Tabletop Community Watch -

[Corn Flakes]

So basically, it's just like Pokemon: the Trading Card Game. They just buy all the shiny crap to roll the competition and win in tournaments.

Every time I look at 40K fan videos, they always curse out GW, which gave me the impression that the people objecting to them were the majority. It seems that was a mistake. They're just a loud minority, I take it?

More or less, yes. For all the sperging we do about the lore, we must all remember one very important thing:

Warhammer 40,000 is a game. It's a PvP game at that. The objective of the game is to win. Most people who play it do it for that purpose. If they have fluff-compliant armies, great. If not, they'll just find a way to shove that third overpowered unit into their army list. The size of their wallet is the limit (see how much GW has been shilling the Knight mini-titans?), and for that sort of investment you need to be an adult with disposable income, not a kid with mom's credit card. After these people, you get the people who play for a gimmick no matter how powerful it is (full vehicle Ork armies, for example). And as a distant third you get the people who actually play the game and are versed in the lore. Among this group you find those that are actually bothered by the lore. Most just take the new developments as they come, uncritically.

I'll give you good odds that a good 75% of the fan channels that sprung up the past five years talking about Lorehammer haven't played a game since 7th edition, if they even own a model. Most people who even read about the lore do it like those Marvel fans that take the plot holes and inconsistencies in the movies and series they like to watch at face value. It's just entertainment, they don't need it to make sense.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I think Warhammer is going to go the same way as Batman. Campy during one period, super-serious the next, and something in between after that.

I'm getting a strong Warcraft vibe out of the modern 40K media. Especially with the 8th Edition trailer that came out, it reminds me so much of other standard fantasy games where the humans are good and their enemies are evil:

None of the subtlety that Rick Priestley once wrote in. It's just us versus them, and we gotta win this. Nothing about Space Marines being self-deluded idiots, or the Imperium running on superstition. Their faith is real, they're the good guys, and the battles remind me too much of the mosh pit battles I used to have playing Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2. Which is appropriate, considering those were supposed to be Warhammer games when they were conceived. But yeah, the subtlety or satire is nowhere to be found.

I quit in my 20s and started playing again just before the ‘ronies killed everybody. I don’t live in the US, so my experience may not be representative, but I don’t see kids going wild with dad’s credit card. I see older guys, young single professionals, and the fringe social misfits that Magic Space Soldiers has always attracted. There are a number of Warhammer stores and a couple of independents in my city, but I can’t remember seeing anyone younger than their mid-20s playing or buying anything.

I'm still quite surprised at how GW made far more money after they started pissing off their fans as compared to before they did so.

More or less, yes. For all the sperging we do about the lore, we must all remember one very important thing:

Warhammer 40,000 is a game. It's a PvP game at that. The objective of the game is to win. Most people who play it do it for that purpose. If they have fluff-compliant armies, great. If not, they'll just find a way to shove that third overpowered unit into their army list. The size of their wallet is the limit, and for that sort of investment you need to be an adult with disposable income, not a kid with mom's credit card. After these people, you get the people who play for a gimmick no matter how powerful it is (full vehicle Ork armies, for example). And as a distant third you get the people who actually play the game and are versed in the lore. Among this group you find those that are actually bothered by the lore. Most just take the new developments as they come, uncritically.

So chances are, a good chunk of the players don't even know jack fucking shit about the lore and just buy and paint the right armies so they can utterly fuck the competition in a face-to-face battle and walk away the winner? Yes, that does sound like the Pokemon card game. Most of those players didn't watch all the episodes of the anime, nor do they know the story behind each Pokemon, but they bought enough shiny cards to utterly wreck the competition.

But, I can still see kids doing that. Especially older kids who have mom's credit card. Maybe an older friend introduced them to the franchise, or they read one of the newer comic books or kid's books. A lot of the people I see ripping the competition apart in these tournaments for games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh are very young. Late teens, early 20s. They buy all the shiny crap, blitz the competition, and walk away laughing.

