Should we try a small community project?

[Minigiant]

The last community project (That I remember) was the Flashpoint article. It started off well, and then the scope blew up and it fell apart.

 

There are only a few regulars down here these days (I am a sporadic regular at best).

Should we try doing something?

I picture us making a Chapter based on an idea from the Chapter Inspiration thread. Only we can vote, but community can offer comment/ideas etc.

[Brother Tyler]

Projects to drive participation are always good.

 

How would you limit who can vote?

[Minigiant]

8 hours ago, Brother Tyler said:

Projects to drive participation are always good.

 

How would you limit who can vote?

The names are people who we see regularly down here. A project between regulars that is transparent for all to see

Edited June 11, 2023 by Minigiant

[Mazer Rackham]

My initial thoughts:

 

Starting small is a good idea, and a simple premise is best to prevent scale creep. Limit what people can submit to it.

 

This is about Space Marines. What is off limits/TMI? Do you allow discussion of their recruiting world, and what's in that? How many buttons are on your Major-domo's Shirt? Open up that discourse. Consider appointing a Project Lead - a parliament of equal voices is fine, but a ship without a rudder goes nowhere.

 

At the same time, prepare your 'market research'. You want something with a bit of appeal to everyone you can rope in. My suggestion, if you're going through the Chapter Inspiration Thread, is to note down all the ones with the most (positive) Reactions (Like, Agree, Love - not Funny). Pick maybe 10 from that pool with the best premise, or attribute points to the different reactions for elimination, then go for a round of voting. Pick the best five, or better, top three. Go for another round of voting. Whoever set the poll has the tie-break. Make that clear from the outset. Let anyone vote. If they didn't, well they're not likely to pitch in anyway, so you've lost nothing, and maybe even pick up a couple of folks.

 

Then you've got your initial setup.

 

Look for other examples of community projects, see how they went about it.

 

More rambling on request. (I never seem to get repeat gigs, oddly. Funny that, eh?).

[40k_fan]

On 6/2/2023 at 8:31 PM, Minigiant said:

The last community project (That I remember) was the Flashpoint article. It started off well, and then the scope blew up and it fell apart.

 

There are only a few regulars down here these days (I am a sporadic regular at best).

Should we try doing something?

I picture us making a Chapter based on an idea from the Chapter Inspiration thread. Only we can vote, but community can offer comment/ideas etc.

 

that sounds like a cool idea, actually taking a chapter concept and fleshing it out into something complete, I don't know if I count as a regular, but I would love to be able to help

[Machine God]

What you mean like the Liber Cluster / Liber Cluster II?

[Minigiant]

10 hours ago, Machine God said:

What you mean like the Liber Cluster / Liber Cluster II?

Nooooo, that is way too big. Just one stand alone chapter

[40k_fan]

What kind of chapter do we want to make?

 

Firstborn or Primaris? Codex Compliant or Non-Compliant?

 

And then who should we have this chapter as successors of? I know if you take the Salamanders, Space Wolves, Iron Hands, White Scars, Raven Guard, and Dark Angels, those 6 legions combined have less successors than the Ultramarines. So I think we should do a successor chapter of a legion that is underappreciated in the successors aspect.

 

(Although if we are including traitor legions and warbands, the Night Lords probably have the least successors of any legion lol)

[Minigiant]

5 hours ago, 40k_fan said:

And then who should we have this chapter as successors of? I know if you take the Salamanders, Space Wolves, Iron Hands, White Scars, Raven Guard, and Dark Angels, those 6 legions combined have less successors than the Ultramarines. So I think we should do a successor chapter of a legion that is underappreciated in the successors aspect.

 

(Although if we are including traitor legions and warbands, the Night Lords probably have the least successors of any legion lol)

That would ultimately be decided by theme, but most of the time an IA in my opinion (Which used to be the norm when this board was more active) is significantly better with an Ultramarines geneseed as it avoids lots of connotations and literary traps that would need traversing

[Felix Antipodes]

9 hours ago, 40k_fan said:

What kind of chapter do we want to make?

