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Neutral: Why? This hobby wouldn't be what it is without him and Rick Priestly. The problem is that they have been "mailing it in" ever since they lost control of GW back in the 90's.

I post very positive, basically cos Jervis created the games i played as a boy (Blood bowl / 40K / Warhammer). I dont know him personally so I cant comment on whether he deserves the vitriol that people spit at him, but i can say that ive enjoyed playing his games, and for me thats what counts.
Oh and i like standard bearer!

PS - Do people really, honestly not know who Jervis is??? Wow! I thought everyone knew Jervis / Andy Chambers / Rick Priestley??

neutral. Ive heard some fair points against him, but you cant possibly say you utterly loathe the man who has a large hand in the hobby we all spend our time playing surely?

mattyrm wrote:neutral. Ive heard some fair points against him, but you cant possibly say you utterly loathe the man who has a large hand in the hobby we all spend our time playing surely?

Trust me, it's possible. The depths of suck have been stretched with J-dawg.

The whole "basement game" thing is actually understandable from my perspective. I am a D&D player, so I'm used to the "imagination" game. Since warhammer is an "imagination" game, you do have to interpret rules in your own way. How many you guys that play D&D have not found a clear rule on something, made up your own way of how to interpret it, but then realize it doesn't really matter because you still have fun anyway?

Positive.

standard bearer is irotating

I've gone for very positive.
IMO he's more interested in the background/concepts/hobby aspect of the game, though I will admit he shouldn't have as much of a hand in actual rules designs.

Blood Bowl was his main baby in my opinion, and I love that game. In addition he's been there since I started the hobby 13 years ago - though I've seen a lot of people come and go since then and its nice to see a familiar face on those rare occasions I pick up a white dwarf...

Neutral

Not because I have neutral feelings, but a wide array of feelings.

On the one hand, he made the hobby great early on in its expansion. On the other, now he is holding it back.

On the one hand, Bloodbowl. On the other, Standard Bearer.

Neutral because he is great when it comes to fluff, but he lets that fluff get in the way of good/balanced rules.

I used to play IG and I'll never forgive him for that junk codex he published ~10 years ago. It was all fluff with no real competitive units. Gav wrote the Eldar codex in the same era and gave them the world and them some... hence why I "used to" play IG.

Neutral: I like some stuff he's done in the past, but I take anything I hear on the intraweb with a grain of salt.

I haven't had any necessarily bad experiences relating to the man, so Neutral for me.

That said, I think the attitude of "We'll make our rules ambiguous so you'll take it more casually" doesn't work at all.

Having to sift through vague rules STRONGLY DETRACTS from my local group's gaming atmosphere. We spend a lot of time discussing rules rather than enjoying a cool narrative and casually enjoying our games. If the rules were clearer, we could just play, instead of breaking out the YMDC page every 15 minutes to deal with a situation that breaks the game.

I think that he is ok but the article can be a bit pointless, and he rambles a lot only making one or so valid points.also people forget it is not HIM alone that makes the rules. others play and pass them. Because i dont know him i put neutral

I have met Mr. Johnson, had a drink with him at the Canadian Grand Tournament in 2000 (2001 maybe?), and discussed game design. Very insightful. He's a pretty chill dude.

I didn't appreciate his handling of Epic for the 3rd edition, he tried making it into 40k too much...

however, for his reaction to the op, I could fully understand his point. No one at Games Workshop devised these rules to be 100% infallible. While there are tournaments sponsored by GW, notice how much is left to judgement, rather than the rules itself. The game, like most every other game, was designed for fun. People were meant to enjoy them, not scurry away to their basements, write a computer program, and math-hammer their way into the Uber List of Doom...

Get a grip, people, it's a game. Of course the designer is probably tired of people coming to him whining about the playability of a model in tournament or whatever. JUST PLAY!!!

I think the problem is that judgment isn't really a quality with which GW fans are plagued.

Xca|iber wrote:I haven't had any necessarily bad experiences relating to the man, so Neutral for me.

That said, I think the attitude of "We'll make our rules ambiguous so you'll take it more casually" doesn't work at all.

Having to sift through vague rules STRONGLY DETRACTS from my local group's gaming atmosphere. We spend a lot of time discussing rules rather than enjoying a cool narrative and casually enjoying our games[emphasis added]. If the rules were clearer, we could just play, instead of breaking out the YMDC page every 15 minutes to deal with a situation that breaks the game.

Remember, these rules were designed that a call would me made on the fly. For example, the rulebook states if there is a doubt as to how many models are visible to count for a cover save, then the players could agree to a 5+ cover save. No where in there does it say it would be mandatory, the players must agree. The other day, we were playing a 3-on-3 game at our FLGS. I wasplaying Dark Angels and one of my allies was playing Space Wolves. Just for fun, we referred to the old Wolves codex and fought our champion's duel to see who setup first. Was it in the rules that we had to? nope. Why did we do it? Because that cool narrative which sets this game apart refers to numerous instances of the rivalry between the two chapters, so we decided to dust off some fluff and have some fun!