I'll give you good odds that a good 75% of the fan channels that sprung up the past five years talking about Lorehammer haven't played a game since 7th edition, if they even own a model. Most people who even read about the lore do it like those Marvel fans that take the plot holes and inconsistencies in the movies and series they like to watch at face value. It's just entertainment, they don't need it to make sense.

40K is one of the few series where I really see a disconnect between the people who play the mainline game and the people who usually talk about the lore. It's as if the two worlds are completely separate, and they might as well be talking about different franchises. I mean, most people into Star Wars tabletop gaming have a good, working knowledge of the old Expanded Universe, and their gaming is an extension of them playing around with Star Wars' extended lore. Whereas it seems that, if what you said is correct, most 40K tabletop players barely give a shit about the lore and play just to win, while most people who talk about the lore in Youtube channels nowadays barely even played the tabletop game recently, if they did at all.

 

[Emperor Julian]

None of the subtlety that Rick Priestley once wrote in. It's just us versus them, and we gotta win this. Nothing about Space Marines being self-deluded idiots, or the Imperium running on superstition. Their faith is real, they're the good guys, and the battles remind me too much of the mosh pit battles I used to have playing Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2. Which is appropriate, considering those were supposed to be Warhammer games when they were conceived. But yeah, the subtlety or satire is nowhere to be found.

One of the shifts which particulary irked me was how the Emperor's divinity has been depicted, previously it was implied to be probably bollocks and the imperial creed is a big pile of shit were anyone who isnt a unstable fanatic is a bullshit artist, with the supplementry implication that the chaos gods arnt either-they're just weird entropic parasites from the warp. This has slowly changed to the imperial faith being mostly correct and the Emperor is a God, roboute's gradual shift from secular rationalist is particulary galling as he went through the horus heresy with his beliefs on science and logic intact.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

One of the shifts which particulary irked me was how the Emperor's divinity has been depicted, previously it was implied to be probably bollocks and the imperial creed is a big pile of shit, with the supplementry implication that the chaos goods arnt either they're just weird entropic parasites from the warp. This has slowly changed to the imperial faith being mostly correct and the Emperor is a God.

They basically went from a clever parody of religious faith where people just deify things that are powerful in their eyes (a phenomenon that was all over the place in the pagan world) to just fucking Elder Scrolls in Space, where the Emperor is a literal god that was fighting with other gods. The Emperor went from an atheist that was later propped up as a messiah to Tiber fucking Septim, a literal God-Emperor whose followers are rewarded for their prayers with actual magic blessings.

And of course, the self-deluded Space Marines went from enforcers of a repressive regime to fantasy paladins in space with guns:

"To me the background to 40K was always intended to be ironic. The fact that the Space Marines were lauded as heroes within Games Workshop always amused me, because they're brutal, but they're also completely self-deceiving. The whole idea of the Emperor is that you don't know whether he's alive or dead. The whole Imperium might be running on superstition. There's no guarantee that the Emperor is anything other than a corpse with a residual mental ability to direct spacecraft. It's got some parallels with religious beliefs and principles, and I think a lot of that got missed and overwritten."

Rick Priestley, Warhammer 40K lore author and creator, December 2015 interview with Unplugged Games

https://web.archive.org/web/2016051...ow-warhammer-defined-gaming-for-a-generation/

I suppose it's because straight-up fantasy works with clearly-defined lines of good and evil make far more money than subversive sci-fi works where your side could be the greater evil. (Compare the money made by Watchmen to the money made by LOTR, in both book and movie format) GW sensed where the greater profit lies and approved of the shift.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Man, I'm glad I play Necrons and we don't have these problems--

(massive lore shift from 3rd to 5th where C'tan went from Necron gods to Necron Pokemon)

... Damn.

