Extra Punctuation: Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

[GonzoGamer]

I have to agree the 40K universe is completely retarded, this coming from someone who enjoyed playing the tabletop game.

Yea.
That's always been a big draw for me. And the more retarded it got, the more I enjoy it: like political rhetoric - damn those goofy idiots give me a chuckle. The recent armies of anime aliens, space zombies, and robotic space zombies are absurdly delicious.

And I don't know what he's talking about, my friends and I have come up with really bizarre stories for our campaigns. In fact, I see little difference between 40K and D&D except one doesn't require you to sculpt & paint stuff...but you can.
The only thing that's bothered me about 40k is that the people who run it are running it into the ground. Their recent cash grabbing schemes are almost as transparent as those practiced by the video game industry of late.

As for the new game, I tried the demo and wasn't too impressed. I'm still going to rent it but I'm not really expecting much.

Also, what's this about Yhatzee sticking a childs face in his what now?

 

[Waaghpowa]

What people seem to forget is that 40K originates from the same British punk sci-fi mentality that gave us Judge Dredd - it's intentionally ridiculously over the top because it's meant to be satire, and taking it at face value as a love letter to militarism and fascism is to completely miss the point.

Of course, part of the problem is that more and more these days the background is taken at face value, by writers and players alike. That can be done well (e.g. Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series) or very very badly indeed (e.g. every Space Marine fanwank power fantasy that spews out of Matt Ward's pen...)

But the original background was tongue-in-cheek, to say the least. Just to give one example - Orks are basically soccer hooligans with green skin and big gunz... and buggies. Red buggies of course, 'cos as everyone knows, red wunz go fasta.

Give this guy a medal for hitting the nail on the head.

 

[Frankster]

Okay, this confused me. How are his views wrong?

Actually it's not so much wrong as just..ignorant, that is a far better word.

Other posters here have rebutted some of his points, such as the glorification of war vs horrors of war or that sm are meant to be unemotional.

The parts where he just says he doesnt like it, bashing one hobby then praising another, is not something that is "wrong" and is why "ignorant" is better, indeed on the tg thread one of the posters took yahtzees paragraph and replaced 40k with d'n'd and it fitted perfectly:

"You can do that with any activity.

Dungeons and dragons always seemed to me like some massively overdesigned elaboration of make believe with an incredibly generic setting. Which existed primarily to remove all the money from your bank account and replace it with rule books, side stories, and other such nonsense. But you could do anything! For days on end! That's what we like! It's all the fun of a playing pretend without having to be associated with five-year-olds!"

I'm sure as a d'n'd fan you'd have a few words to say about such a description
By saying yahtzees scant opinions are yours, you agree to share such a reductionist point of view and the thing about reductionist views is that they ain't "wrong" but they fail to see the larger picture, so 40k fans can rightfully say yahtzee is "wrong" in his depiction of the 40k verse and how he interprets it.

But as you say you've chatted to 40k players before, I imagine the arguments you would have if you bothered to write a tl dr about it (you don't, that's why you would rather link ppl to yahtzees article) would likely be more accurate then yahtzees.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Space Marines do lots of boarding action too, I think that's what he was getting at. They even have power armor that's best for boarding action (Tactical Dreadnought/Terminator armor)

They also make landing craft assaults from space.

Trust people to forget the original meaning of the word marine.

..and in went massive injections of GRIMDARK and brooding. And pointing. And shouting. And being bald (unless you're an ork or an Eldar, and then for some reason you have to have an enormous topknot).

I'm not sure I really understand.

If you mean the gothic aesthetic (both in terms of visual design and the generally gloomy vibe that this is the last days of the human race). Those were always there, in fact the main thing we can credit 40k for is the idea of introducing 'dark' gothic elements into (mainstream - let's clarify here) science fiction. If you mean that everyone is angry and shouts a lot, I'm not entirely sure that's true to the extent that there wasn't a great focus on individual characters back in rogue trader, so for all we knew they were even angrier and shoutier.

What seems to have happened as far as I can see is that the aesthetic has aimed towards a more 'realistic' vibe, which it's actually pulled back from recently quite hard (the new models and painting style is a lot more cartoony than when I used to play, probably as the general player base has become younger.)

Yes, there is some cognitive dissonance about 80s-metal-style skulls combined with a pseudo-'realistic' military aesthetic, but I dunno.. it's just part of 40k's thing, I guess.