 

Firstborn or Primaris? Codex Compliant or Non-Compliant?

 

And then who should we have this chapter as successors of? I know if you take the Salamanders, Space Wolves, Iron Hands, White Scars, Raven Guard, and Dark Angels, those 6 legions combined have less successors than the Ultramarines. So I think we should do a successor chapter of a legion that is underappreciated in the successors aspect.

 

(Although if we are including traitor legions and warbands, the Night Lords probably have the least successors of any legion lol)

I don’t think Firstborn or Primaris is as relevant now as in the past bar your preference in armour mark.  With the trend in the recent fluff of reviving defunct Chapters names and iconography within the Primaris Founding, you could have a both!

As @Minigiant said, having them being of the UM linage avoids a lot of issues.  As does being codex compliant, although that is also something that seems to be changing in the official fluff as well.  It does mean not having to come up with a new kink to make “our” Chapter special.

Having said that, I’ve always had a preference for successors from the “lesser” legions if only to balance the UM-IF-BA majority.  There is also the choice of having them be a successor of a later Chapter like the Mortifactors.  Still of the UM linage but with a slightly different flavour.

[Minigiant]

58 minutes ago, Felix Antipodes said:

 There is also the choice of having them be a successor of a later Chapter like the Mortifactors.  Still of the UM linage but with a slightly different flavour.

 

This is what I tend to lean into (When I wrote m Praedicators, Silver Skulls were little known and in fact I think I need to update them to descend from something else but at the amount of words I have written, that is a lot of work). UM successors such as; Eagle Warriors, Genesis Chapter, Avenging Sons, all with very little written about them are perfect blank slates to work on. That said, if you have a concept that works with the Black Rage you need BA, a concept with the Unforgiven, you need DA. If the Chapters identity is solely from their Homeworld then UM are best without a doubt.

Edit: In fact, it may be good to create a community resource of little-known chapters 'blank slates' that people can refer to when planning their chapters

Edited June 18, 2023 by Minigiant

[Minigiant]

On 6/11/2023 at 9:59 PM, Mazer Rackham said:

At the same time, prepare your 'market research'. You want something with a bit of appeal to everyone you can rope in. My suggestion, if you're going through the Chapter Inspiration Thread, is to note down all the ones with the most (positive) Reactions (Like, Agree, Love - not Funny).

Here is the initial list:

Nautical Imperial Fists by @Evil Eye
Hellboy Marines by @Gamiel

Blood Bats by @XeonDragon

Celtic / Druidic themed BA Successor by @Xin Ceithan

Edgar Allan Poe Marines by @Gamiel

Admonishers by @Evil Eye

Star Hawks by @Boldthreat
The Bloody Palms by @Kabronex

Angels of the Harvest by @Bjorn Firewalker

Desert Hawks by @Codex Grey

Camazotz themed chapter by @Gamiel

Gaol Wardens by @Osteoclast

[Mazer Rackham]

This is good work. Having the list here for public consumption is a real boon.

 

Also, it could be useful to post a note about this in the NBRA, since this a project being launched, there's no reason not announce it to the board as well. That way, you'll get more eyes on it. Even if they don't vote, it's foot traffic. You'll just need to notify a Mod in the NBRA that's what you're doing to cover yourself. @Brother Tyler may be better placed to advise here.

 

There's plenty of Liberites lurking, it's just setting a fire under their feet to get them writing ;)

 

Going to the polls, put a window on it so there's room to browse your picks - say the poll will run from x date to x date. That way, if you move to the next round, hopefully the voters should be fairly familiar, and things will move a little faster. Thankfully from my quick peek at the Chapter inspiration thread, the entries are fast to get through. A bonus.

 

It will also give you time to discuss the other aspects of the project.

 

Well done so far, believe it or not, you've actually done quite a whack of your groundwork!

[Codex Grey]

I hope this takes off as I love to see the community work together. For various reasons, I can't dedicate too much time to this, but I would like to help when I can, and lurk in the shadows. I also formally nominate @Minigiant as project leader, seeing as this is your initiative.

