The Problem with Progress: OPR's Sentient Bugs and Fan Backlash

One Page Rules (OPR) started as a quick, simple alternative to Warhammer 40,000, but now it’s charting its own path with unique lore. The results? A minefield of mixed audience reactions.

In this episode, we dive into the difficulties OPR faces transitioning from a '40k knock-off' to an original game system, and how the inherent differences in audience expectations—especially those conditioned by the constant feedback loop of the internet—make that transition so volatile

Transcript

You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play tonight. Your DMs tonight and every

night are Josh and Chris. You can find us on all podcast platforms or check us out at noplotonlore.com.

If you like what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met.

Welcome back to No Plot Only Lore. This week brought to you by being inspired by

better podcasts. Uh we were having a conversation earlier this week that I

wanted to chew on a little bit more. It just kind of came up that uh well well let let me set the stage for you. Um

there's a game system out there called OnePage Rules. Uh, as a miniatures War

Gamer, I, you know, I I like trying out new things. And, uh, for those of you

unfamiliar with Warhammer 40k, which is like the big grandfather of all these, it can be a pretty complex system. I

mean, every army has dozens of units with uh their own special rules and and

modifiers, stat lines, equipment that they can choose, and you can modify, you know, the the the same two generic units

could have completely different weapon sets and etc, etc. Um, and the original

impetus behind one-page rules was what if we can take all of that feeling and

gameplay from a game like Warhammer 40k and condense the rule set down to a

single page. Something that's which like Okay. I have been doing a project for

the last like week or two. Yeah. About writing onepage role playing

games. Yeah. And the amount of information that I am

able to get into a single page. Now granted, I'm doing them all like handdrawn, handwritten. So like my

ability to like scale text and stuff and like proper like margins and lines is a little weird, but

like the amount of information that I can get onto a single page is not significant.

Right. Right. Um, so onepage rules was kind of brilliant in the way that they were able to distill armies down to the

essence of what they were in a single page. Um, they did that by generalizing

some rules across the whole system. Everything moves the same distance. Everything charges the same distance.

Everything uh runs the same distance. Games are a little bit shorter. St. the

setup is a little bit simpler, but you know, overall you still get the the

tactical skirmish feeling, right? Um, the system is

I find it really hard to believe that it like condensed all of that into a single page. Like, is it a really big page?

So, when they say one page, I guess what they mean is one page per army.

Like the base that makes a lot of difference. Yeah. So the the basic game rules for the how

the game works fit on one page. Uh the basic rules for your actual army, the

whole army list will fit on one page and they do that through um keywords across

the whole system that are the same for everybody, stuff like that. Um, so over

time, you know, they've they've it started as a straight up ripoff of

Warhammer 40k, which when I say ripoff, I mean they took space marines and made

them battle brothers. They took tyrannids and made them alien hives, you know, things like that. They just they

just put classic exercise of like shaving off the serial numbers and then selling it as

your own thing. Exactly. They just said, "Look, we know these are the because first of all, the system is completely model agnostic. Use

whatever you want. We know you have these armies that you've already collected. They're cool miniatures. Use

them. This is just a way to get more games in faster. You know, play with our system because you already own all this

stuff and this actually gets you on the table more, right?" Question. Yeah.

Can I play with Hot Wheels? Yeah, you can absolutely play with Hot Wheels if you want. There's there's a

different game I would recommend for Hot Wheels, but you can absolutely play Hot Wheels. I was just thinking it'd be really cool to do like a demolition derpy type

thing. So, the game you want is called Gas Lands. All right.

Gas Lands is straight up just like take here's our quick rule book. Grab some Hot Wheels. There's a sheet in the

back of the book you can photocopy to have some templates for movement. Go. All right.