And you can't make your hover tanks from shampoo bottles any more, because GW offers a shiny plastic kit for $50US and your opponent would get mighty cross if they thought you didn't take the game seriously enough to buy the correct models.

Do you like the idea of playing in a tournament or in store with a bunch of kids?

Thought not.

Knock yourself out with the shampoo bottles.

 

[Deathninja19]

It is silly but that was the point, look at the old source books it's just old fashioned English humour. But eh I can see why he dislikes it, I don't really like modern 40k either.

 

[blackcherry]

The entire 40K universe started as 'fantasy in space' with dollops of satire. Over the years, newer writers have taken it more and more seriously to the point that such monumental stupidity is taken super seriously. Its a problem being exacerbated by more and more writers getting their hands on the universe and not quite understanding it.

 

[Da Orky Man]

I've always found Warhammer (Fantasy and 40K) to be a little...underwhelming.

It's basically a "darker" DnD setting where any faction is justified in going into all-out war with any other faction. It's a setting where the lore is meant to serve the game mechanics. And while that's not inherently a bad thing, there are those of us who enjoy the story side of things more. For people in that camp, it is preferable when the mechanics are made to serve the story progression, or better yet, the story and the mechanics develop symbiotically.

I think you're forgetting the dozens of books wriiten in the 40k universe. Sure, most are simple bloodfests, but there are a few gems. Try reading "The Last Chrurch". It'll surprise you.
Although I have an Eldar army, I don't tend to game mich. i'm much more into the background, the lore of the whole setting. It makes a nice break to the cleanliness of Star Trek/Wars.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

This is what happens when you start out with a product designed for adults wanting to play around like kids and over the years it mutates into a product designed for kids who want to be all grown up and serious.

Try reading "The Last Church". It'll surprise you.

That's a good one.

This brings me to a point about 40K I want to make. I've always found their short stories to be the best, even more so when they forget about the setting at large and write short sci-fi stories set in the 40K universe but that are free to do something a bit different, show us something about the place away from the battlefield, especially the early ones. That's why I felt 40K had so much potential early on, it was an very loosely defined setting with wide ranging possibilities that could have been filled with interesting little scifi shorts, but instead we got what we have now.

Also it is unfortunate that the 13 year old fanboy version of 40K is what persists in a lot of peoples minds rather than the more intelligent interpretations of the older fans.

In fact this guy explains the previous sentence a lot better:

40K is a cautionary tale and a bloody fascinating setting with depths that aren't readily apparent if you're only looking at the wargame or the superficial impressions people are happy to spread about online. Settings like Gears of War are stupid macho bullshit action romps with no substance at all beyond being a stupid macho bullshit action romp - Space Marine and the Warhammer 40,000 setting itself only look like one of those, and if you're 14 (chronologically or mentally), that superficial impression of the universe based on how it contains power-armored giants with chainsaw swords is enough for you to like it.

Those of you out there who feel you have to deride the setting based on its appeal to the 14-year old demographic (perhaps in an effort to prove that you are certainly not a mental 14 year old, no sirree!) are only doing yourselves and everyone else who listens to you a disservice, and also missing the point, just like Yahtzee did in this article. There's no rule that says you have to like the 40K setting but for once I'd love to see somebody who doesn't like it (and then writes an article explaining why) who clearly knows what the hell they're talking about.

So far, I've only ever seen people attack a straw man stand-in for the setting though.

 

[House_Vet]

It's all just unrealistic bull that only the most juvenile middle-schooler would find engaging.

Seriously? Do you only play games that have a 90% congruence to reality or something? I actually rather enjoy the biblical parallels implicit in the Horus Heresy, the sheer glorious bombast of all of it, and the Eldar... Love them pointy-ears =)

 

[Marik Bentusi]

My knowledge about the 40k verse consists pretty much of the TV Tropes High Octane Nightmare Fuel page, this game's demo and bits I found floating around the net - but even I have to seriously question his judgement here.

Warhammer 40k is funny because everything is extreme. It's like cartoon slapstick under the thin disguise of a realistic setting. Everything is centered around violence, everything is up to eleven, and that it takes itself so super-serious is only adding to the narm.
It's like Batman. The dark mysterious Badass Normal who dresses like a frikkin bat (including cape, silly looking cowl and a skintight bodysuit), solves all problems by punching stuff until information, blood or coins come out, and his real superpower is money/gadgets that can do tons of stuff other people need a bath in chemicals and radiations for.