 

I want to echo what has been said about choice of successor. Non-UM successors are only underappreciated in the sense that there are less of them in the lore, but they are definitely not underappreciated by people making their own Chapters. People seem to gravitate towards the more "special" gene-seeds, and away from the "blandness" of Ultramarines, but often end up with Blue Salamanders or Green Blood Angels. Nothing wrong with this. My Heralds are basically a variation on the same themes of the Imperial Fists, but I do think it generally* leads to a more interesting Chapter (for other people to read about, at least) to start with an idea/concept/theme and then see how that idea works in the context of gene-seed.

* an exception could be if we start with a specific idea of how a successor of the Blood Angels would deal with the Black Rage for example, and go from there.

 

Likewise, Codex-compliant or not, Primaris or not, these are things that should (imo) stem from an idea/concept first, Unless the idea was tied to one of these aspects. For example, what would make a Chapter reject the Primaris technology? Maybe a Chapter so reliant on ritual and tradition, would keep to their old ways and continue making firstborn marines.

 

But, if we are skipping the idea stage and going straight to voting on ideas from the random chapter thread, my vote goas to the Goal Wardens.

Also I think some of the listed Chapters, like the Bloody Palms, are already "owned" by the poster and it would be strange develop that as a separate community Chapter. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Codex Grey

[Gamiel]

5 hours ago, Minigiant said:

That said, if you have a concept that works with the Black Rage you need BA, a concept with the Unforgiven, you need DA.

But at the same time, you could have a non-BA successor suffering from something with a similar end effect like the BA. Or a non-DA successor been given (or taken up) a duty of hunting down a specific thing  (maybe a spread out or roving cult or warband, or their own bretheren turned against the Emperor) and they do that in a DA like way, the Jade Dragons and their hunt for the Black Levithan is an example of this. 

 

5 hours ago, Minigiant said:

If the Chapters identity is solely from their Homeworld then UM are best without a doubt.

Based on some comments I rember reading about some BA successors do they also have some chapters that ahve gone native. 

[Gamiel]

The DA, BA, IF and Um all have rather many named successors, so I suggest ignoring them. Now the SW and Salamanders only know of successors that are of the Ultima Founding, and any successor from them will have to have a comment about their relationship with "daddy" (since both will likely go out of their way to contact them, if they were not there when they were created) and their thinking about "dad's" culture and thinking’s and how they have reacted to them. If we don’t want that do that leave RG, IH and WS.

 

There is also the possibility for an older founding that they don't know their gene-seed sire and we could work with that. Creating a chapter that lacks any of the stuff that would (to us at least) point to a specific gene-origin and have lost (or was never given) the knowledge of their gene-heritage.

 

There is also mutation, with some founding coming with a high chance of them having mutations of one kind or another, that could obscure their gene-origin, or create problems for them that a "standard" chapter don't have. And even if you ain’t from any of those foundings could stuff have happened in the chapter’s history (too much warp exposure, bad recruitment stock, rad- and/or chem-damage, etc.) that have mutated their gene-seed in small or large ways.

 

[40k_fan]

12 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

There is also the choice of having them be a successor of a later Chapter like the Mortifactors.  Still of the UM linage but with a slightly different flavour.

I think that would be a really cool idea, to do a successor of a later-founding chapter, like Mortifactors, Silver Skulls, Rainbow Warriors, etc....

We could also take that further and do a successor of a chapter without a known predescesor, like the Red Scorpions, Minotaurs, White Templars, Mentors, Space Sharks, etc...

[Felix Antipodes]

Just to touch on 

16 hours ago, Codex Grey said:

I hope this takes off as I love to see the community work together. For various reasons, I can't dedicate too much time to this, but I would like to help when I can, and lurk in the shadows. I also formally nominate @Minigiant as project leader, seeing as this is your initiative.

