Re: Dungeons of Dread – a rant about a game that doesn’t exist (yet)
Posted by Billiam Babble on Oct 10, 2011; 1:47am
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Dungeons-of-Dread-a-rant-about-a-game-that-doesn-t-exist-yet-tp6875207p6875504.html
*Grin* I kind of want the game you're talking about -we all do. ;) And we'd pay double!
I can see what your saying about their approach and tired rehashing whilst not supporting a line that they claimed was the "ultimate gaming experience", but I just can't see them returning to WHQ or anything remotely similar. My own reasons for feeling this is that even when WHQ came out, it was just after they had thrown all of the RPGs out of the stores, including Warhammer FRPG. Even as a D&D/HQ-type game there was a message in that game to role-playing dungeon-delvers that plots could be randomised and that the traditional dungeon games were no longer needed, even the GM could be dropped. But unfortunately for WHQ fans, at the end of the day it wasn't focussed on collecting armies (*speculation*). The Moria settings for LotR would have been a perfect return to the dungeon grid, but they stuck with open skirmish rules. In 25mm game the settings/scenarios and characters are fixed, no creativity allowed (not like MERP et al), apart from in the painting of the figures perhaps (that's my interpretation, mind). I'm actually surprised they've kept the LotR games going, the rules are different from the standard WH/GW fare and the figures are less caricatured - it's all very un-GW - not to mention strangely serious, the Waah! GW orcs have no place in Saruman's White Hands (or whatever they're called), my glorious Uruk-Hai. I strikes me (from the magazine rules I have) that the LotR games are a perfect gateway game for new players, that as well as the movie franchise is still ongoing. Otherwise I think it would have been dropped much faster than Gothic or Epic were.
The repeated reprints of WH FRPG and the card-based version by Fantasy Flight Games, didn't inspire them to move away from the mass battle war-gaming. Even Inquisitor seems to sit uncomfortably with the staff I talked to a few years ago. I have no idea what they feel about Rogue Trader et al. Looking at Necromunda and Mordeheim, it seems unlikely that they'd want to go back to four dungeon heroes, when they can sell tribes and gangs or squads in packs of 6-10.
I think that WHQ steered too close to D&D and there used to be a real snobbery amongst the GW wargamers that RPG games were too intricate and "beardy" to quote a WH40K and Skaven collecting friend (I say "used to be" - this feels like a generation ago). Naturally if you play both you'll know that actually old-school role-players can be very relaxed about how rules are used, and that rules-lawyering is common in all gaming, but I digress ...
Commission driven staff have short memories. Space Hulk came back. Even Blood Bowl! But like I said, it's about squads and teams. I'm guessing Blood Bowl fitted in with the idea of regular store based tournaments.(?)
The strangest thing is that D&D is now looking more like WHQ than ever before (with all of the character special abilities and combat moves). There's a lot of focus upon how many squares a character can move, and very little focus on non-combat skills. Not much role-playing in the inn beforehand I reckon.
I've never played the Descent game either - and there's lots of expansion packs for that. I mention it because it seemed to be really popular a few years back. I'm getting more and more curious about Castle Ravenloft and the other D&D "board" games (in the hope that they are more "pick-up and play" than the RPG rules). Surely GW is aware of the successes of those games?
Somehow GW seems to veer away from complete games in a box - apart from the absolute basics (beginner sets), because it's about the metal, and the fine-cast and the double priced acrylics. But we know all this. However, Space Hulk was a complete game - but note that it was "limited edition" - and I don't think that's just because it's a gamble to invest in a new game so you have a limited print run - they knew it would be a success, it's because for over 20 years at the heart of every GW manager is the pressure to pile on the extras, to encourage the buyer to diversify, new troops, new codex. Space Hulk was a bone thrown to the nostalgia heads, and a perhaps a marketing promo to perpetuate the bizarre concept of sword wielding spacemen (okay, I'm getting cynical here).
If they made a dungeon game my gut feeling is that it would a gang-based skirmish game like Necromunda or Mordheim - or if it returned to a grid, maybe it would be team based, seize the flag/hill but with a extra scenery perhaps, and not a co-operative quest, or adventure plot, of any kind.
What a strange discussion we're having with ourselves. It's not quite enough to criticise GW for their hideous monopoly in the UK and nakedly exploitative concepts, that we have to invent and torture ourselves with hypothetical possibilities.
