So I introduced a friend to WH40K,namely Dark Heresy by FF Games. He's a nice guy, and I have known him for years, but he's a political dude, and he believes very strongly in libertarian values; the rights of the individual and so on and so forth. So he started a debate with me about how the Imperium is so evil and everything, and said that I must've been trying to force my authoritarian and fascist views because my campaign was nothing but propaganda for my views.
Which leads me to my point, people who don't get that part of Wh40k. In WH40k, everyone is intolerant, the rights of the individual do not matter, tyranny is common, freedoms are practically non existent and it's pretty fascist. As agents of the Inquisition you can,and do, nab people without what we would call justifiable cause, there is no appeals, and there is nothing beyond summary judgement and execution for most after long and horrific torture.
But one thing that they don't get, one thing I had to explain to him again and again, is that the whole point of it is that it IS horrible, monstrous, and vile, but also completely necessary. Freedom becomes a joke when the other faith worships very real and very dangerous beings that want to kill you and encourage and demand evil actions from their followers, free thought invites extra dimensional parasites to use your cranium as a portal to attack the city you live in, alien cultures are trying to dominate/enslave you, and your species runs the risk of extinction if horrific measures aren't taken.
Dark Heresy is a horror game, and like any good horror it takes its horror from the flipping of reality; good dies, evil thrives. The light is dying, and you scrabble for something, anything to keep it alive so the monsters don't eat you. And in doing so you sacrifice liberty, justice, freedom, and happiness, because it's the only fuel left.
Survive by killing everything before it kills you, there is no peace, understanding and tolerance is stupidity.
>>45525191
Yeah, basically all the enlightened philosophy stuff in this universe turned out to be a trap by beings that will fuck you up not just because it's fun for them, but because it's in their very nature.
Mankind lives in the worst possible scenario because this is the best they can do, and the question is whether it would be better to die than live like this.
>>45525191
Are you sure he's not a liberal? Because liberals are the only ones who are this humorless.
>>45525241
>Yeah, basically all the enlightened philosophy stuff in this universe turned out to be a trap by beings that will fuck you up not just because it's fun for them, but because it's in their very nature.
No. All the enlightened philosophy became a luxury humanity can no longer afford.
>>45525191
Wait, you mean someone found 40K fluff so ludicrously, unnecessarily dark that he can't bring himself to empathize with it? Say it ain't so, OP! Say it ain't so!
It seems like every liberal I ran into always takes everything as if their being brainwash or forcing views on them; when, in a discuusion, they are the most vocal about thier veiws. some even to the point of injecting it into a coversation about movies or tv or games which has nothing to do with what is being discussed.
>I started calling one I know Brian
>takes it as a compliment, which completely misinterepts why Brian is mocked
>which would be such a Brian thing to do
To be fair, outside of martial law and Inqusition/Ecclisiarchical/Mechanicus jurisdiction, a lot of planets in the Imperium DO have rule of law with rights and liberties and even due process and lawyers
>>45527589
no. someone took something so absurdly fake that the only possible purpose it could serve is for escape, and then brought the "no fun hammer" to the table by looking for conspiracies.
when libertarians arent filming cops they're just looking for something to get angry about. much like any other politically active person
I do find it annoying when people can't look outside their own perspective. I feel like I spend my entire life trying to learn to think from the perspective of other characters, other cultures and timeperiods, to understand why someone would do something they do or why people would feel the way they did. And then some people just obstinately refuse to see things from another perspective - they might enjoy playing an evil character, but they won't get why an 'evil' empire might not be all that bad.
>>45527396
That's a good point as well.
>>45525191
That's always been my interpretation of the setting, yes - the Imperium is generally (but not always) aweful, but it's the best kind of aweful that can be managed when interdimensional psychotropic Eldritch space cancer is invading everything. There are some things that are just the IOM being blatantly stupid though, like their hostilities with the Eldar/Every Alien Ever. Even then they have their reasons.
>>45528942
>Even then they have their reasons.
And half those reasons come from the Eldar themselves.
