Flanderization/Tabletop Games

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Examples of Flanderization in Tabletop Games include:

Board Games

  • In Warhammer Fantasy Battle the Chaos God Khorne was flanderized from an incredibly bloodthirsty but moderately honorable warrior who preferred Worthy Opponents and whose servants would sometimes spare non-combatants, to wanting all blood from everyone all the time. Note that at no point was Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! not part of the deal.
  • Warhammer 40,000 (Originally Warhammer in Space!)
    • The fans coined term "Grimderp". It happens when someone tries too hard to make Grimdark under impression that "more dark!" equals "good writing", and the result looks like a world ruled by fifty shades of Stupid Evil. When the daemons try to eat people alive, body and soul, and the survivors get capped by Grey Knights to keep a "secret" obsolete for millennia, you have Grimdark. When you see things like that incident with Grey Knights below — congratulations, it hit full Grimderp.
    • The Imperium of Man is continuously suffering from this trope. Every year, it seems to become more repressive, depressing, backwards, ignorant, and desperate. The Space Marines become more Knight Templar, the Imperial Guard becomes more likely to invoke We Have Reserves, and so on.
    • The Tau, however, have received modest character development, transforming from a Mary Suetopia to a more complex faction and one of the few Greys in the usual Black and Black Morality. Writers have been trying to reverse the process of flanderisation and turn them back into an authoritative and overly bureaucratic but still functional dictatorship with genuine heroes.
    • Matt Ward has been working on Flanderizing the Ultramarines from a respected puritan Chapter of strict adherents to the Codex Astartes into the absurd force of unimpeachable and unbeatably awesome "Ultrasmurfs" that we all know and hate.
      • At a stroke, he accomplished this mission for the Grey Knights with the 2011 codex, turning them from an interesting faction of thin-spread heroes fighting desperately against horrors which often threatened them and the entire Imperium into Big Damn Heroes who God Mode Sue it up, curb stomp all your foes in tabletop, and not only are completely incorruptible, but can't be beaten. Let's see. Game Breaker units? Check. Incorruptible Pure Pureness that can survive alone in the Warp and isn't tainted by bathing in the blood of Sisters of Battle? Check. God Mode Sue fluff? In spades. Before, Grey Knights were earlier well-liked by fans, who still used them even with a codex that was a bit out of date. Fan and critical reaction has not been positive to the changes.
    • The Necrons originally had vague allusions to ancient Egyptians, and their fantasy counterpart, the Tomb Kings. Come 5th Edition, they're all wearing pharoh hats and wearing gold and blue jewelry while wielding sickle blades. Also done by Matt Ward. Which, amazingly enough, is actually well-received by most players because they also received massive Character Development in the process. That's because Games Workshop were Genre Savvy enough to control Ward's antics this time with at least two people getting the job of simply checking he does it right and stopping him when it goes awry. It worked. And the Fandom Rejoiced. Mostly.
    • Of course, as much as the 40K fandom complains about this, they're far worse about it than the canon sources. According to many fans, every good Imperial should have a vocabulary of exactly three phrases: "FOR DA EMPRAH!", "DIE XENO SCUM!" and "THAT'S HERESY!" Someone sneezing in a way that sounds sort of like 'heresy' is a good reason for using Exterminatus, commanders should execute their own men for blinking out of turn, Mechanicus adepts activate machines by literally banging their heads against them and drooling while chanting prayers, etc.

Tabletop RPG

  • One criticism of the second edition of Exalted is that it took the interesting characters from 1e and flattened them out. Especially the Deathlords - First and Forsaken Lion went from being an interesting character who wanted to take over the Underworld and didn't care about Creation to Mask of Winters v2 who wants to CONQUER AND/OR DESTROY EVERYTHING!

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