I have posted my thoughts on the event that happened last weekend. After a few days and reading the comments on various boards and on this site, I wanted to compile a list of suggestions for the event in 2011. I know there are people who either help organize the tournament or are in contact with the organizers that read on this site and I welcome everyone to post their own suggestions as well. I want to thank the organizers for a job well done for 2010 and well executed. Please take the time to read this and consider some of the ideas. This is all based on 4 years of attending Adepticon.

1) The current INAT needs to be done away with and in replacement of it should be a document that deals with common issues in tournament play but does not attempt to rewrite the rules because the writers felt things were too powerful or unfair. Also drop the FAQ council thing as it does come off as very elitist and open it up for more representation among the North American 40k community. Right now the majority of the members of the FAQ council are from the midwest and there are other 40k communities that are as large if not larger than in the Chicago area. It is a noble effort but the execution is off.

2) A revised championship RTT that is a 2 day even and spans 7 games. You can have it on Friday as a qualifier with 4 games and then separate the top 30% into a Sunday invitational where the best of the best fight for supremacy. At the same time you can have a consolidation bracket for the remaining 70% that truly emphasizes the hobby with higher soft scores and prizes for multiple categories. BOLScon attempted this and it turned out well. This gives players an alternative to the Gladiator. Speaking of which ...

3) The Gladiator has lost much of what made it fun: Anything goes. I suggest turning it into an APOC tournament with 3000 points (Minimum APOC point level) and do formations, forgeworld, titans, crazy datasheets. People can get the FW bug out of their system and smash face with whatever they want to play with. Add some over the top scenarios all to your desire.

4) Alternate mission structure. The multi-tier missions are alright but there is no clearly defined win or loss when it comes down to drawing on objectives. It is possible to score moderate in the beginning and then cruise through the middle of the pack beating on baby seals until the last round and possibly winning overall. Add a win/loss with bonus points in the form of secondary and tertiary. The points cannot tell you if one player destroyed all his opponents only to get wiped the last game vs the other player who hard fought each victory but just got middle of the road points for some hard earned wins. The missions dont have to punish army types nor do they have to be rulebook missions. You can start with the rulebook missions and do slight variations to them.

5) Bring back the codecier challenge on Saturday night. Thats a selfish want but it was fun doing jeporady style questions that did help a whole lot with winding down from an intense team tournament.

Here are a few things I insist Adepticon keep and to not change

1) Organization. Whatever the staff has done that weekend, continue with that because there was almost zero delay in tournaments, prompt judging, and clear communication about clarifications of the missions. I owe the staff a beer or burger their choice.

2) Variety of gaming. This year saw the introduction of Warmachine and FOW along with the usual Fanatic games. Those were great additions and lets the players choose what to play throughout the weekend.

3) The Venue was very nice although 30 min from the airport (either of them), the location was nice to make a drive to multiple restaurants after the tournament of the day. The hotel was very nice and the bed west pretty comfortable.

Those are my suggestions along with 3 must keeps for Adpeticon 2011. I hope to see any of the changes for next year. To the Adepticon staff: thanks for reading this and please take the time to consider what I discussed as I aim to improve the event.

thehod wrote:I have posted my thoughts on the event that happened last weekend. After a few days and reading the comments on various boards and on this site, I wanted to compile a list of suggestions for the event in 2011. I know there are people who either help organize the tournament or are in contact with the organizers that read on this site and I welcome everyone to post their own suggestions as well. I want to thank the organizers for a job well done for 2010 and well executed. Please take the time to read this and consider some of the ideas. This is all based on 4 years of attending Adepticon.

Thanks...we're always glad to get feedback. Missed the larger portion of the Wrecking Crew this year...understand Parker's got family issues, but where was everyone else?

Any thoughts that I'm posting below in response are my own thoughts only, not the thoughts of the rest of the AdeptiCon staff, and don't mean that we will or won't implement them. Just trying to keep a conversation going.

thehod wrote:1) The current INAT needs to be done away with and in replacement of it should be a document that deals with common issues in tournament play but does not attempt to rewrite the rules because the writers felt things were too powerful or unfair. Also drop the FAQ council thing as it does come off as very elitist and open it up for more representation among the North American 40k community. Right now the majority of the members of the FAQ council are from the midwest and there are other 40k communities that are as large if not larger than in the Chicago area. It is a noble effort but the execution is off.

That sounds good Hod...except that how do you define "common issues." I've found that what might seem obvious to some, or most, isn't really all that obvious to others.

Also, while I understand the antipathy towards having the INAT team make something classified as a rules change, we try to only go that far in two situations. #1, the rules as written is simply unplayable (e.g. Falcons have no "corners" and so its impossible to draw a line from corner to corner in order to determine facing for shooting purposes). #2, the RAW clearly goes against any rational intent. (e.g. IC's can't end their moves within 2" of a friendly vehicle).

On widening the membership of the Council...its a logistical issue, but one which we're definitely looking at. We'd like to expand the ruling council, but at the same time, if it gets too large, it becomes unwieldy and tough to mesh schedules.

thehod wrote:2) A revised championship RTT that is a 2 day even and spans 7 games. You can have it on Friday as a qualifier with 4 games and then separate the top 30% into a Sunday invitational where the best of the best fight for supremacy. At the same time you can have a consolidation bracket for the remaining 70% that truly emphasizes the hobby with higher soft scores and prizes for multiple categories. BOLScon attempted this and it turned out well. This gives players an alternative to the Gladiator. Speaking of which ...

The biggest problem with this is the Friday/Sunday split. There's absolutely zero chance of the 40K Team Tournament being on any day except Saturday...and splitting the tourney into two days results in a ridiculous number of drops on the second day. There's talk right now about doing something like this...but there are a lot of logistical issues to work out. On top of that, it would essentially kill the Gladiator.

Trying to get a "supremacy" tournament really requires a dedicated weekend, or even a season. IMNSHO, it's really beyond the scope of what you can do in just 1 or 2 days.

thehod wrote:
3) The Gladiator has lost much of what made it fun: Anything goes. I suggest turning it into an APOC tournament with 3000 points (Minimum APOC point level) and do formations, forgeworld, titans, crazy datasheets. People can get the FW bug out of their system and smash face with whatever they want to play with. Add some over the top scenarios all to your desire.

APOC and tournaments really don't go together IMNSHO. There's just too much crazy stuff there that really isn't all that balanced and is mainly there for the "cool" factor. Which was the whole point of APOC to begin with. Not to mention the timeframe issue...in my experience, even fast APOC games take 3-4 hours to complete.

I wouldn't be opposed to some APOC events, kind of in a structured megabattle-type format...but I don't think its really suitable for tournaments.

thehod wrote:4) Alternate mission structure. The multi-tier missions are alright but there is no clearly defined win or loss when it comes down to drawing on objectives. It is possible to score moderate in the beginning and then cruise through the middle of the pack beating on baby seals until the last round and possibly winning overall. Add a win/loss with bonus points in the form of secondary and tertiary. The points cannot tell you if one player destroyed all his opponents only to get wiped the last game vs the other player who hard fought each victory but just got middle of the road points for some hard earned wins. The missions dont have to punish army types nor do they have to be rulebook missions. You can start with the rulebook missions and do slight variations to them.

Multi-tier missions are the best means I've found for actually generating separation, given the limited number of games and the timeframe. In your proposal (win/loss/draw with bonus points for secondary and tertiary), either you get no effective difference (if the bonus points for secondary and tertiary are high enough) or you essentially make the secondary and tertiary conditions meaningless.

True, it can make a player who crushes three of four opponents, the battle-point equivalent to someone who slogs through with 4 lesser-scale victories. But really...what's wrong with that?

Really, the multi-tier mission structure requires people to rethink what "win" and "loss" are in those mission. Taking the Gladiator missions as an example, (42 points possible per round), in my mind, 0-14 points was a loss, 15-28 points was a draw, and 29-42 points was a win. (I could stretch it out more to include the old minor/major/massacre, but you get the picture). How you got to those points really doesn't matter.

Yes, its different than the missions in the book. But its not like people can't go in expecting that...hence the posting of primer missions, points breakdowns in the event descriptions, etc.

thehod wrote:
5) Bring back the codecier challenge on Saturday night. Thats a selfish want but it was fun doing jeporady style questions that did help a whole lot with winding down from an intense team tournament.

Standard AdeptiCon response #2 - Do you want to run this? Seriously...generally events happen because people step up and say they want to run them. Hence the BFG Championships (me and now Rob), AI demos (Paul), Space Hulk Tourney (Yakface), etc.

Hi

1. Couldn't disagree with you more regarding the INAT. I don't agree with everything in it, but it clears up so many grey areas that I want it around. I really appreciate the amount of work that is put into it, and use it at my own event.

2. Agreed on the Championship format. A 120 man tourney having only three rounds to determine the winner is nearly impossible - which is why I played fantasy team tournament for kicks on Sunday.

3. Apocalypse has ruined the gladiator experience for me. I last played in the gladiator in 2007 and it was simply one of the best tourneys I had ever been a part of. In 2007, I fough titans and heirophants with a standard force and beat them both. In 2010, when our group finally made it back to Chicago, I got stomped by a warhound (and the scenario didn't help at all). D weapons are simply too much in standard 40K. In the past, big toys were more expensive with lesser armament. Now they are cheaper with bigger guns. If D were reduced to Str 10 AP 1, at least dice would need to be rolled. Throw in the "Lance" ability if you want it to still be really effective against tanks. (EDIT - I should probably add that I own 2 warhounds and a reaver, so this isn't envy speaking)

Also, the "screw everybody" approach to this year's scenarios resulted in auto-win/loss without rolling a die because certain matchups created a very tilted playing field. I played Tau, so my first round was auto-loss as Tau cannot take the middle of board from assault based Chaos Marines when only 4 turns get played. The third round was auto-win for me as Goatboyz Space Wolves never stood a chance in a stasis field game. Round four was the warhound - so with one of my broadside units tunnelling into combat with 10 marines, I never stood a chance. I didn't whine during the tournament, but I have to say that my enjoyment level was lacking, and of my group only I am considering doing it again on the Friday, if just for the tune-up before the team tournament.

4. Love the mission structure (primary, secondary, tertiary) for the gladiator and team tournament - don't change a thing there. I didn't play in the championships - so no comment there.

5. Codicier was cool in 2007, but not missed in 2010.

Cheers,
Carlos the Craven

I didn't play in the team tournament this year, so if this has already been changed please disregard;

I would rather play 3 full games in the team tournament as opposed to 4 half games. To explain, two years ago we played in the team tournament and between moving tables (Around several people mind you during a team tournament!), classifying terrain, explaining team armies, handling FAQ rulings for the team armies, etc....the games were usually rushed and failed to have any closure. Many games both our opponents and ourselves wished the game could go on, as it seemed rather anti-climatic to just pack up and go to the next table.

Not to mention the physical fatigue from the event. Our last game both our opponents and ourselves were exhausted, which made the last game pretty lackluster (Even though they were great sports). We were completely wiped out that evening waiting for awards, to the point of bailing out of the already paid 40k Championships the next day. I would just rather play 3 full games of 40k with my team and have a few moments respite rather than rush table to table to make it to turn 3-4.

Of course, keep in mind regardless of my reservations we'll be playing in the team tournament next year....I'm just dreading the 4th game.

thehod wrote:1) The current INAT needs to be done away with and in replacement of it should be a document that deals with common issues in tournament play but does not attempt to rewrite the rules because the writers felt things were too powerful or unfair. Also drop the FAQ council thing as it does come off as very elitist and open it up for more representation among the North American 40k community. Right now the majority of the members of the FAQ council are from the midwest and there are other 40k communities that are as large if not larger than in the Chicago area. It is a noble effort but the execution is off.

The results of the TT quiz show overwhelming support (75%+) for the inclusion of the INAT (even if people disagree with some rulings). The INAT is put together for AdeptiCon first and foremost. Over 70% of our attendance is from the Midwest, so I don't see that being an issue. Use of the INAT outside of AdeptiCon is not our concern. People are free to make of it what they will. I also think the impact of the INAT is minimal at best. If two people that hate the INAT play a game against each other at AdeptiCon - they are free to ignore it as per our Conduct Policy, which reads: 'Players should attempt to resolve all rules disputes between themselves at the table (using the appropriate codex, rulebook, FAQ).' The INAT exists only to resolve disputes at AdeptiCon between people with differing interpretations of the rules that cannot come to amicable resolution on their own - no different than having a judge make a call on the spot, save that it is published months in advance and strives for consistency between 40K events at the convention. Who defines 'Common Issues'? It is easy to call something elitist when you disagree with it, but in turn that makes every event judge or TO that makes a rules call an elitist.

thehod wrote:2) A revised championship RTT that is a 2 day even and spans 7 games. You can have it on Friday as a qualifier with 4 games and then separate the top 30% into a Sunday invitational where the best of the best fight for supremacy. At the same time you can have a consolidation bracket for the remaining 70% that truly emphasizes the hobby with higher soft scores and prizes for multiple categories. BOLScon attempted this and it turned out well. This gives players an alternative to the Gladiator. Speaking of which ...

Things of this nature have already been discussed by others, both before and after this year's event. The idea you propose I mentioned earlier in this post. It's something we are considering and definitely has some merit, but Bill raises some good points. If anything I would support a 4-round Friday event that feeds the a number of top players into a 3-round Sunday event. No consolidation bracket. Do we really think a 3-round RTT event finds the ultimate 40K general? Hell no, but like others have pointed out - it can still be fun.

thehod wrote:4) Alternate mission structure. The multi-tier missions are alright but there is no clearly defined win or loss when it comes down to drawing on objectives. It is possible to score moderate in the beginning and then cruise through the middle of the pack beating on baby seals until the last round and possibly winning overall. Add a win/loss with bonus points in the form of secondary and tertiary. The points cannot tell you if one player destroyed all his opponents only to get wiped the last game vs the other player who hard fought each victory but just got middle of the road points for some hard earned wins. The missions dont have to punish army types nor do they have to be rulebook missions. You can start with the rulebook missions and do slight variations to them.

Doesn't drawing on objectives inherently mean there is no clear winner or loser? You have to think about missions differently when you are dealing with 220+ result per round in the TT and 120+ results per round in the RTT. You need scoring separation - as mentioned by Bill. Are the missions overly complicated in some instances, sure, but they also feed into you #1 positive point - organization. There is nothing wrong with some games ending in a draw or stalemate - I think if you look at the top finishers in the TT or RTT _ you will see there that you have no chance of winning either event without solid Battle Scores. Not happening. If changes like you have suggested above are made to the Champs/RTT, then I think there might be room for less complex/score-separation inducing missions, but I honestly feel they do exactly what the event needs them to do at the moment.

thehod wrote:5) Bring back the codecier challenge on Saturday night. Thats a selfish want but it was fun doing jeporady style questions that did help a whole lot with winding down from an intense team tournament.

