|
Somehow I'm beginning to see traces of the rules as physics mentality and why grogs are so steadfast in their defense of it. It's a game, dude. I play infinity with my tau guys just fine.
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 14:22 |
|
|
BlackIronHeart posted:I'm a fan of the 'Movie Marines' ruleset that someone made up simply because it really does bring the fluff to life. I think those were printed in a WD, no? Leperflesh posted:"good game." So, how do we install Leperflesh as CEO, GW? He makes a lot of good points on everything. Anyone wants to go build stuff on that? Starting with a design doc? Chill la Chill posted:Somehow I'm beginning to see traces of the rules as physics mentality and why grogs are so steadfast in their defense of it. It's a game, dude. I play infinity with my tau guys just fine. I'm so racist, I can't tell YJ and Tau apart!
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:29
|
|
|
HiveCommander posted:
My index finger is now just a bloody stump after scrolling through that lot
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:29
|
|
|
I keep reading the ASL abbreviation in this thread as American Sign Language and it keeps confusing the poo poo out of me.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:35
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:Somehow I'm beginning to see traces of the rules as physics mentality and why grogs are so steadfast in their defense of it. It's a game, dude. I play infinity with my tau guys just fine. Well, using the tau in that example is almost cheating since they're basically guys from one of the anime games who took a wrong left turn and wandered into 40K.  In all seriousness, though, I think it's just a matter of taste. Some of us just want to play a game where, yes, the lore describes exactly why my guy has candles burning on the backpack of his power armor and is fighting robot skeletons with a sword.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:41
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:The only way to build alternate rules for 40k (or Fantasy for that matter) is to completely abandon any idea of creating an alternative "fluff" for the game. Just set it aside. You are never, ever, ever going to build a fluff that appeals to 40k players more than the literally only reason they're 40k players to begin with, so much that they're willing to ignore or suffer the terrible loving awful rules they're already dealing with. Like here is the thing. Are you trying to make a whole new ruleset to emulate the fluffy FEEL of 40K that few people are likely to loving play period? Are you trying to fix what is broken in one of the existing 40K rulesets and thus maybe get a handful of your friends to at least be willing to try it? Converting 40K over to one of the existing generic or not so generic rulesets that already loving exist? Starting from scratch means having to point it all out and have a good and decently sized playtest group who won't act like a bitch made bitch of bitchness when their precious widdle I WIN trick gets nerfed. And they will do so. You will bust your goddamned rear end to reinvent the wheel for the shitloadianth time to be the minis wargame version of the Fantasy Heartbreaker RPG. You are pretty much wasting your time doing it no matter how good it might actually be! Converting over to generic means you might have it a bit easier but the odds of the FEEL still being there diminish. Even harder with a ruleset you like but you have to do poo poo like point balance which is tough. (See above. If your minis are high points and lose horribly its totally balanced. If THEIR mans are high pointed its nooot faaaair!) Because I loving LOVE AT 43. Its probably my favorite minis wargame period. But trying to point 40K in it could be VERY loving hard. Same with say bringing 40K into the Warmahordes ruleset. Or some units over to Heroscape which I did back when that game started to gain traction before Hasbro hosed it all up. Tweaking existing 40K is honestly the easiest and safest bet. Things already sort of built for you and pointed out. Just need to tweak poo poo based on what failings there are and what rules changes might cause to the game in general. BRAINSTORMING AHEAD: I mean I also did some brainstorming of taking the foundational concepts of 2nd ed yet going full bore on it. WS/BS is what you roll equal to or less on a D10 with modifiers for range and speed or enemy WS. Strength is vs Wounds and Toughness COMBINED and even vehicles get put under the statline but with a glancing/penned/oh gently caress me that's a big gun! chart to see what happens. (With maybe something like a "Hero and Mighty Hero" level for billy badasses and Monstrous Creatures where a hit reduces their effectiveness but it takes a couple shots to knock them out completely.) Like as an example idea: Dude has a WS of 4 and a BS of 4. Normally he hits on a 1-4. Obviously if we use 1-9 so 10 is always a failure Marines are probably gonna have 5 WS/BS now. Stands still to fire? +1 to his score. Closer range with a Bolter? Another +1. Mr Marine now needs a 1-7 to hit with his bolter. He is shooting at an Ork let's say. T4 but a normal guy so he has 1 wound. So his statline is T5 and the bolter is S5 since we all know what bolters normally are. S v T is equal so kills on a 1-5. If the T is