And half the IoM being blatantly stupid somehow benefits them in the long run. Letting the Mechanicus have the run of certain things like the Knights means these independent organizations fall into line with the Imperium for the most part, and half the time the Imperium's infighting with their own organizations stops one or the other or both from being too powerful and causing problems.
There's almost always a counter within the Inquisition to every point of view of Inquisitorial philosophy. The thing is, given the expansiveness of 40k's setting, there's almost always a time when one side was right and the other was wrong, and there's even an Inquisitorial division dedicated to making sure Inquisitors of different philosophies end up in places where their specific philosophy is actually the right tool for the job in that situation.
When you get down to it, it's all a clusterfuck that would drive someone in this situation for real mad, and that's exactly the point.
>>45529093
>there's even an Inquisitorial division dedicated to making sure Inquisitors of different philosophies end up in places where their specific philosophy is actually the right tool for the job in that situation.
Ooh, details? This sounds like exactly the kind of 40K game I'd like to run.
While I really don't play much, I've never won a single game of Warhammer 40k in my life, and the last game I lost was because he cheated in a few ways, and then on top of that I was trying to be lenient with some of his calls for measuring, but when it came my turn, it always felt like he was undershooting my measurements to completely obliterate my chances of winning, despite the fact that he already was going to win pretty clearly. But I guess that last part is my fault.
Not too bummed out though, like it won't keep me from playing again. But still, I hope someone gets how I feel.
>>45529193
You wanna try learning BFG?
I know free resources for the rulebooks and a Vassal module, and since it's entirely 2D, it doesn't have the same problems 40k can have online with line-of-sight
I can always use new players, and I try my hardest to play fair.
>>45529193
Oh wait fuck, I thought this thread was supposed to be just kind of venting posts in general around Warhammer 40k by the title, nevermind, just ignore this.
>>45529211
Sure, I'll look at some things, if you can show me some of the resources so I can get an idea of things.
>>45529154
anon, you better put yourself in a pigeonhole
>>45529280
The big links are gonna be
http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=m4nbljd8d3n8osigs935sl7km1&topic=5203.0
This forum has links to all the rulebooks. You mostly just need the official rulebooks linked in the first post, and the 2010 FAQ and Compendium which is in the second post.
https://www.mediafire.com/?b6jjyf1ph7sgm
Vassal module. You just need the last file, VBFG2.2.vmod
www.vassalengine.org
The program you use to open the previous file.
>>45529332
Thank you, I'll look through them when I have the chance.
I hate people who take sides. x is worse than y, is just so much bullshit. especially when everyone is either out to make it better for themselves or better for everyone.
>>45529166
Can't find my source again, but I found this little gem:
>Ordo Redactus - This Ordo focuses their efforts into deliberately obscuring the past, lest the enemies of Mankind discover some advantage through knowledge of the Inquisition's beginnings.
>Ordo Originatus - This Ordo is dedicated to unravelling ten millennia of myths, exaggerations and lies. This is a difficult task, raised to impossibility due to the opposing work of the Ordo Redactus.
>>45529753
I really hope they get put in cubicles next to each other.
>>45529765
I can imagine them working at desks opposite each other with an aisle in between. They each just frantically scribble as fast as they can, one making lies and the other trying to unravel them, each occasionally trading angry glares and sour looks as their pace quickens until they can't anymore, at which point they abruptly start fist-fighting in a manner of people more used to fighting paper jams and bureaucratic tape than co-workers as the office continues working around them. This process repeats itself many times a day, every day. They punch out, they go home...
And they have to take the same transportation back the entire trip and live on opposite sides of a cul-de-sac. The process repeats itself every morning in reverse.
>>45529753
>>45529823
>"hey mark can i borrow pen from you"?
>"sure mate"
>go back to my cubicle
>pen shoots ink all over documents i tried to make notes of
>ordo redactus starts clapping
i fucking hate my job
>>45530000
or maybe he is talking about his experience.
also
checked
>>45530052
how would the truth guy get back from that?
>>45525191
Play Eclipse Phase if he likes his freedom so much.
>>45530190
He wouldn't, but he'd learn a valuable lesson: ink spills can be countered by launching a crusade to retrieve the STC from Daemonworld Sodom for vaccum cleaning ink spills.
