Crossing the Rubicon - Rip the Band Aid or Water Torture?

[Captain Idaho]

I think GW has hit the problem with advancing the story to drive sales.

 

In days gone past, GW set out the setting and the players relived the story with their own campaigns and games. Things were often about to happen.

 

Now, in this different age where folk need to be spoon fed their imagination (NOT directed at people on the B&C but society at large) we have a situation where the games we play for story is no longer relevant to us because GW is doing that for us.

[Xenith]

 

Is like I said though when you kill off characters it upsets players heavily/emotionally invested in them... you know the bad feelsies and GW wants to avoid these types of situations which is why Eldrad was brought back. It might seem silly but I appreciate that they care.

Said people should be simply told it's a bloody wargame by GW and get over it. It's war. People die. If people aren't actually dying, it becomes very hard to have any sort of compelling narrative to any degree if everybody is functionally invincible.

 

 

At the risk of going off topic, a long time ago 40k was a setting, and most of the battles would have been historical, some great victory or defeat in the character's past.

 

Back on topic, lots of interesting discussion here, and weirdly finding that some frater have the same opinions as me on this at least.

 

I think ideally, I would have liked a primaris character for each chapter released at the same time. No need for a fluff reason - the "mild peril" associated with it becomes a joke when everyone with a name survives. If you need a fluff justification, say that chapter command are undergoing the procedure in stages, in case something does go wrong all that experience isnt lost at once. 

 

Either way, it's a bit different to when GW used to update a codex and release 2-3 characters from that army at once. From that viewpoint, the drip-feeding of new models to armies is something I can't not-like, as it doesnt leave an army out in the cold for as long (hopefully).

 

Thanks for all the constructive discussion so far!

Edited August 7, 2020 by Xenith

[Volt]

I think GW has hit the problem with advancing the story to drive sales.

 

In days gone past, GW set out the setting and the players relived the story with their own campaigns and games. Things were often about to happen.

 

Now, in this different age where folk need to be spoon fed their imagination (NOT directed at people on the B&C but society at large) we have a situation where the games we play for story is no longer relevant to us because GW is doing that for us.

Honestly I would never really care for "self generated lore" because nobody really ever does that. It's just pickup games, and fan fiction is ultimately completely and utterly irrelevant, it doesn't amount to anything and it's why I fell off of my own IA articles. All narrative is and ultimately always was driven by GW, and especially as of recent their campaigns are just a joke because they don't have any reaching consequences. All of the characters make it out OK, the little guy is never actually properly built up, so there's no reason to care about Vigilus. We know neither Calgar or Abaddon will die, so their duel is a completely meaningless slapfight that amounts to nothing. Which of course brings us to the conclusion - there's no point to buy or read GW campaign books in the first place, or any campaign written by them, because you know nothing happens.

[Captain Idaho]

I'm not advocating fan lore, I'm talking about a setting. The scene is set by GW and then each battle we play is ours.

 

The alternative, which GW is finding to it's creative cost (but financially they're doing great) is to keep jumping forward with their own plot every few months, leaving things behind and causing problems like hundreds of years old characters who should be dead, battles where no one dies and threat is nonexistent, weak reasoning why things tie in together.

 

The lore worked perfectly well as a setting. As an organic and constantly moving entity it will be problematic and holes will get bigger and bigger.

[Evil Eye]

I'm not advocating fan lore, I'm talking about a setting. The scene is set by GW and then each battle we play is ours.

 

The alternative, which GW is finding to it's creative cost (but financially they're doing great) is to keep jumping forward with their own plot every few months, leaving things behind and causing problems like hundreds of years old characters who should be dead, battles where no one dies and threat is nonexistent, weak reasoning why things tie in together.

 

The lore worked perfectly well as a setting. As an organic and constantly moving entity it will be problematic and holes will get bigger and bigger.

Exactly this. I've always preferred 40K as a setting to as a story. Stories exist within 40K but 40K in and of itself is not a story. It's just too vast to work as a story, and that's before we even get to the problems of the "Anticlimatic nonlethal final duel" syndrome and the like. GW can't kill off any characters with this approach because they've backed themselves into a corner of "If we kill this character nobody will want to buy them!" forgetting that people are attached to these characters as characters rather than mere playing pieces. It's rather a lot like the attitudes of executives with 80s toy-driven cartoons (remember the Transformers movie killing Optimus Prime because they figured kids would just buy the new toys?). And with the rules and miniatures being geared around the "present" of 40K rather than providing rules that allow for scenarios from any era in the Imperium's long and bloody history, this problem is exacerbated even further.

 

As it stands, there are three potential solutions to the "characters can never die" problem.

