|
Avenging Dentist posted:The pinnacle of 40k lore for me was in Inquisitor (I think?) where they went a step further and added some tidbits suggesting that a lot of humanity's suffering was self-inflicted and the result of superstition and just plain fear of change (especially about what would happen if they just let the Emperor die). Remember that the loving Adeptus Mechanicus has fat stacks of STC-based templates and technology that would be of huge help to the populace that they are sitting on out of paranoia and loving greed. The whole point of the Imperium as it exists in 40k is to show what fear and paranoia do to a society.
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 13:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:02 |
|
|
El Estrago Bonito posted:When I used to paint miniatures as my main source of income, I mostly did historicals and trains because that's where the money is. And as part of that I straight up told people that anywhere there was supposed to be a swastika I would put an Iron Cross because I just wasn't willing to step into that whole mess and I couldn't control who was buying from me and I didn't want stuff I painted up getting used by actual neo-nazis or Wehraboo apologists.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 13:24
|
|
|
Ilor posted:Yeah, I'm putting together a DAK force for Chain of Command right now. I'm cool with putting a Balkenkreuz (like the iron cross, but just the white bits with no black center) on my vehicles to clearly identify them as German. But I think I'm just gonna let my force be a little historically inaccurate and not have the DAK swastika-and-palm-tree symbol on there too. My Jewish wife appreciates this. You could do the "palm tree and cross" style variant, maybe?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 14:47
|
|
|
So I mentioned in the last thread that we'd had some 40kers showing up at our LGS every month or so, despite not carrying GW stuff. Mostly seemed harmless, but now they've started showing up every week. From what it sounds like, their old store closed (possibly in part due to GW sales, but mostly the old owner sounded like one of those dumb ones who just stocks whatever he personally liked, and never paid attention to what actually sold and what didn't). When I was there last Saturday, one of them was talking to the staff about starting to carry GW stuff. All the usual "industry leader, highest quality, blah blah blah". Staff was like "yeah, no. GW has all sorts of requirements on minimum orders and shelf space. We'd have to cut out stuff that we know we make a profit on for stuff we stopped selling 10 years ago because no one was interested." Guy seemed kind of put out by that, and I was hoping that'd be the end of it. But then one of the staff just had to throw in "if you convinced the warmahordes or x-wing guys to switch, maybe there'd be enough interest around here to justify it".  Like, I know he was just making a point of how unlikely it was that they'd consider selling gw stuff, but it wasn't even 15 minutes after that the first one wandered over and asked if any of us wanted to try out 40k.I'm not really worried about it or anything. A big chunk of our group left 40k to play warmahordes to begin with, and those that didn't haven't seemed impressed with setup times longer than most of our games and lots of vague rolling of buckets of dice in a big scrum. Still, I expect the next couple months are going to involve a lot of annoying attempts at conversion before they get the hint.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 14:53
|
|
|
Renfield posted:Hello ! LOL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiLVAz-Jczg I don't know what's more likely, that mod was also a Nazi sympathizer or if he was one of those idiot nerds that thinks that no one should ever criticize anyone ever. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Aug 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 15:45
|
|
|
I love it when a ten minute video includes like three minutes of credits. I'm pretty sure the way casting worked on this thing was, "Jeremy is the one with a full license of after affects and he's the one who knows how to do bloom effects. So Jeremy wants to play the Inquisitor and we have to let him, and Jeremy's girlfriend gets to be the assassin even though she never shows up to the weekly meetings. I'm sorry, Todd, you have to be the sniveling traitor."
