Am I the only one that doesn't like NCE?

[cardyfreak]

What I love reading is how almost every anti-NCE will trash the community rules, but then talk at length about how their house rules are much better.
The NCE is basically a set of someone else's house rules that have been made available for everyone!
You don't have to play them to the exact line- you can bring in some ORB, a bit if LRB and some NCE all into one ruleset if you like, with a healthy dose of house rules on top. It's your game so you use your rules. People crying about the changes NCE makes are completely missing the point.
The point is since necro stopped being supported its up to the people who play it to keep the game going. In my opinion NCE is the single most important necromunda related development since the Cawdor gang were cast. It reenergised the community and brought a lot of disenfranchised and disperate players together under the banner of a better rulebook that you don't have to pay £50 to get a hold of. And best of all, if you spot an error or have a suggestion you can state your case and it might actually make a difference to hundreds, if not thousands of people's games!
I in no way shape or form wish to offend those who play the two official versions of the rules, and I know that by putting these rules out there Mr Case leaves them open to criticism, but I find some of the prissy little princesses forming schiltrom around their rules and slating NCE a little rich.
If your precious rules are so great why do you need house rules at all?

 

[Santos]

What I love reading is how almost every anti-NCE will trash the community rules, but then talk at length about how their house rules are much better.
The NCE is basically a set of someone else's house rules that have been made available for everyone!
You don't have to play them to the exact line- you can bring in some ORB, a bit if LRB and some NCE all into one ruleset if you like, with a healthy dose of house rules on top. It's your game so you use your rules. People crying about the changes NCE makes are completely missing the point.
The point is since necro stopped being supported its up to the people who play it to keep the game going. In my opinion NCE is the single most important necromunda related development since the Cawdor gang were cast. It reenergised the community and brought a lot of disenfranchised and disperate players together under the banner of a better rulebook that you don't have to pay £50 to get a hold of. And best of all, if you spot an error or have a suggestion you can state your case and it might actually make a difference to hundreds, if not thousands of people's games!
I in no way shape or form wish to offend those who play the two official versions of the rules, and I know that by putting these rules out there Mr Case leaves them open to criticism, but I find some of the prissy little princesses forming schiltrom around their rules and slating NCE a little rich.
If your precious rules are so great why do you need house rules at all?

Actually i agree with this Cardy. NCE efforts to support the OPP game has its heart in a good place. Re-introducing things like catching on fire etc or adding bionic chest /hunting rifle work to the living rulebook within the core system. My critisms of the NCe is the reworked content that are just generally just house rules rather than clarifications/fixes to bugs in game structure. If you going to radically change House Weapons rule for example so cawdor have access to hand-to-hand weapons but still retain the House Weapon rule in the core content than its more a case of adding House rules over attempts at improving the game.

The thing is house rules are what we all add to our on games and campaigns. We all tweak the game to make it more fun for what we want from it. House rules are what individual groups do to the core game in-house.

The core game doesn't have much call for an arbitrator, rolling income, trade, injuries and advances happens in the presence of the other player. In fact the instances where it does need some arbitration GW officially resolves the problem with D6 dice. The core rules are like the games open source content which individual groups add their own content.

What i am for and is partially done in Mr Cases NCe is the idea of a community edition that can improve problems associated with LRB/ORB systems. Things like ambigous wordings and conflicting rules which everyone in the forum can help clarify by general consensus.

We should be keeping a forums community edition to skeletal improvements so that it is clearly distinguished as an evolution of ORB/LRB rather than lots of random rule alteration added by input at various stages in forums of the existance. It would greatly benefit everyone in the forum running their private campaigns, who don't need to sift through the edition trying to decide if the change was not just a past 'flavour of the month' or how the buffs create or disguise future problems.

Then add common advanced and/or heavily altered rules attached as optional supplement material being an excellent go to resouce/reference for house rules to the core system. .

I have been sharing my old groups house rules in other threads not cause the LRB/ORB is superior. The house rules are just sharing additional content that other may like to use or modify for their own groups. Any proposed changes i suggested in this trhread are not aimed at specivically going in a community edition but rather to show contrast of peoples ideas.

No one has paid 50 pounds for a rulebook in a long time, in fact i bet most of the people who have been in the game for 10+years started out by photocopying the summary sheets from a friends copy. So what is the purpose of the anthony cases community edition over ORB/LRB ? To just supply a lot of house rules that people may or may not like so long as the current poll favours it , or as a open source core game resource that the entire community/forum can acess?

