Lady Nerevar http://ladynerevar.tumblr.com/post/49474030591/lets-talk-warhammer-40k-for-a-second-the-various on tumblr today that I think the Lore community should have a long think about.

Now the thing about the Warhammer 40k universe is that it's got something in common with the Elder Scrolls universe: it, too, was once greater than it is now.

The first Warhammer 40k manual was actually called "Rogue Trader," the wh40k title was a subtitle, actually. Rogue Trader was technically a wargame but it tried to adapt a strong pen & paper RPG feeling as well, with incredibly detailed histories for many aspects of the universe that you'd never need to know while you're playing a wargame.

These days, wh40k refer to this background information as "fluff."

What does this have to do with the Elder Scrolls?

In Rogue Trader, a lot of very strange and wonderful and controversial ideas were set down. For example, the http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor_of_Mankind was said to be kept alive via the daily sacrifice of thousands of other humans. These are the good guys! Recently, wh40k's developers, Games Workshop, has been backing away from some of the more controversial subjects, not retconning them, but just not mentioning them at all.

Warhammer 40k has a lot of amazing ideas. Original ones. Good ones. But like The Elder Scrolls, its lore is becoming homogenized, normalized, sterilized. It's like peak levels in the loudness wars. Every expansion GW has published since Rogue Trader has been increasingly normal.

So let's talk about it. Let's talk about Warhammer 40k and the Elder Scrolls and about why good ideas are Good and why successful games don't all have to look alike.

This might be a great place to admit that I've never actually played a game of 40k (though I've read a good chunk of the new ruleset), and that I know little about its lore (but enjoy what I know). I'll fix that, soon! So I'm not qualified to really talk about how it's gotten better or worse or different. The rule set did contain a good history of the Imperium, including the thing with the Emperor, if I'm remembering right. I can't really speak for people, but as far as I can tell, players know this stuff.

WH40k has sort of flitted in and out of homogeneity. Second edition was really diverse, but a bit hard to play. They streamlined it for third and fourth edition, and all the armies became rather similar in playstyle. And now they're individualizing the armies again.

As for the fluff, it's had its ups and downs. For one, it's become a lot more serious to the point of "grimdark for grimdark's sake" and less "poke fun at over-the-top grimdark". Of course, between editions, each faction's changed, characters have retired/died/whatever (case in point: Eldrad I-have-no-fleet Ulthran, Doomrider), and, if you're Necrons, you've recently had your entire fluff rehauled. A lot of the fandom blames the changes on a new roster of writers, most specifically on Matt Ward for various reasons. This pleases him. Part of it is nostalgia, but it is ab IP that comes in serial installments. Things will change.

That said, one of the fans' favorite things about 40k was its unique setting. What's life without a little grimdark every now and again? But 40k suffered from implementing both game balance and fluff integrity, and that is why it veers between homogeneity and really interesting stuff. That's why 40k branches out into other media; the Horus Heresy books can tell a great epic story without having to worry about bad game design (although it has some problems of its own). There are pen-and-paper RPGs for people who want to see what life in the Imperium/Inquisition/any heretic cult is like. 40k just has so much more to choose from that it's easier for bad installments to slip under the radar.

That said, keep in mind this is anolysis from someone who thought playing an Eldar jetbike army was a sound tactical decision.

If you can, I'd recommend you start with Rogue Trader, although you'll have a hard time finding an actual hard copy these days, I'd wager.

Personally I've sort of lost track of wh40k since I stopped playing it back in... oh my God was it really 1993? I'm so old... Anyway I sometimes get wikilost reading about the universe as it is now, and it's still definitely unique in many ways. I like their grimdark lore they've written for Eldar, it's like a twisted version of the typical Elf. But since I have such a soft spot in my heart for the Chaos forces and the Horus Heresy I spend most of my time reading about that.

It's a fine universe. If it had the same layer of metaphysics as TES it'd be a strong contender for my attention.

There's one in a games shop about an hour south of here, but it's pretty expensive. We found it this winter, along with https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/775850_446968632042693_1410929752_o.jpg and many other gems.

(For what it's worth, the current plan is to start with an army of Darth Elfdar)

"This pleases him" is C.S. Goto's thing: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/C.S._Goto

But yes Matthew Ward, Your Spiritual Liege is a blight on all things 40k and Fantasy.

I'd love to see future Elder Scrolls games have some of that insane lore we read about in the books though. The 36 Lessons of Vivec for example, has some of the craziest stuff I've ever read. Seriously, these should be printed in a leather hardcover book.

I'm not sure if the Elder Scrolls lore has been toned down to appeal to a larger audience or if the setting of Cyrodiil and Skyrim (two very generic fantasy human lands) is to blame for the uninspiredness we're feeling.