 

I want to echo what has been said about choice of successor. Non-UM successors are only underappreciated in the sense that there are less of them in the lore, but they are definitely not underappreciated by people making their own Chapters. People seem to gravitate towards the more "special" gene-seeds, and away from the "blandness" of Ultramarines, but often end up with Blue Salamanders or Green Blood Angels. Nothing wrong with this. My Heralds are basically a variation on the same themes of the Imperial Fists, but I do think it generally* leads to a more interesting Chapter (for other people to read about, at least) to start with an idea/concept/theme and then see how that idea works in the context of gene-seed.

* an exception could be if we start with a specific idea of how a successor of the Blood Angels would deal with the Black Rage for example, and go from there.

 

Likewise, Codex-compliant or not, Primaris or not, these are things that should (imo) stem from an idea/concept first, Unless the idea was tied to one of these aspects. For example, what would make a Chapter reject the Primaris technology? Maybe a Chapter so reliant on ritual and tradition, would keep to their old ways and continue making firstborn marines.

 

But, if we are skipping the idea stage and going straight to voting on ideas from the random chapter thread, my vote goas to the Goal Wardens.

Also I think some of the listed Chapters, like the Bloody Palms, are already "owned" by the poster and it would be strange develop that as a separate community Chapter. 

To be honest, unless the Chapter has deep-seated philosophical or religious dogma, I see no reason for them to reject the Primaris technology.  Integrating it doesn’t effect (imho) the doctrine of the Chapter, which is what (usually) provides the point of difference between say the UM and the Silver Skulls or Mortifactors.  They will still impart their unique world view on their neophytes regardless of the geneseed process used.

I could see a Chapter accepting the Primaris technology but rejecting any Ultima Founding grey shields offered (unless they were desperately undermanned at the time) because they foresee the problems attempting to integrate these strangers into their organization.  We have seen plenty of this sort of issue in various BL stories already.

tldr: The culture makes the Chapter, not the tech used to create the marine.

[Minigiant]

19 hours ago, Mazer Rackham said:

Going to the polls, put a window on it so there's room to browse your picks - say the poll will run from x date to x date. That way, if you move to the next round, hopefully the voters should be fairly familiar, and things will move a little faster. Thankfully from my quick peek at the Chapter inspiration thread, the entries are fast to get through. A bonus.

 

It appears as if I am unable to make a Poll

[40k_fan]

What exactly is this project entailing?

Do we make a new chapter codex? and for the new 10th edition or the 9th?

New lore and backstory, abilities, detatchment rules, chapter tactics, stratagems, chapter approved rules, crusade rules, chapter relics, special issue wargear, etc etc...?

[Minigiant]

30 minutes ago, 40k_fan said:

What exactly is this project entailing?

 

 

Making 1 Index Astartes Article (My Ebon Butchers and Praedicators linked in my signature are good examples, so are the Castigators if you can find them, as well as the Sons of Skoll, a successful community project)

 

30 minutes ago, 40k_fan said:

Do we make a new chapter codex? and for the new 10th edition or the 9th?

 

Way too ambitious, so many community projects fail because of scope

 

30 minutes ago, 40k_fan said:

New lore and backstory, abilities, detatchment rules, chapter tactics, stratagems, chapter approved rules, crusade rules, chapter relics, special issue wargear, etc etc...?

 

Many people have ambitions to get their IA article to that point, I have been working on my Praedicators getting there for over 5 years. Community Projects do not have that kind of attention span. It could easily be reserved for a phase two, but most certainly out of sight at this point. As the proverb says, you don't put the cart before the horse.

[Mazer Rackham]

6 hours ago, Minigiant said:

It appears as if I am unable to make a Poll

 

Weird. I tried to find out how to add a poll in the Club I run, where I have Moderator privileges, but no dice there either.

 

Very strange.

 

I know @Lysimachus did one for his event. Maybe need a sharper head for this one..!

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[40k_fan]

Maybe someone could create a poll using a sort of third-party poll-maker website? I know those exist.

[Mazer Rackham]

I have petitioned the High Lords, and they have bestowed their beneficence!

 

With many thanks and oblations to @Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch.