13 replies to this topic

[Signal27]

What do you prefer: Lore that is ongoing and continues down a timeline, like BattleTech? Or lore that pretty much stays in one approximate point in time, like Warhammer 40k?

One big difference I notice between BattleTech and 40k (besides the obvious trappings of a universe all about the big stompy robots and another universe about the big stompy genetically enhanced super-soldiers) is how the writers treat the lore. BattleTech has eras, which started back in 3025 and is now recently had lore updates for 3145 released. The universe of BattleTech is continually changing as time in that universe goes on. Warhammer 40k, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in approximately one moment in time ever since the game was released. The half-dead Emperor sits on the Golden Throne while the universe crumbles around him as hostile alien races rampage all over the place. But it's ALWAYS been like that: The Emperor is ALWAYS going to remain exactly the way he is forever on the golden throne and the "rampaging" aliens are never going to gain or lose ground because the 40k writers are never going to advance the timeline and tell us what ultimately becomes of the 40k universe.

To get this discussion started, I'll go ahead and share my opinion in that I like the way BattleTech handles their lore better than 40k does. For good or ill, I'm always interested in being updated in how the BattleTech universe is doing as it goes on. Even though not many of us liked what the writers did to the universe during the Dark Ages, I accept it for what it is because SOMEBODY has to write SOMETHING to advance the timeline. I'd rather BattleTech didn't just linger in one approximate period in time because when a lore universe becomes static, it starts to become boring and uninteresting to me because all the major characters, factions, and events more or less become static and forever unresolved.

This is completely the opposite of Warhammer 40k. I've lost interest in 40k lore because even though the Tyranids are about to eat the entire galaxy I know they won't because the writers will never write about it. I know the Emperor is never going to die nor be rejuvenated because the writers will never write about it. I know the Tau are going to be around forever despite being the young upstart underdogs and will never be wiped out, nor will they expand their empire and become a galactic force to be reckoned with because the writers will never write about it. I know the Eldar are a dying race but they're never going to completely die out or figure out a way to regain their dominance because the writers will never write about it. I know the Necrons are spooky but ultimately they're not going to have a big sweeping impact on the galaxy because the writers will never write about it. I know that Chaos is just going to derp around the Eye of Terror and never take over Terra because the writers will never let it happen since it would advance the plot. I know the Orks... will just be orks regardless.

Granted, we can speculate about what might happen in 40k given the relative strengths of each army, what they're capable of, and the famous characters that they have. But ultimately, the 40k universe is more or less going to remain frozen at one approximate moment in time so we'll never know what ultimately happens to whoever.

Meanwhile, in the BattleTech universe, there were once only 5 Great Houses when the game started. Since then, The Clans invaded and claimed a portion of the map, then some of them got utterly wiped out. House Marik got utterly wiped out but then rose from the grave. House Steiner and Davion were two arguably the mightiest houses in the Inner Sphere that forged an alliance, only to be torn asunder and now they are both on the brink of collapse. And so on, and so forth.

That said, I can see advantages in how 40k handles their lore even though I might not personally like it: Because it works. No 40k fan is ever really going to completely fall out of love with the lore because the universe they fell in love with when they first started playing is more or less going to be the same universe they fell in love with, and is never going to change into something they might end up hating (like how the Star Wars prequels ruined Star Wars in general for a lot of people). I might not always LIKE what BattleTech does with their lore, but at least it's ongoing and evolving so that at the very least I'll keep tabs of what's going on as the writer's write about it.

What say you?

[ChaosGrinder]

Burn Matt Ward ?

40k was allways to ... trashy for me. If it doesn´t work ? Add more skulls and black ! Chant more useless songs !

Allthough the idea is nice of a humanity living with thech it doesn´t understand, though it was created by man thousands of years ago against overwhelming odds. But then again ... wtf is that sh*t with Grey Knights washing themselves in the blood of Sororitas just so they´d be THE holy warriors ?

BT lore is a bit to 80´s for my liking but you got the point. They are evolving the lore, working on it.

40k is just a glimpse of a second during the 41.st century. Dunno, i don´t really like the lore of both, 40k is way to grimderp and BT is kinda stuck in the 80´s but if i had to choose, BT would be mine. Mostly because of Mechs.

Don´t count the titans, that´s STC, noone knows how to build that crack anyway

[Adridos]

Both have pluses and minuses.