Um, at any rate, so that was that was how this all initially started. And over

time, we've seen them grow and develop a little bit and and they took what was a

fun idea and sort of crystallized that into the basis of an actual company and

business. The core of which is the same. Here's our rule set for free. Use whatever you want. They even go to the

point of like here's the basic rules for the game and also sheets you can just print out paper dolls to use for some of

these units. go nuts. Um,

on the other hand, you want to get a little bit deeper, we now have STL files

that you can purchase or you can purchase preprinted miniatures from us at a really good price. Um, and that's

that's how they've kept this going, right? You you subscribe to the Patreon, you get new miniature files every week,

print them yourself or buy them from us ahead of time, whatever you want. Um, but as part of that, when they started

making models and putting art to the things that they were creating, there

was a I don't know if it was a push or a desire, but they started

fleshing out what their world meant as opposed to just 40k,

you know? I mean, 40k itself has inspired and been inspired by other

things. You know, it's it's not unfair to say that Rogue Trader was built on the back of Starship Troopers and, you

know, uh uh Starcraft was built from the bones of a game that was supposed to be

a 40k license. You know, these things take inspiration and then they run in

their own direction with them. The difference that happened this time and the thing that I wanted to talk about

that was really strange is that the OPR community when they started and

specifically with the alien hives when they started fleshing out that the alien

hives were not just mindless beasts who reacted instinctually and had a a a

Borgl like hive mind. The community was upset. They wanted

their stuff to be closer to what GW's tyrannids were.

And I can't really figure out why. Um,

and I don't think this is the first instance of something being inspired by something else

starting to build its own thing and the community behaving negatively towards it. This is just the most recent example

I've seen. The one that immediately jumps to my mind is Vampire the Reququum.

Okay. Cuz like Vampire the Recquum was an attempt to make a more like serious dark

version of Vampire the Masquerade. And it wasn't inspired by a different company. It was like all within the same

company that was doing this. But when they put it together, they made a bunch of decisions about

like which clans were going to be involved, which like character types were going to be uh happening, what what

was a bloodline, what was a clan, all of the like fiddly bits that you do when you're designing a game.

Sure. And people who like a new game and are interested in

exploring new experiences like myself really liked Vampire the Reququum,

right? And fans of Vampire the Masquerade [ __ ] hated it,

right? So, because they changed the thing like, and this wasn't like Edition Wars,

right? Like, this was meant to be, right? Uh, a sister sequel kind of thing.

Yeah. Like it it was it was after the end of the world, right? So, like the the world of Vampire the Masquerade had

a huge event that had like multiple things published across all of their

various lines, right? That ended that version and that history

of the Vampire franchise and also Werewolf and Mage and like all of the other franchises that they were doing.

And Vampire the Reququum was meant to be kind of like a a grownup sequel to

Vampire the Masquerade and it flopped real hard. H

cuz like so these there's like three things at play here that I think are all sort of

kissing cousins in the same arena here. Like there's the thing inspired decides to start

fleshing itself out and people get mad. There's the thing that exists has a new addition come out and people magnets

different because we've seen that through DN's entire history. And then there's this where it's like we want to

change our game to a different game in the same setting and people get mad at

that because it's like it's not like creating Vampire the Recreum

made the masquerade not exist. You can still just play the masquerade if you want. And like Well, I think Yeah. I I think part of it

is that like it was it was contradictory to expectation. And

I think that's probably where a lot of this comes from. Okay. Right. Like

going back to the the onepage rules thing, I think that because it couched

itself so heavily in ideas that were adjacent to

the the 40k universe. Yeah. When they begin to branch off from that, it subverts an expectation that

people who picked it up with the expectation that it was going to be like Warhammer 40k but simpler.

Right now, those people aren't getting Warhammer 40k but simpler. They're

getting different thing. And that

is not good to them, I guess. Well, here here's the the thing that's weird about it though is that like mechanically

nothing has changed. Like the game the the the tyrannids in 40k and the alien

hives in uh one page play the same like

for for the most part. I mean, you know, you could do certain things in OPR that like you can't you couldn't really do in

with the the 40k stuff, but like when So, I I collect salamanders for 40k.

