For those who stumble into this and DON'T already know me, I thought it
might be helpful to know what a freak with a two decade old hobby defending and
assaulting Humans who worship a guy who sits on a golden toilet.
I'm a fortysomething GIS Rulebase Analyst who bought into the game thinking
the old Hard Cover Rogue trader book was a roleplaying game. I found the game
difficult to comprehend, being almost completely oblivious to standard wargame
concepts (If I can glue a clip onto a marine's leg, how come that doesn't let
me fire more.... what do you mean we don't even KEEP TRACK of AMMO!?). I
probably never would have pushed further into the game were it not for a bold
stupid kid named Todd Hallchurch who fell in love with the Rogue trader
Miniatures....something I had ZERO tallent building painting or even
understanding. He made some AMAZING figs with guns stolen from Transformers and
GI Joe figures. He actually had a standing space marine who was armed with a
reasonable size DEFENSE LASER.(okay it was small, but it was significantly
larger than most vehicle weapons of the day.). I
I went through 2nd edition in my college years and played the Uber power gamer
with my college crowd. I had friends in ROTC and studied Platoon and squad SOP
manuals (FM 7-8 is a personal favoriteof mine) and was somewhat irked that what
produced game victories seldomly resembled modern infantry tactics and
manuvering. I'm not fond of those years and were it not for Jervis Johnson
producing a small article series called the "J files" in WD and
Citidel journals, the gamer in me would have died for sure.
I had the amazing fortune post college to have a lengthy chat with a good
bloke who used to work in the GW design studio and not before long I joined
"
THE ANCIENT AND HONORABLE ORDER OF THE TECHPRIESTS."
This was GW's early attempt at external playtesting and I had the luck to be
able to work directly with the game designers over the course of 7 years. I've
been directly or indirectly (under the blanket of the
Honorable Order)
credited in 7 40k publications and worked on 2 White dwarf tidbits and some
other items.
This was a dream of mine second ONLY to working as Games Developer myself
and one I came pretty close to achieving despite the fact of being a "Colonial".
The Honorable Order was disbanded around 5th edition playtesting, though
through what I believe is the fault of the Order(external playtesters)
themselves, the group lost reputation in the Design studio as being too hard to
work with (and finally prone to a major PT leak the only I know of in the
history of the Order). They were a good group of well meaning playtesters and a
smart bunch too, but bias and passion often overshadowed solid analysis. When a
Leak finally occured that was indeed the fault of the Order all were let go
besides me and my tiny band of amazying servitors.
I was Tim Sawyer, Leader of the bold and stupid
Sawyer's First
Chancers, the Last of the TechPriests...The last of a proud order, the
last slice of grimy pizza. We had secret handshakes and code words (none of
which were required or sanctioned by GW....we were just that dorky) My playtest
cell rode into the mouths of Game Studios Guns...Cannons to the left of us,
Cannons to the right of us.....Into the Valley of death rode we 7 dorky Rule
laywering nerds....
Me clentching the Pencil, and several of my
Playtesting and D-Company gaming Buddies
What can be said of my time in Nirvana is that I feel most people in the
gaming verse think they understand how the process works without having ANY
CLUE of how such a process works. it's easy to blame a single Name in the
studio, when really they are extremely limited by how much influence they
have(or don't have) on specific details of the book that they will be
applauded/chastised for. and I can honestly say that while I shared many harsh
criticisms of unit design/costs, or rules, The GW design studio was a great
bunch to work with and I miss my interaction with all of them. They TRY hard
and WORK harder than any disccussion forum dares give them credit.
In my time since, I focus much more putting the recreation back into the game
and cutting back on the 'tourney style' competitive play which I strongly feel
is antithetical to what the game is best at providing. 40k is a game to me
which is meant to be played with a pint in hand, hollering a hearty Waaagh! or
"The Emperor shields us!" as we foolishly rush our Marine captain out
to prick his little power sword into the giant Chaos deamon standing in front
of his Brother marines....It is a game where an individual grot can take down a
mightly Hive Tyrant if his luck is Juuuuuuuust right. and the stories that stem
from those games are those to which songs will be sung in the great halls of
Valhalla.
While I don’t see them as often as I’d like any more, I have the best group
of gaming dorks to pal around with, and in the coming millennia, I hope to tell
you a bout them, my crazy gaming stories, and the work I’ve been up to.
