Space Marines: They're becoming wimpier with each generation (Now with added ORK!)
- Thread starter Kadamon
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True to the book or not, the movie is fucking hilarious.Specter_ said:That would be cheatingAnd I want them to realize what a big pile of bullshit that crappy movie is.
I believe that taking an RP situation that's about authority, opportunity and dark necessity and adding tokens cheapens and codifies something that shouldn't be. Inquisitors have to do little paperwork or book-keeping in the event of an Exterminatus - they order it and it's usually done. Exterminatus has a side that the Inquisitor must 'game', but only in a RL sense that would just be done better by RP - marshalling the resources on time and in the right place, getting the ship captain to do his job if he's somewhat reluctant for whatever reason, justifying it so that any investigation won't wind him up before an Inquisitorial tribunal. I really don't see anything there that needs the 'formalising' of tokens, die (except maybe some diplomacy checks, but I'm coming to despise those more and more), or other props.Alex_P said:I've got absolutely no problem with representing favors as tokens or with rolling to see if you can requisition a piece of equipment, if it fits with the context of the game (in a game about members of the military and/or the weird 40k space-church, using some kind of specialized rules for getting gear from your organization -- whether through rolls or static numbers -- would make a lot more sense to me than buying stuff does).Saskwach said:
The difference is somewhat irrelevant to me.Saskwach said:
-- Alex
"Play procedures" seems so loose in meaning as to be worthless. Everything is a 'play procedure' apparently - what I'm arguing is that using a system for what can be done in our imaginations is like putting numbers to an RP romance. It doesn't matter that it's a 'play procedure' or 'thing you do in play to figure out whether your intended action works (ie, anything you might do in game)'; it matters that it's using numbers for what doesn't need them, turning calling in favours to blow up a planet into accounting.
The point is that Inquisitors manage this all with talk and authority, both of which exist in RP already. Why complicate and codify something that's much cooler to RP?
You never actually "need" rules in an RPG. Not for buying things, not for how strong a character is, not for laser wounds to the chest, not for anything. Rules are helpful but not necessary.Saskwach said:
The only rules that turn things into "accounting" are bad rules.
-- Alex
The 40k universe is fiction. It's OUR narrative. The authors are writing it based on the tropes or OUR culture. WE are reading it.Wyatt said:
"What if the enemy is, like, Satan?" has been done to death. It's all over our stories of war. Warriors fighting Satan are as lame as video-game characters fighting a bunch of snarling cookie-cutter clone monsters (yes, I'm aware that I just slammed almost every video game).
-- Alex
See, we're talking from two different directions: I prefer rules to be used only where an accurate and objective facsimile can't be RPed without them. Fighting which reflects a character's ability, not just player desire, can't really be done fairly without some kind of mechanism - dice. Talking, though, and diplomacy, can be done without rules - and thus it doesn't need them. Any rules for such an act need a bloody good reason to be there, and for Exterminatus there are none. The act of dialing in the destruction of a whole planet is much cooler when it was you, not the numbers on your sheet, that got the captain of Pharsallus to divert from the Damocles Gulf crusade and glass the joint. Tokens or dice do not match that sense of excitement or achievement.Alex_P said:
One of the few steps in the process of calling an Exterminatus in which I would accept rules is some kind of random generator which would allow a DM to say: "*rolls dice* Yes, there's an Exterminatus capable Imperial Navy ship within the area; it's *rolls dice* two weeks away, though." And RP would progress from there.
It's true that rules aren't actually necessary for anything in RP, but a game without them wouldn't be a game since there are no rules to arbitrate the elements that should be somewhat out of the players' control. Sending that communique; talking the captain into diverting his ship; justifying your actions to any investigations (but not whether the justification is accepted - but that's a DM's call - again, no rules required) - that would all be within a players' control. Whether his character can make the shot shouldn't be, since of course he'd claim that he blew up the Land Raider with his bolt pistol. That's why combat needs have an element of accounting: otherwise it's wish fulfillment and/or arbitrary calls.
In other words, I dislike rules for what could be fairly and accurately dealt with via RP by DM and his players.
I hate to tell you this, but the Space Marines, unlike Marcus, are powered by quite a bit more than mere testosterone. The holy might of the Emperor may have something to do with it. So maybe Marcus could get a few shots in and buzz through an Ultramarine's armor with his lancer. The Ultramarine would then pull out a bolter rifle, fill Marcus with several dozen rocket-propelled grenades, and then, for the extra overkill bonus, grind whatever was left down to a squishy pulp with a seven-foot chainsword. In a straight fight between Dom or Marcus and any one of the Space Marines, the former would get beat down so hard you'd have to get a mining crew together to find the bodies.ToonLink said:Marcus Fenix = More of a Badass than you will ever grow to be.
