It�s possible to play Unknown Armies as a mundane human without any spellcasting abilities, but all the pregens are casters. Two Adepts and two Avatars. We�ll meet them later.

CHARACTERS
This section doesn�t so much introduce our characters, as it does what those characters are made of. In the base game, you�d go around the table and take turns build your characters together, piece by piece. But in this quick start, the book just explains the stuff that the pregens are made of.

To begin, we get a short descriptive text on the practical gameplay differences between Avatars and Adepts

Maria in Three Parts, Page 2 posted:

Avatars have fewer magickal powers, but they can use them repeatedly for free
Adepts have more magickal powers, but they need to pay for them in charges

These mechanics are explained in greater detail later, but this is the type of descriptive text I love to see in RPG books: a concise summary of what a decision means, explicitly called out as something that you should tell the players to help them choose (in this case, which pregenerated character to play).

SHOCK
The shock system is Unknown Armies 3E�s killer app. It unifies a character�s backstory, skills, personality, and resistance to the stresses of life in the occult underworld. It�s far from a perfect system, but the game papers over the flaws with some other neat mechanics we�ll talk about later.

Maria in Three Parts, Page 5 posted:

Every Unknown Armies character is a broken person, somebody who has been through a lot before the game even starts. We measure this with something called the shock gauge. The shock gauge is comprised of five shock meters, and they�re a record of the absolute worst things that have happened to your character.
Helplessness: Times you�ve been unable to take action you felt was necessary.
Isolation: When you�ve been cut off from society or loved ones.
Violence: Pain, injury, death.
Unnatural: Experiences that challenge your perception of reality.
Self: Your most personal failures and violations of your deepest beliefs.

Each meter can be filled with �hardened� or �failed� notches, depending on how your character responds to stress. You get hardened notches by passing stress checks, and failed ones by failing them. A failed notch represents something that hurt you deeply, while a hardened notch represents your character becoming numb to the horrors of the occult underworld.

Hardened notches also affect your

ABILITIES
Unknown Armies gets by with only ten skills.

Maria in Three Parts, Page 3 posted:

Connect: Forging an emotional connection.
Dodge: Getting out of the way.
Fitness: Using and abusing your body.
Knowledge: Measuring your relationship to the truth and making sense of it.
Lie: Using deceit and deception.
Notice: Paying attention to the world around you.
Pursuit: Running away from or after others.
Secrecy: Hiding objects, ideas,or yourself from others.
Status: Acting as if you belong and capitalizing on the trust of others.
Struggle: Handling yourself in a brawl or fight

Skills come in linked pairs, and each pair is coupled with a shock meter. Filling up the shock meter with hardened notches increases one of the linked skills and decreases the other. Your starting hardened notches determine your base skill ratings. And becoming inured to a source of stress also changes what your character is good at. The more hardened notches you have in Violence, the worse you get at Connect (the persuasion skill) and the better you get at Struggle (the combat skill). Some of the pairings are less logical - Helplessness notches make you worse at Fitness, but better at Dodge. Skills range between 20% and 60% - if you�ve got 60% in one, you�ve got 20% in the one it�s linked to, and vice versa.

You may have noticed a couple problems with these approach. First of all, the skill system incentivizes you to max out your gauges one way or the other - one skill at 60% is worth more than two at 40% in a D100 game. Secondly, you might have a character concept that you can�t build because it uses diametrically opposed skills - a guy who�s good at fighting AND talking, for example.

Both of these are real concerns, but are addressed by some mechanics we�ll get to in a second.

PASSION AND OBSESSION
You�ve got three �passions� on your sheet: Rage, Noble, and Fear. Rage is what makes you mad, Noble is what inspires you to be a better person, and Fear is what scares you.

In addition to all that, you�ve also got an Obsession. That�s one of your Identities (we�ll get there in a second) which is absolutely core to your character.

When you make a D100 roll that relates to your Rage, Noble, Fear or Obsession, and the results of that roll displease you, you can �flip� the tens and ones place of the die roll. That means a 61 becomes a 16, a 70 becomes an 07, etc. You can do this once per game for each of Rage, Noble and Fear, and infinite times per session for your Obsession.

