TLDR : Daddy hits me because he loves me. So basically the smartest thing a company can do is not listen to its customers (those bastards). I give you the bell of lost souls :lol:
Originally Posted by Ryan Dancey: the man, the myth, the legend
In the winter of 1997, I traveled to Lake Geneva Wisconsin on a secret mission. In the late fall, rumors of TSR's impending bankruptcy had created an opportunity to made a bold gamble that the business could be saved by an infusion of capital or an acquisition with a larger partner. After a hasty series of phone calls and late night strategy sessions, I found myself standing in the snow outside of 201 Sheridan Springs Road staring at a building bearing a sign that said "TSR, Incorporated".
Inside the building, I found a dead company.
In the halls that had produced the stuff of my childhood fantasies, and had fired my imagination and become unalterably intertwined with my own sense of self, I found echoes, empty desks, and the terrible depression of lost purpose.
The life story of a tree can be read by a careful examination of its rings. The life story of a corporation can be read by a careful examination of its financial records and corporate minutes.
I was granted unprecedented access to those records. I read the TSR corporate log book from the first page penned in haste by Gary Gygax to the most recent terse minutes dictated to a lawyer with no connection to hobby gaming. I was able to trace the meteoric rise of D&D as a business, the terrible failure to control costs that eventually allowed a total outsider to take control away from the founders, the slow and steady progress to rebuild the financial solvency of the company, and the sudden and dramatic failure of that business model. I read the euphoric copyright filings for the books of my lost summers: "Player's Handbook", "Fiend Folio", "Oriental Adventures". I read the contract between Gary and TSR where Gary was severed from contact with the company he had founded and the business he had nurtured and grown. I saw the clause where Gary, forced to the wall by ruthless legal tactics was reduced to insisting to the right to use his own name in future publishing endeavors, and to take and keep control of his personal D&D characters. I read the smudged photocopies produced by the original Dragonlance Team, a group of people who believed in a new idea for gaming that told a story across many different types of products. I saw concept artwork evolve from lizard men with armor to unmistakable draconians. I read Tracy Hickman's one page synopsis of the Dragonlance Story. I held the contract between Tracy and Margaret for the publication of the three Chronicles novels. I read the contract between Ed Greenwood and TSR to buy his own personal game world and transform it into the most developed game setting in history - the most detailed and explored fantasy world ever created.
And I read the details of the Random House distribution agreement; an agreement that TSR had used to support a failing business and hide the fact that TSR was rotten at the core. I read the entangling bank agreements that divided the copyright interests of the company as security against default, and realized that the desperate arrangements made to shore up the company's poor financial picture had so contaminated those rights that it might not be possible to extract Dungeons & Dragons from the clutches of lawyers and bankers and courts for years upon end. I read the severance agreements between the company and departed executives which paid them extraordinary sums for their silence. I noted the clauses, provisions, amendments and agreements that were piling up more debt by the hour in the form of interest charges, fees and penalties. I realized that the money paid in good faith by publishers and attendees for GenCon booths and entrance fees had been squandered and that the show itself could not be funded. I discovered that the cost of the products that company was making in many cases exceeded the price the company was receiving for selling those products. I toured a warehouse packed from floor to 50 foot ceiling with products valued as though they would soon be sold to a distributor with production stamps stretching back to the late 1980s. I was 10 pages in to a thick green bar report of inventory, calculating the true value of the material in that warehouse when I realized that my last 100 entries had all been "$0"'s.
I met staff members who were determined to continue to work, despite the knowledge that they might not get paid, might not even be able to get in to the building each day. I saw people who were working on the same manuscripts they'd been working on six months earlier, never knowing if they'd actually be able to produce the fruits of their labor. In the eyes of those people (many of whom I have come to know as friends and co workers), I saw defeat, desperation, and the certain knowledge that somehow, in some way, they had failed. The force of the human, personal pain in that building was nearly overwhelming - on several occasions I had to retreat to a bathroom to sit and compose myself so that my own tears would not further trouble those already tortured souls.
I ran hundreds of spreadsheets, determined to figure out what had to be done to save the company. I was convinced that if I could just move enough money from column A to column B, that everything would be ok. Surely, a company with such powerful brands and such a legacy of success could not simply cease to exist due to a few errors of judgment and a poor strategic plan?
I made several trips to TSR during the frenzied days of negotiation that resulted in the acquisition of the company by Wizards of the Coast. When I returned home from my first trip, I retreated to my home office; a place filled with bookshelves stacked with Dungeons & Dragons products. From the earliest games to the most recent campaign setting supplements - I owned, had read, and loved those products with a passion and intensity that I devoted to little else in my life. And I knew, despite my best efforts to tell myself otherwise, that the disaster I kept going back to in Wisconsin was the result of the products on those shelves.
When Peter put me in charge of the tabletop RPG business in 1998, he gave me one commission: Find out what went wrong, fix the business, save D&D. Vince also gave me a business condition that was easy to understand and quite direct. "God damnit, Dancey", he thundered at me from across the conference table: "Don't lose any more money!"
That became my core motivation. Save D&D. Don't lose money. Figure out what went wrong. Fix the problem.
Back into those financials I went. I walked again the long threads of decisions made by managers long gone; there are few roadmarks to tell us what was done and why in the years TSR did things like buy a needlepoint distributorship, or establish a west coast office at King Vedor's mansion. Why had a moderate success in collectable dice triggered a million unit order? Why did I still have stacks and stacks of 1st edition rulebooks in the warehouse? Why did TSR create not once, not twice, but nearly a dozen times a variation on the same, Tolkien inspired, eurocentric fantasy theme? Why had it constantly tried to create different games, poured money into marketing those games, only to realize that nobody was buying those games? Why, when it was so desperate for cash, had it invested in a million dollar license for content used by less than 10% of the marketplace? Why had a successful game line like Dragonlance been forcibly uprooted from its natural home in the D&D game and transplanted to a foreign and untested new game system? Why had the company funded the development of a science fiction game modeled on D&D - then not used the D&D game rules?
In all my research into TSR's business, across all the ledgers, notebooks, computer files, and other sources of data, there was one thing I never found - one gaping hole in the mass of data we had available.
No customer profiling information. No feedback. No surveys. No "voice of the customer". TSR, it seems, knew nothing about the people who kept it alive. The management of the company made decisions based on instinct and gut feelings; not data. They didn't know how to listen - as an institution, listening to customers was considered something that other companies had to do - TSR lead, everyone else followed.
In today's hypercompetitive market, that's an impossible mentality. At Wizards of the Coast, we pay close attention to the voice of the customer. We ask questions. We listen. We react. So, we spent a whole lot of time and money on a variety of surveys and studies to learn about the people who play role playing games. And, at every turn, we learned things that were not only surprising, they flew in the face of all the conventional wisdom we'd absorbed through years of professional game publishing.
We heard some things that are very, very hard for a company to hear. We heard that our customers felt like we didn't trust them. We heard that we produced material they felt was substandard, irrelevant, and broken. We heard that our stories were boring or out of date, or simply uninteresting. We heard the people felt that >we< were irrelevant.
I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf.
Amazingly, despite all those problems, and despite years of neglect, the D&D game itself remained, at the core, a viable business. Damaged; certainly. Ailing; certainly. But savable? Absolutely.
Our customers were telling us that 2e was too restrictive, limited their creativity, and wasn't "fun to play'? We can fix that. We can update the core rules to enable the expression of that creativity. We can demonstrate a commitment to supporting >your< stories. >Your< worlds. And we can make the game fun again.
Our customers were telling us that we produced too many products, and that the stuff we produced was of inferior quality? We can fix that. We can cut back on the number of products we release, and work hard to make sure that each and every book we publish is useful, interesting, and of high quality.
Our customers were telling us that we spent too much time on our own worlds, and not enough time on theirs? Ok - we can fix that. We can re-orient the business towards tools, towards examples, towards universal systems and rules that aren't dependent on owning a thousand dollars of unnecessary materials first.
Our customers were telling us that they prefer playing D&D nearly 2:1 over the next most popular game option? That's an important point of distinction. We can leverage that desire to help get them more people to play >with< by reducing the barriers to compatibility between the material we produce, and the material created by other companies.
Our customers told us they wanted a better support organization? We can pour money and resources into the RPGA and get it growing and supporting players like never before in the club's history. (10,000 paid members and rising, nearly 50,000 unpaid members - numbers currently skyrocketing).
Our customers were telling us that they want to create and distribute content based on our game? Fine - we can accommodate that interest and desire in a way that keeps both our customers and our lawyers happy.
Are we still listening? Yes, we absolutely are. If we hear you asking us for something we're not delivering, we'll deliver it. But we're not going to cater to the specific and unique needs of a minority if doing so will cause hardship to the majority. We're going to try and be responsible shepards of the D&D business, and that means saying "no" to things that we have shown to be damaging to the business and that aren't wanted or needed by most of our customers.
We listened when the customers told us that Alternity wasn't what they wanted in a science fiction game. We listened when customers told us that they didn't want the confusing, jargon filled world of Planescape. We listened when people told us that the Ravenloft concept was overshadowed by the products of a competitor. We listened to customers who told us that they want core materials, not world materials. That they buy DUNGEON magazine every two months at a rate twice that of our best selling stand-alone adventures.
We're not telling anyone what game to play. We are telling the market that we're going to actively encourage our players to stand up and demand that they be listened to, and that they become the center of the gaming industry - rather than the current publisher-centric model. Through the RPGA, the Open Gaming movement, the pages of Dragon Magazine, and all other venues available, we want to empower our customers to do what >they< want, to force us and our competitors to bend to >their< will, to make the products >they< want made.
I want to be judged on results, not rhetoric. I want to look back at my time at the helm of this business and feel that things got better, not worse. I want to know that my team made certain that the mistakes of the past wouldn't be the mistakes of the future. I want to know that we figured out what went wrong. That we fixed it. That we saved D&D. And that god damnit, we didn't lose money.
Thank you for listening,
Sincerely,
Ryan S. Dancey
VP, Wizards of the Coast
Brand Manager, Dungeons & Dragons
I have never understood some people's almost fanatic devotion to GW. Do they make great models? Yeah, I think so for the most part. Do they have an enriched universe? Again, I'd say yes. But they have many bad features, from the way they utilize the rules cycles to force customers to buy models, to offering less and less content per dollar with both miniatures and rules, to having some downright shady business practices.
But no matter what they do, people jump up and scream you down for daring to insult the venerable GW. I wouldn't be surprised in the guy who wrote "Spots the Space Marine" got death threats from these people. It's as though GW can do no wrong, and I guess in that regard GW *has* really become more like Apple- their customer base may have diminished considerably, but a lot of what is left is the absolute faithful who will not hear word nor thought that would accuse their product as not being the absolute best.
It's a little terrifying sometimes, considering we're talking about plastic miniatures.
40k, that fantasy game, books for those games, and a specialty model company for those same games and books? That's hardly diverse by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, Spartan Games is more diverse and they're a fraction of the size.
The whole article is pretty weak and feels like its reaching for any reason to pardon GW. The comments were pretty gold too.
Crablez, cool article about D&D/TSR. In recent news about a company listening to feedback, Valve rolled out paid mods for Skyrim and within 24hrs had pulled it back after mass backlash.
Anyone who thinks GW shouldn't be taking notes from the community is deluding themselves.
Honestly, what that post made me ask myself is why the heck do I ever go to BOLS? They offer virtually nothing beyond 40k. I finally made my way over to Beasts of War and, low and behold, they've got a lot of everything!
So, thanks for that BOLS. Now go back to telling yourselves you can each make up financially for the infidels who have left 40k. They will rue the day!
WayneTheGame wrote: Those comments. So many delusional apologists The Most Noble and Honourable Order of GW White Knights are there in full force.
Why do you hate fun?
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Accolade wrote: I have never understood some people's almost fanatic devotion to GW. Do they make great models? Yeah, I think so for the most part. Do they have an enriched universe? Again, I'd say yes. But they have many bad features, from the way they utilize the rules cycles to force customers to buy models, to offering less and less content per dollar with both miniatures and rules, to having some downright shady business practices.
But no matter what they do, people jump up and scream you down for daring to insult the venerable GW. I wouldn't be surprised in the guy who wrote "Spots the Space Marine" got death threats from these people. It's as though GW can do no wrong, and I guess in that regard GW *has* really become more like Apple- their customer base may have diminished considerably, but a lot of what is left is the absolute faithful who will not hear word nor thought that would accuse their product as not being the absolute best.
It's a little terrifying sometimes, considering we're talking about plastic miniatures.
It's a well known fact that analytical thought is tool of waac gamers.
I read that article posted by Crevab. Only one thing to be said in response to that.