When I want to go play as uh Prime Brothers or Dark Prime Brothers,

like literally I just look and there's like one for ones of every unit I own,

right? Like it's not it's not subtle like oh I need I have infernos marines I

oh here's the incinerator guys like it's it's just the same thing. The only place

where it was different was the lore

which is interesting too because you can just pick your lore. Yeah. Right. Like and maybe that is something

that comes with a bit of maturity in the game

sphere is the idea that like nothing that is written is law in your game,

right? Like the medium of your game is yours. You get to choose what is in it

and what isn't. You get to decide which cannon you accept and what you ignore.

And if you choose to ignore more sophisticated tyrannids,

then you're not actually hurting anything for anybody else. Like they still get to

have their smart tyrannids. You get to have your dumb tyrannids. Everybody's happy. All you have to do is ignore anything

that suggests that the tyrannids should be shown any kind of empathy. Right.

Well, and do you think that this is a problem because it's not a role playing game?

Like because the the the

fluff aspect of it is dictated to GW fans through books and through, you

know, inserts in magazines and and updates and rules and stuff like that. Do you think that is what's causing the

rift because they're not used to like diverting from what's considered canon

and so in their minds this was like diet canon but still needs to follow the same

rules. I don't think so. I think that like the role playinging game

community has largely shown the same

urge to keep their canon pure. Right. Right. like the when Wizards of the

Coast changed the story of the Forgotten Realms to fit fourth edition,

right? People were pissed, right? Because you needed to change the way that magic worked in order to be able to

make that Vansian magic system no longer work the same way fictionally.

Right. Right. And so people were mad about that and then they reverted it for the fifth

edition stuff because they brought back a magic system that was a lot closer to the Vansion, right?

Um and then people were mad about that too, right? Like every time you

make a change to canon, you are going to be pissing somebody off. I don't

entirely understand that from like a personal perspective because I don't

give a [ __ ] about the canon. Well, but you also like you play a lot more

homebrew stuff and I do other people like like I know people who

never deviate from like pre-made content because they just want to like inhabit

the world that exists in Feyun or in the Forgotten Realms or in Ebron, whatever

it is that someone else has created. So then that world means something to them in that state. I mean, you're doing

whatever the heck you want and just picking your favorite parts out of those and stealing those ideas

all the time forever. Yes. Yeah. So, um, no, and like I get it. I I kind of

understand that like if you if you are very invested

in a fiction and that fiction

does something or changes something that you feel is fundamental to the identity

of that fiction, then that can seem like a betrayal,

right? Like the Yeah. Again, I think it comes back to like the the expectation of the audience, right? Audiences. And I think

this is unique to our like current modern to like post-postmodern metaodern

like world, zeitgeist, whatever, is that audiences have a sense of agency over

the media that they consume, right? as opposed to any other time in history

where if you were to try and tell Sir Arthur Corman Doyle how to write a

Sherlock's Holmes book, he would have told you to go to hell and he would have been thoroughly within his rights to do

so. Right. Well, and he often did. So like I you know I too have lived

through the midclloran saga and um there there's there's two I think

conflating things are a little bit wonky about this whole thing. One we're talking about two completely separate

properties like these are not this is not a canon change. This is a different story. like

it looks the same but it's not, you know. Um I don't know if that matters though,

right? Because I I think like when we're looking at expectation,

it isn't something that's dictated by the media itself, right? like

the the to to bring it back to the Midloran saga, the expectations of the

audience had nothing to do with what the prequel movies actually were prior to them being released.