 

[Anthony]

Just to be clear, the NCE always was and will be my own group's take on the rules that we use in our campaigns. I never wanted to make just an FAQed rulebook since it was a personal project and never expected outside players to actually use it, but as it happens other players use it far more than we ever did so nowadays I try and keep 'personal preference' house rules to a minimum if I can.

I've said many times the NCE .pdf is unprotected so anybody is free to edit and use the document and its rules as a base. If you want to make just an FAQed version then feel free to use the NCE document for the layout if it saves you time, though unfortunately I don't keep early drafts so you'd have to go through reverting the house rules yourself. I imagine a lot of players would find something like that very useful (including myself).

 

[LordHelmawr]

I'm liking the CE less and less each time I play nowadays. I'm liking a lot of the "updated" gangs a lot less as well.

I've been an underhiver since 96' and I will be the first to admit that the original rules and Underhive were both in need of some serious tweaking, FAQs, balance testing, and updating.

I remember going to Chicago Games Day in 04' and showing the Underhive rulebook to Jervis himself and asking him why it such a piss poor job that the "catching fire" rules were still mentioned in the weapon descriptions when the rules themselves had been nixxed. It was like it was the first time he had actually looked inside the book. I was disappointed to say the least.

Yet for all it's faults and flaws, I am liking the house rules and adaptations in the CE less and less every time I read it. It's been said before and by it's own author just now, that these are his house rules, and we're under no obligation to use them.

Like gas grenades effecting you only if you roll over your toughness on a d6, rather than the old rules of "equal to or over", or a pinned fighter crawling 2". I do like that catching fire was put back in though. A hundred other examples could follow.

But labeling it the Community Edition, heck making it available outside his home group at all, makes the majority of gamers assume that it is the new standard since he's on the rules committee. Necromunda gamers, and gamers of dead systems everywhere, are always looking for that standard. They need the newest, most updated version of the rules. The Necromunda Rules Committee is an entity that we all look to for the rules, just like the Blood Bowl community has their rules committee, and they have their own Living Rulebook.

One living rule book, uno.

If you want to call the Community Edition house rules, then that should be it's title, the "house rules" edition. Not to confuse it with the "official" rulebook. That's all I really want, an official rulebook. One that has been errated, balanced, playtested, and made to be fun and fair no matter which gang you play. That way I can sit down across the table from a stranger and expect we both have the same rules set, like Chess.

I appreciate the work that went into the CE, but the rules just don't work for me. Sadly enough, the local group here (yes an actual group of guys playing Necromunda) has decided that the CE is the rulebook, and trying to pry it away from them and get them to use the living rulebook would be more effort that it is worth. And who's to say I should even try? They seem to be enjoying themselves with it, but then again, they're all brand new to the game, have no history with it, and don't know any better. So I guess I'll just let them have their fun and put my models back on the shelf for now.

My plea would be to re-mesh the community edition back into the LRB. Take out the house rules, fix what was broken, and give us underhivers one unified book that we can all agree on.

 

[Blood Donor]

(Suggested Fixes)...Like gas grenades effecting you only if you roll over your toughness on a d6, rather than the old rules of "equal to or over", or a pinned fighter crawling 2". I do like that catching fire was put back in though. A hundred other examples could follow... My plea would be to re-mesh the community edition back into the LRB. Take out the house rules, fix what was broken, and give us underhivers one unified book that we can all agree on.

I think that this website unmistakably represents the current face of the Necromunda community, and the NCE requests/ updates thread should incorporate this. I think the thread should be edited and refreshed on a continual basis because as it stands it is like 14 pages long. It should be 3 pages max IMO. There should be a list of the current proposed changes and those that have recently been incorporated. This way there isn't a reoccurring pleas for additions of things such as ziplines or trampolines every 20 posts or what not. Seems like if that thread was cleaned up the floor would become more open to good meaningful changes. Things such as "roll over your toughness on a d6, rather than equal to or over" are alot of the time the things that change gameplay the most but are often swept aside as being a mere difference of one number in lieu of fancy shiny things that seem to be catching more attention.

The Eastern Fringe had a guide in the developmental stages for how to make custom weapons. This could replace any additions of further weapons such as the Autoslugger, and could be a separate entity of its own.

When I first became a Yakker massive weapons was in debate because they legitimately needed fixing to make them viable options in the game. This reflects the fix to the autogun/ lasgun issue which reduced lasgun spamming. I don't feel the massive weapons issue was ever resolved, but it disappeared. Skills tables are important. The Muscle table revamp and cleaning of the overpowered skills such as Techno lend directly to the desired chess match gameplay. Certain things should be kept in the discussion circle that is the Updates and Fixes thread until they are widely voted on being complete (putting the voting function to good use) while others need not be in the thread to muddle up the read.

