I just watched the 40k episode of Secret Level on Amazon. Those unfamiliar with the franchise or lore will be a bit lost, but the visuals were stunning, and the overall was indeed grimdark. If that's what Amazon will do with 40k IP, I have hope for what's coming.
I watched that. Very familiar with 40k, but never played the SM games and don't know those characters or their stories and had no investment. It was 20 minutes of "bolters go blam" for me. People I know who have played the game seem to have liked it though.
@@Daolnwood They are trying to find New AUDIENCES ... Not game or miniature customers. Huge difference. GW is on the verge of making more money with selling licenses for their IP. Which is preferable to games manufacture because the cost overhead is orders of magnitude lower. This is why they are pushing so hard into the mainstream. They want 40k to become the new Star Wars or Star Trek. An IP with universal appeal and pop culture reference that can sell everything and fits to every product. Allmost unlimited growth potential with out all the Husten of manufacturing and selling yourself.
@@schnuersithey're selling 1£ worth of plastic for $45-100. They struck gold. They've also been doing licensing for decades and it's not remotely the same in terms of returns. None of this is new territory. Every single time they have their IP get even a bit famous, it's the plastic that brings in the big bucks, because more eyeballs translates into more people buying the models that have the stupidly good margins.
Michael Moorcock, whose works actually inspired much of early Warhammer, once said that for a work to become popular, to appeal to a broad enough audience to be mainstream, it has to get bland.
I think there is no right ammount of grimdark. It depends what is the setting and what will it show to us. Even when 40k was peak grimdark, there where elements which transformed a grimdark aspect to plain grimderp. (There are no handrails on Imperial stairs, because a handrails is more expensive then human a life)
That's because old 40K was openly satirical and not meant to be taken seriously - and so is much of modern 40K. Stop treating grimdark as some kind of deadly serious genre and it'll suddenly make a lot more sense.
I can't be the only one who finds one page rules boring as hell. Everyone speaks so highly about it, but it truly just feels like throwing two armies at each other and just rolling dice to see what happens. The game feels almost auto-played.
@@habibishapur Dunno, my opinion is quite opposite. Altering activations do force you to think more tactically, and since you don't have an entire turn just for yourself, it's less of army smashing
@Mercenary0712 I mean, I dislike the card-game-like mechanics of 40k. I would play historicals if literally anyone else played. But one page rules seems like any degree of tactics or strategy has no effect.
@@habibishapur A problem that I have heard is that rules upon rules upon rules can result in very long turn times. Great for some people maybe, but grueling for others who want more fluidity.
@@habibishapurI play OPR pretty regularly after not enjoying Kill Team. In my own experience Ive pulled off some really creative maneuvers with my Ork list that didn’t feel like a “gotcha” but did leave both of us having a laugh.
From the 1980s to the 2010s "a cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic dystopia you wouldn't want to live in" was the default portrayal of the future. In the grim darkness of the two hundred and third decade, people are desperate to see a world worth saving, and you certainly can't get that from looking out your window.
To be fair, I think you've oversold how grimdark Grimdark Future was ever meant to _be._ Its original form was called One Page 40K, and was literally an attempt to create a game for people who _wanted_ to play 40K, but were tired of the convoluted rules, and ever-increasing need to buy new books. OP40K allowed you play 40K with the models you already had, with free rules, and were simple enough to learn and play quickly, without having to pore through reams of datasheets. As time went on, the creator decided he could actually make a go of it as a business, and called it Grimdark Future to still hint at its origins, but less overtly refer to them. They've now started developing their own separate lore for it, and making their own STL files (many of which are _fantastic),_ but that's never been the _point_ of the games themselves. The thrust has always been miniatures-agnostic sets of rules that you can use to play with whatever models you like, and whatever _lore_ you like.
It's sounds like GDF has moved it's setting to resemble something more akin to how Rogue Trader presented it's universe before the current grimdark codified universe came into being over time. RT would have had pleasure planets/tourism, economic trade between empires/species and felt more 2000AD and less grimdark as much.
Yeah, OPR feels way more original 40k/rogue trader than the modern version does to this old man. I like that there is still room for humor, hope, and stories to be told that aren't just "we're all evil".
For those who did not grow up in the 70's and 80's The tangible threat of a nuclear war was on everyone's mind, we all knew we were on a knifes edge of it happening. This was also the era of post apocalyptic movies. The era of many, many disaster movies. Where games like Judge Dread and Car Wars were popular. Where some more gritty themed RPGS came into existence that were not part of TSR and AD&D It was a time that 40K also poked fun of modern politics and institutions of that time in a very tongue in check way. This is the era that 40K was born into, and as others have said, 40K was a reflection of the times. Is 40K going back to itz roots about being more tongue in check or is it going into a more gritty theme? Only time will tell which direction the leadership at GW will take things and how mainstream or niche they wish to take the lore and the perception of what 40K should be in their eyes. As to lore and setting. It depends on rather you are playing a more narrative game whose stories are intertwined into a much larger universe or are you playing a game to have some fun with your buddies and the lore and stories comes from the game you just played and not from some outside 3rd party.
> The tangible threat of a nuclear war was on everyone's mind, we all knew we were on a knifes edge of it happening. Uh... There is this guy in Russia right now who is threatening to fire hyper-sonic rockets at the UK, and several large train stations were shut for bomb-scares last week. We just need ska to make a comeback and we are all set. Also I would say that the satire element of 40k - poking fun at current politics - was mostly gone by the time they released 2nd edition.
old 40k is great because as the authors stated "we were trying to forget real life politics, not lampoon it, it was bad enough as it was" but you can SEE the politics of the day seeping in subconsciously, but ultimately you have to read it in yourself, even in the case of Mag Uruk Thraka, the lampoon was declared completely unintentional by the staff and, in my opinion, that's great on all accounts
I think it goes in circles, also depending on the whims of the designers. For example 5th ed Warhammer (mid 90's) had totally cartoonish artwork with funny pictures in the rulebook, while beginning of the 2000's brought Mordheim and 6th ed Warhammer with very dark artwork with heavy themes (remember the picture of a religious procession in an Empire town or the entire Beastmen book?).
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming Idk. Maybe the varying amounts of freedom executives give to designers and artists? Trends in neighbouring industries (video games)? Shifts in what GW perceives as their target audience?
@@robertchmielecki2580 I think it is a combination of several different things. 5th edition was HeroHammer, with very powerful heroes and relatively small, elite forces battling hordes of orks/skaven. 6th edition toned down the heroes, nerfed a lot of the magic, and made armies bigger. It was no longer you and a couple of friends (and their levies) defending your manor from goblins, or two local lords having a disagreement over some village. It was massive invasions clashing with hastily conscripted armies led by foppish officers with little real combat experience. 6th edition was also when Bretonnia got a complete tone overhaul, from straight up Arthurian myth land, to medieval France, where chivalry was in name only most of the time, and the only people that mattered were the ones who could pay ransom. Of course, the RPG was dark and perilous from the very start. 2nd edition made it more lethal, but at the same time, less punishing on the actual player. You could get your character brained with a bar stool way more easily, but magic no longer required components (they simply helped) and learning skills no longer costed your character's life savings while having a high failure rate.
I think this is a misunderstanding of Warhammer Fantasy. Warhammer Fantasy was never Grimdark. It was always traditional High fantasy. It was even designed initially as a more Tolkein-esque supplement to the Runequest RPG before Avalon Hill dropped the contract, and RQ models and the 'Questworld' development shifted and transformed into warhammer fantasy. (This is why beastmen are the original Chaos--they're the broo--beastmen from Runequest, just heavily censored for England, its why the wood elves had so many plant-kin type armies, as the elves of RQ are literal wood people, and why some of the dwarf models are so square and almost stone-like in their armor, EG. ironbreakers, they're literally stone-golem people in RQ.) Late-life Warhammer Fantasy shifts towards 'grimdark' because its trying to revitalize the dying brand by appealing to the aesthetics of late 90s-00s edginess and especially the growing popularity of Warhammer 40k, which had been growing more and more overtly grim and dark rather than silly due to the original authors abandoning it. Warhammer 40k was initially a somewhat humorous setting as 'funny' settings were kind of all the rage at the time with games like Rifts, Paranoia and the somewhat tongue-in-cheek grimness of Cyberpunk or Shadowrun, in contrast to the stodgy seriousness of The White Wolf games. But throughout the 90s its comedy-level of grimness began to transform into 'actual' grimness.
@@WereScrib I agree (partly - as you contradict yourself by saying WHF was never grimdark but it became grimdark in 2000's), but these are these cycles I am talking about. 1st ed WFRP satyrical grimdark a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail 4-5th ed WFB colourful, cartoony high fantasy complete with funny slapstick pictures in the rulebook. 6th ed WFB/2nd ed WFRP - full on grimdark, playing a ratcatcher dying in a ditch of pneumonia. So it is never one thing or another unless you just limit your scope to one-two editions.
@omnissiahGaspar Agreed, I'm just old enough to remember and have shopped in original store ☹️ depressing when any company doesn't seem to give a damn about its customers, which is where the money comes from!! Funny how big companies seem to forget that.
Re: getting kids into it. I got the 2nd ed tyranid codex in ‘95 or ‘96 when I was 8 years old. I loved reading about Tyran getting wiped or the Tyrannic wars on Maccrage. The people who love this stuff will find it, I hope things don’t get too diluted.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming easy, things like genestealers and terminators are abstract grimdark kids can slurp up even as they look at the old 2nd/3rd edition lore of a marine getting torn open, the deeper lore of the imperium and chaos cults are kept out and away from the gateway product parents are getting aimed at
6:58 your comparison of art styles is weird. The not so grim dark option you give is a specific web comic artist that was already making that style of funny web comics based in the 40k world by themselves. They were brought on for the Warhammer Community page and that is where their art has stayed. None of that artwork is used in Rulebooks or Codex/Battletomes and is used purely for marketing purposes, usually in relation to the hobby aspect of the game, getting together with friends to paint and play that kind of stuff.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming So a well researched video this is not... just a flying off of the handle complaint, right got it. Found the artist, they were previously known as Eagle Ordinary, it was a fantastic webcomic and I'm glad they found success within the envelope of GWs marketing team.
How a game markets itself is important. Im sorry but its not weird to point out that putting out artwork like that through any official means is a major step away from grimdark.
@ nah not in the case of GW. The marketing needs to appeal as well to parents and those who don’t play. GW gets players by appealing to kids… the parents hold those purse strings though and if you’re depicting grim dark in your advertising they won’t buy it for little Timmy as it’s too dark and violent, what if he shoots up a school? Even in the 80’s and 90’s GW sold it as family friendly with its overall codex and rule book cover as well as boxset covers being very colourful. As well as selling its educational value. Trench crusade is ONLY able to trade and market as grim dark because GW has been about for 30+ years and pissed enough grognards off to look for an alternative. Without GW Trench Crusade could not exist.
I have to point out, you definitely did not read the children's novels if you don't think they're Grimdark. Just as one example, they go into some pretty detailed explanations about what it means to become a servitor and then later reveal this was done to the parents of one of the protagonists. It's not Demonculada dark, but holy shit those books have some incredibly disturbing elements.
There's still those funky necrons though and orcs comically running away from a fight. Just disturbing elements does not make it grimdark. Especially if there's too much comical stuff around it. This is why Slenderman isn't scary if he isn't in a dark forest but instead in a nice sunny meadow surrounded by glistening unicorns and flowing water.
There was a meme fix when the first cover's were announced (the one with the necrons), where they turned the rogue trader into a genestealer, the mechanic into a servitor, and the ganger into a khorne cultist.
It's probably the best game they've made to date. I know a lot of people like having big armies and huge tanks, etc.- but Necromunda at least still encourages creativity in modeling outside of the Sprue, and it's a versatile game enough where you can do a lot with it outside the 'Necromunda' world/setting.
I think that Onepagerules has an interesting balance because within the timeline of both fantasy and sci fi you have some moments that were incredibly dark. Before the DAO Union figured out how to communicate with the alien hives for instance the hives were seen as mindless animals and their eggs were actively hunted as part of a deliberate extermination campaign. Even after achieving communication many consider the alien hives to be a threat and within the hives themselves tension is growing about how to adapt as some want to take back worlds on their migration paths even if that means planetary scale wars with other species. You also have disputes with the Soul Snatcher Cults as they are the most independant minded members of the alien hives and they are willibg to sabotage their own species. The alien hives also do have civil conflicts over resources and leadership. Or take how in fantasy the war against havoc was so worldspanning that the goblins were part of the grand aliance against the forces of havoc. They literally changed history by fifhting with the aliance yet nowadays their contributions are ignored and forgotten which causes conflicts as the goblins are motivated by a desire to be respected. You still have things like undeath societal collapse discrimination pillaging terrifying suoer weapons corruption greed and warfare. Part of my issue with grimdark is that if everything is dark and depressing it creates apathy. A story like Berserk is dark but we get genuinely moving moments which make Guts more compelling and the hope that he can take down the Godhand is engaging. In 40k novels like Caiphas Cain they are fun because Cain is finding a way to survive the insane world he lives in and his own growing need for imposter syndrome.
One good thing with OPR is that the rules and fluff is far less interwined. One works without the other. Which gives a lot of flexibility. The lore they came up with for GF IMHO also is a smart move. Because its very diverse. It allows for all sorts of games and races. The current scope of the game is just one small area of the known galaxy... and most is still unknown. Its certainly not perfect but it feels huge and diverse. The also do what GW used to do back in the day: just hint at stuff. Only few questions are really answered. There is still a place for allmost everything. Its certainly not perfect but i really like it. The Sirius Sector is quite Grimdark by itself. The destruction by the cascade is conciderable and there really is only war for a lot of the faction currently. Also most simply can not leave and have no chance to change anything long term so its pretty hopeless. The grand picture is different though. I think they made a nice little sandbox of a universe. With lots of options and potential.For example they kept the miniature agnostic approach, with the ability to create your own faction and use stuff not described... because the universe is a vast place so there is a place for anything. For the future I really hope they move their faction and miniature design away from the GW aesthetics and become more fitting to their own lore with their own designs.