For one, we have to deal with changes in factions and wiping offs of some of them. Plus the ever-expanding rules and lore you should know.

For them, they have to deal with people like Matt Ward, who retcon almost everything and bring some sort of bad taste, since you know it is the same exact time as the old books, but suddenly, everything was magically changed.

It doesn't matter if it's static or not, there will always be specific era lovers (Classic guys for us, Dwarf guys for them) who claim everything after X sucks.

Edited by Adridos, 12 April 2013 - 11:59 AM.

[Pht]

40k lore evolves every time GW makes a new release.

[Adridos]

Pht, on 12 April 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

40k lore evolves every time GW makes a new release.

Yep, power creep, shittier lore, retcons,...

And nothing important ever happens. In reality, all the books could be ending on the very same day. Like OP said, there are glimmers of what is to come, but it never comes and never will. You have talking about what might happen to the Emperor, but he will never die, ascend, transform or anything. Never will you hear Imperial soldiers refer to dead/new Emperor.

Altough it is partly a good thing. Unless they allow that tard Matt Ward to write something, they are sure not to **** up anything. Something that happened to BTech when Clanners basically killed the game.

[Merky Merc]

Doesn't 40K lore evolve with their big events? So it's actually shaped by the player base?


I do prefer the evolving lore of BTs though, I just wish they would go through at some point and make the tech more ... idk logical I guess.

[Adridos]

Merky Merc, on 13 April 2013 - 08:54 PM, said:

Doesn't 40K lore evolve with their big events? So it's actually shaped by the player base?

It may evolve (as those events become part of the canon), bot only in a backwards direction.
They simply say: "X years back there was this battle..."

They never advance the timeline.

[Nerroth]

I do appreciate how the BT setting can move forward, into the Dark Age (and beyond, if the talk about the ilClan and 3250 turn out to have some weight behind them).

But one advantage of the use of distinct eras is the ability of the game to go backwards, too. The amount of support for the Star League era has increased substantially as of late, with books covering the Age of War sub-era and the Reunification War, as well as a two-volume sourcebook series covering the Amaris Coup itself. And if you want to see the birth of the Clans played out in tabletop or RPG form, there is another historical sourcebook looking at Operation KLONDIKE, and an era digest showing the Golden Century which saw the early Clans evolve into the kind fo society which would be forcibly introduced to the Inner Sphere in Operation REVIVAL.


(And to be fair, GW has done something similar with the Horus Heresy series of novels, which Forge World seem set to support on the tabletop, if they haven't done so already.)

Edited by Nerroth, 14 April 2013 - 05:32 PM.

[Cairbre]

There is much to be said for allowing players to fight in any era of your game- it basically is a value add for every unit they purchase, and a good incentive to buy more classic figures than just the cutting edge technology. A Guillotine or Banshee can be run all the way from the Star League through the Jihad, with the appropriate variants. On the other hand, and Archangel can only be run in Jihad times.

Some of the new GW Horus Heresy line is restricted to one historical era, but it is inverted, since technology runs backward in the 41st millennium.

[Kyone Akashi]

The background of 40k evolves as well every time some author/product adds something to the timeline. I don't mind that said timeline is stuck at the end of M41 (although I am convinced that GW has pretty much written themselves into a corner, as whatever happenes after that great final war can only disappoint by either changing too much or not enough), because there's enough to discover in the preceding millennia - even though there is little change in terms of the general appearance of the various factions, which can be both good or bad depending on how you see it.

The major difference between Battletech and 40k, however, is that Battletech actually has a canon, whereas with 40k the majority of details are all just optional and conflicting information. Where BT allows you to get a clear idea of how something works or what happened, 40k provides you with possibilities. The amount of contradictory information in its products is troublesome, and whereas some of that franchise's writers have voiced their support for this sort of artistic license, I continue to regard it as a problem as it essentially removes the common ground between the fans. Whenever you want to talk about some detail, there will be arguments because person A is pointing to one book and person B to another. Technically, neither of them is wrong, but of course both sides expect that whatever they purchased is "adding" to something greater. Part of a large misconception a lot of people have on how GW operates in terms of developing its setting.

I like to delve into details and wish for as much consistency as possible myself. Battletech actually having a firm set of rules on how the sources should be treated makes it easy for its fans to know precisely how something works. In 40k, this just isn't possible, as everybody will have their own interpretation due to reading different sources and being able to cherrypick according to their preferences. So, in spite of me liking certain aspects of that setting, I have to say that the Battletech franchise is handled in a much better way.