Bringing the flipping mechanic into the mix is mathematically similar to rolling twice and taking the better result - an effective 20% buff to your overall chance of success. So if you can bring a Passion or Obsession into the mix, your garbage 40% skills aren�t so bad.

IDENTITIES
Characters have up to three Identities, which serve as both narrative descriptors and mechanical customization. Each has a descriptive text, a percentile rating, and a set of tags that determine how you can use them.

The descriptive text is a few open ended lines which tell you what the Identity does. They�re expressed in the format �Because X, of course I can Y�. The pregenerated characters in this module don�t actually have this filled out, which is discouraging. A couple examples from my own experience:

Because I�m a Con Artist, of course I can convince people to trust me, convince people I belong in a group, convince them to like me.
Because I have an Overactive Startle Response, of course I can react to danger before it reacts to me, make people feel guilty when they try to harm me.

In addition to the open ended description, you also have mechanical tags that describe how your identity can substitute for other things on your character sheet. Identities can be used offensively to �Coerce� a shock meter, defensively to protect a meter against coercion, to substitute for a skill, or to do other things like give yourself extra HP. So for example, our Con Artist identity has �Subs Lie� (allowing the identity�s percentile rating to be rolled in place of the Lie skill), �Evaluates Self� (allowing us to see how vulnerable other people are to attacks on their sense of identity) and �Coerces Self� (allowing us to coerce people by attacking their sense of self).

(If your character concept requires skills from the opposite ends of a shock gauge, you can use one of your Identities to shore up the one you're weak at).

Adepts and Avatars have Magickal identities whose features are pre-baked into the book, rather than assembled ala carte by the players. This isn�t an important distinction in the quick start, since everything here is pre-baked, but it�s relevant in the base game.

RELATIONSHIPS
In the full game, a large part of character and world creation is spent drawing connections between your character, other player characters, NPCs, and even institutions in the game world. In the quick start, the relationships come pre-packaged. Your five relationship types are Favorite, Guru, Mentor, Prot�g�,and Responsibility. They�re all rated as percentages, and the level each starts at is equal to the level of a different linked skill for each relationship. This is a mechanic that�s more important in the corebook than in the quick start, it�s not well explained in Maria in Three Parts.

THE RULES
You might notice we�ve been talking about percentages a lot. That�s because Unknown Armies 3E is a D100 roll-under system, with most of the features that are becoming standard for those. Matched results, blackjack opposed tests, �flipping� the tens and the ones place, etc.

Your basic test is a d100 roll versus the number on your sheet, attempting to roll under it. You�ve got different gradations of success or failure depending on the result.

Critical failure occurs whenever you roll 00, which the game reads as 100. This is especially bad
Matched failure occurs whenever you roll doubles and get above your skill rating. This is bad.
Failure is any number above your skill rating that isn�t critical or matched.
Success is any number equal or below your target number that isn�t critical or matched
Matched success occurs whenever you get doubles and roll below your skill. This is good.
Critical success occurs when you roll a 01. This is especially good.

I don�t think it was necessary for the designers to break out crits and matched results separately, but there you have it.

As mentioned in the characters section, you can flip the results of a D100 roll if it involves a Passion or Obsession. This obviously has no effect on matched dice.

STRESS
Each of the five stress meters is �defended� by a specific skill.

Maria in Three Parts, Page 4 posted:

� Helplessness: Status
� Isolation: Connect
� Self: Notice
� Unnatural: Knowledge
� Violence: Fitness

When something horrible happens that causes you stress, you roll a d100 and compare it to the skill rating on your sheet that defends against that type of stress. If you pass, you gain a �hardened� notch, and suffer no ill effects (except the resulting change to your skills). If you fail the d100 roll, you gain a failed notch, and your character either Fights, Flees or Freezes. These are temporary status conditions that limit the action you can take in a stressful situation, until you smash the threat to pieces, escape, or it goes away on its own.