@schnuersi I agree. I also think that because all the factions have their own agendas that conflicts feel more natural. In GF it makes sense that Blessed Sisters would fight the Custodian Brothers. It makes sense that Ratnen Clans might fight prime brothers. In 40k it can feel odd at times for certain factions to fight on a tabletop perspective. Sure traitor gaurd and dark mechanics exist buy they don't have models so it can feel a bit odd to have space marines vs gaurd for example. Lore wise it makes sense with traitor gaurd but we don't have traitor gaurd models. In GF HDF isn't tied to the same overarching faction they are an independent faction as opposed to how Gaurd and Space Marines are both parts of the imperium. I also do think that the Sirius sector is a great setting because everyone can make their own spin on what is in it.
There are plenty of dark elements in OPR lore -- and I suspect we'll see more when we start seeing more actual Army Books out. Everything surrounding the High Elf Fleets is very dark, the ruling class abandoning the people to be wholesale slaughtered is pretty dark. The Robots themselves becoming violent but then gaining an understanding of who they were and perhaps what they've done, and of course, the remaining non-noble elves becoming little more than homeless and desperate pirates. That entire story arc is pretty brutal.
Exactly. As much as I love 40K, the most unbelievable part is the world itself. Take the Guard for example. If you're faced with the choice to get brutally murdered by anything you go up against or take a laspistol to the face from the Commisar, I know which way I'd rather die. Either way, you're going to die but one will be excruciatingly painful and drawn out and the other you're called a coward and it's instant. That said, if there's hope that they can make it through the battle and go back to their families or give their children a better life, then that gives them a reason to fight.
I wouldn’t say that grimdark can have no hope. Just, any significant improvement to the setting is some far off vague possibility. But you could possibly make it through this event, and maybe make life for you and yours a bit better than it was yesterday. The key is that there is no happy ending that makes everything better, it just doesn’t have to be so hopeless and nihilistic that there isn’t a point to trying anything. Also, grim dark doesn’t have to be war. Look at a hive city: that is grim dark even without the gang wars.
GW didn't invent the style, GW was heavily inspired by 2000AD comics and Heavy Metal Magazine. Dark Fantasy was very much in vogue in the 70's. On the subject of OPR....its just rules to me. ones which I can use for whatever setting I want, I haven't turned a single page on any of the OPR lore, not one, IDGAF about lore, I just want to play some wargames man. TC is a Todd McFarlane action figure, looks cool, but Ill forget about it before it releases to non kickstarter people like myself. Stargrave is cooler than all that crap anyways.
@@phandaal A huge problem that plague all versions of Warhammer today is that most of the people writing and even the newer fans don't really understand the original ingredients and the how/why it got to where it was. They just know Warhammer as 'Warhammer the pop culture phenomena and the memes', not 'Warhammer the big pile of '80s scifi clichés with the vibe of a heavy metal album cover'. The latter is also not as appealing to investors, who mistakenly think there is a broader market. Its the Marvel-ification and Star Wars-ification of every scifi/fantasy universe. And it never works out in the end.
I'm seeing an issue with Tabletop games and maybe fantasy in general in that as they are getting more popular, they are becoming more warm, fuzzy, comfortable and most of all becoming more Funko Pop culture friendly I guess would be the best way to say it. MTG, Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer have softer and more welcoming art. I remember fantasy games in general a long time ago had that gritty fantasy feel where it felt like the adventure was raw and dangerous enough for only the truest and bravest heroes to push on through. Now everything seems easy and soft including 40k. 40k feels like the good guys are slowly winning and that's what made it so special in the first place is that it felt the opposite of that. The game has also become easier yet also become very bloated at the same time. I'm glad my hobbies are becoming more popular but a part of me is sad to see the heart of it go away in order to water it down and appease the masses. The only things i have left that continue to hold that high fantasy, gritty adventure feel is my old books but i guess books actually take effort to read and can rarely be watered down to be easier to consume unless they make a live-action version of it. I do still play tabletop games but I don't keep up with the new stuff I prefer collecting my older editions and keeping with older lore. Most everything after 2015 in terms of tabletop Lore just doesn't exist to me
Tell me about it, new dnd players absolutely refuse to get their character killed, which results in many lukewarm sessions with low risk therefore low engagement.
I think it goes in circles, also depending on the whims of the designers. For example 5th ed Warhammer (mid 90's) had totally cartoonish artwork with funny pictures in the rulebook, while beginning of the 2000's brought Mordheim and 6th ed Warhammer with very dark artwork with heavy themes (remember the picture of a religious procession in an Empire town or the entire Beasmen book?).
I don’t think trench crusade is going to kill Warhammer 40k because trench crusade is too niche also Warhammer 40k has more variety, better options, better gameplay, more factions and the more fleshed out story also better models. Trench crusade should be its own thing. Both can exist you know.
Oh, no certainly not kill it. I was suggesting it was. I was saying that if you wanted a grittier world to play a game in TC seems to offering more than 40k.
I don't even mind if they want to do just regular scifi instead of grim dark, but they should probably change the name if it doesn't reflect the tone of the universe
@@ryanmalady376 I agree. I know they've already invested in the Name, and they need to differentiate themselves from 40k some how. But it is kind of misleading a bit.
@ yeah. It’s not a bad idea for a setting. Even their version of the Chaos Gods are justified, although there is a miss opportunity with the inciting event in their narrative IMO. I think they probably should have rebranded the name before 3rd edition, perhaps some of the factions too like the “Elven Jesters”. Though to be honest most people use OPR rules to play narrative games in the 40k setting.
I think with the official lore book of Grimdark Future being released this year OPR has set their version of "Grimdark" in a middle of the road approach for people to make their own lore. It's not absolute despair nor the Hero shows up at the end to save the day stories, but for someone to take the left or the right of the fork in the road.
Technically calling it lore is a missnomer. It's a setting book. It's too high level to be lore. The short stories on the other hand are a bit too low level. Lore is in the middle. The stuff that shaps the universe but isn't the shape of the universe. The 20 legions finding their Genefather's, fighting a huge civil war and breaking up into chapters to prevent a future civil war on that scale, that's lore. It's a key feature of the setting but obviously isn't anywhere close to the whole setting. It's also not an individual, small story, it's a lot of stories with legions striving to follow the Codex to the letter while others seek any way possible to circumvent it. The benefit of having just setting is that you can legitimately make your own lore. Codex compliant Thousand Sons loyalists are simply not a thing. They fundamentally go against the established lore and cannot exist even though loyalists Emperor's children or World Eaters can. In OPR, you can run Change Disciples reinforced by Prime Brothers, both serving the Eternal Dynasty or they're fighting for the Robot Legions or hell, they've decided to join the Alien Hives and it works within the setting because there's no lore to prevent this from being remotely possible. Trench Crusade is basically all lore, minimal setting. We barely understand what the world looks like but every unit and piece of kit seems to have a clearly defined story behind it. You're playing out events in a world, you're not shaping it. There's no scenario where Trench Crusaders fight alongside Heretics. Each approach has its ups and downs.
Maybe for the same reason God just don't forbid everything bad and evil. From the very beginning he made people to think and decide for themselves, guiding but not controlling. And after Jesus' fate God just stopped guiding humanity. He gave everything we need to build our destiny. And in TC if people caused Armageddon then they also will deal with it
Congratulations, you've stumbled across only ONE of many many many logical inconsistencies with Abrahamic religions. The answer to your question is as simple as it is sobering: it's all fiction, and the goat-herders who wrote it back then didn't think it through.
The answer is free will. People opened the gate, so it was caused by their free will. The war is mostly between humans so he doesn't just close it because it was directly caused by humans freewill, but don't get it wrong tho God(he isn't the Christian god it takes from all Abrahamic religions and some other stuff )does help. He made a covenant that makes any rebal seraphim(basically all true demons) unable to go past the gate without being obliterated by God, which is why the court only sends half breeds, scapes of dead fallen angels and ect
I think the issue on why people are saying “Oh GW lost grimdark., or “GW forgot what grimdark is.”, is because they’re only looking at things from the Wider Imperiums perspective of “Humanity is the best, Space Marines cool.” But what they forget is that… Humanity is still a dying race? Like yes. Primaris is in, newer bigger, stronger space marines… but… the threats have also gotten bigger, and stronger. Tyranid invasions are climbing, Genestealer Cults leading the way. Necron Tomb-world’s awakening. Chaos, with Vashtorr, are finally, actually a threat because if Vashtorr wins- there’s a new Chaos god in play. (Aka Vashtorr actually gives a tangible goal to chaos that they lacked outside of “destroy the imperium”). While the minis, and game don’t reflect Grim-Dark, taking a look at the WHOLE picture- Humanity, no matter how hard they fight are on the loosing side. There is no hope. Were for me, Grimdark in Trench Crusade is just coming from the minis. The Art. Because there aren’t any concrete lore books to quote. We have a general idea on how the world is… but not on how the people feel. Quar, my beloved, is a goofy setting of fat, World War One inspired, Anthropomorphic Aardvarks in an eternal war. Not Grimdark at all. But it used to be more so- if you can find the old art, it’s much more grim, and dull. THAT, is a real switch.
Interesting point, both about humanity dying off in GW and TC just being in the minis (so far). Let's see what they do with the story as the game moves forward.
The biggest example of fannon involving the Tau is the idea that Farsight runs his empire in any different way than the Etherals he ran from. The Enclaves are ran the same way as the Empire proper down to the Caste system, the leadership is the only real difference with the Enclaves under a military junta and the Tau Empire with a sort of elected monarch.
@ Agreed, which is why GW basically took Kelly’s past decade writing for the Tau and said we don’t do that anymore with the newest book they’ve released.
The biggest problem with 100% grimdark is there's no point in living in those settings. You'd be better off ending it before it even begins. There has to be SOME reason for fighting other than "everything sucks and is trying to kill me but I'm too stubborn to die". That's not believable.
@@inquisitionagent9052 - Our current real world situation is well short of grimdark, and a significant portion of the population has given up on the idea of trying to create future generations of humans. In any setting where birth control plausibly exists humanity would not survive until full grimdark. Most people would give up, and the rest would finish each other off, or be finished off by Chaos/Xenos specifically in 40k.
I dont think OPR is really that grimdark at all, but im into OPR for the gaming aspect, not the lore aspect. I do rally hope trench crusade gets fully fleshed out lore and stories
You're not the first to say that about OPR, and I feel the same way. I love the game system. The lore is ok, but not as compelling for me as other metaverses.
To be fair armies look however you want. There is not a gun to your head forcing you to make things look their way. A big part of grimdark is kit bashing and grity painting. There can literally do whatever, and I will still have grimdark armies. I have a blood angel successor chapter, dark angel successor, black templars, armie and all of them are completely kitbashed, grimdark painted, completely unique. All I need are basic intercessors and can make literally anything I want with those.
Not forced no, but so many build and paint "like the box" for a number of reasons, which creates an unofficial momentum until a player gets comfy enough to go their own way.
Trench Crusade is inevitably going to learn what GW already has; Grimdark is an absolute dead end for fiction. Conflict is necessary for a story to avoid stagnation, but conflict doesn't always just equal violence. Trench Crusade is either already doomed to stagnate (nobody gaining ground is the definition of a lack of conflict despite the constant violence), or else they too will eventually need to move forward. Either wargamers accept this fact, or we get used to a graveyard of dead games that inevitably grow boring
This isn't Games Workshop's first tonal shift. Rick Priestly's original vision for the 41st millennium had 1980s punk baked into the setting quite thoroughly. GW then moved away from that and into the Grimdark. The RPGs set in the 41st millennium too focus far less on the grimdark (only two of the eight 40k RPGs put any focus on warfare at all), and far more on the horror aspects prevalent in the setting.
thank you, too many modern "old hats" in this game aren't actually "old hats" and also seem to only focus on their own choice bits. The RPGS were all over the place in tone, the original wargame was all over in tone....GW only took it all too seriously when they swallowed their own marketing pill.
@@therickspears I think you are missing something here. Nobody is upset that there are martial women in 40k. People are upset that GW is perfectly willing to retcon established lore to appease an activist mob. TC shot itself in the foot by saying that is a perfectly reason to retcon so there is no reason to expect they will not do the same.
@@cp1cupcake I hear you. It’s not about the women, it’s about the retcon, but, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been in this hobby for at least twenty years or more. There have always been changes and retcons. Whether they appeal to an “activist mob” or not, it doesn’t matter, if someone else can use it to get into the game, does it really matter? It’s all made up anyways. Do I like the way that it was shoehorned in? No. It was abrupt and messy and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but, it happened. Whomever doesn’t like it can choose not to engage with that aspect of the lore, though.
@therickspears Twenty minutes maybe but not 20 years. If you truly like the setting, then why do you want to change it? Most of if not all the retcons are just cleaning up older lore or expanding on it. Another problem people had with the custodians was that games workshop tried to gaslight everyone into thinking that it wasn't a break with established lore. You might like being lied to but I don't.
I did notice that even the all consuming monster armies in Grimdark Future were working towards peace and understanding with one another. Hell, even the daemons were simply struggling to survive and not openly malicious.
GW toning down 40k lore is unintentionally making the lore lowkey fascist. Like, the point is that the Imperium is supposed to be one of the bad guys, but now with the video games and new art direction, space marines have become uncomplicated, unironic heroes? Wtf...
Archie didn‘t buy out eastman/laird. They licensed it and made Their own tnmt Universe more based on the animated show. The darker original Comics continued Till the buy out by nickelodeon. Eastman/laird still have an Option to Release a few issues each Year in the Original Universe of theirs.
Thanks for the video, I disagree on several points, but it was nice to get your point on Grimdark. I think it is incorrect GW has been Grimdark, then softened in recent years. I think GW has been always following the sales, going through satire (80s Judge Dreed), childish comedy (90s with colorfull orks), grimdark (the 1999 edition), and eventually the depressing all-space marines era (post-2010). So, change of setting is not recent. It has alwas changed since the 80s in my opinion.