Spoiler:
PWNED
Yeah crevab's post made my day.
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Blacksails wrote: Crablez, cool article about D&D/TSR. In recent news about a company listening to feedback, Valve rolled out paid mods for Skyrim and within 24hrs had pulled it back after mass backlash.
Anyone who thinks GW shouldn't be taking notes from the community is deluding themselves.
Yeah, I can understand the apprehension. It didn't help that gabe newell had to answer for valve mods basically censoring decent ala gamergate's early reddit days. In defense of gabe newell he wasn't thrilled to find out about censuring of posters.
BoLS is the Buzzfeed of the miniature wargaming world. Their 'breaking news' is just sourced from other sites, often without any citations, and their editorials aren't worth the brain cell death count it takes to read them.
The sole reason to go to BoLS is the Friday 'Out of the Box' round up article to see all the cool, non-GW miniatures that came out recently.
Accolade wrote: Honestly, what that post made me ask myself is why the heck do I ever go to BOLS? They offer virtually nothing beyond 40k. I finally made my way over to Beasts of War and, low and behold, they've got a lot of everything!
So, thanks for that BOLS. Now go back to telling yourselves you can each make up financially for the infidels who have left 40k. They will rue the day!
Well they have been having some really nice batreps lately with fully painted models and terrain so there's definitely good content on bols, you just have to wade through a lot of projection and vitriol. It's always good fun to see if goatboy has learned then from than yet
Anyone else remember when BOLS used to have loads of interesting articles, homebrew rules and different types of army? God, must be 8 or so years ago now.
Fenrir Kitsune wrote: Anyone else remember when BOLS used to have loads of interesting articles, homebrew rules and different types of army? God, must be 8 or so years ago now.
I don't mind the 40k centric stuff as much as the "blind shill" approach that Mr. Vela tends to use in all of his posts e.g. "Look at this new awesome thing from GW! Get your wallets ready boys! Get ready to buy buy buy!"
I have read that Dancey article many, many times - and posted links to it more than a few.
There are parallels, not only to GW, but also to WotC during 4th edition D&D. (During the lead up to 4th edition, WotC stopped listening to their fans. The result was the shortest lived edition of D&D to date.)
Sometimes being the 500 pound gorilla means that the gorilla gets beaten up by three 75 pound chimps.
The BoLS article on the other hand... oi! Next up, how to bury your head in the sand for advanced students!
Pacific wrote: Original article not written by anyone that has studied economics or marketing at even the most basic of levels one presumes.
The comments section underneath is blocked for me at work unfortunately (fortunately?!) although that letter from Ryan Dancey was well worth reading.
Unfortunately if you want a laugh, fortunately if you don't want to read people saying how GW does listen (faster codexes yo!) or how the internet is just whiners and they shouldn't listen to it at all.
Some gems:
Spoiler:
Basically argument #1 says it all. GW can't listen to customer arguments, because basically everybody plays different and prefers different armies.
GW listens to what the community says. Then they very wisely ignore it. Let's be honest with ourselves, we have a difficult community that is never satisfied with anything. Henry Ford famously said, "If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse."
So that part of the community (the customers) that are currently HAPPY with the game... are they just wrong; and it's THEM that GW should ignore?
This community literally cannot agree on ANYTHING. By it's nature it's an entitled and entirely ridiculous customer base to please; but the point is they are not, have not, ever been unified in what they desire.
Some of these smaller games that are starting from scratch with strong online communities might be doing things very right - by that cannot work for GW now.
GW isn't the bad guy the haters make them out to be. They have great products, good rules, fun games, comparable prices and the best customer service in the industry. All the other systems everyone cites as being better have flaws too or are way smaller scale and simpler.
This one is really good, a reply to the TSR article:
Very interesting. And a really good example of why Games Workshop is still a strong company, and why TSR is dead. Dancey talks about listening to the customer, but a lot of the evidence is around sales, inventory reports, old stock, inefficient or non existent management accounting information. Also, forgetting core business, and not understanding what your customers want and are willing to pay for. Contrast this to GW: - Sales are by volume probably down, but by dollar it is largely stable - Does GW have stock sitting around from the 80's or 90's that is not moving but priced at full retail value? Unknown but given that with a few rare exceptions all the models on sale currently are less than 10 years old, and many have gone out of stock before re supply I would suggest unlikely - The fact that Games Workshop does limited edition strongly suggests they know exactly what profit they want out of a product, and have the information to enable them to do that, which points to an efficient system - Forgetting what their customers want? Problem with looking at internet fora / comments sections is the self selecting nature of the participants, and the small numbers making it difficult to pull valid interpretations out. However, I would suggest you don't run a niche business for 40 odd years without some tools to find out what the people actually spending money on your product want
I'm saying there are a lot of people that like apocalypse style games or want to use those types of models in their games and that trying to claim that one knows everyone's mind by claiming "us" is all of us is not valid.
While you may hate GW and wish to hold a revolution against them for whatever reason, there are more than enough people that are content with what they are getting and everyone's value system is very different from each other.
Lords of War are not Apocalypse. And they are optional, Just like Allies, Formations, Unbound, Fortifications or anything else that has your panties in a bunch. No one is forcing anything on you.
O wait sorry silly me. You are right your way is the only one true way to play 40K.
Pacific wrote: Original article not written by anyone that has studied economics or marketing at even the most basic of levels one presumes.
The comments section underneath is blocked for me at work unfortunately (fortunately?!) although that letter from Ryan Dancey was well worth reading.
Unfortunately if you want a laugh, fortunately if you don't want to read people saying how GW does listen (faster codexes yo!) or how the internet is just whiners and they shouldn't listen to it at all.
Some gems:
Spoiler:
Basically argument #1 says it all. GW can't listen to customer arguments, because basically everybody plays different and prefers different armies.
GW listens to what the community says. Then they very wisely ignore it. Let's be honest with ourselves, we have a difficult community that is never satisfied with anything.
Henry Ford famously said, "If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse."
So that part of the community (the customers) that are currently HAPPY with the game... are they just wrong; and it's THEM that GW should ignore?
This community literally cannot agree on ANYTHING. By it's nature it's an entitled and entirely ridiculous customer base to please; but the point is they are not, have not, ever been unified in what they desire.
Some of these smaller games that are starting from scratch with strong online communities might be doing things very right - by that cannot work for GW now.
GW isn't the bad guy the haters make them out to be. They have great products, good rules, fun games, comparable prices and the best customer service in the industry. All the other systems everyone cites as being better have flaws too or are way smaller scale and simpler.
This one is really good, a reply to the TSR article:
Very interesting. And a really good example of why Games Workshop is still a strong company, and why TSR is dead.
Dancey talks about listening to the customer, but a lot of the evidence is around sales, inventory reports, old stock, inefficient or non existent management accounting information. Also, forgetting core business, and not understanding what your customers want and are willing to pay for.
Contrast this to GW:
- Sales are by volume probably down, but by dollar it is largely stable
- Does GW have stock sitting around from the 80's or 90's that is not moving but priced at full retail value? Unknown but given that with a few rare exceptions all the models on sale currently are less than 10 years old, and many have gone out of stock before re supply I would suggest unlikely
- The fact that Games Workshop does limited edition strongly suggests they know exactly what profit they want out of a product, and have the information to enable them to do that, which points to an efficient system
- Forgetting what their customers want? Problem with looking at internet fora / comments sections is the self selecting nature of the participants, and the small numbers making it difficult to pull valid interpretations out. However, I would suggest you don't run a niche business for 40 odd years without some tools to find out what the people actually spending money on your product want
I'm saying there are a lot of people that like apocalypse style games or want to use those types of models in their games and that trying to claim that one knows everyone's mind by claiming "us" is all of us is not valid.
While you may hate GW and wish to hold a revolution against them for whatever reason, there are more than enough people that are content with what they are getting and everyone's value system is very different from each other.
Lords of War are not Apocalypse. And they are optional, Just like Allies, Formations, Unbound, Fortifications or anything else that has your panties in a bunch. No one is forcing anything on you.
O wait sorry silly me. You are right your way is the only one true way to play 40K.
I thought I would never read comments as ill-informed (and unintentionally hilarious) as those that accompany a news article on the Daily Mail website. Turns out I was wrong!
Jesus wept, you have to hope the families of these people keep them away from charismatic, long-haired individuals that tell them to throw away their shoes and come to live with them in a great 'family' on a Pacific island..
The only reason I ever go to Bols is for the rumors. Most other articles are click bait. Like this one.
The only legitimate point that the article makes is that, even with all the mistakes GW makes, they are still top dog in the miniature gaming market; even with all the new competition, the fact remains that many people (including me) still love to play their game. People have been predicting the fall of GW for years, yet they still manage to muddle through. The only way I see GW going bankrupt is if someone comes along with a product that is a complete revolution and dominates the market.
Loved the letter from Wizards. Goes to show why they're the top sellers in most game stores: they listen to their customers' feedback. GW just seems to run along on gut feeling and a completely misguided sense of "balance".
I needed a laugh, Wayne. And when I started reading those I did start to laugh. But by the last one I somehow ended up crying.
'GW shouldn't listen to customers because they all want different things' is something that particularly makes me want to bash my head against the wall. Yeah - some people want some attempt at balance, some people want a less crazy price tag on their mass-produced plastic minis, some want access to a complete army list without having to buy half of it in DLC, some want less rules churn that makes new problems rather than fixing old ones... Why, that's already four different things that people want! How ya gonna accommodate 'em all?
One thing that's certain, as GW continues it's noble quest to make a wargame that's perfectly tailored to left-handed half-Azerbaijanian iguana-breeders (with little concept of the value of injected polystyrene), the ranks of the chosen few are slowly but steadily dwindling. Those 'more than enough' players could turn into 'less than enough' with little warning, especially any kind of warning from GW. No amount of sticking your head in the sand is going to help matters then.
Funny how Dancey took the reins of a slumping game company and turned it's fortunes around by listening to the different things that gamers wanted, innit? Almost makes it seem like that would be a good, useful thing for a purposely deaf business to try.
Vermis wrote: I needed a laugh, Wayne. And when I started reading those I did start to laugh. But by the last one I somehow ended up crying.
'GW shouldn't listen to customers because they all want different things' is something that particularly makes me want to bash my head against the wall. Yeah - some people want some attempt at balance, some people want a less crazy price tag on their mass-produced plastic minis, some want access to a complete army list without having to buy half of it in DLC, some want less rules churn that makes new problems rather than fixing old ones... Why, that's already four different things that people want! How ya gonna accommodate 'em all?
One thing that's certain, as GW continues it's noble quest to make a wargame that's perfectly tailored to left-handed half-Azerbaijanian iguana-breeders (with little concept of the value of injected polystyrene), the ranks of the chosen few are slowly but steadily dwindling. Those 'more than enough' players could turn into 'less than enough' with little warning, especially any kind of warning from GW. No amount of sticking your head in the sand is going to help matters then.
Funny how Dancey took the reins of a slumping game company and turned it's fortunes around by listening to the different things that gamers wanted, innit? Almost makes it seem like that would be a good, useful thing for a purposely deaf business to try.
Very well said good sir. I know a number of people who are a bit upset that they purchased the skitarii dex only to find out they're essentially being trolled by gw.
Accolade wrote: At this point I don't know what people expect with GW though, that they'll change if we customers throw enough money at them?
It ends up being one of those "fool me once, fool me twice, three times...four tim-oh, new Adeptus Mechanicus!"
I prefer the argument 'Fool me once, fool me twice, oh, look! Kings of War/Infinity/WARMACHINE/Deadzone/Bolt Action/Malifaux/Flames of War/Hordes of the Things/Dreadball [Circle As Appropriate]. No fooling!'
Maybe it's that 40k is so extreme and over the top that it's like going from a Burger King double whopper and all the fixin's to a finely done Risotto. The sensory overload of 40k dulls their senses to the better options out there.
MWHistorian wrote: Maybe it's that 40k is so extreme and over the top that it's like going from a Burger King double whopper and all the fixin's to a finely done Risotto. The sensory overload of 40k dulls their senses to the better options out there.
I'd normally say don't attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance but GW are an exception and so I think it is far more insidious than that. GW target younger markets than their competition because they think of themselves as a toy company. Once they have introduced those youngsters to their product though they have no interest in getting them into the hobby, they want them to become part of The GW Hobby(tm). GW push the narrative that they are the hobby in it's entirety and refuse to talk about or allow people in their stores to talk about other companies in the world making models. This creates hobbyists who have never encountered well balanced games, fairly priced miniatures or companies that respect (or even god forbid LIKE) their customers. These ideas become new and strange, which makes then scary. People cling to what they know and socialize with people who think the same, and that's how you get articles like this on sites like BOLS.
