Andy Chambers codex design philosophy Q&A from 1996

[Xenith]

Hi all,

 

I thought I'd share this video I just found when looking at some other videos featuring his game design theory.

 

Andy Chambers is at 'Ropecon' 1996, just after the release of the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex.

 

It might be of interest to some, and has a good nostalgia feel, not only due to Andy's hair. It's funny to see how far from this vision the game design veered, and it almost veering back towards.

 

It's also strong evidence to the phrase: "The more things change, the more they stay the same"

 

Points of note:

Chaos Players want everything

Daemon princes are overpowered

Codex Eldar and Codex Space Wolves are way more powerful and unbalanced than other codexes

 

Enjoy!

 

Xen

 

https://youtu.be/mw5NfJlRrcQ

Edited November 3, 2017 by Xenith

[utilityzero]

The guy up front sounds like such a whiner and I honestly couldn't watch the video because of him.

[Xenith]

And also someone that may be on forums ;)

 

Agree though. It just goes to show you that endless, unjustified complaining is a part of the hobby for some. 

[Lexington]

It's funny to see that "this is going back to Rogue Trader" was the sort of thing you could hear back as far as 2nd freaking Edition. :p

 

Really, tho, this is a great watch. Chambers is classy and thoughtful, and comes across as really understanding not only the game, but the role of the Studio in the gaming community. His influence on 40K, and GW as a whole, is missed.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

It's funny to see that "this is going back to Rogue Trader" was the sort of thing you could hear back as far as 2nd freaking Edition.

 

Really, tho, this is a great watch. Chambers is classy and thoughtful, and comes across as really understanding not only the game, but the role of the Studio in the gaming community. His influence on 40K, and GW as a whole, is missed.

Luckily he kept up the good work, and is even now making more games.

[Slave to Darkness]

I wish that one dude would stop asking silly questions, he was taking up time that could have been spent answering real questions. I met Andy the same year at Gamesday and we had a great chat about the Realm of Chaos books, the design of the 2nd ed Chaos range, the fluff and the thought that went into the main list and the two smaller lists in the back. Basically he went into more detail than he did in the designers notes, was really informative. Great geezer and you could tell he was really passionate about what he was talking about.

[Trevak Dal]

The audio isn't super great, I'm putting it through my PC and my nice headphones and I'm still having issues but...did he say Daemon princes had 18 wounds back then!?

 

That's pretty nuts if so.

 

Also, I'm guessing warpspider exharchs (...the Sargent of the warp spiders?) Was pretty unruly back in the day (if people were taking one and bringing it in their army think I'd prefer a Vindicare or cuelexus personally)

Edited November 13, 2017 by Trevak Dal

[Leif Bearclaw]

The audio isn't super great, I'm putting it through my PC and my nice headphones and I'm still having issues but...did he say Daemon princes had 18 wounds back then!?

 

That's pretty nuts if so.

 

Not massively. Back in 2nd edition there were only 4 Daemon Princes in the Codex, one for each God. Doombreed, N'Kari, Foulspawn and M'Kachen. They were also only included in one of the appendix army lasts at the back, the Daemon World Army List. Of those 4 only Foulspawn, the Nurgle guy, had 18 wounds.

[Lexington]

Also, I'm guessing warpspider exharchs (...the Sargent of the warp spiders?) Was pretty unruly back in the day (if people were taking one and bringing it in their army think I'd prefer a Vindicare or cuelexus personally)

 

Exarchs worked pretty differently in 2nd Edition, closer to how the Autarch could be equipped back in 5th/6th/7th - they could mix equipment and skills from any of the Aspects. Given how much destructive power some of the Eldar weaponry had in 2nd, this could easily result in some broken combos.

[Major_Gilbear]

Even so, the general rule was that in 2E, all model stats went from 0 to 10 - the whole point about the Deamon Princes in the 2E Chaos Codex was that they were effectively like special characters, and each therefore could (and did) have stats go above the normal statline ceiling of 10.