higher? -1 to the roll. If S is higher? +1. If double? Only wounds on a 1 if S is the lower, or only fails to wound on a 10 or causes instagib or the OH gently caress ME on a Vehicle. The same could apply to WS vs WS to hit in Close Combat. I would personally like keeping armor saves and save modifiers from 2nd ed as this keeps the FEEL of 40K and if you keep IGOUGO the inactive player can do things besides stick a thumb up his rear end. Though I would VASTLY prefer AT 43's initiative unit/card system so its alternating activations. If you want to do MASSIVE WARZ combining Armor into T and save mods into S could be doable too. I'd recommend against it as this removes a bit of granularity of weapons and armors though. BRAINSTORM DONE! But even if the above idea has merit imagine the sheer effort and time involved at pointing and playtesting it all out. And for what purpose, you know? vvvv Sort of except normally? YOUR SCORE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO ROLL EQUAL TO OR UNDER TO SUCCEED. Which basically minimizes any real need for a chart outside of things for MCreatures and Tanks as even doubling or being doubled against is a fits all rule, with being higher normally gives you a +1 to your score and lower a -1 unless doubled. Only need a chart for AFV stuff. Shaken and Injured? All your stats are reduced by 1 for all purposes. Shaken lasts for a turn unless you get wounded again where it becomes permanent. Get it again and die. Normal stuff is wounded and if fails armor save (if they have one given armor save mods) they are dead. Lesser heroes don't get shaken but can take an injury (also for lesser MCs like Lictors) status. While big heroes like Abaddon and larger critters can be Shaken first. Anything super big like a Primarch or Carnifex or something is probably best considered an AFV for all intents and purposes. Or has to get Shaken or Injured TWICE in a turn to actually have it stick. Minimizes counters and record keeping. vvvvvvv Edit 2: Real loving classy drgnvale! Thanks for the insult I really appreciate your input. Captain Rufus fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Feb 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:54
|
|
|
Captain Rufus posted:Like as an example idea: Dude has a WS of 4 and a BS of 4. Normally he hits on a 1-4. Obviously if we use 1-9 so 10 is always a failure Marines are probably gonna have 5 WS/BS now. Stands still to fire? +1 to his score. Closer range with a Bolter? Another +1. Mr Marine now needs a 1-7 to hit with his bolter. He is shooting at an Ork let's say. T4 but a normal guy so he has 1 wound. So his statline is T5 and the bolter is S5 since we all know what bolters normally are. S v T is equal so kills on a 1-5. If the T is higher? -1 to the roll. If S is higher? +1. If double? Only wounds on a 1 if S is the lower, or only fails to wound on a 10 or causes instagib or the OH gently caress ME on a Vehicle. The same could apply to WS vs WS to hit in Close Combat. Something like this? 
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 08:14
|
|
|
Captain Rufus posted:unreadable word salad I dunno man, I'm much more likely to try to convince people to play a brand new game designed to support the fluff of 40k than I am to try to convince people to try my 40k house rules. If it's a brand new game, then people can go in with different expectations and you can make it very obvious that what worked in 40k won't work here. If you modify 40k, then you'll get your "bitch" obsession because everyone will be pissed that you changed the one thing they like about the lovely 40k rules. Just to be perfectly clear, someone's expectations will always be colored by what games they have played before, but by completely divorcing your rules from the existing GW ones they should have an easier time going in with an open mind. If you just "improve" 40k, the expectation is that you're going to fix the things they don't like and leave the stuff they do like alone which isn't possible (since people like different things). 40k can be a lot of fun in spite of the rules, but I think I'd have just as much fun playing a completely different game that was designed to feel like a Dan Abnett battle or something. I don't think the existing 40k rules (of any edition I've tried) are salvageable into a good game. Leperflesh, please continue to be a great poster in this thread! If I wanted to have requirements for a 40k themed wargame at the same scale as current 40k games, I'd want the two focuses to be on quick resolution and clearly worded rules. It is terrible that a moderate sized 40k game can take over three hours to play 5-6 turns. I'd much rather play two or three games in that time period. It's also terrible how much time is spent trying to figure out exactly what the chucklefucks in Nottingham were trying to say when they wrote their word salad rules. Actually, Rufus, you'd fit right in with GW rules writing. Carry on. drgnvale fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Feb 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 09:12
|
|
|
Oh hey I've heard a lot of good things about Epic: Armageddon. Could you just play Epic with 28mm 40k models on movement trays? Edit: vvv Oh well. I like the idea of units being single things that can be moved around rather than 5-30 individual dudes that take over a minute to move. I need to find someone locally to play kings of war with once that kickstarter stuff comes in. drgnvale fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Feb 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 09:21