I've said it before and I still stand by it, in agreement with MWHistorian and Jonolikespie: So many little bits and pieces of the culture of The GW HobbyTM add up to some kind of psychological trap, if you spend long enough immersed in it. It faintly disturbs me when I see people like the BOLS author turn around and praise that trap, toeing the party line, even though that party line seems to spring from their own imagination rather than anything GW said.
People want different things; the fact that some gamers like fluff or something means that they'll never play a balanced ruleset. Other games are too abstract; who wants to play a wargame quickly and smoothly, two or even three times in an evening, when you can spend that whole evening resolving aaall the effects and rolls and rerolls of your armyful of speshul little individuals? Other games have a smaller player base; your friends will never want to play anything else so don't bother to try, even if they suggest it themselves, and keep buying broken £35 rulebooks so you can play 40K anywhere you like, even though you've never been anywhere outside your local GW. GW akshullee has cheap minis; never mind that you need a good couple of hundred of them, that some might become unusable in the near future, or that those 'cheap' £2.50+ skitarii are actually a lot higher in price than a great deal of plastic and metal rank 'n' file minis out there. GW just wants to make lovely games and minis for us; we have always been at war with Eastasia.
The attitude so many have that GW does nothing wrong is incredibly disturbing to me. It's like politics or a cult. I get people may enjoy the game despite the flaws but I see so many people incapable of even seeing or acknowledging the flaws exist at all and make completely ignorant and false statements to defend their ignorance.
WayneTheGame wrote: The attitude so many have that GW does nothing wrong is incredibly disturbing to me. It's like politics or a cult. I get people may enjoy the game despite the flaws but I see so many people incapable of even seeing or acknowledging the flaws exist at all and make completely ignorant and false statements to defend their ignorance.
I saw a documentary a while ago about the cultlike culture that sprang up (or was built) around Apple, and Apple stores. I couldn't help but imagine it could've easily been about GW too.
That brings me back to TheNewBlood's complaint on the previous page: the tragedy is that some of the arguments do seem like an abusive relationship from some angles. Not to repeat myself from my previous post, but it's like... No, really, I like paying increasing price tags, paying more than I should need to. It's not GW's fault... they have shops to look after, you know. And it's a sign that they really care about me - astronomical prices mean they can give me the absolute best product and experience. Well, at least those plastic injection moulds need to be paid for. The Perrys and Gripping Beast and Mantic etc. etc. etc. offering plastic-injection minis for pennies... that's a totally different situation to what GW and I have got. What, those horribly unbalanced and clunky rules? Well... um... that's what gives them character... or lets me play in different ways, or something... Anyway, rules aren't important. They're not. £35 for a single partial broken army list is completely missing the point compared to all the pretty words and colours that GW gives me with it, and what GWreally does for me... You just don't know them the way I do, you don't see how kind and tender they can... what? W-who's Maggie Hogarth...?
Also, given I used a 1984 reference in my last post, I just went back to the BOLS article and only now really noticed that Dan Bearss used a 'Big Brother' image in defense of GW. That is creepy.
Maybe one day, 40k will shrink to the point where it actually becomes a cult. Groups of fanatics will go store to gaming store, setting up games of Imperial Knights and Space Marines fighting evil Space Marines and demons. They won't actually play a game between them- no, they will have transcended past the petty concepts of "gaming," and instead espous the wonders of Kirby and all he can do for the heathens playing Infinity and X-wing.
Accolade wrote: Maybe one day, 40k will shrink to the point where it actually becomes a cult. Groups of fanatics will go store to gaming store, setting up games of Imperial Knights and Space Marines fighting evil Space Marines and demons. They won't actually play a game between them- no, they will have transcended past the petty concepts of "gaming," and instead espous the wonders of Kirby and all he can do for the heathens playing Infinity and X-wing.
Heh, gaming is such an ugly word, they've elevated themselves above such crude concepts, now the enlightened exclusively enjoy "shared experiences". Forge the narrative!
I didn't go to BOLS, but I read that, and I can agree that there are parells with GW in it. I think it's lack of communication (And prices) with its customers is one of the things that turned me away from it before I had bought a Codex, but had some figures. I like W40K, but the almost fanatical players near me that kept saying GW had done nothing wrong, even when I pointed out their flaws, scared me.
I think GW needs to start listening to save themselves, and if they did, they might get me to play.
Vermis wrote: we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Hate to burst BOLS two minutes hate on GW critics but the game is in measurable decline marked by objective data (falling revenue + rising competition) . Besides, we've been at war with Eurasia this whole time!
Swastakowey wrote: While I agree with the more anti GW stance here its rather funny seeing how opposite the comments are here.
One side is laughing at you guys for being full of hate and telling them what they enjoy.
The other side laughing at them for being delusional or sympathetic to GW.
Just finished reading this thread and I agree. Its almost like 2 sides of the same coin. Maybe yin and yang is a better term?
I've been playing GW a long time and I always go back mainly for the models and background. I also play alot of other games, currently FoW(Vietnam), Malifaux and SAGA, but I also garage full of games that could have been. Most of those are from Kickstarter. I'm always looking at the new games coming out as I just love wargaming in general (looking at you planetside and/or dropzone commander).
I don't know if GW actually does listen or not. I have my own theories but I'm actually happy with where the game is at right now. At our local store we have a lot of people either coming back to 40K or starting it up. Does that mean GW isn't in trouble? I don't know. All it means to me is that I have people locally that I can play. If GW does eventually go under, a la TSR, I will be sad but hopeful that someone will pick up the torch and do a decent job of it, unlike WoTC and Battletech. If it is allowed to die I will simply move on because such is life
Ryan S. Dancey, VP, Wizards of the Coast wrote:Amazingly, despite all those problems, and despite years of neglect, the D&D game itself remained, at the core, a viable business. Damaged; certainly. Ailing; certainly. But savable? Absolutely.
This is the salient point for me. Some products are just gold. Regardless of how much you abuse and ignore your customers, regardless of how incompetent your directors are, regardless of how many millions you embezzle through your wife's web design company... if you're sitting on a fething goldmine then you just can't help turning up a bit of gold each year. But simply turning a profit does not mean a business is running well, it might just mean you've got a great product that will absorb a lot of mistakes.
Hopefully, if GW ever does go under (something that looks just a hint more likely to me with every bone-headed trick they pull) and somebody does pick it up, fans won't (still) think that horrible imbalance, the chance to be gouged for your money, and scrub-culture are the 'gold' that needs to be saved.
But by that time there'll be like, what, two dozen of them? So who cares.
Well actually even if you took the top boys from Privateer Press and FFG, bathed them in the blood of Mat Ward and then let them have free range on the ruleset, terrain and IGYG can render the tightest ruleset an irrelevance if one side is unlucky
lol....
Well that was an "interesting" read. Balance is clearly an impossibility so why bother even trying? Its not as if other games manage it.......
I find it hilarious that the BOLS crowd constantly try to defend GW's decisions. 40k isn't balanced, we know that, but that doesn't excuse the fact it's not.
I also like how seemingly 40k is a hobby but other games aren't?
WayneTheGame wrote: I find it hilarious that the BOLS crowd constantly try to defend GW's decisions. 40k isn't balanced, we know that, but that doesn't excuse the fact it's not.
I also like how seemingly 40k is a hobby but other games aren't?
Evil Inc spewed that here as well.
Warmachine and Infinity not a hobby? could have fooled me.
The sandbox comment made me throw up a little in my mouth... On a somewhat unrelated anecdotal note, I stopped by the FLGS for only the second time this year and it was 40k day. Whereas previously there would be a dozen or more folks playing 40k and a few more building stuff during 5th edition, there were two small games going on total. YMMV. One of the big draws for me with 40k was the utility of having a goto game that I could reasonably expect a pickup game for after making the 25 mile drive. That hasn't been the case for a while.
The worst part is I still want to play. I play Warmachine but it doesn't satisfy me. But then I look at 40k's current state and how the locals want to play, and I slap myself for being stupid.
40k isn't a hobby for the BoLS crowd, it is a way of life.
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WayneTheGame wrote: The worst part is I still want to play. I play Warmachine but it doesn't satisfy me. But then I look at 40k's current state and how the locals want to play, and I slap myself for being stupid.
Feel the same way, but I do surrender to the stupidity on occasion.
WayneTheGame wrote: The worst part is I still want to play. I play Warmachine but it doesn't satisfy me. But then I look at 40k's current state and how the locals want to play, and I slap myself for being stupid.
Feel the same way, but I do surrender to the stupidity on occasion.
I think if I didn't lose all my stuff and would have to start from scratch, I would as well But looking at hundreds to start makes it easier to have the willpower
I too would like to play but it just doesn't feel like it is worth the hassle personally unless I schedule it in advance. The idea of just showing up on 40k day and getting in 2 games in an afternoon just hasn't worked for me the last few times I tried in 6th due to lower player turnout. 7th edition sunk the playerbase even further. If I show up for a "pickup" game now, I feel like I need to negotiate a prenup. Previously, I just had to ask about the codex, points total, and whether they were using any forgeworld stuff. Now, I need to clear the number of sources, the number of detachments, if there are fliers, if there are fortifications, if there are superheavies or gargantuans, and if they're unbound.
Playing my IG versus a deathguard dark eldar inquisition eldar force with a knight or two isn't the type of narrative I want to "forge". That isn't a wargame in my book but rather what you used to do UNDER the table as a kid with your cousins on holidays when your thundercats and autobots challenged his he man, gobots, and ninja turtles to a battle.
warboss wrote: I too would like to play but it just doesn't feel like it is worth the hassle personally unless I schedule it in advance. The idea of just showing up on 40k day and getting in 2 games in an afternoon just hasn't worked for me the last few times I tried in 6th due to lower player turnout. 7th edition sunk the playerbase even further. If I show up for a "pickup" game now, I feel like I need to negotiate a prenup. Previously, I just had to ask about the codex, points total, and whether they were using any forgeworld stuff. Now, I need to clear the number of sources, the number of detachments, if there are fliers, if there are fortifications, if there are superheavies or gargantuans, and if they're unbound.
Playing my IG versus a deathguard dark eldar inquisition eldar force with a knight or two isn't the type of narrative I want to "forge". That isn't a wargame in my book but rather what you used to do UNDER the table as a kid with your cousins on holidays when your thundercats and autobots challenged his he man, gobots, and ninja turtles to a battle.
That's actually a really good analogy of what 40k has become.
At this point I would only be mildly surprised if 8th Edition 40K was a $100 book packed with fluff and beautiful art work with a one-page rule section that says "Make it up as you go along".
RatBot wrote: At this point I would only be mildly surprised if 8th Edition 40K was a $100 book packed with fluff and beautiful art work with a one-page rule section that says "Make it up as you go along".
And people saying its the best edition ever, heralding it as the purest form of 40k yet to be achieved.
malfred wrote:I won't click the article if that's all it is.
I know what you mean. It's a bit like Wayne's situation with 40K: I want to, but I know the stupid will hurt.
As for what's already been said here: since Talizvar posted that Sirlin article and it's definition of 'scrubs', I've realised that 40K established a whole scrub culture, not only about how the 'true' game should be played, but also about how the game - and any game - is made. A nice wee bit of doublethink: 'true' (i.e. scrub) 40K is balanced, but balance is impossible.
warboss wrote:inquisition eldar force with a knight or two isn't the type of narrative I want to "forge". That isn't a wargame in my book but rather what you used to do UNDER the table as a kid with your cousins on holidays when your thundercats and autobots challenged his he man, gobots, and ninja turtles to a battle.
It was incredibly long and tedious so may well have missed the point entirely but I think it equates a competitive player challenging a casual player to child abuse.
It was incredibly long and tedious so may well have missed the point entirely but I think it equates a competitive player challenging a casual player to child abuse.
Heh, wow that really was long. I'm not sure what the purpose of the child abuse story was. The TLDR version is basically: an abuse survivor gets destroyed at a game, and that causes her to have a panic attack, and sit at home hugging her knees for the next three months.
With that story he tries to make the point that by beating people at games you can unintentionally hurt them (Don't worry, in true "scrub" fashion, the author hunted down the guy and made him feel super guilty about winning a fething game). Though what I take away from his story is more like: people who are too fragile to cope with losing, probably shouldn't be playing games.
I think that's the problem I have with people who criticize others for being more competitive, and banding around phrases like WAAC. They love saying things like "It's just a game" and "you take it too seriously". But really it's hypocrisy because they are the ones who take it the most seriously. So what if your army got tabled by some streamlined demon summoning machine... It's just a game right? Do they smile and say "wow good game, you played the hell outa me"? No, when they lose it isn't "just a game". Then it's "unfair", and they have to start bitching and calling the other person WAAC and "competitive jerk", and saying "he isn't fun" blah blah blah... And then apparently they go home and rock themselves to sleep for 3 months reliving the experience before bitching about it again it on BoLS. What happened to "just a game" there?
People shouldn't be stigmatized for just playing the game within the rules. That does not make them WAAC, quite the opposite. While scrubs literally are trying to change the rules to help themselves win more often. The only difference between a scrub and a cheat, is a scrub will try to convince people to agree with his rule breaking beforehand. And if you don't agree he will resort to name calling (cheap, not fun) and try to guilt trip you into letting him change the rules. It's really just sad.
If the game really isn't "fun" when it's played by the rules, then that is the game designer's fault, not the player's.
Oh gak, soon we'll need to list trigger warnings before we play a game of 40k? "DEAR TUMBLR TODAY I LOST A GAME OF 40K AGAINST A HORRIBLE COMPETENT PLAYER, I WANT TO CUT MYSELF BUT THE SAFETY SCISSORS WONT LET ME. T_T #40KISFULLOFMEANPEOPLE #BOLS"
I'm a horrible 40k player, but nine times out of ten I walk away from a loss with the feeling that at least I learned something and I had a hoot.
‘If you’re just going to take the very best, most unkillable units, ignore points costs, all in the name of making yourself feel big… Why even play? Why not just roll a dice and tell him on a zero or less he wins, on a one or more you win?’
Again, he looks at me like I’m mad.
I don't blame him.
I don't think I can carry on. He's only just got onto the topic of wargaming and it already feels like he's been rambling forever. He says he's a teacher: I hope his subject isn't English.
... I did carry on, a bit. This guy rants about the pure goodness of scrubdom worse than in that 'competitiveness' topic that got locked recently. Kids play to win because they're starting to be 'poisoned' by testosterone; the GoT nicknames seem to be awfully convenient, cherry-picked to set up a narrative of victims and villains, and stir up certain images and emotions (the boy who learns to 'fight' well is not called 'Jon' or 'Arya', or who stacks the odds in his favour [listbuilds] is not called 'Tyrion' or even 'Littlefinger'. Nope, he's an out-and-out Joffrey. Matters not a pick that he says 'Joffrey' is a nice boy in real life - he's already been branded as equivalent to one of the worst psychopaths in popular fiction!); and the abuse survivor story, while a regrettable circumstance, smacks of being a step or two away from Godwin's Law. "Abuse survivor! Topic won. No comebacks or you advocate hassling abused people..."
The confused, overlong whole just seems like a cobbled-together appeal to emotion.
Lastly, it might be just because I'm on a mobile, but have comments already been closed?
This is interesting- we've been talking a lot with a friend of mine about Stockholm syndrome in the context of GW in the last few months. I quit 40K around a year ago, he decided to hold the line because he loves his chaos space marines. Few weeks ago I decided to return, but then the Eldar Codex happened. My friend loves his CSM, but D weapons on a infantry was too much, even for him. So his money went to Privateer Press instead. The things happening with GW lately are absurd and surreal. Having interest in the Knight models I went to the GW site and saw that the old codex was 45 quid. What? So much money for few pages of rules and arguably mediocre fluff? I thought that you were a model company? And now it is getting updated? I was disgusted and yes, I am not starting 40K again...
But it is hard- Yesterday I painted an eastern dragon thingie from Malifaux and said to myself "This painting scheme will look perfect on Tyranids!". Having learned nothing from the past and having a rather short memory, I went on to check the price of a nidzilla 1750-ish list. Well, long story short, I discovered that for such amount of money I can get around three 50 Point Everblight lists with minimum overlap. And there are no {D}eldar in Warmachine. Guess what, my money are going to PP too.
Frankly, I believe that thing are going downhill fast for Elves Workshop. Every move they make reeks of desperation and you must be indoctrinated beyond saving or just starting 40K , not to see that you are being milked like there is no tomorrow.
Vermis wrote: He says he's a teacher: I hope his subject isn't English.
Heh, "The visual side of my learning manifests through my chosen profession – there’s a reason I teach English", and now we also know the reason students fall asleep in lessons.
His ultimate point was sort of reasonable, he suggests you talk to your opponent before the game and find out what their expectations are. But as has been said in this topic, sorting out a pick up game shouldn't need to be like negotiating a pre-nup. That's what the rules are for. Playing by them aught to be the only expectation. Obviously people can turn up with whatever other crazy expectations they like, but then they shouldn't be disappointed when those ones aren't met.
BrookM wrote: Oh gak, soon we'll need to list trigger warnings before we play a game of 40k? "DEAR TUMBLR TODAY I LOST A GAME OF 40K AGAINST A HORRIBLE COMPETENT PLAYER, I WANT TO CUT MYSELF BUT THE SAFETY SCISSORS WONT LET ME. T_T #40KISFULLOFMEANPEOPLE #BOLS"
Funnily enough I've seen that last article linked by Warmachine people too and touted as good. I apparently didn't get it as I read it as s typical need to negotiate and don't play competitively against a casual player nonsense (aka dumb down your list when playing a scrub so the scrub doesn't feel you're cheap) and was called out for that view by other warmachine players of all people including a host of a prominent warmachine podcast who was arguing that social contracts are a part of every game including warmachine. I was flabbergasted to see that one.
Evidently I still don't get it, because that's all I'm seeing in that article after you take away the additional fluff: If you're a casual player, it's okay to not play competitively and be a scrub (Sirlin) and it's the fault of the competitive player who wants you to bring your A game because that's not fun for you, and that nasty competitive guy shouldn't bring the good stuff so you can have a fun game.
Maybe the reason I'm getting disappointed with Warmachine is because my current meta is basically full of scrubs. Not to say I'm amazing or even good at Warmachine, but I love trying to improve my gameplay and my list creation while my meta is full of people who don't want to improve or up their game but want ot basically show up on game night, shoot the breeze with their buddies and maybe roll some dice and push some figures around - I sometimes think they'd be happier playing 40k if it wasn't for the fact most of them have a stigma against it, because in 40k they can derp around and ban powerlists to their hearts content. When you try to do that in Warmachine, it doesn't work so well.
It was incredibly long and tedious so may well have missed the point entirely but I think it equates a competitive player challenging a casual player to child abuse.
I remember skimming through this article and thinking "eh it's okay", after actually reading through it though.
It kind of feels like he had a good idea, but failed to present that idea in an unbiased manner. If he was trying to say "think about the other player and that not everyone wants the same things out of the game" it was lost in the extreme examples he used. It doesn't help that in all the cases he used the more competitive player was presented to be in the wrong.
I don't think the article was intended to be malicious towards anyone, he just isn't good at presenting his case.
Funny. I always asumed a person was a WAAC scumbag if they quibbled over every half a mm, twisted rules interpretations and rushed you. Not because they took an optomised list and played to win. Surely there is a difference between playing to win and just being a jerk?
That said, I dont like the useage of scrub.It implys that people who play narrative lists or have accused someone of being a WAAC jerk, even legitimatly, are somehow lesser fools.
Much like 'apologist' though, 'scrub' does have a legitimate application without a negative implication, it just kinda sounds like an insult without actually being one.
Yeah that was essentially what I mean. It just feels like an insult.
Its like with "Scotch". Being Scottish I hate people using that word "Oh but your Scotch"
They dont mean it in an offensive way, but enough people do or have done that it feels like its an insult.
Much like 'apologist' though, 'scrub' does have a legitimate application without a negative implication, it just kinda sounds like an insult without actually being one.
The thing with Sirlin's definition of a scrub is that in the context of what he means, a scrub would not only refuse to play to win but also cry foul or cheap or OP when their opponent uses the tools at their disposal.
It's not so much a casual or narrative player is a scrub, it's the narrative player who claims moral superiority for not taking the good choices is a scrub.
Pete Melvin wrote: Funny. I always asumed a person was a WAAC scumbag if they quibbled over every half a mm, twisted rules interpretations and rushed you. Not because they took an optomised list and played to win. Surely there is a difference between playing to win and just being a jerk?
I agree with that.
There is nothing wrong with taken an optimized list to a tournament or even to a store for a pick up game. If that's the kind of game you want, tell your opponent. if he/she wants the same, great!
On the scrub point: As a fluff bunny, I prefer the term fluff bunny.
Pete Melvin wrote: Funny. I always asumed a person was a WAAC scumbag if they quibbled over every half a mm, twisted rules interpretations and rushed you. Not because they took an optomised list and played to win. Surely there is a difference between playing to win and just being a jerk?
I agree with that.
There is nothing wrong with taken an optimized list to a tournament or even to a store for a pick up game. If that's the kind of game you want, tell your opponent. if he/she wants the same, great!
On the scrub point: As a fluff bunny, I prefer the term fluff bunny.
A fluff bunny isn't a scrub, though. They can be a scrub, but scrub is a different thing entirely.
A fluff bunny just takes what they feel is fluffy. A scrub does that but also constantly complains that their opponent uses OP/cheap/cheesy lists and doesn't play "fair" by which they often mean handicaps themselves arbitrarily.
Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Scrub is an more focused word and isn't synonymous with "casual" or "fluff bunny."
"Scrub" stays because it fits.
If you're confused on its meaning, go back an look at the definition.
I completely agree with WayneTheGame on the definition of a scrub. Even though Sirlin said that everyone starts out as a scrub, I think the term has moved on a little since its Street Fighter origins, where it just meant new/bad, to mean something more specific in the wider gaming context, and I can't think of a better word. There is nothing wrong with being a fluffy player, or a casual player, or even a bad player (everyone was a bad player once). None of those things alone make someone a scrub.
WayneTheGame wrote: If you're a casual player, it's okay to not play competitively and be a scrub (Sirlin) and it's the fault of the competitive player who wants you to bring your A game because that's not fun for you, and that nasty competitive guy shouldn't bring the good stuff so you can have a fun game.
Yes exactly! That attitude is completely back to front. If I went to my local chess club, I would actually be embarrassed to challenge one of the master-level players to a game, I'd feel like I was just wasting their time. After my inevitable loss I certainly would not turn around and say "Hey it's just a game, you don't have to take it so seriously! I could win too if I memorized all the openings". That would be incredibly disrespectful and also completely wrong (I've memorized loads and I'm still bad). No one would expect a chess master to sit down to a game and not play like a chess master.
Yet in 40k that kind of expectation seems to be commonplace. People turn up to games with some circus act that they know isn't very good, and then they expect their opponent, who has done his homework and built a strong list, to try and pull some punches so they can win. Then when he doesn't, they act like he's the jerk. That's completely backwards, playing properly should be the default. If you just want to mess around and eat pretzels then fine, but don't act like some guy who played properly and beat you did something wrong.
People who want to play like a mutt, usually have issues on their own, and the game is nothing to do with it, it's just the vehicle in how they want to gain acceptance.
I've read through Johnny the teachers Manifesto, and in this day and age, I'm not really surprised that someone would go to this length to write about how important it is to me just like everyone else, and that being a winner just for showing up is the most important.
Its the downfall of society, and the world we live in, these days. Couple that one with the first diatribe on GW? Yeah, you can see why GW's antics can do no wrong.
Both of these Hemmingway inspired piles of gak need their own place as exercises in futility.
WayneTheGame wrote: Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Sorry wayne but you've just setup a situation in which anyone who never enjoyed apoc and resents being forced to play it in 7th is a "scrub". I just played eldar on sunday, on the condition we play 40k and not apoc and it was a better game for it.
WayneTheGame wrote: Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Sorry wayne but you've just setup a situation in which anyone who never enjoyed apoc and resents being forced to play it in 7th is a "scrub". I just played eldar on sunday, on the condition we play 40k and not apoc and it was a better game for it.
You're misunderstanding what he's saying.
A scrub makes up their own rules or code of honor, and assumes others will abide by that code without ever really letting it be known that that is how he wishes to play.
WayneTheGame wrote: Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Sorry wayne but you've just setup a situation in which anyone who never enjoyed apoc and resents being forced to play it in 7th is a "scrub". I just played eldar on sunday, on the condition we play 40k and not apoc and it was a better game for it.
40k in general caters to scrubs, but what i mean is that a scrub has their own idea of how the game should be played, and calls anyone who disagrees with them cheesey. It's not scrub to play 40k and not like Apoc, it IMHO is scrub to not like apoc and think that everyone else should also not like apoc and are cheesey if they want to use it. You can still agree not to use it.
WayneTheGame wrote: Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Sorry wayne but you've just setup a situation in which anyone who never enjoyed apoc and resents being forced to play it in 7th is a "scrub". I just played eldar on sunday, on the condition we play 40k and not apoc and it was a better game for it.
40k in general caters to scrubs, but what i mean is that a scrub has their own idea of how the game should be played, and calls anyone who disagrees with them cheesey. It's not scrub to play 40k and not like Apoc, it IMHO is scrub to not like apoc and think that everyone else should also not like apoc and are cheesey if they want to use it. You can still agree not to use it.
I don't think people are anything if they like apoc, just people, however unlike apoc fans I just have no interest in apoc stuff IE super heavies, formations, gargantua mc's and so on. At the same time I see no reason to play against that stuff while being passive aggressive and labelling the other player, I'll simply not play. But yeah, we play a game full of entitled people, my preferences are often made out to be bigotry.
WayneTheGame wrote: Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Sorry wayne but you've just setup a situation in which anyone who never enjoyed apoc and resents being forced to play it in 7th is a "scrub". I just played eldar on sunday, on the condition we play 40k and not apoc and it was a better game for it.
40k in general caters to scrubs, but what i mean is that a scrub has their own idea of how the game should be played, and calls anyone who disagrees with them cheesey. It's not scrub to play 40k and not like Apoc, it IMHO is scrub to not like apoc and think that everyone else should also not like apoc and are cheesey if they want to use it. You can still agree not to use it.
I don't think people are anything if they like apoc, I just have no interest in apoc stuff IE super heavies, formations, gargantua mc's and so on. At the same time I see no reason to play against that stuff while being passive aggressive and labelling the other player, I'll simply not play. But yeah, we play a game full of entitled people, my preferences are often made out to be bigotry.
And if point is if you go arould think you better them the Apoc player because they like to play apoc, your a "scrub". It is the judge other people part that matters. Not if you like it or not.
WayneTheGame wrote: Basically the scrub mentality adds their own restrictions (e.g. I will play Eldar but won't take a Wraithknight even if I want to) and on top of that expects everybody else to follow their same code of honor.
Sorry wayne but you've just setup a situation in which anyone who never enjoyed apoc and resents being forced to play it in 7th is a "scrub". I just played eldar on sunday, on the condition we play 40k and not apoc and it was a better game for it.
40k in general caters to scrubs, but what i mean is that a scrub has their own idea of how the game should be played, and calls anyone who disagrees with them cheesey. It's not scrub to play 40k and not like Apoc, it IMHO is scrub to not like apoc and think that everyone else should also not like apoc and are cheesey if they want to use it. You can still agree not to use it.
I don't think people are anything if they like apoc, I just have no interest in apoc stuff IE super heavies, formations, gargantua mc's and so on. At the same time I see no reason to play against that stuff while being passive aggressive and labelling the other player, I'll simply not play. But yeah, we play a game full of entitled people, my preferences are often made out to be bigotry.
And if point is if you go arould think you better them the Apoc player because they like to play apoc, your a "scrub".
people who label others are to be labeled x, got it
Accolade wrote: At this point I don't know what people expect with GW though, that they'll change if we customers throw enough money at them?
It ends up being one of those "fool me once, fool me twice, three times...four tim-oh, new Adeptus Mechanicus!"
This is a very good point. There's a reason I only buy GW stuff used.
Although I will say that the Mechanicus army was a sure crowd pleaser, and one of the smartest decisions GW has made in a long time. It's almost like they listened just once... Well even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I suppose.
Accolade wrote: At this point I don't know what people expect with GW though, that they'll change if we customers throw enough money at them?
It ends up being one of those "fool me once, fool me twice, three times...four tim-oh, new Adeptus Mechanicus!"
This is a very good point. There's a reason I only buy GW stuff used.
Although I will say that the Mechanicus army was a sure crowd pleaser, and one of the smartest decisions GW has made in a long time. It's almost like they listened just once... Well even a stopped clock is right twice a year, I suppose.
Well I can at least be content that mechanicus is seemingly getting a full codex with an actual hq choice. If I had purchased the skitarii book I could see being a little upset lol
Accolade wrote: At this point I don't know what people expect with GW though, that they'll change if we customers throw enough money at them?
It ends up being one of those "fool me once, fool me twice, three times...four tim-oh, new Adeptus Mechanicus!"
This is a very good point. There's a reason I only buy GW stuff used.
Although I will say that the Mechanicus army was a sure crowd pleaser, and one of the smartest decisions GW has made in a long time. It's almost like they listened just once... Well even a stopped clock is right twice a year, I suppose.
Well I can at least be content that mechanicus is seemingly getting a full codex with an actual hq choice. If I had purchased the skitarii book I could see being a little upset lol
And yet I know guys that bought the Skitarii book, including one guy who dropped money on the special edition. These aren't rich guys either. I mean, if you absolutely have to have the rules right now, get the White Dwarf books! They're so much cheaper! People like that are the ones who insulate GW from making any major changes.
RE the article with the wicked evil Hound who made the PTSD victim have flashbacks;
I will agree that The Hound was a jerk when he tried to insist that you can't quit because THE RULES say you have to quit in a certain way; that's an idiotic rule, whoever wrote it is an idiot, and The Hound is a bit of a tool for insisting it be followed. I consider myself an idealistic realist; I think rules for games should be balanced and sensible. I recognized that they aren't always and sometimes house ruling is necessary, but I try to minimize that by playing games that do not need a lot of house ruling.
With that said; do not the Author of the article and his friends bear a modicum of responsibility? They took a person who they knew was mentally fragile and both brand new to the game and a player who they knew to be a bit of a hardass in the games he plays, and they did not tell either player what to expect from their opponent. Seems like an donkey-cave move to me. If I knew someone who was both new to a game and mentally fragile, and also someone who enjoys playing brutally competitively, I might try to make sure both sides knew where the other was coming from. If The Hound has literally only ever played the game from a cutthroat standpoint, I don't think it should be very surprising that he didn't consider any other possibility.
EDIT: To clarify, it sounds like the Author and his friends passively sat there and watched as PTSD and Hound agreed to play a game and Hound spent all game completely overwhelming her.
Vermis wrote: He says he's a teacher: I hope his subject isn't English.
Heh, "The visual side of my learning manifests through my chosen profession – there’s a reason I teach English", and now we also know the reason students fall asleep in lessons.
Must've missed that bit. But then I was facepalming so hard I was reading the thing through a concussed daze.
Pete Melvin wrote:
That said, I dont like the useage of scrub.It implys that people who play narrative lists or have accused someone of being a WAAC jerk, even legitimatly, are somehow lesser fools.
Agreed with Wayne's, MWHistorian's etc. definition. For extras, my particular view and gripe with scrubs is Azreal's alternative: apologists. Not so much a collection of individuals with 'codes of honour' about personal restrictions, but what seems like an entire movement as a symptom of 40K's extreme imbalance and listbuilding exploitation. The idea that fluffy lists is the intended way to play, because the perfectly legal competitive lists are apparently so traumatising to play against. (or at least that there's effectively two different games in basic 40K) Not to say that there's no room for pre-game discussion, but if fluffy lists were the way to play, they and competitive lists would be almost one and the same, and the tragedy is that GW could achieve something like that if they gave half a gak about balance and playtesting rather than shilling the latest shiny kit. IIRC the space marine list in Epic: Armageddon was built to function as SMs do in the fluff: as a highly mobile, hard-hitting strike force. (Which still needed some nous to play beyond piling on the 'best' units.) Anyways, if the underlying problems were fixed by, in order of likelihood, a) GW going under, b) fanboys moving to a better set of rules, c) 40K being improved, I think the grumblings of 40K scrubs would quiet down to a less extreme level. (Ditto the grumblings of us 'haters'. )
Grot 6 wrote:
I've read through Johnny the teachers Manifesto, and in this day and age, I'm not really surprised that someone would go to this length to write about how important it is to me just like everyone else, and that being a winner just for showing up is the most important.
That bit suddenly made this bit spring to mind. If people don't like the term 'scrubs', can we use 'sansweets' instead?
Now see I do think fluffy lists are the intended way to play. It's been clear that GW build lists in that style. The problem is they shunt responsibility for fun onto the players by allowing gross imbalances and then saying "But if you DO use that, you're a bad person and not acting in the spirit of the game as we intend". Then why allow it at all?
That's my bigger problem. If the game is meant to be casual/fluffy and narrative, where's the book explaining how to create your own scenarios and link games together into a campaign? Even though I don't play 40k I would gladly buy a GW version of Donald Featherstone's Wargaming Campaigns that talked about all the cool stuff involved in coming up with narrative games and provided examples.
They want to pass 40k off as catering to everybody, when it clearly doesn't.
Back on the scrub topic, my viewpoint on scrubs is that it's okay to play in a scrub manner so long as you understand it's what you're doing. For example, if I tone down my Warmachine playstyle because the people in my group are scrubs, I'm acting like a scrub but I'm not a scrub because I know I'm hindering myself for the sake of fun. That's analogous to in 40k not taking certain units or hashing out rules (e.g. no LoW) with your opponent, you're aware and cognizant of what's going on.
A real scrub has their own idea of how the game should be played. For example let's say that personal rule states: Lords of War should not be used in games of less than 3,000 points since LoW are a common issue that I see. The scrub plays by this rule in their own games, even though no such rule actually exists and the scrub could field a LoW if they chose to, and expects everybody else to adhere to that limitation too or they're "cheap" (or "cheesey", "WAAC", "TFG" and other names). So the minute they come up against somebody who fields an Imperial Knight or a Wraithknight (those are LoW now right?) they grumble and cry "cheese" because in their mind, you shouldn't use a LoW in less than 3k points. The scrub behavior is claiming the moral superiority (e.g. "You only won because Wraithknights are OP" or "You're cheesy because you took a LoW") for a rule that they impose themselves.
That's basically how GW themselves position the game, with the "spirit of the game" crap. You CAN take minimal troops and maxed out heavy/fast/elite (that's still a thing, isn't it?) but you're a bad person for doing it and not playing the game "right". That's scrub mentality in a nutshell when it's applied with a brush on everybody.
That's different (albeit subtly) from having a talk beforehand or having established club rules that might say no superheavies in less than X points without opponent's consent. The scrub gets mad that people aren't playing by their own set of rules, and uses their self-imposed restrictions as a way to claim to be the better player.
WayneTheGame wrote: Now see I do think fluffy lists are the intended way to play. It's been clear that GW build lists in that style. The problem is they shunt responsibility for fun onto the players by allowing gross imbalances and then saying "But if you DO use that, you're a bad person and not acting in the spirit of the game as we intend". Then why allow it at all?
Aye, I had a moment of doubt typing that about fluffy lists, hence the bit in brackets, in which I agree with the rest of this quote: fluffy might be the intended way to play (and I have no problem with that whatsoever; despite appearances I prefer it myself) but GW's crafting of the game is so shoddy and slack, it allows what's almost a second, different, contradictory game within the core rules. Why allow it, indeed? The 'spirit' of playing the game as intended should begin with the 'spirit' of developing the game as intended.
Vermis wrote: Aye, I had a moment of doubt typing that about fluffy lists, hence the bit in brackets.
It's a really good point though. I might be about to contradict my earlier posts pretty hard here, but bringing Sirlin into 40k can feel bit "insane" at times. Not that I don't agree with his ideas, but usually if I were talking about games and scrubs, I'd be doing it from a position where I have at least some modicum of faith in the game developers being competent. It's really hard to make the argument: "If it wasn't intentional: it wouldn't be there" when I know what a bunch of useless fethwits the GW design team are. If it came to light that the designers were literally jerking each other off when they wrote the last few codex books, I'd just be like: "Yeah... that explains a lot". It's almost like their moto should be "designed by scrubs... for scrubs", and with that in mind, it's really hard to tell people not to scrub, while keeping a straight face, or without a little bit of a self doubt creeping in. It's also true that 40k has RP roots, where it becomes debatable whether the objective really is "to win" or to live out some kind of escapist fantasy.
The only way I can reconcile all of this is to be pragmatic about it. While it might be interesting to think about what the designers intended, and forging a narrative, and "fun"... these things are far too ambiguous and subjective. They depend on an honour system, which will be different for each person, and is ultimately untenable. So we are always returned to "the one truth", the only truth the game knows, which is winning and losing in accordance with the rules.
When two players meet with different expectations, for example: player A (lets call him "The Hound" ) who has only one expectation: that the rules be followed, meets player B ("Sansa") who has more than one expectation: the rules be followed, and also the game corresponds to some subjective narrative that only exists in her head; itself based on even more subjective ideas about what the designers might have intended, all muddled up with arbitrary notions of "fun" and "fairness"... In this situation, our English teacher friend from BoLS seems to be arguing that the onus is somehow on The Hound to make concessions to appease Sansa. I would say that is completely absurd. The Hound has only one expectation left to concede, while Sansa's expectations don't even make sense. The Hound could try, but there is no guarantee he would ever be able to figure out what she really wants. The onus here should always be on Sansa to at least realize that she is the one bringing a bunch of "special requirements", not him.