[Lexington]

Yeah, I remember my little High School-aged eyes bugging out like crazy seeing some of those stats, and impishly trying to see if my friends wanted to play against them. Not sure if I've heard a "NO" since that was more firm and decisive.

[A.T.]

Also, I'm guessing warpspider exharchs (...the Sargent of the warp spiders?) Was pretty unruly back in the day

2nd edition? Generic exarch, swooping hawk wings, vortex grenade.

36" move followed by a 1 1/2" radius template of 'you lose, no saves'

 

120 pts (roughly the cost of 4 tactical marines). And yes they could charge after than jump.

[Trevak Dal]

Ay carumba, that's a mean elf. I got into the game in 5th, and my friend who got me in came in around 3rd/4th. I've read a lot of the older lore (half eldar former Astropaths/now chief librarians, Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Cleuseau, the Scarface Marine, KIL KIL KIL etc) I'm super interested in games design, and their choices for doing one thing over another. With 8th there are so many intuitive changes that happened, followed by jarring missteps. "We want to unclutter the rules! But instead of power fists just effectively making your guy -1 ws, it gets modified after dice rolls!" I'm kinda slow and all, but that's counter intuitive to me. There are a couple other things that complicate where their mission statement was to streamline. Edited November 13, 2017 by Trevak Dal

[D3L]

There are a couple other things that complicate where their mission statement was to streamline.

Have you ever heard of the story of New Coke? It's not a story a red-shirt (or blue shirt as they're seen today) would tell you.... 

[Major_Gilbear]

I've read a lot of the older lore (half eldar former Astropaths/now chief librarians, Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Cleuseau, the Scarface Marine, KIL KIL KIL etc) I'm super interested in games design, and their choices for doing one thing over another.

 

That's all Rogue Trader stuff really, before there was a more formalised (if that's the right term) structure to the history and official background of the setting.

 

Lots of things have changed over the years, including which Chapters were the "First Founding", which company in the Dark Angels was the Ravenwing (it is 2nd, but used to be 7th), ranks and specialisations of Space Marine officers, etc, etc.

 

Partly, the eclectic and free-form feel of RT is because it was still early days and GW used a lot of free-lance artists and writers (and not all of them "understood" the 40k world in the same way or to the same degree). Partly, it was deliberately vague (and tongue-in-cheek) in order to allow players lots of freedom for the settings, adversaries, and stories that would drive their games.

 

Towards the end of the RT era, there was a big consolidation of all the rules (especially the weapon rules). After trialling it with the Space Wolves via WD, all Space Marines were given their "mostly 4s" statline, and Power Armour became 3+ save. Many of the rules would be directly recognisable to players of the later 2E40k, and the Wargear book was mostly a reprint of the RT era stuff with small tweaks to make it 2E compatible.

 

Whilst 40k became much more "serious" with 2E, especially as the different Codexes were released over time, the more obviously "GrimDark" aesthetic that's devoid of humour and has an overly pious Imperium (i.e., what we've seen for the last 20 years or so) actually came about with the release of 3E.

 

If you can, I highly recommend getting the RT and 2E era books, just for reading. I still find the 2E Codexes to be surprisingly concentrated sources of information that has been re-imagined repeatedly over the intervening time.

 

 

Edit: I rolled another "1" for my spelling check...

Edited November 14, 2017 by Major_Gilbear

[Zuvassin]

The most interesting bit to me in hindsight:

 

In 1996, Andy insists that GW doesn't want to do massive overhauls of the game or invalidate codexes, and implies the main reason to update codexes in the future would be to fix errors and incorporate other updates (new units, etc).

 

The completely rewritten and codex-invalidating third edition drops two years later in 1998. Granted, Andy seems to imply (in response to the question about opening up playtesting to the community and why that takes too long for it to work), that the development time for a codex is basically two months or so, give or take.

