So Why No Warhammer RPG?

[Chippy]

With recent RPG disapontments I've been moving into areas I haven't bothered with before - and hello Warhammer universe! I can believe how ignorant I was of it's existance (because I'm a bloke that doesn't multitask games), but how can it have been going for so long without a crpg to it's name?.

[Morgoth]

Welcome to the forums, nub. I mean Chippy.

 

Obsidian is right now collaborating with THQ on Southpark: The Game, so if we're lucky and the relationship was fruitful, maybe they get into WH talks for another collaboration. I know Fergie can do it - he's a charismatic monster.

[Chippy]

Welcome to the forums, nub. I mean Chippy.

 

Obsidian is right now collaborating with THQ on Southpark: The Game, so if we're lucky and the relationship was fruitful, maybe they get into WH talks for another collaboration. I know Fergie can do it - he's a charismatic monster.

 

Thanks for the welcome, I suppose I have to start posting incessantly to get my status up. Southpark: The game? Might be interesting, hope it raises Obsidians profile further - I wonder if there's any chance the characters can start screaming WAAAGH! and catapulting each other into THQ's offices as a subtle hint...

[Maria Caliban]

I can understand wanting a game set in Warhammer 40k, but the regular Warhammer fantasy universe? I'm not sure what that would bring to the table.

[tripleRRR]

Warhammer 40K is far superior to warhammer fantasy IMO. I wish Space Marine had been something of an RPG rather than a pure hack and slash.

[Drowsy Emperor]

The reason there's no RPG is because both have nothing to really bring to the table as Maria has noted and that IMO includes 40K which apart from endless male Space Marine themed masturbatory prose is generally a cardboard cutout. I've read two of the new RPGs, a few army books and a dozen or so novels and I've never seen a really fleshed out universe in WH 40K.

Just a bunch of dudes with interchangeable pseudo Latin names doing the whole aryan ubersoldier supremacy shtick on the rest of the universe.

 

The regular WH universe is what, dark DnD? and it does have its own MMO - which has done nothing to set it apart from anything else.

 

On the other hand Fading Suns basically encompasses the entirety of WH40k and has dozens of books that take the universe much further.

Not to mention thousands upon thousands of well fleshed out rpg settings that are clamouring for a game of their own.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Blarghagh]

What it has to offer is a fantasy crpg. You guys act like we have plenty of those coming out and we can afford to be choosy.

[Walsingham]

There are some very good bits of 40k, if you stay away from the space marines. Although in fairness to Games Workshop, the space marine schtick sells well, and I encourage them to keep churning the stuff out.

 

The really good bits of all Warhammer material is when it looks at chaos in the old skool sense. The four gods, slaves to darkness, the lost and the damned. Chaos has become Marvel-ised in recent years. Took out all the psychological horror and just left lots of spikes and chains.

[Drowsy Emperor]

No one is going to turn down an offer if its on the table, but since it isn't we might as well squeal for what we'd like to see.

[Chippy]

I'm still new to WH, and the 'Old World' Battle March game was very D&D drow-like (quite enjoyable), but I would hope that Obsidians writers would make a WH RPG as comparable to D&D as BG was to PS:T. Having just completed the excellent Lonesome Road, I can see a similiar humanist strive to create a tolerant society (which I think the immortal emperor represented despite eventually being revered as a god) and failed through humans being at war with themselves/at odds with chaos.

 

Throw into that the over-the-top characterizations of the races and their relations with each other, and I'm sure the result would not be (at least) an average fantasy storyline. I hope. I remember an interview with Chris Avellone stating he wanted to kill Elminster ... well I hope he/Obsidian still get the chance, but at least each WH setting provides that very Arcanum intro style insecurity over the power of magic.

[HoonDing]

How about BioWare making a "Love can Bloom" RPG? Isn't that canon nowadays anyway?

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm still new to WH, and the 'Old World' Battle March game was very D&D drow-like (quite enjoyable), but I would hope that Obsidians writers would make a WH RPG as comparable to D&D as BG was to PS:T. Having just completed the excellent Lonesome Road, I can see a similiar humanist strive to create a tolerant society (which I think the immortal emperor represented despite eventually being revered as a god) and failed through humans being at war with themselves/at odds with chaos.

 

Throw into that the over-the-top characterizations of the races and their relations with each other, and I'm sure the result would not be (at least) an average fantasy storyline. I hope. I remember an interview with Chris Avellone stating he wanted to kill Elminster ... well I hope he/Obsidian still get the chance, but at least each WH setting provides that very Arcanum intro style insecurity over the power of magic.

 

The traditional problem with Warhammer games is getting the license. GW are complete asses as far as this is concerned and also rather dim about which game to support and which to skip. Apart from the story that Starcraft designers approached GW and were denied license (thus skipping on one of the most lucrative games in history) a more recent case are Cyanide Studios and their "Chaos League". Only after the game was released did GW give Cyanide the license to make a Bloodbowl game.

