I want to lead this post by apologizing somewhat for the previous one. I was rather annoyed at something totally unrelated, and allowed that to come through into this discussion. I really should know better.
primarch wrote:
No apologies necessary Magnus, we're both striving for the same thing, just different ways of looking at things. You'd be surprised how much "friction" the original revisions caused. It's passionate stuff!
Problem with fluff is that everyone likes different things. What is "cool" for one is not so "cool" for another. I'm not sure the effort is worthwhile if in the end most players just gloss over them.
However I can see where continuing a little more in hopes of a consensus. If you are willing to tackle this, you have my support. Post a complete list of what the titles should look like per race and we'll use that as a template to hammer something out.
Very good points here, especially about fluff. I'm glad you have a cooler head than I do.
Most of the races are fine. We figured out Chaos and Tyranid with minimal fuss. Ork could possibly use a bit of tweaking, but I have no significant problems with your list for them. It's really just Imperial and Eldar where our visions differ greatly. I have an idea for Imperial that is along the lines of what you have proposed at different times, but I want to research it a bit more before proposing it.
primarch wrote:
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If the right words are not used, the whole meaning can be lost.
Ah! Now I understand. Well, I kept using them interchangeably because who exactly receives the honors? You say the titan, but can a titan acquire them with out a crew? Can a crew acquire them without a titan? One needs the other, thus the interchangeable use. Saying that the titan is the "correct" form is a design choice, its not really supported by the fluff where crews gain as much renown as the titan. Given that in Net Epic the titan is much more likely of being destroyed than the crew it would seem that the crew is who gains honor, not the titan.
I see that again I wasn't as specific as I should have been. I didn't use the right words. The way I see it, the way I've interpreted the fluff that I've encountered, the Titan and it's crew are inseparable. Neither can function (in battle) without the other. Thus, when I say that the Titan receives the Honors I am including the crew as a vital part of the Titan. When plugged into the MIU the crew become more than just a group of individuals, they partly merge with the Titan's own remedial mind. I am not saying that the Titan gains Honors independently from the crew. To me that would be akin to saying that a Titan could function in battle without a Plasma Reactor. Also, to me, saying that the crew gains Honors independently from the Titan (which is what it sounded like you were saying) is like saying that a Plasma Reactor can function in a battle without a Titan.
When I am using the term 'Honors' above, and in previous posts, I am using it as a specific game term referring to the benefit gained from gaining levels. I am not meaning any renown or reputation. Please refrain from including references to such things that are not part of the topic. Any level 1 Titan could have more renown than a level 6 if it had the right press agent, or under the right circumstances. For example a level 1 that earned all of it's XP from destroying a Mega-Gargant would probably have more renown than a level 6 that got all of it's XP from breaking various Infantry Companies. It probably wouldn't happen often, but it could happen. However, this is not relevant to the discussion.
Similarly to my above examples, taking a crew that survives the destruction of their Titan and trying to integrate them into a new Titan seems to me like it would be akin to taking the brain of a ninety-year old man who is an expert at throwing javelins and playing the violin out of his head and transplanting it into the body of a fifteen year old who had never touched either a javelin or a violin and expecting perfect ability thereafter. Frankly, it should be more like removing the gene-seed from a fallen Space Marine, as they would be used to help create more Titan crews.
From my perspective, using the terms 'interchangeably' is irrelevant and confusing. Irrelevant because the crew could not use their skills apart from the Titan they learned them in, and confusing because you seem to be saying that they can use their skills outside of and apart from the Titan.
primarch wrote:
I don't have much of a stake on what way to say it using crew/titan is easy enough, but if just saying "titan" is what people would prefer I have no issue with it. But I can tell you from experience people find that use Net Epic have found it less confusing to use interchangeable terms (like "crew/titans accrue honors"), I can tell you right now I will get questions on it if I just word it "titan accrues honors".