 

But the above dates seem to imply either he was lying about what GW was willing to do, or (presumably the case) something drastic changed in roughly a year that led them to just say "  it" and dump everything. As I don't think Andy was lying, it seems really interesting how quickly GW must have turned on this (or 3rd edition had a lot less lead time than I would expect prior to being released in '98).

Edited November 16, 2017 by Major_Gilbear
Please use the cuss icon

[taikishi]

Ay carumba, that's a mean elf. I got into the game in 5th, and my friend who got me in came in around 3rd/4th. I've read a lot of the older lore (half eldar former Astropaths/now chief librarians, Inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Cleuseau, the Scarface Marine, KIL KIL KIL etc) I'm super interested in games design, and their choices for doing one thing over another. With 8th there are so many intuitive changes that happened, followed by jarring missteps. "We want to unclutter the rules! But instead of power fists just effectively making your guy -1 ws, it gets modified after dice rolls!" I'm kinda slow and all, but that's counter intuitive to me. There are a couple other things that complicate where their mission statement was to streamline.

 

Honestly? That Exarch is nothing compared to the Cheese Lord of Not-Khorne. WS9, S7 or 8 depending on the weapon used, 7 attacks, 3+ save on 2d6 / 3++. Daemon weapon (S7 attacks) instakills living multi-wound targets that are successfully wounded if they fail a Leadership test and wounds Daemons and Psykers on a 2+ and Frenzon (doubles base attacks, thus the 7 attacks, but forces you to charge units within 8" if able). Against vehicles, you have the lightning claw for armor penetration rolls of 8+d20+d3+d6.

 

Total points cost? 218 points before Mark of Chaos -- not Khorne because an old GW ruling says Mark of Khorne replaces your terminator armor with a 2+ on 1d6 save

[Major_Gilbear]

But the above dates seem to imply either he was lying about what GW was willing to do, or (presumably the case) something drastic changed in roughly a year that led them to just say "  it" and dump everything. As I don't think Andy was lying, it seems really interesting how quickly GW must have turned on this (or 3rd edition had a lot less lead time than I would expect prior to being released in '98).

 

 

From an interview with Andy Chambers here:

 

 

The impetus for the admittedly radical change in 3rd ed came from Rick Priestely, although how much his arm was twisted by the powers that be I don’t know. I do remember being horrified when I played Rick’s draft ruleset for the first time, no hit location for vehicles particularly upset me as I recall.

As I played some more I came to appreciate the elegance of it all – 2nd ed games were really cumbersome by that time and you simply couldn’t use more than 20-30 models in a game or your head would explode. Simplicity became very appealing to me and I started wondering how I could design games that didn’t have players having to keep their noses in books or looking at cards 80% of the time.

 

So I don't think he was being untruthful when he gave that interview.

 

In fact, the games based on 2E40k were probably about the last time he worked on games with complex details - after his epiphany with 3E40k, he tried rather hard to keep things simple/elegant in all his subsequent game designs.

[Zuvassin]

True - for Andy, at least - but in the Ropecon Q&A he seems to be speaking on behalf of the studio as to what the studio as a whole thought about radical changes and invalidating books as had been done from RT to 2nd.

 

And I don't necessarily mean to imply complex or simple are better. They're different, and I'll be the first to admit my preference is for 2nd ed, but I was really just commenting on how quickly that must have changed, given the calendar two years between the Q&A and the release of 3rd edition, minus however long 3rd was in development.

[Xenith]

As above, and as we have just seen with 7th -> 8th, the game was too complex and owners were worried it would drive away new players. From the amount of people I know that played third, I can only assume that its success was as much as 8th ed.

[Major_Gilbear]

As above, and as we have just seen with 7th -> 8th, the game was too complex and owners were worried it would drive away new players. From the amount of people I know that played third, I can only assume that its success was as much as 8th ed.

