- Joined
- Apr 13, 2013
I used to collect and paint 40k stuff and Lord of the Rings models back when I lived near a Games Workshop. I loved painting Imperial Guard stuff, they had the coolest models.
Warhammer 40k
- Thread starter Great Unclean Chris
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- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
Ficksed dat for ya, Boss.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Anyone here into the Warhammer 40k RPGs? I love Rogue Trader with a passionate intensity usually reserved for human beings. I love the unrepentantly old school rule system, how they still manage to blend that with some very clever modern game design, I love the particular interpretation of the 40k universe presented in the books, and I am fucking obsessed with the voidships. The premise is also so perfect for an RPG, making the PCs at once incredibly powerful but still viably threaten-able.
Dark Heresy is also fun, especially when you have the Ascension book and can play Inquisitors (or raise your characters from expendable pawns all the way to Inquisitor and entourage). Dark Heresy has a lot more opportunities for the fascism parody that everyone loves so much since your characters are part of the imperial establishment. You can also call down exterminatus on a planet you don't like.
I own all the others too on the off chance one of the other books contains something I might want to use with Rogue Trader, but I think those first two games are the best ones. I've never really played Deathwatch except in one game where PCs had Inquisitor characters who would go in an investigate, and then Deathwatch characters who the Inquisitor PCs could call in if they felt the need to. That was pretty sweet.
A much as I love Chaos, and I do you can see my shitty CSM army a few pages back in this very thread, I find myself using Black Crusade as a source of material for Rogue Trader more than running it. In my experience most of what I would describe as the "good" 40k players tend to prefer playing imperial characters because they like to play exaggerated authoritarian assholes. That works for me, though, because it means Chaos is populated by NPCs who I get to play. I've never run Only War but totally would given the chance.
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Anyone here into the Warhammer 40k RPGs? I love Rogue Trader with a passionate intensity usually reserved for human beings. I love the unrepentantly old school rule system, how they still manage to blend that with some very clever modern game design, I love the particular interpretation of the 40k universe presented in the books, and I am fucking obsessed with the voidships. The premise is also so perfect for an RPG, making the PCs at once incredibly powerful but still viably threaten-able.
Dark Heresy is also fun, especially when you have the Ascension book and can play Inquisitors (or raise your characters from expendable pawns all the way to Inquisitor and entourage). Dark Heresy has a lot more opportunities for the fascism parody that everyone loves so much since your characters are part of the imperial establishment. You can also call down exterminatus on a planet you don't like.
I own all the others too on the off chance one of the other books contains something I might want to use with Rogue Trader, but I think those first two games are the best ones. I've never really played Deathwatch except in one game where PCs had Inquisitor characters who would go in an investigate, and then Deathwatch characters who the Inquisitor PCs could call in if they felt the need to. That was pretty sweet.
A much as I love Chaos, and I do you can see my shitty CSM army a few pages back in this very thread, I find myself using Black Crusade as a source of material for Rogue Trader more than running it. In my experience most of what I would describe as the "good" 40k players tend to prefer playing imperial characters because they like to play exaggerated authoritarian assholes. That works for me, though, because it means Chaos is populated by NPCs who I get to play. I've never run Only War but totally would given the chance.
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
I have all of the core and splat books for the FFG 40k stuff. Personal favorite is Rogue trader because muh Ork mercs. Black Crusade in a close second because it has a fiendish appeal with all the backstabbing and "JUST AS PLANNED!" grade Tzeentch dickery.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
I've always wanted someone to play an Ork in one of my games, but everyone just fights over who gets to be a Kroot.
The only problem with Xeno PCs is that most of my Rogue Trader games are 50% socializing. Still, I always manage to find something for the aliens to do while the humans are hob nobbing. And by "do" I of course mean "kill and eat".
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
I played an Ork Freeboota last time I played, I ended up being the group's face aside from the Rogue Trader. There's plenty you can do with Xeno PCs.
I meant to play this:
I ended up with this:
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- Joined
- Apr 15, 2014
Never played WH40K, although I know about the setting.
And yes, playing as an Ork sounds fun as hell.
And yes, playing as an Ork sounds fun as hell.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
Well it depends where you are. My PCs tended to like to roll around the Calixis Sector starting shit. You might be able to get away with an Ork or two out in the Koronus Expanse, but they don't take too kindly to Xenos in the Malfian halls of power.
Edit: Modus operandi: Go to some Calixis Hive world, attend exclusive party, start shit, flee to Koronus Expanse, "Haha I speak with the voice of Emperor out here come and get me".
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2014
I remember that time in chat where me, exball, and The Knife's Husbando started talking about "Duuude, what if the WH40K factions were lolcows? Who would be who?"
I think we had something like Chris as the Emperor, SJWs as Tau, Furries as the Dark Eldar, Sick Nick as Nurgul, Rika as Slaanesh, and Trolls as Orks.
Chat: It's Condensed Autism.