Stress sources have numeric �ratings� from 1 to 10. If the rating of a shock is equal or lesser than your number of hardened notches in the corresponding gauge, you don�t need to roll against it. So someone with two hardened notches in Unnatural wouldn�t need to roll if they saw a guy light a match with pyrokinesis, but they�d have to roll if the guy summoned a firestorm to incinerate a city block.

Oh, if you get a total of 25 or more hardened notches on all your stress meters, you become Burned Out. That means you can�t use your Passions (Fear, Noble, Rage) to flip D100 rolls. If you�re an Avatar, you also lose your magick powers.

COERCION
Coercion is UA3�s social combat system. It�s the weaponization of your skills, relationships and identities to attack someone�s stress meters and make them do what you want.

To coerce someone, you choose an angle of attack that corresponds to one of their five stress meters, and roll the appropriate skill. Attack Isolation by threatening to destroy their reputation with your Status. Attack Unnatural by challenging what the target thinks is real using Secrecy. Attack Violence by threatening to hit them with Struggle.

If you succeed, the target either has to give you what you want, or roll stress on the appropriate meter (and either fail or gain a hardened notch). The trick here is that NPCs can be hardened against stress sources, or have identities that defend against shocks. So if you threaten a hermit with Isolation, a powerful wizard with Unnatural, etc, they might just laugh it off. You can raise the level of the stress check the target has to make by involving your Passions, or involving the target�s somehow. The actual mechanic is just a D100 roll, the strategic element is choosing a viable plan of attack, and arranging circumstances so that it works.

One other interesting detail: coercion is not always done from a position of strength. The example given for attacking an NPC's sense of Self is begging someone not to shoot you.

In my experience, players are reluctant to try social solutions to problems because they don�t feel safe or permanent. If you browbeat and cajole and threaten an NPC into doing something, he might double cross you as soon as you break line of sight. So the players jump straight to violence - a dead NPC can�t go back on his word. Coercion is not a nice way to make people do what you want, but it gives the players codified mechanics for getting what they want without resorting to combat every time.

Speaking of which,

COMBAT
Combat in UA3 is easy. Usually you just roll Struggle to hit the other guy, and if you succeed the damage is determined by the weapon you�re using. You might have an Identity on your sheet that has some other combat related feature, like Provides Firearms Attacks, which you can use to hurt people.

If you take the Dodge action, you apply a penalty to the other guy�s roll to hit, rather than rolling the skill. If your Dodge skill is higher than the skill the attacker is using, the penalty is bigger.

The GM is responsible for tracking all the players� HP, and is not supposed to tell them how much they have, or how much damage against them do, except in narrative terms. The average player character has 50 HP. The book says the GM is obligated to give you clues when you fall below certain HP breakpoints (50%, 33%) and that when you reach 10% you fall unconscious.

Damage calculation is easy. When you succeed with an unarmed attack, you deal damage equal to the sum of the two dice that make up your D100. When you succeed with a melee weapon, you do the same, but add bonus damage depending on the weapon�s properties. And when you shoot someone with a gun, you deal damage equal to the D100 roll. So if you hit someone with a 31, you deal 31 damage.

MEDICINE
Any identity with the �Medical� feature can be used to heal HP, as long as you attempt treatment in the first sixty minutes after the injury occurs. Successfully rolling said identity in this time period heals between 1 and 20 HP, depending on the number rolled on the dice and the category of success (regular, matched or critical).

After the first sixty minutes elapses, healing happens at a hospital and takes longer.

THERAPY
If you have an identity with the �Therapeutic� tag, you can heal damage to people�s shock gauges by successfully rolling that identity. If you succeed, the patient has a choice of either erasing failed notches from the meter, or turning them into hardened notches. Matched or critical failure can inflict further stress tests on the patient.

THOUGHTS SO FAR
I find myself mixing my opinion of the way Maria in Three Parts explains the UA3 system with my opinion on the system itself. This will become less prevalent when we get into the actual module.