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 17:40
|
|
|
Yeah I don't get why you would spend that much effort and then not at least try and get semi-professional voice work. Everyone probably thinks that poo poo is easy and anyone can do it as long as you use your THEATER voice.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 18:46
|
|
|
I hope that we're supposed to take away that the junior inquisitior is a sadistic shithead bully, but I've seen enough fan film to worry that he's what the creators think is genuinely cool.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 18:53
|
|
|
With 40k you never know if you are going to get a Judge Dredd styled narrative where it's actually being critical of fascism or if the sadistic nazis are the cool good guys. The main creepy dude would easily be the villain in any other movie (taunting the defenseless man he is killing while smirking) but in this case who knows! I play the Dark Heresy RPG and I like it but you have to be really careful since that game almost encourages you to treat your players like they are a gang of gestapos. I think an important test of a game world is if torturous interrogation is treated as a way to get legitimate information or not. If I'm remembering which game it is correctly, the Dragon Age rpg specifically tells GMs that if a player tortures someone then you are supposed to either have that information be full of holes or be totally wrong since the person didn't actually know anything but just makes something up to get the pain to stop. Dark Heresy treats information gathered this way as accurate. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Aug 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 19:04
|
|
|
Desiden posted:So I mentioned in the last thread that we'd had some 40kers showing up at our LGS every month or so, despite not carrying GW stuff. Mostly seemed harmless, but now they've started showing up every week. Just change the subject into them trying out games that don't suck. But I wouldn't be too worried, my FLGS sees the occasional influx of 40k players and some of them are nice people, though most eventually disappear for one reason or another in a few months.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 19:31
|
|
|
Jeb Bush 2012 posted:tbh I'm not really sure I like the "oh well, I guess we wrote this universe where you have to be hitler, better start goosestepping" line any better The Fantasy Flight RPGs in the 40k setting do a pretty good job about the bleakness mixed with absurdity/making the Imperium protagonists in the main games but not good guys. -At least with Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Black Crusade. Especially since you don't play as an inquisitor in Dark Heresy, you're one's disposable flunkies. Black Crusade even goes out of its way to steer players towards more sympathetic backgrounds/highlights that the chaos gods offer hope unlike the imperium. Radish posted:With 40k you never know if you are going to get a Judge Dredd styled narrative where it's actually being critical of fascism or if the sadistic nazis are the cool good guys. Like wasn't one of the morality choices in the actual Dragon Age games sometimes torturing and being the bad guy to get info or stop rituals -and without the "ah ha torture never works!" twist?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 20:24
|
|
|
Desiden posted:So I mentioned in the last thread that we'd had some 40kers showing up at our LGS every month or so, despite not carrying GW stuff. Mostly seemed harmless, but now they've started showing up every week. i mean buying online is cheaper and more convenient 
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 20:30
|
|
|
Coolness Averted posted:Yeah the tone is hard to nail you gotta make sure everyone's more on board for space paranoia or if you're going less wacky something like Starship Troopers, rather than the weird sort of legit fascism worship some of the more tone deaf fans of the setting aim for. With stuff like torture or whatnot I think the players and GM should be on the same page and know how stuff works OOCly, especially if you're gonna fudge towards your morality instead of the game's setting. I enjoy the idea of something like Only War, as a means of avoiding this Guardsmen don't have a lot of agency, so if you're guardsmen then you naturally default to kinda the Catch-22 pattern of dumb guys forced into a meat-grinder by their unfathomable superiors, making the best of it PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Aug 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 20:39
|
|
|
Radish posted:Yeah I don't get why you would spend that much effort and then not at least try and get semi-professional voice work. Everyone probably thinks that poo poo is easy and anyone can do it as long as you use your THEATER voice. Even big companies do this. Yesterday I was learning Tableau using their tutorial videos. The woman's voice is just... grating. It was so bad I bitched about it to my friend working there. Turns out it's some random lady from marketing. Why they didn't pay for a professional voice actor is beyond me. I worked with a lot with VO so maybe I'm just biased
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 21:32
|
|
|