 

Similar things have been said about Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf and it basically goes for any large IP. The owners of the IP are often annoyingly hard to work with as they interfere and/or make unreasonable demands, plus the license often costs a lot of money driving up the already high cost of development.

On top of that, sadly, RPG's in their pure form are not a popular genre any more and are not viewed as a good opportunity to make money by anyone other than already established giants like Bioware and Bethesda.

 

This is why you shouldn't expect a WH game any time soon, although it is not altogether impossible.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[Gorth]

I can see a similiar humanist strive to create a tolerant society (which I think the immortal emperor represented despite eventually being revered as a god)

How did you arrive at *that* conclusion?

 

If anything, the Emperor is your "practical incarnation" from PS:T... anything, literally, that it takes to get the job done is considered acceptable.

[Chippy]

The traditional problem with Warhammer games is getting the license. GW are complete asses as far as this is concerned and also rather dim about which game to support and which to skip. Apart from the story that Starcraft designers approached GW and were denied license (thus skipping on one of the most lucrative games in history) a more recent case are Cyanide Studios and their "Chaos League". Only after the game was released did GW give Cyanide the license to make a Bloodbowl game.

 

Similar things have been said about Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf and it basically goes for any large IP. The owners of the IP are often annoyingly hard to work with as they interfere and/or make unreasonable demands, plus the license often costs a lot of money driving up the already high cost of development.

On top of that, sadly, RPG's in their pure form are not a popular genre any more and are not viewed as a good opportunity to make money by anyone other than already established giants like Bioware and Bethesda.

 

This is why you shouldn't expect a WH game any time soon, although it is not altogether impossible.

 

 

- Damn shame though, I suppose if games like Arcanum had sold better it would have made a strong argument to these reactive licence holders.

 

 

How did you arrive at *that* conclusion?

 

If anything, the Emperor is your "practical incarnation" from PS:T... anything, literally, that it takes to get the job done is considered acceptable.

 

 

- This was just based on a 15min wiki reading in the past, but I latched onto this quote: "Over the many millennia of his life, he travelled among the different peoples of Mankind, using his ancient wisdom to help where he could in the guise of many different benevolent persons from human myth, religion and history".

 

I don't know the history, so he could be responsible for snatching psyker children from their families for 'the greater good', but from a skim read it seemed he had a strong belief humans creating their own flag from their belief in themselves.

 

I'll just pretend I didn't notice this bit: "The Imperial Truth also held that humanity was the species which should rightfully rule the galaxy since its physical form was both the most pure and all of the other intelligent alien races, such as the Eldar, had already tried and failed to maintain galaxy-spanning civilisations".

[Gorth]

I don't know the history, so he could be responsible for snatching psyker children from their families for 'the greater good', but from a skim read it seemed he had a strong belief humans creating their own flag from their belief in themselves.

The "abridged" version based on 'Rogue Trader', 'Slaves to Darkness' and 'The Lost and the Damned' (and a few of the old codexes):

 

In the beginning, the warp was calm and there was no chaos. As the War in Heaven dragged on and escalated, the amalgam of emotions created turmoil. Forewarned of what was going to happen, all the most powerful human psychers, druids, shamans and wise men merged their souls into a single, all powerful entity, with the knowledge that chaos is not the natural state of the universe. That was The Emperor. The expected disaster happened, the major chaos powers awoke as sentient entities and the universe was propelled into a self reinforcing cycle of strife, feeding chaos feeding the strife.

 

The Emperor knows that it is not supposed to be so and works towards it's end. The only way to get rid of Chaos is to "starve" it for strong emotions, which means getting rid of wars and conflicts. Hence the unification wars on Terra and the Great Crusade, unify the galaxy under His rule, ending all conflicts (by killing everybody else that might create dissent). Belief is one of the things that creates disturbances in the Warp, so it had to go too. Hence His constant cracking down on religion and promotion of technology in its place. Psychers had to go too of course, which is why His last project was getting access to the web way from Terra and removing humanitys reliance on Navigators and Astropaths. After that, they could all be killed off for the greater good

 

A few notes:

The Chaos Gods feared the Emperor because their destruction was His ultimate goal. The War in Heaven was the eon old conflict between The Old Ones and the Necrontyr. The Web Way was/is an interdimensional transit system that doesn't travel through Warp space.

 

That's a very short summary of 25 years of literature.

[Nonek]

Personally i've always had a certain affinity for the proud and slightly nihilistic Eldar, the romanticism of their millenia averted extinction has always appealed to me. Of course portraying such an inhuman and enigmatic species would be a serious undertaking, and doubtless most players would prefer to experience such a game from a human perspective. However with their psychic symbiosis with the warp, the enmity of the chaos god they birthed and commitment to a chosen path to stave off their exuberant passions, they offer a somewhat more original experience than another superhuman Astartes.

