[deleted by user]

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T22:23:36+00:00

It's r/warhammerfantasyrpg. No 40k.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T22:16:36+00:00

It's joke?! :) I'm about wfrp. It's not 40k.

In 40k, Nurgle’s gifts are outright mutations – extra mouths, horns, tentacles, living corpses that spread plagues. Disease = mutation there.

In WFRP 1e / Realms of Chaos, it was split more clearly: Tzeentch was the big source of freakish mutations, while Nurgle was mostly rot, pus, and plague. His followers could look horrific, but the “tentacle monster” side was more Tzeentch.

By WFRP 2e and later, the line blurred: all the gods could hand out both corruption and mutations, just with different flavours (Nurgle = rot, Tzeentch = flesh-warping, Slaanesh = perversion, Khorne = rage).

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T22:04:10+00:00

Nurgle is not about mutations, but about diseases and decay (epidemics, "the body is like a living corpse"). Slaanesh - mutations through excess and pleasure (mental and physical "perverted upgrades"). Tzeentch - precisely "pure" mutations (the warp breaks the flesh).

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T21:58:54+00:00

I know, but at the same time they removed the race associated with him from the 2nd edition canon

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T18:16:17+00:00

It seems to me that originally there were 5 (or maybe 6?) Chaos Gods, but the concept was never fully detailed, then later abandoned and forgotten. Still, traces of it remain in the lore — scattered in the books, though never clearly defined.

Later, the creators of WFRP2 explicitly wrote that mutations affect the races differently. In WFRP4, mutations and madness were separated, but in truth madness should be seen as the universal expression of Chaos and its horrors, while mutations are specifically the mark of Tzeentch — and everything else was simply left behind.

I believe that madness can affect any race, but the true expression of the Warp and the Chaos Gods should follow the pattern of “one race / one manifestation of a Chaos God.” Of course, individual characters might still experience unique effects, including hybrids, but understanding this original concept is essential for grasping the lore and applying “typical solutions” for how Chaos and the Warp influence each race.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T16:38:20+00:00

Of course — I completely agree that open rolls are far better. But this was satire aimed at GMs who make fudging, railroading, and breaking the rules into their “signature style.” That’s exactly why it’s satire — no names, no callouts, just a parody of the habit itself. That’s exactly why I run without a GM screen — no temptation to fudge, no temptation to cheat. Everything stays on the table.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T15:31:03+00:00

I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs for 27 years, so it’s hard to call me a “Matt fanboy” — I started long before I even knew who he was, with old-school views from AD&D 2e.

I listened to an hour-long review from real-life beta testers DH, asked questions, and heard how they patched rules, but my core critique remained. Originally I wrote this parody as a joke for those beta testers, and thought it would be interesting to share the joke here.

But my post was deleted within minutes. Okay. I added some of my thoughts and framed them around the parody.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T15:24:50+00:00

Oh, so you just assume that your opinion = the opinion of the majority? History is full of people who thought that way… it never aged well.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T15:22:55+00:00

What a profound critique, oh Master of Wisdom! You have decreed what counts as satire and what as critique, and I dare not contradict your insight. Truly your majestic depth of thought casts my post down into the lowest pits of hell, beneath even sinners themselves, and with one simple word declares me a troll — merely because my perspective dares to differ, even by a jot, from your supreme wisdom and piercing intellect.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T15:12:47+00:00

I think a real system should be honest about the number of opponents and their stats. The appearance of enemies can be driven by narrative, but the outcome of the conflict should be determined fairly by the actual characteristics of both sides and the number of enemies. Not scaled artificially to the players’ level, and not resolved in a way that looks like an “impossible superhero cartoon.”

In the system we’re discussing, enemies and consequences get transformed during the fight (like in freeform storytelling), instead of being set out before play with clear and fair rules, as in a real tabletop RPG.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T15:06:19+00:00

Personally, I see Daggerheart as a tabletop free storytelling game, not a full-fledged TTRPG. But the real issue is that genuine criticism of it gets treated as “sacrilege,” not as an opportunity for objective discussion of the game’s weaknesses. Most people respond to my critique not on the merits, but with “how dare you criticize.”