Unless the description specifically notes that the crew is a vital part of the Titan.
primarch wrote:
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Another point. The entire section where you say that a Grandmaster can requisition a Titan with two Upgrades is impossible IF the old Titan had any Upgrades, as the instant that the Titan was destroyed (and loses said Upgrades), it is no longer a Grandmaster as it loses levels equivalent to the number of Upgrades lost. Thus the only way to ever be able to get that is to have had six Crew Skill Honors and sacrifice one or two of them. Thus it's not so much a reward as being able to change one Honor for another.
True enough. What's the solution? eliminate altogether the distinction or something else?
The solution is that instead of using a lot of space talking about what happens when the crew survives, etc it just states that a Titan (of level 1 or higher) that is destroyed in-game cannot be used for the next game while it is being repaired, replaced, etc. Perhaps say that it cannot be used for two games if the reactor exploded. Rather like how in Blood Bowl injuries can keep a figure out of the game for a game or two depending on severity, but are not necessarily actually fatal. Since the Titan is, in a sense, surviving anyway, we would not need special rules for what happens when crew survive beyond their Titan. It's also somewhat like the rule for Infantry getting a check to see if they survive the Transport they are in being destroyed, in that the rationale for that check is that while the transport is being removed from the game, it could just be being rendered non-functional (say, a tread was blown apart) or anything up to and including being vaporized. Since the game doesn't specify, the troops get a check. Admittedly the damage system for Titans is a bit more specific than for other units, but it shouldn't be unrealistic that the (off-table, between battles) support systems for any such army would include spare parts, replacement weaponry, and other sundries that would allow a damaged Titan to continue fighting with a minimum of fuss.
primarch wrote:
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No, please let's keep fantasy references out of this. I like Tolkien in it's own world, but not here.
However the names of Eldar from any GW source ARE a direct port of Tolkien elvish names. It's inescapable. GW Eldar names be they individuals or titans are no more than "camouflaged" elvish names from Tolkien fiction. If you read the short stories in the first edition codex titanicus they even tell you the proper names of several Eldar units we take for granted, [clipped to save space]
The codex is laced with unique Eldar names for titans and what they mean:
...
As you can see you could not go through that book without tripping over a dozen Tolkien names for the Eldar. In fact the actual unit name was the Eldar name when you read the individual description entries with the "English" translation right after.
All these things were lost when second edition came out. But I confess I have always kept that view of them regardless of edition. It's how the game started.
Now we may not want to use them, and that's fine, but you can't get "flavorful" Eldar names the way GW has traditionally using without Tolkien name conventions, that's what GW Eldar fluff is based on.
Again, you are quoting 1st edition, not second. While I don't know what it may be, I have to presume that GW had good reason to stop using such names for 2nd edition. It could be that the Tolkien people contacted GW saying something like "either start paying royalties, or stop printing our stuff", to which GW decided to make a new edition rather than pay royalties. It could also be that they decided to further distance the Eldar from their fantasy counterparts partly by dropping the lingual and pantheon references. I don't know any of that for sure. What I do know for sure is that these things are not a part of second edition and thus are not a part of NetEpic. Thus, in my view, they should not be a part of this. However, that is just my view.
As to your thought that early 40K and/or Warhammer Fantasy were based on Tolkien, you are partly correct. (It's hard to find any fictional work produced in the last 50 years or so that cannot trace some influence from there.) However, it was more directly influenced by D&D as before GW made the Warhammer universe, White Dwarf used to run articles on all sorts of games, including many made for D&D or AD&D. Yes, I know that D&D was influenced heavily by Tolkien as well as dozens of other works.
Just because the early form of Epic was seemingly influenced by a certain source for a certain thing does not necessarily mean that it must or should continue to be. I would say from seeing 2nd edition that even GW thought that there was too many references to it and decided to reduce / eliminate them. Fluff changes. Heck, compare Rogue Trader 'space elves' to modern 40K Eldar. Barely recognizable as the same race.
As I said earlier, I did play 1st edition Epic, but really wasn't much into Eldar at that time, so I wasn't paying that much attention to their fluff. When second edition came out, I transitioned over to that, and have been playing that ever since. So it's obvious that you want such references in the system, and I rather don't. How do other people feel?