Entirely possible. As I said, I'm not an expert on 40k. I've been playing it for decades, and enjoyed a book here and there, but I've never been die hard and so don't know the game and culture in and out.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming Well, at least Trench Crusade indeed matches exactly the tone you described. To me, it looks like W40K with a fake mustache, but I wish all the best to Pirinen and his pals with it.
That furst curesy imsge is meant to be for a cafe, the kids books begin with a planet blowing up and there is still some pretty metal stuff fir Necromunda
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming The Funny thing is GW would probably agree with that statement, to my knowledge from a business side GW sees itself as a modellig company first and the settings are there to do that, and they will be change by GW to sell more of what they see as their primary business.
Issue is that TC is bad, like really really bad. Some of the worst lore I have ever read. The old 40k was PEAK. 40k was good because the guys making it were having fun and playing around now grim dark isn't a thing that came about it's MADE to be grim dark which easily falls into 14 year old edgy cringe.
I'll say this, OPR becomes darker when you look into the narrative battles, Assault on Malhadra mission 13 stands out lol. It is Diet Grimdark for sure though. That said, the GF World Book sort of establishes the lay of the land and how everything fits together, the actual Army Books would contain more specific lore and things may dim the lights there. Also with OPR, its kinda as grimdark as you'd like it to be, as what's actually going on in a conflict is up to you.
Speaking as a Nurgle player and fully cognizant of Chaos's corruption: Nurgle's mercy is a cruel. Nurgle NEVER heals you, that is not in his power. All he does is take away the pain by making you reach a point where your corrupted body feels no pain. Nurgle never improve things, he only stagnate them.
My line is when grimdark becomes grimderp. Such as Characters acting so wildly out of character just to cause drama, or 'no good end ever for any reason period'.
This reminds me of a conversation I had around 1993, when GW shifted from books to boxsets (around Fantasy Battle 4th edition and 40k 2nd edition). How the art style shifted from full gory blood splatter hits, to just armies / individuals posing and looking cool, and how it felt like GW was watering everything down to sell in more stores. It obviously worked back then given how big GW is now, but then again they were pretty small at the time so there wasn't much to lose.
One of my favorite quotes from all of 40k is "hope is the first step on the road to disappointment." I think that line alone is an excellent descriptor of what makes grimdark what it is, as well as stating what grimdark _isn't._ While it's certainly not grimdark for too many factions to be amicably getting along and joking about in heavily pastel art styles in the spirit of good clean fun, it seems as if the temptation is to go so far in the other direction that you completely _overshoot_ grimdark. That way lies Zack Snyder movies, where everybody isn't just miserable, but terminally idiotic beyond the ability to rationally function. I've often heard this extreme referred to as "grimderp" and described as "like a pizza cutter: all edge, no point". I don't know if _Trench Crusade_ really hits _that_ level. In fact, I've generally heard pretty good things about it. However, grimdark doesn't necessarily mean "no hope, ever." It means that, when hope _does_ exist, and it absolutely _should,_ it should be punished. A moment of joy gives contrast to the tragedy. (That said, like anything, it's not as if one _can't_ screw this up. Just look at Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.) The small fragments of hope in these universes are why people who live in them even attempt to better their lives in the first place. From our near-omniscient perspective, it looks stupid to struggle and fight and hope. But to those who live in this universe? Those who don't know for sure what tomorrow brings? That glimmer of hope has got to mean _everything_ to them. It is why combatants fight at all. After all, if they _know_ there's no hope (pro tip: if you don't believe there's hope, you generally don't have to make _mantras_ to remind you...), why bother? Lay down your arms and accept oblivion, if not accelerate its advance to get it over with. It's all the same at the end of the day, right? And yet, in these universes, the characters don't give up. The obvious reason for why they stand strong is because there wouldn't be a wargame otherwise. In-universe, however, the implication is that the characters are holding onto something. And what could that something be if not hope? I don't think it's fair to call grimdark anti-Tolkein. If you know more about Tolkein's universe, it's actually fairly grim in its own right, especially for its time. As I understand it, while the final victory does ultimately belong to the forces of Iluvitar, that's a way's off, and it's not going to be an easy road to get there. That was the entire point of the Scouring of the Shire: an object lesson that the fight never ends. You will not live to see the final victory. This doesn't mean you can't scrounge together some tea and hobbit leaf and enjoy a moment of hard-won calm. It just means that the calm is ephemeral. War does not interrupt the natural order of peace. Peace interrupts the natural order of war. Grimdark isn't anti-Tolkein. It's _Ultra-Nightmare_ Tolkein. Tolkein with all the difficulty sliders thrown to maximum and welded in place. Tolkein with the eras of calm shrunk to their absolute mathematical minimum while still technically existing. In a weird way, grimdark might actually be _more_ in the spirit of what Tolkein was getting at in the first place than any of Tolkein's actual works. Fighting hard for a decade of peace is at least logical and sensible. You can do a lot of living within a decade. But fighting hard for a _moment_ of peace? Especially a peace you may not live to enjoy? That takes even _greater_ heroism, fortitude, and strength of character, and I don't think Tolkein would ever look down upon that. Where 40k broke with Tolkein's ideas was by recontextualizing virtue, faith, and an emphasis on the great reward to come as instead foolishness, ignorance, and an emphasis on the great suffering in the here and now. This is why Games Workshop is so good at writing stories about the puny, cynical, and wavering Guard, yet are terrible at writing stories about the noble, virtuous, and stoic Space Marines. Games Workshop, as people, are puny, cynical, and wavering. How could they be expected to write _Space Marines,_ except as an outsider looking in, reinterpreting them in as bad faith as possible? There's a reason 40k blew up _in America,_ and why it's still around today, while Warhammer Fantasy (largely characterized by forging shaky interspecies diplomacies in hopes of warding off various flavors of absolute evil) is a rapidly fading memory. The problem with 40k wasn't that the Imperium got too hopeful or idealistic. It's that modern GW are sackless cowards who don't want to let their precious baby Impewium suffer. Even when the Imperium loses, they just win again later at some point, rendering any loss completely pointless. That's a _much_ bigger writing problem. Though I won't say what this problem is generally called, I think you know her name by now. I don't even think the Imperium were necessarily even _immoral._ Sure, they do terrible things, but the idea has always been this Nietzschean thought experiment: they have to fight monsters to survive, and so they became monstrous. Would _you_ do any different? The problem is that, if the monsters the Imperium fights are no longer meaningfully monstrous (I think of Tyranid armies getting tabled in two turns in most editions), then the Imperium are a bunch of sadistic monsters _for no reason._ Paradoxically, protecting the Imperium from the threat of failure and suffering has also rendered them more decidedly evil and cruel than ever before in the lore's history. That or they're _spectacularly_ stupid. Either way, [d]uck 'em.
It’s been so sanitised that now the eldar helped resurrect Gulliman? What? lol. Soon everyone will be holding hands and the war will be a Care Bears style fight for friendship
I still feel like this newcomer Trench Crusade hasn't gone off the same edge as 40k though. Well, at least 3rd to 7th edition 40k. It's kinda why I've still not gone over to them despite me liking the Death Korps. I guess it's got something to do with just how insignificant a human is in a galaxy filled with more humans than Earth.
40k's grimdark was always just something fans liked to tell each other about. The setting is fairly bleak and there's a helping of body horror, but it's not really exceptional in either of those (it's milquetoast compared to All Tomorrows). Like, it's a sci-fi dystopia, and it's somewhat novel in that the bleakness comes mostly from a frustrating kafkaesque bureaucracy rather than the inescapable corporate dominance that's more popular in dystopian settings, but the grimness and darkness was always overstated by the fans. It's barely ever been touched by their primary product. The games are just dice-rolling space fight simulators with a few body-horror minis in a couple of factions. Fans love to explain to nee players how evil their faction is in the Deep Lore because those new players have inevitably picked up absolutely none of it by playing the game. All the stuff fans love to treat as unbelievably bleak has always been better described as 'mild to medium dystopia'. It's an old genre, they're all like that. 40k gives the little guy a few outs, a ton of rad heroes and even some big wins, and the games deliver the idea of a crushing dystopia about as well as Cyberpunk Catan. It's just not that grim, not that dark, and never was.
I agree. The entire idea that 40k was grimdark was kind of part of the joke in the beginning. It was a way to laugh at posing. I mean there's a reason there were so many ties to Judge Dredd in the beginning (including why GW was tapped for the JD minis in the first place). Playing those early days I can't remember any of my friends giving 2 s's about grim dark.... they were throwing stuff together and making jokes.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming I don’t think trench crusade is going to kill Warhammer 40k because trench crusade is too niche also Warhammer 40k has more variety, better options, better gameplay, more factions and the more fleshed out story also better models. Trench crusade should be its own thing. Both can exist you know.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming what I’m saying is guilliman being alive and few primarchs being alive is making Warhammer 40k less grimdark. Also ultramar being this wonderful nice place is making Warhammer even less grimdark.
@@Good.Nuff.Gamingthe human villian, 40k works in one its best ways when you approach it from the perspective of a villian popularity contest, why do uou think most players fight over which factions are /most justified/ rather than who among them is morally right except for nods, orks, and deldar players, their fans embrace their faction identity warts and all
@@jamespaguip5913ultramar was always the part of the imperium that was "Heard and not Seen", we get that in Enforcer with Shira Calpurnia acknowledging her home realm is a world apart from where she ended up
I thought Archie Comics just licensed TMNT. Because Mirage kept putting out new comics (and unlike with Nick it seemed to lack the Archie logo or ownership (IDW TMNT has this for Nick)).
Am I the only anti-woke Warhammer fan who can't stand the "Imperium are the good guys" sentiment? What happened to everyone being different flavors of asshole, with some decent people here and there?
It is insane how people are saying the imperium is good in any way, shape, or form. They have to not know anything about the lore because there's no good aliens because the imperium just straight up kills them off.
Imperium are the good guys in the sense that they are the only ones focused on humanity survival in a completely hostile galaxy. Unless you're a nihilist who thinks all humans in 40k should die or worship chaos.
I personally like it when things are a bit less grimdark. When I was younger I liked the edginess of these sorts of settings but as I have gotten older it's just nice to have things be a little less dark and a little more fun. When everything is miserable all the time forever it gets pretty boring if you ask me. But that is why i like to inject my warhammer armies with a bit of silly and am doing the same thing for my trench crusade warbands.
Trench Crusade is truly grim, dark. WH40k used to be much more grim, dark, but then GW made the IP too commercial at the expense of its original grim, dark ethos.
I know they'll never do it but the first step to bringing back cosmic horror and desperation to the setting is deemphasizing the Primarchs. They come back from the dead willy nilly and turn the setting into a power fantasy. You're supposed to feel like there are *barely* enough Space Marines to hold back the dark, and that means no unkillable Avengers.
I think while trench crusade does look cool, they definitely achieved their goals of going "all out" on the art. I personally find some of it sick (in a good way) but I cannot in a million trillion years see ANY of that stuff show up on a store shelf in any country in the world. WW1-esque soldiers wearing gas masks with blood-runes drawn on their armor and a LITERAL SHRUNKEN FETUS hanging on their belt? Yeah, metal as all hell but you are not convincing any parent to purchase that for their kid. I can also understand that to an extent as I've started to hit my later years; that style of grimdark almost seems...way too grimdark? Like it's just being bloody and gorey and gross for the shock factor and nothing else. 40k is in a good spot in my opinion, it absolutely has grimdark still in it's artstyle and general theme.
yeah, that's one image I wasn't going to put on the video. I figured I'd get into trouble. That's one of the places where I thought "maybe a bit too far here guys"
A very concise and I'd say, objective view on the grimdark aspect of these games. Especially agree on OPR, I think it's a great game but after just a cursory glance at their thematic direction, I can't say I'm interested in immersing myself in what they've written. Hopefuly they course correct seeing as they're calling their games grimdark future.
Grimdark is when mankind is sliding faster into destruction and there's no question Chaos will win. The cause is lost, there is no hope, no surrender, no third way, and all that's left is dying with blood on your hands. Its the empire dying while a gloating god laughs his last and the astronomicon fades forever.
This is gonna sound really weird, but my favorite grimdark setting right now is Foxhole. For those who don’t know, Foxhole actually has a bit of lore and it’s grimdark. Ever lasting total genocidal wars that last so long knowledge is constantly lost, where these WW1 era looking tanks are actually designs hundreds of years old. I like it a lot because the grimdark feeling comes just from exploring the world and the knowing that even if you win this war; there’s just gonna be another war right after it. You don’t mind the earth for new resources to make new material, you scrap destroyed war equipment because there’s nothing left to be pulled from the earth. Only recycled and reused. The one scrap location that’s used has a BUNCH of tanks from a battle *300* years ago. And your armies are still using the same type of tanks. The pistol you start with was given to you when you were a child when you first joined the military. But best of all? The grim dark setting isn’t shoved in your face. It just is. And you exist in that world. And 99% of the other players don’t even know it’s a grimdark setting. But the player culture almost supports it. The amount of times we’ve been sent out to recover rifles off of the dead to be recycled for reinforcements coming into the line, the perpetual moaning of the endless enemy artillery, the day in, day out, charging at the same exact trench line with your fellow players, never losing ground but never gaining any unless one side has the most serious of advantages. But just exploring the insides of the destroyed houses, the old capital of the Cavoish, The Abandoned Ward, exploring what in any other circumstance would be serene farms,in a perpetual series of wars that have gone on, neither side can really recall what started making them fight to begin with. But the best part? The devs kinda went hands off. Let you discover the lore. It’s there for you if you want it. But the lore is mostly, you and every other players stories. The lore are the great battles won and lost, the endless slaughter of YOU and all the other players endlessly charging machineguns, the last stands that meant nothing, the great pushes that meant nothing, your constant deaths, over and over, is the lore. Never ending war. Anyways, wardens eat babies. Join the colonial legion today. Teach those Cavoish barbarians a lesson!!!
I'm slowing sinking my 40k ship and packing all my essentials on too the AoS ship until that one begins leaking too. Hopefully Trench Crusade doesn't suffer and serves as a bastion and safe haven for true Veterans of the Long War.