The big flaw here is that there isn�t always a clear distinction between what the person running the game needs to know, versus what the players need to know. There�s no cheat sheet or quick reference card to help the players (and the GM) with the basic mechanics.

There�s a lot to keep track of RE: which abilities defend which stress meter, which abilities ATTACK which meter, and which abilities are opposed to one another on the hardening track. Thankfully, all this is explained in a more elegant form on the character sheet itself, so there�s no need to memorize all the pairings.

There are a couple places where the rules text omits important details or is is flat out wrong. At one point the book says failed notches on stress gauges are how you become burnt out, which isn�t true. Burnout comes from hardened notches. It�s not mentioned in the quick start, but accumulating failed notches eventually gets you �syndromes� associated with the specific shock gauge, like disorders in Delta Green or Call of Cthulhu.

Join us next post, when we meet our four pregenerated characters, and learn about their Adept and Avatar schools.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 20:21

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:42

Bieeanshee: Aug 21, 2000; Not keen on keening.; Grimey Drawer

Fun fact: Combat in UA is unpleasant. Gun combat, especially so. That's not to say it's mechanically bad, but it hurts. A lot.

Hence why the combat section of the rulebook starts with 'Six Ways to Stop a Fight'.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 20:30

Baku: Aug 20, 2005; by Fluffdaddy

MinistryofLard posted:

So having finally made it through the AoS lore, I think part of the issue with AoS as a setting is that it copies the superficial traits of 40k for the purposes of facilitating the wargame and customisation, but because the tone and themes are different it doesn't really land.

I don't hate AoS or its setting and lore, and there's definitely interesting bits to it (notably the factions themselves), and I think it's the better for not being another grimdark setting, but the setting feels fundamentally empty and thin on stakes.

Like I agree that it's trying to make Fantasy more like 40k as a brand in some ways, but presumably the 28 year development lead 40k has gave them a little time to expand the setting and work the kinks out.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 20:34

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Re: UA
Charger is also a term for a full warhorse while a Pony is kinda a show/pet breed.

# ? Nov 8, 2020 21:11

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

mellonbread posted:

When you make a D100 roll that relates to your Rage, Noble, Fear or Obsession, and the results of that roll displease you, you can �flip� the tens and ones place of the die roll. That means a 61 becomes a 16, a 70 becomes an 07, etc. You can do this once per game for each of Rage, Noble and Fear, and infinite times per session for your Obsession.

Because I'm a monster, I made a bot to Markov model these probabilities and talked to an actual mathematician about it (his name is "Dad"), and the short version is you're totally underselling it. 20% is the increase if you have a 10 in a stat and then it skyrockets until you get way high up. Flip-flopping the roll is incredibly strong from the stand-point of the math. Like it basically doubles every time you go up a ten's digit.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 04:20

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

FMguru posted:

My favorite 40K setting quirk is that the Imperium has ruled 90% of the galaxy for 10,000 years, despite supposedly being in a constant death struggle against chaos, xenos, its own schismatic nature, and its own ramshackle incompetence. Chaos doesn't seem like much of a threat when it's had ten thousand years of constant raging against the Imperium and the Imperium still stands while Chaos is confined to a couple of of hot spots (Eye of Terror, etc.) that they can never seem to break out of. Orks have been WAAGHing all over the place since the start of time and they're still just a couple of green dots on the map.

I was pleased that the recent big setting-changing metaplot event (cracking the galaxy in half with a giant warp rift) actually did put the Imperium at risk and gave chaos a long-overdue actual accomplishment.

Haven't the Tyranids taken a good chunk of the galaxy?

# ? Nov 9, 2020 04:35

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

JcDent posted:

I'll rail against this nonsense forever. People playing Bolt Action and Flames of War (booo) can stomach Allies fighting Allies, your game doesn't need an internally consistent fluff justification for two factions to run into each other, especially when the tabletop is barely connected to the fluff anyways.