Mhm. Right. All of those were expectations that were set by the audience from

previous media and from media that had come out since then discussing that media and like influenced by it. And if

it didn't match those expectations, then that was a thing. But like again, that was a the same product or the same

franchise that was being treated weirdly. I think in this case, because it was so heavily influenced by

Warhammer and the 40k universe, they the audience, not the the company,

but the audience set an expectation that it would continue to be that. Well, the

other part of the problem though, and that and this is what sort of compounds it is, is that the the 40k universe

has been a playground for various writers ideas

of how that world works for decades. um whether you have Dan Abnet or Graham

McNeel or whoever writing these different books, especially through the the Horus Heresy series, but they were

writing all sorts of things. And so the explanation that came from the Black Library was everything is canon, but not

everything is true. They right really embrace the idea of that unreliable narrator. So,

excuse me. So for them to pardon me, for them to

have this sudden aversion to

there being a variance in canon that was down to like one writer's particular

feelings about a subject is really like it's just really odd for them to behave

that way when like you know what a space marine can do with their extra glands

varies from books to book, you know, right? So,

is that the case for the onepage stuff, though? Right. No, that's just it.

Was there an establishment that there was an unreliable narrator? Well, the problem was there was no

narrator like Right. any any of this lore was sort of And I I

think Okay, I I have an idea forming in my head about what happened. Um, so this was them trying to like put out

books and establish their own war. And uh I think up until that point what had

sort of happened in the minds of the OPR fans and guaranted it's not the whole community but there significant number

of people is that they view what they viewed themselves as still playing 40k

just with a streamlined rule set in the way that you would play like if you

could you're still playing Age of Sigmar if you play a spearhead game. it's just smaller scale. Um, right. So, I think

what happened was because it was like a onetoone copy and they didn't have their

own armies yet, like I told like the these uh they now have like space

lizards that are their own. They're they're Okay, listen.

Warhammer is so silly. They're okay. So, so to to make it even more

complicated, uh the the the Warhammer Fantasy had this faction called lizard

men, which uh was like Aztec inspired lizard people. Uh some were like, you

know, bipeedal crocodiles and things like this. Uh and then they were ruled

by a class of magical frogs. Um and then a

You're not beating the silly. No, no magical frog. No, they were they're the most powerful

wizards in the universe and they're just giant fat toads. Um, so the the whole Age of Sigmar storyline

event happened and within the fantasy setting of Age of Sigmar, they are still like there

they're a starfaring race that has spaceships that float among the cosmos and then they like teleport down onto

planets because they are like the ultimate embodiment of like order and justice and good and they're like trying

to stamp out chaos. So then and still Aztec inspired. So then one

page rules took that and has them in the fantasy setting but also said okay but what if also those space lizards like

kept going 40,000 years in the future. So now you have a space dinosaur with a gun. Um

sure which is I I kind of assumed that the space dinosaurs already had gun. Well, yeah.

Now they now there's space dinosaurs with guns, but then big space dinosaurs would have like rockets on them.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's deeply silly, but that was their that was one of their first

like this only exists here kind of things, right?

And it's got to be interesting like as a company when you're piggybacking off of

another property like that. Yeah. when you make choices

that are going to diverge from that cannon,

like you have to you have to know that there's going to be blowback because there's always blowback because people are weird about their like media.

But like h how do you how do you approach that? Right? Like I I would

assume for myself if I was in that situation, I've got a popular product, people are buying it, people are

invested in it, we have a big community, and I'm like, "Hey, you know what would be [ __ ] cool? If we took the space

dinosaurs and we put a rocket pack on a T-Rex." Yeah.

And then I release it and I have a bunch of people being very mad that I changed a thing.

But they that's it's what that's what's so stupid about it and baffling to me is that they didn't change the thing. They

just no kept it going like through its natural cycles of evolution, you know, like okay

well and they added context to a thing, right? And

I think, yeah, ultimately I think it really all comes down to expectation and

the fact that like we can't police or even necessarily know

what an audience's expectation is of the things that we release.