My understanding is the flair GW was going for in Old World was to be the retelling of a piece of history, as opposed to the actual period. Like the claim I say where 300 is supposed to be a retelling of Thermopolie by a Spartan to psych up his friends.
For me, the tone down of grimdark relate a lot with modern day ideas of future, in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, people have great expectation for the future, looking foward to a technological and bright society, so authors and artists give them a taste of a Grimdark and horrible future that "will not be". Now, everyone (or most part of the world) dont look foward to something and see the future as some terrible destiny cause by our choses, or their daily life are as horrible as can be, just look at the wave of Post-Apocaliptic media in the previous years, so now people want a place were they can run away from the future (or the present). When the grimdark future is not a fun idead and is more of a possible destiny or a refletion of the present, its not fun anymore.
Trench Crusade honestly feels like Diet 40k to me. If I were going to do something off-brand Grimdark, I’d rather it be something wildly creative like Turnip28.
I don't agree I read part of Trench crusade and seems to me grim-dumb.( I know it is rich hearing coming out of 40k fan) Really, you gonna burn your knights lungs just to make them more loyal?! At least in 40k you give up your humanity for survival or for religious reasons. Trench crusade seems more like Gray knights bathing in blood sister of battle than anyting else. I know return of Guliman and primares marines bring bit too much hope at onece. But primachs are not heart of 40k not even space marines as long fans and GW don't see it will be grimdark.
Tastes change over time. A 1950s horror movie is a different beast than a 1970s one which is different than 1990s, which is different than 2010s. Horror is probably bigger than ever, but is in some ways more niche than ever. The audience is just buying and demanding something different than before. If i were a fan of 1950s horror, I'd lament that that style is no longer prominent at all but todays horror fans may look back at it as quaint. They may appreciate what you like about it, but it isn't their vibe. How you get to that point is a combination of corporate desires, creative folks ideas, and broader cultural/societal/technological shifts. I dont want to yuck anyones yum, but I think boiling it down to a cynical corporate attempt to appeal to a lowest common denominator is a gross simplification of the dynamics.
Even in the beginning the imperium were the good guys. The Grim dark aspects were what made it interesting but the setting dictated how brutal or uncaring the imperium was. It wasn't "evil" by choice. It was questionable out of necessity, that's from xenos, heretics, and proper chaos (the warp)
Trench crusade is disgusting. No taste at all and its popularity is a sign of our culture decline. Its style is bodyhorror for the sake of bodyhorror multiplied by atheist memes. Warhammer aesthetics has been developed differently. It was mocking.
I will admit some of the elements I saw in the art went a bit too far, but the overall idea of mixing the crusades and WWI was really clever, like how 40k mixes history and sci-fi
@ you’re assuming 80s were not a decline. Also, even stupid plain gory body horror could be done with or without taste. TC is an example of the latter.
Makes me a bit bummed out Grimdark Future isn’t grimdark at all. It feels more like Mass Effect. Even 40k is losing its edge and becoming more space opera OPR is just a solid ruleset to use across settings though imo
I think the answer is pretty clear. When you hear people talk about one page rules, it is as an avenue through which they can play their own games with a more linear rule set. You are literally the first person I've heard of tell that there was an actual universe behind OPR. People play Trench Crusade because they enjoy the universe of Trench Crusade. I don't know what you would call success, but that sounds like it.
I don't think OPR abandoned grimdarkness to get to a wider audience. I think their intentions are differentiating themselves from GW, find their own identity.
I think trench crusade goes too far in my opinion it's so dark and grossly offensive that I can't see any enjoyment in the game & lore (besides trench pilgrims & ghosts) I love the horror- sci-fi of 40k a lot but I think Trench crusade is trying too hard and comes off as edgy for the sake with nothing to say. I'm glad people enjoy it and it fills the wants of certain gamers but this will be a universe I warp past*
One thing people don't realize is that, surprisingly enough, Grimdark requires ACTUAL TANGIBLE EVIL. This may seem contradictory at first, because one could say 'but muh morally gray 40k, everyone is evil'. Yes, everyone is an asshole, but some are more asshole than others. In order for a setting or story to evoke true, absolute darkness it need more than just wishy washy human evils and going 'oh but this place is bad because inequality, muh bigotry' and whatnot. Its the necessary component of the universe that makes everything else click. Its what put the likes of the Imperium is all the horrible positions it always has to be, BECAUSE the external threat is such universal and irreversible annhilation. It NEED something as truly utter evil and pants on head crazy as chaos, it NEED things as vile and self serving as the Dark Eldars. It need forces as uncompromising as the Orks and Tyranids and, sure you can have more grey-ish factions who are assholes but you have to understand that they too are self serving assholes BECAUSE the universe is so full of threats of such a cosmic magnitude that there simply is no better option beyond trucking on and still keeping the fight even if the cost in human/eldar/tau lives is horrific. Because the alternative is so, so much worse. THAT is why 40k needs its pure evil faction, because it both forces the likes of the Imperium to both struggle as the heroic anti hero while also being reduced to a state of cruelty and evil to its fellow man that is on an unimaginable scale. If there was no outside force so beyond its power to defeat, then there wouldn't be the struggles that make the setting what it is. This is why a world need absolute evil (or at the very least 'absolute alien hostility which can never be reasoned with') in order to be grim and dark.
Good point. There needs to be real conflict and dichotomy, but I think it makes it richer if the good guys are just good, but paragons. When the good guys have flaws, and the bad guys have at least one redeeming value, it really adds depth.
Another good example is Mutant Chronicles - most of the factions are just Diesel Cyberpunk - and then you have the Dark Legion with its five Dark Apostles (aka Chaos Gods) - and the guys left on Earth, who are used as mercenaries by the Megacorps.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming Maybe so in some situations, but its not necessarily a key component when it come to grimdark and what 40k was originally going for. The modernist obsession with grey morality is killing most of traditional fantasy because everyone insist on making villains misunderstood sadboi who were only pushed into villainy because of victimhood. Whereas under more traditional morality, victimhood or perceived affront does not instantly justify actions. In 40k's case, the Primarchs who fell to Chaos are entirely correct in the sense of being mad at the Emperor for lying to them/not trusting them/being a general purpose asshole but it does not and never will justify the absolute depths of moral depravity that the Traitor Legions fell to in Heresy and the 10 000 years that followed. A villain having depth does not make him any less of a villain, because evil is a CHOICE while under modern 'morality', evil is not a choice and they are just sad oppressed people lashing out at the evils of the world.
It's not that I think Grimdark is always the answer- it's just that in the current era, thing fall into two categories: >Grimdark, even if it really isn't and its setting is more 'grounded'. >The polar opposite, where instead there's one or two very ham-fisted utopian societies and everyone else is a ham-fisted cartoon villain analogue of 'Those German Guys with the Windmill' that is obviously evil because evil reasons. There's no nuance, no 'this faction has their own perspective and reasons for doing what it does'. However, the thing about Grimdark people need to realize: >No faction, organization, nation, etc. are "the good guys" as a whole. >There are still individuals that are the good guys. >The setting is bleak, but that makes the good guys stand out even more.
I never really thought of grim dark as being anti-tolkian. As I love both lotr and Warhammer. Perhapes its the contrast between them that draws me back and forth.
Interesting. I dont necessarily agree that GW will have to choose though. I dont see why thay cant continue marketing their games to different audiences in different ways with each handwaving away the existence of the other.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming while that's true... perhaps GW don't need to. I think there was definitely a period where the consciously decided to make the settings more 'family friendly'. They realised this was putting off older players and I think for quite a while now they've been consciously trying to please both groups of people. And I think it's working. It is perfectly possible to enjoy the game and ignore the cartoons on the Community page and avoid the children's books. And equally, the grimmer, darker elements don't need to be on the box of the sets they sell in Barnes and Noble. Perhaps it might not be possible to please all of the people all of the time, but they can mostly please most people most of the time (at least with regards how they portray their settings).
I love the artwork of 40k, but this I love even more! It is different and darker. Add to the fact that we don't have to pay the prices that we pay for GW, I can see who will be the winner in that battle.
7.06 thats comparing an art of in-universe thing, to an advertisement for an event, you are comparing the prodepiction of the p[roduct, to a depiction of a customer
Also I think the OPR lore is DOPE. It's actually WAY more compelling in a lot of ways than 40k since it's just so much more realistic. 40k is kinda cartoonishly 2dimensional in my opinion even if they weren't doing cartoony stuff for kids. Whereas OPR? They're describing A realistic setting of interstellar politics and they're definitely using many real world ideologies as inspiration for it. The Battle Brothers and their founder are clearly fascist for example. Highly militaristic and their overall goal for humanity is just straight up eugenics. Plus they CLEARLY describe apartheid being a thing on Lucapol their home world. Plus the ratmen? They were experiments that the Founder tried to exterminate almost immediately. Also there's the nature of their galaxy itself. It mirrors our own messed up world imo. The inner sphere may be peaceful in theory. But that's primarily because that's where ALL the wealth and power resides. Species residing within the outer sphere are left to rot, and there is also MASSIVE inequality within the inner sphere as well which leads to a great deal of discontent. Hence the Rebel Guerillas which exist outside of it. Anyway yeah, just cuz there aren't skulls on everything and tourist planets exist does NOT mean it's a Disney cartoon. There's plenty of dark stuff going on there if you know where to look for it.
It’s funny the more grimdark you go the more it becomes comedy like aspects in 40k are genuinely funny in a satirical way like corpse starch if you’ve had some MREs then you’d be able to draw the line and chuckle or all the doors that use human brains to automatically open when that’s so unnecessary considering they have ftl and have discovered invisible tech but can’t figure out a simple sensor we use in Walmart
I just watched the 40k episode of Secret Level on Amazon. Those unfamiliar with the franchise or lore will be a bit lost, but the visuals were stunning, and the overall was indeed grimdark. If that's what Amazon will do with 40k IP, I have hope for what's coming.
But Titus won. They didn’t all die for nothing. That means it isn’t true grimdark. There cannot be any hope for it to be grimdark.
I watched that. Very familiar with 40k, but never played the SM games and don't know those characters or their stories and had no investment. It was 20 minutes of "bolters go blam" for me. People I know who have played the game seem to have liked it though.
I think if GW wants to appeal to a wider audience, they should start by finding a way to not charge new players a second mortgage just to get started
That would definitely bring the crowds
@@Daolnwood They are trying to find New AUDIENCES ... Not game or miniature customers. Huge difference. GW is on the verge of making more money with selling licenses for their IP. Which is preferable to games manufacture because the cost overhead is orders of magnitude lower. This is why they are pushing so hard into the mainstream. They want 40k to become the new Star Wars or Star Trek. An IP with universal appeal and pop culture reference that can sell everything and fits to every product. Allmost unlimited growth potential with out all the Husten of manufacturing and selling yourself.
Printer go brrrrrr 🖨️🖨️
@@schnuersithey're selling 1£ worth of plastic for $45-100. They struck gold. They've also been doing licensing for decades and it's not remotely the same in terms of returns.
None of this is new territory. Every single time they have their IP get even a bit famous, it's the plastic that brings in the big bucks, because more eyeballs translates into more people buying the models that have the stupidly good margins.
They have its called Kill Team
Michael Moorcock, whose works actually inspired much of early Warhammer, once said that for a work to become popular, to appeal to a broad enough audience to be mainstream, it has to get bland.
Die a hero, or live long enough to be a villain.
Oh it isn't just that Moorcock inspired early Warhammer. Chaos is taken directly from his writing. No Moorcock, no Chaos Space Marines.
No Moorecock no Emperors Children @@emzetkin1100
No Moorcock, no Dark Elves, no Dark Eldar.
"Inspired" isn't the right word here. GW flat out stole the concept of the chaos star from his works.
I think there is no right ammount of grimdark. It depends what is the setting and what will it show to us. Even when 40k was peak grimdark, there where elements which transformed a grimdark aspect to plain grimderp. (There are no handrails on Imperial stairs, because a handrails is more expensive then human a life)
It's a spectrum, and everyone has their preferred spot, which makes it hard to please everyone.
Wait, is this actual lore reason for no handrails?
Really?
@@piotrwisniewski70 yup the material for rails(unless you’re noble) is better spent making useful stuff
That's pretty funny tbh, and old 40k personally felt like it had a light judge Dredd satire feel to it
That's because old 40K was openly satirical and not meant to be taken seriously - and so is much of modern 40K. Stop treating grimdark as some kind of deadly serious genre and it'll suddenly make a lot more sense.
Trivia: One Page Rules originally went by “One Page 40k” until contacted by GW legal.
I can't be the only one who finds one page rules boring as hell. Everyone speaks so highly about it, but it truly just feels like throwing two armies at each other and just rolling dice to see what happens. The game feels almost auto-played.
@@habibishapur Dunno, my opinion is quite opposite. Altering activations do force you to think more tactically, and since you don't have an entire turn just for yourself, it's less of army smashing
@Mercenary0712 I mean, I dislike the card-game-like mechanics of 40k. I would play historicals if literally anyone else played. But one page rules seems like any degree of tactics or strategy has no effect.
@@habibishapur A problem that I have heard is that rules upon rules upon rules can result in very long turn times. Great for some people maybe, but grueling for others who want more fluidity.
@@habibishapurI play OPR pretty regularly after not enjoying Kill Team. In my own experience Ive pulled off some really creative maneuvers with my Ork list that didn’t feel like a “gotcha” but did leave both of us having a laugh.
From the 1980s to the 2010s "a cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic dystopia you wouldn't want to live in" was the default portrayal of the future.
In the grim darkness of the two hundred and third decade, people are desperate to see a world worth saving, and you certainly can't get that from looking out your window.
Honest to God, with the way the real world news looks at times I read 40k and Trench Crusade for the escapism.
@@HisDarkAngel for real, I want something industrial, and esoteric, and warlike and gritty rather than insane and bland like everything is nowadays.
This is the truest analysis I have ever read
To be fair, I think you've oversold how grimdark Grimdark Future was ever meant to _be._ Its original form was called One Page 40K, and was literally an attempt to create a game for people who _wanted_ to play 40K, but were tired of the convoluted rules, and ever-increasing need to buy new books. OP40K allowed you play 40K with the models you already had, with free rules, and were simple enough to learn and play quickly, without having to pore through reams of datasheets.
