tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post3952763649809224421..comments2024-03-29T06:16:21.012+08:00Comments on Monsters and Manuals: The Consequences of TemplatesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-63271231721747393982016-09-10T21:09:50.468+08:002016-09-10T21:09:50.468+08:00He was around at the beginning, and was super-invo...He was around at the beginning, and was super-involved in a everything until... 5+ years ago, or whenever White Dwarf went weekly. I haven't heard his name come up since. <br /><br />Totally a gamer, someone who loves playing games. Created lot of the stupid, fun one-off games that turned up in WD. Not a money person at all.Rushputinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07867389429325778387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-82485554932485033892016-09-10T18:48:52.424+08:002016-09-10T18:48:52.424+08:00According to wikipedia he's a "long term ...According to wikipedia he's a "long term strategy manager" at Games Workshop. Presumably his job is to turn up at board meetings and go "We're basically just going to keep printing money forever and ever..."noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-5657471160905655102016-09-10T05:52:53.948+08:002016-09-10T05:52:53.948+08:00I feel like the true templatism, if you will, of t...I feel like the true templatism, if you will, of the White Wolf games occurred at a different scale. I agree that the books weren't written in a way that allowed or encouraged or facilitated adding on new werewolf tribes, or vampire clans, or mage traditions, or faerie kith, etc. But just from that sentence you can probably see where I'm going.<br /><br />The whole system was so modular and interchangeable. Each game had almost identical spreads of stats and skills using the same dice-pool mechanics. It was trivial to take <i>that</i> template and tweak it for a new genre. Just offhand I remember people using the White Wolf system to play Highlander-style immortals and jedi.<br /><br />I wasn't involved in the "scene" enough to tell you whether or to what degree this sort of thing was officially encouraged, discouraged, or simply ignored. But to me it does feel like a "template" nature on a global level that wasn't matched until D&D moved to the D20 system and the OGL.Confanityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10361443460498670841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-45173129786865904912016-09-10T00:09:47.967+08:002016-09-10T00:09:47.967+08:00Anecdotally - you're not off. I was at one of...Anecdotally - you're not off. I was at one of the largest 40K tournaments in the US over the weekend, and I'd say maybe 60-80% of the Space Marines there were "on-brand" but there were a lot of custom paint jobs, even if they were in the minority.<br /><br />Jervis Johnson (whatever happened to that guy?) used to write about _his_ custom chapter (I don't remember the name) that he made a point of being unique so he could run it with whatever chapter rules caught his fancy, and did so in White Dwarf. (Not in battle reports, of course, but in his editorial column.)<br /><br />Rushputinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07867389429325778387noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-4183526625979636272016-09-09T23:45:07.981+08:002016-09-09T23:45:07.981+08:00Fair enough. It's been a long time since I pla...Fair enough. It's been a long time since I played it. I remember the mentioning of other chapters and successor ones, but the only minis you ever, ever saw were Blood Angles, Dark Angles, Ultramarines and Space Wolves. It was never "In this battle report, the Whispering Snakes take on a warband Orks..." or whatever. noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-2289831668706372412016-09-09T23:43:02.357+08:002016-09-09T23:43:02.357+08:00With Space Marines, it's not implicit, it'...With Space Marines, it's not implicit, it's explicit.<br /><br />There's a lot of baked-in room for player creativity with Space Marines. It's clearly stated that there are countless chapters out there: if you want to do your own thing, do that. If you want to make Your Chapter be like an Official Chapter: boom, it's a successor chapter. Done. Each official chapter codex gets a couple of pages dedicated to example successor chapters. <br /><br />Even with the earlier, fixed-number of Space Marine Legions, there are two redacted legions, so there's space for a 30K player to assert that their Space Marines are one of those. Rushputinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07867389429325778387noreply@blogger.com