>>45527745
Nothing is outside the jurisdiction of the Inquisiton, and arbites are literally Judge Dread style, judge, jury and executioner.
>>45525191
People who think that fiction has to promote real world solutions, politics and worldviews are fucking retarded and you shouldn't play with them.
Do we watch Die Hard or Terminator because we WISH and HOPE that our lives could involve more explosions and conflict resolution by gun? Do we enjoy Game of Thrones because we wish there was more rape and backstabbing in our lives?
No.
It's okay to enjoy all those things in fiction BECAUSE it's fiction, fiction doesn't need to be about describing how we want the world to be, it can be about enjoying all those guilty weird things we don't want to enjoy in real life.
Somewhere someone had the stupid idea that a good person is someone who never has any dark impulses and is in fact a dickless robot who can't fathom why powertrips or violence could possibly be fun, rather than someone who totally gets the appeal but abstains from acting on it because he realizes that it's a shitty thing to do.
What kind of shit friends do you have OP? I have some ppl in my group with some pretty strong political opinions but no one ever brings them up in our games. Mostly because we are all adults and can separate fantasy and reality.
My advice is kick him to the curb and never talk to him again. Retards like that are why we can't have nice things.
>>45531436
The Arbites aren't the sole source of law enforcement in the Imperium, merely the most known one. Governors often set up organizations of law enforcement, varying from a professional, orderly force to hired thugs with beating sticks and shotguns.
>>45525191
I fucking hate people who can't separate fiction from real life. Does he also cry when playing medieval settings because the wealth disparity is so massive and the commoners have so few freedoms?
>>45531567
The liberal ethos tends to see everything as political and hence can be shaped to either support or critcise their views and agenda. This is why there is a demand by some groups for various fantasy or scifi settings to reflect minority groups, or contain certain topical issues, because they view a piece of art not as the creative fruits of an artists labor, drawing upon his ingenuity and skill to produce something authentic and envigorate and challenge the human spirit, but as instrument towards furthuring idelogical goals, and shaping people views.
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/01/24/pbs-news-tackles-serious-discrimination-muslim-activist-says-star-wars-needs-muslim-jedi-298266
here is such an example.
>>45533632
What the fuck? That's like asking for more Hindu representation in the Holy Bible. Being a Jedi isn't just training with a sword and using magic, it's a religion itself.
>>45533632
>The liberal ethos tends to see everything as political
>liberal
And that's why every popular children's entertainment since 1980 has been a tool OF SATAN to corrupt your child's MORTAL SOUL. And having a gay couple in a jewelry advertisement RUINS THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE.
Rabid ideologues filter reality such that everything is a hammer/nail problem.
>>45533682
yes to us laymans it doesn't make sense, it would be like if LoTR had a sub plot about gay marriage in it, but in liberal theory it is justified in name of advancing the 'cause', or winning another political victory. But art is of course rarely interesting if it capitulates to the demands of committees, buercrats, poltical activist, and diversity politics. The majority of poltically active people are creatively bankrupt, and even fewer are able to approach something outside their narrow political lens. Micheal Angelos David would be a sorry sight if Mikey had considered #beautyateverysize
But this may be the future of art, a grey tastless mush of topicalisms and unchallenging poltical posturing.
>>45533720
yes there's a wierd sort of affirmative action being pushed onto artists now, you see this in fantasy, but also in other areas. For some reason people demand an artistic labor must appeal to their tastes or be something they 'identify' with, because they are to lazy or untalented to create something themselves.
>>45534031
>yes there's a wierd sort of affirmative action being pushed onto artists now
It's actually been a thing for a while, the backlash against how marketing companies pushed for white males almost exclusively on covers and as primary antagonists.
>>45533451
>The Arbites aren't the sole source of law enforcement in the Imperium,
The Arbites don't even enforce planetary law, they enforce *Imperial* Law. If it's not sedition, heresy, revolution, fucking with the Inquisition or the Adepta, or generally fucking with the tithe and the psyker shipments, the Arbites could not give less of a shit as a group.