 

[Velvet Sedan]

One thing I can appreciate about playing Night Lords is how little they've changed since inception, lore-wise anyway.
But I've been sitting on the same ye olde models a long fucking time, the only recent purchases having been Heldrakes when they were new. Everything else is third party or printed.
Luckily the locals are old farts that do more scratch work than purchasing so no hem and hawing from some GW redshirt.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

One of the shifts which particulary irked me was how the Emperor's divinity has been depicted, previously it was implied to be probably bollocks and the imperial creed is a big pile of shit were anyone who isnt a unstable fanatic is a bullshit artist, with the supplementry implication that the chaos gods arnt either-they're just weird entropic parasites from the warp. This has slowly changed to the imperial faith being mostly correct and the Emperor is a God, roboute's gradual shift from secular rationalist is particulary galling as he went through the horus heresy with his beliefs on science and logic intact.

It is less that faith is correct and more that it is psychic manifestations that are being interpreted as faith manifest. Lorewise there has been a surge in 'miracles' being used on the battlefield to save doomed individuals thanks to the psychic awakening. Gamewise, Sisters of Battle miracle dice function as said miracles and one Sisters character has an ability that is word for word the same as a psychic power. Then again this is the army of zealots so their faith isn't bullshit.

And Gulliman isn't shifting away from his secular rationalism, he is being practical about it. He can't just say to the Ecclesiarchy; "The Emperor isn't a god, your entire faith is a lie and your holy book was written by one of my traitor brothers." He is subtly bringing back rationalism by utilizing Cawl's new technology and trying to write an official history of the Imperium. But he is up against the entire Imperium who are supposed to view Gulliman's rationalism as heresy.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

It is less that faith is correct and more that it is psychic manifestations that are being interpreted as faith manifest. Lorewise there has been a surge in 'miracles' being used on the battlefield to save doomed individuals thanks to the psychic awakening. Gamewise, Sisters of Battle miracle dice function as said miracles and one Sisters character has an ability that is word for word the same as a psychic power. Then again this is the army of zealots so their faith isn't bullshit.

This is also the universe where Orks psychically manifest their beliefs as reality so I don't see it as too much of a stretch that humanity could have a similar effect, even if weaker.

 

[Flaming Insignias]

This is also the universe where Orks psychically manifest their beliefs as reality so I don't see it as too much of a stretch that humanity could have a similar effect, even if weaker.

The lore has typically asserted that this is fundamentally what the Chaos Gods are: manifestations of human behavior and religious beliefs, fueled by the collective consciousness of the species. Conversely, an immensely powerful psyker who is worshipped by billions of humans throughout the galaxy is subjected to a similar effect, with one of the most popular theories of what happens after the Emperor’s physical death being that he fully ascends to godhood. It certainly is logical and cooler if Living Saints and Damned Legionnaires are the Imperial equivalent to daemon princes and lesser daemons rather than just weird Warp anomalies.

 

[Shaka Brah]

The lore has typically asserted that this is fundamentally what the Chaos Gods are: manifestations of human behavior and religious beliefs, fueled by the collective consciousness of the species. Conversely, an immensely powerful psyker who is worshipped by billions of humans throughout the galaxy is subjected to a similar effect, with one of the most popular theories of what happens after the Emperor’s physical death being that he fully ascends to godhood. It certainly is logical and cooler if Living Saints and Damned Legionnaires are the Imperial equivalent to daemon princes and lesser daemons rather than just weird Warp anomalies.

Yeah honestly the translation from grimdark edgy semi-fedoraism to fun grimbright meme religion where the Empire is bad but also largely correct is the best part about nu-warhammer. It's completely in line with the alternate canon that was so loved on 4chan's /tg/ board over a decade ago, and that setting was always cooler than the real one at the time.

 

[Flaming Insignias]

Yeah honestly the translation from grimdark edgy semi-fedoraism to fun grimbright meme religion where the Empire is bad but also largely correct is the best part about nu-warhammer. It's completely in line with the alternate canon that was so loved on 4chan's /tg/ board over a decade ago, and that setting was always cooler than the real one at the time.