Thanks for prodding the grey matter, Mortis.
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Dungeons-of-Dread-a-rant-about-a-game-that-doesn-t-exist-yet-tp6875207p6875504.html
*Grin* I kind of want the game you're talking about -we all do. ;) And we'd pay double!
I can see what your saying about their approach and tired rehashing whilst not supporting a line that they claimed was the "ultimate gaming experience", but I just can't see them returning to WHQ or anything remotely similar. My own reasons for feeling this is that even when WHQ came out, it was just after they had thrown all of the RPGs out of the stores, including Warhammer FRPG. Even as a D&D/HQ-type game there was a message in that game to role-playing dungeon-delvers that plots could be randomised and that the traditional dungeon games were no longer needed, even the GM could be dropped. But unfortunately for WHQ fans, at the end of the day it wasn't focussed on collecting armies (*speculation*). The Moria settings for LotR would have been a perfect return to the dungeon grid, but they stuck with open skirmish rules. In 25mm game the settings/scenarios and characters are fixed, no creativity allowed (not like MERP et al), apart from in the painting of the figures perhaps (that's my interpretation, mind). I'm actually surprised they've kept the LotR games going, the rules are different from the standard WH/GW fare and the figures are less caricatured - it's all very un-GW - not to mention strangely serious, the Waah! GW orcs have no place in Saruman's White Hands (or whatever they're called), my glorious Uruk-Hai. I strikes me (from the magazine rules I have) that the LotR games are a perfect gateway game for new players, that as well as the movie franchise is still ongoing. Otherwise I think it would have been dropped much faster than Gothic or Epic were.
The repeated reprints of WH FRPG and the card-based version by Fantasy Flight Games, didn't inspire them to move away from the mass battle war-gaming. Even Inquisitor seems to sit uncomfortably with the staff I talked to a few years ago. I have no idea what they feel about Rogue Trader et al. Looking at Necromunda and Mordeheim, it seems unlikely that they'd want to go back to four dungeon heroes, when they can sell tribes and gangs or squads in packs of 6-10.
I think that WHQ steered too close to D&D and there used to be a real snobbery amongst the GW wargamers that RPG games were too intricate and "beardy" to quote a WH40K and Skaven collecting friend (I say "used to be" - this feels like a generation ago). Naturally if you play both you'll know that actually old-school role-players can be very relaxed about how rules are used, and that rules-lawyering is common in all gaming, but I digress ...
Commission driven staff have short memories. Space Hulk came back. Even Blood Bowl! But like I said, it's about squads and teams. I'm guessing Blood Bowl fitted in with the idea of regular store based tournaments.(?)
The strangest thing is that D&D is now looking more like WHQ than ever before (with all of the character special abilities and combat moves). There's a lot of focus upon how many squares a character can move, and very little focus on non-combat skills. Not much role-playing in the inn beforehand I reckon.
I've never played the Descent game either - and there's lots of expansion packs for that. I mention it because it seemed to be really popular a few years back. I'm getting more and more curious about Castle Ravenloft and the other D&D "board" games (in the hope that they are more "pick-up and play" than the RPG rules). Surely GW is aware of the successes of those games?
Somehow GW seems to veer away from complete games in a box - apart from the absolute basics (beginner sets), because it's about the metal, and the fine-cast and the double priced acrylics. But we know all this. However, Space Hulk was a complete game - but note that it was "limited edition" - and I don't think that's just because it's a gamble to invest in a new game so you have a limited print run - they knew it would be a success, it's because for over 20 years at the heart of every GW manager is the pressure to pile on the extras, to encourage the buyer to diversify, new troops, new codex. Space Hulk was a bone thrown to the nostalgia heads, and a perhaps a marketing promo to perpetuate the bizarre concept of sword wielding spacemen (okay, I'm getting cynical here).
If they made a dungeon game my gut feeling is that it would a gang-based skirmish game like Necromunda or Mordheim - or if it returned to a grid, maybe it would be team based, seize the flag/hill but with a extra scenery perhaps, and not a co-operative quest, or adventure plot, of any kind.
What a strange discussion we're having with ourselves. It's not quite enough to criticise GW for their hideous monopoly in the UK and nakedly exploitative concepts, that we have to invent and torture ourselves with hypothetical possibilities.
Thanks for prodding the grey matter, Mortis.
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