Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

John Spencer?


Do they hold any weight? Is it official, are they/he willing to post them on a board like those guys at privateer press? Is it more of same glossing over that we got with the rulzboyz, which were notorious for giving out different and conflicting answers to the same question?

And how quick do they answer your questions on email? I sent one in last night, to test the waters.

John Spencer is Yak's evil twin brother.

G

Well, citing them is difficult. They aren't publicly posted, which means you have to believe your opponent when he waves a piece of paper at you and says "John Spencer said so." At least with the FAQs, you can check online later. And no, there is no suggestion that these will be collected/posted at some point.

according to most folk here anything outside of a printable FAQ is worth nothing.

Although Spencer isn't much more valuable for proving/disproving rules than just having your gaming group vote on an issue, his answers have been consistent and replicable.

As Yakface and the INAT FAQ updates have shown, it's pretty foolish to ignore his responses since he is more or less the closest we'll ever get to a living FAQ document.

agreed sourclams. unfortunately though i think we're in the minority here...

Most people around here seem to heap scorn on Mr. Spencer or ignore him outright, which is unfortunate

sourclams is correct: John Spencer's opinions are consistent and replicable. If someone waves a piece of paper under your nose during a game, or posts something on a forum, and attributes it to Mr. Spencer, then it's easy enough to check. The last question I sent took a couple of weeks to be answered though, so he may be working through a backlog at the moment.

What would be good would be if Mr. Spencer supplied a method, or at least a proof, along with his answers so that people would have a problem solving method to apply to any new problems that crop up, or with which to catch mistakes made in previous rulings.

Nurglitch wrote:
What would be good would be if Mr. Spencer supplied a method, or at least a proof, along with his answers so that people would have a problem solving method to apply to any new problems that crop up, or with which to catch mistakes made in previous rulings.

Okay, thats pretty much what I was hoping to hear.
And I won't keep my eyes peeled on getting a response anytime soon.

And... as an aside I secretly believe his reasoning's for whatever rulings he's been doing (deffrolla, eldritch storm) are because he knows what was intended, meaning, there may not be any proof to be found.

The next phase is to see if we can get him to publish :p Or.... get someone to collect from everyone else their questions and answers and post them somewhere and to ensure accuracy, we can have a honor poll system, where people vote on if they got the same response from him, so we can make sure that we eliminate fake emails.. Course this is just a thought.


I like this "John Spencer is Yakface's evil twin" .... that's awesome.... will the truth be revealed?!

I would say that John Spencer is as reliable as anyone else on this board except for the fact that he works for GW. Anyone on this board can make a ruling or rule interpretaion, but it won't be official or accepted by all others. Since John works for GW he is a little more official and reliable, but its just one person's interpretation of the rules in the end.

Sazzlefrats wrote:I like this "John Spencer is Yakface's evil twin" .... that's awesome.... will the truth be revealed?!

If someone can get a picture of Mr. Spencer, I could confirm.

Sazzlefrats wrote:
And... as an aside I secretly believe his reasoning's for whatever rulings he's been doing (deffrolla, eldritch storm) are because he knows what was intended, meaning, there may not be any proof to be found.

And that's the crux of it. Things like Deffrolla, PotMS and Smoke Launchers, and Vulkan+Inq allies can be proven pretty easily just by looking at the rules, but based on precedence and balance many do not "feel" it is the way that the rules are meant to be played and that's where the 3rd person point of view comes in as long as it's replicable and consistent, which is exactly the service that Spencer provides.

Platuan4th wrote:

Sazzlefrats wrote:I like this "John Spencer is Yakface's evil twin" .... that's awesome.... will the truth be revealed?!

If someone can get a picture of Mr. Spencer, I could confirm.

Found one.

Lordhat wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:

Sazzlefrats wrote:I like this "John Spencer is Yakface's evil twin" .... that's awesome.... will the truth be revealed?!

If someone can get a picture of Mr. Spencer, I could confirm.

Found one.

Hmm... Uncanny...

He looks a bit more like Connery than Yakface, though...

I saw them both at Hooters yesterday.

G

So here's an idea:

Why not compile a FAQ consisting of answers obtained from John Spencer?

That would be a good idea, but again would have to be trusted to be his unaltered word re posted for others.