>>45534398
No, it's the result of teaching people that being offended is an actual problem that others need to fix for them.
Instead of don't like it? Don't buy it! We ended up with "Don't like it? Had no intention of buying it anyway because it's not your thing? Better scream real loud until someone fixes it!"
>>45534667
>Don't buy it!
You really need to look into the marketing industry.
What you are talking about doesn't actually work irl.
>>45534398
I am talking exclusively about people's general attitude towards creative bodies of work and the emergense of applying topical poltical issues as a form of critcism against artistic works (with no regard for real aesthetic critique), this emerges namely in the belief that novels, comics, movies, and games as a whole should have some obligation to push or promote certain poltical issues regardless of whether it is related to the authors interests. This is testified in the broard stroke of pop culture, the waxing and wailing of text-book intellectuals for every apperence or acknowledgment of some arbitrary poltical struggle divorced from any sincere artistic advancment, or unique artistic work.
>>45535273
You speak like any of that is new, however.
See politics and religion in early 20th century America, centuries of it due to the Catholic Church in Europe.
You care now because you happen to be the one who finds themselves catching the fallout.
With the new HH fluff, I've come to view the Imperium of Man and the Emperor in a new light. Golden Crusade era Imperium wasn't meant to be a permanent thing, just a necessary evil that had to be done to preserve humanity. The Emperor needed to unite as much as humanity as possible under his banner. Then turn everything into war economy, just to hasten the reclamation of the Galaxy. He then disbanded all religion and ultimately retreated to Terra to tap into the Webway. With almost all humanity looking to the galaxy as something to claim in their name, no worship and ditching the Warp in favour of Webways, Chaos would be severely weakened. Humanity could achieve their evolution much more safely, Imperial armies would take over the galaxy and the Emperor could finally defeat the Chaos gods. After that, the Imperium could become a much nicer place.
The Emperor went all on in this risk. He tried to brutally and quickly win before Chaos fucks him over. But Chaos did fuck the Emperor over and the Imperium was devastated by the Heresy. With the Emperor on the Golden Throne and Chaos becoming a real threat, the Imperium had only one choice. Power on and try to survive by all means necessary.
>>45534505
The thing is, especially on hive worlds, planetary law and Imperial law are much closer to one another, as anything and everything is considered part of the tithe of a hive world. From hab workers for regiments to factory output for machinery, to newly trained adeptus for bureaucracy to high-grade nobility for breeding. So acts of arson, smuggling, kidnapping, murder, which on other worlds may not affect a tithe of tribal warriors or unrefined ore, are always seen to affect the tithe of a hive world.
>>45525596
>Implying zealot Christfags and assmad ancaps aren't easily triggered.
>>45533914
>liberal theory
I don't like culture warriors as much as the next man, but don't try to pretend this is just a leftist thing.
i dislike the empire but i love the guard
>>45525596
>tfw Im liberal but like the 40k universe
Broad generalizations are bad.
>>45535840
I have no problem with an artist creating his work in whatever way they please, Chick can make his comics as transparently propgandising as he wants. My contempt is with those who don't create at all but demand the artists and designers change their work to fit their view or poltical 'struggles'.
>>45525191
>I must've been trying to force my views
See, this is where you point and laugh.
After you've wiped away the tears of mirth, hold up the book and say, "I didn't write it, faget. Maybe your foil hat is torqued down too tight."
Then - this is the important part - you never, ever post a politically-charged longread on 4chan about how cluelessly biased That Guy is.
>>45529736
Come join us centrists, it's great fun looking down on everyone else from our position on top of the fence.
>>45539287
Well, so long as you've found a way to feel superior to everyone else, I guess that's all that matters.
>>45525191
>OP implies he is a fascist
>His friend is a libertarian
>They have a bad time.
What a shame.
>>45525191
The Imperium is pretty much what's left of humanity after everything's gone wrong. They're just the last souls desperately struggling to survive in the darkness the only way they know how.
Anyone who thinks that their philosophy is in any way a good thing or wasn't the result of any functional alternatives getting ruined by hubris and stupidity doesn't get the point of the setting. The setting is supposed to be Grimdark. The Imperium could have been a better place if things had gone differently, but it didn't, because that wouldn't have been grimdark enough.