>1: Carry on as things are and just don't kill characters. This is obviously not working from a narrative quality perspective, and personally I feel the fluff is suffering for it. The only character actually killed off is Aun'Va, and interestingly enough the fluff around the Ethereals trying to make the rest of the T'au think he's still around is actually pretty good.

>2: Kill off characters and cease supporting them. This doesn't work either, as whilst the fluff might be much better if Marneus actually bites the dust, people are going to be mad if they can't play their favourite character anymore.

>3: IMO the best solution- return to a "setting"/"fictional history" approach, also known as the WHFB approach. Characters can die and indeed do die, but they are still playable, still get model/rules updates, and are still utterly valid to take in an army list. I call it the WHFB approach because a lot of characters from that setting continued to get models and rules long after their canonical deaths; indeed, many were killed off in the stories that introduced them. See Azhag the Slaughterer, who got a very impressive model many years after his demise.

 

To expand on this WHFB approach, one possible solution would be a "40K timeline" supplement book which provides additional rules/guidelines for playing games in particular eras. So for example, "Primaris cannot be used in this era as they hadn't been invented yet" or "Commissar Yarrick is long dead by this point, so should not be used in this era". Again, returning to the "fictional historical" mindset where games don't have to be set in the exact present of 40K.

 

As for pick-up games...well, they're pick-up games. Meticulously crafted scenarios, special rules and adherence to the fluff are unlikely to be major concerns for those games anyway, so ultimately such an approach would have no real impact on them. Plus, if said games had to adhere to current fluff, named characters would have to be invincible, or else Tor Garadon taking one too many brainleech worms would be a massive paradox and would "invalidate" the whole game.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

 

Is like I said though when you kill off characters it upsets players heavily/emotionally invested in them... you know the bad feelsies and GW wants to avoid these types of situations which is why Eldrad was brought back. It might seem silly but I appreciate that they care.

Said people should be simply told it's a bloody wargame by GW and get over it. It's war. People die. If people aren't actually dying, it becomes very hard to have any sort of compelling narrative to any degree if everybody is functionally invincible.

 

.

why don’t you tell them since you’ve obviously have a bugaboo regarding this subject .

[Xenith]

I'm not advocating fan lore, I'm talking about a setting. The scene is set by GW and then each battle we play is ours.

 

The alternative, which GW is finding to it's creative cost (but financially they're doing great) is to keep jumping forward with their own plot every few months, leaving things behind and causing problems like hundreds of years old characters who should be dead, battles where no one dies and threat is nonexistent, weak reasoning why things tie in together.

 

The lore worked perfectly well as a setting. As an organic and constantly moving entity it will be problematic and holes will get bigger and bigger.

 

This is pretty much how I feel on the topic - I do think GW's drip feed is helping them, and these campaign books tie lore to rules, so have something for everyone, but I think they can't, and shouldn't jump too far ahead.

 

I'd have liked a dump of all the characters, but the option to use the old verions too. 

[Squike]

I think, they should have just bought Primaris in as a new pattern armour and new scale but still be regular marines. The Primaris story has really screwed the narrative over, and i get its all a big sales pitch but at the end of the day everyone likes new models, its what we are in this hobby for. If i like a model i will buy it, i have old chaos marines and new chaos marines, i have old oblits, and i have new oblits. because i like the new sculpts and i think they look nicer, i have old terminators too and i want to get new ones at some point because i think the new poses are a lot better. i also have about 20 old berzerkers built, and another 2 box's unbuilt, but i would buy new berzerkers the moment they are released. yeah sure some people might not have bought them, if they were just new marine sculpts, but at the end of the day a majority of people are in this hobby because they like the models and the aspects that go with it, and tournament players who bought primaris to chase the meta, will buy whatever is good to chase the meta, whether its old or new, so GW still gets their money.

 

I also agree that they should be killing off characters, it doesn't mean that the model has to disappear, it just makes the fluff mean something. Calgar should have died facing Abaddon. it doesn't mean his model has to disappear, it just means any games with him would be set before this time. it has been like this before as stated previously in this thread with characters that have got models after the introduction and simultaneous death in the lore. 

 

I don't mind some characters crossing the Rubricon but i don't think it should be for all of them and i do think they need to put work into imagining new primaris characters as well. i also think that if they are going to carry on with primaris releases they need to either alternate with or do it alongside other factions more, as many people from other factions are getting disheartened by all the attention marines are recieving at the detriment to the rest of us. And people who say marines are the biggest sellers, yeah that maybe true but i bet that a load of people have recently started a new necron force as they got some really cool new models, so if the other factions keep getting love they will also sell more and encourage players to branch out to other factions as they enjoy the new models.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Squike