If someone does get a response that seems to differ from another persons, does John Spencer now get thrown out as old GW and not staying consistant? Or was it simply someone pushing their own agenda and Mr. Spencer actually only ever gave one consistant answer?

Nurglitch wrote:So here's an idea:
Why not compile a FAQ consisting of answers obtained from John Spencer?

http://www.leasticoulddo.com/comic/20090126 for the humor.

http://plagiarism.umf.maine.edu/valid.html for the basics of being a credible source.

The primary problem with any of the 'GW e-mails' is the inability to answer who, where and when. Specifically, we can't verify where the answer was actually found or when it was even made, let alone any point of reference or explination as to why the presumed author came to his conclusion.

The primary problem with INAT is, in many people's minds, where and why? Specifically, where is the citation for their interpretation and whether the resource biased in some way.

The GW, direct from the websites tends to mostly be credible by its overwhelming who despite sometimes very weak what and how. Specifically, they're the ones who made the rules and tend to be universally accepted as final arbiters.

Marius Xerxes:

Well, the thing about John Spencer is that if you doubt someone is quoting him, you can check. While he lacks any explanation or proof of validity for his rulings, those rulings are consistent.

Compiling his answers means, hopefully, lowering his workload and making them more accessible to the community, and gives us a common resource to work from. It's not ideal, but it seems to be a step up from the current situation.

Whats the best way to collect John Spencer rulings/replies? I suppose one could set up an email account for people to send them to?

And, by doing so, could we possibly force GW into making his rulings "official"? If enough people play by his rulings, then do they become official simply by "that's just how it's played" ? (which is the attitude of GW towards their rules anyway)

There's plenty of John Spencer's rulings that have been posted in this forum. For convenience, any thread beyond two pages probably has at least one person posting Mr. Spencer's ruling on the subject.

I'd suggest writing an article about it, using Dakka Dakka's article system.

Nice to see people saying nice things about me (for once)

I'll clear up a few things:
I don't necessarily rule RAW, but RAI. I try to be clear when this is the case, but I get a lot of emails in a week and have the rest of my job to do.
I try to be consistent, and we even have an internal database to help with that.
I have change sides on certain arguments due to new information being pointed out.
I do occasionally make mistakes (twice I can think of on rules emails).
I have been super busy since Christmas and just started working on emails from this week.
I am not (to my knowledge) Yakface's evil twin
I am trying to get my answers to the UK to help with FAQs.
I look nothing like Sean Connery.

Any other questions anyone may have should (obviously) be sent to askyourquestion@games-workshop.com

I am around here from time to time, but don't blow up my PM, please.

John Spencer

i like the idea of keeping replies to build a custom FAQ.
the idea of the email add. for replies would be a nice idea, or maybe dakka could even make a collection, kinda like gallery.


Edit: Welcome to dakka sir

Welcome John.
Nice to see you here.

JohnOSpencer wrote:Nice to see people saying nice things about me (for once)

I'll clear up a few things:
I don't necessarily rule RAW, but RAI. I try to be clear when this is the case, but I get a lot of emails in a week and have the rest of my job to do.
I try to be consistent, and we even have an internal database to help with that.
I have change sides on certain arguments due to new information being pointed out.
I do occasionally make mistakes (twice I can think of on rules emails).
I have been super busy since Christmas and just started working on emails from this week.
I am not (to my knowledge) Yakface's evil twin
I am trying to get my answers to the UK to help with FAQs.
I look nothing like Sean Connery.

Any other questions anyone may have should (obviously) be sent to askyourquestion@games-workshop.com

I am around here from time to time, but don't blow up my PM, please.

John Spencer

Hmm, I don't know if I can trust anything from a 'fresh faced new user'.

JK, in all seriousness though its nice to see that you (and i'm sure other GW employees) keep an eye out on the boards and answer questions like these to clear up misconceptions when they arise.

just as a very random Q here thats bugging me and alot of others :K


if a plasma gun rolls a 1 and overheats (wounding the user) its just a basic wound isnt it? armour saves and FNP are not lost as a result.

JD21290:

I think that's being considered wisely and carefully in another thread.

He is in that thread posting already. I think he put it here in hopes of getting Mr. Spencers attention, nothing more.

Just to keep things consistent, I'm going to try to refrain from answering rules questions when at work. I'm here as me, not as "John Spencer, Customer Service Specialist." Here on Dakka, my posts shouldn't carry any more weight than that of any other user.

John