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[nenjin]

So it turns out most of my players were unhappy/disgusted/depressed by the last game's turn of events. I've been asked to do everything from retcon the entire last session to set the stage for the players dictating terms/swearing oaths to never be on the wrong side again.

Sort of not sure how I feel about all this. Part of me feels like I should have interceded as a GM to break up the murdertrain, part of me doesn't. Part of me feels responsible that it went that way, part of me doesn't. Part of me really dislikes the narrative turn things took, another part kind of appreciates the shift in tone. One of my players is tacitly blaming me for how things went despite acknowledging I neither pushed the party do this stuff or even set the stage for it. It's kind of like.....where do you draw the line as a GM? Between letting your players be players and flat out telling them something isn't allowed. In previous games I've been instructed by this group of players to remove "NO" from my vocabulary. Suddenly I'm being told that NO would have been appropriate in some fashion. Like, I should have made Space Marines explode from the ground and stop the party as my way of saying "preying on helpless victims is bad." On any other day, that would be called out as GM railroading BS.

And here I thought letting players dictate the campaign was going to make my life easier. Ha!

[Radio Controlled]

I'd say make them face the consequences of their actions. They wanna murder and enslave innocent people? Then be prepared to live with yourself and the consequences.

[Amperzand]

I mean, it sounded like it was largely the captain who decided to do it. The crew mutinying for excessive evil would totally work, story-wise.

[Radio Controlled]

Could be cool, a mutiny, then the crew has to deal with the guilt over what they did. Then they try to repent by going on some sort of personal little crusade to try and free all the dark eldar slaves.

[Andres]

A penance crusade does sound interesting from an audience's point of view. In the end, I say just go with whatever makes the game as engaging as possible. Increase or decrease fun so long as you maintain that engagement.

[NullForceOmega]

snip'd

GM advice: every player wants their GM to remove 'No' from their vocabulary, right up until they hit their limit.  'No' is part of your arsenal for a reason, and that reason is to keep things rolling.

[Grim Portent]

So it turns out most of my players were unhappy/disgusted/depressed by the last game's turn of events.

One of those parties. 

Seriously, who goes into a 40k RPG expecting anything other than death, horror, slavery, suffering, anguish, torture, injustice and cruelty to be the norm for player actions? 

I may not be the best example of a standard 40k RPer given that my preferred game is Black Crusade, and my favorite xenos is the Dark Eldar, but I feel that doing horribly inhuman things for personal gain is a large part of the point of RPing in the 41st millennium.

#Evil4Life

[Rolepgeek]

I feel like 40k deserves it's own alignment system. On one axis, Discipline/Stability/Anarchy, on another, Naivety/Pragmatism/Cruelty, and on the last, Loyalty/Unpredictable/Ambition. With Neutrals for all three, of course.

Eldar might be Disciplined, Loyally Pragmatic xenos, while the Orks might be Anarchical, Unpredictably Cruel xenos.


...and while I might be a fanbot, sometimes I have to embrace my inner Space Marine.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Never falter, never fail.
That is a fallacy, an untenable command.
We will all fall one day.

Where you fall, the entirety of the Imperium rises to support you, and direct your aim once more to the Emperor's foes, even unto their dying breath. They shall not let you down, and neither shall you let they.
We all stumble sometimes.
When you stumble, your brothers are there to provide covering fire, as you are there to provide for when they inevitably stumble. Only the Emperor is without flaw; rely on your brothers to deflect the enemy from yours.
We must fight continuously.
Why you fight, only the Emperor and you can decide, in your hearts. But let it be for the whole of humanity, and the hope of another day spent beloved by the Emperor, and your fellow man.
We can never stray.
Should you stray, you betray humanity, and threaten the sanctity of thousands of worlds, billions of lives. Your former brothers must take up arms against you, and their anguish will fall like the Emperor's own wrath. Our most divine Emperor shall turn away from you, and you will be bereft of his light. All that will be left to you is your wretched self. No man can stand against the tide of xenos and chaos on their own, even the greatest among them. Stand instead before your fellows, beside your brothers, under the Emperor, and atop the corpses of the martyrs who came before, and face our Foe in this never-ending struggle, and find purpose in war.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Frankly, it doesn't really need anything other than the Warhammer Fantasy alignment system of Lawful, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic. With the exception that essentially everyone on the board is Lawful or Chaotic.

[Kot]

Most Wh40k games are ...

[Rolepgeek]

Frankly, it doesn't really need anything other than the Warhammer Fantasy alignment system of Lawful, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic. With the exception that essentially everyone on the board is Lawful or Chaotic.

There is no Good in 40k. Only varying degrees of Grimdark. And there's more depth to the behaviors than two axes, in 40k, for groups especially.

[nenjin]

I think real issue is that most people thought they were doing one thing, before it wildly became another. Like I said, if we were playing Black Crusade, no one would have batted an eyelash. I think people were really getting into the whole "sea fairing" adventure vibe before it turned into a senseless bloodbath with some more morally repugnant choices thrown in for good measure.

I'm sort of a little nervous and excited for next session.

[Cheesecake]

What if the Emperor is talking to us from the future, giving us premonition in the form of the Warhammer 40k universe and the tabletop game? What if every game that's played on the tabletop actually happens 38,000 years into the future?

[Kot]

Then he's wildly dissapointed with the heretics and traitors playing Xenos and, well, heretics and traitor scum. What if the Big E is actually walking amongst us and looks for worthy to walk beside him (as Perpetuals?) Or maybe it's some kind of an warning? In any way, the safest thing to do is to praise the God-Emperor and pass the ammuniton.

[GiglameshDespair]

Then he should really have worked out a proper balance by now.