Warhammer 40K's story, how is it even remotely appealing?

[Starke]

I'm really not even going to give a huge try at this but Warhammer 40k IS childish but its fun with how over the top violent it is! I'm sorry but you can keep you'r big boy pants on if you want but I enjoy just of "give me a fucking sword that a chainsaw and a large group of orcs to go fuck up!" Hell you want a game that's even more like that? I played Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels when I had a PS1 and it is the same type of game and story. If you wanted a happy go lucky story well too bad Warhammer is not a friendly universe and it has a mass amount of fans.

And I think that's fair, it just strikes me as odd that people in this thread continue to insist that "No really, the Warhammer story is totally compelling!"

I'd say it's a matter of taste, but, honestly, it's both. It's got a stupidly childish veneer on the surface, and if that's all you're looking for, you'll find it. But, when you start digging there's some surprising sophistication buried under the surface.

Now, there's a legitimate argument to be made that 40k's sophistication isn't really intended by games workshop, it's either the product of a lot of people who write for The Black Library, or a byproduct of simply layering more and more groups into a setting until you create a facsimile of a plausible and complex setting.

But, either way, there has been some pretty compelling work to come out of the setting, and it is a remarkably detailed playground to drop into, even if it is, on the surface, childish as hell.

 

[Jigoku-Aisatsu]

I think I understand the OP's sentiment and what he was trying to say. Let me explain....

Warhammer fans take their game SO seriously, and are SO absorbed in it that it can be a bit annoying. Warhammer is also one of the chest-beating, ego thumping, I-post-regularly-on-spacebattles.com type of universes. You won't have to look hard to find some fanboy going ape-**** over their game, how awesome it is, how much you suck, and how insert alien race here is SOOOOOOOOO AWESOME!

But the thing is to any observer it ranks as one of the most puerile and childish settings that you can find.

-Yes, I know the story has to be structured in a way to set the stage for constant small battles in an ever unfolding universe.

-Yes, I know it's self satirical and tries to cram every science fiction trope into it's overstuffed seams.

But Warhammer fans take it SO seriously and are so absorbed that to the rest of us it just seems painfully childish!

-No, that doesn't mean I want to have sex with other men just because I don't like things you find awesome and tuff! (GRRRR SPACE MARINES!)

-No, I don't play with the girls at recess and cry when someone pushes me. I just find Warhammer to be painfully childish.

Sometimes it's like the men of our generation (and I do mean MEN, most Warhammer fans are grown adults) are stuck in adolescence.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I'm really not even going to give a huge try at this but Warhammer 40k IS childish but its fun with how over the top violent it is! I'm sorry but you can keep you'r big boy pants on if you want but I enjoy just of "give me a fucking sword that a chainsaw and a large group of orcs to go fuck up!" Hell you want a game that's even more like that? I played Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels when I had a PS1 and it is the same type of game and story. If you wanted a happy go lucky story well too bad Warhammer is not a friendly universe and it has a mass amount of fans.

And I think that's fair, it just strikes me as odd that people in this thread continue to insist that "No really, the Warhammer story is totally compelling!"

Well Tarantino movies can still be seen as compelling storytelling despite their childish ultra-violence and inane pop culture conversations. Childish and compelling aren't mutually exclusive, look at Shrek, or Toy Story 3. A universe can poke fun at itself while still delivering great compelling narratives and interesting themes, look at the TV series Scrubs, one second JD is chasing the janitor around a slapstick obstacle course, the next scene he's diagnosing a child with cancer. There are hundreds of examples from all forms of media of comedic or childish productions that still work on higher levels, and can be compelling in other more adult ways.

The 40k universe is highly stylised, the characteristics of models are emphasised to the point of absurdity, almost everyone is in some way an insane psychopath (or in all ways) the background story takes every sci-fi trope it can and ramps it up to 11, you like Batman? It has thousands of them. You like vampires? Again there's a legion of them. You like parasitic aliens, unstoppable killer robots, space elves or demons, there are entire armies of all of these, fighting each other, all of the time, and that in itself is compelling in it's fine details as a highly crafted universe that just provides more information on everything the deeper you scratch.