Didn't Yahtzee at one say himself he finds it adorable how Batman expects others to take himself serious? This is exactly the same thing for me. It's goofy narm. Not my main dish, but fun entertainment from time to time. It's not like Gears that isn't extreme enough to pass as narm, but still expects to be taken serious.

If he wants games for comparison, I'd say Mad World and Painkiller. Tho I can't exactly say the Space Marine game conveyed the extremeness and magnitude and size of the original setting.

(the actual gameplay grew repetitive quickly tho, even in the demo)

 

[rayen020]

A marine, as a military term, is a type of soldier who specializes ship to ship combat and amphibious or trans-terrain warfare. The US Marines are naval infantry, and in many countries marine (in the military sense) translates almost exactly to that. The term space is applied to the front to note that they are a space going marine, also seen in spaceship, space shuttle, space capsule. They are Marines in that they work both on ships and land and can battle equally effectively on either of them.

Although I agree with what you say, it still isn't nearly their definition. All I've seen of them is standing in the field/trees/mud and shooting from heavy weaponry/ripping with swords/bashing with charisma. The Guards are more suited to be called "space marines" as far as I can tell. The marines themselves are more of a paratrooper kind. Oh, right! Space Troopers! That's what I'd call them. Although there are already certain Starship Troopers, but that's beyond the case.

yeah and that is kinda of a problem with the image of the game and universe. If you actually go into the lore you find out space marines have there own space faring ships that, per definition, specialize in boarding and captures and establishing beachheads for planetary invasions. There are two spinoff games made by the same company called battlefleet gothic, thats about space ship combat, and epic 40K which instead of squad level decisions you're making company level decisions, and in those games the "marine" part of space marines becomes alot more apparent.

 

[Iron Lightning]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

No, I know precisely what it means. Maybe I didn't pick the right words. At what time do we see that it is a satire? Just because some of you want to believe it is? Or there was some interview where developers said this? I mean, I could say that Tetris is a satire on modern society, and even give some insight, but it would still be my opinion and not the fact.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Warhammer 40k is a satire of imperialism. The Imperium faces a constant struggle for the preservation of its realm of a million worlds. The Imperium's stretched armies lose worlds every day and most of their victories are so costly that more lives would've been saved by not bothering to fight. The bureaucracy that runs the Imperium is so bloated that pleas for aid won't get a response for centuries and whole planets slip into anarchy by merely being forgotten. Slowly abut surely, the whole empire is collapsing under its own weight. If the Imperium would just let itself shrink to only a few hundred worlds its great armies could
protect every world nearly effortlessly and its militaristic fascism would be unnecessary. More specifically it's a satire of the old British Empire and the self-defeating American military industrial complex.

Warhammer 40k is a satire of warfare. Pretty much every side fights with absolute certainty that they're in the right when, in reality, no one is fully in the right. The Imperium of Man is a fascist state so concerned with protecting itself that it sacrifices its own humanity (literally, in the case of the Space Marines, who are effectively a separate species.) The Eldar are willing to destroy an entire star system to save one Eldar life. The Tau are space communists who fail to realize that a society is the sum of its component individuals. The Orks just want to fight because it's really fun (which is, sadly, the best reason for going to war out of any of the races.) Even the Chaos Space Marines have a want for freedom that puts them in the moral grey area. The Tyranids and the Necrons are far too alien for anyone to fully grasp their true motivations. The point is that each side that cares for morality sees their conflicts as battles between the righteous and the vile while the reality is that no one is righteous and no one is vile.

Warhammer 40k is a satire of religion as this poster explains:

From what I understand the Emperor was basically a magic superpowered space Jesus who wanted to protect humanity and teach them the value of science and truth. Then he gets betrayed by his closest, pretty much dies, and then gets worshipped as a god by the masses as a corrupt mashup of the medieval catholic church, communism and fascism runs the machinery: exactly the way he didn't want stuff to end up.
It's basically a Bible satire as far as I'm concerned. A Bible satire with chainswords, jetpacks and orcs.

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Cynical Brit actually liked that piece of crap... No idea why, the concept had been both overdone and overcooked. (Judging that particular game only, not the other games in the Wh40k universe).

 

[rda_Highlander]

Ask and ye shall receive.

Thanks for an in-depth analisys, though what I meant was, is there any proof from its creators as to its satirical nature. But someone said that it was in first two editions, so I guess it counts.