I think that is the best way to improve the NCE. Enough people have agreed it needs some reworking, but that doesn't meen we should devolve the game.

 

[Sharkforce]

if the NRC is around at all any more, i don't think they've met or discussed anything in quite some time... latest FAQ i could find in a quick search was from 2008. edit: and actually, the much more complete one on this site suggests last time they made any decisions was in 2005...

the yakromunda forums are by far the largest necromunda community of which i am aware, and it seems to be continuously growing. the community edition is simply the version that is the work of the community. i don't see that as being unclear at all. it started with a base of Anthony's house rules, got scaled back to avoid excessive changes, and has since seen a number of changes based on what the community has discussed and proposed.

but really, the fact that it's a "community edition" should make it clear that it isn't the official one. it's simply the one most favoured by the necromunda community over all, to the best of our knowledge.

 

[jimjimjimmyjim]

It's worth mentioning that in many places the past FAQ by the NRC for the LRB contradicted itself, it's like they had 2 or more groups reading everything and answering questions but not talking to each other about any of their decisions and then none of them attempted to proof read it!

 

[Gorkamunda]

Sorry Helmawr, but this is your comment in essence:

* I don't like NCE because it isn't what I played in '96.
* The dice roll for gas grenades is one too low
* I didn't have a say in it, therefor it sucks
* it shouldn't be called "Community Edition" because not EVERY SINGLE NECROMUNDA PLAYER ON THIS EARTH have influenced its creation.
* NCE killed my gaming group. (Boohoo)

Haters be hating.

 

[obar]

You could allways change the things you don't agree with. House ruling the gas roll wont be hard
The final judgement is allways done by the players, so if you don't like it, convince your group to make it more in line with what you feel it should be like. You don't (and shouldn't IMO, it's such a great game) have to put away your miniatures just because of the NCE. Still want the old Scavvies or ratskins? Change the old rules so they are compatible with the new.

I think changing your own copy of the rules would be doable if you want to.

My plea would be to re-mesh the community edition back into the LRB. Take out the house rules, fix what was broken, and give us underhivers one unified book that we can all agree on.

Well, the problem would be how to decide what was broken or not. Are you judging with the ORB as a standard? Then it would be fairly simple I guess, but alot of people on here don't, so finding a consensus would be rather hard. There are ALOT of tiny changes and nudging of the core rules as well as new additions. What to take out do you think?

 

[Santos]

Sorry Helmawr, but this is your comment in essence:

* I don't like NCE because it isn't what I played in '96.
* The dice roll for gas grenades is one too low
* I didn't have a say in it, therefor it sucks
* it shouldn't be called "Community Edition" because not EVERY SINGLE NECROMUNDA PLAYER ON THIS EARTH have influenced its creation.* NCE killed my gaming group. (Buhu)

Haters be hating.

A little unfair since some of his points are probably just examples rather than submitting a 32 page thesis covering everything. It ends up being people just go in circles though and the its a case of ' haters be hating' on both sides of the fence.

Still as you see what i have highlighted in red is generaly the root of the problem in that NCE success is probably through obscurity of what it is and how its developed. Anthony has admitted that its just a project for his house rules, which people have contributed to, rather than a specifically a community edition to mend the inconcistencies in Necromunda previous generations. Most people who a new to Necromunda can not appreciate the subtle nuisances.

Another way of looking at is the Nazi's where not really a ' Socialists' or the Democratic Republic of Congo is not really a democracy rather than a politically-disguised monarchy. Words have power to influence.

Yakromunda is great, its membership numbers grow every month, yet it seems less than 20 people are regular contribuiters to various threads, hopefully this changes but if its always a case of ' haters be hating so your point is moot' people just stop contributing.

As i typed this obar has made so good points. I do think OrB/LRb should be the standard myself as its Necromunda roots, then a consensus should be on rectify this CORE souce/rulebook and allowing people to add house rules as they see fit. Going with a populars set of House Rules to improve or rectify a HOUSE RULEBOOK basis seems like the problem is still there.

Like painting a house. If you start with White/cream you can go blue/green/yellow/red etc. If you start with Pale blue as the undercoat and start going with a vibrant yellow the colour will not be the same as whats in the tin.
What if all the LRB/ORB vets here created our own counter-rulebook and labelled it a Community edition also? Would it be perceived as petty? How would it effect people who like anthonys stuff?

 

[Gorkamunda]

I don't think I'm being unfair at all, Santos (well, maybe a bit harsh). If someone says that the NCE is forcing them to stop playing Necromunda, and all they can say is bad about it is that one dice roll is wrong - well then they should hear it. I'm not asking a dissertation here, but he lists more positives than negatives. Too many of the comments here are the same way, they seem to be based on emotion rather than actual rule reflections.