As time went on, the creator decided he could actually make a go of it as a business, and called it Grimdark Future to still hint at its origins, but less overtly refer to them. They've now started developing their own separate lore for it, and making their own STL files (many of which are _fantastic),_ but that's never been the _point_ of the games themselves. The thrust has always been miniatures-agnostic sets of rules that you can use to play with whatever models you like, and whatever _lore_ you like.
That would make sense - if the title was tipping the hat to origins rather than an expression of the game as it currently is.
10:59 “Rules Bloat and Power Creep” sound like badass Double Dragon bosses
Power Creeps machine gun attack was such BS
It's sounds like GDF has moved it's setting to resemble something more akin to how Rogue Trader presented it's universe before the current grimdark codified universe came into being over time. RT would have had pleasure planets/tourism, economic trade between empires/species and felt more 2000AD and less grimdark as much.
Yeah, OPR feels way more original 40k/rogue trader than the modern version does to this old man. I like that there is still room for humor, hope, and stories to be told that aren't just "we're all evil".
For those who did not grow up in the 70's and 80's
The tangible threat of a nuclear war was on everyone's mind, we all knew we were on a knifes edge of it happening.
This was also the era of post apocalyptic movies.
The era of many, many disaster movies.
Where games like Judge Dread and Car Wars were popular.
Where some more gritty themed RPGS came into existence that were not part of TSR and AD&D
It was a time that 40K also poked fun of modern politics and institutions of that time in a very tongue in check way.
This is the era that 40K was born into, and as others have said, 40K was a reflection of the times.
Is 40K going back to itz roots about being more tongue in check or is it going into a more gritty theme?
Only time will tell which direction the leadership at GW will take things and how mainstream or niche they wish to take the lore and the perception of what 40K should be in their eyes.
As to lore and setting.
It depends on rather you are playing a more narrative game whose stories are intertwined into a much larger universe or are you playing a game to have some fun with your buddies and the lore and stories comes from the game you just played and not from some outside 3rd party.
> The tangible threat of a nuclear war was on everyone's mind, we all knew we were on a knifes edge of it happening.
Uh... There is this guy in Russia right now who is threatening to fire hyper-sonic rockets at the UK, and several large train stations were shut for bomb-scares last week. We just need ska to make a comeback and we are all set.
Also I would say that the satire element of 40k - poking fun at current politics - was mostly gone by the time they released 2nd edition.
Huh. Yeah, if it represents the times, then they might make more happy stories if it sells.
old 40k is great because as the authors stated "we were trying to forget real life politics, not lampoon it, it was bad enough as it was" but you can SEE the politics of the day seeping in subconsciously, but ultimately you have to read it in yourself, even in the case of Mag Uruk Thraka, the lampoon was declared completely unintentional by the staff
and, in my opinion, that's great on all accounts
I think it goes in circles, also depending on the whims of the designers.
For example 5th ed Warhammer (mid 90's) had totally cartoonish artwork with funny pictures in the rulebook, while beginning of the 2000's brought Mordheim and 6th ed Warhammer with very dark artwork with heavy themes (remember the picture of a religious procession in an Empire town or the entire Beastmen book?).
Interesting point. What do you think contributes to the cycle most?
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming Idk. Maybe the varying amounts of freedom executives give to designers and artists? Trends in neighbouring industries (video games)? Shifts in what GW perceives as their target audience?
@@robertchmielecki2580 I think it is a combination of several different things. 5th edition was HeroHammer, with very powerful heroes and relatively small, elite forces battling hordes of orks/skaven. 6th edition toned down the heroes, nerfed a lot of the magic, and made armies bigger. It was no longer you and a couple of friends (and their levies) defending your manor from goblins, or two local lords having a disagreement over some village. It was massive invasions clashing with hastily conscripted armies led by foppish officers with little real combat experience.
6th edition was also when Bretonnia got a complete tone overhaul, from straight up Arthurian myth land, to medieval France, where chivalry was in name only most of the time, and the only people that mattered were the ones who could pay ransom.
Of course, the RPG was dark and perilous from the very start. 2nd edition made it more lethal, but at the same time, less punishing on the actual player. You could get your character brained with a bar stool way more easily, but magic no longer required components (they simply helped) and learning skills no longer costed your character's life savings while having a high failure rate.
I think this is a misunderstanding of Warhammer Fantasy. Warhammer Fantasy was never Grimdark. It was always traditional High fantasy. It was even designed initially as a more Tolkein-esque supplement to the Runequest RPG before Avalon Hill dropped the contract, and RQ models and the 'Questworld' development shifted and transformed into warhammer fantasy. (This is why beastmen are the original Chaos--they're the broo--beastmen from Runequest, just heavily censored for England, its why the wood elves had so many plant-kin type armies, as the elves of RQ are literal wood people, and why some of the dwarf models are so square and almost stone-like in their armor, EG. ironbreakers, they're literally stone-golem people in RQ.) Late-life Warhammer Fantasy shifts towards 'grimdark' because its trying to revitalize the dying brand by appealing to the aesthetics of late 90s-00s edginess and especially the growing popularity of Warhammer 40k, which had been growing more and more overtly grim and dark rather than silly due to the original authors abandoning it.
Warhammer 40k was initially a somewhat humorous setting as 'funny' settings were kind of all the rage at the time with games like Rifts, Paranoia and the somewhat tongue-in-cheek grimness of Cyberpunk or Shadowrun, in contrast to the stodgy seriousness of The White Wolf games. But throughout the 90s its comedy-level of grimness began to transform into 'actual' grimness.
@@WereScrib I agree (partly - as you contradict yourself by saying WHF was never grimdark but it became grimdark in 2000's), but these are these cycles I am talking about.
1st ed WFRP satyrical grimdark a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail
4-5th ed WFB colourful, cartoony high fantasy complete with funny slapstick pictures in the rulebook.
6th ed WFB/2nd ed WFRP - full on grimdark, playing a ratcatcher dying in a ditch of pneumonia.
So it is never one thing or another unless you just limit your scope to one-two editions.
GW will, as always, just FOLLOW THE MONEY.
What do you expect? It's a publicly traded company with many investors
@omnissiahGaspar Agreed, I'm just old enough to remember and have shopped in original store ☹️ depressing when any company doesn't seem to give a damn about its customers, which is where the money comes from!! Funny how big companies seem to forget that.
*TRIP AFTER THE MONEY you mean
I'm not so sure. They seem to have picked up a damaging ideology that's dictating their decisions, and they won't be the first to do so.
forever Winter is also very grimdark
I've heard of it. May have to check it out further.
Oh you must. You'll love it@@Good.Nuff.Gaming
Re: getting kids into it. I got the 2nd ed tyranid codex in ‘95 or ‘96 when I was 8 years old. I loved reading about Tyran getting wiped or the Tyrannic wars on Maccrage. The people who love this stuff will find it, I hope things don’t get too diluted.
Same. My first 40k was the OG Space Hulk. I was a grim child though.
Nice. There's got to be a way to limit it for kids without diluting it.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming easy, things like genestealers and terminators are abstract grimdark kids can slurp up even as they look at the old 2nd/3rd edition lore of a marine getting torn open, the deeper lore of the imperium and chaos cults are kept out and away from the gateway product parents are getting aimed at
6:58 your comparison of art styles is weird. The not so grim dark option you give is a specific web comic artist that was already making that style of funny web comics based in the 40k world by themselves. They were brought on for the Warhammer Community page and that is where their art has stayed. None of that artwork is used in Rulebooks or Codex/Battletomes and is used purely for marketing purposes, usually in relation to the hobby aspect of the game, getting together with friends to paint and play that kind of stuff.
Shhh, you'll ruin his carefully picked cherries.
Not a bit cherry fan. And in order to keep the video short I don't have time for a dissertation.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming So a well researched video this is not... just a flying off of the handle complaint, right got it. Found the artist, they were previously known as Eagle Ordinary, it was a fantastic webcomic and I'm glad they found success within the envelope of GWs marketing team.
How a game markets itself is important. Im sorry but its not weird to point out that putting out artwork like that through any official means is a major step away from grimdark.
@ nah not in the case of GW. The marketing needs to appeal as well to parents and those who don’t play. GW gets players by appealing to kids… the parents hold those purse strings though and if you’re depicting grim dark in your advertising they won’t buy it for little Timmy as it’s too dark and violent, what if he shoots up a school? Even in the 80’s and 90’s GW sold it as family friendly with its overall codex and rule book cover as well as boxset covers being very colourful. As well as selling its educational value.
Trench crusade is ONLY able to trade and market as grim dark because GW has been about for 30+ years and pissed enough grognards off to look for an alternative. Without GW Trench Crusade could not exist.
I have to point out, you definitely did not read the children's novels if you don't think they're Grimdark. Just as one example, they go into some pretty detailed explanations about what it means to become a servitor and then later reveal this was done to the parents of one of the protagonists. It's not Demonculada dark, but holy shit those books have some incredibly disturbing elements.
Interesting. I'll have to check one out. I scanned through one, but never read the whole thing
There's still those funky necrons though and orcs comically running away from a fight. Just disturbing elements does not make it grimdark. Especially if there's too much comical stuff around it. This is why Slenderman isn't scary if he isn't in a dark forest but instead in a nice sunny meadow surrounded by glistening unicorns and flowing water.
I dont need to read them to know they arent. Look at the cover art dude. If its marketed to children, then they are doing something wrong
Plus, the kid who's killed by a genestealer (he's like 12)
There was a meme fix when the first cover's were announced (the one with the necrons), where they turned the rogue trader into a genestealer, the mechanic into a servitor, and the ganger into a khorne cultist.
The Necromunda minis are probably the last few grimdark efforts from GW now that Horus Heresy has been asepticised.
They make some good stuff too.
It's probably the best game they've made to date. I know a lot of people like having big armies and huge tanks, etc.- but Necromunda at least still encourages creativity in modeling outside of the Sprue, and it's a versatile game enough where you can do a lot with it outside the 'Necromunda' world/setting.
I think that Onepagerules has an interesting balance because within the timeline of both fantasy and sci fi you have some moments that were incredibly dark.
Before the DAO Union figured out how to communicate with the alien hives for instance the hives were seen as mindless animals and their eggs were actively hunted as part of a deliberate extermination campaign. Even after achieving communication many consider the alien hives to be a threat and within the hives themselves tension is growing about how to adapt as some want to take back worlds on their migration paths even if that means planetary scale wars with other species. You also have disputes with the Soul Snatcher Cults as they are the most independant minded members of the alien hives and they are willibg to sabotage their own species. The alien hives also do have civil conflicts over resources and leadership.
Or take how in fantasy the war against havoc was so worldspanning that the goblins were part of the grand aliance against the forces of havoc. They literally changed history by fifhting with the aliance yet nowadays their contributions are ignored and forgotten which causes conflicts as the goblins are motivated by a desire to be respected.
You still have things like undeath societal collapse discrimination pillaging terrifying suoer weapons corruption greed and warfare.
Part of my issue with grimdark is that if everything is dark and depressing it creates apathy. A story like Berserk is dark but we get genuinely moving moments which make Guts more compelling and the hope that he can take down the Godhand is engaging. In 40k novels like Caiphas Cain they are fun because Cain is finding a way to survive the insane world he lives in and his own growing need for imposter syndrome.
One good thing with OPR is that the rules and fluff is far less interwined. One works without the other. Which gives a lot of flexibility.
The lore they came up with for GF IMHO also is a smart move. Because its very diverse. It allows for all sorts of games and races. The current scope of the game is just one small area of the known galaxy... and most is still unknown. Its certainly not perfect but it feels huge and diverse. The also do what GW used to do back in the day: just hint at stuff. Only few questions are really answered. There is still a place for allmost everything. Its certainly not perfect but i really like it.
The Sirius Sector is quite Grimdark by itself. The destruction by the cascade is conciderable and there really is only war for a lot of the faction currently. Also most simply can not leave and have no chance to change anything long term so its pretty hopeless. The grand picture is different though.
I think they made a nice little sandbox of a universe. With lots of options and potential.For example they kept the miniature agnostic approach, with the ability to create your own faction and use stuff not described... because the universe is a vast place so there is a place for anything.
For the future I really hope they move their faction and miniature design away from the GW aesthetics and become more fitting to their own lore with their own designs.
@schnuersi I agree. I also think that because all the factions have their own agendas that conflicts feel more natural.
In GF it makes sense that Blessed Sisters would fight the Custodian Brothers. It makes sense that Ratnen Clans might fight prime brothers. In 40k it can feel odd at times for certain factions to fight on a tabletop perspective.
Sure traitor gaurd and dark mechanics exist buy they don't have models so it can feel a bit odd to have space marines vs gaurd for example. Lore wise it makes sense with traitor gaurd but we don't have traitor gaurd models.
In GF HDF isn't tied to the same overarching faction they are an independent faction as opposed to how Gaurd and Space Marines are both parts of the imperium.
I also do think that the Sirius sector is a great setting because everyone can make their own spin on what is in it.
There are plenty of dark elements in OPR lore -- and I suspect we'll see more when we start seeing more actual Army Books out. Everything surrounding the High Elf Fleets is very dark, the ruling class abandoning the people to be wholesale slaughtered is pretty dark. The Robots themselves becoming violent but then gaining an understanding of who they were and perhaps what they've done, and of course, the remaining non-noble elves becoming little more than homeless and desperate pirates. That entire story arc is pretty brutal.
@@Warjaming The Infected Colonies are an entire planet and species of Parasyte.
Exactly. As much as I love 40K, the most unbelievable part is the world itself. Take the Guard for example. If you're faced with the choice to get brutally murdered by anything you go up against or take a laspistol to the face from the Commisar, I know which way I'd rather die. Either way, you're going to die but one will be excruciatingly painful and drawn out and the other you're called a coward and it's instant. That said, if there's hope that they can make it through the battle and go back to their families or give their children a better life, then that gives them a reason to fight.