|
|
|
drgnvale posted:Oh hey I've heard a lot of good things about Epic: Armageddon. Could you just play Epic with 28mm 40k models on movement trays? Sure, if you have a 30'x20' table to push them around on. They work for 6mm but I really doubt they'll work at any other scale.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 09:54
|
|
|
Daedleh posted:Sure, if you have a 30'x20' table to push them around on. They work for 6mm but I really doubt they'll work at any other scale. It might work if you have a single model that shows you what the unit is, and then a little tray attached that shows the accual frontage of the unit
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 10:05
|
|
|
drgnvale posted:I dunno man, I'm much more likely to try to convince people to play a brand new game designed to support the fluff of 40k than I am to try to convince people to try my 40k house rules. If it's a brand new game, then people can go in with different expectations and you can make it very obvious that what worked in 40k won't work here. If you modify 40k, then you'll get your "bitch" obsession because everyone will be pissed that you changed the one thing they like about the lovely 40k rules. Just to be perfectly clear, someone's expectations will always be colored by what games they have played before, but by completely divorcing your rules from the existing GW ones they should have an easier time going in with an open mind. If you just "improve" 40k, the expectation is that you're going to fix the things they don't like and leave the stuff they do like alone which isn't possible (since people like different things). Yeah, it's not like you can't convince friends and girlfriends about superiority of your ruleset. The poor shmuck who made HoR Kill Team didn't have many reservations, neither did One Page. Though One Page makes everyone look so samey.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 10:11
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:It goes on, but you gotta answer a ton of these questions in order to know what the requirements are for your game. Only then can you intelligently select rules to support those requirements, and reject ideas that fail to support your requirements. This is absolutely drat right! Setting out without a concrete design vision that's clearly laid out would be disastrous for any project, never mind one as nebulous and prone to confusion as a large ruleset with lots of independent variables. Captain Rufus, your post is pretty much a perfect example of why doing detail work before a design document leads to an unworkable mess.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 11:42
|
|
|
JcDent posted:Yeah, it's not like you can't convince friends and girlfriends about superiority of your ruleset. The poor shmuck who made HoR Kill Team didn't have many reservations, neither did One Page. Though One Page makes everyone look so samey. I didn't say anything about my ability to convince people of the virtues of any particular ruleset, whether completely original or based on an existing system. I said I'm more likely to try to convince people to play a brand new game, because I think it's a more reasonable request. If someone asked me to play their 40k house rule edition, I'd be a lot more skeptical that they just wanted to get rid of the things that bothered them without fixing the core lovely underlying system. And what's the good in that? It'll be, at best, marginally better than a really bad game. HoR is okay for a small skirmish campaign system, but you're still playing 40k which still sucks balls even if the campaign between battles is good. I have fun playing 40k. I'd probably have fun playing good house ruled 40k as well, but I would bet it is because of the people I am spending time with rather than the tweaks somehow making 40k not poo poo. A set of rules designed from the ground up to not be poo poo might be fun even with people I don't particularly care for. I can play x-wing with people I don't really like and have a good time. I can't do that with 40k.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 11:45
|
|
|
Ok. I'm going to start with the most important rule. Regardless of how combat works, Tyranids get to field reinforcements every turn until they eat all your mans. Victory points are rewarded for the most delicious units. Flavor is measured by 3 stats; Macronutrient score, Calorie value, and Micronutrient diversity index. Each has a value 1-10. To calculate the flavor impact of a unit, you average the 3 flavor stats together and compare them to the Tyranid unit's hunger and feeding requirements. Each tyranid beast gets to choose 2 from the following options: - Exclusive carnivore - Omnivore - Pica - Fruititarian - Prefers blondes - Energy drinks and vodka - Anything if it's covered in chocolate Each unique combination cross indexes with Strength and Toughness to arrive at a hypercube coordinate which represents a number that, if rolled under, will award a victory point.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 11:48
|
|
|
Imagine, if you will, four Space Marines on the edge of a cliff...
