This has the potential to be a moeshit Rogue Trader anime.

MadassAlex

Do you know Rogue Trader? No? Understandable.

Rogue Trader was the original form of Warhammer 40,000, before humourless writers started taking the grimdark seriously. While it included many of the elements that still define the game today, it was smaller-scaled, more light-hearted and much more freeform. In fact, it's unique as a wargame that required a GM. The title of the game referred to space merchants who answered to no central authority -- essentially, space pirates with enough of a mind for business and economics that they didn't descend into actual villainy.

Recently, a new game called Rogue Trader has been released as a TTRPG with a lot more focus on the titular role. The players take control of the crew of a Rogue Trader vessel, searching the galaxy freeform for whatever they can steal, loot and sell. Basically, it's a game about Gothic 16th century space pirates fighting everyone and everything, including expies of Giger's Alien and the Terminator.

Not that this is the first space piracy anime by a longshot, mind, but it's the first moeshit one and that amuses me.

DYRE

I honestly was really excited for this show because I like the premise a lot because freaking space pirates and also moe.  As I said in IJBM updates though, I thought the first episode wasn't terribly impressive.  Though, that has more to do with the fact that they spent the whole episode establishing the setting and the premise so they didn't have much time to get much moeshit or space piracy in.  The OP was cool though.

And I know absolutely nothing about Rogue Trader so I can't really say much about it regarding that.

Crimson

>Rogue Trader.
>Anything to do with moe.

So much heresy. So little time.

Malkavian

I like space pirates.

I like moeshit.

Guess what's on the queue?

But seriously, Alex, every time you insist that Warhammer started out as self-parody it sounds really apologist. Honestly, I think it's your gut reaction as an intelligent individual going 'no one could take this seriously.'

Nyktos

I kinda almost want to watch this now.

DYRE

Oh, also...

Not that this is the first space piracy anime by a longshot, mind, but it's the first moeshit one and that amuses me.

>ignoring Tenchi Muyo

Well, I guess technically only one character was a space pirate, but...

MadassAlex

^^^ There's a load of reasons I know it used to be more self-aware (from pop culture references to nearly meta game mechanics), but since I don't have access to any of the really old rules...

One example from 2nd. Edition, though, was a rule called something along the lines of "John's Looking Kind Of Strange". If you played Tyranids (Giger's Alien taken the nth degree), you could spend some points to seed chestbursters in an enemy unit. Every turn, a roll was made until the desired result was attained, at which point the seeded unit would have a bajillion chestbursters pop out of it.

Older editions of the game were filled with referential, whimsical and nonsencial stuff to the brim.

It was 3rd Edition that brought about all the worst changes (rules and fluff alike). Also, I think that's when Matt Ward signed on to the company, which should've been a portent of things to come.

I know 40k gamers have sort of become the CoD-playing fratboys of the tabletop gaming world, but CoD is actually a really good game. And so is... alright, so 40k has decayed a shitload as a tabletop game, but the setting is wonderful.