Maybe after 23 years, Johnson has the right to think he and GW have done something right. The rules are still based off of the same mechanic, no major corporate entity has swept in to change the system, and players keep playing the game. The only real change has been the players themselves. They turned from people who want to sit down and have a good time into rules lawyers who can't enjoy the game because the rules don't specifically state one may do so.

It's just a game, people! Lighten up!

Positive.

He made thriller..errr Blood Bowl

He also reminds me of George Lucas. He messed up the prequel trilogy but without him there would be no original trilogy.

Positive for his support of specialist games and his input over the years.

I am confused. Battle missions is a super awesome book!

Evil man, killed my favourite game (Epic) with his gakky 3rd edition!

Positive as my mental people file has him marked as 'not a nob' (good thing) and I can recognize his photo which is more-so than any other than gav thorpe (neutral opinion)

Positive- whenever I read something he writes I can't help think that hes just a Nice Bloke. I laughed at his intro to Imperial Armour 1 (although I have to admitt that his statement that hypothetically taking the chance to fire the main gun of a tank over the chance of a hot date with three gorgeous named celebrities may, in my opinion, need a little more thought). He's one of the old guard.

I just didn't like the 1st 3rd Ed Guard Codex- while everyone else was getting more powerful from the rulebook update, he started by raised the points of a guardsmen to 6 (recently reverted to 5). Why? to stop the "SKIGAFH" or "Shooty Killy Imperial Guard Army From Hell" that resulted from special and heavy weapon spam. Guard played like an army of WW2 real-world infantry, with most of the quirky interesting stuff diluted. It seemed out of touch with the whacko 41st millenium. A lot of the thing that were changed from that codex got changed back in the most recent one...

He also seems to be a bit about telling players what we want... we dont want rigorous rules because it takes away from the good-natured hobby side... we don't want squats because they're silly... etc. But I'm cautious about that because I'm commenting on stories I've read on the internet.

As for his column in WD.. I get the impression that he writes and picks topics for kids, but also that he's been instructed to do just that.

He certainly doesn't deserve the internet hate that you see occasionally though. Sheesh... he's a nice guy who loves his hobby.

Hmm. While he is very enthusiastic in his support for the hobby I shudder when he harps on about collecting a new army (which he seems to think that we should be doing on a regular basis) to be cringeworthy considering how there is no acknowledgement in regards to the actual financial cost. Enthusiasm costs, eh Jervis?

Because you know, collecting a new army is something that doesn't happen much around here. If Warhammer is too costly a hobby for you, perhaps you should take up stamp-collecting, as I hear you can trade them in for food in some places.

I just plain don't like him. Gw has done few things i like with the hobby i loved. In recent years they do some really stupid things..
now is this all his fault? maybe idk, senior staff have a way of halting advances that would help a company out. To me he's one of those old dogs who thinks he's all that... but his usefulness is relative. So he made blood bowl, for which there hasn't been anything new in ages (except changes to LRB)
my opinion is very negative as the only reasons i would have praise for him are old games and rulebooks..old games that have no support anymore (like epic and blood bowl) a laughable WD article. and some codexes that arguably, he has ruined by writing them

I voted neutral. I'm simply too much of a newblood in game terms to have formed a concrete opinion of the guy, and pretty much every time he's brought up there are a multitude of divided opinions, so it's hard to figure out what side of the fence you're on. For instance, he helped keep Blood Bowl alive, great. What if you don't play Blood Bowl? He has his soapbox article in WD. What if you've never read a WD and have no intention of doing so? It's hard to decide when you're not as directly connected to the game, or haven't been exposed to it long enough to know what everyone's talking/complaining about. That being said, I can't agree with the stance of ambiguous rules. I'd much rather have a ruleset that doesn't require an FAQ to clear out RAW/RAI nonsense by being clear and easy to understand from the get-go, regardless of if it's in a fluffy game or a tournament setting.

I will say this much - for better or worse, he's had a very large impact on GW and Warhammer regardless of if it was good or bad.

Neutral. He has done a lot for the hobby, but seems to be stuck in limbo as of now. His column is sometimes enjoyable, but for the most part a waste of space that might be best filled with more ads. I did like his article on "So you want to start an army" or something like that.

If GW made rules that worked, what would they do for new editions every few years?

Its not about style of play, its about making money.

Why make rules that work perfectly, it just cuts off your revenue stream.


As for Jervis... Well his work with Rick on Blackpowder worked out well... Maybe his rule design energies are more suited to historical rulesets designed for 'friendly' play.

The rules don't not work. How could they stay in business if they didn't?

Something I think people don't appreciate about their rules, or at least those who don't play the main product lines, is that games aren't fixed products. How many editions of Monopoly have their been? Even when no profit exists, the Bloodbowl rules themselves change and occasionally evolve.

Take baseball. You have tons of variations depending on the league, and even then they decide to adopt new rules or drop old ones.

Im neutral about him