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 12:00
|
|
|
The Supreme Court posted:This is absolutely drat right! Setting out without a concrete design vision that's clearly laid out would be disastrous for any project, never mind one as nebulous and prone to confusion as a large ruleset with lots of independent variables. Except.. that's not exactly what I was doing. I even said right under my little thought experiment of a full 40K redesign : But even if the above idea has merit imagine the sheer effort and time involved at pointing and playtesting it all out. And for what purpose, you know? It was just a fun little experiment and idea of what maybe GW could have done as opposed to sticking to D6s and as I have mentioned their continual hacks on top of a hacked 1998 game that is in itself a partial conversion of a 1993 game that is basically hacks and tweaks to a 1987 game thats a mod of the 3rd edition of a 1983 game. Just what they possibly could do to make a better future edition. I mean we have a scale of abilities supposed to go 1-10 yet they rarely matter outside of a certain level and even then not as much as maybe they should. (Sort of the same way some people keep wanting D&D to totally get rid of the 3-18 attribute system and just go to modifiers. While this might be a good idea after a point you might as well just go call it something else because you have gone too far. My little brainfart was taking legacy terminology and making it possibly not lovely. If I can think of this in the shower or driving down the loving road one would think a team of presumably professional games designers who are supposed to write this poo poo for a living could maybe do even better. But this goes back to GW and them not giving two shits. You would think a great game would sell a fuckload more minis but what do I know? -------------------------------------------------------- Though I wouldn't mind hearing about folks who have taken 40K and put it in other minis games like VOR, Stargrunt, Shockforce, Savage Worlds, the Sci Fi version of Cold War Commander, ect. Did you get people to play? Was it fun? Did it keep the basic feel of what folks basically think 40K's universe should feel like? I have generally seen more online folks playing Oldhammer as they call it than converting over to specialized or generic rulesets. I just wished this one site that had done some nice mid-late 00s updates to the 2nd ed army lists was still around as I don't think I have all of the PDFs any more. I didn't even remember the now defunct URL (Wayback Archive only does so much. Some of Gundam 40K is basically permanently lost to the ether for example.  ) until I was going through my 2nd ed codexes and found their Ork supplement pdf I had printed out back in my pre ipad days.I mean poo poo, Netepic is basically a printer and computer slaying super pretty suite of PDF files that is just Space Marine/Titan Legions Epic with some fixes and additions because they hated Epic 40K that much. (Rightfully so. poo poo was rear end. 3rd ed 40K probably would have been much further changed from 2nd ed but the outright gutting of the Epic fanbase due to E40K probably stayed Chambers' hand for good or ill. Chapter Approved in WD and 4-5th ed seemed to more or less put some of the poo poo he ripped out back in. 3rd ed blast template rules were the dumbest loving idea.)
