"Ever love the fluff but not the actual rules?" Topic

So I really like the 40K universe and feel, but I can't stand the rules. So I find myself constantly looking for new rules.
Battletech plays a bit slow for me, but I love the fluff! So I could never really get into other Mech games. Fortunately Alpha Strike has arrived and at least solved the BT issue.

Happens a lot with rpgs

I used to joke that half the wargame rules you find online were from people who liked 40K but didn't like the rules :-)

I'm sure the opposite happens too. I liked the Vor: Into the Maelstrom rules but the setting didn't do it for me.

Hahah yeah 40k seems to do that.

Napoleonics has this problem too ~,^

So I really like the 40K universe and feel, but I can't stand the rules.

Yup.

I used to joke that half the wargame rules you find online were from people who liked 40K but didn't like the rules :-)

You know, it DOES seem that way!

I liked the Vor: Into the Maelstrom rules but the setting didn't do it for me.

I felt the opposite. I liked the world, especially the Heroscape-y, with an infinate number of disparate planets and tech-levels, constantly fighting for the turf farthest away from the cosmic garbage disposal. It provides a clever excuse to field literally any kind of force you want.

I couldn't get into the rules. The action point mechanism was messy (if they had just assigned a movement stat, the AP's wouldn't have been inflationary, and often unable to "make change" (Warzone 2nd is a good example). Also, the morale was a bit to binary. A one-in-ten chance a unit could go from good-to-go to gone.

I'm rather the opposite---I think a lot of sci-fi wargames over-use a "Cold War in Space"-esque setting with evil Space Soviets/Space Chinese and good Space Americans/Space British as analogs to the good-old-fashioned-super-fun-time ground war that didn't happen when everyone had cool tanks in the 1980s.

Half the fun of Traveller was reading about the Imperium

For me, Battletech was very much in that boat for many years. I got a lot of books (both novels and gaming books) in my teens and twenties but never really played it, although when Mechwarrior Dark Age came along, that kept me happy for several years. I suspect I'll be giving Alpha Strike a go, though.

40K, BattleTech, a whole lot of RPGs. Warhammer too, of course. Heavy Gear.

As far as Napoleonics go, I'm mostly fine with the rules and the fluff, I just really don't like the hats.

40K is that for me. Love the fluff but not the rules.

For me it is the opposite in regards to Battletech. The game itself was great (totally unrealistic in any sense but great fun) while I didn't care much about the background.

I used to spend hours making the "perfect" mech/platoon (lance in game turns, that is how much I cared about the background).

My favorite was the all MG mech.

My favorite was the all MG mech.

LOL! Is that the one with the jumpjets and it just attacks by leaping behind an enemy and firing like a dozen MGs??

40K is the classic example. Though I don't mind the original Rogue Trader. Quite liked the Battlelords of the 23rd Century background for a shooty mercenary driven game, but the rules were excessive and cumbersome. I like Battletech if only for the novelty of 'no aliens' and real big story arc, but I have serious niggles with the rules like the way armour works and the damage/range for autocannon. However for the purposes of this it probably doesn't count as I've never used different rules.

Thing is today there is no real fluff anymore for 40K.

All Marines are Ultramarines

All Orks are just Orks

All Chaos are just Chaos.

It use to have great fluff but not anymore.

Mithmee: Really? Have you been reading the actual fluff from the novels and books they have been putting out?

All Marines are Ultramarines

Have you been reading any of the Horus Heresy novels, or have you seen the Badab War fluff from Forgeworld? The fluff is better than it has ever been, with a depth that make the Rogue Trader days look as silly as the 2000 AD comics and metal bands it was inspired by. In fact, the Badab War material went from being a one page throwaway Rick Priestly (IIRC) article in White Dwarf to a fully fleshed out conflict with some really great stories and characters much more interesting than the standard Imperium vs Chaos stype stuff. You should check it out!

All Orks are just Orks

There's a little truth to that, and they are more savage than they used to be. But there's still plenty of room for cool Ork fluff. The clans are still represented. So Orks aren't as goofy as they used to be? I don't think it's that much of a difference.

All Chaos are just Chaos,

You should really see how well Chaos was treated in the Horus Heresy novels and in the newer fluff.

I don't see it. I was on a hiatus from 40k for years as I had become interested in historicals, but it drew me back in and I was shocked by how much depth the setting had taken on. Sure, it's got some silly aspects to it, and it is easily dismissed as just more Grimdark, but the haters are gonna hate. I found the setting to have more scope and depth than any other sci fi setting. It's not just grimdark either. That's from a person who had been out of the loop for a long time.

40k is indeed one of the best examples for me of love the setting, hate the rules. I won't play 40k unless someone pays me. But I do use other systems to play with my 40k models and have been having a great time with it. Especially the Badab War and the Horus Heresy.