I think we had something like Chris as the Emperor, SJWs as Tau, Furries as the Dark Eldar, Sick Nick as Nurgul, Rika as Slaanesh, and Trolls as Orks.
Chat: It's Condensed Autism.
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2014
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
A little googling led me to a wiki page that details the PC-owned ships from one of my favorite Rogue Trader campaigns I ever ran. We just lavished detail on this thing.
Ships of the Viaticus Dynasty
Ships of the Viaticus Dynasty
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
Holy crap, I missed "suffer not the boyfriend" the first time. That' hysterical.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
Warning: Nobody wants to hear about my D&D character.
Here's my favorite moment from the campaign that the Aeternus was from (on that note I'd love to hear anyone else's war stories):
So the Arch-Militant on the Aetherius Aeternus was Boris Yevgeny. He was basically the Warhammer 40k incarnation of the Heavy from Team Fortress (and was explicitly supposed to both look and talk like him). He was a mutant, with two mutations that made him larger, but since he otherwise looked human he could sort of pass. His primary weapon was intended to be mounted on a vehicle and the fact that he was allowed to use it was a house rule. The Yevgeny's were an old vassal family of the Viaticus Dynasty (the Rogue Trader House from that game) who had reaffirmed their allegiance recently. So that was Boris for the first 2/3rds of the campaign: a giant, but slow, murder machine who was fiercely loyal to the House Viaticus and loved sandviches.
Now way back during character creation Boris's player and I had come up with the idea that his family were actually crazed Hereteks who fled to Exaviar's world to escape their enemies and assumed the name Yevgeny and swore allegiance to House Viaticus as a way of hiding. It had never really come up yet though, and it was a secret from the other players.
So at one point I had started giving each character a "spotlight" episode, where one at a time I did an adventure for each that was centered around one of the more interesting aspects of their backstories. If you saw how much we managed to write about the voidship you can imagine how detailed some of these were. So it comes to Boris's turn and I asked him in vague terms what he'd like to explore with his character. He says he wants to delve into the history of his family prior to their allegiance with Viaticus.
So the Patriarch of the Yevgeny's is dying, and on his death bed he tells Boris of the location of an Data Tomb on one of the worlds in the Viaticus Demesne that belonged to Boris's family. The PCs head there, Boris triggers the gene lock, and they're in. It contains a whole bunch of information about the early history of the Viaticus Demesne, including the fact that the Viaticus family was originally a pirate clan before they got their warrant of trade (the House's entire self image at that point consisted of being ultra-orthodox pirate hunters). There's also clearly a silica animus controlling all the systems (which was the pet heresy of our resident Tech Priest). So while everyone else is losing their shit over this stuff, the silica animus tricks Boris into going to a deeper section of the Data Tomb. He is scanned before he is let in and assumes it's another gene lock.
In the deeper tomb Boris learns the true history of his family from the silica animus: this includes what the player already knew and I mentioned above, but also new information. Such as the fact that they deliberately introduced mutation into their genetic line as part of a breeding program, as well as what their tech heresy was: they were attempting to create heretek Astartes, and Boris was the culmination of this project.
At this point a needle on a robot arm plunges direction into Boris's brain-stem and paralyzes him. I take great sadistic glee in describing how various horrible tool-like appendages perform extreme surgeries on him while he is still awake and aware. They install new organs, implants, all that jazz. It turns out the reason Boris was so slow was because his feeble human organs weren't enough to power his giant body. But with his new pseudo-Astartes organs Boris's circulatory system can keep up with his size and he becomes agile as well huge.
Once he wakes up the silica animus leads him to a suit of Astartes Power Armor cobbled together from several different wrecked suits that were acquired by his family over the years, as well as some suitable weapons. While he's not a true Astartes either lore wise or by the rules, he can now use Astartes-only equipment which is huge.
Now as I said before the Rogue Trader is ultra orthodox. He threatens to kill the Astropath basically every day, just on principle. There's no way any of this bullshit is going to fly with Alexis. So what happened next was the best part. When Boris shows back up insisting that he's now a Space Marines (Boris was very simple-minded like that) instead of ordering him killed Alexis, emotionally vulnerable from the pirate revelation and desperate to rebuild the fortunes of his house, comes up with a brilliant plan. Since a Rogue Trader is supposed to "speak with the voice of the emperor" in the places beyond imperial control they flew their ship out to the expanse and Alexis declared, explicitly in the Emperor's name, that Boris was now a one-man official Astartes chapter. Obviously this wasn't the kind of thing that was going to satisfy an Inquisitor, but it let Alexis justify in his own mind having a Heretek Space Marines on his command crew while still railing against heresy non-stop.
We took the idea a lot of neat directions. Like the silica animus wanted Boris to find a "genetically suitable mate" and breed a whole army of heretek Space Marines (since unlike a true Astartes that was still a possibility for him). One of the other characters was the "child" (conceived with warp rituals instead of sex) of an Alpha Marine who was sort of the series villain and she was the AI's preferred mate for him (much to both of their chagrin). It was great because of all the members of the crew they probably had the strongest rapport so there was a lot of weird tension involved, almost like a Rumiko Takahashi manga. I like to think they eventually got married and that the Invincible Bears becomes so large and powerful that the Imperium agrees to not think too hard about where they came from all of the sudden, but we never got near that far into the future.