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 12:38
|
|
|
drgnvale posted:I didn't say anything about my ability to convince people of the virtues of any particular ruleset, whether completely original or based on an existing system. I said I'm more likely to try to convince people to play a brand new game, because I think it's a more reasonable request. If someone asked me to play their 40k house rule edition, I'd be a lot more skeptical that they just wanted to get rid of the things that bothered them without fixing the core lovely underlying system. And what's the good in that? It'll be, at best, marginally better than a really bad game. HoR is okay for a small skirmish campaign system, but you're still playing 40k which still sucks balls even if the campaign between battles is good. I wasn't opposing your point, I was just using fan made rule supplements that are known to me  What I want: - a game for two Space marines Squads, Captain, and some support - a tank and one more squad of dudes, etc. - Grey Knights are Movie Marines, Space Marines are merely awesome - back to the days of "SM tacticals are what elites of others feel like" - Character kitting out, for that one character in your force. - Move away from simple d6 - Simple squad building blocks: A Marine Squad has a Maneuver Combat Squad (with sarge and special wpn) and Firepower CS (with Hvy weapon), for example. That's all. - Infinity/Force on Force/Alternating activation based game, so that you're always on your toes. - Includes reactions/RO's. - Simple Stats that don't reference chart, maybe opposed rolls for most shooting and stabbing, then armor save? - CasEvac: ne, we don't "leave the wounded behind". - Fluffy stuff like mass of orks having morale of numbers and nids not having cas evac - Off table artillery and bombardments. - Fog of War cards? - SP rules like with FoF's Hot Spots: clean the area of cultists/orks/renegade guardsmen/other mooks. - ...campaign rules? Now who wants to barnstorm a design doc out of this mess. JcDent fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Feb 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 12:51
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:The only way to build alternate rules for 40k (or Fantasy for that matter) is to completely abandon any idea of creating an alternative "fluff" for the game. Just set it aside. You are never, ever, ever going to build a fluff that appeals to 40k players more than the literally only reason they're 40k players to begin with, so much that they're willing to ignore or suffer the terrible loving awful rules they're already dealing with. I think you will be surprised just how much people would take issue even with that approach. If I was going to do it, I would look into a rule-set like Tomorrow's War and work out an organization chart and arsenal for each faction and inist that people stick to them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 15:09
|
|
|
If we're gonna talk about improving 40k, I actually think Dawn of War 2 might be a good reference point. Armies are about the size of 2nd Edition forces by the mid-game, they all have a single leader character that can be outfitted with up to 3 different gear pieces that alter how they work, and different leaders have different abilities and powers that affect how the army functions. Armies have different play-styles - the Guard can build turrets and emplacements with their basic troopers, Tyranids have Synapse creatures that buff surrounding troops, and Ork units can exponentially buff others around them with their trademark warcry. It'd be cool to try and take some of those concepts to the tabletop.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 15:14
|
|
|
Out of curiosity, is there anyone else in this thread that definitely agrees that the rules need a serious revamp, but don't want to go skirmish scale, or otherwise scale down the model count across the field? I would love to play games where you still field hundreds of tyranids or orks vs. something like a gunline of imperial guard, backed by multiple tanks, etc, and not have the rules be complete poo poo. Then again I'd also want to have space marines compete against those horde armies with a two digit model count, and not go bankrupt while making a horde army. I doubt my dream 40k can even exist.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 15:23
|
|
|
Attestant posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone else in this thread that definitely agrees that the rules need a serious revamp, but don't want to go skirmish scale, or otherwise scale down the model count across the field? I would love to play games where you still field hundreds of tyranids or orks vs. something like a gunline of imperial guard, backed by multiple tanks, etc, and not have the rules be complete poo poo. Have you looked into One Page or Epic Armageddon?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 15:34
|
|
|
JcDent posted:I think those were printed in a WD, no? Yeah, they were in WD. Peter Haines (who wrote the 3.5 ed codex) wrote the rules and the introduction was basically him whinging about people saying marines didnt feel like how they are in the fluff and HERE YOU GO YOU PLEBS HAVE YOUR PATHETIC RULES
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 16:03
|
|
|
JcDent posted:Have you looked into One Page or Epic Armageddon? Epic I've been aware, but that doesn't quite scratch the painting/modelling itch due to the small scale. Plus it never really picked up in my region, since people preferred the base 40k stuff, so nobody in my personal group of gamers really has any armies for it. One Page I haven't seen or heard of before (been on a hiatus since 5th edition or so), I assume it's this thing? Quick glance actually seems very interesting. How well is it balanced, and does it play well? I might be able to coax a few friends try it out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 16:05
|
|
|