Funnily enough I hated the 40k background but liked one version of the rules – never played them though.

Loved the 40K fluff around Battlefleet Gothic and Epic but find 40K itself simply awful.

Same here for me,hate 40k on The table top,,but am reading the Horus Heresy.

I've never been very much into any miniature game setting background. Some are better than others (Beyond the Gates of Antares, Defiance and Infinity to mention some on the top of the pile) but most often it's not without reason the miniature gaming fiction is colloquially known as "fluff".

Luckily, there's plenty of good science fiction literature to keep one occupied.

That said, I have hardly found a perfect ruleset either and gaze in some amazement at folks who wax positively religious about a given game's rules.

I would love to read the Horus Heresy stuff- I was fascinated by that era since it was intro'd in the first Realms of Chaos book.

But I have been "clean" for ages now, though I may always be an addict on some level.

Battletech and Warhammer Fantasy are like that for me. Actually, a lot of games are, I tend to use the rules I like and then fit the settings I like to them. So Traveller skirmishing and company-sized actions would also fall into that classification.

I've been thinking more about this, and I think the only game with

A) rules I like and enjoy playing,
B) fluff I like, so not a generic game, and most importantly…
C) rules that I think fit the fluff

is Ogre. That's it.

One game.

There is a very big difference between Writers/Authors who are writing the books and the GW treatment of fluff in the game these days.

Yes there was a time when the fluff was great but that was over 2 decades ago.

yes

I loved the 40K fluff back in the Rogue Trader days, but anymore, not so much. I fully admit to not having read any of the novels in the past 15 years, though.

WH40K is my favorite love/hate relationship. ;) I like a combo of 2nd and 3rd ed rules with lots of simple house rules. 40K fluff beyond RT and 2nd ed makes me twitch and I can't stand it. Any and all things Chaos are pure garbage for me so I ignore them. I know I am in the minority on that but is is okay by me. Others enjoy it with no harm and no foul. I treat official 40K fluff as propaganda, misinformation, tall tales and outright lies in the setting of the games I play. In some ways this makes for a grittier and more grim setting to play in but also leaves room for a glimmer of hope to drive the various factions on toward real goals other than kill everyone else.

Another here for wh40k but epic did fill the game for me one game that I loved the background Was the mutant chronicle warzone I liked the RPG but the last version of the rules I do not care for much

I think the high water mark for 40K fluff was probably just prior to 2nd edition, but it didn't really tank till much more recently.

I don't like the 40K fluff … but I have all their Epic Armies … So go figure ! But I do have a number of *other 6mm Sci-fi in my inventory as well :

IG
SM
Orks/Feral Orks
Eldar/ Exodites
Chaos/Traitor SMs
'nids
Necron
Tau
*6mm Hammer's Slammers
* Alien Galactic Legion

I've done similar with WH40K…the fluff can be fun, but the rules are just awful. I go with 6mm platoon-scale games using a moderately realistic fire-and-maneuver set of rules.

Limiting myself to wargames where I liked the setting and hated the rules…

Traveller, oddly enough. Then again, I was introduced to Traveller recently, and the tech development has not aged well at all. Someone taking a similar swing at a scifi game with more modern tech development curves would be interesting, but not something I want to write.

40k I started off liking the rules and then hated them more and more as editions changed.

Guess I can include Battletech in that list, too. Rules are OK for 4-5 mechs per player, but get pretty dang unwieldy quickly above that. I want to play bigger battles than that!

I will have to mention Robotech for the reverse problem. I can't stand the butchery that turned Macross, Dougram, and Mospeada into a single continuity, but the Robotech RPG Tactics rules are wonderfully cinematic and let you play events like what you see on the screen. If only they'd hurry up and release the rest of the Macross models.

I have been trying to figure out the rules for 40K and quite frankly, think that I am dim. I do so like the fluff around the game, I just picked up the book that documents the development of the Marines through the years. I cannot afford to keep up with the miniatures or the ever changing rules.
Back in the day I (early 80s) I picked up a traveler book and spent hours developing characters. In the end, no one around me wanted to play😑. So I moved on. Two years ago my son showed me a miniature Walker from Dust Tactics and being a robot fool I fell in love. Later I found out it was a game. So long and short, what goes around comes around.

Yeah, 40k, like so many others. I think I differ in that I actually don't mind the rules: they are pretty relaxed and don't encourage power-gaming. Like, you can power-game to your heart's content, but it's sort of a smoke-the-whole-carton-of-cigarettes effect.

I am actually hoping that the next edition is _less_ "realistic". I forget who said it (probably someone in this thread) but practically all the other sci-fi rulesets are "Vietnam in Space". I would like to see 40k embrace its craziness. Maybe let Horus Heresy satisfy the "serious" 40k players, and push real 40k in a seriously beer-and-pretzels direction.