>>45525191
You either DX him for a better friend (probably best), or you play Dark Crusade instead, because that's where fucking individuals and their precious liberties belong in the 40k universe.
>>45534698
I don't agree.
We have a culture now where someone looks at a product and instead of going "well that's not my thing and clearly it wasn't aimed at me" they go "Why isn't this thing trying to appeal to me personally, this is clearly a huge failure even though I've never really been into that sort of thing"
It's the difference between seeing a gay stripclub and going "that's clearly meant for a segment of the population of which I'm not part" and going "That's no way to run a business, I'm offended there's no pussy on the menu"
We have reached the stage where someone not liking something is perceived as a huge problem that someone else should fix by pandering to that person specifically without concern to the target audience.
We look at a game and instead of going "yeah, that's clearly meant for guys" we go "this is bullshit they should make it girl-friendly" even though they represent an absolute miniscule amount of the consumers.
>>45531567
>Somewhere someone had the stupid idea that a good person is someone who never has any dark impulses and is in fact a dickless robot who can't fathom why powertrips or violence could possibly be fun, rather than someone who totally gets the appeal but abstains from acting on it because he realizes that it's a shitty thing to do.
Yeah, if it never occurs to you how easy it would be to get away with certain morally bad things (stealing, small cons, etc) then of course not doing them will be easy. If you understand just how easy it would be, if you keep seeing opportunity to profit from being the bad guy but don't do it you are showing a greater degree of moral fortitude in my opinion.
>>45540834
This kind of reasoning falls flat when you consider that they're well within their rights to complain and that GW has no obligation to listen to them. Welcome to a free society, stop being a pussy.
>>45544864
No, because that applies just as well to bitching about gay bars, but is also retarded. "You should not be physically prevented from doing X" isn't the same as "X is perfectly valid and reasonable, and people who complain about it should stop."
Perfect example: You helpfully advised the anon you were responding to to stop being a pussy because he lives in a free society. That's either some impressive doublespeak, or a classic example of "Sure, you can, but it makes you a gigantic faggot."
>>45525191
I don't think you can really nail down the Imperium politically. It's so varied in diverse. Hell, it's almost libertarian in that it lets the planetary governor do whatever he/ she wants without much regulation.
Then again, I'm a liberal and I love 40k so maybe your friend is right in some extremely stupid way.
>>45527745
>rule of law with rights and liberties and even due process and lawyers
read the enforcer trilogy
imperial law is not our law
OP's buddy can be forgiven for thinking that, because goddamn has GW forgotten what 40K was supposed to be in the first place
the original 40K was a shameless ripoff of Judge Dredd, an insanely bleak fascist dystopia whose funny bits were made all the more hilarious by the fact the bleak fascist dystopia's agents have to treat a bunch of green-skinned soccer fans as an enemy of all mankind. the Imperium, as originally envisioned, is a ludicrously insane rotting corpse of a government that is made most dangerous by the fact it still believes it's in the right.
and then the Rorshach Problem cropped up.
when Alan Moore wrote Watchmen, he intended people to see Rorshach as a broken psychopath. a foul-smelling shut-in paranoiac who dies crying and demanding God kill him because he can't accept that the world has changed.
but nerds saw a fucked-up weirdo who got to commit wanton violence and said "hell yeah, he is SO COOL."
modern-day 40K has toned the ludicrousness of the whole exercise way down in the name of trying to appeal to those same nerds, and as a result if you look at modern 40K through any political lens other than "hell yeah fascism" it looks reeeeal ugly.
>>45525191
>I must've been trying to force my authoritarian and fascist views because my campaign was nothing but propaganda for my views.
The game is literally named "Dark HERESY"!
Player characters literally work for the INQUISITION!
What the fuck was your "friend" expecting?
>>45530190
>come into work early the next day
>raid Jim's (redactus) inbox
>send contents to mail room
>instructions say to make copies and distribute them to the entire staff.