I wouldn’t say that grimdark can have no hope. Just, any significant improvement to the setting is some far off vague possibility. But you could possibly make it through this event, and maybe make life for you and yours a bit better than it was yesterday. The key is that there is no happy ending that makes everything better, it just doesn’t have to be so hopeless and nihilistic that there isn’t a point to trying anything.
Also, grim dark doesn’t have to be war. Look at a hive city: that is grim dark even without the gang wars.
Fair point. I wanted to keep the video shorter so sadly that means some nuance gets left on the cutting room floor.
@ oh, completely understand that. And with that caveat, agree completely.
GW didn't invent the style, GW was heavily inspired by 2000AD comics and Heavy Metal Magazine. Dark Fantasy was very much in vogue in the 70's. On the subject of OPR....its just rules to me. ones which I can use for whatever setting I want, I haven't turned a single page on any of the OPR lore, not one, IDGAF about lore, I just want to play some wargames man. TC is a Todd McFarlane action figure, looks cool, but Ill forget about it before it releases to non kickstarter people like myself. Stargrave is cooler than all that crap anyways.
Agreed on all points.
@@phandaal A huge problem that plague all versions of Warhammer today is that most of the people writing and even the newer fans don't really understand the original ingredients and the how/why it got to where it was. They just know Warhammer as 'Warhammer the pop culture phenomena and the memes', not 'Warhammer the big pile of '80s scifi clichés with the vibe of a heavy metal album cover'. The latter is also not as appealing to investors, who mistakenly think there is a broader market.
Its the Marvel-ification and Star Wars-ification of every scifi/fantasy universe. And it never works out in the end.
I'm seeing an issue with Tabletop games and maybe fantasy in general in that as they are getting more popular, they are becoming more warm, fuzzy, comfortable and most of all becoming more Funko Pop culture friendly I guess would be the best way to say it. MTG, Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer have softer and more welcoming art. I remember fantasy games in general a long time ago had that gritty fantasy feel where it felt like the adventure was raw and dangerous enough for only the truest and bravest heroes to push on through. Now everything seems easy and soft including 40k. 40k feels like the good guys are slowly winning and that's what made it so special in the first place is that it felt the opposite of that. The game has also become easier yet also become very bloated at the same time.
I'm glad my hobbies are becoming more popular but a part of me is sad to see the heart of it go away in order to water it down and appease the masses. The only things i have left that continue to hold that high fantasy, gritty adventure feel is my old books but i guess books actually take effort to read and can rarely be watered down to be easier to consume unless they make a live-action version of it.
I do still play tabletop games but I don't keep up with the new stuff I prefer collecting my older editions and keeping with older lore. Most everything after 2015 in terms of tabletop Lore just doesn't exist to me
You made me think of some old school MtG art like Sengir Vampire and Living Wall.
Tell me about it, new dnd players absolutely refuse to get their character killed, which results in many lukewarm sessions with low risk therefore low engagement.
I think it goes in circles, also depending on the whims of the designers.
For example 5th ed Warhammer (mid 90's) had totally cartoonish artwork with funny pictures in the rulebook, while beginning of the 2000's brought Mordheim and 6th ed Warhammer with very dark artwork with heavy themes (remember the picture of a religious procession in an Empire town or the entire Beasmen book?).
I don’t think trench crusade is going to kill Warhammer 40k because trench crusade is too niche also Warhammer 40k has more variety, better options, better gameplay, more factions and the more fleshed out story also better models. Trench crusade should be its own thing. Both can exist you know.
Oh, no certainly not kill it. I was suggesting it was. I was saying that if you wanted a grittier world to play a game in TC seems to offering more than 40k.
Full "Casualization", that's the real grim dark.
I made quite a few Grimdark Future Lore videos, and it’s not “Grimdark” at all. If anything everyone is the good guys.
I don't even mind if they want to do just regular scifi instead of grim dark, but they should probably change the name if it doesn't reflect the tone of the universe
@@ryanmalady376 I agree. I know they've already invested in the Name, and they need to differentiate themselves from 40k some how. But it is kind of misleading a bit.
That's kind of Grimdark in itself everyone being a good guy but no one willing to cooperate.
Interesting flip, everyone is a hero instead of everyone having a dark side.
@ yeah. It’s not a bad idea for a setting. Even their version of the Chaos Gods are justified, although there is a miss opportunity with the inciting event in their narrative IMO. I think they probably should have rebranded the name before 3rd edition, perhaps some of the factions too like the “Elven Jesters”.
Though to be honest most people use OPR rules to play narrative games in the 40k setting.
I think with the official lore book of Grimdark Future being released this year OPR has set their version of "Grimdark" in a middle of the road approach for people to make their own lore. It's not absolute despair nor the Hero shows up at the end to save the day stories, but for someone to take the left or the right of the fork in the road.
And you know what? I appreciate that.
Technically calling it lore is a missnomer.
It's a setting book. It's too high level to be lore. The short stories on the other hand are a bit too low level.
Lore is in the middle. The stuff that shaps the universe but isn't the shape of the universe. The 20 legions finding their Genefather's, fighting a huge civil war and breaking up into chapters to prevent a future civil war on that scale, that's lore. It's a key feature of the setting but obviously isn't anywhere close to the whole setting. It's also not an individual, small story, it's a lot of stories with legions striving to follow the Codex to the letter while others seek any way possible to circumvent it.
The benefit of having just setting is that you can legitimately make your own lore. Codex compliant Thousand Sons loyalists are simply not a thing. They fundamentally go against the established lore and cannot exist even though loyalists Emperor's children or World Eaters can.
In OPR, you can run Change Disciples reinforced by Prime Brothers, both serving the Eternal Dynasty or they're fighting for the Robot Legions or hell, they've decided to join the Alien Hives and it works within the setting because there's no lore to prevent this from being remotely possible.
Trench Crusade is basically all lore, minimal setting. We barely understand what the world looks like but every unit and piece of kit seems to have a clearly defined story behind it. You're playing out events in a world, you're not shaping it. There's no scenario where Trench Crusaders fight alongside Heretics.
Each approach has its ups and downs.
With Trench Crusade I wondered why God didnt close the portal. He is omnipotent, what is stopping God from stepping in
Maybe for the same reason God just don't forbid everything bad and evil. From the very beginning he made people to think and decide for themselves, guiding but not controlling. And after Jesus' fate God just stopped guiding humanity. He gave everything we need to build our destiny. And in TC if people caused Armageddon then they also will deal with it
Congratulations, you've stumbled across only ONE of many many many logical inconsistencies with Abrahamic religions. The answer to your question is as simple as it is sobering: it's all fiction, and the goat-herders who wrote it back then didn't think it through.
Would be no game if he did. It's the irony of stitching a grimdark setting on a fundamentally hopeful cosmology...Looks cool though.
@@revylokesh1783 Trench crusade isn't really christian. They took from Christianity, but they're not sticking to it's doctrine or orthodoxy.
The answer is free will. People opened the gate, so it was caused by their free will. The war is mostly between humans so he doesn't just close it because it was directly caused by humans freewill, but don't get it wrong tho God(he isn't the Christian god it takes from all Abrahamic religions and some other stuff )does help. He made a covenant that makes any rebal seraphim(basically all true demons) unable to go past the gate without being obliterated by God, which is why the court only sends half breeds, scapes of dead fallen angels and ect
I think the issue on why people are saying “Oh GW lost grimdark., or “GW forgot what grimdark is.”, is because they’re only looking at things from the Wider Imperiums perspective of “Humanity is the best, Space Marines cool.” But what they forget is that… Humanity is still a dying race?
Like yes. Primaris is in, newer bigger, stronger space marines… but… the threats have also gotten bigger, and stronger. Tyranid invasions are climbing, Genestealer Cults leading the way. Necron Tomb-world’s awakening. Chaos, with Vashtorr, are finally, actually a threat because if Vashtorr wins- there’s a new Chaos god in play. (Aka Vashtorr actually gives a tangible goal to chaos that they lacked outside of “destroy the imperium”).
While the minis, and game don’t reflect Grim-Dark, taking a look at the WHOLE picture- Humanity, no matter how hard they fight are on the loosing side. There is no hope.
Were for me, Grimdark in Trench Crusade is just coming from the minis. The Art. Because there aren’t any concrete lore books to quote. We have a general idea on how the world is… but not on how the people feel.
Quar, my beloved, is a goofy setting of fat, World War One inspired, Anthropomorphic Aardvarks in an eternal war. Not Grimdark at all. But it used to be more so- if you can find the old art, it’s much more grim, and dull.
THAT, is a real switch.
Interesting point, both about humanity dying off in GW and TC just being in the minis (so far). Let's see what they do with the story as the game moves forward.
6:40 Alternatively, you can make a subfaction within each major faction the "Good guy" like Robot Gorillaman or Comander Farsight.
The biggest example of fannon involving the Tau is the idea that Farsight runs his empire in any different way than the Etherals he ran from.
The Enclaves are ran the same way as the Empire proper down to the Caste system, the leadership is the only real difference with the Enclaves under a military junta and the Tau Empire with a sort of elected monarch.
@pjmetzen3483 fair enough, but the idea still stands.
@ Agreed, which is why GW basically took Kelly’s past decade writing for the Tau and said we don’t do that anymore with the newest book they’ve released.
@pjmetzen3483 Since I haven't read it yet, I'll take your word on it for now.
The biggest problem with 100% grimdark is there's no point in living in those settings. You'd be better off ending it before it even begins. There has to be SOME reason for fighting other than "everything sucks and is trying to kill me but I'm too stubborn to die". That's not believable.
For some people that's all the reason they have
@@froggy2247AMEN
It's especially not likeable
YES! This is why most Grimdark stories fall flat; there needs to be something worth fighting for, or there is no reason to fight at all.
@@inquisitionagent9052 - Our current real world situation is well short of grimdark, and a significant portion of the population has given up on the idea of trying to create future generations of humans. In any setting where birth control plausibly exists humanity would not survive until full grimdark. Most people would give up, and the rest would finish each other off, or be finished off by Chaos/Xenos specifically in 40k.
I dont think OPR is really that grimdark at all, but im into OPR for the gaming aspect, not the lore aspect. I do rally hope trench crusade gets fully fleshed out lore and stories
You're not the first to say that about OPR, and I feel the same way. I love the game system. The lore is ok, but not as compelling for me as other metaverses.
They're sanitizing a theme of which the appeal is how dirty and horrible it is.
They missed the fucking point.
Yep. "Burning the village in order to save it" kind of thing.
To be fair armies look however you want. There is not a gun to your head forcing you to make things look their way. A big part of grimdark is kit bashing and grity painting. There can literally do whatever, and I will still have grimdark armies. I have a blood angel successor chapter, dark angel successor, black templars, armie and all of them are completely kitbashed, grimdark painted, completely unique. All I need are basic intercessors and can make literally anything I want with those.
Not forced no, but so many build and paint "like the box" for a number of reasons, which creates an unofficial momentum until a player gets comfy enough to go their own way.
Trench Crusade is inevitably going to learn what GW already has; Grimdark is an absolute dead end for fiction. Conflict is necessary for a story to avoid stagnation, but conflict doesn't always just equal violence. Trench Crusade is either already doomed to stagnate (nobody gaining ground is the definition of a lack of conflict despite the constant violence), or else they too will eventually need to move forward. Either wargamers accept this fact, or we get used to a graveyard of dead games that inevitably grow boring
This isn't Games Workshop's first tonal shift. Rick Priestly's original vision for the 41st millennium had 1980s punk baked into the setting quite thoroughly. GW then moved away from that and into the Grimdark.
The RPGs set in the 41st millennium too focus far less on the grimdark (only two of the eight 40k RPGs put any focus on warfare at all), and far more on the horror aspects prevalent in the setting.
thank you, too many modern "old hats" in this game aren't actually "old hats" and also seem to only focus on their own choice bits. The RPGS were all over the place in tone, the original wargame was all over in tone....GW only took it all too seriously when they swallowed their own marketing pill.
Also, friendly reminder: Trench Crusade said they dont want you if you dont like Custodettes.
I do remember that little incident, which is unfortunate. As long as they keep it out of the game itself.
Does it really bother you that much? Grow up. Who cares. Don’t engage with it if you don’t like it. Just let shit be inclusive.
@@therickspears I think you are missing something here. Nobody is upset that there are martial women in 40k. People are upset that GW is perfectly willing to retcon established lore to appease an activist mob.
TC shot itself in the foot by saying that is a perfectly reason to retcon so there is no reason to expect they will not do the same.
@@cp1cupcake I hear you. It’s not about the women, it’s about the retcon, but, if you’re anything like me, you’ve been in this hobby for at least twenty years or more. There have always been changes and retcons. Whether they appeal to an “activist mob” or not, it doesn’t matter, if someone else can use it to get into the game, does it really matter? It’s all made up anyways. Do I like the way that it was shoehorned in? No. It was abrupt and messy and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but, it happened. Whomever doesn’t like it can choose not to engage with that aspect of the lore, though.
@therickspears Twenty minutes maybe but not 20 years. If you truly like the setting, then why do you want to change it? Most of if not all the retcons are just cleaning up older lore or expanding on it.
Another problem people had with the custodians was that games workshop tried to gaslight everyone into thinking that it wasn't a break with established lore. You might like being lied to but I don't.
I did notice that even the all consuming monster armies in Grimdark Future were working towards peace and understanding with one another. Hell, even the daemons were simply struggling to survive and not openly malicious.
Yeah. That's what really got me. The alien invade, and all that had to be done was...talk to them? Turns out they just wanted a cup of sugar.
GW toning down 40k lore is unintentionally making the lore lowkey fascist. Like, the point is that the Imperium is supposed to be one of the bad guys, but now with the video games and new art direction, space marines have become uncomplicated, unironic heroes? Wtf...
Archie didn‘t buy out eastman/laird. They licensed it and made Their own tnmt Universe more based on the animated show. The darker original Comics continued Till the buy out by nickelodeon. Eastman/laird still have an Option to Release a few issues each Year in the Original Universe of theirs.