 

Despite the detractors, it was!

 

3E also had a few other things to help it along over its predecessors:

 

- New plastic troops kits. This is really the start of the "plastic era" for GW, and although they still made lots of metal models, it was possible to build very nearly all-plastic armies for some factions.

 

- New plastic terrain. Gothic ruins (a couple of different designs), jungle trees, and various barricades, crates, barrels, etc were released to help people make suitable and durable terrain quickly.

 

- Along with the plastic models came the first army-starter boxes designed to help players build up an army quickly and affordably. I think were were called Battlegroup boxes when they launched, and each one also came with at least one set of plastic terrain too (ruins, trees, or barricades and barrels). The idea behind the terrain kits in the army-starter boxes was that a couple of those together with the main 40K box contents would help you combine resources with a friend and have a decent amount of reasonable terrain to populate a gaming table with.

 

- Cheaper Codexes. I know the little pamphlet-books got a lot of flak, but the price for the army rules and army lists basically went from ~£20 at the end of 2E down to £8 at the start of 3E. The add-on Codexes were just £4 each. This became the first edition in which I bought every Codex despite not collecting more than a couple of forces.

 

- More "achievable" studio paint jobs. There was a distinct effort made by the studio to paint the armies in simpler schemes, and with more basic paintjobs. Heroes and elite units still got a nice high-end paintjob, but troops and such were painted more along the lines of the tutorials that GW put out to show hobbyists how to get their stuff painted. This was to help and encourage people new to the hobby to acheive results that looked the picture on the box, and not get disheartened when they couldn't match the studio's competition-level paint jobs. This edition was also the first where basically all the painting tutorials advised starting with a black undercoat (in most of the RT and 2E era tutorials, white was generally advised).

 

A lot of this philosophy continued on in 4E (including the Utramarines gaining the dark blue-and-gold scheme that was easier to paint over a black undercoat), although GW had stopped adding terrain to the Battlegroup boxes by this point, and went back to (slightly) bigger codexes too.

 

What's interesting to me is that as I look back at each edition of 40k, I can see that effort was made by GW to get players into buying armies rather than a collection of superbestfriends special characters, into painting their armies, playing on a table with actual terrain, and even to try and have fun with scenarios and narratives rather than just standing shooting each other from deployment zones or rushing into a big melee-mashup in the middle. Sure, they obviously wanted to push models/sales too, but I do get the distinct impression that GW has tried to help to improve the experience of playing a game of 40k - on a table with terrain, all painted, and played in a reasonable time.

[Lexington]

As above, and as we have just seen with 7th -> 8th, the game was too complex and owners were worried it would drive away new players. From the amount of people I know that played third, I can only assume that its success was as much as 8th ed.

3rd Ed 40K was, I think, the biggest relative expansion of a customer base that GW's ever had - it's where the game turned from a niche hobby to something pretty gigantic and recognized within the mainstream.

[M@verik115]

I still reiterate that 3.5/4th ed were the best years of 40K so far. 

[Xenith]

I still reiterate that 3.5/4th ed were the best years of 40K so far.

When the Templars got a codex, right?

 

I think it was a combination of massive simplification of the rules to make it more accessible (including resetting all codexes), and also the advent of the multi part marine kit.

 

The game was still horrifically unbalanced between rhino rush, blood angel rhino rush, battle cannons and Eldar being eldar, but a lot of this was sorted with the Chapter Approved tweaks that Andy made, adding things like entry points to transports, invulnerable saves to termies, etc.

[M@verik115]

Templar codex was one yes, but I loved the IG 3.5 codex, the cityfight codex, the chaos 3.5 codex, the necron codex etc. 
Even though they were so much thinner than codexes now, they were really packed with tons of fluff, stories and painting guides and ideas. 
Sure balance wasn't the best (when is anything ever balanced), but I still had great fun playing underpowered armies even though actual army lists and designs were so much simpler back then.