Was always one of my favorite highlights of past conventions. No one has offered to run this since Brian Carlson did it in 2006/2007. If someone offers - I am sure it can happen again...but someone has to step up.

AgeOfEgos wrote:I didn't play in the team tournament this year, so if this has already been changed please disregard;

I would rather play 3 full games in the team tournament as opposed to 4 half games. To explain, two years ago we played in the team tournament and between moving tables (Around several people mind you during a team tournament!), classifying terrain, explaining team armies, handling FAQ rulings for the team armies, etc....the games were usually rushed and failed to have any closure. Many games both our opponents and ourselves wished the game could go on, as it seemed rather anti-climatic to just pack up and go to the next table.

I didn't find this in our games for the TT. We generally tended to reach 6 turns every round and half tended to reach a natural conclusion to the game by that point, the only 2 being the games where out opponents essentially held back(the Wolves because of their inexperience, and the guard because they designed their lists to take out opponent HQs and protect their own). Personally, I would have felt a little let down to only play 3 games, especially since with 3 longer rounds, I'd have had so much free time between rounds because we tended to get our games done with ~10-15 minutes left before time was called anyway.

I also have a few suggestions for next year's championship event. First of all let me say that Adepticon 2010 was a ton of fun. I used to play Wizkids games competitively, and I participated in countless tournaments at various venues including major tournaments like Nationals and Gencon. Adepticon was hands down the nicest venue and most well ran tournament I've ever played in.

1) The Sportsmanship score needs to be reworked. Having it on the same page as the round score card made it really difficult to score your opponent accurately and honestly. This really needs to be handled in a way where your opponent can't see your scoring for them. Secondly I can see how doing it secretly can also create abuse where you are inaccurately scoring down your opponent intentionally to inflate your own chances of gaining a high score. My suggestion would be to score sportsmanship when the tournament is over, and you have to pick 1 of the 3 players you played as your choice for the best sport. That way it is unlikely anyone is getting a perfect sportsmanship score and if they do, they really must have deserved it.

2) Faction Ranking and top prize. What I was disheartened to see was the amount of similar army builds, namely the 2 Valkyrie Imperial Guard armies. I really felt the Championship tournament was more of an environment for the entire hobby from fluff, to painting/conversions, sportsmanship, and the actual battle. The power army builds really belong in 'Ard Boyz tournaments. I don't think there should be anything to discourage people from using those builds but a way to encourage a more diverse showing of factions would be to put each player in a faction bracket. That way the overall best Ork, Eldar, IG, SM, CSM, Tau, Necron, etc... player has the chance at a prize and recognition. If you choose to play the popular army build, you will have a lesser chance of taking the faction prize.

3) Players choice. I don't believe I missed anything in the tournament packet but I wasn't aware we were making our players choice vote before the first round began and I didn't get a chance to review allot of armies as I was staying near my own waiting for a painting judge to score my army and I could have been looking around more had I known I needed to make this score so early. I really think it should be done during the lunch break or at the end of the tournament.

4) I agree that the 3 round format needs tweaking as it really makes it difficult to have an accurate ranking with only 3 rounds.

5) Time between the rounds. We had plenty of time before round 1 began to get started, and the lunch break between rounds 1 and 2 gave us plenty of time to set up for the 2nd round but we literally had maybe 5 minutes to find our next pairing and get to it before the 3rd round began. I know that it takes awhile to correlate 220 players worth of results so I would try to put in at least an hour break between rounds so that the last round is not so rushed. We had plenty of time once the 3rd round was over to easily have increased the gap between rounds 2 and 3.

Again, I mean this all as constructive criticism and I will again say this was hands down the best gaming experience I have ever had!

Platuan4th wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:I didn't play in the team tournament this year, so if this has already been changed please disregard;

I would rather play 3 full games in the team tournament as opposed to 4 half games. To explain, two years ago we played in the team tournament and between moving tables (Around several people mind you during a team tournament!), classifying terrain, explaining team armies, handling FAQ rulings for the team armies, etc....the games were usually rushed and failed to have any closure. Many games both our opponents and ourselves wished the game could go on, as it seemed rather anti-climatic to just pack up and go to the next table.

I didn't find this in our games for the TT. We generally tended to reach 6 turns every round and half tended to reach a natural conclusion to the game by that point, the only 2 being the games where out opponents essentially held back(the Wolves because of their inexperience, and the guard because they designed their lists to take out opponent HQs and protect their own). Personally, I would have felt a little let down to only play 3 games, especially since with 3 longer rounds, I'd have had so much free time between rounds because we tended to get our games done with ~10-15 minutes left before time was called anyway.

Well, my experience is certainly anecdotal and perhaps we just had unlucky pairings that year. We played a horde ork, semi-horde ork/Daemons, Mechdar and SOB spam. So 3/4 games had some model count to it (Although, as a team, we played relatively elite armies). I simply like the thought of 3 games to give me time to find our opponents, shake hands, check out armies, etc.

NecronLord3 wrote:I also have a few suggestions for next year's championship event. First of all let me say that Adepticon 2010 was a ton of fun. I used to play Wizkids games competitively, and I participated in countless tournaments at various venues including major tournaments like Nationals and Gencon. Adepticon was hands down the nicest venue and most well ran tournament I've ever played in.

Thanks from me, and this really should be directed at our volunteers who act as our rules judges, paint judges, registration table workers, etc. And to Hank/Matt/Jeff who put in way more time than I even want to think about.

NecronLord3 wrote:
1) The Sportsmanship score needs to be reworked. Having it on the same page as the round score card made it really difficult to score your opponent accurately and honestly. This really needs to be handled in a way where your opponent can't see your scoring for them. Secondly I can see how doing it secretly can also create abuse where you are inaccurately scoring down your opponent intentionally to inflate your own chances of gaining a high score. My suggestion would be to score sportsmanship when the tournament is over, and you have to pick 1 of the 3 players you played as your choice for the best sport. That way it is unlikely anyone is getting a perfect sportsmanship score and if they do, they really must have deserved it.

Sports is always a tough one...thankfully, I don't have to worry about it as Gladiator organizer. What you're describing was actually attempted 4-5 years ago...the championships used a ranking, as opposed to a rating system, where each player ranked their opponents from first to third. It worked great from the perspective of generating separation and making the scores a bit more meaningful...but it was also a logistical nightmare for the organizers. Pretty much doubled the amount of paperwork that needed to be processed after the final game, and probably required almost three times as much time. They switched back to a rating system because of it.

NecronLord3 wrote:
2) Faction Ranking and top prize. What I was disheartened to see was the amount of similar army builds, namely the 2 Valkyrie Imperial Guard armies. I really felt the Championship tournament was more of an environment for the entire hobby from fluff, to painting/conversions, sportsmanship, and the actual battle. The power army builds really belong in 'Ard Boyz tournaments. I don't think there should be anything to discourage people from using those builds but a way to encourage a more diverse showing of factions would be to put each player in a faction bracket. That way the overall best Ork, Eldar, IG, SM, CSM, Tau, Necron, etc... player has the chance at a prize and recognition. If you choose to play the popular army build, you will have a lesser chance of taking the faction prize.

Theoretically its possible to track that with our tournament software. The Team Tourney has awards like Best Imperial, Best Heretical, Best Xenos, and Best Hybrid teams. I can't think of a reason why it couldn't, or shouldn't be applied to the Championships as well (except, of course, that Inq. Malice would need to find more prizes to give away ).

Applying it to gameplay would be a lot more problematic, and I think there its overly complicated.

NecronLord3 wrote:3) Players choice. I don't believe I missed anything in the tournament packet but I wasn't aware we were making our players choice vote before the first round began and I didn't get a chance to review allot of armies as I was staying near my own waiting for a painting judge to score my army and I could have been looking around more had I known I needed to make this score so early. I really think it should be done during the lunch break or at the end of the tournament.

I played in the Champs...and there was a lot going on. They did announce it a few times, but the staff for that event probably could have pushed it a bit more in the packet itself...another thing I don't have to worry about running the Gladiator. (As an aside, on our last conference call meeting pre-AdeptiCon, the BFG organizer told us he needed some paint judges...I told him he could have all of mine, since they were a bunch of lazy gits who didn't do anything...after he spent about 10-15 seconds telling me he only needed 1 or 2, I reminded him that we don't judge painting for the Gladiator. )

NecronLord3 wrote:4) I agree that the 3 round format needs tweaking as it really makes it difficult to have an accurate ranking with only 3 rounds.

As a fellow player in the Champs, I agree wholeheartedly.

NecronLord3 wrote:
5) Time between the rounds. We had plenty of time before round 1 began to get started, and the lunch break between rounds 1 and 2 gave us plenty of time to set up for the 2nd round but we literally had maybe 5 minutes to find our next pairing and get to it before the 3rd round began. I know that it takes awhile to correlate 220 players worth of results so I would try to put in at least an hour break between rounds so that the last round is not so rushed. We had plenty of time once the 3rd round was over to easily have increased the gap between rounds 2 and 3.

This has more to do with our restrictions for Sunday itself than with scheduling in general. We HAVE to wrap by 5:30-6:00 PM, which means cramming stuff in more than is really comfortable to a lot of people.

carlosthecraven wrote:Hi
3. Apocalypse has ruined the gladiator experience for me. I last played in the gladiator in 2007 and it was simply one of the best tourneys I had ever been a part of. In 2007, I fough titans and heirophants with a standard force and beat them both. In 2010, when our group finally made it back to Chicago, I got stomped by a warhound (and the scenario didn't help at all). D weapons are simply too much in standard 40K. In the past, big toys were more expensive with lesser armament. Now they are cheaper with bigger guns. If D were reduced to Str 10 AP 1, at least dice would need to be rolled. Throw in the "Lance" ability if you want it to still be really effective against tanks. (EDIT - I should probably add that I own 2 warhounds and a reaver, so this isn't envy speaking)

Greg and I actually thought about that...then decided we decided we didn't want to play "AdeptiCon 40K" with the Gladiator. 5th ed really helped D-weapons and big stuff, in ways we didn't forsee last year. We made some changes this year because of that, which to my mind, worked reasonably well, since the top two armies didn't have a single piece of forgeworld, superheavies, gargantuan creatures, or the like in them.

carlosthecraven wrote:
Also, the "screw everybody" approach to this year's scenarios resulted in auto-win/loss without rolling a die because certain matchups created a very tilted playing field. I played Tau, so my first round was auto-loss as Tau cannot take the middle of board from assault based Chaos Marines when only 4 turns get played. The third round was auto-win for me as Goatboyz Space Wolves never stood a chance in a stasis field game. Round four was the warhound - so with one of my broadside units tunnelling into combat with 10 marines, I never stood a chance. I didn't whine during the tournament, but I have to say that my enjoyment level was lacking, and of my group only I am considering doing it again on the Friday, if just for the tune-up before the team tournament.

I understand what you're saying...but to quote from the rules of the event: "Life isn't fair, and neither is the 40K Gladiator." The missions as a whole are designed to reward balanced forces, as opposed to one-sided ones. Looking back at the roster of champions:

Chaos SM
Mech Guard
Chaos SM
SM
Eldar
Tyranids
Guard
SM

With the exception of the 2 Guard armies (Mine and Jwolfe's), none of them were really focused on one aspect of the game. And I'll argue strongly that in a tournament setting, with 1 possible exception, shooting > assault.

Personally, I think it would take an exceptionally talented and lucky Tau player to win it all, because while they have good shooting, what they lack is the resilience that Guard gets from numbers. Then again, except for Scott Simpson, Tau have generally been boned on the tournament scene, so I don't know how we could necessarily make the Gladiator any different.

Once again, all opinions here are my own.

thehod wrote:Right now the majority of the members of the FAQ council are from the midwest and there are other 40k communities that are as large if not larger than in the Chicago area. It is a noble effort but the execution is off.

While true most are from the Midwest, none are currently fom the Chicagoland area. Of the current active council, only 3 of us even live in Illinois (and all South of I-80). The rest are in California, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan. So much more then the Chicago 40k community is being represented. If anything, the Chicago area 40k community is actually not being represented, currently.

While we all stand behind what gets ruled, I can assure you that any of the "hot topics" that get voted on normally end up coming down to a 4-3 split, with the ruling going in favor of the majority vote. Adding in more people from different parts of the country really isnt going to change that dynamic. More then likly either potential "answer" to a question on those "hot topic" type issues will come down to one side having 1 more vote then the other side of the duiscussion.

I think the key component to all that is not based on where people are from. Rather its the dynamic of how many people you have who are hardline RAW v people who want reasonable playability before RAW in all cases. Then you have your few who fall in the middle of that. Hardline RAW is going to be the same no matter what part of the country you are from. Reasonable playability and those who fall inbetween are where your swing votes are at. Add 2 more individuals from any part of the country who are in that voting area and you will probably still see them go 1-1 on the "hot topics" and still end up with a 5-4 split, as example. Im not saying there is no need for a few more people with valuable insight, just that the overall rulings are still going to end up being won by a single vote either way. Then as others have said, how many do you add in where it just becomes unmanageable with everyones schedules.

AgeOfEgos wrote:I didn't play in the team tournament this year, so if this has already been changed please disregard;

I would rather play 3 full games in the team tournament as opposed to 4 half games. To explain, two years ago we played in the team tournament and between moving tables (Around several people mind you during a team tournament!), classifying terrain, explaining team armies, handling FAQ rulings for the team armies, etc....the games were usually rushed and failed to have any closure. Many games both our opponents and ourselves wished the game could go on, as it seemed rather anti-climatic to just pack up and go to the next table.

I agree with a lot of this one... 2.5 hours *seems* like enough, but it always seemed that our games started at the 2hr mark as everyone has to go through the other army lists, review the (many) victory criteria for the scenarios, etc... We only had a couple of games actually finish on turns.

I do like the idea of primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives but the whole Command token thing was too time-consuming IMHO.

Still, don't drop a game. 4 games is do-able as long as some of the time killers (overly complex scenarios!) are cut down to a minimum.

Vale,

JohnS

cygnnus wrote:I agree with a lot of this one... 2.5 hours *seems* like enough, but it always seemed that our games started at the 2hr mark as everyone has to go through the other army lists, review the (many) victory criteria for the scenarios, etc... We only had a couple of games actually finish on turns.

I do like the idea of primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives but the whole Command token thing was too time-consuming IMHO.

Still, don't drop a game. 4 games is do-able as long as some of the time killers (overly complex scenarios!) are cut down to a minimum.

Some of the Command Counter uses are fine - "This unit is now a scoring unit" is easy to understand, and shouldn't take too long to assign. (Note: it saves significant time if teams read the missions BEFORE that round starts.) Others were annoyingly complex this year, e.g., mission #1.

I'd like to see table assignments posted ONLINE as well as on paper. There were more than sufficient numbers of iPhones on my team; we could have saved several minutes/round by not having to fight to one of the 3 paper lists.

@ Cent

There was actually quite a few 40k WC members present:

BBF
WhiteDevil
GMM Studios
Nascient Wonder
Rob Carr
Kenny Boucher
Tim Baptist
Rogue248
Rob Baer
The Hod
Paul Murphy (newly inducted)
Paul Minglino (newly inducted)

If I missed anyone my apology.

G

Centurian99 wrote:
On widening the membership of the Council...its a logistical issue, but one which we're definitely looking at. We'd like to expand the ruling council, but at the same time, if it gets too large, it becomes unwieldy and tough to mesh schedules.

That's because you insist, in 2010, on using conference calls to resolve things, where people have to commit several hours at a time on the phone. I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. I was on the phone-calls for setting up the TT rules in 2009, and opted to just judge day-of-the-event this year because of how poorly run those phone calls were. I'm busy, I'm sure all of you are busy, and there's no reason to have to block out a four-hour period of time when we have email and forum software that is far better suited for these sorts of things.

Then, because the discussions aren't actually written down and you're running it orally, you get goof-ups like what happened with the Tyranid stuff, where you completely missed a paragraph under the Death Leaper's special rule that actually resolved the question, and ruled opposite of what was actually in the rulebook. (Speaking about the loss of d6 movement question, specifically)

Get rid of the insistence on trying to resolve everything on a phonecall, and set up a private forum (even with polling capability), break every question into a topic, and people can weigh in as they have time, not shackled to any specific four-hour time period. It will be easier to quote and refer to relevant passages as you go too.

You do that, and there would be any number of qualified individuals willing to contribute to the effort, while simultaneously reducing the logistical issues involved in having a committee.

There is hte old adage if it's not broke don't fix it and you can't make everyone happy. If you turn the championship into a two day event it will possibly overshadow the team tournament and probably the gladiator. I like the championship as it is now since it's not overly competitive and you can play in all three of the big events. I think there is a trend of starting to make tournaments solely focused on being as competitive as possible and that is not necessarily always for the best. If you switch over to a two day event some will say you are just trying to copy BoLScon.

G

Redbeard,

On this point we will disagree. I think if you ask anyone serving on the council they will tell you as well that the conference call method is the only method that resolves the issues in a timely fashion. We have done the other methods and it drags on and on. We dedicate evenings a few hours at a time to work through the issues, have a verbal discussion, and debate the issues. Verbal communication and debate is the only way some discussions take place and a proper frame of reference can be determined. Additionally the conference call if needed can be recorded and reviewed later. Having people on the phone able to verbally discuss, and engage one another is critical to the process that otherwise is lost in an electronic format. Not to mention vote calls. Online polling would fall painfully short. Timing of the debate and discussion is critical.

Most of the council members are highly technical individuals. It’s not a matter of not understanding or lack of ability to use new technology. We use a lot of electronic communications on a regular basis for AdeptiCon and INAT purposes.
But, sometimes the old ways are the best ways to reach an end result and when it comes to these discussions .. getting everyone on the phone, discussing the issues, and calling a vote seems to be the best way to go about it from our experiences.

Oh .. the Tyranid goof up had nothing to do with the conference call setup. It had everything to do with attempting to get a updated out in a very short time frame. Unfortunately, when you rush to turn something around a few items might get missed.

-Hank

I know you like your calls Muwhe, and I know we disagree.

I don't understand your reasoning though. "Online polling would fall painfully short" - why? And do you really believe it's not possible to use an online solution that addresses that concern? Timing of the debate and discussion - simply set deadlines. Arguments must be presented by a given time, at which point votes can be taken.

I think that the rush and errors with the Tyranids would have been alleviated if you did your reviews in a written format, rather than an oral one. If all the questions are written down, complete with relevant quotes and comments directly with the question, it's much harder for something to fall through the cracks.

Redbeard wrote:That's because you insist, in 2010, on using conference calls to resolve things, where people have to commit several hours at a time on the phone. I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. I was on the phone-calls for setting up the TT rules in 2009, and opted to just judge day-of-the-event this year because of how poorly run those phone calls were. I'm busy, I'm sure all of you are busy, and there's no reason to have to block out a four-hour period of time when we have email and forum software that is far better suited for these sorts of things.

Then, because the discussions aren't actually written down and you're running it orally, you get goof-ups like what happened with the Tyranid stuff, where you completely missed a paragraph under the Death Leaper's special rule that actually resolved the question, and ruled opposite of what was actually in the rulebook. (Speaking about the loss of d6 movement question, specifically)

Get rid of the insistence on trying to resolve everything on a phonecall, and set up a private forum (even with polling capability), break every question into a topic, and people can weigh in as they have time, not shackled to any specific four-hour time period. It will be easier to quote and refer to relevant passages as you go too.

You do that, and there would be any number of qualified individuals willing to contribute to the effort, while simultaneously reducing the logistical issues involved in having a committee.

And that is exactly where this process would fail. While forum software and polling has benefits (and is a resource to use - ie: dakkadakka.com, warseer.com, etc), you can spend far more time composing arguments, assessing grammar and working to interpret discussions than a call would ever take up. Hell, just viewing some of the threads and the length of the posts should provide that insight alone. Now that is not to say that these tools are not used or not valuable. They are used through the sites listed earlier and the input received there has been accounted for in a lot of the major issues. However, there are many issues which take a lot of discussion that is best handled via a call. If forum software and polling was the absolute best method, companies would never need conference calls or meetings ever again. We can all see that has happened.

Side note: it's just like texting. While texting has it's uses, there have been plenty of times that I responded to several texts and wasted a ton of time. Yet a call ended up solving the problem very quickly. Same rule applies here. You have to pick your tools and know when to appropriately use each one. Funny - how after typing this email, I have wasted a great amount of time reviewing it and working to ensure my points were clear. Damn a call would have been quicker.

As far as mistakes, I guarantee with 100% certainty that no matter what team is assembled, what tools are used and what processes are implemented, mistakes will happen. Guarantee it. That's why feedback is solicited and accepted. You are just fooling yourself if you think the tools you listed will fix everything. In fact, I would be willing to be they cause more work and time consumption.

As far as any number of qualified individuals goes, I'm sure that there are a number of qualified individuals. However, everyone thinks their qualified. While it's nice to think that everyone should be involved, it's a reality that doesn't work. This is why for instance - I select very specific teams at work depending on the capital project requirements. If we tried to include everyone that would be of value or some value, we would never accomplish anything. People would be tied up all the time.

Overall, the inclusion of large numbers of people, personality flaws, lack of true expertise, use of the wrong tools at the wrong time and more would detract from what has been a successful process.

Redbeard wrote:I know you like your calls Muwhe, and I know we disagree.

I don't understand your reasoning though. "Online polling would fall painfully short" - why? And do you really believe it's not possible to use an online solution that addresses that concern? Timing of the debate and discussion - simply set deadlines. Arguments must be presented by a given time, at which point votes can be taken.

I think that the rush and errors with the Tyranids would have been alleviated if you did your reviews in a written format, rather than an oral one. If all the questions are written down, complete with relevant quotes and comments directly with the question, it's much harder for something to fall through the cracks.

I hear what you're saying...obviously I'm a fan of online communication and we could easily set up a private forum to handle this type of interaction. However I have come around to agree with Hank on this.

In the past I have been involved with attempts to do a form of the INAT that was to be created entirely over a forum, and the idea was pretty much as you suggested...you would make a thread about each issue and then have a set time to vote on the issue. However I saw this system fail rather quickly for a number of reasons:


1) You have to take the time to post all the relevant information so those members who aren't familiar with the argument know why the question is even being asked. Like you said, if done properly theoretically it could mean that less stuff will fall through the cracks as the quotes from the rulebook would be there. The problem is, someone actually has to take the time to WRITE OUT all these arguments and that takes TIME.

On a conference call both sides can very quickly make an argument and then those involved can reference the book as needed. While phone calls don't have visual body cues for conversation, you get tone and the ability to react to a conversation in real-time. This goes a LONG way towards making what would take pages of dense text on a forum into a few minutes of intense argument on a phone call.

The reality of the situation is, in order to write out both sides of the argument into a forum thread along with a poll that covers all realistic options takes a LOT of time when applied to the amount of new issues we rule on with each update...especially since many of them are rather complex issues to begin with.

Just as an example, the Doom of Malan'tai Spirit Leech ruling required quite a bit of argument and discussion and THEN once we discussed it enough and made an initial vote we then had to focus on a secondary part of the issue: cover saves. If you're handling that via a forum post you have to make all the arguments, set a poll wait for the poll to end THEN make another post on secondary follow-up issues, initiate another poll and wait for that to end, etc.

Depending on how long you're waiting to close the polls you're talking about a couple of weeks to do something that can be done in one (long) night.



2) Yes you can set time limits on polls in your forums, but what happens when people don't vote by that time limit? You end up with only a few people making the ruling, which obviously doesn't work. And that's the good thing about the conference call: yeah, it can be sometimes difficult to get everyone on the line at once, but once you do, then you know you've got all the people needed to make the rulings for the next few hours.


3) In truth, I actually think you've gotten it backwards, in that I think it is EASIER for stuff to fall through the cracks when it is presented in a forum format. Sure, when proper rules quotes are included something stupid like the Deathleaper ruling may not have happened, but in general if you've got 40 rulings to wade through and vote on by a certain date and each of those issues has a lengthy forum post, poll and potential argument to read through, I think it is a whole lot easier for someone involved to accidentally glaze through an important part of the thread and make a vote without even realizing what they're doing.

When we're on the phone, at anytime someone can stop the other person mid sentence and question them about their argument or ask for the quote from the rulebook. But you know that the important parts of the argument are going to be emphasized by those most passionate about it and that everyone is going to hear those arguments...nobody is going to skim right over something as everyone is privy to the same phone call.


In the end the Deathleaper and Spore Mine issues occurred because we were attempting to get the INAT update out more quickly than usual. In my rush I made some very stupid mistakes and everyone put a little bit too much trust in my ability to know all the rules. If we had been on our normal schedule then more people would have had more time to read their Tyranid codices a little more and we would have had more time to double-check the INAT draft before publication to spot such errors.

But even so, I am looking into a potential solution to help prevent this from ever happening again, regardless of the time constraints required for the update.

Does the INAT discussion need to be either Conference Calls or Forums? How about both? You get the benefits of both media. There is something to be said for online conversation with the ability to craft your thoughts carefully in a way that you couldn't on the phone. It would allow for a gathering of thoughts that could be quickly discussed on a conference call. And the conference call does allow for a more personal resolution of discussions.

This is surely something that be a melding of styles.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:
If forum software and polling was the absolute best method, companies would never need conference calls or meetings ever again. We can all see that has happened.

Depending on your industry, it has. In my line of work, meetings aren't about getting things done, they're about building relationships. You have a conference call with a customer because you want them to feel valued. It's all very touchy-feely. But, when they, or you, actually want something done, email is the way to do it. IMs pretty much replace inter-office phonecalls even.

It's a different way of doing things, and I guess not everyone is ready for it. I can say, from personal experience, that text-based solutions scale infinitely better than conference calls. As Bill indicated above, the reason for not expanding the council is the logistics. Trying to get 10 people on a conference call is hard. Each additional member adds one more schedule that has to be worked around. If you spread beyond just North America, you start bumping into serious timezone issues as well. Both of these issues are solved by going to an online system. I developed a system for an international gaming group to handle their rules disputes and policy decisions online that supports weekly votes by over 50 member representatives spread across four continents, without any logistical issues about how many people can weigh-in or have to be present at any specific time.

As far as any number of qualified individuals goes, I'm sure that there are a number of qualified individuals. However, everyone thinks their qualified. While it's nice to think that everyone should be involved, it's a reality that doesn't work. This is why for instance - I select very specific teams at work depending on the capital project requirements. If we tried to include everyone that would be of value or some value, we would never accomplish anything. People would be tied up all the time.

Of course. But, if the goal of the INAT ("Independent National Tournament FAQ" - from the front page of the document) is to be a national tournament resource, membership on the council should be open to more than just Adepticon staff. Furthermore, I'm not sure that people running tournaments are necessarily the best-suited to working on such a document. Some of you are certainly extremely competent and know your rules in-and-out. But that's not true of all the people listed in the credits of the document. Matthias, for example, has many excellent talents, and is a great tournament organizer. But he self-admittedly doesn't play 40k anymore. Please don't think I'm bashing him in any way, for I know how much work he puts into making Adepticon the best tournament experience in the country. But for someone who doesn't play a game to be part of the FAQ council for that game's National Tournament FAQ is questionable to say the least.


If you want a truly independent tournament FAQ with real national (and maybe international) reach, why not set up something like this;

You make being part of the INAT a two-way proposition. Any tournament organizer can opt to be a member of the INAT group. Membership means that they get a vote on the rulings (it's really no harder to allow 100 people to vote than it is to allow 10, unless you're on a conference call), but agree to honor the majority rulings for all of their tournaments. Looking at the GW site, there are over 30 events listed on the Tournament Circuit. What better way to really get everyone playing by one set of rules than to get them all using the INAT? And what better way to do that than to give them a voice in what those rules will be.

Furthermore, you can have 'earned spots', where people who have proven themselves competent can each have a voice. Adepticon already has a mechanism that could be used for this - anyone who has won a codicer award (for rules knowledge) at one of the events could be given an entry to this council as well.

Based on the numbers, you'd be looking at about a 60-70 member council, rather than a 10-man council. But it would be a council with a much greater national voice, and more of a reason for people to adopt it.

Yakface wrote:
In the past I have been involved with attempts to do a form of the INAT that was to be created entirely over a forum, and the idea was pretty much as you suggested...you would make a thread about each issue and then have a set time to vote on the issue. However I saw this system fail rather quickly for a number of reasons:

1) You have to take the time to post all the relevant information so those members who aren't familiar with the argument know why the question is even being asked. Like you said, if done properly theoretically it could mean that less stuff will fall through the cracks as the quotes from the rulebook would be there. The problem is, someone actually has to take the time to WRITE OUT all these arguments and that takes TIME.

Someone has to take the time to write them all out anyway - that's how they got into the PDF. You're just front-loading the typing to when the question is asked, rather than when it is answered. On the other hand, as you get more members, this workload can be distributed among more people, so the actual time required by any one person is lessened.

2) Yes you can set time limits on polls in your forums, but what happens when people don't vote by that time limit? You end up with only a few people making the ruling, which obviously doesn't work. And that's the good thing about the conference call: yeah, it can be sometimes difficult to get everyone on the line at once, but once you do, then you know you've got all the people needed to make the rulings for the next few hours.

In my experience, if you tell people that votes will be taken once a week, by midnight sunday, people find a way to get their votes in. As it stands right now, only a few people are making the rulings. The FAQ document lists nine names. There are over thirty tournaments in the GW circuit this year (According to this link) That means you have fewer people making the decision than there are events. It also means that a close vote (5-4) was actually decided by five people. If the council was expanded to 50 or 60 people, and half of them didn't vote on an issue, you'd still have more people making the ruling than there are currently.

Redbeard wrote:Of course. But, if the goal of the INAT ("Independent National Tournament FAQ" - from the front page of the document) is to be a national tournament resource, membership on the council should be open to more than just Adepticon staff. Furthermore, I'm not sure that people running tournaments are necessarily the best-suited to working on such a document. Some of you are certainly extremely competent and know your rules in-and-out. But that's not true of all the people listed in the credits of the document. Matthias, for example, has many excellent talents, and is a great tournament organizer. But he self-admittedly doesn't play 40k anymore. Please don't think I'm bashing him in any way, for I know how much work he puts into making Adepticon the best tournament experience in the country. But for someone who doesn't play a game to be part of the FAQ council for that game's National Tournament FAQ is questionable to say the least.

Alex - actually my name should be removed from the newer versions of the INAT - I haven't been involved in sometime. I believe it there due my historical involvement only.

I think labeling the document the INAT or 'Independent National Tournament FAQ' was a bit ambitious. I've always been in favor of naming it the AdeptiCon FAQ. I think in the end that would have saved us a ton of teeth gnashing. That said, this is primarily Jon's baby and a majority of the document came from/comes from right here on Dakka Dakka - so labeling it as such would also be wrong.

I understand where you are coming from - but speaking from years of collective-based experience, the larger the group, the sooner it fails and falls into disarray. A forum requires constant monitoring in order to keep up with all the discussions, additional time to respond to tangents, the potential for abuse...I support the INAT guys in whatever medium they find works best for them.

Increasing membership is something that will no doubt happen from what I understand..although I sure it will be a more gradual process. Adding 3 or 4 people is much more feasible than 30-40. It is extremely important to have a respectful group that can work together without individuals that will get bent out of shape when something doesn't go their way...

This '40K' game seems to be nothing but trouble. I think Adepticon should drop it in favor of more Warhammer Quest.

Seriously - does anyone want to add their 2 cents on the other half of Adepticon? WFB, FOW, Warmachine, LotR, WAB, BFG, Epic, seminars, vender hall, etc ....

RanTheCid wrote:This '40K' game seems to be nothing but trouble. I think Adepticon should drop it in favor of more Warhammer Quest.

Haha! Agreed!

Redbeard wrote:
In my experience, if you tell people that votes will be taken once a week, by midnight sunday, people find a way to get their votes in. As it stands right now, only a few people are making the rulings. The FAQ document lists nine names. There are over thirty tournaments in the GW circuit this year (According to this link) That means you have fewer people making the decision than there are events. It also means that a close vote (5-4) was actually decided by five people. If the council was expanded to 50 or 60 people, and half of them didn't vote on an issue, you'd still have more people making the ruling than there are currently.

The highlighted section is immaterial.

The INAT is made for and by people associated with Adepticon. The existence of other tournaments doesn't really matter, as INAT is not made for/by them. Those other tournaments are completely free to take the time and energy to make their own FAQ, should they so choose. There is no reason to expect Adepticon to enlist the help of people who have no connection to the tournament whatsoever in the effort to create a FAQ for their own use.

It's like the US government discussing with foreign powers as to how to craft domestic policy.

The naming of the FAQ is immaterial, as well. It was named as such merely to indicate that anyone who wanted to could make use of it, rather than naming it such that people felt they needed Adepticon's permission to use it.

Lastly, do you really believe that taking the council from approximately 10 people to approximately 60+ people would result in a more efficient and smooth operation?

RanTheCid wrote:This '40K' game seems to be nothing but trouble. I think Adepticon should drop it in favor of more Warhammer Quest.

Seriously - does anyone want to add their 2 cents on the other half of Adepticon? WFB, FOW, Warmachine, LotR, WAB, BFG, Epic, seminars, vender hall, etc ....

I played in the Warmachine Midnight Tournaments. I only have one complaint/suggestion.

Can the Midnight Tournaments be played in an actual hall/room?

We tried to play in the Grand Hall the first night and got booted after 2 games.
Then we were in the hall out front. All the terrain on the tables had to be taken from the ballroom tables.
Then the lights gradually dimmed on us. The second night we were able to have the lights kept bright. Apparently the right person was talked to.
But it still made it feel like we were an after-thought, and not a real part of the events.
I still had fun, and I met a lot of people from the PP boards, and Malfred as well.

Also, because of the spread, I completely forgot about the Fantasy Tournament until well after the armies were gone. :(
I would have liked to check them out in person.

On the Forum vs Phone Call debate, have you guys tried any other electronic forms, ie. Chat programs or Ventrilo server? Or even video conference?

Can the Midnight Tournaments be played in an actual hall/room?

The Midnight madness was always schedule for the foyer area. Honestly, there was a good deal of uncertainity with how well it would be attended.

Given the success and depending on discussions with Privateer Press we will looking a different space. Going to be some shifting of things as we adjust to the overall space of the venue and the growth of our events.

Potentially a 24 hour gaming hall space in one of the smaller rooms. The issue of course is staffing. Someone associated with and involved with AdeptiCon has to be present. It's hard to find staff and coverage for daytime events let along the graveyard shift.

-Hank

muwhe wrote:Can the Midnight Tournaments be played in an actual hall/room?

The Midnight madness was always schedule for the foyer area. Honestly, there was a good deal of uncertainity with how well it would be attended.

Given the success and depending on discussions with Privateer Press we will looking a different space. Going to be some shifting of things as we adjust to the overall space of the venue and the growth of our events.

Potentially a 24 hour gaming hall space in one of the smaller rooms. The issue of course is staffing. Someone associated with and involved with AdeptiCon has to be present. It's hard to find staff and coverage for daytime events let along the graveyard shift.

-Hank

Thanks for the response.
I am hoping not to sound like I am making complaints.
But I am trying to show where some things were misunderstood.

When it came time to sign up for the event, the registration table people directed me to the 40k registration table,
who then directed me to where they thought the WM registration was.
Also the events list on the walls showed the event as being in the Grand Ballroom.

So there needs to be an Adepticon Staff member present to keep the halls open? I did not realize that.

Again, my thanks for putting on a great event. It was my second Adepticon, and I plan for a third.
I had a great time and saw some friends I planned to, some I was surprised to see, and met a few new ones.

Saldiven wrote:

Redbeard wrote:
In my experience, if you tell people that votes will be taken once a week, by midnight sunday, people find a way to get their votes in. As it stands right now, only a few people are making the rulings. The FAQ document lists nine names. There are over thirty tournaments in the GW circuit this year (According to this link) That means you have fewer people making the decision than there are events. It also means that a close vote (5-4) was actually decided by five people. If the council was expanded to 50 or 60 people, and half of them didn't vote on an issue, you'd still have more people making the ruling than there are currently.

The highlighted section is immaterial.

The INAT is made for and by people associated with Adepticon. The existence of other tournaments doesn't really matter, as INAT is not made for/by them. Those other tournaments are completely free to take the time and energy to make their own FAQ, should they so choose. There is no reason to expect Adepticon to enlist the help of people who have no connection to the tournament whatsoever in the effort to create a FAQ for their own use.

It's like the US government discussing with foreign powers as to how to craft domestic policy.

The naming of the FAQ is immaterial, as well. It was named as such merely to indicate that anyone who wanted to could make use of it, rather than naming it such that people felt they needed Adepticon's permission to use it.

Lastly, do you really believe that taking the council from approximately 10 people to approximately 60+ people would result in a more efficient and smooth operation?

Adding more people to a committee absolutely doesn't make it better. I applaud you for getting work done with 10. Getting bigger would add to the work, not the output, and eventually, it would still be the same people doing the work, with more shouting. Eventually the good people burn out, and output drops to 0.

The people running other circuit events are working on their own events, not Adepticon. We don't have a say in the INAT, and shouldn't have a say. Not our event. In the same manner, we can choose to use the INAT, not use it, or use part of it. There is no connection between Adepticon and the other events other than all of the rest of us wishing we could eventually be as successful as Adepticon.)

More people ruling on something 25-20 isn't a better decision than a 5-4. In fact, it will often be worse as all rulings will be compromises after way too much discussion. The INAT works, Adepticon is growing and successful. Growth and Success = WIN!

You know skype works pretty much the same and doesnt cost much to do conference calls and as someone else suggested Ventrilo

I have done 40 man raids in WOW with little or no problems with communication with vent vent. I have also did conference calls on skype on some podcasts and they offer chat options in each if you want to further articulate something.

Logistics problem solved

I of course don't know all the logistics going into the INAT FAQ but from this discussion it sounds like maybe there should be some consideration taken into reducing the number of people involved in the document.

RanTheCid wrote:This '40K' game seems to be nothing but trouble. I think Adepticon should drop it in favor of more Warhammer Quest.

Seriously - does anyone want to add their 2 cents on the other half of Adepticon? WFB, FOW, Warmachine, LotR, WAB, BFG, Epic, seminars, vender hall, etc ....

Add more terrain thralls for the secondary game rooms. In particular, about seven tables of wild west buildings and scenery would be greatly appreciated.

But seriously, I noticed that some of the free events which sold out had really poor attendance, and I wonder if changing those events to $1 each or something might avoid the possible problem of people signing up for an event because it's free but then not worrying about showing up because they aren't losing anything.

Although, in the interest of full disclosure I signed up for the Sunday WotR demo and then didn't attend due to oversleeping. So I feel like I owe the organizer of that event an apology. :(

I would like to see the TOs stop playing in the events and a couple of objective outsiders added to hte council.

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:I would like to see the TOs stop playing in the events and a couple of objective outsiders added to hte council.

Objective outsiders? Why would anyone want to invite objective outsiders into anything if they want to get something accomplished?

As far as TOs in events - I think only Greg and Bill play in any major events and they absolutely have that right. They both work incredibly hard on AdeptiCon and neither of them have any say whatsoever in any set of event rules or missions, nor see anything in advance, outside of the Gladiator.

skrulnik wrote:
I still had fun, and I met a lot of people from the PP boards, and Malfred as well.

LOL, always an afterthought

It was good meeting you, too.

Sad to say that our next meeting there'll be more silver on the table...

I loved having midnight events. It meant that I could work part of the con and *gasp* play
part of the con. I think I'd be okay with running the tournaments next year if it meant I could
play in one of the big events still.

Feedback on the grand raffle thing: I don't know of a human way to do this, but it would be
nice if there was a way to announce the raffle at a time/place when everyone could receive
it. Events were still going on the first night when we recognized one of the names. I don't know
if they got your attention in time, but the guy was playing in another event.

I don't know how that would work logistically, though. Maybe tell people running games to
be ready to receive notice and announce it in their rooms/seminars.

Call it the 10 o'clock raffle and stop everything to announce the names.

It's a growing trend for TOs not to play. Yakface played in the TT & I think Jankthin is a staff member as well now. Isn't one of the guys from a Checkmate Hobbies a staff member as well?

If you were to bring in some objective outsiders I think it would greatly help to both improve your FAQ & sale it to a wider audience.

G

I know I am not one of the bigwigs on this or any of the forums but for a first time Adepticon attendee I have a couple of suggestions. I noticed that you guys had alot of prize support for the winners of the events. I think that some of this could be redistributed so that 2nd and 3rd place people could get mentioned and receive something for placing. Best General and Best Overall I understand why it is done this way I am just not a fan. Believe me when I say understand how hard it is to get prize support. I run events for kids here in my home city and it is hard to get stuff donated. Just wanted to throw it out there.

The 40k Championships needs to be 4 games not 3 in my opinion.

The Combat Patrol is the most fun I have had playing this game in a long time. The rules and more importantly the scenarios were awesome and you must do everything in your power to keep the people doing it. They did a great job. Combat Patrol must stay. I have already started planning for next year and I am skipping the Gladiator to play in the combat patrol and then do the Team Tourney.

Jaws of the World Wolf should be allowed to go thru HtH combat not stop at it. Can JotWW really ever not be argued about.....EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! HEhEhe

@Janthkin.......I think I played you in the 2nd round of the Championship. Space Wolves vs. Your Nids. Fun game buddy.........Nice to have a face with the name now.

It's a growing trend for TOs not to play. Yakface played in the TT & I think Jankthin is a staff member as well now. Isn't one of the guys from a Checkmate Hobbies a staff member as well?

Greenie,

I don’t know if it has ever be acceptable for a TO to play in an event they “run”.

But there is a difference between a TO for a 5 or 6 game GT format event not playing and the staff requirements to run such an event and AdeptiCon. Any one major aspect of AdeptiCon could itself be a stand-alone GT. AdeptiCon is a massive operation. AdeptiCon staff are playing in events that they themselves have no involvement in the organization or operation. We have very segemented event teams. Bill and Greg run the Gladiator, but can if they want play in anything else over the weekend. Same goes for all of our event staff. No one plays in an event they “run”.

For those of us that are principles and have overriding authority on aspects of AdeptiCon. None of us play.

While some AdeptiCon staff select not to play in anything all weekend long we by no means or will we ever require it.

As a side note: For those of our staff that do choose to play in events.... we personally hold them to a higher standard; we are harder on them in a lot of aspects just ask them. Borderline conduct that might be acceptable for a normal attendee, we won’t tolerate from our staff. The issue is people want to equate having “AdeptiCon Staff” in events with some sort of shenanigans or favoritism. Take a deep breath. Stop worrying about the black helicopters or the UN world take over. We don’t spend months of our time, or have worked to build AdeptiCon into what it has become to make sure we can hand out a few prizes and plaques to our closest friends and associates. You can also be certain that our staff understand the stakes as well.