Really? Cool. I didn't know that.
Thanks for the video, I disagree on several points, but it was nice to get your point on Grimdark. I think it is incorrect GW has been Grimdark, then softened in recent years. I think GW has been always following the sales, going through satire (80s Judge Dreed), childish comedy (90s with colorfull orks), grimdark (the 1999 edition), and eventually the depressing all-space marines era (post-2010). So, change of setting is not recent. It has alwas changed since the 80s in my opinion.
Entirely possible. As I said, I'm not an expert on 40k. I've been playing it for decades, and enjoyed a book here and there, but I've never been die hard and so don't know the game and culture in and out.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming Well, at least Trench Crusade indeed matches exactly the tone you described. To me, it looks like W40K with a fake mustache, but I wish all the best to Pirinen and his pals with it.
That furst curesy imsge is meant to be for a cafe, the kids books begin with a planet blowing up and there is still some pretty metal stuff fir Necromunda
‘Grimdark’ will never have a mass appeal, its inevitable as 40k got bigger they dark stuff gets cut.
Sad, but true. And means the focus of the company isn't the game.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming The Funny thing is GW would probably agree with that statement, to my knowledge from a business side GW sees itself as a modellig company first and the settings are there to do that, and they will be change by GW to sell more of what they see as their primary business.
Issue is that TC is bad, like really really bad. Some of the worst lore I have ever read. The old 40k was PEAK. 40k was good because the guys making it were having fun and playing around now grim dark isn't a thing that came about it's MADE to be grim dark which easily falls into 14 year old edgy cringe.
We’re all forgetting how it’s truly because Roboute Guilliman came back and now the Imperium is good now
Miss my grimdark 40k
At least you can paint your own guys as grimdark as you want.
I'll say this, OPR becomes darker when you look into the narrative battles, Assault on Malhadra mission 13 stands out lol. It is Diet Grimdark for sure though. That said, the GF World Book sort of establishes the lay of the land and how everything fits together, the actual Army Books would contain more specific lore and things may dim the lights there. Also with OPR, its kinda as grimdark as you'd like it to be, as what's actually going on in a conflict is up to you.
it will be curious to see what they do now that they are releasing the army books
Nurgle doesnt seem too bad. He just wants to stop the suffering 😢 lol
Papa Nurgle loves all his children and just wants to spread his slimy, virus ridden gifts to everyone!
Speaking as a Nurgle player and fully cognizant of Chaos's corruption: Nurgle's mercy is a cruel. Nurgle NEVER heals you, that is not in his power. All he does is take away the pain by making you reach a point where your corrupted body feels no pain. Nurgle never improve things, he only stagnate them.
Ever see the Movie "Major Payne"? When he says "want me to show you a little trick to take you mind off that pain?"
@@freakyzed8467"Life, uh, life finds a way"
My line is when grimdark becomes grimderp. Such as Characters acting so wildly out of character just to cause drama, or 'no good end ever for any reason period'.
Normies ruin everything
Some niche things need to stay niche
This reminds me of a conversation I had around 1993, when GW shifted from books to boxsets (around Fantasy Battle 4th edition and 40k 2nd edition). How the art style shifted from full gory blood splatter hits, to just armies / individuals posing and looking cool, and how it felt like GW was watering everything down to sell in more stores. It obviously worked back then given how big GW is now, but then again they were pretty small at the time so there wasn't much to lose.
One of my favorite quotes from all of 40k is "hope is the first step on the road to disappointment." I think that line alone is an excellent descriptor of what makes grimdark what it is, as well as stating what grimdark _isn't._ While it's certainly not grimdark for too many factions to be amicably getting along and joking about in heavily pastel art styles in the spirit of good clean fun, it seems as if the temptation is to go so far in the other direction that you completely _overshoot_ grimdark. That way lies Zack Snyder movies, where everybody isn't just miserable, but terminally idiotic beyond the ability to rationally function. I've often heard this extreme referred to as "grimderp" and described as "like a pizza cutter: all edge, no point". I don't know if _Trench Crusade_ really hits _that_ level. In fact, I've generally heard pretty good things about it. However, grimdark doesn't necessarily mean "no hope, ever." It means that, when hope _does_ exist, and it absolutely _should,_ it should be punished. A moment of joy gives contrast to the tragedy. (That said, like anything, it's not as if one _can't_ screw this up. Just look at Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.)
The small fragments of hope in these universes are why people who live in them even attempt to better their lives in the first place. From our near-omniscient perspective, it looks stupid to struggle and fight and hope. But to those who live in this universe? Those who don't know for sure what tomorrow brings? That glimmer of hope has got to mean _everything_ to them. It is why combatants fight at all. After all, if they _know_ there's no hope (pro tip: if you don't believe there's hope, you generally don't have to make _mantras_ to remind you...), why bother? Lay down your arms and accept oblivion, if not accelerate its advance to get it over with. It's all the same at the end of the day, right? And yet, in these universes, the characters don't give up. The obvious reason for why they stand strong is because there wouldn't be a wargame otherwise. In-universe, however, the implication is that the characters are holding onto something. And what could that something be if not hope?
I don't think it's fair to call grimdark anti-Tolkein. If you know more about Tolkein's universe, it's actually fairly grim in its own right, especially for its time. As I understand it, while the final victory does ultimately belong to the forces of Iluvitar, that's a way's off, and it's not going to be an easy road to get there. That was the entire point of the Scouring of the Shire: an object lesson that the fight never ends. You will not live to see the final victory. This doesn't mean you can't scrounge together some tea and hobbit leaf and enjoy a moment of hard-won calm. It just means that the calm is ephemeral. War does not interrupt the natural order of peace. Peace interrupts the natural order of war. Grimdark isn't anti-Tolkein. It's _Ultra-Nightmare_ Tolkein. Tolkein with all the difficulty sliders thrown to maximum and welded in place. Tolkein with the eras of calm shrunk to their absolute mathematical minimum while still technically existing.
In a weird way, grimdark might actually be _more_ in the spirit of what Tolkein was getting at in the first place than any of Tolkein's actual works. Fighting hard for a decade of peace is at least logical and sensible. You can do a lot of living within a decade. But fighting hard for a _moment_ of peace? Especially a peace you may not live to enjoy? That takes even _greater_ heroism, fortitude, and strength of character, and I don't think Tolkein would ever look down upon that. Where 40k broke with Tolkein's ideas was by recontextualizing virtue, faith, and an emphasis on the great reward to come as instead foolishness, ignorance, and an emphasis on the great suffering in the here and now. This is why Games Workshop is so good at writing stories about the puny, cynical, and wavering Guard, yet are terrible at writing stories about the noble, virtuous, and stoic Space Marines. Games Workshop, as people, are puny, cynical, and wavering. How could they be expected to write _Space Marines,_ except as an outsider looking in, reinterpreting them in as bad faith as possible? There's a reason 40k blew up _in America,_ and why it's still around today, while Warhammer Fantasy (largely characterized by forging shaky interspecies diplomacies in hopes of warding off various flavors of absolute evil) is a rapidly fading memory.
The problem with 40k wasn't that the Imperium got too hopeful or idealistic. It's that modern GW are sackless cowards who don't want to let their precious baby Impewium suffer. Even when the Imperium loses, they just win again later at some point, rendering any loss completely pointless. That's a _much_ bigger writing problem. Though I won't say what this problem is generally called, I think you know her name by now. I don't even think the Imperium were necessarily even _immoral._ Sure, they do terrible things, but the idea has always been this Nietzschean thought experiment: they have to fight monsters to survive, and so they became monstrous. Would _you_ do any different? The problem is that, if the monsters the Imperium fights are no longer meaningfully monstrous (I think of Tyranid armies getting tabled in two turns in most editions), then the Imperium are a bunch of sadistic monsters _for no reason._ Paradoxically, protecting the Imperium from the threat of failure and suffering has also rendered them more decidedly evil and cruel than ever before in the lore's history. That or they're _spectacularly_ stupid. Either way, [d]uck 'em.
It’s been so sanitised that now the eldar helped resurrect Gulliman? What? lol. Soon everyone will be holding hands and the war will be a Care Bears style fight for friendship
I still feel like this newcomer Trench Crusade hasn't gone off the same edge as 40k though. Well, at least 3rd to 7th edition 40k. It's kinda why I've still not gone over to them despite me liking the Death Korps. I guess it's got something to do with just how insignificant a human is in a galaxy filled with more humans than Earth.
40k's grimdark was always just something fans liked to tell each other about. The setting is fairly bleak and there's a helping of body horror, but it's not really exceptional in either of those (it's milquetoast compared to All Tomorrows).
Like, it's a sci-fi dystopia, and it's somewhat novel in that the bleakness comes mostly from a frustrating kafkaesque bureaucracy rather than the inescapable corporate dominance that's more popular in dystopian settings, but the grimness and darkness was always overstated by the fans. It's barely ever been touched by their primary product. The games are just dice-rolling space fight simulators with a few body-horror minis in a couple of factions. Fans love to explain to nee players how evil their faction is in the Deep Lore because those new players have inevitably picked up absolutely none of it by playing the game.
All the stuff fans love to treat as unbelievably bleak has always been better described as 'mild to medium dystopia'. It's an old genre, they're all like that. 40k gives the little guy a few outs, a ton of rad heroes and even some big wins, and the games deliver the idea of a crushing dystopia about as well as Cyberpunk Catan. It's just not that grim, not that dark, and never was.
Food for thought. Thanks.
I agree. The entire idea that 40k was grimdark was kind of part of the joke in the beginning. It was a way to laugh at posing. I mean there's a reason there were so many ties to Judge Dredd in the beginning (including why GW was tapped for the JD minis in the first place). Playing those early days I can't remember any of my friends giving 2 s's about grim dark.... they were throwing stuff together and making jokes.
The imperium of man is still the villain it’s just that the issue is guilliman being alive and ultramar.
THE villain, or A villain?
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming I don’t think trench crusade is going to kill Warhammer 40k because trench crusade is too niche also Warhammer 40k has more variety, better options, better gameplay, more factions and the more fleshed out story also better models. Trench crusade should be its own thing. Both can exist you know.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming what I’m saying is guilliman being alive and few primarchs being alive is making Warhammer 40k less grimdark. Also ultramar being this wonderful nice place is making Warhammer even less grimdark.
@@Good.Nuff.Gamingthe human villian, 40k works in one its best ways when you approach it from the perspective of a villian popularity contest, why do uou think most players fight over which factions are /most justified/ rather than who among them is morally right
except for nods, orks, and deldar players, their fans embrace their faction identity warts and all
@@jamespaguip5913ultramar was always the part of the imperium that was "Heard and not Seen", we get that in Enforcer with Shira Calpurnia acknowledging her home realm is a world apart from where she ended up
Bang on, I think your take hits the nail on the head
To be fair, you can’t have “constant war” without a functioning economy.
also gotta mention the Trench crusade Kickstarter that had a goal of $66,666 but made $3,331,943
As someone who's not a fan of grotesqueness and gore, I won't be touching trench crusade
You should try a game called Candyland.
@@EyeXombie how mature.
may i recommend star wars legions if you like a more toned down and cheaper war game?
@EyeXombie So are all you guys who like this stuff, just closet Satanists or something ?
@@HappyNoob17YT I have several wargames including that one.
Just awaiting the 2nd edition product
I thought Archie Comics just licensed TMNT. Because Mirage kept putting out new comics (and unlike with Nick it seemed to lack the Archie logo or ownership (IDW TMNT has this for Nick)).
Someone else pointed that out too. I thought it was a buyout. My bad.
Am I the only anti-woke Warhammer fan who can't stand the "Imperium are the good guys" sentiment? What happened to everyone being different flavors of asshole, with some decent people here and there?
It is insane how people are saying the imperium is good in any way, shape, or form. They have to not know anything about the lore because there's no good aliens because the imperium just straight up kills them off.
That's what it used to be, and I thought that was great. Everyone faction thought they were justified, which made everything really interesting.
Imperium are the good guys in the sense that they are the only ones focused on humanity survival in a completely hostile galaxy. Unless you're a nihilist who thinks all humans in 40k should die or worship chaos.
I personally like it when things are a bit less grimdark. When I was younger I liked the edginess of these sorts of settings but as I have gotten older it's just nice to have things be a little less dark and a little more fun. When everything is miserable all the time forever it gets pretty boring if you ask me. But that is why i like to inject my warhammer armies with a bit of silly and am doing the same thing for my trench crusade warbands.
For Grimdark to evolve, it needs new carriers, destabilize its genome, multiply, and diversify.
Trench Crusade is truly grim, dark. WH40k used to be much more grim, dark, but then GW made the IP too commercial at the expense of its original grim, dark ethos.
I know they'll never do it but the first step to bringing back cosmic horror and desperation to the setting is deemphasizing the Primarchs. They come back from the dead willy nilly and turn the setting into a power fantasy. You're supposed to feel like there are *barely* enough Space Marines to hold back the dark, and that means no unkillable Avengers.
Honest to God, with the way the real world news looks at times I read 40k and Trench Crusade for the escapism.
I think while trench crusade does look cool, they definitely achieved their goals of going "all out" on the art. I personally find some of it sick (in a good way) but I cannot in a million trillion years see ANY of that stuff show up on a store shelf in any country in the world. WW1-esque soldiers wearing gas masks with blood-runes drawn on their armor and a LITERAL SHRUNKEN FETUS hanging on their belt? Yeah, metal as all hell but you are not convincing any parent to purchase that for their kid. I can also understand that to an extent as I've started to hit my later years; that style of grimdark almost seems...way too grimdark? Like it's just being bloody and gorey and gross for the shock factor and nothing else. 40k is in a good spot in my opinion, it absolutely has grimdark still in it's artstyle and general theme.
What’s wrong with shock factor and moreover, why should you buy it for the kids?
I think it’s good that it understands what it’s trying to be, as perhaps overly edge as it is, it knows who it’s for and isn’t afraid to be that.
yeah, that's one image I wasn't going to put on the video. I figured I'd get into trouble. That's one of the places where I thought "maybe a bit too far here guys"
Grimdark is just depressing. WH40k has more to offer than that. It’s grimdark _derived,_ but not limited to the tropes expected of the genre.