Radish posted:I play the Dark Heresy RPG and I like it but you have to be really careful since that game almost encourages you to treat your players like they are a gang of gestapos. I think an important test of a game world is if torturous interrogation is treated as a way to get legitimate information or not. If I'm remembering which game it is correctly, the Dragon Age rpg specifically tells GMs that if a player tortures someone then you are supposed to either have that information be full of holes or be totally wrong since the person didn't actually know anything but just makes something up to get the pain to stop. Dark Heresy treats information gathered this way as accurate. This is the actual text from the book of the Interrogation skill in Dark Heresy: quote:interrogation (WillPoWer) Dark Heresy explicitly says interrogation - which does indeed work - is not torture. If your DH games involve players torturing people, that's a decision you and your GM can make, of course, but it's not the default.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 21:54
|
|
|
Safety Factor posted:Yeah, DZC has no feasible connection to WWII-era Germany. It's just a weirdo somewhere injecting his Nazi worship into an unrelated thing. This is somehow a common thread throughout many hobbies. That's a pretty succinct way of putting it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 21:56
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Dark Heresy explicitly says interrogation - which does indeed work - is not torture. If your DH games involve players torturing people, that's a decision you and your GM can make, of course, but it's not the default. Oh and since last page reminded me of Nazis, wasn't WW2 Germany's most effective interrogator an officer who made every effort to befriend and charm the prisoners he oversaw? Even the one American who managed to resist giving him any information still couldn't resist becoming his friend, and after the war the then-former interrogator remained friends (and kept in touch) with many of his former prisoners. Could've sworn I read that somewhere.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 22:05
|
|
|
I mean, I don't want to whitewash it too much. In dark heresy's skill system, you roll d100 against your character's skill value, and apply bonuses and maluses to that target number based on circumstances: or, in some cases, you make an opposed roll against an opponent's roll, comparing degrees of success. For Interrogation, you are making an opposed check against the informant's Willpower attribute. Here is a table of suggested modifiers; generally, GMs have pretty free reign to apply modifiers, so the book tends to give suggestions rather than hard prescriptions for things like this. quote:INTERROGATION EXAMPLE MODIFIERS So, when interrogating a subject, fear is clearly laid out as an advantage for the interrogator. It follows, then, that interrogations are more effective when they're terrifying. This runs counter to what Xarbala is describing: the real-world, actual study of effective interrogation suggests that one of the most effective tactics is to befriend the subject, offer them lots of sympathy, and convince them that telling you the truth is in their own interest and will earn them benefits or rewards. E.g., the carrot rather than the stick. Dark Heresy's example modifiers don't explicitly suggest a benefit to the interrogator for being friendly and personable. But, this is a dark and grim grimdark setting, so that's hardly surprising. I think the rulebook actually treads a pretty careful line, giving players and GMs leeway to "play it dark" if they want, while not actually encouraging anyone to roleplay a torture scene or forcing players into doing things they'd consider evil in order to be successful in the game. It's also a sci-fi setting, where you can just use brain scans, space drugs, psychics, etc. to extract information from unwilling subjects; and the player characters, who work for the terrifying and brutal Inquisition, would likely have superiors who not only approved of but possibly outright encouraged brutality against anyone even suspected of heresy. So uh, yeah, Dark Heresy doesn't force PCs to use torture, but PCs can totally use torture, and if they have the right sci-fi tools, can reasonably argue for torture being effective.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 22:22
|
|
|
For the record, Inquisitor (a game that was ostensibly a tabletop skirmish game) most certainly did have rules for torture, and torture devices appeared on several lists of purchasable equipment. Frankly I think GW and 40K fans should be pounded a lot harder for what their beloved setting involves.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 22:31
|
|
|
I was just thinking about it because it reminded me that there's a reason Good Cop, Bad Cop exists.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 22:32
|
|
|
Loxbourne posted:For the record, Inquisitor (a game that was ostensibly a tabletop skirmish game) most certainly did have rules for torture, and torture devices appeared on several lists of purchasable equipment. Where were those rules published? They don't appear anywhere in the core rulebook that I can find, and I don't recall anything like that ever appearing in any of the supplements they had in their little magazines.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 22:46