Attestant posted:Epic I've been aware, but that doesn't quite scratch the painting/modelling itch due to the small scale. Plus it never really picked up in my region, since people preferred the base 40k stuff, so nobody in my personal group of gamers really has any armies for it. Can't really say, I have very little practical on any sort of 40K rules. Hell, had more games of BFG at this point than 40K. Big Willy Style posted:Yeah, they were in WD. Peter Haines (who wrote the 3.5 ed codex) wrote the rules and the introduction was basically him whinging about people saying marines didnt feel like how they are in the fluff and HERE YOU GO YOU PLEBS HAVE YOUR PATHETIC RULES Yeah, the sentiment was a little like that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 16:11
|
|
|
Attestant posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone else in this thread that definitely agrees that the rules need a serious revamp, but don't want to go skirmish scale, or otherwise scale down the model count across the field? I would love to play games where you still field hundreds of tyranids or orks vs. something like a gunline of imperial guard, backed by multiple tanks, etc, and not have the rules be complete poo poo. I feel like warpath is going to be the best bet for this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 16:29
|
|
|
I took a look at One Page Fantasy and didn't like it much. In particular it somehow managed to make tomb kings worse, and that's my army, the already approximately worst army in the game at the moment. It also preserved some things in Fantasy that I think are the key things that need to be fixed, while mostly removing a ton of the flavor that each faction has (presumably due to the one-page restriction), and there were some rule ambiguities. Not that I've actually tried it on the table mind, so it might still be a much better game, but I was turned off when I read through it. JcDent posted:So, how do we install Leperflesh as CEO, GW? He makes a lot of good points on everything. Anyone wants to go build stuff on that? Starting with a design doc? Here we all are, lined up, and the sarge suddenly screams for a volunteer. This is me, taking three giant steps backwards, along with everyone else with a brain in the row. Now we all look at the poor confused sap who is left standing there, because he wasn't quick enough on the uptake. Haha, poor fucker. We all know he is doomed. We will pour out a 40 in his name and carve his initials into the beam above the doorway and touch it each day as we leave the barracks in remembrance. Because... Captain Rufus posted:Starting from scratch means having to point it all out and have a good and decently sized playtest group who won't act like a bitch made bitch of bitchness when their precious widdle I WIN trick gets nerfed. And they will do so. You will bust your goddamned rear end to reinvent the wheel for the shitloadianth time to be the minis wargame version of the Fantasy Heartbreaker RPG. You are pretty much wasting your time doing it no matter how good it might actually be! Yuuuuup! It is a rock and a hard place. You can either attempt to herd cats to get people to actually try out and test your large, complicated game that replaces the large, complicated game they've already memorized (and make no mistake, the only way you're going to build a game with like 20 factions in it each of which has a different, unique feel on the board, is with a hell of a lot of work and a fair amount of complexity)... which will almost certainly fail; or, you're going to have to accept that you won't be capturing the feel of all those existing factions and their unique special snowflake units, in which case, why are you trying to do this instead of just making a new game? Or just playing one of the several other fantasy/sci fi games out there? Anyway, some people crawled up your rear end, myself included, because the thrust of the thread was "how hard could it possibly be to make a good ruleset" and not "let's think of ways we could tweak the existing rules to make marginal improvements in this bad game." You have a different idea and goal in mind and that's fine, but it isn't aligned with what the several other of us were talking about. Frankly I think it's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and that it faces just as much likely opposition from existing and new gamers, as Numlock pointed out; If you tweak the game, you are bound to have some factions/units/playstyles/strategies "lose" while others "win," and that will polarize your potential playerbase. You won't succeed if half of them are against you right out the gate. See my comments on One Page above: they lost me immediately, by showing they don't know or understand what's wrong with my faction. Maybe the game is more balanced, but it's at my expense, so I'm out. JcDent posted:I wasn't opposing your point, I was just using fan made rule supplements that are known to me Not meeeee Part of the problem with a design-by-committee approach is that the committee members are unlikely to agree on even the basic design parameters and requirements. If everyone has equal power, it will at worst devolve into a fight and fail, and at best, wind up a litany of compromises trying to keep everyone happy. Just as an example, I already don't like your "simple squad building blocks" idea, because while I think it'd work fine for space marines and maybe imperial guard, tau, and eldar, I don't think it works well for orks, and it completely falls apart for chaos and tyranids. I don't even play 40k! I also suspect that part of the major problem with 40k/fantasy is the ability to "kit out" characters with a bunch of different options; these are inevitably over/underpowered due to the sheer number of armies, characters, and options, so that it becomes very very difficult to balance their cost across the board. I'd much rather see "standard" characters which come with their standard kit of whatever superweapons and abilities that character comes with, carefully