However the same universe has had mature writers take these over the top settings and create more adult material with them: Introducing characters with philosophical struggles relating to coping with the world around them, physical problems, constant threat and danger, and it explores what it would be like to live (and die) in such a hostile universe.

It's childish, yes. It's also serious. Those things aren'y mutually exclusive, and if you think that being one thing automatically destroys an ability to be the other, well then...

Spoiler

[HEADING=1]You're wrong.[/HEADING]

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Also it helps that I <3 science fiction.

The trouble with that as a justification for liking 40k is that it lets very little science into the fiction. Or even much logic.

For example, the entire universe revolves around close order combat. In 38,000 years in the future with advances in armor, weapons and the means to deliver both to battlefields around the world and what do we get? Combat at ranges of less than 100 yards. What makes this insane is that there is literally no reason for combat to play out like this in most campaign settings. Sure, the various city and space hulk settings sort of force the close combat aspect but what is it about bolters that makes them useless beyond about 60 yards? Do the rounds just rattle down the barrel? Are all spaces marines secretly suffering from palsy?

As far as the science part goes, the Warhammer ethos seems to be that they make a declaration as fact and presume that somehow is science. I don't expect perfection but hand waving the fact a power sword ignores armor because it's sheathed in "eldrich energy" isn't even trying.

That isn't to say I don't like 40k. I just don't think it is science fiction. Future fantasy perhaps but when the best example of science is the cargo cult example found in the Adeptus Mechanus well, your universe. . .

 

[Xan Krieger]

Also it helps that I <3 science fiction.

The trouble with that as a justification for liking 40k is that it lets very little science into the fiction. Or even much logic.

For example, the entire universe revolves around close order combat. In 38,000 years in the future with advances in armor, weapons and the means to deliver both to battlefields around the world and what do we get? Combat at ranges of less than 100 yards. What makes this insane is that there is literally no reason for combat to play out like this in most campaign settings. Sure, the various city and space hulk settings sort of force the close combat aspect but what is it about bolters that makes them useless beyond about 60 yards? Do the rounds just rattle down the barrel? Are all spaces marines secretly suffering from palsy?

As far as the science part goes, the Warhammer ethos seems to be that they make a declaration as fact and presume that somehow is science. I don't expect perfection but hand waving the fact a power sword ignores armor because it's sheathed in "eldrich energy" isn't even trying.

That isn't to say I don't like 40k. I just don't think it is science fiction. Future fantasy perhaps but when the best example of science is the cargo cult example found in the Adeptus Mechanus well, your universe. . .

There are plenty of science based weapons and gadgets. You mentioned the bolter which is based on the gyrojet handgun. There is actual science in how that weapon works. Lasguns are another great example, the technology there is pretty self-explanatory. Sure there's some fantasy but alot of actual technology. Servitors are just cyborgs, something you see in plenty of science fiction. The pathetic little space elves have hover tanks and we've worked to develop hover vehicles.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

There are plenty of science based weapons and gadgets. You mentioned the bolter which is based on the gyrojet handgun. There is actual science in how that weapon works. Lasguns are another great example, the technology there is pretty self-explanatory. Sure there's some fantasy but alot of actual technology. Servitors are just cyborgs, something you see in plenty of science fiction. The pathetic little space elves have hover tanks and we've worked to develop hover vehicles.

That the technology could conceivably exist is not the bit that makes it science fiction. The science bit is how you explain why the thing that currently doesn't work suddenly does. The Gyrojet projectile is an excellent example. On the small scale of a personal weapon, you don't really gain anything significant to justify the tremendous increase in cost and degradation in reliability of ammunition stores. High power directed energy weapons (Lasrifles, lascannons, plasma rifles, etc) have two problems - the power (solved with high energy density power packs) and the fact that no known material would survive the weapon being fired.

In most of the big areas the setting doesn't bother with explanation beyond some equivalent of divine intervention or magic. How one opens a gate into the warp for example. Why the astronomicon is useful for navigation in the warp. How the aforementioned signal propagates faster than light in a setting where faster than light anything is not actually possible. I don't need this explanation to enjoy the work; but when the work does not attempt to answer such things it isn't science fiction. It's just fiction.