If anyone thinks that AdeptiCon staff get a hand up or some sort of advantage… well I recommend volunteering. Your tune will change very quickly when you suddenly find the hobby time you once had to keep your game up and skills sharp .. or the time you had to paint some great models… is now being dedicated to insure that the masses of AdeptiCon attendees have the best hobby weekend possible.

AdeptiCon takes well over 120+ volunteers, is a year round process for some, and from a staffing side we could always use more… what you suggest would significantly limit the number and just as important the quality of the staff needed to run AdeptiCon.

I normally post my thoughts on Adepticon in the Adepticon boards, but I guess I will post them here. I am only posting where they can improve, not going in to all of the details of how well it is run and what a quality event that it is, etc.

#1. The Championships is way too large for only 3 games. There is a big problem though with expanding it. You have the TT on Saturday and you have a “hard out” on Sunday night for people who have to go home. There are a few solutions like expanding Adepticon to 4 days and have the championships on Thur-Fri, and a 3 game Gladiator on Sunday. Or you can run it Fri and Sun. The problem with Fri-Sun is not only the split days, but a lot of people will be out of contention on Sunday, and lose interest. One idea that I had was to split the Sunday crowd into 2 groups, one that is still playing in a continuation of the 7-game championships, and the people who scored low go into a consolidation tournament where they start from scratch and play a 3 game tournament. You can run the 2 tournaments simultaneously like you did this year.

#2. I agree with Hod that the Gladiator has lost a lot of luster and is not the tournament that it used to be. Remember all of the trial rules? The chapter approved lists? Now it has become a weak Apocalypse game. If there was another 40k event going on (other than combat patrol), I think you would have very few takers.

#3. I do not know how many people you have on the INAT but about 5 or 6 seems about right. Yakface, 2-3 Midwestern guys and then you should get a few outsiders to give them a voice, and to help legitimize it. Add someone who is respected in the gaming community like Marc Parker (for an example), and also a member of the BoLS crew.

#4. The low point of the weekend for me was the missions. They seemed to be rather weak this year. To give you some examples of the Championships missions one was to kill all of your opponents troops. That is easier to do if you are playing an assault army, but if you are playing a shooting army all your opponent had to do is hide a model, and then you can’t complete it. The other mission I did not like was to kill your opponents HQs while keeping yours alive. Here my misfortune was to bring only one Demon Prince as my HQ. So my opponent was able to get the objective quite easily, while on the other side of the board, an Eldar farseer is nearly impossible to kill. It just seemed that a lot of the missions favored different armies, and they should not penalize different builds so heavily. It seems like the armies that did the best in the Championships were all assault armies. I know that you are trying to have tiered objectives to try to get some separation of a 100+ player event in 3 games, but a lot of the missions screwed some armies right away, and rewarded others.

Blackmoor wrote:#1. The Championships is way too large for only 3 games. There is a big problem thought expanding it. You have the TT on Saturday and you have a “hard out” on Sunday night for people who have to go home. There are a few solutions like expanding Adepticon to 4 days and have the championships on Thur-Fri, and a 3 game Gladiator on Sunday. Or you can run it Fri and Sun. The problem with Fri-Sun is not only the split days, but a lot of people will be out of contention on Sunday, and lose interest. One idea that I had was to split the Sunday crowd into 2 groups, one that is still playing in a continuation of the 7-game championships, and the people who scored low go into a consolidation tournament where they start from scratch and play a 3 game tournament. You can run the 2 tournaments simultaneously like you did this year.

Sorry, pet peeve.

I'm seeing this a lot lately. The correct term is "consolation," not "consolidation."

Consolation, as in, "I'm really sorry you didn't make it to the big final, so we're having this little tournament for you. I hope it makes you feel better to get to keep playing."

Maybe he meant consolidation. As in, we consolidate all the mediocre players into their own event...

muhwe it is my objective opinion. The high standards are all well and good, I believe you. Often perception unfortunately is stronger than the actual truth. So it was friendly advice what I said.

G

Went to my first Adepticon this year had a blast.

I have no issues with the Inat FAQ, I amy not agree with all the rulings, but it is still a good document.

- The 40k champs were fun, would like to see 4 games if possible and maybe less % on painting score and maybe a hight % for the rules quiz.
- I think it would be cool to have a pairs tournament, maybe at the same time as the team one for people who can't find 4 people to team up with and maybe 750 points each
- Make sure that the poker game comes back, had a great time playing in it.
- Hope fully add more games, such as Malifaux or firestorm armada.
- Maybe a dedicated area for pickup games and/or a system to find pickup games

I am looking forward to next year.

trichloro wrote:
- Hope fully add more games, such as Malifaux or firestorm armada.
- Maybe a dedicated area for pickup games and/or a system to find pickup games

The Open Gaming/Specialist games hall has space for this sort of gaming.
I have a volunteer for FireStorm Armada plus a pair of guys brought in their own terrain were playing Infinity this past year. They asked to be on the event list for next year - just waiting for them to email.
I could troll the Malifaux boards for a volunteer - or push a name my way if you have some one in mind.

The room used for Combat Patrol had a lot of pic up games played this year. I think the addition of that space was last minute - we'll see about advertising it better next year.

Guys, something that just came to my attention: Better educate your judges on the rules packets for the events.

Apparently one of the Fantasy TT judges was telling people that the event was "Closed List" despite it stating right in the packet that List Sharing was mandatory.

I just checked the packet handed out AND the one posted on the website and both contain this sentence on a bullet point:

• Each Contingent must provide an army list to their opponents with the stats of their army. Magic Items do not need to be named, but a line should appear denoting the cost of items. Hidden models (Assassins, Fanatics, etc…) should be listed separate of the unit they are contained in.

Oh I forgot one more suggestion

Bring back the Invitational. I know now there arent any GW GTs but look at all the Indy GTs plus the ard boyz finals. Thats plenty of candidates to choose from. The invitationals were a reason I wanted to goto a few of the indy GTs.

Black Blow Fly wrote:Isn't one of the guys from a Checkmate Hobbies a staff member as well?

Joe was the TO for the 40k Champs. However, every member of Checkmate Hobbies (including myself) served some kind volunteer staff role over the course of the weekend.

Seperate topic:

I can't find the post to quote it, but for whoever said all the INAT members are Adepticon staff, this isnt totally accurate. I was invited to be part of the INAT team before I ever had any involvement with Adepticon. Then, as Adepticon last year came around, I volunteered to be a rules judge for the Gladiator, TT and 40k Champs. Given I am part of the INAT team it made sense to fit me in as a volunteer member that reguard. That is currently the extent of my staff credentials for the past 2 Adepticons.

Wouldn't it possibly be a good idea to include some new council members from groups such as BoLScon and other large successfully run events? This would go far towards creating a FAQ that would have a better chance of being more universally accepted by other TOs across the country? I know this would probably involve a lot of headaches but it could be well worth it.

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:Wouldn't it possibly be a good idea to include some new council members from groups such as BoLScon and other large successfully run events? This would go far towards creating a FAQ that would have a better chance of being more universally accepted by other TOs across the country? I know this would probably involve a lot of headaches but it could be well worth it.

G

Yes it would. Of course, when we started the INAT, one of our original ideas was to invite the people who run the Necro...and that was the year that the Necro died. :( BOLS is now going into their second year (and if I can swing the cash for a flight I'd love to go this summer).

The thing is...right now there aren't a lot of tournament/conventions out there that have the kind of longevity and extra-regional reach that would be really useful. There's a lot of GOOD cons/tournaments out there...but really, none of them have the national reach that AdeptiCon does. So which ones should participate and why? And which ones shouldn't?

Or do we invite people from gaming clubs/regions...of which there are tons, but how do you choose who to invite?

On top of all that...

There's also one other issue...in that one of the things that we've all agreed on the INAT committee is that regardless of whether a ruling was 9-0 or 5-4, once we vote, it's done. We might re-visit the issue (and have done so), but publicly, we all support whatever ruling we come up with, even if we were on the "4" side of a 5-4 vote. If the INAT committee is expanded, committing to that kind of non-disclosure and public unity is going to be required.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Black Blow Fly wrote:It's a growing trend for TOs not to play. Yakface played in the TT & I think Jankthin is a staff member as well now. Isn't one of the guys from a Checkmate Hobbies a staff member as well?

If you were to bring in some objective outsiders I think it would greatly help to both improve your FAQ & sale it to a wider audience.

Yakface is on DD1. He's also our chief rules judge for the Gladiator, and this year he started the Space Hulk Tourney. (Note to everyone: this is how events for your favorite game get added to the roster...you volunteer to run the event. )

Janthkin...well, we talked him into some manual labor. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call him staff...he's just friendly and helpful in general.

Bikeninja wrote:I know I am not one of the bigwigs on this or any of the forums but for a first time Adepticon attendee I have a couple of suggestions. I noticed that you guys had alot of prize support for the winners of the events. I think that some of this could be redistributed so that 2nd and 3rd place people could get mentioned and receive something for placing. Best General and Best Overall I understand why it is done this way I am just not a fan. Believe me when I say understand how hard it is to get prize support. I run events for kids here in my home city and it is hard to get stuff donated. Just wanted to throw it out there.

I like the idea. Sparks may try and hunt you down and silence you (he's in charge of sponsorship), but I definitely like the idea.

solkan wrote:
But seriously, I noticed that some of the free events which sold out had really poor attendance, and I wonder if changing those events to $1 each or something might avoid the possible problem of people signing up for an event because it's free but then not worrying about showing up because they aren't losing anything.

Another good idea.

thehod wrote:You know skype works pretty much the same and doesnt cost much to do conference calls and as someone else suggested Ventrilo

I have done 40 man raids in WOW with little or no problems with communication with vent vent. I have also did conference calls on skype on some podcasts and they offer chat options in each if you want to further articulate something.

Logistics problem solved

The logistics isn't the number of people who can call in...its making schedules mesh so that enough people can call in. Skype wouldn't help with that at all.

NecronLord3 wrote:I of course don't know all the logistics going into the INAT FAQ but from this discussion it sounds like maybe there should be some consideration taken into reducing the number of people involved in the document.

LOL

malfred wrote:
Feedback on the grand raffle thing: I don't know of a human way to do this, but it would be
nice if there was a way to announce the raffle at a time/place when everyone could receive
it. Events were still going on the first night when we recognized one of the names. I don't know
if they got your attention in time, but the guy was playing in another event.

I don't know how that would work logistically, though. Maybe tell people running games to
be ready to receive notice and announce it in their rooms/seminars.

Call it the 10 o'clock raffle and stop everything to announce the names.

The raffle was a bit of a charlie-foxtrot. Definitely want to figure out something better for next year.

trichloro wrote:
- Hope fully add more games, such as Malifaux or firestorm armada.

Want to help run them?

thehod wrote:
Bring back the Invitational. I know now there arent any GW GTs but look at all the Indy GTs plus the ard boyz finals. Thats plenty of candidates to choose from. The invitationals were a reason I wanted to goto a few of the indy GTs.

Up to the Championship TOs (the Invitationals were a subset of the Championships.) The real question is...what would make the invitational different from the GW Invitational (or whatever they're calling Vegas).





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Black Blow Fly wrote:I would like to see the TOs stop playing in the events and a couple of objective outsiders added to hte council.

Muhwe and Matthias already chimed in...but I'd just like to reiterate.

Tournament Organizers don't play in their events. If you see a tournament organizer or someone in a staff shirt playing, you can pretty much assume they're playing the ringer army.

On the 40K side, the tournaments are very compartmentalized. Greg and I run the Gladiator, and aside from myself and the Three Kings (Matthias, Hank, & Jeff) nobody sees our final missions until the day of the Gladiator. The other 40K events are run the same way. (Fantasy's a bit different...mainly 'cause one person runs all three events (I think...square basers and round basers, you know. )).

One other thing that Muhwe (Hank) didn't mention is that our staff and volunteers are largely compensated by getting comped badges and event tickets.

Black Blow Fly wrote:Wouldn't it possibly be a good idea to include some new council members from groups such as BoLScon and other large successfully run events? This would go far towards creating a FAQ that would have a better chance of being more universally accepted by other TOs across the country? I know this would probably involve a lot of headaches but it could be well worth it.

G

BBF,


Things are in the works as I write this to do just that...it has always been the goal, but the most important thing was to actually get the document out and regularly updated. Now that the workflow is pretty much nailed down it is a good time to look into things like adding new council members and obviously the target would be to get other major tournament organizers from across the country.

But again, the goal has to remain in making sure the dynamic works and we are able to continue to update the INAT, so we certainly aren't going to suddenly add a bunch of people to the council all at once.

I think Jwolf would be an excellent addition to your council as would be the Hod. I don't know Jwolf that well but he comes as across as level headed and very knowledgeable about 40k. The Hod is also very level headed, very knowledgeable about 40k plus he was a judge at the Necro last year and will be a judge this summer at Bolter Beach. The Necro crew are actually fantasy players so not to knock them but I don't know how much they can contribute to a 40k tome such as your INAT FAQ. I'm sure there will plenty of work involved for 2011 with new codices such as Blood Angels.

G

Centurian99 wrote:
Or do we invite people from gaming clubs/regions...of which there are tons, but how do you choose who to invite?

Perhaps you look at people who score well on the quizes and have proved that they know the rules.

There's also one other issue...in that one of the things that we've all agreed on the INAT committee is that regardless of whether a ruling was 9-0 or 5-4, once we vote, it's done. We might re-visit the issue (and have done so), but publicly, we all support whatever ruling we come up with, even if we were on the "4" side of a 5-4 vote. If the INAT committee is expanded, committing to that kind of non-disclosure and public unity is going to be required.

That kind of unity is why there are concerns about decisions too, though. There's a huge difference between the whole group agreeing to abide by whatever the vote comes up as and support the document as a whole, and the whole group pretending that every vote was 9-0. Personally, I'd like to see a small minority opinion written about those votes that were close. It's possible to admit that you were outvoted without making the document unusable. 49% of the US population agrees not to overthrow the government every four years after all. Knowing that the really contentious issues were closely debated makes the final result much more tenable, to me at least, whereas the fictitious view that all nine members feel the same way about rules that have a 50/50 split in the YMDC forum polls would seem to indicate that they're not really considering all angles.

Of course, that would take more time, and the group has already indicated that they don't have any more time, so unless other people with more time join in, I doubt it will happen.