|
|
|
Loxbourne posted:For the record, Inquisitor (a game that was ostensibly a tabletop skirmish game) most certainly did have rules for torture, and torture devices appeared on several lists of purchasable equipment. Nothing in setting compares to the creepiness the fans bring to it. From eye-rolling stuff like tit-marines, to the genuine cry for help stuff like that Imperial guards raping an eldar custom mini/scene an internet dude lovingly crafted.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 22:49
|
|
|
Makes me glad Infinity doesn't have a German group. Though one of the people I know was upset that Haqqislam wasn't all suicide bombers.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 23:29
|
|
|
LordAba posted:Makes me glad Infinity doesn't have a German group. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 23:36
|
|
|
I'm upset it's not about hockey slams
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2016 23:41
|
|
|
LordAba posted:Makes me glad Infinity doesn't have a German group. You should ask Pierzak about Teutonic Knights. E: spelled PZs name correctly
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 00:35
|
|
|
Avenging Dentist posted:Most (good) scenarios for players in 40k put you in the shoes of someone struggling in vain to make things better for humanity, even though you don't quite know what the best way is. That's pretty much the whole hook for Inquisitor. All the various factions think they're making humanity safe, and the really extreme genocidal ones are usually depicted as bad guys. It is, and I think that's fine, but the "fascism is a grim necessity" thing is more common in 40k stuff (when it's not just EMPEROR gently caress YEAH) and is pretty poo poo
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 00:35
|
|
|
Jeb Bush 2012 posted:It is, and I think that's fine, but the "fascism is a grim necessity" thing is more common in 40k stuff (when it's not just EMPEROR gently caress YEAH) and is pretty poo poo I prefer the "fascism seems like a grim necessity because truly changing things for the better is extremely scary and would almost certainly result in a massive death toll during said changes" tone in the better stories because it presents an actual moral conflict(!). But that was rare even when 40k was at its artistic peak.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 00:48
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:This is the actual text from the book of the Interrogation skill in Dark Heresy: 40k has a wargear item specifically used in "Interrogation" which doesn't do any real physical damage but hits all the nerve endings in specifically the right way to cause excruciating pain. The entire Dark Heresy book is written through the lens of the Inquisition and that it's a great noble thing. Horrible torture where you chop off limbs is gauche but causing intense pain through "devises" or psychological break downs is totally ok. There's plenty of ways to torture without leaving marks, just ask the CIA. The book is pretty clear that torture is ok in the setting as long as you are civilized about it. That doesn't mean the Fantasy Flight writers of the Dark Heresy book think water boarding is cool they are just writing for the setting. 40k has lots of fascist themes that it has to juggle because some fans and writers don't get it's supposed to be (or was) critical of those things. I agree that this is something that the DM should be going over with the players beforehand. If the DM doesn't feel torture should always work based on success or that it should work as intended that should be clear. If a player REALLY wants to narrate how he is torturing an NPC then maybe that guy needs a talking to... Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Aug 30, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 00:52
|
|
|
40k also a setting where actual daemonic entities ate conspiring to bring about the downfall of mankind. I'd say that's why it's absolutely vital to differentiate the game world from our own.  presents a world is full of ticking time bombs and terrorist plots. Maybe that world justifies Kiefer Sutherland breaking fingers and maybe it doesn't - But we can have that conversation in the context of the absurd fantasy scenarios presented.Inquisitor proposes a scifi extension of the Jack Bauer scenario: To what degree would witch hunts be justified if witches and demons were real? It's an interesting thought experiment that offers plenty of room to explore morality themes. Unfortunately it's also a subtle point - easily overlooked by creeps, fascists, and the 2012 RNC in their rush to fantasize scenarios where waterboarding is an absolute necessity.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 01:24
|
|
|
PupsOfWar posted:an audience accustomed to Halo and to american MilSF is probably conditioned to accept a good clean Exterminatus more easily than the more baroque and dystopian horrors of the setting It's interesting that you bring up this example specifically. Halo presents a world in which supersoldiers designed to put down colonial rebellion, and made from children kidnapped by the military, accidentally wind up being used to save humanity. Halo's world is presented as morally grey, but never in an overt or bombastic way (at least until 343 Studios were handed the franchise).
