this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
187 points (97.0% liked)
Greentext
7908 readers
548 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Don't worry, if you want to play games supporting an oppressive regime there is always 40k.
Isn't the God-Emperors will the only way?
Funny story:
in Rogue Trader, you can take certain storyline choices that are Chaos, Imperial or "Demagogue". Demagogue actions includes thing like "Don't murder the tens of thousands of refugees, despite some of them being chaos worshippers and it being really fun to kill them all"
However, players started noticing that playing the demagogue path gets you neither of the two powerful gear unlock paths, and started asking the devs "Hey, how come I don't get rewards when I'm being a really Good guy?", to which the devs replied "If you're doing it for the rewards, you're not really being good, are you now?"
This has always been an opinion I've held for most RPGs. They almost always try to balance everything, and it makes it far less interesting. In my opinion they should play quite differently. The "good" play through should be the standard path most players will take, and it's a balanced challenge with a mix of persuasion and combat. The evil playthrough should make you overpowered, but no one wants to cooperate with you. You can steal anything and kill anyone, but you're going to have to fight for your win. Your combat skill is going to powerspike much higher and faster, but there won't be an alternative to combat.
Playing a dogmatic character in the Rogue Trader CRPG made me realize how fucked up the Imperium really is.
Er, did all the skulls, religious extremism, xenophobia and many many genocides not give it away?
But I was told those were the bad guys so its ok
Or Simcity.
I don't know how you play city builders, but I try to maximize freedom, functionality, and happiness in my cities. Unless I am missing part of the picture
I man, you can also cut off all roads leaving the city and raise taxes to infinite levels while bulldozing any buildings trying to revold against you.
Trains.
Civ6. It's the only game I know where you can bring world peace through fascism.
In Castles 2 I once won the game by taking over and beheading all of my opponents including The Pope, leaving them no choice but to make me king. Does that count?
Hmmm I guess it's still fascism even if you don't pick the fascism civic
Ghandi!
Hearts of Iron
Maybe I should start playing 40k at some point, always hear about it. Do I get the full experience if I just play the videogame, or do I need to get into lore videos and the figure painting?
The lore videos probably are your best bet unless you want to get obsessive. Even though I hate the format of 'dude on screen explaining something that could be written down and read in 1/10 of the time' .... ........
.........
.............
The actual lore is spread across so many of the rule books and actual novels that you would probably have a few years of reading to do. A summary from someone else about summaries and random headcanons on forums of the lore is going to get you there a lot faster.
You get the most from reading books honestly. The truly out there stuff that always gets people interested is usually in novels or in the game books for either the ttrpg stuff or tt war games.
The games are getting better, especially if you avoid the endless space marine focused games, but even there, we have some pretty decent games. Space Marine is great. Dawn of War is awesome. Dawn of War will give you a big of every factions flavors, at least enough to get an overview and let you pick who interests you. Maybe start there? Or...
You get the most interesting lore when looking at it from a human perspective I think. Some good lore and closer look can be had with Owlcat's Rogue Trader. I believe they are working on an Inquisitor game too.
Otherwise, you pick a faction you like and you start digging into the books and codices. I can get you book recs too if you want.
wait... books and codices? i thought those were rough cinnamon rolls. what's the difference between a wh40k book and a wh40k codex? is one LOTR and one the Silmarillion?
Books are like the novels. Story books.
Codices are rule books. Each faction gets one and through our the years they all contained fluff and lore. Some stuff you only ever get in a codex. Some stuff you only ever see in a novel. There is probably some cabin content that is exclusive to every single form the universe has appeared in.
So, it's actually as complicated as it seems from the outside? Interesting. Not sure if I have the time for an obsession at the moment, maybe in a year or 2. I keep hearing about it, I can't forget it exists, so that won't be a problem. Thanks for the advice!
I haven't seriously gotten into 40k, but it's like any other older, well established universe. For example, you can play Skyrim and get by fine without diving in. You'll find even more in the books in the game. Then there's even more from previous games. Then there's other official media from outside the games. Then there's the Kirkbride non-cannon writings.
You can dive as deep as you want, but you don't have to. From any of the games I've played, they provide enough context for someone new to the universe to understand things fine. There might be more you can get out of it with more knowledge, but it isn't required. I've heard good things about Rogue Trader (I'll get to it eventually!), and that seems like a good thing to start with. There's other more action focused or strategy focused games too.
I wouldn't say complicated. Just vast. It's a growing universe that's been around for like 40 years. B there is a lot of there and you don't need to consult all of it. Play someone like Dawn of War series them pick the factions you like and just slowly absorb.
I always felt like 40k was an absorption type thing. You take in a little bit here and there and when you hear someone insane dog into it.