Understanding the Old World setting - when did it go south for you?

[Freddy]

I personally don't like this because it reduces the whole world down to what a few characters are doing, and also that overarching narrative was usually not very well written. This culminated in the end times and has been the standard approach since in Age of Sigmar and 40k.

This.
I had some thinking lately, why is Trench Crusade 1000 times more grimdark, than 40k? It is essentially the same thing, basically a ripoff 40k, but still. And the secret is that 40k became a hero fantasy like World of Warcraft, the setting is just the background behind the ,,which primarch we resurrect next" drama*. In TC there are no named caharcters, no centerpiece dramatic events (yet...): it is just the dark, cruel world and the long war with all its weight, crushing everything beneath.

*which also means an inflation of climaxes. Not just we have a mediocre story, but also a story without any climax. Yes, we save the world, until the next campaign when we have to do it again. It is just not interesting.

[Belligerentparrot]

Every army had to have a special character. I know its 40k but I remember Jervis in one battle report saying his ork army was always led by Ghazghkull...err...then something is kinda wrong Jervis...

Ghazghkull was pretty unusual as a special character though, in that his abilities captured "Orkiness" so well (at least to me). Another way of putting Jervis's remark is asking "Would you want to play Orks if everyone didn't get to yell Waaagh and turn into a green tide of death once per game?" There was something not quite right about facing an Ork army that didn't do that 

All the other special characters tended to ruin games rather than enhance them. To go back to the OP's original question, Tyrion and Teclis were part of the reason I lost interest in the Old World.

[Rick]

This.
I had some thinking lately, why is Trench Crusade 1000 times more grimdark, than 40k? It is essentially the same thing, basically a ripoff 40k, but still. And the secret is that 40k became a hero fantasy like World of Warcraft, the setting is just the background behind the ,,which primarch we resurrect next" drama*. In TC there are no named caharcters, no centerpiece dramatic events (yet...): it is just the dark, cruel world and the long war with all its weight, crushing everything beneath.

*which also means an inflation of climaxes. Not just we have a mediocre story, but also a story without any climax. Yes, we save the world, until the next campaign when we have to do it again. It is just not interesting.

Agreed. Plus every drama had to be bigger and badder than the previous one, had to 'top' the last one. The game writers can't see past this years drama, can't see the consequences of trying to make the disaster more and more galaxy-shattering - eventually you run out of galaxy to shatter.

[HerbertTarkel]

Agreed. Plus every drama had to bigger and badder than the previous one, had to 'top' the last one. The game writers can't see past this years drama, can't see the consequences of trying to make the disaster more and more galaxy-shattering - eventually you run out of galaxy to shatter.

And that’s how the Age of Sigmar came about: they literally blew the entire world up, to start over. The ultimate reboot. Although vastly inferior and immensely unappealing - but “fantasy sigmarines” now!

[Freddy]

And that’s how the Age of Sigmar came about: they literally blew the entire world up, to start over. The ultimate reboot. Although vastly inferior and immensely unappealing - but “fantasy sigmarines” now!

And the moment the world blew up you already know that this is only the beginning, you have mere months till the next world shaking danger

The problem is, that WHF/40k is not a game setting any more, but an IP.  A consciously groomed and nurtured IP with many tits to milk beyond wargaming: books, computer games, selling license rights for merch, dreaming of Hollywood or at least a tv show. A wargame setting needs only to be a setting for your own stories. An IP needs professional stories and posterboys- so they were introduced. It also has to appeal the general public (pleasing their shitty taste and carefully censoring the sensitive topics), so they made it fit.

Agreed. Plus every drama had to bigger and badder than the previous one, had to 'top' the last one.

See Marvel/DC as the rock bottom: SuperBatSpiderman already saved the world 100 times by 1950, in 2025 they are beyond 23424 reboots, 3423423 prequels, 23213 side characters (there are more superheroes than normal people especially that New York is destroyed in every 3 weeks), so now we are having alternate universes.

[peleset]

[Byrthnoth]

Every army had to have a special character. I know its 40k but I remember Jervis in one battle report saying his ork army was always led by Ghazghkull...err...then something is kinda wrong Jervis...

I’m pretty sure Jervis created Ghazghull as a character, so this gets a pass from me. Ghaz is ‘his guy’!

[bc99]

It never went south for me. I was always able to abide the high fantasy and low fantasy mingling as it was the dirty human cities that really reflected low fantasy. The glittering realms of the elves and such just didn’t make it down to the common citizen of the empire.

The fantasy role-play game, realms of chaos, and eventually Mordheim solidified that focus.

At least it worked for me.

[Rick]

"The glittering realms of the elves." This is not something I've encountered in the Old World setting, where the High Elves inhabit the slowly decaying cities of their once-great ancestors, retreating into debauchery and drug-induced fantasy rather than face the reality of their decline and the ever-increasing incursions of chaos. If you read the books, the elves are as much of a low fantasy creation as any of the other races (the fact that the elves appear to be based on Moorcock's Melniboneans notwithstanding). In actual fact, it's some of the inhabitants of those 'dirty human cities' that still strive against the Old World perils that offer the best stories, rather than the elves who gave up a long time ago.