 

[Anthony]

But labeling it the Community Edition, heck making it available outside his home group at all, makes the majority of gamers assume that it is the new standard since he's on the rules committee. Necromunda gamers, and gamers of dead systems everywhere, are always looking for that standard. They need the newest, most updated version of the rules. The Necromunda Rules Committee is an entity that we all look to for the rules, just like the Blood Bowl community has their rules committee, and they have their own Living Rulebook.

Well I've never been on the rules committee. The only reason I called it the Community Edition was because I've been involved in Necro forums for a long time so much of my thinking on various issues have been formative on the various communities, notably on the old official black & red forum, so I didn't want it to sound like I was claiming ownership.

As for the NCE, I do try and stick with the official rules as much as possible but I have no interest in reverting it to just an FAQ. If you guys want to do that then I'd be happy to offer suggestions if needed.

I think the thread should be edited and refreshed on a continual basis because as it stands it is like 14 pages long. It should be 3 pages max IMO.

Yeah I've been thinking this for a while, I'll pop Malo a message about me creating a new topic so I can update the first post with proposed updates and quick FAQ.

 

[LordHelmawr]

Sorry Helmawr, but this is your comment in essence:

* I don't like NCE because it isn't what I played in '96.
* The dice roll for gas grenades is one too low
* I didn't have a say in it, therefor it sucks
* it shouldn't be called "Community Edition" because not EVERY SINGLE NECROMUNDA PLAYER ON THIS EARTH have influenced its creation.
* NCE killed my gaming group. (Boohoo)

Haters be hating.

Thanks for your helpful input, that really helps make this conversation a constructive one.

 

[Gorkamunda]

Hey, sorry for being a bit harsh - but i don't think my comment was any less constructive than yours.

 

[horundwar]

I've been an underhiver since 96'

That's great so have most of the people posting here, big deal.

and we're under no obligation to use them.

No-one has said you were, but we are discussing the pro's and cons of old vs new.

Like gas grenades effecting you only if you roll over your toughness on a d6, rather than the old rules of "equal to or over", or a pinned fighter crawling 2". I do like that catching fire was put back in though. A hundred other examples could follow.

Don't like it, don't use it.

But labeling it the Community Edition, heck making it available outside his home group at all, makes the majority of gamers assume that it is the new standard

The only assumption here is you assuming this is the case. I Read the NCE before I started using it to play Necromunda and found it to be great.

Necromunda gamers, and gamers of dead systems everywhere, are always looking for that standard. They need the newest, most updated version of the rules.

No we don't.

The Necromunda Rules Committee is an entity that we all look to for the rules,

No again, never had anyone discuss with me anything done by this non-existent group. If they did exist it wasn't for long.

just like the Blood Bowl community has their rules committee, and they have their own Living Rulebook.

One living rule book, uno.

As I have always been, am now and always will be a bloodbowler I can tell you there is no comparison to be made in regards to this discussion with bloodbowl, the BBRC or the CRP living rulebook. I don't wish to go through the many reasons for this as it will aggravate me to no end having to write out the many sins of GW and why I hate them so.

If you want to call the Community Edition house rules, then that should be it's title, the "house rules" edition.

As I believe the NCE has changed since being just Anthony's house rules(he can correct me if I'm incorrect) a more accurate title might be the Yakromunda Community Edition(YCE). Being that I have yet to find a stronger or more active Necromunda community I think leaving as the NCE is justified.

Not to confuse it with the "official" rulebook. That's all I really want, an official rulebook. One that has been errated, balanced, playtested, and made to be fun and fair no matter which gang you play. That way I can sit down across the table from a stranger and expect we both have the same rules set, like Chess.

This is never going to happen as GW haven't supported the game on any level in years. You are being completely unrealistic and unreasonable if this is a sticking point for you.

but the rules just don't work for me. Sadly enough, the local group here (yes an actual group of guys playing Necromunda) has decided that the CE is the rulebook, and trying to pry it away from them and get them to use the living rulebook would be more effort that it is worth. And who's to say I should even try? They seem to be enjoying themselves with it, but then again, they're all brand new to the game, have no history with it, and don't know any better. So I guess I'll just let them have their fun and put my models back on the shelf for now.

My plea would be to re-mesh the community edition back into the LRB. Take out the house rules, fix what was broken, and give us underhivers one unified book that we can all agree on.

Aside from some petty inconsequential issues, you haven't cited any real reasons for the unreasoning dislike you have for the NCE. Most of what you have posted is completely irrelevant to say the least and does nothing to explain WHY you feel the need to give us a fruitless diatribe. Please actually explain with relevant facts why the NCE is such a sore point with you, I am genuinely curious.