Why are these two allied factions fighting? Training exercise. Nobody's actually dying and they're gonna go get beers afterward. There, problem solved.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 06:16

Ultiville: Jan 14, 2005; The law protects no one unless it binds everyone, binds no one unless it protects everyone.

Zereth posted:

Why are these two allied factions fighting? Training exercise. Nobody's actually dying and they're gonna go get beers afterward. There, problem solved.

Maybe it�s just me, but I�ve never even cared about the grim lethality of wargame settings, just make it Valhalla and everyone comes back every day and fights for fun (and Ragnarok training). Everyone knows you�re going to put the dead models back on the table next game anyway.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 07:53

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

It's all just a massive living diorama that Trazyn plays with.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 07:57

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Zereth posted:

Why are these two allied factions fighting? Training exercise. Nobody's actually dying and they're gonna go get beers afterward. There, problem solved.

See, I say there's no problem to be solved.

The only time this was done well, if I recall correctly, in the 4-5th end Grey Knight RB which asked the question why your demon hunters are fighting, says, orks and provided hooks for that... oh, and rules for meshing demons with armies that don't cavort with demons. It was Very Cool.

To be less flippant, about the same time the official GW website provided you scenarios to play with your basic box of mooks. For Space Marines, it was training or something. For Nids? Hivemind is doing A/B testing with two broods of Gaunts.

By popular demand posted:

It's all just a massive living diorama that Trazyn plays with.

With infinite time and infinite realities to choose from, Trazyn still couldn't find a good TT 40K ruleset :v:

JcDent fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Nov 9, 2020

# ? Nov 9, 2020 11:37

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

It might not be training, you might just be exterminating an allied army that bravely triumphed over the forces of chaos.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 12:21

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Let's briefly go through the armies and reasons for intrafactional fighting:

Chaos/Chaos: no explanations needed, It's a wonder Chaos Undivided is a thing.
Eldar/Eldar: loving elves finally getting too smug to one another or some grand ritualistic thing dumb mon-kaigh can't understand.
Tyranids: in addition to improving the gene pool, the idea of several competing hive fleets has been floated.
Orks: fight all the time but usually not to the point of annihilation, probably two Warbosses citing irreconcilable differences.
Empirium: factionalized and paranoid to the nth degree, second only to chaos.
Necrons: not the unified wave of automatons they appear to be, more like the successor petty kingdoms of a ruined empire.
Tau: Farsight split, It may well encourage others.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 13:31

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

It's not like there aren't at least two Imperial forces willing to massacre their allies just to bathe in their blood.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 13:47

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Let's never bring this poo poo up ever again.

If I ever get to run a 40k game that tidbit gets relegated to the 'nasty Chaos propaganda' pile.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 14:03

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Matt Ward's crimes are second only to Horus'

# ? Nov 9, 2020 14:19

Cooked Auto: Aug 4, 2007; If you will not serve in combat, you will serve on the firing line!

By popular demand posted:

Tyranids: in addition to improving the gene pool, the idea of several competing hive fleets has been floated.

The 8th ed codex did introduce a hive fleet which only preys on other hive fleets and nothing else.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 14:31

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

By popular demand posted:

Orks: fight all the time but usually not to the point of annihilation, probably two Warbosses citing irreconcilable differences.

Read: "Oi! Stop lookin' at me funny!"

# ? Nov 9, 2020 15:08

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Dawgstar posted:

Read: "Oi! Stop lookin' at me funny!"

Sure, but to really make a thing of it requires an unusually focused ork.
As I understand it 99.9999% of the ork disputes end with barely any fatalities, it's just that one really focused shithead warboss who will brook no nonsense delaying his plans for sector domination. Just this one shithead.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 15:15

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

It could also be "Da boss iz ded! Oiz da new boss!"

# ? Nov 9, 2020 16:03

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Tru enuff, absolutely no other army devolves into a chaotic-bar-brawl-with-WMDs quite like the orks minus clear successor.
I imagine any Khornates around when this happens take a moment to savour the purity and beauty of it all.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 16:11

Hunt11: Jul 24, 2013; Grimey Drawer

By popular demand posted:

Tru enuff, absolutely no other army devolves into a chaotic-bar-brawl-with-WMDs quite like the orks minus clear successor.
I imagine any Khornates around when this happens take a moment to savour the purity and beauty of it all.