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 01:37
|
|
|
moths posted:Inquisitor proposes a scifi extension of the Jack Bauer scenario: To what degree would witch hunts be justified if witches and demons were real? It's an interesting thought experiment that offers plenty of room to explore morality themes. I used to try and sell people on the 40k setting by explaining the key idea of it is imagine all those evangelical preachers talking about how pokemon is going to take your child's soul were actually right. Just imagine the insane cascading results of something like that. The religious fanatics are proven correct and its a genuinely fascinating look at how certain things which are demonstrably evil in the real world would be view very differently. Now everything is poo poo and the things I assumed were clearly and demonstrably evil are things people actively support lol.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 01:38
|
|
|
I can't tell if it's a bigger indictment of GW or its fans that "morally complex inquisitors" are a harder sell than the "Gestapo torture heroes."
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 01:50
|
|
|
Lamprey Cannon posted:It's interesting that you bring up this example specifically. Halo presents a world in which supersoldiers designed to put down colonial rebellion, and made from children kidnapped by the military, accidentally wind up being used to save humanity. Halo's world is presented as morally grey, but never in an overt or bombastic way (at least until 343 Studios were handed the franchise). With Halo the moral ambiguity is sequestered in various tie-in materials, though. Of course, an idle player can always contextualize and wonder how/why something like the Chief came to exist, but the games themselves don't really invite people to think of them as anything other than space opera shootmans adventure. 40k wears its grimness on its sleeve, this being the main distinguishing feature of the brand. The skulls-spikes-blood aesthetic is omnipresent, and inquisitors and trigger-happy commissars show up in more or less every project Games Workshop licenses.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 03:14
|
|
|
Lamprey Cannon posted:It's interesting that you bring up this example specifically. Halo presents a world in which supersoldiers designed to put down colonial rebellion, and made from children kidnapped by the military, accidentally wind up being used to save humanity. Halo's world is presented as morally grey, but never in an overt or bombastic way (at least until 343 Studios were handed the franchise). Also the kidnapped children were replaced by clones with a short lifespan so a bunch of parents had kids go missing, turn up, and die
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 03:31
|
|
|
grassy gnoll posted:You should ask Pierzak about Teutonic Knights.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 15:41
|
|
|
Business Gorillas posted:i mean buying online is cheaper and more convenient They might be aware of the LGS' informal policy about priority for gaming space going to paying customers. The owner's cool with various related hobbies using his gaming space (there's a historicals group that sometimes plays there from time to time, despite the store not carrying any historical lines, for example), and there's a lot of table space so its usually not an issue. But from time to time there'll just be a lot of different groups scheduled at the same time, and its generally understood that priority goes to the warmahordes, x-wing, and magic groups who are the primary customer groups for the store. Given that one game of GW stuff typically takes up at least twice as much space and time as the others, I could at least potentially see a conflict on say a day where both x-wing and warmahordes are doing a tournament or league kickoff.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 15:42
|
|
|
Desiden posted:They might be aware of the LGS' informal policy about priority for gaming space going to paying customers. The owner's cool with various related hobbies using his gaming space (there's a historicals group that sometimes plays there from time to time, despite the store not carrying any historical lines, for example), and there's a lot of table space so its usually not an issue. But from time to time there'll just be a lot of different groups scheduled at the same time, and its generally understood that priority goes to the warmahordes, x-wing, and magic groups who are the primary customer groups for the store. Given that one game of GW stuff typically takes up at least twice as much space and time as the others, I could at least potentially see a conflict on say a day where both x-wing and warmahordes are doing a tournament or league kickoff. there's no conflict. "these guys are playing in an event that they have paid for, we need the space" the end.
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 16:13
|
|
|
Pierzak posted:What about Teutonic Knights? Am I misremembering that it was you that had that story? Where CB was just dumbfounded that German crusaders went over like a lead balloon in their Eastern European territories?
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 17:01
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 20:02 |
|
|
BENGHAZI 2 posted:there's no conflict. "these guys are playing in an event that they have paid for, we need the space" the end. b-b-b-but then i'd have to create conflict and someone would be upset and nerds can't handle that
|
|
#
?
Aug 30, 2016 18:17
|
|