I'm hoping ES:VI will take place in a more alien province so that we can see new things like cities carved in trees instead of built from stone.

Here's something to consider; do we really need to be reminded in every single new edition that, say, the Emperor of Man requires thousands of less-than-useful-but-too-powerful-to-ignore psykers per day to keep the Astrinomicon alit to keep space travel more-or-less safe as it possibly can? There are plenty of 40k veterans out there who know these dark tidbits, and if GW isn't retconning it out of existance, it really shouldn't matter. The vets can fill the newbies in on the who's who and what's what.

Remember the Squats? If Games Workshop doesn't like something, they don't ignore it. They ERASE it, and do their hardest to keep people from mentioning it. I'd be more worried about these dark aspects of the Imperium if GW's stance started to become "no, it's not that" rather than "Yeah, sure, whatever." At least with the latter, they can come back around and mention it once again.

Also, GW has historically beaten down any army that started to look too "good." The Tau, when introduced, were the goodguys. Now they're space commies who bomb your planet to hell if you don't join up with them, use mind-control, and maybe sterilize your species. And let's not forget what happened to the Eldar when they started to be perceived as "good." Created the biggest Ork threat to the Imperium to save a handful of their species. If this trend continues, expect that the next Imperium-aligned codex to bring the hammer down HARD on the fluff.

SWEET JESUS is that a first ed.? Ken Rolston is my personal P&P Jesus. Ah, the hours I spent playing Paranoia in that game store in Metairie... Yeah, it's closed now. Ah. Nostalgia.

Anyway I think we can manage to illustrate to gamesas that the more "controversial" concepts in TES can still be retained. I'm looking at you, Molag Bal, God of "Schemes..."

I mean, any universe that can have http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Slaanesh and can still sell was well as it does should be a model for gamesas. I'm not saying we need to raise the cleavage ratio in Elder Scrolls games but maybe we can start by acknowledging the idea that being the Daedric Prince of [That R-Word I Can't Say] doesn't always have to involve six...?

That was basically my whole point. Here is this whole world and game with all this unusual lore where everyone, even the traditional good guys, are genocidal jerks. And people love it.

(Go 4 Games? Or someplace different?)

I've never really played Warhammer,But most modern fantasies are going towards the Magical Dark Ages theme,It could be interesting if they did that with TES.

Speaking of Warhammer 40k, I've noticed another interesting parallel: I believe some of the Dark Heresy pieces have referenced certain fanworks that became popular among the traditional games section imageboard-that-must-not-be-named, where 40k is pretty popular. I'm probably playing devil's advocate here, but I sometimes ponder if it's the same with how Bethesda references MK's out-of-game work in TES V, as oppposed to everything MK saying being canon. Probably not, but I like to ponder on it.

Curiously, a lot these sort of references usually has something to do with love. Be it an Emperor reshaping a land for his Red Legions, a planetary governor using all his resources to ensure his psychic daughter becomes a sanctioned psyker instead of Emperor Chow, an assassin who commits extra-heresy, or a a company doing something nice for its fans by throwing in references like these.

As for my opinion of the setting itself, I certainly thing it's interesting, I've enjoyed reading up on the lore, but I think it's kind of annoying how they're so obsessed with this "black and black morality" thing, how everyone must be as evil as possible. I'm also rather put off by the sheer hopelessness of the setting. The Imperium and Eldar are not only in steady decline but prophesied to be destroyed by Chaos, the Tyranids we've seen are speculated to be the vanguard of a much bigger group (not to mention they may or may not defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I'm not exactly sure though), Chaos has the Eye of Terror, immortal followers, several Primarch, and the ability to resurrect its fallen champions, and how there is no hope of actually making this crapsack galaxy a better place, all you can do is watch as worlds are blown apart or reduced to lifeless, atmosphere-less husks.

I don't actually mind the bleakness of the setting, it's the lack of any chance that it can get any better, or heck, simply avoid getting even worse, than bothers me.

I think the GRIMDARK IN EVERY CORNER can kinda wear people down eventually. That's probably the harshest criticism I have of the 40k universe: it's constantly turned up to 11. I mean, every metalhead knows the heaviest riff ever written in the history of history is in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReuBms-qZQk. But it's only that heavy because the rest of the song serves as a contrast to that one riff. It's like the whole song builds up to that point. 40k is a little more like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7udFMFlwOk. It's heavy the whole way through, which sort of detracts from its own potential. We're back to the loudness wars again: if everything sounds the same, nothing stands out.

This, again, is the "warning" (advice?) we're trying to give Bethesda. The whole industry is full to bursting with fantasy RPGs. TES6 is going to have to bring a lot more originality to the table if it expects to stand out. But that doesn't mean they have to go full-tilt crazy http://www.zenoclash2.com/%E2%80%8E on us. Actually that brings me to my next point...