selected to be balanced and provide synergies with other units in the faction. By being standardized, though, you reduce the amount of time spent looking up rules and figuring out unintended or unusual rules interactions, and you also don't create a situation where, if you want to change the utility/capability of some piece of wargear in the future, you are suddenly forced to re-visit every single character in the game that can take that piece of wargear and figure out if you're nerfing them or conversely giving them a huge buff. eeeghhh though that's just trying to nitpick, the real point here is that among the subset of Warhammer 40k/Fantasy players who agree with the approach of throwing out the entire game system and starting fresh from requirements, I very much doubt there is a strong consensus possible about what those requirements should be. And I sure don't want to try to extract it. So my approach, if I were going to do this, which I am definitely not, would be to work with maybe two to four other people to set requirements and build out the basic game structures, and then seek and invite specific experts as necessary going forward (for example, an expert on each faction to give feedback on what makes that faction unique and interesting and how that should translate into rules for the tabletop). Then you have a game, and when you're ready to playtest, you open it up to a broader audience, ready and expecting that the majority of them will dismiss it immediately, and of the ones that don't, many will loudly and impolitely dump on your precious ideas. If you have immense patience and fortitude, you might begin to extract a few good bits of feedback from among the screaming and gnashing of teeth, and eventually, get a game put together that could be playtested. And then you will find out that there aren't enough people concentrated in one place, with all their models and poo poo, willing and able to read through your big complicated heartbreaker rules and then test them out repeatedly over the course of (collectively) several hundred matches, to tweak and refine them into something that is genuinely good. It's a fool's errand. There's a reason this hasn't happened yet, even though Warhammer has been bad for at least 15+ years. I wish anyone who wants to give it a go the best of luck. I'll sit here on the sidelines and occasionally write big long posts about how you're doing it badly and are doomed to fail, that'll be much more fun for me than trying to actually do this project myself. Haha.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 18:55
|
|
|
Attestant posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone else in this thread that definitely agrees that the rules need a serious revamp, but don't want to go skirmish scale, or otherwise scale down the model count across the field? I would love to play games where you still field hundreds of tyranids or orks vs. something like a gunline of imperial guard, backed by multiple tanks, etc, and not have the rules be complete poo poo. I'm with you on liking big batttles, though I don't particularly need Marines to say small modelcount.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 18:57
|
|
|
JcDent posted:I wasn't opposing your point, I was just using fan made rule supplements that are known to me That seems like it would be a fun game. I want to go in the opposite direction myself, with faster and simplified rules for large battles. I think we both agree that trying to use the same ruleset for both types of games ends up with the disaster that is modern 40k. Edit: Esser-Z posted:I'm with you on liking big batttles, though I don't particularly need Marines to say small modelcount. drgnvale fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Feb 19, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 18:57
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:So my approach, if I were going to do this, which I am definitely not, would be to work with maybe two to four other people to set requirements and build out the basic game structures, and then seek and invite specific experts as necessary going forward (for example, an expert on each faction to give feedback on what makes that faction unique and interesting and how that should translate into rules for the tabletop). I'm envisioning a game like Hungry Hungry hippos, where all your existing units are put in clear capsules that allow them to roll around like balls. This covers the armies for space marines, tau, IG, necrons, chaos, eldar, and dark eldar. The 'hippos' are played by Tyranid players. A hippo can be composed of any number of models, so long as it resembles a huge maw which can be attached to a leaver and used to eat the balls of the other armies. Tyranid players may set up along any table edge, and the enemy army or armies deploy in the center of the table in any configuration with any set of units they care to. The beauty of this design is that there is no army list. Simply place all the units you wish to field in front of the hungry hungry hive fleet. Play continues between tyranid players until all balls are eaten. At which point the winner is determined by who ate the most balls.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 20:57
|
|
|
drgnvale posted:That seems like it would be a fun game. I want to go in the opposite direction myself, with faster and simplified rules for large battles. I think we both agree that trying to use the same ruleset for both types of games ends up with the disaster that is modern 40k. I think the thing is, at 28mm you can't really make a game with that many models and have the kind of ranges you have in 40k simply because there's just not a lot of room for maneuver. I'm thinking about trying to make a ruleset with the skeleton of 40k with the idea that different armies should work more differently than they currently do at their most basic levels. Imperial Guardsmen-types have to concern themselves with suppression and stay in cover, space marines can just walk across the field blasting away at what they want, and mobs have fewer tactical options but are harder to suppress. I think if you're going to really go with the space fantasy, go gonzo, make everyone have their own sort of combat physics, or at least separate by archetype. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Feb 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 00:25
