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Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader

Wildebeest

Member
WH40K is a cruel, unforgiving, ULTRA VIOLENT, inhuman, savage universe, yet, the games show a honey coated version of it. Oh look, little cute bunnies hopping around with doubled organs. How nice. Gimme a break.
40k is a dark comedy 80s action movie setting. I know a lot of people get off on the totalitarian torture porn aspect of it but in reality it has always been silly.
 
40k is a dark comedy 80s action movie setting. I know a lot of people get off on the totalitarian torture porn aspect of it but in reality it has always been silly.
It was sillier back in the day. It's a bit more serious now and people take the lore a lot more serious.

The Orks are generally the comic relief.

But overall it is hard to take Warhammer 40,000 completely seriously. I mean, you have literal space inquisitors and flying gothic cathedrals and mechs.

There are plenty of darker settings than Warhammer 40,000 that take itself a lot more seriously.
 
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Wildebeest

Member
There are plenty of darker settings than Warhammer 40,000 that take itself a lot more seriously.
Battletech was a much more serious setting. No goofy aliens or supernatural elements, but it also isn't grimdark despite having horrific wars and dark ages. A human living in somewhere like the Lyran commonwealth would likely be living in a utopian science fiction paradise compared to us.

A lot of the darkness in 40k comes from it being used as an allegory for Christianity. I think the current conceit is that all the lore is written by or approved the inquisition, from the human perspective, so it's all written by an unreliable narrator with a huge distorting agenda.

Not sure what the other choices in dark fantasy are, as many have similarities when it comes to concepts like infinity and chaos. There is Lovecraft (huge uncaring cosmos means that chaos always wins in the end), Steven King (deeply meaningful fight against chaos results in order being imposed), and Michael Moorcock (the balance between chaos and order must be maintained by the eternal heroes and their myths). 40k is a Moorcock dark fantasy setting.
 
Battletech was a much more serious setting. No goofy aliens or supernatural elements, but it also isn't grimdark despite having horrific wars and dark ages. A human living in somewhere like the Lyran commonwealth would likely be living in a utopian science fiction paradise compared to us.

A lot of the darkness in 40k comes from it being used as an allegory for Christianity. I think the current conceit is that all the lore is written by or approved the inquisition, from the human perspective, so it's all written by an unreliable narrator with a huge distorting agenda.

Not sure what the other choices in dark fantasy are, as many have similarities when it comes to concepts like infinity and chaos. There is Lovecraft (huge uncaring cosmos means that chaos always wins in the end), Steven King (deeply meaningful fight against chaos results in order being imposed), and Michael Moorcock (the balance between chaos and order must be maintained by the eternal heroes and their myths). 40k is a Moorcock dark fantasy setting.
I've actually heard people say BattleTech is darker than Warhammer 40,000. I know a little bit about BattleTech but not too much Beyond what little I've read and heard.

As for the Inquisition writing the lore I don't know about that. I think a lot of the splat books for the different aliens and factions are pretty straightforward about those said factions. It may depend on the book you're reading.

If you really want a very dark tabletop role-playing game, look up Kult. It puts anything like Warhammer 40,000 or the World of Darkness (White Wolf games like Vampire and Mage) to absolute shame.
 
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STARSBarry

Gold Member
Finally, I have been waiting for a game of this style for ages, and from a proven dev team to.

With Baldur's Gate III shaping up nicely and this announcement it seems this recent trend of high quality traditional role playing games is set to continue, it really has been an enjoyable last few years thanks to resurgence in titles like Pathfinder.
 

Wildebeest

Member
I've actually heard people say BattleTech is darker than Warhammer 40,000. I know a little bit about BattleTech but not too much Beyond what little I've read and heard.
I suppose if the absurd extremes of 40K turn you off, then the more Game of Thrones level of darkness in Battletech could be your thing.
 
I can't tell you how excited I am for this.

I have tweets going back a couple years begging for a video or computer game adaption of Rogue Trader.

I really hope they do a superb job with this. This tabletop game and the video game Space Marine is what got me into Warhammer 40,000.

I spent $90 for this book a few years ago.

IMG-20220516-202825.jpg
 
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If you're not familiar with Rogue Trader, hit me up in the thread or something. You should know everything about it. It really is an excellent game and one of the aspects I love is how they go into all the different obscure aliens that don't show up in the standard Warhammer 40,000 game. Like the Saruthi.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


We hear thousands upon thousands of voices, screaming into the void, chanting just one phrase. "Give us gameplay, give us gameplay, give us gameplay" And who are we to refuse? Behold and tremble, our first gameplay reveal!

We hear thousands upon thousands of voices, screaming into the void, chanting just one phrase. "Give us gameplay, give us gameplay, give us gameplay" And who are we to refuse? Behold and tremble, our first gameplay reveal!
 

Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
I hope this is good! I really enjoyed Kingmaker but found Wrath of the Righteous to be very poorly written. That is the worst thing you can do in this genre, making a poorly written character set with cringe and groan inducing dialogue.

40K has quickly become one or my favorite universes to explore, so i hope they do it right!
 
I'm glad to hear it's coming to GOG.

It seems like they're filling in all of the different Warhammer 40,000 spinoffs into games and that's a good thing.

It does bother me that Warhammer 40,000 is becoming somewhat mainstream now though.
 

SweetShark

Member
It was sillier back in the day. It's a bit more serious now and people take the lore a lot more serious.

The Orks are generally the comic relief.

But overall it is hard to take Warhammer 40,000 completely seriously. I mean, you have literal space inquisitors and flying gothic cathedrals and mechs.

There are plenty of darker settings than Warhammer 40,000 that take itself a lot more seriously.

I don't know if it was already mentioned, but the Orks literally can make weapons and spaceships with the power of determination. If the Orks believe REALLY HARD they can make something out of garbages, they will eventually.
 
I'm so extremely happy to see Comorragh (or anything drukhari) be represented in a game. I've been fearing for years that GW is slowly taking out them from the setting
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Finally, a 40k that I've ben waiting for all those years. Up until now Dawn of War II was probably the closest thing to a W40k RPG that we got, and I always played that game dreaming that someone will finally have a brilliant idea to do make a proper RPG in this universe.
 

Mattdaddy

Gold Member
Beta the same weekend as Diablo launch, fucking cruel fate.

CMON RELEASE DATE GODS. WHY DO YOU SMITE ME.

If they think I wont literally play two games at the same time theyre wrong.
 

Mercador

Member
Sorry, there's a little game called Diablo that release the same day...

That being said, I wonder if ChatGPT 5 could do a cohesive universe between Warhammer and 40K.
 
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