Now, in all fairness, it's probably safe to say that Warhammer 40000 is the epitome of everything, because just about everything happens in the 40k universe and it happens in the most extreme way possible. Every Space Marine is well over eight feet tall and more than a century old, the oldest Orks grow to the size of a house and Ork vehicles move faster when painted red, there's a light-years wide portal to hell right in the middle of everything through which the Legions of Chaos regularly try to kill everything, there are bug swarms gigajillions strong that eat every ounce of biomass on a planet then suck up the atmosphere and drink the ocean, leaving a lifeless rock, etc. etc. Really, just about everything in 40k is maxed out some way or another. So it's perfectly fair that a little devolving was done.
Oh yeah, and Tolkien invented Orcs, and they were a hell of a lot closer to the "pathetic" Orcs than the raging Cockney-accented mad scientist terrors found in 40k. SO the Orcs really followed two conceptual evolutionary paths: one that was semi-badass and the other which was the extremity of badass.
Double oh yeah, 40k didn't come out in '82, it was '87, making the space marines in Aliens the "first" space marines. So once again, 40k was the anomaly, making its Space Marines able to rip open tanks with their bare hands while the regular space marines continued on in fiction as semi-badass relatively normal humans.
So there you have it, my thoughts on the matter.
all true, cant argue with anything here, i can only add that its written from OUR point of view THEN. the humans in the 40K universe arent the humans of today any more than the humans in acient Sumerians are the same as the humans of today. hell they arent thye humans of today any more than the humans of the 1500s are the same as we are.Alex_P said:
think for a moment how much the world has changed in the last 100 years alone, now factor in that change over the next 40 THOUSAND years. too my way of thinking the humans then havent change ENOUGH.
i cant speak to your point about 'what if the enemy was like satan' issue. its obvious to me that any story about war, the ULTIMATE war is between god and satan in any form. the names for these opposing forces might change but in any story about war there is allways an ultimate good and an ultimate evil. where the writer chooses too put 'humans' on that spectrum is what makes the story interesting. in the 40K universe humans in general are someplace close to the god side, but the space marines are the angel's of gods own army.
not sure why you have a problem with this, you cant talk about war without establishing some kind of a moral spectrum to create the fabric of what the war is about to begin with. in other words, what are they fighting for or about? all wars are about ideals when you get right down too it. even OUR so call 'wars for oil' are about securing the resources we need to maintain our superior society (from our point of view) wich is nothijng more than an idea. 40K just cuts through the shit and says lookit this is what they are fighting about, instead of giving a long list of reasons that really mean nothing they simply say they are fighting for god against satan. god may be called the emperor and satan may be chaos but its still the same opposing point on our spectrum that all war is fought over in one way or another.
funny thing is most people are cynical about the 40K universe and snicker about how stupid those humans are to belive they are fighting for god, and take great pains to point out how futile that is. no one REALLY fights for god since god isnt real. i on the other hand belive that God IS real, and i can slip right into the universe where this is true and enjoy it without all the snark or the superior look down my nose cynicalness cropping up. in short i dont fight with the fiction i can simply set back and enojoy it as it was ment to be.
your problem seems to be alex that you dont belive that the entire spectrum of human affairs is on a line between some ultimate good and an ultimate evil. i dont blame you, we have never SEEN an example of either really. i belive in Jesus with all my heart but ive never SEEN him, i know satan is in this world corrupting it but ive never seen HIM either. but then again i dont see alot of things that have a real and instiant effect on my life, such as gravity and air ive never seen heat either for that matter, or sound. i dont have to SEE these things to be aware of them just as i dont need to see god or satan to be aware of that spectum ive mentioned. it exists and wether or not you belive in a real god and a real satan or you are more comfortable using other words to frame the concept thats up too you but the basic point remains.
and that point is that ALL storys about human conflict of any kind exists between these two pole's i just enjoy storys that cut out all the nonsence and gets right down to bedrock and says our heros are fighting for god and our enemys are fighting for satan. all other kinds of storys are just long winded gilding of the lilly with about 4 million words used to say this is a story about a fight between 'good' and 'evil' and we are 'good'.
wats with all the fighting? warhammer 40k is ment to be fun. Not realistic FUN. And as far as im concerned it is pretty realistic in accounts of how much you have to think about. They are all cool! If u thing chaos look cool fine, u like tau and object that they look better, who cares! As long as its fun its all good.