|
|
|
TheCosmicMuffet posted:I'm envisioning a game like Hungry Hungry hippos, where all your existing units are put in clear capsules that allow them to roll around like balls. This covers the armies for space marines, tau, IG, necrons, chaos, eldar, and dark eldar. The 'hippos' are played by Tyranid players. A hippo can be composed of any number of models, so long as it resembles a huge maw which can be attached to a leaver and used to eat the balls of the other armies. Tyranid players may set up along any table edge, and the enemy army or armies deploy in the center of the table in any configuration with any set of units they care to. The beauty of this design is that there is no army list. Simply place all the units you wish to field in front of the hungry hungry hive fleet. This is a good game. Very thematic, appropriate, and action packed. Skeletons should light up in the outer ring to remind players the grim dark nature of the game.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 00:30
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:This is a good game. Very thematic, appropriate, and action packed. Skeletons should light up in the outer ring to remind players the grim dark nature of the game. And has fewer random elements than 7th ed
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 01:18
|
|
|
Renfield posted:And has fewer random elements than 7th ed It's actually based on skill, for once.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 01:29
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:I think the thing is, at 28mm you can't really make a game with that many models and have the kind of ranges you have in 40k simply because there's just not a lot of room for maneuver. This is basically what I want in "my" system, too. drgnvale posted:That seems like it would be a fun game. I want to go in the opposite direction myself, with faster and simplified rules for large battles. I think we both agree that trying to use the same ruleset for both types of games ends up with the disaster that is modern 40k. Probably even bigger! Then again, we're not GW, so we wouldn't choke each other for having competing rulesets. Leperflesh posted:Big batch of wisdom Now to get two to four people to agree with me on something... JcDent fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Feb 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 05:09
|
|
|
The easiest thing would be to hack 40k onto an already existing good ruleset. Historicals would be a good place to look, maybe Bolt Action? I don't know much about it, but apparently it's good. You'd have to add rules for chainsword fighting and psychic powers, but they should probably work similarly to the rest of combat anyways.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 05:20
|
|
|
If you want a "fixed" WHFB your best bet would probably be writing new lists for WAB 2E. I mean you'd basically start with WAB 2E, add in the Monstrous creature rules from WHFB 5E, and then probably port the magic system from WHFB 6E/7E since those are probably the best base magic systems for WHFB and you could do a sort of "best of" of both versions to try and make it a bit more balanced. As for magic items you'd probably write a solid list of generic ones sourced from the not lovely ones in 8E and then base the rest on the army specific ones from 4/5E. Maybe I'll start working on this, since it actually sounds like a good idea. WAB is by far the best Warhammer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 05:56
|
|
|
I played Dropzone Commander for the first time yesterday, and it was amazing. There was a bucket of dice moment when I launched a CQB attack but basically it's a dice roll to hit and a dice roll to kill. Even the CQB was basically successful attacks to kill, it was amazing. 40K is so clunky by comparison.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 08:03
|
|
|
El Estrago Bonito posted:If you want a "fixed" WHFB your best bet would probably be writing new lists for WAB 2E. I mean you'd basically start with WAB 2E, add in the Monstrous creature rules from WHFB 5E, and then probably port the magic system from WHFB 6E/7E since those are probably the best base magic systems for WHFB and you could do a sort of "best of" of both versions to try and make it a bit more balanced. As for magic items you'd probably write a solid list of generic ones sourced from the not lovely ones in 8E and then base the rest on the army specific ones from 4/5E. Or just play Kings of War. That's basically Warhammer for people who doesn't like Warhammer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 08:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 23, 2024 14:22 |
|
|
adhuin posted:Or just play Kings of War. That's basically Warhammer for people who doesn't like Warhammer. I have a lot of respect for Alessio but KoW is a worse game than WAB. KoW has a lot of positives, but it's extremely rules allergic and addicted to simplicity in ways that are sometimes a little annoying. If you are really starved for some Ravening Hordes style games then it's pretty decent but WAB actually uses different unit types in better ways that actually give all types of units a unique battlefield role in ways that KoW doesn't. Again, not bagging on KoW too much, it's a decent game, but WAB is a much more tactically interesting game when it comes to actually fighting battles. KoW just feels like more streamlined, balanced Warhammer, WAB feels like more interesting and strategic Warhammer if that makes sense.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2015 08:29
|
|