 

[BoTTeNBReKeR]

It seems to me like Yahtzee has completely missed the point of 40K.

At first glance 40K might seem a bit shallow and juvenile with it's "there is only war!", yet if you read into the lore a bit more, you will find out that it's actually quite a deep story. 40K does not depict war as we know it, it's not about land, religion, resources or any of that, it all comes down to one giant struggle for the survival of mankind.

Everyone pays the price of survival by contributing their lives to the Imperium and the war-effort. Wether it's being enlisted as a guardsmen, working in factories to supply the tools to wage war or perhaps being chosen to become a Space Marine, who give up their humanity in order to become basically nothing more than a machine who's only job is to wage war against the enemies of the Imperium of Man.

40K does not glorify war, in fact, it more or less poses the question of "how far would humanity go in order to survive?"

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

I'm a big reader of the books the games workshop releases and the stories are anything but childish.

Gaunts Ghosts books are my favourite because they tell a human story in a universe of superhuman death machines and unrelenting aliens.

I usualy don't like humans in any form of media as I am one and they are very predictable but throw them in a unfamiliar setting and bam interesting 3 dimensional characters who go through development!...woosh! gritty combat that seems like an episode of Sharpe from the future...shazam! a mature narrative.

Believe me I love the figures and enjoy painting them until I got two brothers and a sister and now they aren't safe here. The expanded universe allows me to still expess my passion for the universe even in my (supposedly) more mature 18th year of living.

 

[Princess Rose]

The parts where he just says he doesnt like it, bashing one hobby then praising another, is not something that is "wrong" and is why "ignorant" is better, indeed on the tg thread one of the posters took yahtzees paragraph and replaced 40k with d'n'd and it fitted perfectly:

I would fault that about one thing - the beauty of D&D is (unless the players choose otherwise) the lack of a setting. You can take D&D and run a game set in Tolkeinverse 107, or you can run a game in 1400s France, or in 1800s England, or Ancient Greece, or in your favorite fantasy novel, or in the future - I ran a Mass Effect game using D&D rules that was quite successful.

The actual "setting" for D&D is generic - absolutely so. And it's quite sucky too. Even some of the more "interesting" settings are pretty generic - which is why I usually like to play in something a little more original. Which I can do in D&D without trouble - it's designed to be played that way. 40K is not designed to be played that way.

As to the bank-account bit, 4E certainly tries that (as did 3.5 to a slightly lesser extent) which is why I switched to Pathfinder, which is Free to Play using the PRD on the publisher's website. Or you can buy a very small number of books (compared to 4E) and have the ease of a real book to look things up in rather than an online database. But I digress...

To actually play 40K, you need to invest hundreds of dollars in an army. I've seen friends drop ridiculous amounts of money on a very small number of miniatures. To play D&D, you need a piece of paper and an internet connection (to the PRD or an SRD of your choice). So while you CAN drop huge sums (and I've spent a fair amount on D&D myself) you don't have to the way you do with 40K (or indeed any true war-gaming system).

So while you could certainly plug D&D info into Yahtzee's words, you would be incorrect (or only partly correct) about every point.

But as you say you've chatted to 40k players before, I imagine the arguments you would have if you bothered to write a tl dr about it (you don't, that's why you would rather link ppl to yahtzees article) would likely be more accurate then yahtzees.

Actually, my biggest complaint about 40K is that it stifles creativity.

Hear me out.

I've been brow-beaten into participating in a few Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader games with my 40K friends. Always, I sat down to create a character, and my first thought was "I want to play one of those Space Elves - that sounds cool, like Crest of the Stars".

The GM said "NO! Are you insane?!" And I was like "... why would wanting to be a space elf be insane?" Because, apparently, everyone would want to kill me.

My only option was to be an "Inquisitor" - someone who goes around killing people who don't worship the Emperor. I could be any class I wanted, but I had to be human, and I had to hate everyone who didn't love the Emperor.

So I said, okay, if that's the way you want to be, I want to be the happiest, most optimistic person in the universe. My character is a do-gooder. A paladin with a soft-spot for the down-trodden. And can I have pink armor please?

I spent that whole game talking about how wonderful it was to be alive and help people, while the rest of the party Grim-Darked at me. And I chopped up monsters with a Chain Sword.