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[Diablo Jon]

"The glittering realms of the elves." This is not something I've encountered in the Old World setting, where the High Elves inhabit the slowly decaying cities of their once-great ancestors, retreating into debauchery and drug-induced fantasy rather than face the reality of their decline and the ever-increasing incursions of chaos. If you read the books, the elves are as much of a low fantasy creation as any of the other races (the fact that the elves appear to be based on Moorcock's Melniboneans notwithstanding). In actual fact, it's some of the inhabitants of those 'dirty human cities' that still strive against the Old World perils that offer the best stories, rather than the elves who gave up a long time ago.

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Quite I remember reading the Novel Gilead's Blood along time ago that painted the elves in such a light.

[Frugalmax]

I've found reading this thread to be really interesting, thanks for all of the responses and to the original poster for bringing it up!

To throw my two cents in re: the original poster's question (and this will basically echo some things that have already been mentioned, but whatever, I like to write about this hobby)- I think there have been numerous times over the years when I've read something or seen something "official" publications that I didn't like or didn't jibe with the version of the world that was in my head.

I remember having a rather uncharitable reaction to the mechanical horse of 7th edition Empire, and I never liked that at some point the Dark Elf society moved to completely unrealistic level of unsustainability. I can't remember what it was but at some point some numbers got thrown around that made it sound like they were sacrificing the entire population of the Old World on a weekly basis- I liked them better as villains when I found them believable as a functioning society.

While these things would bug me a bit, I've always found it okay to just ignore them and get on with our games, so the Warhammer World always worked as a good jumping off point, despite the parts that I didn't go for. I didn't read the End Times, and I felt disappointed to see them blow up the world (as one does when those sorts of things happen), but I've actually found it liberating in the long run. It kind of got me to think of our campaign world not as the Warhammer world at all, but our own that just happens to share some striking resemblances to theirs. I think that years ago I would have wondered how to tie things in to changes in the "official" world, but now I don't have to do that.

In our game, there were no End Times; if we want to roleplay something around the assassination of the Emperor, or have the Empire break down into civil war, we can do that. If we want a new Chaos God (or an old one) we can bring it in and shake things up. We've been on Albion for years now, though it looks a lot more like the Albion from the "Storm Warriors" novel than from the Albion campaign booklet. And we've gone ahead and pulled background and monsters from other games into ours without batting an eyelash, as it's our world that grows as we play it.

Anyway, all that is to say I've found picking and choosing what we like for background and making up a fair bit is a great way to inspire immersive games- if the official publisher does something you don't like, it doesn't mean you have to ditch the stuff you do like (though go right ahead if that's what you want to do- it's your game!). Cheers!

[Lost Egg]

This question has continued to bounce around my noggin.

I'm not sure the Old World I remember ever really existed outside my head. Plenty changed over the years but I don't think I ever really fell out of love with the setting. A lot of it had good points and bad but there were still nuggets of gold in there.

I think what really killed it off for me as a game was the shear number of minis needed; the idea of a mass battle game was cool and a completed army looked cool too but damn that was a lot of money and effort. Of course lots of minis meant more time needed for setting up and putting away so it just kinda became a drag. Combined with rules creep, special characters as well as special rules for everyone it just kinda sucked for me. So I left it behind. 2nd Ed 4k was more appealing and needed far less models, though the same game problems very quickly assailed that too.

The sculpts seemed to go backwards in quality. Now I know about the Ansell sell-off and the lack of sculptors it explains things. It still seems odd to me that so many people rave about Gary Morley's sculpts but they were chunky and lack elegance compared to those of Jes.

I guess what I wanted and would still quite like is a skirmish game of around 20 minis per side set in the WFB world with a focus on small battles rather than the gang-like warfare of Mordheim. The WFB Skirmish booklet from 6th looked fun so it'd be easy to pull in some of those elements too for a more narrative game. I'd also like to see it be a ruleset that doesn't seem to be emulating computer games too.

I have similar issues with 40k and so for the last few years have been playing around with my own ruleset that could be used for both...still it'd be cool to see something along these lines that's official and, most importantly, have an accompanying range of kit-bash friendly minis. A chap can dream.

[Ady]

In our game, there were no End Times; if we want to roleplay something around the assassination of the Emperor, or have the Empire break down into civil war, we can do that. If we want a new Chaos God (or an old one) we can bring it in and shake things up. We've been on Albion for years now, though it looks a lot more like the Albion from the "Storm Warriors" novel than from the Albion campaign booklet. And we've gone ahead and pulled background and monsters from other games into ours without batting an eyelash, as it's our world that grows as we play it.

Anyway, all that is to say I've found picking and choosing what we like for background and making up a fair bit is a great way to inspire immersive games- if the official publisher does something you don't like, it doesn't mean you have to ditch the stuff you do like (though go right ahead if that's what you want to do- it's your game!). Cheers!

Totally agree - this is how we've ended up going.It's far more .. fereeing... I suppose is the best word for it I suppose...

[anevilgiraffe]

Totally agree - this is how we've ended up going.It's far more .. fereeing... I suppose is the best word for it I suppose...

is that a word?

[Ady]

is that a word?

It would be if I'd spelled it correctly! :facepalm:

It's more Freeing!