Traveller 40K
- Thread starter LiNeNoiSe
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Games Workshop likes charging an arm and a leg; illustrationingly, you'd have to invest to recreate the proper ambiance of galactic gothism.
Also, errata is a requirement.
Also, errata is a requirement.
LiNeNoiSe said:
40k is something close to my heart (anyone familiar with the Flesh Tearers will know that), and I am somewhat into Age of Sigmar at the moment. Such a licence would be interesting (and it has crossed my mind), but we have Paranoia and Traveller on the go at the moment and... which one of those should we do less of so we can do 40k, eh?
DickTurpin
Banded Mongoose
msprange said:. . . we have Paranoia and Traveller on the go at the moment and... which one of those should we do less of so we can do 40k, eh?LiNeNoiSe said:
Since this is a Traveller forum, I would say that Paranoia should get shafted. Go ahead and cut them off, they already expect the worst anyway.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
One similarity is that wargaming wise, characters tend to have fixed characteristics and skills, with upgrades mostly due to hardware.
I trust Mongoose to get the feel right if they put their mind to it - for that matter, Black Library has a track record of shopping out some of its authors (such as John French) to subcontract writing background, so support is available. Equally, a surprisingly high proportion of the Dark Heresy second artwork isn't new, when you actually think about it - between assorted Blanchian sketchbooks, inquisitor, relevant codices, and novel covers, there's a lot of artwork in GW's archive to draw from.
The license cost and stringency is a different issue. GW is very protective of it's IP - it always was, but the whole Chapter House malarkey left them very sensitive. The up-front costs for a license are pretty substantial, to the point you wouldn't consider it unless it's going to be a core product - and if msprange doesn't think they have the capacity at the moment, I wouldn't want to see mongoose over-commit itself then not be able to support the line properly. Which is a shame, as I think they could do it well.
The average Dark Heresy game can feel rather more like Paranoia than Traveller, though, especially if the players aren't feeling especially serious.
[Inquisitor ends briefing]
"Any questions?"
[Acolyte raises hand]
BLAM!
"Questions are heresy!"
...etc, etc.
True, but that needn't necessarily be a feature of a subsequent edition. Traveller doesn't really have massive 'stat development' (as opposed to narrative character development or improving available gear) and it never really feels the worse for it.
Cubicle 7 has apparently picked up a license to reprint old (as in '2nd edition' ) WHFRP books, but as far as I know they've no license to create new material.
Certainly nothing has therefore ever been done or is planned that I'm aware of with Age of Sigmar - which, coincidentally, is finally getting fleshed out enough to be more than just "two armies meet on a battlefield" (and the 'Realm Of" theme allows for you to throw in a lot of Elric-esque multiverse high fantasy concepts and weird and wonderful worlds, as well as giving you an almost pre-defined set of sourcebooks/adventure books) - stuff like the novels and warhammer quest starting to look at the 'away from the battlefield' stuff, and there's no shortage of really good quality art that can be yoinked from appropriate battletomes.
The universe doesn't yet have the 'lived-in' feel of the Old World, but to be honest an RPG could probably help that as much as anything else; a lot of what we know about 'normal' life in the old world came out of WHFRP sourcebooks and campaigns. The Legend system (suitably tweaked) might be a good fit, as magic and swashbuckling would be two core elements; one thing GW have gotten away from (given WHFRP 3rd edition) is insisting that the game stats superficially resemble tabletop profiles, and besides which, Age of Sigmar has binned the WS/BS/S/T statline anyway.
The other option which would be fantastic to see would be the Horus Heresy - Especially if GW could be persuaded to let a publisher use their same printing house and publish their RPG books in the same 'black book' format FW have used for the heresy tabletop rulebooks, it could look suitably spectacular (and be an appropriately valuable product, which depending on printing costs is good for the publisher). Either way, a squad-based (or even 'commander with company' based, which I don't think I've ever really seen done well as an RPG) RPG has no shortage of well-fleshed out, epic battlefields to set campaign books on/in (even if a lot of them are going to be "everyone dies at the end", like Istvaan).
yes, Deathwatch was cool, but it had the problem that it was produced as an 'alternate core book' to Dark Heresy....which was essentially '2nd edition' WHFRP with a false nose and party frock, which was a system designed for balance with a baker, two city militia and a ratcatcher (plus his small but vicious dog) versus two skaven.
This led to problems with the book being full of core rules that took up multiple pages (like fear) which every character you could create essentially ignored.
It also meant that even starting characters were powerful enough that the game mechanics creaked noticeably (example: lifting/pushing/carrying capacity was based on the sum of your strength and toughness bonuses, on a scale from 2 to 20, as with Dark Heresy. Fair enough - but a starting marine character in basic power armour using 'Feat Of Strength' that all marines got as standard would have at minimum a combined S/T bonus of 22....)
A rules set which was designed for the Horus Heresy could set the "normal dude" level at astartes legionaries, which would let you build 'room to grow' into the system far more effectively.
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