And I was BORED OUT OF MY MIND. Even my attempts to take the piss out of the game didn't get me anywhere. I was still playing out the same exact stereotypical storyline. It literally didn't matter how outlandish I was - the universe was going to plug away as pointlessly and dully no matter what I did.

Rogue Trader sounded better... and I talked my GM into letting me play a space elf. It still didn't help. The captain occasionally used me to frighten the natives, but aside from that it might as well have been the same game, but with the word Emperor replaced by Profit Factor.

I think it's because the Game and the Campaign Setting are intrinsically linked. You can't take your Warhammer 40K minis and decide you're going to run a Mass Effect game (with Orks as Krogan perhaps?). The rules do not allow for that.

40K could exist as just a rules set - like Chess, in Yahtzee's example - and it would be largely unaffected. It would still be a great game for the people who like that sort of thing.

One of the reasons I like D&D is because it is just a set of rules that you can apply to anything. In fact, D&D is specifically designed to be used in different settings - or one you make up yourself.

So, I can love D&D and hate Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc - and that's okay, because D&D understands that such a possibility exists. I can use the rules to play a Xena: Warrior Princess game, if that's what floats my boat. Or make up my own world.

40K says you WILL USE OUR SETTING and crams it down my throat. And I can't stand that.

Because, really, it IS a masculine power fantasy. There's nothing wrong with that - except that I have no interest in masculine power fantasies.

Anyway... yeah, that really was tl:dr wasn't it? ^^;; See, this is why it's easier to link to Yahtzee ranting about the bad writing. It isn't so much that the writing itself that's the problem, it's that you can't escape it the way you can with, say, the awful Forgotten Realms stuff. I hate FR too, but I never have to deal with it because D&D lets me ignore FR entirely if I want to.

 

[plugav]

Cool. FYI, wasn't knocking that Warhammer didn't have story or anything. I was just saying I agreed with his point about D&D and that's it.

Yes, I got that. And, just to be clear, I didn't mean the same Warhammer the article was about. Not exactly. I meant this Warhammer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_Roleplay].

As for your thoughts on promoting combat-oriented play, it really depends on what version and what books you look at. If you do 3.5 and have a library of digital copies of all a lot of the books, it feels more like a story-telling roleplay experience. If you have 4.0 at all, then it is going to feel more combat oriented. Which is why I have not bothered trying to learn 4.0 yet aside from just not caring enough.

I'm playing 3.5 now and I know the potential for great storytelling is there. Perhaps even "combat-oriented play" is not the right phrase... "Rules-oriented" maybe?

Because for me the D&D rules get in the way of immersion. My character is not a "wizard 3/cleric 3/true necromancer 6," he's a human being. Then there's choosing feats, managing class feats, calculating abilities, memorising spells... All that complexity may be welcome when I want to create a character that's mechanically effective, but unwelcome when I want to make them... well, a character.

In Warhammer FRP, on the other hand, what you are on the character sheet is exactly what you are in the world. Your mercenary captain, for instance, is not a 6th level warrior, he's just that - a mercenary captain. And he may not have the ability to cleave his enemy in two once a day, but he can hit them real hard any time he wants. Of course, I am not entirely objective about the system, because it's the first one I've ever played. And I do realise D&D is more flexible thanks to not being tied to a specific setting.

Wow, I just took this waaay off topic, I better end it now.

 

[6SteW6]

The day the make a game about the Catachan instead of these retarded space marines is the day I'll play a 40k videogame. Until that day I will continue to play Warhammer 40k Final Liberation! Seriously there was nothing more awesome than commanding an army full of Rambo's!

Also I loved D&D and Vampire the Masquerade growing up, does this make me a contradiction?!

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I has always bothered me that the 40k universe is essentially a massive fascist theocracy where any sort of departure from the dogma of the state is eliminated with extreme prejudice.

There's no one to side with. Space Marines are battle-crazed fanatics. Chaos is hell. Orks are well... orks. Tyranids are insectoid monsters. Eldar would exterminate mankind without a second thought if they could. Tau are space communists. Imperial Guard are part of the aforementioned fascist theocratic space empire. Cultists are either alien or chaos mad. Necrons are space-undead-robot-gods or some shit.

I always thought the emperor should be more like a space-pope. Then there could be multiple human kingdoms/federations/confederacies/compacts.

But no, any difference will be purged by a bunch of insane fanatical jihadist. Bah.

You ARE aware that the Emperor is Incapacitated and on life support right? He can't really do much.