No really, like what game is just trying so hard to be the most up to date, inclusive, socially and politically sensitive game in existence. Answers that would have been true at the time are good to.
There’s always been games trying to force socialisation on gamers :p bioware rpgs often had discriminated against characters for example.
But I am not interested in any old game that’s trying its corporate approved best. I want to see the extremes of itchio or whatever.
EDIT: I’m serious, I want like the game that would exist of you wrung all the discourse out of tumblr and put it in a game. Not “a few good takes” something that takes every opportunity to make some point about how it is good media with good politics and values. The sort of game that the frothing-mouthed gamers on twitter think the industry is always one boycott away from producing. Someone, somewhere, must have made something so earnest it deserves recognition.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sigmarxism/comments/11wt3kp/the_plague_of_diegetic_essentialism_or_how_i/ something about plastic soldiers
Oooh an explanation for why I insist on still using the term “fluff” instead of “”“lore.”“”" Rules are hard. They require concentration to chew through. They’re what we call “crunchy.” Stories about the game’s universe are easy to chow down. You can practically suck them up through a straw. That’s why they’re “fluffy.”
Fluff exists to give meaning to crunch so we’re not playing an abstracted game like Go or checkers. 40k has subsequently fallen away from this as lore has become its own thing, where the point is something other than explaining why my toy soldiers are fighting your toy soldiers.
I like models and would enjoy 40k if more people just recognised it as an excuse to dress up a bunch of dolls and play together. Games are fun, making things is fun, arranging stuff to be cool and tell make believe stories to each other is fun.
Unfortunately most people around me treat it as if it’s some serious and respectable thing. They care more about respecting IP and official rulings/setting than fun.
As far as I know, GW got rid of the Golden Rule that was the first rule you saw in the core rulebook: “A game is defined as a mutual contract between its players to have fun.” I think they left it out starting in 6th.? I’d have to go back and look.
But yeah. It’s a problem as more secondaries have become primaries where they’re used to every setting and IP having strict canon and treat Warhammer as such. Like the sigmarxism post mentions, things are meant to farm engagement, rather than cooperative storytelling. 40k has traditionally been the opposite of a strict canon, with Black Library authors going by “Everything in 40k with an official logo is canon. Not everything is true.”
I was looking for groups near me as when I was a kid I enjoyed the lotr stuff a bit with a cousin and my friends keep killing themselves so I’ve gotta make new ones (I am not the common factor, we’re all just misfits) and everyone runs tournaments :(
We used to have a blast just setting up cool and unfair scenarios to play, I played evil and evil usually lost in good stories, it wasn’t any worse because in the end the good guys won. I still got to experience fun pulling off ambushes or making my cousin sacrifice some important character.
I play old cardboard and hex wargames and since battles are characterised by one side having won; most of the games are pretty one sided. Which is why you typically evaluate your play by how well you did for your side. Or flip the board around and just play the other team if it bruises you ego too much to just take satisfaction in an evening well spent with a friend.
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