Prompt: Favourite idea for merging two games into one
So... Hmm.
Man, Age of Sigmar has really turned me off this concept. Even my fondly planned campaign in which WFRP PCs lead a defence of the Empire against a force of crashed Imperial Guardsmen fallen through the Warp Gates seems less appealing in the light of Games Workshop's reboot of the Warhammer line, apparently to a) simplify the rules and b) make it more 40K. Successive editions having already transformed the Old World from a culturally blurred pseudo-Renaissance fantasy setting into a planet of nation-hats, they've now gone and blown the entire planet up (you maniacs. God damn you all to hell. It's a madhouse.) and replaced it with some sort of high-concept God-Realm where colossal superhumans punch each other across the dimensions and no-one is playing Blood Bowl.
Are you happy, Age of Sigmar? You killed Blood Bowl.
That was a great mashup though: An American football simulation and Warhammer? I wish 40K had something like that*, especially now I'm playing in a 40K LARP. What sports do 40K citizens follow? I think we know that Ciaphas Cain was good at sports, but not what he played. Probably the Schola Progenium equivalent of the Eton Wall Game**. Maybe a lot of field hockey with chainblades on the sticks, or fire, in the case of the Sororitas novitiate. Paintball assassin with real guns. Hot lava on the gantries over the furnaces.
The few times sport is mentioned in the source material it's almost universally in the context of hunting something immense and malignant in the local fauna. Or war. Maybe the Imperium is actually like the upper classes and the only sports are huntin', shootin' and fishin'. On the other hand, you can imagine inter-platoon soccer matches played by the enlisted men of the Guard, with the ultimate honour going to any team that can beat a Stormtrooper Eleven. And do the Navy play zero-G volleyball along the vastness of a cargo bay?
Death Worlders have a sport; they call it 'staying alive'. The rules are pretty simple, and no-one wins***.
Now Orks; Orks know about sport, I'm sure. Squig fights, squig races, kustom kart racing, 'itting each uvver 'til someone remembers dey've won. I guess the Dark Eldar have sports, but I'm not sure ritual bikini murders and slave beating have a place in a respectable live game. The Eldar must have sports, a Way of the Athlete which they spend centuries obsessing over before moving on to something else; perhaps they play some form of insanely acrobatic touch kabbadi. The Tau... The Tau probably have a sport where both sides win.
Tomorrow I'll be talking about a thing to do with roleplaying (preparation!) Favourite game I no longer play (thank you other tab.)
* The nearest they had was Gorkamorka, a skirmish game with lots of vehicles, but alas not a racing game, and they dropped a bridge - well, orbital strike - on that one.
** From Wikipedia: "The main game consists of the two sets of players forming a rugby-style scrummage (called a "Bully") in which neither team may "furk" the ball." Blood Bowl almost seems more reasonable.
*** Actually in fairness, we did create 'Arborian chain disc frisbee' last game.
 |
| Yeah... no. |
So... Hmm.
Man, Age of Sigmar has really turned me off this concept. Even my fondly planned campaign in which WFRP PCs lead a defence of the Empire against a force of crashed Imperial Guardsmen fallen through the Warp Gates seems less appealing in the light of Games Workshop's reboot of the Warhammer line, apparently to a) simplify the rules and b) make it more 40K. Successive editions having already transformed the Old World from a culturally blurred pseudo-Renaissance fantasy setting into a planet of nation-hats, they've now gone and blown the entire planet up (you maniacs. God damn you all to hell. It's a madhouse.) and replaced it with some sort of high-concept God-Realm where colossal superhumans punch each other across the dimensions and no-one is playing Blood Bowl.
Are you happy, Age of Sigmar? You killed Blood Bowl.
That was a great mashup though: An American football simulation and Warhammer? I wish 40K had something like that*, especially now I'm playing in a 40K LARP. What sports do 40K citizens follow? I think we know that Ciaphas Cain was good at sports, but not what he played. Probably the Schola Progenium equivalent of the Eton Wall Game**. Maybe a lot of field hockey with chainblades on the sticks, or fire, in the case of the Sororitas novitiate. Paintball assassin with real guns. Hot lava on the gantries over the furnaces.
The few times sport is mentioned in the source material it's almost universally in the context of hunting something immense and malignant in the local fauna. Or war. Maybe the Imperium is actually like the upper classes and the only sports are huntin', shootin' and fishin'. On the other hand, you can imagine inter-platoon soccer matches played by the enlisted men of the Guard, with the ultimate honour going to any team that can beat a Stormtrooper Eleven. And do the Navy play zero-G volleyball along the vastness of a cargo bay?
Death Worlders have a sport; they call it 'staying alive'. The rules are pretty simple, and no-one wins***.
Now Orks; Orks know about sport, I'm sure. Squig fights, squig races, kustom kart racing, 'itting each uvver 'til someone remembers dey've won. I guess the Dark Eldar have sports, but I'm not sure ritual bikini murders and slave beating have a place in a respectable live game. The Eldar must have sports, a Way of the Athlete which they spend centuries obsessing over before moving on to something else; perhaps they play some form of insanely acrobatic touch kabbadi. The Tau... The Tau probably have a sport where both sides win.
Tomorrow I'll be talking about a thing to do with roleplaying (preparation!) Favourite game I no longer play (thank you other tab.)
* The nearest they had was Gorkamorka, a skirmish game with lots of vehicles, but alas not a racing game, and they dropped a bridge - well, orbital strike - on that one.
** From Wikipedia: "The main game consists of the two sets of players forming a rugby-style scrummage (called a "Bully") in which neither team may "furk" the ball." Blood Bowl almost seems more reasonable.
*** Actually in fairness, we did create 'Arborian chain disc frisbee' last game.
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