Post by OhGodItsHimRun on Aug 6, 2017 1:30:23 GMT
I know that the license for the 40K RPGs expired a while ago, and thus they're not available for sale anymore, let alone any new official content being written for them.
I also know that there's been a few people who responded quite positively to my earlier creative endeavor which explored a motivation for the Tyranids beyond "they're bad guys". Specifically, a frame of reference where the Tyranid Hive Fleets see themselves as the good guys, gifting other life-systems with immortality. From their own point of view, of course.
So I'm hoping that there's someone on this forum, with at least a passing familiarity with both topics, who might be willing to help me develop a creative project I'm tinkering with.
That being an adaptation of the official 40K RPG ruleset intended to allow the PCs-group to all be Genestealer Cultists, while maintaining all their deliciously Tyranid elements. Not just having Rending Claws and inhuman reflexes/senses, but allowing the rules to model the presence of the Broodmind which links them together telepathically on the battlefield (separate from the specific Psychic Powers unique to the GSC).
I've already done a lot of development work on this, pretty much by myself (although I have been in contact with the developer of a whole bunch of Rogue Trader fan content who goes by the name Lodge Blackman), and the basic shape of the project is pretty clear to me.
I will be using the Only War RPG for the basic mechanics, both because it was the final revision of the basic mechanics to be published, and also because Neophytes + Acolytes are most closely comparable to Guardsmen + Ogryns rather than Inquisitors / Rogue Traders / Space Marines / Chaos Sorcerers, so it's the option which requires the least conversion work.
I will however be amending the character creation rules to add in a step to choose a PC's specific generation as a Genestealer Hybrid; short-loading traits elsewhere to avoid an overloaded total.
I want the game to have options for PCs to be operating either within the structure of the Imperial Guard, or outside of it (meaning either the Cadians-with-funny-foreheads or the mining-workers-never-see-the-light-of-day models could be represented). Which would mean writing an alternate set of Requisition rules for non-Guardsmen games.
Adapting the character classes to allow for Acolyte Hybrids should not be too difficult, nor should creating one or more Support Specialist classes to provide buffs more like the Primus/Iconward/Magus rather than the Commissar/Ministorum Priest/Enginseer.
The part I'm currently chipping away at is how to model the impact of the Broodmind on the squad's tactical effectiveness, without hampering the freedom of RP inherent in a hybrid character's human side.
To that end, I've been studying Deathwatch (the RPG for loyalist Space Marines), with its mechanic of "Solo Mode vs Squad Mode" for the difference between a Marine focused on the personal individual awesomeness of his particular home Chapter's training and clone-strain of bioengineered organ augmentations, and a Marine focused on the hypno-indoctrination to move in perfect unison with his fellow murder-eunuchs when fighting in formation.
I think the parallel is pretty obvious, to a GSC hybrid whose brain has both an individual human-ish identity and a direct connection to his Patriarch's broodmind.
So I've been trying lately to work my way through the Deathwatch RPG's writeups of the various Solo Mode and Squad Mode abilities associated with various Space Marine Chapters, to construct a parallel mechanic specific to the evolutionary advantages of the GSC. Both when a given character is focused on the benefits of their individual training to turn the gifts of their evolution to use in warfare, and when they're using the connection of the Broodmind to move and act in perfect unison.
Is anyone on this forum knowledgeable enough and interested enough to try to help me out?
I also know that there's been a few people who responded quite positively to my earlier creative endeavor which explored a motivation for the Tyranids beyond "they're bad guys". Specifically, a frame of reference where the Tyranid Hive Fleets see themselves as the good guys, gifting other life-systems with immortality. From their own point of view, of course.
So I'm hoping that there's someone on this forum, with at least a passing familiarity with both topics, who might be willing to help me develop a creative project I'm tinkering with.
That being an adaptation of the official 40K RPG ruleset intended to allow the PCs-group to all be Genestealer Cultists, while maintaining all their deliciously Tyranid elements. Not just having Rending Claws and inhuman reflexes/senses, but allowing the rules to model the presence of the Broodmind which links them together telepathically on the battlefield (separate from the specific Psychic Powers unique to the GSC).
I've already done a lot of development work on this, pretty much by myself (although I have been in contact with the developer of a whole bunch of Rogue Trader fan content who goes by the name Lodge Blackman), and the basic shape of the project is pretty clear to me.
I will be using the Only War RPG for the basic mechanics, both because it was the final revision of the basic mechanics to be published, and also because Neophytes + Acolytes are most closely comparable to Guardsmen + Ogryns rather than Inquisitors / Rogue Traders / Space Marines / Chaos Sorcerers, so it's the option which requires the least conversion work.
I will however be amending the character creation rules to add in a step to choose a PC's specific generation as a Genestealer Hybrid; short-loading traits elsewhere to avoid an overloaded total.
I want the game to have options for PCs to be operating either within the structure of the Imperial Guard, or outside of it (meaning either the Cadians-with-funny-foreheads or the mining-workers-never-see-the-light-of-day models could be represented). Which would mean writing an alternate set of Requisition rules for non-Guardsmen games.
Adapting the character classes to allow for Acolyte Hybrids should not be too difficult, nor should creating one or more Support Specialist classes to provide buffs more like the Primus/Iconward/Magus rather than the Commissar/Ministorum Priest/Enginseer.
The part I'm currently chipping away at is how to model the impact of the Broodmind on the squad's tactical effectiveness, without hampering the freedom of RP inherent in a hybrid character's human side.
To that end, I've been studying Deathwatch (the RPG for loyalist Space Marines), with its mechanic of "Solo Mode vs Squad Mode" for the difference between a Marine focused on the personal individual awesomeness of his particular home Chapter's training and clone-strain of bioengineered organ augmentations, and a Marine focused on the hypno-indoctrination to move in perfect unison with his fellow murder-eunuchs when fighting in formation.
I think the parallel is pretty obvious, to a GSC hybrid whose brain has both an individual human-ish identity and a direct connection to his Patriarch's broodmind.
So I've been trying lately to work my way through the Deathwatch RPG's writeups of the various Solo Mode and Squad Mode abilities associated with various Space Marine Chapters, to construct a parallel mechanic specific to the evolutionary advantages of the GSC. Both when a given character is focused on the benefits of their individual training to turn the gifts of their evolution to use in warfare, and when they're using the connection of the Broodmind to move and act in perfect unison.
Is anyone on this forum knowledgeable enough and interested enough to try to help me out?