Rants
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| I lack a picture of a horse being kicked... |
Anyways, here we are. Be prepared: It's long and all transcribed [sic] including Ork of Legend's comment..
Here
is something from deep in my archives. From what I can see this is not
currently posted anywhere else on the internet, so I will post it here
to stop it being lost to the community. It is a reply that Jervis
Johnson made on a mailing list some time in 1995. He was replying to the
accusations that Warhammer 40,000 had been dumbed down in the change
from 1st to 2nd edition.
I
have left the spelling and grammar alone in the posts and reproduced
them unchanged. Note: the second section of Jervis’ post is about using
house rules, only the first and third sections are to do with the
edition change.
Firstly, here is the original post that prompted Jervis to reply:
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I
recently got my hands on (albeit temporarily) on the Rogue Trader and
the Compilation 40K first edition books. I was amazed at their quality
and level of detail.
1st
ed 40K seemed almost like a role-playing game with scenarios, monsters
and rules for creating just about any vehicle in existance. I especially
liked the robot and dreadnought creation rules. In addition, the
modeling articles were quite excellent, in particular the ones which
showed you how to construct vehicles from deodorant cases and ZOIDS
toys.
I
am trying to figure out what happened to the 40K game universe since
those memorable 1st ed games. If you were to try to bring in a custom
vehicle or robot to the table these days most people (with the exception
of your established group perhaps) wont play against you since its
"unofficial."
Did
the spirit of player innovation die with the second edition? Maybe its
just me having to play with "official" rules policemen, but do most
people out there play with all the nifty fan-created custom vehicles,
characters and races? Or do people read the Dark Library and posts here,
say "thats nice!" and then go back to playing the fully "Chapter
Approved" 40K game?
I
am just wondering why the designers (AC and JJ if you are out there)
made the second edition so much more simplistic than the 1st edition.
Why were all the cool rules for monsters and special terrais taken out?
What about robots and custom vehicles?
Ed Etkin
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And here is the (very long) reply that Jervis made:
------------------------------------------------------------------
The
following post is from me (Jervis) only, and therefore, even more so
than most of the other things we post, it represents a personal view.
It's been put together late at night at home, and so may get a bit
incoherent at times, but hopefully the gist of what I'm saying will be
clear.
1st & 2nd Edition WH40K
Recently
Ed Etkin commented on some of things he liked about 1st edition
Warhammer 40,000 compared to the 'simplified' 2nd edition, especially
with regard to 1st edition's greater emphasis on making up your own
scenarios, scratch-building models, and a 'darker' tone to the
background.
Although
it may surprise some people, we actually agree with almost all of the
points Ed made, and in fact had identified the same problems ourselves
some time ago. That's why we brought out the Citadel Journal, with its
articles on scratch-building models, new scenarios and advanced rules,
and also why we tried to use the battle reports in WD to illustrate
alternative ways of playing. Now that the Codexs are almost finished
we'll soon have time to concentrate on other projects of a similar
nature. For example, we're planning to bring out a range of scenario
packs in 1997 that will show different ways of playing other than strict
'head-to-head' competition, while the extra 40 pages in the new style
WD have been added almost exclusively to allow us to address topics that
will appeal to more experienced players, such as different painting
techniques, scenarios and so on (oh, and Q&A of course!) Finally
there's Necromunda, which we very much see as a Warhammer 40,000 variant
that illustrates an alternative way of using the rules and background
to create an entirely new game.
As
to the darker and more brooding aspects of the background, suffice to
say I've done my best to make sure that Angels of Death lets people know
that not all Space Marines are 'white than white goody two-shoes'. As
to those players that want to write things like "die! die! die!" on
their Space Marines helmets (which in our experience is what people are
*really* talking about when they say the 1st edition background was
'darker'), don't despair, because if we get our way a lot of this style
of iconography will be included in the Chaos Codex...
House Rules When GW Play
In
digest 200 John Phelps raises a number of interesting points about us
using house rules, if this is a problem, and more specifically about
letting players know about them.