I am a firm believer in Nobledark, and I genuinely think Warhammer would be for the better if it focused on the light in the darkness.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

Yes-I know the new models are selling like crack cocaine. The problem is, WHO is buying this new stuff?

I’ve noticed an increase in families and couples buying 40K but especially AoS in my area. It could be related to that perhaps? Maybe the demographics include nerdy families now?

Every time I look at 40K fan videos, they always curse out GW, which gave me the impression that the people objecting to them were the majority. It seems that was a mistake. They're just a loud minority, I take it?

Complaining about GW is half of the hobby. It’s been like that forever though, when I was on forums in the early 00’s there was a lot of vitriol towards GW, especially about the changes in 3rd. Which is why I’m skeptical about anyone bitching about GW. Half the time they’re bigger consumers than the most die hard GW simps.

You're putting too much stock on the people being vocal being relevant in numbers. The third option you missed is right there:

C) Most whales actually playing the game don't give enough of a shit about the lore to stop playing or buying. They just want the latest shinies to win. These are the guys with 5k worth of Spare Marines that they entirely replaced in the past 5 years.

I think this is part of it too. A lot of the die hard players don’t know or care much for the lore. They’ll play whatever is winning and will buy the newest set. The fluff is secondary. I can’t speak for everyone’s experiences but some of the people I know who care most about the lore don’t play that often, even in older editions. They definitely buy less than tournament players.

Shitty 40k books that completely ignore established lore aren’t a new thing either. Cough * CS Goto* Cough. IMO a lot of people who get into 40k via lore tubers aren’t aware of how shitty some 40k books were. A lot of what’s discussed is the best storylines, so they avoid the worst shit. Personally, I like a lot of the fluff but I don’t get too caught up in the minutiae that I dislike because of the “everything is canon, but not everything is true” which a surprising amount of fans are unaware of. So, I just don’t read about things I dislike, and there are some factions I really dislike. Same with any changes to the fluff that bug me. Canon in 40k is very loose, and it wasn’t ever treated all that seriously, especially in the shittiest books, so it’s not worth fussing about IMO when a shitty book screws up the lore. The fluff is fun and all but trying to take each book as gospel, is like trying to make sense of Chaos while in the warp.

*further edit*
The 40k books are less canonical than the average Star Wars Expanded Universe book pre-Disney and just a step above the EU post-Disney. Back in the day it was essentially sanctioned fan fiction, which was actively encouraged at one point which was a whole part of the “your dudes” philosophy. Some of it is great and some of it is worse than the average fan fic. So, my advice, dump the trash, read what you like. Pirate it if you don’t want to give GW a cent or keep an eye out for humble bundles. Alternatively, most libraries have some novels, especially from the Horus Heresy.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

Complaining about GW is half of the hobby. It’s been like that forever though, when I was on forums in the early 00’s there was a lot of vitriol towards GW, especially about the changes in 3rd. Which is why I’m skeptical about anyone bitching about GW. Half the time they’re bigger consumers than the most die hard GW simps.

It's analogist to video games. Everyone complains about micro-transactions, lootboxes, day-one patches, pre-order bonuses etc. but at the end of the day people are still putting down money for a pre-order of a game that will be riddled with microtransaction lootboxes, require a 50gig day one patch and even after that might not be functional weeks.
With GW pumping out a steady supply of new box sets (or at least new codex with questionable rule and point changes...) and time limited models, the people who complain still end up buying because of a combination of collector-OCD, or FOMO.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Even if the complainers never bought anything, we're still dealing with the silent majority here. So long as the game is fun (or addictive) enough to hold a playerbase, people are going to buy it. Franchises in particular come with a large built-in playerbase whenever they release a new product or installment. No one needs to buy a new FIFA, NFL or Battlefield game, but most people buy the new installments because they have fun with them, at least for a while, and that's what everybody else is going to be playing. Same thing with 40k. The people actually playing the game aren't on reddit, twitter or here, complaining about it. If you look at the actual 40K thread here at the farms a lot of people there seem to just have accepted that the lore is shit, the business model sucks, and they better just enjoy the models and keep rolling dice.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I’ve noticed an increase in families and couples buying 40K but especially AoS in my area. It could be related to that perhaps? Maybe the demographics include nerdy families now?

