OREhammer 40k:Collected Ideas

This part of the project is the place for unrefined ideas, an archive of the posts that started it and, hopefully, a breeding grounds for new ideas. Basically, it's the place where the actual work is done.

The Post that started it all

Inspired by the recent slowly-turning-sour thread about the Demo for BI's "Dark Heresy" 10k game, I've been thinking, once again, about 40k, what I like about it and how I'd modell that in a game.

For a bit of background: I'm coming here, mostly, from Dan Abnetts Fiction, especially the Gaunts Ghosts, Eisenhorn and Ravenor series, but also stuff like Brothers of the Snake or Horus Heresy. I also like various 40k comics (especially when written by, surprise, Dan Abnett), computer games and, well, I own and have read the core book of the tabletop, although I'm more of a Warmachine/Mechaton-kinda guy. (Although my first TT game was Epic 40k. God, that's long ago...) I also don't like the WFRP rules.

Anyway. What I like about 40k, besides obvious things like the fact that it's a dark high-wierdness setting with "METAL" turned up to 11, is that under it's thin shell of "Oh my god, everything is for naught, we're all going to die, yadayadayada" it's actually a pretty pulpy and cinematic setting. Lots of larger then life action going on, saints battling demons in galactic scale wars and so on. To me, 40k is a setting that despite it's seeming nihilism is actually very much about those few characters willing to use their guts even without any glory waiting.

(Now, obviously, this only a small aspect of the huge, kitchen sink, giant rorschach-blot of a setting that 40k is and I'm guessing that's petty much why there are so many people coming at this from so many directions. Some concentrate on the nihilism, some more on the WW1 pastiche, some more on the pseudo-medievalism and some more on the "METAL!!!". And I think that actually works pretty well, as long as people remember that 40k is very much a Your Setting Will Vary thing and that other peoples interpretations of this huge mutant mess of a setting are probably just as valid as their own. Been guilty of that myself more then once, but, well, I'm trying to get better.)

To get back on the topic at hand, what I want out of a 40k game is exactly the above mentioned thin crust of gritty deadlyness over the tasty goodness of cinematic action. In 40k, sad, anonymous and pointless dead should happen to OTHER PEOPLE, not the main characters.

So, how to do that and what game to use?

Besides going the easy way and using Wushu (Which I plan to do at some point but which doesn't offer much in the way of conversion work for this thread.), I'd probably use some ORE variant. The One Roll Engine has really matured with Wild Talents, Reign and Monsters and other childish things and I think it offers exactly the right mix of grittiness and heroic potential that I'm looking for.

Using Wild Talents as the baseline (For easy power/technology creation.), here are a few changes I'd implement:

Trim the Skill list - This is very much a taste thing, but I find the WT skill list too bloated, especially for the cost of skills. Something like Reigns skill list, where every stat has about 5-6 skills under it and thus costs five times as much as a skill works better for me. So a bunch of skills would be combined and a couple of new ones would be stolen from Reign, especially the Sense skills.

Add the Madness Meter from Nemesis/UA - I love the UA Madness Meter and I think it would work great for a 40k game, where Madness and characters hardened by war are featured quite often. Also, it's easy to both add and remove it, depending on the tone somebody's aiming for.

Steal TSOYs "Keys" to replace the XP system - Again a taste thing, but I find WT/Reigns XP System pretty boring. Not really bad but not terribly exciting either, so something more interesting would be nice. Enter TSOY and its Keys. They'd allow players to better define what they want out of the game and to actually decide what they want to earn XP for. Also, Buyoffs make for an awesome character change mechanic. ("Oh, fuck this protecting people shit, Chaos doesn't look so bad now. I lose the Key of Compassion and get the Key of the Heretic instead!") Also, eyeballing the Costs of Wild Talents, having characters earn 5-10 XP per session, maybe less with a modified 1-2-3 spread for Keys, seems to fit alright... (I'd like characters to get at least one "Goodie" per session, wether its a skill point or whatever.)

Pre-stat a bunch of 40k Stuff - Describing various things we see in 40k in WT terms doesn't seem too hard. Weapons are pretty easy: Lasguns of various sorts seem to be about as effective as various modern day guns, so a Laspistol might have Width in Shock+Killing, a Lasrifle Width+2 with a few levels of Spray and/or Penetration, Flamers and various Plasma weapons would have Burn and big damage and so on.

Various races/monsters/occupations also wouldn't be hard to translate. Orks would get lots of strength, a bunch of Extra Tough levels, maybe a bit of Heavy Armor, the permanent Size Shift mentioned on WT Page 111 and I'd have the perverse itch to give them some power based on Second Chance, either representing the fact that they're too dumb to die or the next generation of Orks that grew from their spores. (But then I'm weird.) Tau scream for many Foki to represent Battle Armor and High Tech Gadgetry, as do Adepts of the Machine God. (Who are also the perfect fit for the Gadgeteer power.) Psykers could be statted with things like Telepathy, Harm, Precognition, Telekinesis and Ghost, adding a few defects/intrinsics to represent the danger of possession and other nasties. Depending on what exactly I'd want to run (Rogue Traders, Imperial Guard, Inquisitors, ...) different things would need statting. In an IG game, few people would need to think about Psyker Powers or Demons. (But then, who knows...)

Things to Focus on

For now, I want to focus on the following parts, leaving the other stuff for later:

• Character Generation - The core of the conversion for now. What Skills to use, how to change/adapt costs, ...

  Also, for now I want to focus the conversion on the Imperium and human side in general. Feel free to add pages/ideas for other races, but IMO getting this right is more important then having rules for Space Marines or Necrons.

• Psykers - In this section, rules for building various Psyker powers and generally adapting the ORE to the 40k setting are to be developed. Special Extras, ideas for and discussion about Corruption rules and Chaos in general.
• Madness Meters - How to adapt the Nemesis/UA Madness Meters to the setting, how to test them, how to interface them with other rules, ...
• Keys - Adapting TSOYs "Keys" and the experience rules in general.
• Equipment - Flamers, Lasguns and everything else that could be useful to have on the Grim Future...