[King Gustave]

40K bashing aside I'd say that I've enjoyed both. Evolving lore can leave you behind (I still haven't read any of this "Dark Age" BS that floats around the BT universe) and Still lore can get stagnant the longer the game itself runs (Abbadon is like the IS, cute when it fails and fails all the time) Either way it's pretty irrelevant, since it doesn't matter if its your mechwarrior campaign party or your space orks in a tournament. Your Dudes are what matters.

[Kyone Akashi]

On a sidenote:

King Gustave, on 20 April 2013 - 02:49 AM, said:

(I still haven't read any of this "Dark Age" BS that floats around the BT universe)

After just having read my first DA novel (Daughter of the Dragon) and now having purchased FM3045 and ER3145, I was surprised how good/interesting it actually is, considering the negativity that seems to permeate the community, and which almost caused me to not get that book. I now tend to believe there exists a sort of stigma based upon it simply being somewhat different than the things the majority is used to (different characters, new factions, technological recession), as well as perhaps a few key points that keep getting tossed around chiefly by people who never actually bothered to read the stuff themselves, and thus perhaps dragged out of context or proportion.

From all I've heard, the reaction was pretty much the same when the Clans got introduced back then - it just calmed down over the years as more and more players got into the game who never knew the IS-only era.

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 20 April 2013 - 10:09 AM.

[Adridos]

Kyone Akashi, on 20 April 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

From all I've heard, the reaction was pretty much the same when the Clans got introduced back then - it just calmed down over the years as more and more players got into the game who never knew the IS-only era.

Well, yes. Not that I've been around back in those day, but it is was always the answer as to why did suddenly BT die out when wargamming under GW was having a hayday on Warhammer 40k sites. FASA gave people new power-creepish toys and then denied them all their old unseens they all loved. YOu cna imagine it pissed a lot of people off.

As far as DA goes. Apart from bashing, people do bring out two actually relevant points. First is how much Wizkids simplified the game and the second is that they never bothered to make proper rules and lore for many things. Just take the new TRO 3145 as an example. Since 2002, they never bothered to write a single bit of lore or rules for both Mad Cat and Vulture mk.IV. Fans have waited for that for 11 years... And don't forget the fact the skip they did had no predecession to speak of and was a massive jump without any explanation given except for small parts about Jihad. Catalyst had to exapnd on the Jihad to have any kind of continuation.

[Nerroth]

I'm not sure if it's fair to consider MW:DA/AoD as having simplified the game, when it was being run concurrently with "classic" BattleTech during its development run.

(Even now, there is the Quick-Strike fast-play rule system in Strategic Operations, which is set to be given its own rulebook as Alpha Strike; but the existence of AS as a counterpart to "classic" BT is intended to expand the number of options available for new players, not try to over-write one game system with another.)

And while I agree that it has been a long wait for Catalyst to catch up to the Dark Age, I'd argue that the time taken to work up to this point has been well worth it. CGL (and FanPro before it) have been able to take the Jihad and turn it into a fully-fledged setting in its own right, and have even added in a few new surprises courtesy of The Wars of Reaving. Plus the breather taken to go back to the fall of the Star League has not only made that era much more viable as a setting (and thanks to the two Liberation of Terra volumes, far more compelling to read about), those books themsleves have helped add to the broad sweep of published material that can now be drawn upon when going into 3145 and beyond.

Plus, given the quality of art available to CGL, and the kind of print/PDF setup which they are currently operating under, one could argue that the 3145 material is of a higher quality now than it might have been were it published in BT terms back in 2002. (It was noted in a recent BattleChat that the concept of the coming ilClan was not part of the plan as outlined by Wizkids for the future of the Dark Age; who knows what kind of mischief the current development team has in store, compared to what might have been at that time?)


I admit that I've been waiting a long time for the Dark Age to finally get fleshed out in "classic" BattleTech terms; but now that we are here, and that there is the chance for Alpha Strike to gradually follow its elder sibling into 3145, I'm looking forward to seeing what else awaits us in this era.

(Not least when FM:3145 finally lifts the lid on what lies behind the walls of Fortress Republic.)

Edited by Nerroth, 20 April 2013 - 12:16 PM.