Maybe that's what all the kids' books are for. For the 40K fans with kids to introduce the hobby to their kids in a polite manner, minus all the Blood God and degenerate sex shit.

Complaining about GW is half of the hobby. It’s been like that forever though, when I was on forums in the early 00’s there was a lot of vitriol towards GW, especially about the changes in 3rd. Which is why I’m skeptical about anyone bitching about GW. Half the time they’re bigger consumers than the most die hard GW simps.

So it's like Star Wars, then. Now people are whining about the Sequels, back then, they were whining about Lucas and the Prequels in the early 2000s. Only worse, since in both instances of the 3rd and 8th Edition, people are whining about Games Workshop.

I think this is part of it too. A lot of the die hard players don’t know or care much for the lore. They’ll play whatever is winning and will buy the newest set. The fluff is secondary. I can’t speak for everyone’s experiences but some of the people I know who care most about the lore don’t play that often, even in older editions. They definitely buy less than tournament players.

Tournament players are the same for every game, be it Pokemon or 40K. They just buy the shiny crap and roll the competition.

Lore addicts will always have disappointment in store for them, since 40K makes lore to suit the tabletop, not the other way around. All that lore they make an effort to memorize can get thrown out at a moment's notice to appease newcomers and make room for new units.

Shitty 40k books that completely ignore established lore aren’t a new thing either. Cough * CS Goto* Cough. IMO a lot of people who get into 40k via lore tubers aren’t aware of how shitty some 40k books were. A lot of what’s discussed is the best storylines, so they avoid the worst shit.

Oh, God, this. A lot of noobs who enter into the lore through loretubers don't realize how bad some of the books are, and they basically enter through with rose-tinted goggles.

Spoiler: Loretubers are not good sources

Not to turn things into ANOTHER anti-Traviss diatribe, but damn, a lot of SW Legends loretubers are in love with the Clone Wars Mandalorians from the SW Legends continuity. Problem is, Karen Traviss wrote them, and she's basically Star Wars' answer to 40K's Matt Ward, except she's even worse since she demonizes all who go against her. Give Ward some credit, at least he's wanking off to the main characters of the 40K storyline.

Traviss keeps jerking the audience off to how great a bunch of side characters are. And when others tried making a more nuanced Mandalorian civilization in TCW, she threw a shit fit and quit, even though she kept trying to rewrite the Jedi Generals as incompetent buffoons who treat clones like dirt, when every other piece of the Expanded Universe shows them to be good at their jobs and empathetic towards their men.

But of course, a lot of SW loretubers like Generation Tech have a hard-on for Karen Traviss' novels, and they will tell you that the Mandalorians are great Jedi-killers and that Jedi generals were incompetent buffoons, when other bits of SWEU will tell you that the Mandalorians nearly get exterminated whenever they go up against the Jedi, and that the Jedi Generals were worth their weight in gold. Part of the reason why Darth Vader is one of the better Imperial commanders is because he commands and fights like a traditional Jedi General, while the average stuff-shirt Imperial buffoons treat Stormtroopers the way 40K Imperium Commissars treat the Imperial Guard.

Personally, I like a lot of the fluff but I don’t get too caught up in the minutiae that I dislike because of the “everything is canon, but not everything is true” which a surprising amount of fans are unaware of. So, I just don’t read about things I dislike, and there are some factions I really dislike. Same with any changes to the fluff that bug me. Canon in 40k is very loose, and it wasn’t ever treated all that seriously, especially in the shittiest books, so it’s not worth fussing about IMO when a shitty book screws up the lore. The fluff is fun and all but trying to take each book as gospel, is like trying to make sense of Chaos while in the warp.