Orks have a special place in Khorne's heart. Due to shenanigans an Ork army got stuck in the warp and was killed down to the last Ork but not before inflicting a horrible wound on the demon in charge. In an attempt to exact its revenge the demon made it so that every day all the Orks would come back to life just to be slaughtered again but the Orks just viewed this as the best thing ever and were quite happy to spend the rest of eternity like this. This actually moved Khorne enough that he moved said world so that he can always watch the carnage from his throne.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 16:26

wiegieman: Apr 22, 2010; Royalty is a continuous cutting motion

Khornates can admire the Orks, but Khorne can't get any power from them. Every battle cry, every choppa swing, every belt of ammo spent with reckless abandon is a prayer to Gork and Mork. They don't need puny humie gods.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 18:25

Froghammer: Sep 8, 2012; Khajit has wares
if you have coin

By popular demand posted:

Tru enuff, absolutely no other army devolves into a chaotic-bar-brawl-with-WMDs quite like the orks minus clear successor.
I imagine any Khornates around when this happens take a moment to savour the purity and beauty of it all.

The closest Orks get to philosophy is watching the same thing happen to a Khorne cult and be like, "yup, been there"

# ? Nov 9, 2020 18:34

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

when khornates fall on each other it's a lot less jolly, more like an automatic slaughterhouse where everyone keeps rushes in and the blades get completely stuck with bodies and any newcomers have to crush each other with brute force and then theres no more room and people just start circling and hugging the structure in layers to keep crushing and squeezing more blood and then it's just a mound of corpses that might as well be one indistinct mass and...

the rest of the document is marred by blood stains.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 18:44

Froghammer: Sep 8, 2012; Khajit has wares
if you have coin

Oi, alla dis killin' each 'uver is fine, but there's no joy innit! PUT YER BACK INTO IT, YA KHORNATE GITS

# ? Nov 9, 2020 18:47

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

That was one of the cool bits from AOS, while humans sometimes imitate ~~orc~~orruk religious practices that usually falls aside in favor of chaos worship.
humans are too attached to hatred to actually just have fun.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 18:53

MonsterEnvy: Feb 4, 2012; Shocked I tell you

Yeah Age of Sigmar pointed out the difference between Gorkamorka and Khorne is that the Orc god just likes to rumble, while Khorne is about the Hate, Rage and Bloodshed.

Many non orc followers of Gorkamorka tend to fall into Khorne worship over time, because they let their emotions get the better of them. While the Orcs just view it as a good time, there is no hate for the person whose head they are bashing in. Hell they tend to like people that give them a challenge rather then getting angry at them.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 18:55

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Froghammer posted:

The closest Orks get to philosophy is watching the same thing happen to a Khorne cult and be like, "yup, been there"

Psalm of Gork 1
�It do be like that.�

# ? Nov 9, 2020 20:39

Froghammer: Sep 8, 2012; Khajit has wares
if you have coin

Psalm of Gork 2
"gently caress around and find out"

# ? Nov 9, 2020 20:46

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Orks are are arguably the sanest, most well adjusted faction in the galaxy.
tau haven't quite come to terms with the way things are, eldar, human and necrons all stick to faded images of long lost glories and tyranids are purpose built machines with no intellectual curiosity to speak of.

Everyone can learn something from the can-do attitude and addictive playfulness of the orks, plus a society built entirely on the foundation of random violence don't tend to accumulate criminals and malcontents in critical mass numbers.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 20:59

Stephenls: Feb 21, 2013; [REDACTED]

By popular demand posted:

Orks are are arguably the sanest, most well adjusted faction in the galaxy.
tau haven't quite come to terms with the way things are, eldar, human and necrons all stick to faded images of long lost glories and tyranids are purpose built machines with no intellectual curiosity to speak of.