There are ways to selectively insert Obscure Lore into Elder Scrolls games in a way that doesn't completely alienate the casual consumer. Granted, this sort of turns Obscure Lore into a kind of TES nerd fan-service, in my opinion, but it's a start. Here's a few ideas I wrote down a while ago:

• Ancient Knowledge: Paarthurnax is a good example. He even mentioned Kalpas a few times in Skyrim. If he'd mentioned the Kalpic Cycle and uncertain destinies and other such metaphysical stuff, the reaction from the casual consumer wouldn't have been harsh. At worst, it would've just illustrated the NPC's level of consciousness as being far higher than the player character's. At best, it would've given the player something to research on his own.
  
• Altered Awareness: An NPC currently undergoing some kind of trance or magical curse may achieve a new level of perception and spout off a few words and phrases. "I sense an immense wheel, terrible to behold, ever-turning, the size of all existence…" Maybe you can extend "altered awareness" to include "bat-seht insane" which is fine.
  
• Undead NPCs: I'm sort of sorry that Arniel's Ghost doesn't occasionally moan out a few fun things. "Strike Once… Turn the blade… Shatter the tone…"
  
• Unfinished Texts: "The rest is vulgar fiction, attempts to impose order on the consensus mantlings of an uncaring godhead." Excellent. More of this!

Anyway. These are the safe ways to do it. They're not impressive, but they give us lore nerds a brief thrill. But they're safe, and I mean cautious to the point of paralysis. Elder Scrolls fans, and I mean all of them, are totally fine with getting a game where you can slay dragons and raid castles and all that fine fantasy stuff. But every single fan, from the casual to the hardcoe, wants something different.

I think that's what we're trying to talk about here. What we need to do is figure out a way to clearly communicate to Bethesda what they can do to make TES6 more unique without completely destroying the reliability of the IP's ROI, if you'll pardon the marketing vomit.

Would it be helpful, do you think, to start going through TES:O in segments and talk about what they could've done better? I don't mean holding up a photo of Coldharbor and screaming "LAZY SLAVES," which I admit I'm guilty of, but rather illustrating what we would've preferred? Perhaps offering concise examples of our expectations would be helpful...?

Apparently I was thinking of Galactic Games, which was sold by the original owners and then failed in a floundering market. I'm also told there's a place out off Veterans called Plus One Gaming that's nice, for what it's worth.

Major OT: not every self-proclaimed metalhead under thirty will even know who Black Sabbath were (okay, technically are, but I don't care anymore). Those guys along with tamer stuff like Purple and Zeppelin are "classic rock" now.

Less OT: I was watching episode 1 of Farscape tonight (local incarnation of AXN/Sony Sci-Fi decided to make my life sweeter), and it is said there the Peacekeepers were also limiting contact with other lifeforms so as to preserve their purity (can't vouchsafe for precise word used, it's a particularly atrocious Russian overdub). I've long thought there were similar currents between them and the Altmer, so good to know I'm not imagining things. Granted, Farscape wasn't the most successful SF show ever, but it was one of the best. Largely because it was so outlandish in almost everything =)

TES certainly still doesn't shy away from dark and dangerous things. Dawnguard was released less than a year ago, and character dialogue on the topic of Molag Bal goes into explicit detail about how he ravaged Serena and her mother and how Lord Harkon sacrificed over one thousand innocent mortals to Bal to obtain his Vampire Lord form.

True, they can tread in dangerous territory, but this is more about unexpected concepts.

For example, Molag Bal is the king of YouKnowWhat. Many developers might think that it's a "risky" (in a cool way) idea to give him a cult, a bunch of lunatics who worship Molag Bal and go around terrorizing various whatever.

Boy, my words are failing me today.

Anyway, here's the tougher, more challenging angle:

Vivec submitted to the will of Molag Bal so that he could learn self-control, humility, and dignity through service to others. This is what I mean by an unexpected concept. Most writers would think they are pushing the boundaries by writing about Molag Bal at all. Truly imaginative writers suggest that Molag Bal has a positive role to play.

Many people struggle with the concept in the 36 Lessons that suggests that the Four Corners are the keepers of enlightenment. They border Boethiah for a reason.

This is why the dark, lethal Imperium in wh40k has so much appeal to players. It challenges them to try to identify with a xenophobic army of genocidal zealots. To think of them not as the "best of the worst" but as the "good guys." That challenge makes warhammer fans feel like they are being addressed by the GW writing team as advlts, as real, thinking people, not as tweens or marketing demographics.

Re-writing Molag Bal as the "God of Schemes" is condescending. That's why it's offensive, to me at least. Re-writing what we commonly think of as established lore is a minor offense in comparison.

Oh, never mind, it's not important