A LOT of fans are unaware of how GW handles canon. Most of them cling to 40K books like they're the gospel truth, when GW sees the books as peripheral and not binding to what the true setting of 40K is like. It's actually kind of ironic, even. GW sees the books the way the Emperor of Mankind sees religion, as a pack of misremembered legends and lies with some kernels of truth in them, while the fans see the books the way the Imperium sees religion, as unbending truth that's canon no matter what.

I've seen no end to the 40K fans who just cannot admit that GW never intended the books to be 100% canon the way they see it, as if dealing with an army of Luke Skywalkers who cannot accept that Darth Vader is their father.

Me: "GW never told you how 40K lore works!"
40K Fans: "We know enough! We know that the books are canon, and that they're a true representation of the 40K setting!"
Me: "No. GW has stated that there is no canon for 40K."
40K Fans: "No. That's not true. THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"
Me: "SEARCH YOUR FEELINGS, YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE!"
40K Fans: "NOOOOOOOOOO! Noooooooo.........."

*further edit*
The 40k books are less canonical than the average Star Wars Expanded Universe book pre-Disney and just a step above the EU post-Disney. Back in the day it was essentially sanctioned fan fiction, which was actively encouraged at one point which was a whole part of the “your dudes” philosophy. Some of it is great and some of it is worse than the average fan fic. So, my advice, dump the trash, read what you like. Pirate it if you don’t want to give GW a cent or keep an eye out for humble bundles. Alternatively, most libraries have some novels, especially from the Horus Heresy.

It's even worse. At least Disney threw the SW Expanded Universe into an alternate canon known as Legends, which has things that are canon to it and things that aren't. Which means that SW Legends still has a defined structure of what is and isn't canon to it, even though it is no longer the mainline canon for Star Wars. 40K has no canon, as the authors from GW have attested:

"There is no canon. There are several hundred creators all adding to the melting pot of the IP."

Aaron Dembski-Bowden, co-author Horus Heresy series

"With Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, the notion of canon is a fallacy. [...] Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 exist as tens of thousands of overlapping realities in the imaginations of games developers, writers, readers and gamers. None of those interpretations is wrong."

Gav Thorpe, Lead Designer, Games Workshop

"It all stems from the assumption that there's a binding contract between author and reader to adhere to some nonexistent subjective construct or 'true' representation of the setting. There is no such contract, and no such objective truth."

Andy Hoare, Game Designer GW

 

[Sir Joahim Browinson III]

I've heard some tables nowdays use a fillable shits, where players are mark what topics they don't want DM to touch in the game. Can this be considered a laughable development, or they are actually covenient?

 

[Velvet Sedan]

I've heard some tables nowdays use a fillable shits, where players are mark what topics they don't want DM to touch in the game. Can this be considered a laughable development, or they are actually covenient?

If online play I can see that, especially if just fishing about for new players. But in person groups either talk with me or have a Session 0 where we work it out.

 

[Shaka Brah]

I've heard some tables nowdays use a fillable shits, where players are mark what topics they don't want DM to touch in the game. Can this be considered a laughable development, or they are actually covenient?

If handed such a survey, the only solution is to write in "homosexuality" and "surveys."

 

[Sir Joahim Browinson III]

If online play I can see that, especially if just fishing about for new players. But in person groups either talk with me or have a Session 0 where we work it out.

I asked a few of my parties about what topics they don't want to have and usually they awnswered "Nah, do what you want." And I answered the same the time I was a player. Guess it's because as a player you would normally put trust that DM won't missuse or even introduce controversial topic unless it makes sence too.
I personally find the idea of filling the sheet of trigger warnings sorta cringe, but still ask out of politness.

 

[SpaceMovie1992]

I've heard some tables nowdays use a fillable shits, where players are mark what topics they don't want DM to touch in the game. Can this be considered a laughable development, or they are actually covenient?

It's not a horrendous idea especially if you're dming for randoms. As much as "muh trauma" is used to crybully companies into pozzing their games, some people have actually been through experiences they don't want to remember, for good reason.