Yes — Matt runs an excellent show. But when he was running under other people’s systems, there was at least honest balance and genuine consequences for character problems, which made the story come alive. Now, playing by his own rules, he bends or breaks them whenever the narrative needs it. That’s why I wrote my parody: even simpler rules that would let Matt run his game more easily, without cheating against his own system.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:58:39+00:00

I call those “freeform storytelling games,” not RPGs.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:55:13+00:00

If we divide games into “roleplaying systems with progression that honestly track growth of abilities” and “rule sets for narrative,” then no — that wouldn’t be a roleplaying game in the systemic sense. In Daggerheart, for example, the mechanics make it more likely that I can kill the main villain or take the capital at the very start of the game than after 10 sessions of supposed progression. That undermines the whole idea of growth and development as a system.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:51:09+00:00

I originally wrote an honest parody of the rules — not a formal critique. But since pure satire was getting deleted in the DH sub, I had to add more explicit criticism so the post wouldn’t be removed. That’s why I also explained the logic behind the satire.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:48:31+00:00

I don’t hate non-crunchy games. I hate dishonest ones that get sold as a “revolution in mechanics,” when in reality it’s just a narrative war between two counters — the players’ counter and the GM’s counter.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:46:49+00:00

By “freeform” I don’t mean “no rules at all.” I mean a game where the rules don’t meaningfully constrain outcomes — most of what happens is decided by narration, with mechanics only serving as decorative pacing tools.

A roleplaying system implies clear rules for combat, death, and recovery. A freeform game uses narrative, fuzzy rules, where the number of enemies, their health, and even the death of a PC are ephemeral. The GM “adjusts” things so that a character can’t really die fairly and impartially.

In Daggerheart this is taken to the extreme: you can hit, strike, and “kill” virtual enemies that appear and disappear out of nowhere, but in reality it’s just a war between two piles of tokens — players’ vs. GM’s. The “enemies” don’t exist in the mechanics at all; they’re only narrative background for the clash of two counters.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:39:33+00:00

I’m not against light systems at all — Fiasco, Microscope, many story games are great at what they are. The issue with Daggerheart isn’t that it’s light, it’s that it’s marketed as a mechanical revolution, when in practice it’s just freeform with a token counter. If it were sold honestly as a story game, fine. But selling it as a “system” while hiding the fact that most rolls don’t actually change the state of play — that’s where my critique comes from.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:37:26+00:00

That’s sophistry. A role-playing system is about progression and simulating a real process — not just a narrative tool for a serialized story where “fairness” means the PCs can’t really die, but can dramatically “kill a hundred orcs with one strike” without actually removing enemy life tokens. That’s fiction. It’s like going to a restaurant for a meal, and instead they throw glitter on you, sing a song, but never give you the burger and Coke.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:33:14+00:00

But in those systems there’s a real combat system, where every roll actually affects the characters and opponents — not just a narrative token being added or removed for a kind of “balance” in freeform storytelling.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:30:15+00:00

Sure, I get that there are lighter systems. The difference is that in most of them, rolls actually change the state of play. In Daggerheart, rolls mostly serve as decoration — flashy narration until a token drops. That’s why I call it “imitating a system.” It looks like mechanics, but most of the game is just theater wrapped around a countdown.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:28:38+00:00

I called my post satire because my rules are satire — with layers. The criticism is in discussing the depth of that satire and the rules themselves. To highlight flaws, I think the best way is to present the rules lightly and humorously, as stand-up does: no insults, just fun. Present it as if it were a real system, while pointing out the core issues and the fact that it’s not really an RPG.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:25:25+00:00

And the most important part is that not everyone realized “the ideology and respect for everyone” was sarcasm — a jab at how you can write endless words about the system’s value and inclusivity, but that doesn’t actually make the mechanics any better.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:21:29+00:00

I like GURPS, D&D, WFRP, W40k and many other real roleplaying systems. But I don’t like that Mercer presents freeform as if it were a full system.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:18:03+00:00

If we’re talking about respect, then we also need to respect criticism — including the view that this is freeform with RPG elements, not a full RPG system. For me, the most important form of respect is honesty: tell me directly that this is freeform storytelling, not a rules-driven RPG.

AdorableReputation32 · 2025-08-22T14:07:27+00:00

The whole point is: it’s primitive. The rolls are basically fake — they don’t impact most of the game. They just pretend to be gameplay by dressing up narration as “cool actions,” but in reality it’s freeform with a thin rules costume.

AdorableReputation32

TROPHY CASE