Now I did not say whether The Hound is a power gamer. It might be that he is just a casual player, and they never have a problem with each other. Or, it might be that he is running the most brutal net-list, and he tables Sansa on the first turn. In either case, The Hound is not doing anything wrong, and his expectations have not changed. His philosophy is simple, functional, and based on something true (the rules). Sansa's expectations are fuzzy and subjective. So when people say both their approaches to the game are "equally valid", that is certainly diplomatic, but it isn't entirely true. The Hound should be beyond reproach. Sansa's approach might not even be functional.
That doesn't mean that Sansa shouldn't try to enjoy her own version of the game in her own way, and look for players that she can make that work with. But it does mean that when she plays against The Hound, she should be respectful of the fact that he is playing the "true" game (at least the only truth that can be quantified), and accept that she has no right to criticize him for that or be upset if she gets tabled. Calling him "cheap" or even "competitive" just because the actual (true) game does not match up with her idea of what the game "should" be, is plainly wrong, and that's the path to scrubdom. It's a fallacious, snide and hypocritical attitude, which is why being a scrub is always wrong... even when it's 40k, and being a scrub seems like the only option.
If I may interject, my group and I had a lovely discussion (re: loud, angry confrontation with years of personal baggage aired in the open) regarding this article, the one takeaway of real consequence is right in the title; unacknowledged playstyles.
Indeed, the simplest way to play the game is in some capacity, RAW ,as the game is "designed" to use such generous language for 40k. The problems stem quite heavily from the language of the design, and the legacy of 40k resulting in all sorts of interpretations of how the game is supposed to be played, and people who harken back to varying eras of game design. It's a big game with a long lifespan which has undergone many different "thematic" incarnations of the ruleset with varying levels of functionality within that same framework.
From all that, the legion of different playstyles and interpretations of how one plays the game is extreme, and the extreme openness and imbalance in the game makes it quite glaring. Narrative, casual, competitive are merely the chief archetypes and there are legions of variations below them, combinations thereof and so on, and the problem stems from people not recognizing other perspectives on the game.
I don't think I know anyone who plays 40k exactly as the rules are structured for the express purpose of winning, being the simplest realization of the game's design. Everyone has their own "code" or "limitation" or particular preferences, and no one is especially good at communicating that with one another. The most competitive, WAAC-ish player I know still dislike D weapons, loathe Maelstrom and avoid netlists like the plague, and expects other players to conform to that conception of the game, much like the #2 competitive guy has no problems with D and loves maelstrom, but abhors gunlines. Both still follow the basic tenant of follow the rules and achieve victory first and foremost, but they still have their perception of the game and straying beyond that is either being cheesy or "kicking a puppy" to quote one of them.
So what? Everyone has different ways to approach a game at all levels, whether it be Call of Duty or Warhammer 40k, the problem is only in games where those playstyles don't function well together. There's always differences between a hardcore competitive type and someone casual, but I can't think of an environment, aside from maybe SC2 and other e-sports designed for it, where the gulf between different playstyles is so dramatic. Subtle differences in personal preferences can, due to glaring imbalance, hand someone a massive advantage over other people, even who are otherwise similar: WAAC Eldar versus WAACSM isn't even a competition, to say nothing of the hardcore fluffbunny's; what fluff you like has very real game implications; footslogging guard versus Fish of Fury as two suboptimal examples with massive power differences.
And because this is a much more social exercise than any video game; you play quite often with the same people you know in your regular life over the course of several hours and can't simply go "feth off donkey-cave" and leave a server that isn't to your liking, there's a lot of social harm caused by it. What the article is suggesting is something which is kind of a fact of life for having fun in 40k; negotiate the hell out of every game. GW has abdicated any and all responsibility for making a functional ruleset, which is so broad and ill-defined that the probability of two players just showing up and having a fun game is not exactly high. Tournaments are actually a good expression of that; they have their list of house-rules, the missions expected and everyone going agrees on what kind of game they are playing a well-organized campaign can do the same; the type of games expected are clear, houserules defined and so on. If you do not like what is on offer, you do not participate (or undermine it from within in protest of what you don't like, as I've had some fun managing in the past). Pick-up games and "casual" play don't have that structure; the ruleset doesn't provide it, and so we as players need to. The only way I play 40k anymore is either against players I know I'm a very good match for, something one can develop over years of playing together, or through heavy negotation, i.e. "Alright, let's try and build some roughly equivalent lists for an urban battlefield using Hammer and Anvil with Maelstrom where you discard any objective you can't accomplish," and we basically have to co-operatively build lists.
Adds a lot of lead-time to the game, and it really shouldn't be neccessary, but when the choice is between unacknowladged or anticipated playstyles resulting in the whole experience being a waste of time for one or the other because GW can't be arsed to make a remotely functional game, that's what I do.
Or I play 30k where, due to actual playtesting, a functional modified ruleset and a more controlled selection of factions designed to work against each other, it isn't important at all. Reminds me of 5th edition when the only "extra" effort required was "Dude, don't bring Draigowing again, I'm bored of it" Our group was a lot happier then, it was actively growing rather than stagnant and the store was making a good deal more money off 40k; competitive, casual, complete newbie with no idea what you were doing, really didn't matter much, the ruleset for all its design faults still present provided enough of a framework that differences of perceptions and playstyle weren't critical. The difference between the most hardcore, RAW, power-gamer and the fluffybunny CSM players was an uphill battle, not turn 2 tabling and heaps of vitriol being plied between them.
"By scrubs, for scrubs" is pretty accurate to 40k.
It's been obvious that 40k's rules are left open to interpretation for whatever reason rather than being clear and concise, and while that's fine for groups that know each other (which seems to be GW's intended people playing) it's terrible for pickup games where you might not really know the person you're playing or not know them at all.
What I find most disturbing/amusing about these BOLS articles is that people are okay with it. It really is like a cult, they don't even realize that GW is the outlier here, other games don't write rules in a weird format and leave it up to you to decide what they mean. Other games don't require you to negotiate what makes a fun game with a prospective opponent, the only negotiation tends to be asking if they want to play at all, and then how many points.
The closest analogy to how 40k works seems to be the historical games of yore, think like 70s era Napoleonic wargaming clubs (which I guess could still exist today) where you had to talk about what battle you wanted, how it was set up, who should get what, how you should handle logistics, and the like.
I also definitely agree (and disagree with the article) that the onus is somehow on one player more than the other to dumb down their list so the other player doesn't have a negative experience. In fact, that view is what got me called out by Warmachine players, no less, perhaps because I had more than a little bit of vitriol at the idea of a competitive player being forced to "scrub it up" so the casual player doesn't feel overwhelmed. In fact that entire idea stinks of modern political correctness, and while I don't want to get too much into that can of worms I'll leave it at being akin to the idea of teaching children that everyone is a winner.
Yeah, it really is weird, Wayne. Not only are they okay with the rules the way they are, they'd gladly pay more for them! Even while knowing the rules are never actually being improved, they'll happily pay GW higher and higher prices for rules that last a year or two. Heck, I sometimes see the argument that the rules should be more expensive!
It's absolutely insane, I can't understand paying a company for such a low-value product with such enthusiasm. It feels a bit unique to 40k.
Accolade wrote: Yeah, it really is weird, Wayne. Not only are they okay with the rules the way they are, they'd gladly pay more for them! Even while knowing the rules are never actually being improved, they'll happily pay GW higher and higher prices for rules that last a year or two. Heck, I sometimes see the argument that the rules should be more expensive!
It's absolutely insane, I can't understand paying a company for such a low-value product with such enthusiasm. It feels a bit unique to 40k.
It's a legacy thing; 40k has been a big thing in people's lives for a long, long time. I've been into the IP, though not the actual tabletop game until the last few years, since I was in my young teens. I put up with some level of gak which I wouldn't in other product lines. Same deal with Star Trek, Starwars, anything which people love the idea of will put up with bad executions thereof, some fanatically so.
For someone like me who's more into the IP than the tabletop game, I've reached the point where I won't buy any more rules from GW; i'll play the game as best I can, keep an eye on Black Library or the licensed PC games, but I'm not going to reward GW prime for anything else, they've exhausted my patience. But at the same time, I'm not about to sell things and bugger off, which I would do were Infinity, for instance, to take some consistent bad turns; my investment in time, money and personal enthusiasm was never and likely never will be the same; they screw up, I'll cut my losses and leave.
For people in my group who have a lot more of their personal self worth or enjoyment tied up in 40k, they're still buying stuff up; the codexes, supplements, models, the works. They complain, they get frustrated, they don't like the direction but they're not about to cut drastically just yet. Some are getting there, some have a long time ago, one or two might never, and no matter how bad they know things are they'll keep buying stuff up.
One even thinks there aren't any problems and if we just maintain a stiff upper lip and roll with it there are no problems (he may or may not play Eldar).
MajorStoffer wrote: So what? Everyone has different ways to approach a game at all levels, the problem is only in games where those playstyles don't function well together.
...
this is a much more social exercise than any video game; you play quite often with the same people you know in your regular life over the course of several hours and can't simply go "feth off donkey-cave" and leave a server that isn't to your liking, there's a lot of social harm caused by it. What the article is suggesting is something which is kind of a fact of life for having fun in 40k; negotiate the hell out of every game.
That all sounds fine and agreeable, but compromise is only a good option when both positions are equally valid. Not all positions really are equally valid though, some are just downright unreasonable.
Imagine (for example) that you have two dreadnoughts, and then I steal them off the gaming table. Then later I get caught (arrested), and I say to you "Hey let's compromise, you can have one back, and I'll just keep one. One each is a fair comprimise, right?". I hope you'd tell me to feth off. Because I have no business stealing your stuff, you have the law on your side, and also I've already been arrested so I'm in no position to negotiate. That's not a compromise, it's just me being a dick.
Right now in 40k there are a lot of people who are kind of being dicks. Insisting that other people should "negotiate" and "compromise" when said 'other people' are not doing anything wrong, and have the rules on their side.
I'm kind of straying into an offensive analogy here, so I'm sorry, I'm not trying to liken any one group to "thieves" or get into hyperbole. I just think a lot of the people who are going around shouting "unfair" are, in fact, the ones who are being the most unfair themselves, by expecting something that they really are not entitled to (which is other people "going easy" on them).
EDIT: reworded some stuff.
RatBot wrote: RE the article with the wicked evil Hound who made the PTSD victim have flashbacks;
I will agree that The Hound was a jerk when he tried to insist that you can't quit because THE RULES say you have to quit in a certain way; that's an idiotic rule, whoever wrote it is an idiot, and The Hound is a bit of a tool for insisting it be followed.
I don't know know the game so I can only speculate, but in a game like poker you're not supposed to fold out of turn because it would influence the betting. You also can't pick up your chips and leave halfway through a hand, because that's cheating. I can think of lots of reason why someone quitting at an inappropriate moment might impact the game and be unfair on other players. I used to play a strategy game online where capturing another player's HQ would mean you knock them out the game and also inherit all their resources (a huge advantage). Oftentimes, during multiplayer games, people would wait until the very last moment, and then resign the game just before their HQ fell, so all their resources would return to neutral instead of being captured. There wasn't any rule against this, sometimes people would do it to help their own team, or their friends in FFA. Sometimes it was just out of spite for the person who knocked you out. What's important though is it had a huge impact on the outcome of the game. I don't know how the game in the story works, but it stands to reason that if you're not allowed to withdraw while you're being attacked, then it might be because it does something unfair.
This discussion is making me glad I played Fantasy more than 40K - at least there were alternative games where I could use the figures when the rules became unplayable bits of garbage.
[Insert Game of Choice] is a much better balanced game than WHFB. I am glad that folks were bale to use their existing armies in a better game.
The Auld Grump - for me [Insert Game of Choice] is Kings of War - but I have heard good things about other games as well.
I also definitely agree (and disagree with the article) that the onus is somehow on one player more than the other to dumb down their list so the other player doesn't have a negative experience. In fact, that view is what got me called out by Warmachine players, no less, perhaps because I had more than a little bit of vitriol at the idea of a competitive player being forced to "scrub it up" so the casual player doesn't feel overwhelmed. In fact that entire idea stinks of modern political correctness, and while I don't want to get too much into that can of worms I'll leave it at being akin to the idea of teaching children that everyone is a winner.