Here's my favorite moment from the campaign that the Aeternus was from (on that note I'd love to hear anyone else's war stories):
So the Arch-Militant on the Aetherius Aeternus was Boris Yevgeny. He was basically the Warhammer 40k incarnation of the Heavy from Team Fortress (and was explicitly supposed to both look and talk like him). He was a mutant, with two mutations that made him larger, but since he otherwise looked human he could sort of pass. His primary weapon was intended to be mounted on a vehicle and the fact that he was allowed to use it was a house rule. The Yevgeny's were an old vassal family of the Viaticus Dynasty (the Rogue Trader House from that game) who had reaffirmed their allegiance recently. So that was Boris for the first 2/3rds of the campaign: a giant, but slow, murder machine who was fiercely loyal to the House Viaticus and loved sandviches.
Now way back during character creation Boris's player and I had come up with the idea that his family were actually crazed Hereteks who fled to Exaviar's world to escape their enemies and assumed the name Yevgeny and swore allegiance to House Viaticus as a way of hiding. It had never really come up yet though, and it was a secret from the other players.
So at one point I had started giving each character a "spotlight" episode, where one at a time I did an adventure for each that was centered around one of the more interesting aspects of their backstories. If you saw how much we managed to write about the voidship you can imagine how detailed some of these were. So it comes to Boris's turn and I asked him in vague terms what he'd like to explore with his character. He says he wants to delve into the history of his family prior to their allegiance with Viaticus.
So the Patriarch of the Yevgeny's is dying, and on his death bed he tells Boris of the location of an Data Tomb on one of the worlds in the Viaticus Demesne that belonged to Boris's family. The PCs head there, Boris triggers the gene lock, and they're in. It contains a whole bunch of information about the early history of the Viaticus Demesne, including the fact that the Viaticus family was originally a pirate clan before they got their warrant of trade (the House's entire self image at that point consisted of being ultra-orthodox pirate hunters). There's also clearly a silica animus controlling all the systems (which was the pet heresy of our resident Tech Priest). So while everyone else is losing their shit over this stuff, the silica animus tricks Boris into going to a deeper section of the Data Tomb. He is scanned before he is let in and assumes it's another gene lock.
In the deeper tomb Boris learns the true history of his family from the silica animus: this includes what the player already knew and I mentioned above, but also new information. Such as the fact that they deliberately introduced mutation into their genetic line as part of a breeding program, as well as what their tech heresy was: they were attempting to create heretek Astartes, and Boris was the culmination of this project.
At this point a needle on a robot arm plunges direction into Boris's brain-stem and paralyzes him. I take great sadistic glee in describing how various horrible tool-like appendages perform extreme surgeries on him while he is still awake and aware. They install new organs, implants, all that jazz. It turns out the reason Boris was so slow was because his feeble human organs weren't enough to power his giant body. But with his new pseudo-Astartes organs Boris's circulatory system can keep up with his size and he becomes agile as well huge.
Once he wakes up the silica animus leads him to a suit of Astartes Power Armor cobbled together from several different wrecked suits that were acquired by his family over the years, as well as some suitable weapons. While he's not a true Astartes either lore wise or by the rules, he can now use Astartes-only equipment which is huge.
Now as I said before the Rogue Trader is ultra orthodox. He threatens to kill the Astropath basically every day, just on principle. There's no way any of this bullshit is going to fly with Alexis. So what happened next was the best part. When Boris shows back up insisting that he's now a Space Marines (Boris was very simple-minded like that) instead of ordering him killed Alexis, emotionally vulnerable from the pirate revelation and desperate to rebuild the fortunes of his house, comes up with a brilliant plan. Since a Rogue Trader is supposed to "speak with the voice of the emperor" in the places beyond imperial control they flew their ship out to the expanse and Alexis declared, explicitly in the Emperor's name, that Boris was now a one-man official Astartes chapter. Obviously this wasn't the kind of thing that was going to satisfy an Inquisitor, but it let Alexis justify in his own mind having a Heretek Space Marines on his command crew while still railing against heresy non-stop.
We took the idea a lot of neat directions. Like the silica animus wanted Boris to find a "genetically suitable mate" and breed a whole army of heretek Space Marines (since unlike a true Astartes that was still a possibility for him). One of the other characters was the "child" (conceived with warp rituals instead of sex) of an Alpha Marine who was sort of the series villain and she was the AI's preferred mate for him (much to both of their chagrin). It was great because of all the members of the crew they probably had the strongest rapport so there was a lot of weird tension involved, almost like a Rumiko Takahashi manga. I like to think they eventually got married and that the Invincible Bears becomes so large and powerful that the Imperium agrees to not think too hard about where they came from all of the sudden, but we never got near that far into the future.