>>45529823
this reminds me of that chris pine spy movie with the two super-bond spies with desks next to each other compete to out-fuck the other guys game in between missions
>>45535590
can confirm, am christfag
>>45535587
however if a rebellion sucessfully ferments, and its clear the rebels once in power will respect, bow to, and enforce imperial law, that governors on his own to clean up the mess he fucking let pop into existence
the imperium and the arbites dont quite care who rules a particular world and how much or how little freedom it gives its people, as long as its within acceptable limits
>>45548570
to be fair to rorschach, hes still an interesting take on a black and white character in a grey world
the problem the fans get isnt that they like him, its that they dont realise he just happens to be wrong
>>45540187
I had my deeply Christian libertarian friend do something similar with shadowrun. I was GM and he couldn't get over the 'Nanny State Society' as he called it.
And I'm like, "But dude, keep that hate in your belly, you can rebel, it's good motivation to make a difference"
But alas, I could not get through.
>>45539287
I didnt really mean it like that, rather that people will pick a side and if you are liberal on some things but conservative on others they'll treat you like youre a fucking retard
Like wise Ive seen people flip flop on topics and i kid you not, pretend like it didnt happen.
And really I dont really care how people feel on a topic as long as they are shoving poorly documented news articles in my face, yelling 'see, see?'
>My favorite was the article for 'half of america makes less than poverty line', which may be true on the whole but the article/study didn't take into accout parttime/household income/married single, and the person that sent it just played it as if im blinded by conservative rhetoric
>>45550985
>Shadowrun
>'Nanny State Society'
I thought the world of Shadowrun is run by megacorps who are out to fuck everyone over, not a government who tried to make everything better by controlling everything but makes it worse because they kind of suck at management?
>>45525191
The original "point" of 40K is not that the evil is necessary; The very fact that the entire Empire believes in so is the source of all their problems.
We (those we rule lol, not US) must be miserable to fight Chaos-->The downtrodden turn to Chaos out of despair(While the aristocrats dab in it anyway)--> Burn it all, and double down on misery.
GW should have never appealed to the "noble man in the corrupt system" image that neckbeards eat up, in what respects to the High Lords, the Ordos, the Eclessiarchy, not a trillion honest men would make a dent in the hypocrisy and corruption of it all.
What's right is not a luxury, to claim that is to claim that evil is necessary, and that to strive for good is ultimately impossible.
Nothing about the Empire is good, not it's ideals, not it's goals, and definitely not it's methods.
>>45548570
Slight correction, its a blatant rip-off of Nemesis the Warlock and Judge Dredd (as well as other 2000AD properties like Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog). Chainsword wielding religious fanatics serve an undying Emperor (who was also all of history's greatest monsters and feeds on the souls of his subjects to survive) and launch crusades from Terra with an aim to purge the universe of all alien life forms and those in league with the primordial forces of Moorcockian Chaos. The only difference is that in 40k the human bigots are the viewpoint characters rather than the main baddies.
>>45527396
It's a satirical setting that dumb Americans take seriously
>>45533632
And so does the conservative
That's why pol/ explodes every time a non white actor gets a major role or appears in anything they consider traditionally whites only
>>45554311
>Nemesis the Warlock
Welp, looks like I have something new to read. God, I miss the good ol' days when 40k was dark, absurdist comedy rather than grim-gritty-darkly-darkiness or a complete farce.
>>45554558
THIS
40k satirizes the very existence of politics and society.
>It's just a joke
>>45525191
>so he started a debate with me about how the Imperium is so evil and everything
TO BE A MAN IN SUCH TIMES IS TO BE ONE AMONG UNCOUNTABLE TRILLIONS LIVING IN THE MOST BRUTAL DICTATORSHIP IMAGINABLE
THERE IS NO PEACE AMONGST THE STARS, ONLY AN ETERNITY OF CARNAGE AND SLAUGHTER, AND THE LAUGHTER OF THIRSTING GODS
Imperium is not good bitch
>>45554700
Shakaranon storytimed all but the last two books of it at Christmas. If you search the archives you should be able to find links and commentary.
>>45555304
>Technical details courtesy of Termight Mechanicus