The
first point that I'd make is that it's our job to use house rules -
we're rule writers after all and as such we're constantly trying out
different ideas and rules. Some of the new rules stick, and when this
happens we try to let people know about them, either through WD magazine
in battle reports and (now) the Q&A page, or in the Citadel
Journal, or (now) on the net. However we don't really want people to see
these house rules as being anything other than highly recommended
optional rules that should only be used in a game with both players
consent. In the past we've been very wary of publishing house rules and
even Q&A because we're worried about the confusion that might
result, but we're starting to be a bit more free and easy about the
whole process. In fact we hope to include a section on the Q&A page
called something like "Jerv and Andy's House Rules" where we can deal
with stuff like the unmodifiable save ruling we've tried out on the net,
starting in WD193.
Secondly,
if you're worried about whether you're playing exactly the same game as
us (since we may be using house rules you don't know about), especially
in tournament conditions, please don't be! I know I've said it before,
but it's difficult to understate the case when I say that what we
present is a starting point. As long as you're happy with the version of
the game you're playing that's fine by us! The same applies to
tournaments, except that here it's up to the tournament organisers to
decide if there are going to be any variations to the standard rules.
Again, as long as the tournament organiser's happy, well it's the same
for all the players taking part, and they don't have to play if they
don't want to!
On
the same subject, in digest 204 Pat Marstall made a number of sensible
comments in reply to John's original post, especially with regard to the
fact that the house rules we use don't in any way invalidate the
original rules in the game. In most cases it's pretty much a toss-up as
to which version works best anyway, so you should simply go with the
version you prefer. The same applies if you prefer the old 1st edition
rules (use them, we won't mind), or Warzone for that matter (OK, we'll
mind a bit in this case, but Bill King's our mate so we won't get to
upset). Of course the the rules gives them a certain gravitas, and
especially when playing against new opponents this means that you'll
probably have to use a vanilla version of the rules (or a vanilla
version with our recommended house rules). But what can we say, other
than that life is very rarely perfect!
Simplified for Kiddies
Finally,
I would like to take issue with one thing Pat said, which is roughly
that the published rules are deliberately simplified for 12 year olds
and that we use complicated house rules because we're 'grown-ups'.
Leaving aside the 'classic-car' syndrome of this argument (they don't
make 'em like they used to you know!), what people need to understand is
that we (the designers) change the rules for ourselves and nobody else
(this ain't no democracy ya know!). In fact we're constantly fiddling
and tweaking the rules and background in order to try and improve them,
the we in question being mainly Rick, Andy C, Alan Merrit, John Blanche,
Jez Goodwin and myself. Obviously others contribute to, but generally
when stuff gets changed it's our fault!
So
you see, the stuff we publish is quite simply the way _we_ like to do
things, it really is. The truth is that we've tended to simplify rules
and stuff more with recent editions of our games because, as we get
older and wiser, we find that in gaming, as in art, 'less is usually
more'. Speaking for myself, as I have matured as a game designer I have
come to believe more and more strongly that it is usually what is left
out that's important, rather than what is put in - in other words
sometimes rules and clever background stuff can simply get in the way of
having good game, without adding anything in terms of flavour, tactics
or fun!
Therefore
you should look on 1st edition Warhammer 40,000 rulebook as an
evolution of the 1st (grey box) & 2nd (red box) edition _Warhammer_
rules. In their turn the 1st edition WH40K rules heavily influenced the
way the 3rd edition (orange book) Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook was
written. By the time we came to do the current editions of both
Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 (4th and 2nd editions respectively) we
had decided that we'd made the hardback books too wordy and
over-complicated, and that we actually far preferred the way things had
been done way back with the 1st and 2nd edition Warhammer rules.
Therefore what you see now is a return to the way we originally did
things, because we liked it better that way, rather than anything
especially new.
But
evolution never stops, and now looking back we can see that although
we're happy with the current level of complexity in the rules themselves
(except that I'd like simplify the vehicle rules!), we miss the stuff
in the hardback books talking about things like designing your own
scenarios, or making terrain, and that kind of thing. That's why, as
noted above, we agree with a lot of Ed's comments on 1st & 2nd
edition WH40K.
Which
is where I started, so that's quite enough of my rambling thoughts and
comments for the time bein at least. It's going to be interesting to see
what you guys make of them. Have fun...
-Jervis
Anyways, It's definitely food for thought and sheds a tiny bit of light about the VAST changes between editions, especially 5th to 6th (despite being short 80% of the people listed by name). Lemme know you're thoughts in the comments (and over at Classic 40,000, He works hard and deserves some more views!).
Until next time,
Punch, kick, it's all in the mind.
Bean out~
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