Saldiven wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:#1. The Championships is way too large for only 3 games. There is a big problem thought expanding it. You have the TT on Saturday and you have a “hard out” on Sunday night for people who have to go home. There are a few solutions like expanding Adepticon to 4 days and have the championships on Thur-Fri, and a 3 game Gladiator on Sunday. Or you can run it Fri and Sun. The problem with Fri-Sun is not only the split days, but a lot of people will be out of contention on Sunday, and lose interest. One idea that I had was to split the Sunday crowd into 2 groups, one that is still playing in a continuation of the 7-game championships, and the people who scored low go into a consolidation tournament where they start from scratch and play a 3 game tournament. You can run the 2 tournaments simultaneously like you did this year.

Sorry, pet peeve.

I'm seeing this a lot lately. The correct term is "consolation," not "consolidation."

Consolation, as in, "I'm really sorry you didn't make it to the big final, so we're having this little tournament for you. I hope it makes you feel better to get to keep playing."

Perhaps they mean: "consultation" as in a tournament where you ask the players to consult
one another on their rules and scenarios...

Also:

RantheCid wrote:I could troll the Malifaux boards for a volunteer - or push a name my way if you have some one in mind.

Email pending. Just need to ask him.

Redbeard wrote:There's a huge difference between the whole group agreeing to abide by whatever the vote comes up as and support the document as a whole, and the whole group pretending that every vote was 9-0.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen them do the latter. While I can see how it would be nice to be able to read "minority opinion" explanations for 5/4 split decisions, they'd add considerably to the length of the document, and I think there's also a danger there of people using them as yet another excuse to nitpick elements of the FAQ. More work for no practical gain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On the subject of suggestions for Adepticon, I think Adepticon is darn-near perfect. I don’t want to nitpick other people’s suggestions, but on the whole I really like how everything is run.

I like the idea of the Championship being 4 rounds on Friday with a 3 round final on Sunday for the top x number or x% of finishers. I don’t think running a consolation bracket is necessary; there’d be a pretty high % of no-shows, I suspect. Running a simultaneous separate RTT-style event on Sunday for a fresh start would be pretty cool, though.

I love Adepticon missions. They’re (usually) way more interesting and tactically-challenging than book missions. The one misstep I saw this year was R2 of the gladiator, where an Immobilized vehicle on turn 1 or 2 could pretty much force a Loss on the primary.

I like the idea of removing Apocalypse stuff from the Gladiator. But it’s cool as-is too.

Four rounds is perfect for the Team Tourney. It does take some discipline and organization (always review the next mission with your teammates during the break!), and practice helps a lot. You save a huge amount of time in the shooting & assault phases if you resolve multiple shooting attacks or assaults which have little potential to influence another simultaneously. You’ve got four guys at the table- whenever possible, two guys should be rolling dice, with an opponent witnessing each. Once I learned this and got my teammates on board, I rarely found myself running out of time in a team game. 5th edition style (not alternating units, like 4th and earlier) deployment also speeds things up substantially.

I think the codicier challenge was cool, but as you noted, someone’s got to run it.

I’m not happy with homemade models/conversions which significantly reduce the LOS profile of a model.

As someone with no affiliation with Adepticon other than attending, I can't imagine telling someone who volunteered numerous hours to put things together for no money that they can't play in tournaments they have no direct involvement in. If you're putting together the missions or judging rules disputes, you shouldn't be in that particular tournament. Otherwise, thanks for putting the thing together and I hope you have a blast playing in the other events.

grotblaster wrote:As someone with no affiliation with Adepticon other than attending, I can't imagine telling someone who volunteered numerous hours to put things together for no money that they can't play in tournaments they have no direct involvement in. If you're putting together the missions or judging rules disputes, you shouldn't be in that particular tournament. Otherwise, thanks for putting the thing together and I hope you have a blast playing in the other events.

QFT.

Adepticon is at a level where staffing is always going to be a huge need. People running one compartmentalized event shouldn't be told they can't play in something else. The best way to tank a successful event is to make volunteering too much work for no reward, and lose your volunteer staff.

It's always more fun, and easier, to play than run the event. Hats off to the guys that worked hard at growing Adepticon over the years.

Mannahnin wrote:I like the idea of the Championship being 4 rounds on Friday with a 3 round final on Sunday for the top x number or x% of finishers. I don’t think running a consolation bracket is necessary; there’d be a pretty high % of no-shows, I suspect. Running a simultaneous separate RTT-style event on Sunday for a fresh start would be pretty cool, though.

Here is the problem. When you are selling a badge for the event, you are selling them a Friday/Sunday tournament. Those who are doing poorly will be no-shows, and have no interesting in the Sunday games. If you start them fresh with a consolation tournament they will be happier and have a reason for showing up.

Also the consolation tournament can be sold as a one day event too, so people can do something else on Friday.

That's what I'm saying. Though I wouldn't label it a "consolation" tournament.

Label it the "Losers" Tournament.

Or, in more seriousness, call one the Invitational and one the Championships like it has been in the past.

Except the old Invitational was limited to entry by people who had placed in the top 10 of a circuit event within the past year. Better to call the 7-rounder the Championship and the 3 rounder something else.

The "Best of the Rest" tournament.

Adepticon is too good, I can't not play in all of the events. 11 games in 3 days is just too much. I didn't go this year because D Weapons and Flyers were slowed last year. I heard they fixed that now. I also was so tired and had so little time to just chill that I got so drunk I woke up pissing on the rug. I've really learned to tone my drinking down though because of that so I look back on the experience fondly. Now when I rarely drink it's just one or two. Now I wouldn't play in the Team Tournament because I think it is too taxing so I would probably enjoy the weekend more. I would like to play in something smaller like BFG on saturday but South Florida is a wasteland for gaming and so I will probably never learn the game. Maybe I will go next year, check out the first round of the Team tournament and then head out to see chicago.

I love the FAQ, why don't more people use it? Isn't convenience and clarity or rules worth enough to give up on feeling that certain things aren't to your liking? Of course you won't agree with everything. 40k has way too many rules ambiguitites not to have a comprehensive FAQ. While GW has recently appeared a little more serious(and far too RAW-for-no-good-reason) with Space Wolves FAQ there FAQs are by and large jokes involving mostly questions I have never heard as opposed to frequently heard.

I love the FAQ, why don't more people use it?

Because I like playing Warhammer 40k. I play by the actual rules, not the INAT "houserules" version.

Clearing up certain things which have no clear resolution is one thing, but INAT goes too far and starts rewriting core rules for no other reason. Clear up stuff that needs to be cleared up, but leave the game design to GW, please.

Speaking of which I still can't get over some of the crap rulings they made for the hive tyrant. Two Hive Commanders allow two Outflanking troops, all you needed to do is read the codex to know that...but they decided that the reserves bonus doesn't stack? Why? There's no reason for it other than someone in the council didn't want it to, because they're pretending to be a game designer and thought it was too "broken", probably. The decision to turn the tyrant into an IC makes no sense, either. He's a Monstrous Creature, the tyrant guard's Shieldwall allows him to join the unit like an IC, but he isn't an IC so he can't leave the unit after he's joined it. INAT says "Screw the rules, screw the codex, he's an IC and he can join/leave the unit freely!" Once again, no reason for that ruling, it's very clearly written in the book how it's supposed to be played.

Like I said, if they would just stick to clearing up actual ambiguities in the rules then that would be great, but when they do stuff like that which makes no sense and actually seems to go against what's written just because...it just makes the whole thing look like a joke to me.

I agree with what sidstyler said about INAT and that is the main reason I'm not using it at Bolter Beach.

G

Not that I mean to take a crap all over it or anything, I appreciate the effort that's gone into it...but it's not really an FAQ, it's a completely different way of playing 40k.

Sounds like a whole lot of: "I will support a community FAQ, as long as I can be on the council, and all of the rulings go in my favor... and if I disagree with any rulings I disavow the FAQ and stick to the chaos of browbeating opponent's with RAW arguments during events... Which in turn, did I mention sportsmanship scores should be removed so I can fight about rules without impacting my scores?"

I wish I could sig that but it's too long. Quite apt.

G

No, more like "I will support a community FAQ, so long as all it does is answer questions with no clear resolution or where RAW rulings either make no sense or are unplayable." Which is what an FAQ is for. The INAT does more than that by attempting to rebalance the game however the council sees fit.

You're also full of crap on sportsmanship scoring, too. Nah, let's just blissfully ignore every reasonable argument brought forth that's against them and continue flamebaiting people with your "You just want to be TFG and browbeat people!" bs. As if being able to passive-aggressively mark a guy down on his scores for being a douche during the game, instead of confronting them about it like an adult or even getting the judge involved and having him removed from the event entirely if he doesn't behave, was some kind of favorable resolution anyway.

It's a lose-lose situation. It's been proven to be time and again, and yet for some reason people like you still refuse to see reason and keep insisting that we "need" sports scores to stop bad behavior. IT DOESN'T STOP JACK, all it does is give the guy another weapon with which to dick people with.

I had meant to mention this earlier but it just came to me;

Debit card support in the vendor hall. This year the ATM machine went out in the computer room, which may have diminished vendor sales. The only vendor I'm aware of that accepted debit was GF9....

Also, where was FW this year?

AgeOfEgos wrote:This year the ATM machine went out in the computer room, which may have diminished vendor sales.

It was only out of Friday. Was working fine on Saturday.

If an event has a clearly posted and compiled FAQ, whatever it is or whomever makes it, then it is expected that people who attend that event use that FAQ.

I think that events having thier own FAQs is a good thing because it clears up a TON of disagreements before a single die is rolled and that makes games smoother and prevents arguments. Many rulings are so impacting that whole lists can be invalidated with a single interpretation. Players don't have to risk showing up with an army based around a special rule and finding all his effort nullified on a 4+ toll or the whim of a TO. Having a FAQ beforehand solves all this.

Adepticon has an FAQ, and as much as some may hate it, I feel the FAQ and rulings make the event better. If someone wanted to use a totally different FAQ for thier event, that's cool too. Events with *NO* FAQ available beforehand or are not defaulting to INAT are usually not very good experiences and I see a lot more arguing and in turn a lot more unhappy players.

Railing against the accepted FAQ at an event if you happen to disagree with, is 'browbeating' and is 'unsportsmanlike'. That is why the event organizer made the FAQ and during the event is not the time to fight the power. If you don't like the house rules, don't play at the house.

BBF has the right idea... He may not use INAT, but as long as he has *something* at his events he runs, it will be better overall and I suspect you will see way less arguments and disagreements when a piece of paper settles rulings before the games are played instead of an on-the-spot gutcheck of the closest redshirt or event judge.

And on "I will support a community FAQ, so long as all it does is answer questions with no clear resolution or where RAW rulings either make no sense or are unplayable." This is subjective and there is no way 100% of the population will ever agree that all the RAW RULINGS are fair and correct... And whomever disagrees will continue to rail about how the people who are doing it are wrong and ruining the game and they are the only true person playing by the rules. Basically say what you mean: "I will only support a FAQ that 100% agrees with how I play the game."

And that makes you a poor sport as not everyone everywhere will agree with you. The inability to accept that and accept people may disagree with your interpretations makes one a poor sport.

If you want everyone to play by your rules, then run your own events and make your own FAQ and enforce it. Problem solved.

Sidstyler wrote:No, more like "I will support a community FAQ, so long as all it does is answer questions with no clear resolution or where RAW rulings either make no sense or are unplayable." Which is what an FAQ is for. The INAT does more than that by attempting to rebalance the game however the council sees fit.

While that may be your subjective opinion, it is quite a far ways from the truth. The INAT team does not work to rebalance the game as they see fit nor has any desire to do such things. There are always people who will have an opinion that certain questions may not need to be answered or differ in what the answers should be. While it is fine to have such an opinion, it does not alleviate the fact that these issues have arisen in one form or another. You/your group may interpret the 40K rules set and codices in one way, which again is okay. However, it does not mean that other groups would interpret the rules set the same way. Hell - I've see significant differences within local and regional communities, let alone the national community. Due to this nature, an all encompassing document such as the INAT is bound to "ruffle some feathers" simply due to the fact that some interpretations or rulings may not fit as a person or group believes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AgeOfEgos wrote:I had meant to mention this earlier but it just came to me;

Debit card support in the vendor hall. This year the ATM machine went out in the computer room, which may have diminished vendor sales. The only vendor I'm aware of that accepted debit was GF9....

Also, where was FW this year?

Forge World was out this year because the Chicago Battle Bunker does not carry Forge World any more. They normally carried FW and were historically at AdeptiCon. Even if the Battle Bunker setup at AdeptiCon, they were not going to have FW this year. Now we are trying on getting FW there for 2011. However, the details are still being worked out.

While I don't want this turn into a pro- or anti- INAT thread (go ahead and start one if you want), I will throw in my two cents.

The INAT is simply there to facilitate games, and let people know ahead of time how potentially contentious situations will be resolved by the rules judges.

"Rebalancing" has absolutely nothing to do with it. One of my running jokes on the conference calls (I'm sure the rest of the council is getting sick of it) is to say, "F&^* those (insert codex name here)" after every question we discuss. Because ANY answer given is going to be to the "advantage" or "disadvantage of somebody's army.

When it comes to your suggestion that we only address areas where its unclear...we'd love to. Who gets to decide what's unclear? The INAT, as much as possible, is written to the lowest common denominator...which for us is the relative newbie to the hobby, who's attending a major tournament for the first time. If they're going to find something unclear in the rules...they will.

As to the RAW...I'm a big advocate of the RAW. So is Inq. Malice, btw. In real life, Inq. Malice is an engineer who's in charge of a making sure a chemical factory complies with statutory regulations, and I'm a former technical writer who got into political campaign communications and management, and is now in law school.

The difficulty with using the RAW is simply this...RAW often isn't clear cut. Words can have multiple meanings. In addition...the RAW can also be contradictory, especially when its applied to other RAW interpretation. You can try to see which rule supersedes the other, but in many cases, its not clear. Its easy to state the principle of specific overriding the general, but what happens when you've got a specific rule against another specific rule, or a specific rule impacting against another unrelated general rule? Or a multitude of other possible combinations.

In addition...anyone who wants to argue that the rules are written tightly enough that RAW should be good to resolve almost all rules issues...needs my boot up their rear. I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but working through the INAT for the past few years, I've become even more convinced that GW can't write rules for crap. (Yet I still love this game...go figure).

One last thing...does anyone else here know what single event caused the US GT's to institute sportsmanship scores? There was pretty much a singular cause, if what I've been told has validity (and since it was the person who did it who told me this, and have had it verified by other people who were there, I believe it). No names if you do know it, please...it was a long time ago.