Everyone can learn something from the can-do attitude and addictive playfulness of the orks, plus a society built entirely on the foundation of random violence don't tend to accumulate criminals and malcontents in critical mass numbers.

As some Eldar wag put it in some book or other, the orks have already won. They live in paradise.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 21:07

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Well, orks are purposefully built to exist like that and they're hard-wired to enjoy it. Orky crimes can exist - SOMEONE STOLE ME GUBBINZ - only the ork solution to that is to hit someone over the head, which is a widely-accepted solution to everything.

To have crimes you need laws, and to have laws, you need to be defending (technically speaking) the weak from the strong. Orks don't have that compulsion, might makes right, and might is immediately obvious when time comes for a scrap.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 21:28

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

JcDent posted:

Well, orks are purposefully built to exist like that and they're hard-wired to enjoy it. Orky crimes can exist - SOMEONE STOLE ME GUBBINZ - only the ork solution to that is to hit someone over the head, which is a widely-accepted solution to everything.

To have crimes you need laws, and to have laws, you need to be defending (technically speaking) the weak from the strong. Orks don't have that compulsion, might makes right, and might is immediately obvious when time comes for a scrap.

Well, unless you read the War of the Beast books.

Don't read the War of the Beast books.

They turned me off Warhammer novels across the board.

# ? Nov 9, 2020 22:04

Dawgstar: Jul 15, 2017

By popular demand posted:

That was one of the cool bits from AOS, while humans sometimes imitate ~~orc~~orruk religious practices that usually falls aside in favor of chaos worship.
humans are too attached to hatred to actually just have fun.

This will last only until they discover Blood Bowl in AoS.

# ? Nov 10, 2020 00:14

The Lone Badger: Sep 24, 2007

Cythereal posted:

Well, unless you read the War of the Beast books.

Those are just Imperial propaganda. It'd be like reading the Infantryman's Uplifting Primer for xenosociological information.

# ? Nov 10, 2020 01:23

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Hunt11 posted:

Orks have a special place in Khorne's heart. Due to shenanigans an Ork army got stuck in the warp and was killed down to the last Ork but not before inflicting a horrible wound on the demon in charge. In an attempt to exact its revenge the demon made it so that every day all the Orks would come back to life just to be slaughtered again but the Orks just viewed this as the best thing ever and were quite happy to spend the rest of eternity like this. This actually moved Khorne enough that he moved said world so that he can always watch the carnage from his throne.

Like, that's literally Valhalla with less booze.

# ? Nov 10, 2020 06:08

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

Cythereal posted:

Well, unless you read the War of the Beast books.

Don't read the War of the Beast books.

They turned me off Warhammer novels across the board.

just skimming a description I can see why I wouldn't accept it as anything but an ahistorical fan fiction written by some sad schola dropout.
[Inquisitorial notes: best censor book and author just to be safe, use the garbage disposal furnace]

# ? Nov 10, 2020 06:52

JcDent: May 13, 2013; Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Cythereal posted:

Well, unless you read the War of the Beast books.

Don't read the War of the Beast books.

They turned me off Warhammer novels across the board.

I don't remember the last time I agreed with you that hard. I haven't read them myself, but I doubt it would change my mind when everything I've heard/read about them screams this is the worst, it shouldn't exist.

# ? Nov 10, 2020 07:33

Midjack: Dec 24, 2007

By popular demand posted:

just skimming a description I can see why I wouldn't accept it as anything but an ahistorical fan fiction written by some sad schola dropout.
[Inquisitorial notes: best censor book and author just to be safe, use the garbage disposal furnace]

I read the rather lengthy fan wiki page and lol at TWELVE BOOKS of that!

# ? Nov 10, 2020 07:44

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 29, 2024 03:42

By popular demand: Jul 17, 2007; IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!

No one ever accused sub-fanfic level hack authors of being lazy, not at vomiting words to page.

# ? Nov 10, 2020 07:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > FATAL & Friends 2020: 61 billion casualties

«‹›657 »