A very concise and I'd say, objective view on the grimdark aspect of these games. Especially agree on OPR, I think it's a great game but after just a cursory glance at their thematic direction, I can't say I'm interested in immersing myself in what they've written. Hopefuly they course correct seeing as they're calling their games grimdark future.
I love One Page Rules because they make a fun game and do not hate me for voting for someone. ❤
The discord probably would, but what Discord isn't total ass cancer?
@@Skritz-mt9zb I haven't had any trouble with the Necropolis 28 discord so far.
What pulled me to the OPR games was never the grim or the darkness of its setting.
Me either. I like the simplicity of the rules and gameplay.
Grimdark is when mankind is sliding faster into destruction and there's no question Chaos will win. The cause is lost, there is no hope, no surrender, no third way, and all that's left is dying with blood on your hands. Its the empire dying while a gloating god laughs his last and the astronomicon fades forever.
This is gonna sound really weird, but my favorite grimdark setting right now is Foxhole. For those who don’t know, Foxhole actually has a bit of lore and it’s grimdark. Ever lasting total genocidal wars that last so long knowledge is constantly lost, where these WW1 era looking tanks are actually designs hundreds of years old. I like it a lot because the grimdark feeling comes just from exploring the world and the knowing that even if you win this war; there’s just gonna be another war right after it. You don’t mind the earth for new resources to make new material, you scrap destroyed war equipment because there’s nothing left to be pulled from the earth. Only recycled and reused. The one scrap location that’s used has a BUNCH of tanks from a battle *300* years ago. And your armies are still using the same type of tanks. The pistol you start with was given to you when you were a child when you first joined the military. But best of all? The grim dark setting isn’t shoved in your face. It just is. And you exist in that world. And 99% of the other players don’t even know it’s a grimdark setting. But the player culture almost supports it. The amount of times we’ve been sent out to recover rifles off of the dead to be recycled for reinforcements coming into the line, the perpetual moaning of the endless enemy artillery, the day in, day out, charging at the same exact trench line with your fellow players, never losing ground but never gaining any unless one side has the most serious of advantages. But just exploring the insides of the destroyed houses, the old capital of the Cavoish, The Abandoned Ward, exploring what in any other circumstance would be serene farms,in a perpetual series of wars that have gone on, neither side can really recall what started making them fight to begin with. But the best part? The devs kinda went hands off. Let you discover the lore. It’s there for you if you want it. But the lore is mostly, you and every other players stories. The lore are the great battles won and lost, the endless slaughter of YOU and all the other players endlessly charging machineguns, the last stands that meant nothing, the great pushes that meant nothing, your constant deaths, over and over, is the lore. Never ending war. Anyways, wardens eat babies. Join the colonial legion today. Teach those Cavoish barbarians a lesson!!!
I'm slowing sinking my 40k ship and packing all my essentials on too the AoS ship until that one begins leaking too. Hopefully Trench Crusade doesn't suffer and serves as a bastion and safe haven for true Veterans of the Long War.
Lets see the kids novel that explores being turned into a servitor.
Nice.
Here's to hoping this video gets more views, I think you have some insightful opinions and points
I think we will find out just how grimdark GW wants to keep 40k when they come out with their live action series.
Isn’t Old World more good vs evil. Alliance vs Chaos.
I think so, but I don't think Old World claims grimdark like 40k does. I just looked at 40k.
My understanding is the flair GW was going for in Old World was to be the retelling of a piece of history, as opposed to the actual period.
Like the claim I say where 300 is supposed to be a retelling of Thermopolie by a Spartan to psych up his friends.
this is so not fair, i just got into warhammer.
For me, the tone down of grimdark relate a lot with modern day ideas of future, in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, people have great expectation for the future, looking foward to a technological and bright society, so authors and artists give them a taste of a Grimdark and horrible future that "will not be". Now, everyone (or most part of the world) dont look foward to something and see the future as some terrible destiny cause by our choses, or their daily life are as horrible as can be, just look at the wave of Post-Apocaliptic media in the previous years, so now people want a place were they can run away from the future (or the present).
When the grimdark future is not a fun idead and is more of a possible destiny or a refletion of the present, its not fun anymore.
Good point. I think one reason players resonate with 40k is because of how it brings in elements of the past into the sci-fi world.
Trench Crusade honestly feels like Diet 40k to me. If I were going to do something off-brand Grimdark, I’d rather it be something wildly creative like Turnip28.
I think that the alternative history setting allows it to stand on its own.
I don't agree I read part of Trench crusade and seems to me grim-dumb.( I know it is rich hearing coming out of 40k fan)
Really, you gonna burn your knights lungs just to make them more loyal?! At least in 40k you give up your humanity for survival or for religious reasons. Trench crusade seems more like Gray knights bathing in blood sister of battle than anyting else.
I know return of Guliman and primares marines bring bit too much hope at onece.
But primachs are not heart of 40k not even space marines as long fans and GW don't see it will be grimdark.
Tastes change over time. A 1950s horror movie is a different beast than a 1970s one which is different than 1990s, which is different than 2010s. Horror is probably bigger than ever, but is in some ways more niche than ever. The audience is just buying and demanding something different than before.
If i were a fan of 1950s horror, I'd lament that that style is no longer prominent at all but todays horror fans may look back at it as quaint. They may appreciate what you like about it, but it isn't their vibe. How you get to that point is a combination of corporate desires, creative folks ideas, and broader cultural/societal/technological shifts.
I dont want to yuck anyones yum, but I think boiling it down to a cynical corporate attempt to appeal to a lowest common denominator is a gross simplification of the dynamics.
Even in the beginning the imperium were the good guys. The Grim dark aspects were what made it interesting but the setting dictated how brutal or uncaring the imperium was. It wasn't "evil" by choice. It was questionable out of necessity, that's from xenos, heretics, and proper chaos (the warp)
Trench crusade is disgusting. No taste at all and its popularity is a sign of our culture decline. Its style is bodyhorror for the sake of bodyhorror multiplied by atheist memes. Warhammer aesthetics has been developed differently. It was mocking.
I will admit some of the elements I saw in the art went a bit too far, but the overall idea of mixing the crusades and WWI was really clever, like how 40k mixes history and sci-fi
@ yeah, sounds good on paper.
What decline? It feels like 80s horror movies or early 90s video games (you know, the gory ones)
@ you’re assuming 80s were not a decline. Also, even stupid plain gory body horror could be done with or without taste. TC is an example of the latter.
Soft.
Makes me a bit bummed out Grimdark Future isn’t grimdark at all. It feels more like Mass Effect. Even 40k is losing its edge and becoming more space opera
OPR is just a solid ruleset to use across settings though imo
I think the answer is pretty clear. When you hear people talk about one page rules, it is as an avenue through which they can play their own games with a more linear rule set. You are literally the first person I've heard of tell that there was an actual universe behind OPR. People play Trench Crusade because they enjoy the universe of Trench Crusade. I don't know what you would call success, but that sounds like it.
Have u ever heard about kenshi? One of my favourite rpgs, some say its grimdark, I kinda agree
The grimdark has never left its only the space marine art alone where it has to ed it down the grimdark still exist even in AoS.
Interesting. They tone down the flagship for marketing. Curious.
I don't think OPR abandoned grimdarkness to get to a wider audience. I think their intentions are differentiating themselves from GW, find their own identity.
I agree. If it sounded like I was saying so that wasn't my intention. I think they went with a less-grimdark vibe overall, from the outset.
You think it's getting watered down now. Wait until Amazon gets their hands on it with the Cavil show.
I think trench crusade goes too far in my opinion it's so dark and grossly offensive that I can't see any enjoyment in the game & lore (besides trench pilgrims & ghosts)
I love the horror- sci-fi of 40k a lot but I think Trench crusade is trying too hard and comes off as edgy for the sake with nothing to say. I'm glad people enjoy it and it fills the wants of certain gamers but this will be a universe I warp past*
One thing people don't realize is that, surprisingly enough, Grimdark requires ACTUAL TANGIBLE EVIL. This may seem contradictory at first, because one could say 'but muh morally gray 40k, everyone is evil'. Yes, everyone is an asshole, but some are more asshole than others. In order for a setting or story to evoke true, absolute darkness it need more than just wishy washy human evils and going 'oh but this place is bad because inequality, muh bigotry' and whatnot. Its the necessary component of the universe that makes everything else click. Its what put the likes of the Imperium is all the horrible positions it always has to be, BECAUSE the external threat is such universal and irreversible annhilation.
It NEED something as truly utter evil and pants on head crazy as chaos, it NEED things as vile and self serving as the Dark Eldars. It need forces as uncompromising as the Orks and Tyranids and, sure you can have more grey-ish factions who are assholes but you have to understand that they too are self serving assholes BECAUSE the universe is so full of threats of such a cosmic magnitude that there simply is no better option beyond trucking on and still keeping the fight even if the cost in human/eldar/tau lives is horrific. Because the alternative is so, so much worse.
THAT is why 40k needs its pure evil faction, because it both forces the likes of the Imperium to both struggle as the heroic anti hero while also being reduced to a state of cruelty and evil to its fellow man that is on an unimaginable scale. If there was no outside force so beyond its power to defeat, then there wouldn't be the struggles that make the setting what it is. This is why a world need absolute evil (or at the very least 'absolute alien hostility which can never be reasoned with') in order to be grim and dark.
Good point. There needs to be real conflict and dichotomy, but I think it makes it richer if the good guys are just good, but paragons. When the good guys have flaws, and the bad guys have at least one redeeming value, it really adds depth.
Another good example is Mutant Chronicles - most of the factions are just Diesel Cyberpunk - and then you have the Dark Legion with its five Dark Apostles (aka Chaos Gods) - and the guys left on Earth, who are used as mercenaries by the Megacorps.
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming Maybe so in some situations, but its not necessarily a key component when it come to grimdark and what 40k was originally going for. The modernist obsession with grey morality is killing most of traditional fantasy because everyone insist on making villains misunderstood sadboi who were only pushed into villainy because of victimhood.
Whereas under more traditional morality, victimhood or perceived affront does not instantly justify actions. In 40k's case, the Primarchs who fell to Chaos are entirely correct in the sense of being mad at the Emperor for lying to them/not trusting them/being a general purpose asshole but it does not and never will justify the absolute depths of moral depravity that the Traitor Legions fell to in Heresy and the 10 000 years that followed.
A villain having depth does not make him any less of a villain, because evil is a CHOICE while under modern 'morality', evil is not a choice and they are just sad oppressed people lashing out at the evils of the world.
It's not that I think Grimdark is always the answer- it's just that in the current era, thing fall into two categories:
>Grimdark, even if it really isn't and its setting is more 'grounded'.
>The polar opposite, where instead there's one or two very ham-fisted utopian societies and everyone else is a ham-fisted cartoon villain analogue of 'Those German Guys with the Windmill' that is obviously evil because evil reasons. There's no nuance, no 'this faction has their own perspective and reasons for doing what it does'.
However, the thing about Grimdark people need to realize:
>No faction, organization, nation, etc. are "the good guys" as a whole.
>There are still individuals that are the good guys.
>The setting is bleak, but that makes the good guys stand out even more.
Grimderp < Dark fantasy/scifi
I'm all for it.
I never really thought of grim dark as being anti-tolkian. As I love both lotr and Warhammer. Perhapes its the contrast between them that draws me back and forth.
Interesting. I dont necessarily agree that GW will have to choose though. I dont see why thay cant continue marketing their games to different audiences in different ways with each handwaving away the existence of the other.
Perhaps, but I keep thinking "you can please some people all the time, or all people some of the time, but not all people all the time."
@@Good.Nuff.Gaming while that's true... perhaps GW don't need to. I think there was definitely a period where the consciously decided to make the settings more 'family friendly'. They realised this was putting off older players and I think for quite a while now they've been consciously trying to please both groups of people. And I think it's working. It is perfectly possible to enjoy the game and ignore the cartoons on the Community page and avoid the children's books. And equally, the grimmer, darker elements don't need to be on the box of the sets they sell in Barnes and Noble.
Perhaps it might not be possible to please all of the people all of the time, but they can mostly please most people most of the time (at least with regards how they portray their settings).
I love the artwork of 40k, but this I love even more! It is different and darker. Add to the fact that we don't have to pay the prices that we pay for GW, I can see who will be the winner in that battle.
yeah, there are some amazing artists out there. Its' nice that now we can see them all so easily.
7.06 thats comparing an art of in-universe thing, to an advertisement for an event, you are comparing the prodepiction of the p[roduct, to a depiction of a customer
Also I think the OPR lore is DOPE. It's actually WAY more compelling in a lot of ways than 40k since it's just so much more realistic. 40k is kinda cartoonishly 2dimensional in my opinion even if they weren't doing cartoony stuff for kids. Whereas OPR? They're describing A realistic setting of interstellar politics and they're definitely using many real world ideologies as inspiration for it. The Battle Brothers and their founder are clearly fascist for example. Highly militaristic and their overall goal for humanity is just straight up eugenics. Plus they CLEARLY describe apartheid being a thing on Lucapol their home world. Plus the ratmen? They were experiments that the Founder tried to exterminate almost immediately. Also there's the nature of their galaxy itself. It mirrors our own messed up world imo. The inner sphere may be peaceful in theory. But that's primarily because that's where ALL the wealth and power resides. Species residing within the outer sphere are left to rot, and there is also MASSIVE inequality within the inner sphere as well which leads to a great deal of discontent. Hence the Rebel Guerillas which exist outside of it. Anyway yeah, just cuz there aren't skulls on everything and tourist planets exist does NOT mean it's a Disney cartoon. There's plenty of dark stuff going on there if you know where to look for it.
It’s funny the more grimdark you go the more it becomes comedy like aspects in 40k are genuinely funny in a satirical way like corpse starch if you’ve had some MREs then you’d be able to draw the line and chuckle or all the doors that use human brains to automatically open when that’s so unnecessary considering they have ftl and have discovered invisible tech but can’t figure out a simple sensor we use in Walmart