I could talk about Malifaux, meself. I learned to play it against the host of our gaming group, who loved it so much he became a Wyrd Henchman. Now me, I went fluffy. I liked the look and sound of Hoffman most, so I took him and a few robots. Hoffman back then was one of the weakest masters. Could barely walk, let alone run, etc. Whereas my opponent could call on a wide range of crews and some terrifying masters like Lady Justice, Mei Feng, etc., and he 'brought it'. Most of our games ended up with me taking a savage beating, and I ended up disliking the game. But I didn't blame the guy. Not to claim some kind of moral high ground myself, but it didn't even occur to me to go scrub and wheedle him or anyone else to neuter their crews; they were what they were. And what they were was pretty apparent: that Malifaux was subject to some bad, 40K-like imbalance and power creep (a quick comparison of the 1st ed peacekeeper and rail golem would tell that much) and as a result also too dependent on some form of listbuilding.
Auldgrump: I hear ya. Although that's part of the tragedy of what Wayne, Accolade and Majorstoffer have been saying: there are decent-to-good alternatives that people can slot their 40K minis right into, but unless entire gaming groups (like your good example) get sick of 40K at the same time, it can be an uphill struggle. The GW hooks go so deep that people can't even conceive that other rules might be viable, let alone mixing and matching their existing minis with those rule sets. Forget about shifting to another game entirely.
I don't know know the game so I can only speculate, but in a game like poker you're not supposed to fold out of turn because it would influence the betting. You also can't pick up your chips and leave halfway through a hand, because that's cheating. I can think of lots of reason why someone quitting at an inappropriate moment might impact the game and be unfair on other players. I used to play a strategy game online where capturing another player's HQ would mean you knock them out the game and also inherit all their resources (a huge advantage). Oftentimes, during multiplayer games, people would wait until the very last moment, and then resign the game just before their HQ fell, so all their resources would return to neutral instead of being captured. There wasn't any rule against this, sometimes people would do it to help their own team, or their friends in FFA. Sometimes it was just out of spite for the person who knocked you out. What's important though is it had a huge impact on the outcome of the game. I don't know how the game in the story works, but it stands to reason that if you're not allowed to withdraw while you're being attacked, then it might be because it does something unfair.
That's possible and I hadn't considered it, but I'm under the impression from the article that it was a one-on-one game so I'd think there'd be zero difference between losing and quitting, but I'm just making assumptions.
I have actually found the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rules online, and while I don't have time to sit down and read them right now, apparently there are rules on "withdrawing" from the game, and if you do so you actually get a "victory point", but I would argue that that's completely different from "I quit, you win" which is what I assume 'Sansa' or whatever the hell the example is (never watched or read Game of Thrones) wanted to do. Like, if it was me, it's just "I'm not withdrawing, I'm quitting. You win."
Smacks wrote: That all sounds fine and agreeable, but compromise is only a good option when both positions are equally valid. Not all positions really are equally valid though, some are just downright unreasonable.
Imagine (for example) that you have two dreadnoughts, and then I steal them off the gaming table. Then later I get caught (arrested), and I say to you "Hey let's compromise, you can have one back, and I'll just keep one. One each is a fair comprimise, right?". I hope you'd tell me to feth off. Because I have no business stealing your stuff, you have the law on your side, and also I've already been arrested so I'm in no position to negotiate. That's not a compromise, it's just me being a dick.
Right now in 40k there are a lot of people who are kind of being dicks. Insisting that other people should "negotiate" and "compromise" when said 'other people' are not doing anything wrong, and have the rules on their side.
I'm kind of straying into an offensive analogy here, so I'm sorry, I'm not trying to liken any one group to "thieves" or get into hyperbole. I just think a lot of the people who are going around shouting "unfair" are, in fact, the ones who are being the most unfair themselves, by expecting something that they really are not entitled to (which is other people "going easy" on them).
EDIT: reworded some stuff.
The problem with taking the legalist approach with 40k is the rules barely function in a fundamentally social experiment. Assuming your opponent will follow the rules as written when they are vague, self-contradictory and in many cases fundamentally broken is no better than someone yelling "CHEESY TFG!" when you don't conform to their view of the game, they're two sides of the same problem. Negotiation isn't really the solution in general either; it is between two players who use that as their means to continue enjoying 40k, it's one of many valid approaches to making the whole frankenstein mess work, sort of, but what's key, and what the original article emphasized is making it clear what kind of game each player wants. A fluffbunny jumping into a PUG without stating how he likes to play is no different or problematic than someone who expects a complete RAW approach. What matters is each player be clear about what kind of the game they want beforehand. Expecting a fluffybunny to play RAW is no better than expecting a RAW player to play casual, but by being clear about who you are and what you want from the get-go the two players can find a solution. Is compromise viable to both of them? Swell, awesome. Do they not want to change how they play and decide it would be better to find alternate opponents? Also awesome, you just avoided any real unpleasantness or wasting time.
Moral highground or superiority doesn't enter the equation; it's a badly written game with awful balance run by a gakky amoral company, take steps to keep having fun, whatever version of fun you're down for.
I have actually found the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rules online, and while I don't have time to sit down and read them right now, apparently there are rules on "withdrawing" from the game, and if you do so you actually get a "victory point", but I would argue that that's completely different from "I quit, you win" which is what I assume 'Sansa' or whatever the hell the example is (never watched or read Game of Thrones) wanted to do. Like, if it was me, it's just "I'm not withdrawing, I'm quitting. You win."
Withdrawing from the game in VtES isn't quitting the game, you need to jump through several (very difficult) hoops to successfully withdraw from a game and people only actually do it to win the game (since the game is decided on victory points).
I also definitely agree (and disagree with the article) that the onus is somehow on one player more than the other to dumb down their list so the other player doesn't have a negative experience. In fact, that view is what got me called out by Warmachine players, no less, perhaps because I had more than a little bit of vitriol at the idea of a competitive player being forced to "scrub it up" so the casual player doesn't feel overwhelmed. In fact that entire idea stinks of modern political correctness, and while I don't want to get too much into that can of worms I'll leave it at being akin to the idea of teaching children that everyone is a winner.
I could talk about Malifaux, meself. I learned to play it against the host of our gaming group, who loved it so much he became a Wyrd Henchman. Now me, I went fluffy. I liked the look and sound of Hoffman most, so I took him and a few robots. Hoffman back then was one of the weakest masters. Could barely walk, let alone run, etc. Whereas my opponent could call on a wide range of crews and some terrifying masters like Lady Justice, Mei Feng, etc., and he 'brought it'. Most of our games ended up with me taking a savage beating, and I ended up disliking the game. But I didn't blame the guy. Not to claim some kind of moral high ground myself, but it didn't even occur to me to go scrub and wheedle him or anyone else to neuter their crews; they were what they were. And what they were was pretty apparent: that Malifaux was subject to some bad, 40K-like imbalance and power creep (a quick comparison of the 1st ed peacekeeper and rail golem would tell that much) and as a result also too dependent on some form of listbuilding.
Auldgrump: I hear ya. Although that's part of the tragedy of what Wayne, Accolade and Majorstoffer have been saying: there are decent-to-good alternatives that people can slot their 40K minis right into, but unless entire gaming groups (like your good example) get sick of 40K at the same time, it can be an uphill struggle. The GW hooks go so deep that people can't even conceive that other rules might be viable, let alone mixing and matching their existing minis with those rule sets. Forget about shifting to another game entirely.
Right, some of these people seem to have literally become Arco-Flagellants or similar and been lobotomized by the Imperium (i.e. GW) where they can't see anything else. I mean I get still enjoying 40k despite its flaws, but there are a lot of people that don't see any flaws with 40k at all and will vehemently argue that it has no flaws.
MajorStoffer wrote: The problem with taking the legalist approach with 40k is the rules barely function in a fundamentally social experiment. Assuming your opponent will follow the rules as written when they are vague, self-contradictory and in many cases fundamentally broken is no better than someone yelling "CHEESY TFG!" when you don't conform to their view of the game.
I agree that the rules are a mess, but most of the bitching is related to other people's lists. The army lists are far from perfect, but they are fairly simple and clear on what you can take and how much things cost. I don't think you will find much there that is confusing or contradictory.
A fluffbunny jumping into a PUG without stating how he likes to play is no different or problematic than someone who expects a complete RAW approach.
I'm worried that we might be starting to confuse "legal army list" with "RAW fundamentalism". A person who turns up to a PUG with a legal army and no other expectations, is not going to have the same kind of problems as a fluffbunny who's looking for something very specific.
what the original article emphasized is making it clear what kind of game each player wants.
Well it depends what you mean by "emphasized". That is certainly the take-away message from the last couple of paragraphs, but the previous 95% of the text consists of long meandering anecdotes stressing how diabolical competitive gaming is. So all things considered, I feel that's the message that was emphasized.
Also, competitive players aren't going to give a gak if someone brings a fluffy list and wants to get beaten. So the article being "for the benefit of everyone" is disingenuous. And the idea of self declaring would only work if people saw themselves the same way that others see them, which they don't. One man's power gamer is another man's pwnt n00b. So the whole thing comes across as some kind of self-affirmation, to justify being a scrub like it's some kind of lifestyle choice.
RatBot wrote: That's possible and I hadn't considered it, but I'm under the impression from the article that it was a one-on-one game so I'd think there'd be zero difference between losing and quitting, but I'm just making assumptions.
Three people are named in the story, so I presume they were all playing. Though it sounded like the writer himself was not there, and he has an axe to grind, so it's questionable how much is completely truthful. In any case, the character he called The Hound was just playing a game, and apparently winning, and the other person obviously had a panic attack because they have mental health issues which are nothing to do with how someone plays a game. It was a pretty stupid story, and even stupider to blame what happened on the poor guy who was just playing cards.
I have yet to read any of the response comments, but this post was really something. I don't follow RPG news myself so this was very interesting, not to mention informative. A different example that this reminds me of is Blizzard Entertainment's history of handling of World of Warcraft. I used to play the game in the early Burning Crusade era. I wasn't there for vanilla but I was close enough to experience the tail end of what was there before it was all wiped clean and replaced with instances and linear paths and quests. They actually designed the world to be explored, and rewarded you for doing so. Quests would challenge you to traverse the land and discover new things you wouldn't have otherwise noticed. They were almost a means to the end, and the end being exploration and story telling. Those were the days...
But my point is that Blizzard listened to its fans. And you know what its fans wanted? They wanted more grinding. Of course they didn't say it in that way, but it was all "make A, B, and C" easier to do. When you're not faced with a challenge, you're just killing and getting loot, killing and getting loot. Grinding. They wanted less time flying to locations, less time sailing on ships, less money on mounts, the point of the game was quickly relegated to instanced play, leaving what was once an actual half-decent open world as nothing more than a lobby with background scenery in which you can grind to better prepare for all the instancing. To compound this, people were complaining about asymmetry. One class can do something better than the other classes. The classes weren't exactly balanced, but instead of taking the route of DOTA (and League of Legends? I never played League) and simply making every class overpowered in their own way, they listened to the fans. And the fans didn't give them creativity, the fans gave them DEATH. Nerf this ability! Nerf that one! That one's unfair, and get rid of that! Of course there's always someone there to throw in a empowering idea or two, but it's always just one drop in the rain of "NERF THIS PLZ" So Blizzard did. They listened to the majority, and what we're left with is a game in which you can wander into the woods, fight your way into a clearly guarded house to find an inviting looking chest literally sitting on a pedestal in the center of the room, the only thing missing being a neon arrow-sign pointing to it saying "Check this out!" in flashing lights. And when you manage to get to it, you are unable to interact with it in any way. You are unable to interact with anything there. Left with no option but to return to the village (quest hub) to play out a predictable storyline that eventually takes you back to that closely-guarded house that you need to desperately fight your way back inside because now that you're on this quest you can interact with this part of the world. Everyone in the game is fine with this. At least enough to keep paying for it. There are other factors, I admit. But again, my point is that it's not a result of Blizzard just deciding to destroy the adventure. It's a result of Blizzard listening to millions of zombies who just want to spend the money they made working to log onto an online game where they can work some more. Zombies. I'm glad the Elder Scrolls games exist. Otherwise I'd feel like everyone's this dead inside.
Maybe I should have made this into its own thread...
I have yet to read any of the response comments, but this post was really something. I don't follow RPG news myself so this was very interesting, not to mention informative. A different example that this reminds me of is Blizzard Entertainment's history of handling of World of Warcraft. I used to play the game in the early Burning Crusade era. I wasn't there for vanilla but I was close enough to experience the tail end of what was there before it was all wiped clean and replaced with instances and linear paths and quests. They actually designed the world to be explored, and rewarded you for doing so. Quests would challenge you to traverse the land and discover new things you wouldn't have otherwise noticed. They were almost a means to the end, and the end being exploration and story telling. Those were the days...