Centurian99 wrote:One last thing...does anyone else here know what single event caused the US GT's to institute sportsmanship scores? There was pretty much a singular cause, if what I've been told has validity (and since it was the person who did it who told me this, and have had it verified by other people who were there, I believe it). No names if you do know it, please...it was a long time ago.

I'm not positive, but I'm thinking there was a heated discussion followed by something close to "If you're gonna $!%$$! me, why don't you $%^# my $^!^", or words to that effect, followed by some "junk" on the table. Again, I don't remember it too well, but the visual stands out as a good reason to implement the sports.

Flagg07 wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:One last thing...does anyone else here know what single event caused the US GT's to institute sportsmanship scores? There was pretty much a singular cause, if what I've been told has validity (and since it was the person who did it who told me this, and have had it verified by other people who were there, I believe it). No names if you do know it, please...it was a long time ago.

I'm not positive, but I'm thinking there was a heated discussion followed by something close to "If you're gonna $!%$$! me, why don't you $%^# my $^!^", or words to that effect, followed by some "junk" on the table. Again, I don't remember it too well, but the visual stands out as a good reason to implement the sports.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

Since the implementation of sportsmanship scores, it hasn't happened since, to my knowledge.

Railing against the accepted FAQ at an event if you happen to disagree with, is 'browbeating' and is 'unsportsmanlike'. That is why the event organizer made the FAQ and during the event is not the time to fight the power. If you don't like the house rules, don't play at the house.

I wasn't aware that this thread was Adepticon, and that by complaining about their use of the INAT here, after the event was done, is the same as complaining during the event.

House rules are just fine, if that's the way Adepticon wants to roll, with INAT40k, then so be it. I'm just saying that I probably won't attend if they insist on using it.

And that's another thing too, just because I hate the damn thing doesn't mean I still wouldn't give it a try. The main reason I haven't been to Adepticon yet is just the fact that I can't afford to travel, let alone for a three day event like that. Maybe I'm all wrong about it, who knows.

Basically say what you mean: "I will only support a FAQ that 100% agrees with how I play the game."

And that makes you a poor sport as not everyone everywhere will agree with you. The inability to accept that and accept people may disagree with your interpretations makes one a poor sport.

If you want everyone to play by your rules, then run your own events and make your own FAQ and enforce it. Problem solved.

I thought this thread was titled "suggestions for improving Adepticon". Now I'm being told that if I don't like it I should just run my own event?

I'm sorry guy, do you want people to post their opinions or not?

Fine then. I'll just keep my mouth shut, apparently Adepticon doesn't need or want my suggestions anyway. After all I'm just an donkey-cave browbeating TFG right? Because you know me, you've played games with me a thousand times before and as such have the authority to judge how good of a sportsman I am?

Hey, I'm always glad to get feedback. There's only four AdeptiCon staffers who've posted in this thread (to my recollection) - myself, Inq. Malice, Muhwe, and Matthias.

Inquisitor_Malice wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:I had meant to mention this earlier but it just came to me;

Debit card support in the vendor hall. This year the ATM machine went out in the computer room, which may have diminished vendor sales. The only vendor I'm aware of that accepted debit was GF9....

Also, where was FW this year?

Forge World was out this year because the Chicago Battle Bunker does not carry Forge World any more. They normally carried FW and were historically at AdeptiCon. Even if the Battle Bunker setup at AdeptiCon, they were not going to have FW this year. Now we are trying on getting FW there for 2011. However, the details are still being worked out.

Good news for Adepticon that FW is considering coming, bad news for my wallet. Thanks for the info.

Centurian99 wrote:

Flagg07 wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:One last thing...does anyone else here know what single event caused the US GT's to institute sportsmanship scores? There was pretty much a singular cause, if what I've been told has validity (and since it was the person who did it who told me this, and have had it verified by other people who were there, I believe it). No names if you do know it, please...it was a long time ago.

I'm not positive, but I'm thinking there was a heated discussion followed by something close to "If you're gonna $!%$$! me, why don't you $%^# my $^!^", or words to that effect, followed by some "junk" on the table. Again, I don't remember it too well, but the visual stands out as a good reason to implement the sports.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

Since the implementation of sportsmanship scores, it hasn't happened since, to my knowledge.

AHAHAHA

I wouldve given that guy a 12 on sports right there. If youve got the...balls to do that youre ok.

Centurian99 wrote:Hey, I'm always glad to get feedback. There's only four AdeptiCon staffers who've posted in this thread (to my recollection) - myself, Inq. Malice, Muhwe, and Matthias.

There may be only four council members who posted here. Several others of us worked various events over the weekend.

Not all criticism of the INAT is due to hating on it. I think it's a great idea, and even in some of the execution. I know my casual gaming group use it when we play, because none of us want to be rules lawyers during games, and it's a great resource that really does address most of the questions that come up. I think it would be even better if it were even more adopted, if it really did become a universal tournament resource.

As it is, it is kind of billed that way, and kind of billed as the Adepticon FAQ. And, there seems to be resistance to getting people outside Adepticon to adopt it's use. BoLScon, if I have read this thread correctly, aren't going to use it. Several other large tournaments don't use it. And that's a real shame, because that means they have to replicate that work to get their own set of answers, that will probably mesh with at least 80% with the INAT faq.

I kind of see the resistance to adoption as being predicated on two things, mostly from forum chatter. First, there is some disagreement with individual rulings. But that's the smaller issue, and much more easily overcome. The second is this feeling that the Adepticon Council want to keep control of it very insular. There are so many reasons presented to not having more people, from logistics (which is easily solved if you switch technologies), to qualification checks, to the very spurious "people need to be able to work together" (Seriously, we're adults here. You can't tell me that you've had a man-crush on every single co-worker you've ever had, but you manage to put that aside, act professionally, and get work done. That's called being an adult), and any number of other reasons to keep the INAT group small and very back-room-ish.

Add to that the 'we must stand united' front presented that brooks no disention from outsiders, and refuses to disclose things like whether there was some internal disagreement over the actual document produced, and I'm not surprised that other event organizers don't want to adopt it. That sort of attitude doesn't lead to inclusiveness. So, even when having more tournaments adopt the INAT would create a much better national tournament scene, where rules wouldn't change from one event to another, you have this resistance from their organizers to having the Adepticon guys tell them how to run their event.

This leads me back to some prior experience I had with another gaming organization, One World By Night. They're a Vampire: The Masquerade club that grew up rival to White Wolf's official club. And, while they've got more than their share of stupidity and faux-drama, one thing they do very well is manage a network of over 50 individual city's games, spread over four continents (and three different native languages), into a somewhat cohesive whole that manage to come up with unified rules and decisions in a very reasonable timeframe. Each local club has a representative, and issues are posted onto a website, with a discussion system. New topics go up at a set time, and discussion is allowed for a week. At any time during that week, a representative can vote (or even change their vote), and can include a reason for why they voted the way they did (or not). After that week is up, voting is closed, and the results are posted. What's more, it's nice and transparent, and for policy votes (storyline votes are kept hidden for the benefit of the story), anyone can view not only the vote results, but also the reasons that representatives stated they voted as they did.

There's no reason that the INAT - if it really wants to be a national tournament resource, cannot go in this direction. Rather than just being the Adepticon FAQ, it could become a real national buy-in style co-operative. Any tournament organizer could sign up, promise to use the collective decisions at their events, and send a representative to join the discussion and vote on the issues. Now, instead of one small, insular group saying "we did this, and you're welcome to use it too", you have a system that encourages adoption by the various events and tournament circuits, by rewarding adoption with a voice. Not only that, with the right system in place, document production becomes easier, because you can create the rules document on the fly, based on the questions, and responses, in the database. Creating a PDF is simple. Creating an annotated PDF with the reasons for the votes is -also- easy - just a separate set of routines to run.

Of course, this means that the Adepticon council would have less control over the final document - because they're sharing it with other events who are also having a voice. But, if the goal is, as is stated in the foreword, to have a document that means that all attendees know how the rules will be played, none of the specific answers matter as much as simply having an answer at all.

Which comes to the last point I keep hearing raised - how do you know who is "qualified" to be a representative? You allow the member event to pick whoever they want, and trust that each event actually wants a decent event, and will therefore pick someone who understands the rules. How do you know now who is qualified? It's largely people who stepped up and said, "I'm willing to run this event". There's nothing that correlates being a good event organizer means that you know the rules, nor, for that matter, does being a good player mean you know the rules. And, if every event that's part of the GT series actually joins in, you'll have over 30 votes, so if one or two of those people are flakes, the system still functions - there's resiliency in numbers.

I hope that these comments are taken as being constructive, and not as some sort of attack, because that's not my goal. I see the biggest weakness to the INAT, currently, being how it is perceived outside Adepticon. It's a great resource, and it isn't being adopted by a lot of events, and that's really a bit disappointing. But I think that being more open is the only way to get it picked up by more events.

I understand why the INAT FAQ was created as explained here and I appreciate all the time & effort that goes into it. What I can say is that while playing at every Adepticon that has used the INAT FAQ I have only had to use it once. That tells me something. Either the knowledge that the INAT FAQ exists prevents a lot of rules arguments or it's not really needed. To be fair to hte council looking back over my history of tournaments I have attended it seems like for the most part there have been a lot less rules disputes for me when I play at Adepticon so I think there is something to it. That said the INAT FAQ will never be a good substitute for an adequately sized staff of knowledgeable judges. Not everyone is going to read the I INAT FAQ from cover to cover, it's too big. One improvement for this FAQ would be to slim it down; often the same set of answers appear throughout the FAQ being listed under several different codices. Take the various different SM armies for example. My main issue with the INAT FAQ is there are some rulings that don't make sense to me but I won't go into detail here. As a TO I cant expect others to follow a ruling i dont agree with. There are lots of rulings I like & agree with but it just takes one I disagree with to make me not want to use it for any event I run. I will always use it as a reference though.

So in conclusion while I enjoy playing at Adepticon and dont mind using it there I have no desire to use it as an official document at my events. I am overall satisfied with the errata & FAQs released by GW. I wouldn't go so far as to say the council has redefined the game but definitely in my mind some of the rulings don't make sense to me.

G

Black Blow Fly wrote:I understand why the INAT FAQ was created as explained here and I appreciate all the time & effort that goes into it. What I can say is that while playing at every Adepticon that has used the INAT FAQ I have only had to use it once. That tells me something. Either the knowledge that the INAT FAQ exists prevents a lot of rules arguments or it's not really needed. To be fair to hte council looking back over my history of tournaments I have attended it seems like for the most part there have been a lot less rules disputes for me when I play at Adepticon so I think there is something to it. That said the INAT FAQ will never be a good substitute for an adequately sized staff of knowledgeable judges. Not everyone is going to read the I INAT FAQ from cover to cover, it's too big. One improvement for this FAQ would be to slim it down; often the same set of answers appear throughout the FAQ being listed under several different codices. Take the various different SM armies for example. My main issue with the INAT FAQ is there are some rulings that don't make sense to me but I won't go into detail here. As a TO I cant expect others to follow a ruling i dont agree with. There are lots of rulings I like & agree with but it just takes one I disagree with to make me not want to use it for any event I run. I will always use it as a reference though.

So in conclusion while I enjoy playing at Adepticon and dont mind using it there I have no desire to use it as an official document at my events. I am overall satisfied with the errata & FAQs released by GW. I wouldn't go so far as to say the council has redefined the game but definitely in my mind some of the rulings don't make sense to me.

2 things come to mind:
1) The INAT informs the judges, as well as the players - so long as the judges know it, it's less important that the players do (as the purpose is to allow the participants to know how the judges will rule beforehand).
2) If there are certain specific rulings you disagree with, you can always change those specific rulings for your events, if you wanted as comprehensive a FAQ as a resource.

As long as you have a FAQ...Nothing is worse than going to a tourney to get the 'we don't play by that rule here' response to a rules argument (Not in so many words, but that's the gist of what the argument is)...

I'm posting the following pretty much specifically to disagree with Black Blow Fly about the INAT FAQ.

The major problem with a comprehensive is that all of the alternatives are worse.

What's worse than a comprehensive FAQ?
--Having two judges at an event that size issue contradictory rulings.
--Having two judges at an event that size issue contradictory rulings to the same player.
--Having a player show up to the event expecting a rule to work one way and have it ruled the other way during play.
--Not having a comprehensive FAQ and listening to people complain about the absence of a comprehensive FAQ because they don't know how something will be ruled.

Do you want better educated judges? A comprehensive FAQ is an excellent tool for educating judges and making sure that they're rulings will all agree, and it has the added benefit of allowing the tournament players to find out what those rulings will be ahead of time. If a judge doesn't have time to read a comprehensive FAQ, how is the judge supposed to have time to stay "educated"?

And if it makes sense to distribute a comprehensive FAQ to your judges to make sure that they agree on the important issues that you've found, it only makes sense to distribute that same FAQ to the players as well to avoid the unpleasant surprises.

Given a hundred and twenty people for one of the events who would otherwise be told "Ask your tournament organizer." if they had a rules question, how is the INAT FAQ not the least possible evil? If the organization staff is simply keeping track of the questions and writing down their answers in order to stay consistent and avoid GW Redshirt syndrome, then you'll end up with a document the size of the INAT FAQ anyway. And frankly, if any of the questions to the FAQ were "The rules are unclear, ask your opponent", I can't express how odious and counterproductive that would be.

When and where I grew up, people didn't lock their front door and didn't lock their card doors because there wasn't any crime. But it would it would have been terribly naive for someone from that area to visit Chicago and complain about the unnecessary locks that everyone has on their doors. I don't see any difference between that situation and complaining that a tournament's FAQ is too comprehensive or tries to change too much because it's more than some other tournament does.

Sidstyler wrote:

I love the FAQ, why don't more people use it?

Because I like playing Warhammer 40k. I play by the actual rules, not the INAT "houserules" version.

Clearing up certain things which have no clear resolution is one thing, but INAT goes too far and starts rewriting core rules for no other reason. Clear up stuff that needs to be cleared up, but leave the game design to GW, please.

Speaking of which I still can't get over some of the crap rulings they made for the hive tyrant. Two Hive Commanders allow two Outflanking troops, all you needed to do is read the codex to know that...but they decided that the reserves bonus doesn't stack? Why? There's no reason for it other than someone in the council didn't want it to, because they're pretending to be a game designer and thought it was too "broken", probably. The decision to turn the tyrant into an IC makes no sense, either. He's a Monstrous Creature, the tyrant guard's Shieldwall allows him to join the unit like an IC, but he isn't an IC so he can't leave the unit after he's joined it. INAT says "Screw the rules, screw the codex, he's an IC and he can join/leave the unit freely!" Once again, no reason for that ruling, it's very clearly written in the book how it's supposed to be played.