Like I don't think that anybody who is working with the one-page rule guys

would have been able to guess that adding things to the game that they think are fun and cool and interesting

would result in blowback. Right. Right. And well, and and it's just

they didn't the the thing that ke that kicked off the most controversy wasn't even like adding space lizards. It was

just like, hey, these bugs, they don't just instinctively attack the closest

thing. Like they can actually think for themselves and move around a corner and hide. Like that's it. I mean, yeah. And

if if your expectation is that I never have to feel bad for the bugs

and then your perspective shifts just a little bit to I should sometimes maybe feel bad for

the bugs. Right. Right. Like for you and me that's just

additional context to the lore. Right. Like that's just new information that we have. That's Neil Patrick Harris

at the end of the movie holding his hand on a big bug screaming it's afraid to a bunch of Marines.

Right. Right. Right. [ __ ] dope. Yeah. Great movie.

Nothing has changed about my understanding of the [ __ ] bugs. Right. Right. Like did I know whether or not

they were capable of thought before? No. If I was under the impression that they were incapable of thought before and now

I know that they are capable of thought. Cool. Added context, right? But

if we were the types of people who had these like very strict ideas about what

the media we're consuming should be, then I I feel like maybe even a change

like that where like you go from zero empathy to one empathy

could come across as a betrayal of expectation. Well, and what's funny is

that like looking at the lore of of the 40k versus OPR versions, you go from

null empathy to negative empathy because in both versions, they are an

all-consuming, you know, force of nature. It's just in the 40k version, it's all instinctive. There's no malice

behind it. They just need to eat. And in the OPR version, they're semi-scentient.

Well, they're fully sentient and have chosen to eat everything. So now they're just [ __ ]

which I think is also okay. Sure, you need villains.

Yeah. I mean, even if they weren't villains, like even if you just went with the fact that like they're they're

a hive mind that wants to eat everything. Okay. [ __ ] cool, I guess. Right. Like, but I again like I I think

expectation and I don't know what the answer to that is, I guess, is the other thing, right?

There is no way for us to try and police the expectations of an audience,

right? Like there's no mechanism by which we can ensure that making a change

is going to be taken with any amount of like maturity and nuance.

Okay. And I go ahead go ahead. What is your thought?

And I don't necessarily know that it's even like something that we should do.

Like may maybe this type of blowback one I think is almost always overblown

because the internet like you you have a very loud

angry swarming teenage minority of people who are very upset and don't know

why they feel so betrayed that the bugs can think. I I will say I think Discord servers are

one of the worst things to happen to art in the last 20 years. Um, not not Reddit.

No, no, Reddit Reddit's Reddit's a thing. Discord is like weirdly direct

where it's like I can just get like into a call with you like [ __ ] you. Um, yeah, Twitter, too. I think like just

being able to DM your artist. So, with like no regard for who they are as

people. I was going to say I I slightly disagree with you. I think I think we

can police audienc's expectations through the mechanism of this podcast.

So listen up audience, you dicks. Let something establish its own rules that

that you can then complain about and hold it to. And don't bring outside influences into the piece. Like let them

make their own lore and you complain when they change that. Don't complain when they change their lore to be not other things lore.

See, I I think and I I don't have any like metrics or like evidence to back this up, but if I were to like think

about our audience, I don't think a lot of them are the types of people who would be complaining about this sort of

thing in the first place. like the the people who are going to be very upset

about this don't necessarily have a mature outlook on games or media, right?

Like they're they're the types of people who are mad that the Logan movie changed the

ending of Days of Future Past, but are perfectly happy with the fact that Deadpool changed the ending of Logan

because it's funny. Right. Right. Well, you know, maybe I'll

I'll catch some stray listeners who just happen to happen to be googling my name for some

reason and stumble across this podcast that Yeah. I don't know who it is who

was googling Josh's full adult legal name and came across our podcast, but uh

[ __ ] stop it. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, thanks for making it all the

way through this episode of Noplotonly Lore. If you're looking for more, you can always find us at noplotonlore.com

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