 

[cardyfreak]

NCE is the new standard as far as I'm concerned. And yakromunda is the home of necromunda on the Internet. It caters for players of any edition of the rules but by far and away the majority of people who post here regularly use NCE, because it can be sculpted via reasonable debate and consensus to a far more lucid and sensible ruleset.
When I started playing again I was using LRB. Then I found this site, read up about NCE, my brother and I tried it out and found it to be far and away a superior set of rules. Far and away. For me, NCE is necromunda. Whenever I get a new member, they will be handed the NCE ruleset. The old rules are outdated and broken. The new ones are better. They make so much more sense in so many small ways that as a whole it makes for a more streamlined, less nose in book game. The changes are intuitive. Not tinkering. And the bits that are discussed here are parts of the rules that were originally written so poorly, they are still in a state of flux trying to balance them. The game system is great, but the original rules left some holes that are far more apparent now to my adult mind than they were to my younger. NCE is addressing them, and I have confidence it will succeed in making a universal standard.

But part of the charm/problem with a game system like necro is that house rules can and should be used. The core rules are merely guidelines, and there is an assumption of a modicum of intelligence on the part of the player that you can figure out the grey areas for yourself, without having to resort to throwing your toys out of the pram and stop playing.
There simply has to be some changes that NCE has made that are agreeable to even the most die-hard ORB fossil, clutching their dog-eared copy and trying to ram it down the throats of newer players who, for one reason or the other, prefer NCE. Be it the services of this forum in its ability to answer any legitimate rules-based queries, or the punk, old school attitude that comes from playing a set of new, unofficial, but wonderfully supported rules for an old game, NCE outperforms other rulesets by a factor of 16. In case you couldn't tell yet, I'm a fan.

This site isn't only for NCE; anyone could start an ORB or LRB thread to thrash out any imperfections they feel are there, whilst still being respectful to whatever spirit they feel inhabits those rules, and has been exercised from NCE. You never know, it might end up being more popular than NCE and become the new go-to standard for this generation of necro players. But I know Case is a man who loves this game as much as I do, and crafted his rules to make this game more fun with that spirit in mind; you can feel it running throughout the rules. To do that he must've been playing a hell of a lot of necromunda, so any alterations or inclusions have been robustly play tested before even NCE 1.0 was released, and done in a manner to compliment the game system, not destroy it. Bitching and moaning about the fact that people prefer to use these rules created by someone (and now, us) who actually gives a shit about the game seems silly to me. Someone earlier in the thread said about showing JJ a copy of Undehive and him looking at it like a dog that's just been shown a card trick. That says to me that he simply does not care about this game system. Like he's washed his hands of it. So if doesn't care about those official rulesets, why should anyone else? I know I don't.

 

[LuckGod]

I'm more worried that GW will knock out a half baked set of new rules and a few models as a "limited edition" that gamers in my area will try to tell my group we should use.
No.
GW would be like a long absent father figure trying to tell me how to live my life!

I think people should be happy with the rules they use and leave it at that.
I have had fun playing ORB back in the day, loads of campaigns with LRB. And now NCE.
I have enjoyed them all but choose NCE.

 

[JBoneDS]

I bought both Necromunda and Outlanders on their respective release dates and played the Hell out of them I'll be honest, I never really noticed any glaring errors in the original rulebooks due either to being young or being completely in love with the game. Upon returning to gaming over a decade later I never thought I'd give up the original rules but, after reading the NCE, I was impressed. There are parts of it that I didn't agree needed to be changed but all I've done is put some little post-its on the pages and if I played a new player, we'd house rule it. I don't see why people get het up over somebody taking the time to create something for everybody to have the option of using. The best mod tool in gaming is a biro. Just change what you don't like... What's the big deal?

 

[cardyfreak]

I agree with your absent father figure analogy. If GW did release a new boxed set and rules, I'd get it for the models and scenery and still use NCE. Too much water has passed under the bridge now for GW to retrieve this game I feel. It's open source now.

 

[Bruticus]

If someone wanted to take up the reigns of the official rules (or at least made a new standard but error corrected edition of the rules) and if that someone put as much effort into fixing errors and testing rules that Anthony has, then I think there would be a valid argument here. But at the moment it just sounds like the argument is 'I don't like some of the things in the Community Edition but I'm not prepared to do anything about it.'

If you want one official rulebook then you have to provide it and then put it up against the NCE. If it is better then the community will adopt it. At the moment the only choice is between the NCE and the old broken rules. Which isn't really a choice at all.