Like I said, if they would just stick to clearing up actual ambiguities in the rules then that would be great, but when they do stuff like that which makes no sense and actually seems to go against what's written just because...it just makes the whole thing look like a joke to me.

This 'argument' has been thrown about so many times, but it is founded on a complete fallacy...that there is one set of 40K rules that all players agree upon and somehow the INAT is ruling against this 'true' set of rules.

This is a fallacy because each person reads the rules for the game and comes up with their own interpretation of what those rules mean. The INAT only addresses situations where a sizeable amount of players have a difference in opinion on what the rules say or how to play the game in a certain situation, period.

So you don't think you play with 'house rules' perhaps, but the fact is, you do. Your interpretation of the rules is your own personal set of house rules just like my own personal interpretation of the rules is my own personal set of house rules. When we play a game together all the rules we agree on work just fine, but as soon as we hit a place where our house rules disagree, then we have an issue that has to be resolved.

Again, the INAT doesn't make rulings on issues that aren't actually divisive situations. If you think you've identified a situation that we've ruled on that goes wildly against how most people play the game send me a PM and I'll do my best to set up as much of an unbiased poll as I can in the YMTC forum and if a huge amount of people (like 70% or more) say that they play the game opposite from how we've ruled on it in the INAT, I can almost guarantee that I'll get the ruling reversed in the next update.

Obviously internet polls aren't the be all and end all of how people are actually playing, but it's certainly a useful tool to see if we're WAY off on a ruling. But if the votes are anywhere in the 'split' range of roughly 31-69%, then you have to accept that people just play the game differently!

You bring up the Hive Tyrant's +1 reserve rule and that it is clear as day in the codex. You do know that the exact same rule is in the Imperial Guard codex and it is ruled exactly the same as we ruled on it for the Tyranids, right? If you don't see how GW ruling on the same rule in the IG codex can cause a huge chunk of players to think that it shouldn't stack then I don't know what to tell you. People play it differently. I understand you don't like or agree with our ruling, but it is a ruling that needs to be made because people play it differently, and there is a strong reasoning for making the ruling as we did. Whether or not we this ruling helped to 'balanced' the Tyranids was never, ever even brought up.


But I understand. A whole lot of people truly believe that their interpretation of the rules is the 'right' one and when a fan-made document disagrees with their opinion it can be frustrating. But like I've always said, no one stands over your table and makes you play with all the INAT rulings in a game. If you're playing with a friendly guy who also disagrees with the INAT rulings or just doesn't care, then you're going to play the game the way YOU GUYS want to play it.

The INAT is only there to make sure if there is a dispute between you two that requires a judge, you know how the judge is going to rule on it instead of essentially 'flipping a coin' everytime you ask for a judge's ruling.

Black Blow Fly wrote:I understand why the INAT FAQ was created as explained here and I appreciate all the time & effort that goes into it. What I can say is that while playing at every Adepticon that has used the INAT FAQ I have only had to use it once. That tells me something. Either the knowledge that the INAT FAQ exists prevents a lot of rules arguments or it's not really needed. To be fair to hte council looking back over my history of tournaments I have attended it seems like for the most part there have been a lot less rules disputes for me when I play at Adepticon so I think there is something to it. That said the INAT FAQ will never be a good substitute for an adequately sized staff of knowledgeable judges. Not everyone is going to read the I INAT FAQ from cover to cover, it's too big. One improvement for this FAQ would be to slim it down; often the same set of answers appear throughout the FAQ being listed under several different codices. Take the various different SM armies for example. My main issue with the INAT FAQ is there are some rulings that don't make sense to me but I won't go into detail here. As a TO I cant expect others to follow a ruling i dont agree with. There are lots of rulings I like & agree with but it just takes one I disagree with to make me not want to use it for any event I run. I will always use it as a reference though.

So in conclusion while I enjoy playing at Adepticon and dont mind using it there I have no desire to use it as an official document at my events. I am overall satisfied with the errata & FAQs released by GW. I wouldn't go so far as to say the council has redefined the game but definitely in my mind some of the rulings don't make sense to me.

G

BBF,

In all the games I've played at Adepticon, I can't even think of one where I actually needed to reference the INAT FAQ. Because for the most part, if someone really wants to play differently then we've ruled, I usually just shrug and let 'em do it. I really don't care enough to even bother arguing.

But here's the thing, like I've said to many people...if you never have to call a judge over to your games, then you're not who the INAT is for. The INAT is for people who are having a bad game and arguing about a rule to the point that they need a judge to stop by. The INAT is therefore kind of like a safety net to let players know that if a judge does get called over, you know how they're going to rule. And if you do know the ruling is in the INAT in the chance that the judge screws up and gets his ruling wrong, you have something to tell him to go check instead of just being hung out to dry by some crazy judge's opinion.

And as a tournament organizer you say that you can't utilize a document that has rulings you don't agree with...but the problem with that idea is that truthfully, the only FAQ any person is going to agree with 100% of the rulings is one that they write themselves. Anytime a FAQ is written by another person the very nature of written interpretation means that you're going to disagree.

I highly doubt that you don't disagree with some of GW's rulings in their FAQs, but my guess is that you still would stand behind them for your tournament. Now obviously that's a bit different because it is put out by the company that makes the game, but your original point was strictly that you can't stand behind a FAQ that has rulings you disagree with, when obviously as a base statement it's ridiculous because you're going to disagree some rulings in every FAQ that you don't write yourself.

And also, if there are some rulings in the INAT FAQ you don't care for, why not just use the FAQ in general and then publish which rulings will be different at your tournament? Isn't it better to have 95% of the issues that you do agree with officially covered in your tournament so that your attendees know what answer they're getting when they call over a judge?


Finally, you complain about its size and repetition of questions. The whole point of the INAT is that it is essentially a resource for tournament judges. The way it is organized is such that you first find what page number in the codex or rulebook your question is on and THEN that allows you to find the ruling in the INAT.

You point out that the same question is answered in each SM codex section, but that is intentionally done so players can simply print out the section for THEIR codex (if they want) and they'll have all the rulings for their codex...not to mention that many rules between the different marine codexes are different and therefore require slightly different answers. If we went with a generic 'all marines' section in the INAT, it would become really, really confusing to give an answer like: 'this rule applies to the Space Wolves, Blood Angels and SM Codex, but not to the Black Templars or Dark Angels'.

The fact is, each codex is a different army and needs to be treated separately in order to make things clear. We're trying to *improve* on the way GW does FAQs which is basically to only answer a question in one FAQ and leave everyone guessing whether or not that same ruling applies to a similar situation in another codex. That is the WRONG way to do FAQs.

And yes our document is long when taken all together, but if you break it up codex by codex it really isn't very bad at all. But we think having a single document that is completely hyperlinked together makes for a much more cohesive package and still allows players who only want to print out THEIR codex section to do so.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Redbeard wrote:
I hope that these comments are taken as being constructive, and not as some sort of attack, because that's not my goal. I see the biggest weakness to the INAT, currently, being how it is perceived outside Adepticon. It's a great resource, and it isn't being adopted by a lot of events, and that's really a bit disappointing. But I think that being more open is the only way to get it picked up by more events.

The INAT FAQ is used by a number of major tournaments and that number has continued to grow each year and will likely to continue to grow as long we continue to put the effort into updating it properly. As for BoLScon not using the INAT, I wouldn't necessarily count on that fact. And even more tournaments use the FAQ and just change a few rulings they don't like...which is just as good IMHO, because it is a fan resource, not THE answers.

By any standard, I think we can safely claim that the INAT FAQ is the most widely accepted fan-made FAQ document for 40K ever produced, which is not bad for only being on the scene for 3 years now considering the vastly different opinions players and tournament organizers have about W40K.

But you are right, in that we have always wanted to make the production of the INAT spread across many major tournaments and we are moving towards that goal this year.

The goal was never to be insular, to 'control' the rulings. As I've said before, many people have said in the past: 'why doesn't someone just make a comprehensive fan FAQ and I'd use it!' And I'd been a part of least two other FAQ attempts to do just that and both had failed miserably because they were being created amongst too many people, and once those people started to get bored with the amount of work it took and the amount of arguing involved, the project simply started to fall apart over time.

So I wrote the FAQ because I could, and I was sick of it just not getting done. And when it came to make the rulings for the FAQ, I wasn't interested in just making it a 'yakFAQ', so we needed people to vote on the rulings, so we used the tournament organizers at Adepticon (not the least because Hank and Jeff asked me to help by writing the best FAQ that could be used for Adepticon).

And this format worked, in that it allowed, and still allows us to produce regular updates for the FAQ. We are absolutely not against including others in the process and again, we are doing exactly that right now, but we also are wary to screw up the dynamic we have that allows us to make the updates happen as that would be the worst possible outcome.

Everything you posted about that Vampire document sounds fantastic and I would love to eventually consider something exactly like that for the INAT. However, it requires someone to spearhead such a transition with the know-how and willingness to implement all of that. I certainly don't have the technical know-how to do it and since I'm responsible for about 90-95% of the actual workload of the INAT FAQ, in order to make a change like that someone would have to step up and do all of that and be willing to maintain it. Beyond that, if the system pulls from the database to make the FAQ, you'd have to frontload all the current information for the FAQ into the system just to be able to print the current document we have.


The thing is, even if the system as you describe it came to past, I personally don't think it would mitigate the biggest issue. I *do* think that the #1 reason most TOs don't use the INAT FAQ in their event is because they disagree with a number of the rulings. Allowing those TOs to have a single vote in a giant 30-man council isn't going to mitigate that issue at all. Those TOs are still going to basically say, 'Those guys are all wrong and my one vote isn't going to change anything so I'm just not going to use the FAQ or bother with their 'council''.

I've seen it time and time and time again, people think THEY are right about the rules and they just can't stand the thought that some other gamer is telling them 'how to play' when they disagree with it.

But even so, I would love for the creation of the INAT to be more automated if that was possible. I'm sure it is, but it certainly isn't going to be me that does it (I don't have the knowledge) and we have to be absolutely sure it would work for us before we could possibly consider implementing it. So if someone wanted to take the time and effort to set up a proof-of-concept site to show off a system we could be using I know I'd like to see it.

Nicely put yak & informative as well.

G

The one suggestion that I had was about the Missions.

The primers are nice but given the changes (sometimes not so little ones) and the complexity, I would like to see the final wordings of the missions posted prior to the event. I don't necessarily need to see which of the missions were selected, but knowing how the scenarios are going to be worded the day of would help a lot.

This gives people time to read and play them. It is a BIG difference in the time it takes to play a game when you've played the mission before. Effectively it can take up to 15minutes out of the Setup/Deployment phase of the game if both sides have read the mission and done a little pregame tactical discussion, prior to the day of the event. And in a tournament game, that 15minutes can often determines if you get that last turn in or not.

Things I would not change:

In the TT, I really liked the policy of no new turn after the 15:00min remaining warning went out. It eliminated one of the issues I have biggest problem with in tournaments, the 5minute argument of "do we have enough time for both sides?". With the clock posted at the front of the hall, everyone gets very clear guidelines on which they have to manage their time with.


Later,
WR

yakface wrote:The fact is, each codex is a different army and needs to be treated separately in order to make things clear. We're trying to *improve* on the way GW does FAQs which is basically to only answer a question in one FAQ and leave everyone guessing whether or not that same ruling applies to a similar situation in another codex. That is the WRONG way to do FAQs.

agreed, repeating the answer for every book where it's appropriate is the best way. some people don't have the time/inclination to read *ALL* the faqs and may miss the ruling on the same question if it's not listed for their specific army. also, there's a certain gwuy who hangs out in the YMDC forum who insists that an answer to the exact same question in another codex's faq doesn't apply to a separate codex and will argue the point to death. having the answer in each applicable codex faq (regardless of how many times it comes up) stops those kinds of gwuys in there tracks if they sign up for an event using the faq.

Sidstyler wrote:

Railing against the accepted FAQ at an event if you happen to disagree with, is 'browbeating' and is 'unsportsmanlike'. That is why the event organizer made the FAQ and during the event is not the time to fight the power. If you don't like the house rules, don't play at the house.

I wasn't aware that this thread was Adepticon, and that by complaining about their use of the INAT here, after the event was done, is the same as complaining during the event.

House rules are just fine, if that's the way Adepticon wants to roll, with INAT40k, then so be it. I'm just saying that I probably won't attend if they insist on using it.

And that's another thing too, just because I hate the damn thing doesn't mean I still wouldn't give it a try. The main reason I haven't been to Adepticon yet is just the fact that I can't afford to travel, let alone for a three day event like that. Maybe I'm all wrong about it, who knows.

Basically say what you mean: "I will only support a FAQ that 100% agrees with how I play the game."

And that makes you a poor sport as not everyone everywhere will agree with you. The inability to accept that and accept people may disagree with your interpretations makes one a poor sport.

If you want everyone to play by your rules, then run your own events and make your own FAQ and enforce it. Problem solved.

I thought this thread was titled "suggestions for improving Adepticon". Now I'm being told that if I don't like it I should just run my own event?

I'm sorry guy, do you want people to post their opinions or not?

Fine then. I'll just keep my mouth shut, apparently Adepticon doesn't need or want my suggestions anyway. After all I'm just an donkey-cave browbeating TFG right? Because you know me, you've played games with me a thousand times before and as such have the authority to judge how good of a sportsman I am?

So....I really have to ask why you would even post advice on how to better an event that you haven't even attended.

My suggestion would be to either start or add to a thread addressing issues with the INAT.

So....I really have to ask why you would even post advice on how to better an event that you haven't even attended.

Maybe because he'd like to consider attending it if it were to be improved? Attending an event doesn't impact some secret elitist knowledge pertaining to any of Sidstyler's points. They stand on their own merits as they relate to this event and similiar ones.

yes it does. Its a thread asking for feedback, not boos from the peanut gallery BY PEOPLE WHO DID NOT ATTEND.

Modquisition on.
People trolling this thread will be suspended. Be advised this counts as notice to all posters.

Absent request by Yakface or the Adepticon organizers to the contrary, due to the nature of the thread FOR FEEDBACK ABOUT THE ACTUAL TOURNEY, posts after this thread should be limited to those who either attended the event or who did not attend specifically for a reason related to the tournament itself.

If you want to comment on the Adpeticon FAQ or more esoteric hypothetics great, but do it in a separate thread.

Good call Frazz. Let's keep this discussion on topic.

G