 

That said I don't think that the Space Marines presented to us by Relic have taken advantage of the more interesting aspects of being such a creature, for that you need the detail and time afforded by an rpg rather than a strategy game. Gabriel Angelos' war diaries from the original Dawn of War were a simple and effective way of conveying his story and perspective, but they were wasted by the usual Daemonic Ascendance plotline.

 

I'd like to see Obsidians take on this universe, they strike me as one of the few developers who could do it justice.

[Gorth]

The pointy eared pansies should join the Dodo. Seriously, without the Old Ones to guide them, they became a self indulgent lot. Orks were a much better (and some would argue successful) experiment.

[Nonek]

Who doesn't like getting stuck in with the boys? That said the games never represent just how intelligent Warbosses can become, it would be nice to see a major Ork antagonist portrayed with as much cunning as brutality. The blessings of both Gork and Mork so to speak.

[Gorth]

Who doesn't like getting stuck in with the boys? That said the games never represent just how intelligent Warbosses can become, it would be nice to see a major Ork antagonist portrayed with as much cunning as brutality. The blessings of both Gork and Mork so to speak.

It's been many years since i read an Ork Codex, but at least in the paperback books, there has been some cunning (if not outright intelligence) attributed to warlords. The "named" ones rose to prominence through both physical prowess, ruthlessness and cunning. Ghazkull is regarded as something like a master strategist because he once did a withdrawal so he could come back with more boyz

[Malcador]

A Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader RPG on the PC would be nice, the latter would be cooler as you have a ship, I suppose.

[Jackalmonkey]

On the one hand I do wonder how this hasn't happened yet, and on the other hand: oh please no. I mean, I liked Dawn of War, which was an excellent tactical game, but there was nothing compelling about the setting, character, or story. Every faction in that silly universe is entirely unsympathetic, not merely for whatever passes as their ideologies but for how poorly drawn those ideologies are. In 40k, the 'good guys' in their various forms are religious fundamentalists that are marketing to Stormfront neckbeards, the 'bad guys' are S&M/bodmod drones to pander to goth neckbeards, and the remaining groups are just there for novelty value - consider the 'comedic' dialect of the Orcs, which is an embarrassing ****ney/Caribbean eye-dialect that seems more than a little racist and in any case is staggeringly painful to read.

 

The only compelling storyline I can imagine is one in which you have the opportunity to methodically screw over each faction - or better yet, to alter them in ways that utterly wreck their canonical basis (i.e., converting the entire Human Imperium to Baha'i, teaching the Eldar to work out their issues through hackysack and drum circles, or getting the Orks on Ritalin and enrolling in early-start literacy programs).

 

I'd also assent to play a game in which you destroy painstakingly painted miniatures armies with a flametorch at GenCon, and you level up based on the liters of tears shed by weeping aspies.

[entrerix]

i'd prefer something more like a diablo clone than a story based rpg. a diablo clone where they gave you 1 character from each of the armies to choose from, and you can choose how to level up your character to make them fit the different iconic units from said army

 

ie: eldar character starts as just a regular trooper and via levelling and selecting skills and equipment you could turn them into a striking scorpion and then into an exarch etc

 

chaos trooper into either a raptor, havoc, plague marine, noise marine, berserker etc etc

 

enemy variety could be through the roof as the character goes on a tour of the hostile worlds of 40k

 

could be sooo good.

[Orchomene]

I'm not sure 'story' and 'warhammer' go well together, but I'm no expert.

I'd rather see a CRPG made on Elric of Melnibone or Hawkmoon's story. But it's already been said.

[Chippy]

I really need to start ordering some books based on this universe. I might as well start reading about another one as 4th edition D&D seems to have killed off everyone / everything.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I really need to start ordering some books based on this universe. I might as well start reading about another one as 4th edition D&D seems to have killed off everyone / everything.

 

For a great DnD alternative read Talislanta, its on the top 20 best RPGs ever made on rpg.net and its free now!

 

http://talislanta.com/?page_id=5

 

Every single edition and all supplements released for download by author. I suggest you start with the 4th edition as it has everything in one book. The rules are barely 20 pages long!

 

D&D may be omnipresent but its far from killed off everything.

In fact I'd be willing to bet that DnD is on a steady decline ever since fourth editon and the rise of Pathfinder. Now I'm no great fan of Pathfinder as its a re skinned DnD and I had just about enough of the latter to last me a lifetime. However I won't shed any tears over D&D's eventual fall into obscurity.

 

If you wan't something sci fi gothic space opera like WH40k try Fading Suns. I bet you'd like it.