But my point is that Blizzard listened to its fans. And you know what its fans wanted? They wanted more grinding. Of course they didn't say it in that way, but it was all "make A, B, and C" easier to do. When you're not faced with a challenge, you're just killing and getting loot, killing and getting loot. Grinding. They wanted less time flying to locations, less time sailing on ships, less money on mounts, the point of the game was quickly relegated to instanced play, leaving what was once an actual half-decent open world as nothing more than a lobby with background scenery in which you can grind to better prepare for all the instancing. To compound this, people were complaining about asymmetry. One class can do something better than the other classes. The classes weren't exactly balanced, but instead of taking the route of DOTA (and League of Legends? I never played League) and simply making every class overpowered in their own way, they listened to the fans. And the fans didn't give them creativity, the fans gave them DEATH. Nerf this ability! Nerf that one! That one's unfair, and get rid of that! Of course there's always someone there to throw in a empowering idea or two, but it's always just one drop in the rain of "NERF THIS PLZ" So Blizzard did. They listened to the majority, and what we're left with is a game in which you can wander into the woods, fight your way into a clearly guarded house to find an inviting looking chest literally sitting on a pedestal in the center of the room, the only thing missing being a neon arrow-sign pointing to it saying "Check this out!" in flashing lights. And when you manage to get to it, you are unable to interact with it in any way. You are unable to interact with anything there. Left with no option but to return to the village (quest hub) to play out a predictable storyline that eventually takes you back to that closely-guarded house that you need to desperately fight your way back inside because now that you're on this quest you can interact with this part of the world. Everyone in the game is fine with this. At least enough to keep paying for it. There are other factors, I admit. But again, my point is that it's not a result of Blizzard just deciding to destroy the adventure. It's a result of Blizzard listening to millions of zombies who just want to spend the money they made working to log onto an online game where they can work some more. Zombies. I'm glad the Elder Scrolls games exist. Otherwise I'd feel like everyone's this dead inside.
Maybe I should have made this into its own thread...
Are you saying that GW shouldn't listen to the players? 'Cause they aint listening now and the game and finances are crap.
RatBot wrote: With that said; do not the Author of the article and his friends bear a modicum of responsibility? They took a person who they knew was mentally fragile and both brand new to the game and a player who they knew to be a bit of a hardass in the games he plays, and they did not tell either player what to expect from their opponent. Seems like an donkey-cave move to me. If I knew someone who was both new to a game and mentally fragile, and also someone who enjoys playing brutally competitively, I might try to make sure both sides knew where the other was coming from. If The Hound has literally only ever played the game from a cutthroat standpoint, I don't think it should be very surprising that he didn't consider any other possibility.
EDIT: To clarify, it sounds like the Author and his friends passively sat there and watched as PTSD and Hound agreed to play a game and Hound spent all game completely overwhelming her.
But if they did that, or just didn't let them play each other, then they wouldn't have an article. Apparently PTSD was a necessary sacrifice to show the world how competitive players are all just relentless bullies and dicks.
I have yet to read any of the response comments, but this post was really something. I don't follow RPG news myself so this was very interesting, not to mention informative. A different example that this reminds me of is Blizzard Entertainment's history of handling of World of Warcraft. I used to play the game in the early Burning Crusade era. I wasn't there for vanilla but I was close enough to experience the tail end of what was there before it was all wiped clean and replaced with instances and linear paths and quests. They actually designed the world to be explored, and rewarded you for doing so. Quests would challenge you to traverse the land and discover new things you wouldn't have otherwise noticed. They were almost a means to the end, and the end being exploration and story telling. Those were the days...
But my point is that Blizzard listened to its fans. And you know what its fans wanted? They wanted more grinding. Of course they didn't say it in that way, but it was all "make A, B, and C" easier to do. When you're not faced with a challenge, you're just killing and getting loot, killing and getting loot. Grinding. They wanted less time flying to locations, less time sailing on ships, less money on mounts, the point of the game was quickly relegated to instanced play, leaving what was once an actual half-decent open world as nothing more than a lobby with background scenery in which you can grind to better prepare for all the instancing. To compound this, people were complaining about asymmetry. One class can do something better than the other classes. The classes weren't exactly balanced, but instead of taking the route of DOTA (and League of Legends? I never played League) and simply making every class overpowered in their own way, they listened to the fans. And the fans didn't give them creativity, the fans gave them DEATH. Nerf this ability! Nerf that one! That one's unfair, and get rid of that! Of course there's always someone there to throw in a empowering idea or two, but it's always just one drop in the rain of "NERF THIS PLZ" So Blizzard did. They listened to the majority, and what we're left with is a game in which you can wander into the woods, fight your way into a clearly guarded house to find an inviting looking chest literally sitting on a pedestal in the center of the room, the only thing missing being a neon arrow-sign pointing to it saying "Check this out!" in flashing lights. And when you manage to get to it, you are unable to interact with it in any way. You are unable to interact with anything there. Left with no option but to return to the village (quest hub) to play out a predictable storyline that eventually takes you back to that closely-guarded house that you need to desperately fight your way back inside because now that you're on this quest you can interact with this part of the world. Everyone in the game is fine with this. At least enough to keep paying for it. There are other factors, I admit. But again, my point is that it's not a result of Blizzard just deciding to destroy the adventure. It's a result of Blizzard listening to millions of zombies who just want to spend the money they made working to log onto an online game where they can work some more. Zombies. I'm glad the Elder Scrolls games exist. Otherwise I'd feel like everyone's this dead inside.
Maybe I should have made this into its own thread...
I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with any of these articles.
Blizzard listened to it's customers and a small portion of the customers didn't like it.
Are you trying to say people complaining about issues in 40k are the majority and GW shouldn't listen to them because... they don't like money?
Or are you trying to make some sort of similarity between someone with a minority view about WoW and people that dislike the current direction of the game being the minority... when we have no idea what the actual profitability of each group is?
As a current/former WoW player, no. Blizzard listened to the majority of its players and made the game more accessible and the minority at the very top started bitching because they couldn't be unique snowflakes anymore.
Now that I am properly enlightened re what "withdrawing" means in the context of VtES, I think only one of the following conclusions can be drawn:
1.) The Hound insisted that Victim was not allowed to quit, in which case, Hound is a dick and Author and friends are idiots for not saying "Dude, stop being a dick and let her quit."
2.) Victim kept saying that she wanted to withdraw when she meant quit because she, being a new player, was possibly using the incorrect terminology, in which case, Hound, Author, or Author's friends should've chimed in "Do you mean you want to quit?"
3.)The entire story is fabricated (which to be fair I doubt is the case), or has been exaggerated to paint competitive players in a bad light.
Regardless, even if Hound was a dick, Author and friends were also complicit as accomplices to dickery.
@ the whole definition of a scrub. Here's an interesting thought; say a person wants no LoW in 40k due to seeming imbalance and only allows them with restrictions which would fit the apparent definition of a scrub (creating rules for everyone to appease their issues with competitive play). What if they then played 30k where such restrictions on LoW are part of the rules. Are they less of a scrub or more?
Skimask Mohawk wrote: @ the whole definition of a scrub. Here's an interesting thought; say a person wants no LoW in 40k due to seeming imbalance and only allows them with restrictions which would fit the apparent definition of a scrub (creating rules for everyone to appease their issues with competitive play). What if they then played 30k where such restrictions on LoW are part of the rules. Are they less of a scrub or more?
LoW ARE part of the 40k rules though, aren't they?
Skimask Mohawk wrote: @ the whole definition of a scrub. Here's an interesting thought; say a person wants no LoW in 40k due to seeming imbalance and only allows them with restrictions which would fit the apparent definition of a scrub (creating rules for everyone to appease their issues with competitive play). What if they then played 30k where such restrictions on LoW are part of the rules. Are they less of a scrub or more?
LoW ARE part of the 40k rules though, aren't they?
So is having to use Citadel models to play 40k.
Not sure what the question is meant to show though; is one more of a scrub for using a ruleset from gw that puts restrictions on what they dont like or less of one for following those rules in its entirety?
Skimask Mohawk wrote: @ the whole definition of a scrub. Here's an interesting thought; say a person wants no LoW in 40k due to seeming imbalance and only allows them with restrictions which would fit the apparent definition of a scrub (creating rules for everyone to appease their issues with competitive play). What if they then played 30k where such restrictions on LoW are part of the rules. Are they less of a scrub or more?
That is not really a question is it? You don't seem to get the concept if it is.
I wasn't making any solid point, more just dwelling on the idea that following the customers does work out sometimes, but even then it might not be in my own interest. I just hope I'm not in the minority when it comes to this hobby like I was when it came to WoW...
RatBot wrote: Now that I am properly enlightened re what "withdrawing" means in the context of VtES, I think only one of the following conclusions can be drawn:
1.) The Hound insisted that Victim was not allowed to quit, in which case, Hound is a dick and Author and friends are idiots for not saying "Dude, stop being a dick and let her quit."
2.) Victim kept saying that she wanted to withdraw when she meant quit because she, being a new player, was possibly using the incorrect terminology, in which case, Hound, Author, or Author's friends should've chimed in "Do you mean you want to quit?"
3.)The entire story is fabricated (which to be fair I doubt is the case), or has been exaggerated to paint competitive players in a bad light.
Regardless, even if Hound was a dick, Author and friends were also complicit as accomplices to dickery.
I'll go with 3.
The story is that far fetched that it reeks of BS. Its exactly painted in making competitive players into TFG's, in general. You'd never put someone with that serious a condition/ PTSD into this sort of a situation. If they did, they did it on purpose to get this as a reaction... to write a clever anecdote about.
Dickery is a polite way to put it. Anything out of this guys hole from here on at this point is suspect BS, as a rule.
Skimask Mohawk wrote: Not sure what the question is meant to show though; is one more of a scrub for using a ruleset from gw that puts restrictions on what they dont like or less of one for following those rules in its entirety?
That's a very good question, and I think it's important to probe the boundaries of ideas and see what they're about. Not everything is black and white.
There is nothing wrong with playing a different game that you like more. We could get into debates about which games are better, but in the end it comes down to personal preference. By the same measure, there is nothing wrong with changing the rules. Many games start life as rule variations and go on to become great games in their own right. Sometimes variations takeover and displace the original game. Sometimes games are changed during updates. Sometimes it's just fun and refreshing to try something different. None of that makes you a scrub.
What makes someone a scrub is their attitude, which is toxic, and often self defeating. There is a world of difference between saying: "I don't like LoW, I'm going to play 30k instead", and saying: "That guy only beat me at 40k because he used LoW, I never use LoW because I play fair". The first person knows what he likes, and makes a change. The second person is confusing what he "likes" with what is "fair", and he isn't changing anything, he's just bitching about other people for not seeing things his way.
Scrubs tend to get their comeuppance in more competitive environments like tournaments, where their misguided notions of what is "fair" lead to them being trounced by people who they consider "cheap". Some people think they're immune from being a scrub if they only play casually, but you can still be a scrub if you have that same toxic attitude. Scrubs are often sore losers and vice versa.
As for playing with non-Citadel miniatures being cheap... It certainly is! Especially if you buy Mantic. But I think it only impacts your wallet, not the actual game. So it's probably okay to disregard that rule, without having to worry about being a scrub
Skimask Mohawk wrote: @ the whole definition of a scrub. Here's an interesting thought; say a person wants no LoW in 40k due to seeming imbalance and only allows them with restrictions which would fit the apparent definition of a scrub (creating rules for everyone to appease their issues with competitive play). What if they then played 30k where such restrictions on LoW are part of the rules. Are they less of a scrub or more?
A scrub is someone who chooses on their own not to use X, and then bitches when their opponents, who are under no such obligation, use X. That's the gist of it. In Sirlin's book the scrub in one of his Street Fighter example thinks that doing combos and special moves is the pinnacle of the game and cries "That's cheap" when his opponent (Sirlin in this case) throws him five times in a row instead of doing combos.
It's hard to really match an equivalent to 40k because of 40k's nature; 40k actually encourages "scrub" play with the whole negotiating with your opponent thing, but a close analogy would be crying foul because your opponent fields all Bikes and you limited yourself to 2 squads for arbitrary reasons - there's nothing wrong with your opponent fielding all Bikes, just you (not you personally) have added additional rules that say "You can't field all Bikes" and on top of that try to claim that you're better than your "cheap" opponent who doesn't follow your rule.
That's basically what a scrub is. It's not scrub behavior to agree not to do X, because your opponent has to agree. It IS scrub behavior to have your own extra rules or ideas for conduct and then complain when other people don't follow that.
A Warmachine example to better illustrate the concept might be that you can shoot your own models, so for instance you might have a situation where you hit your own model to also hit several of your opponent's models. A scrub would call this cheap/cheesy/unfair because they added "You cannot shoot your own models" to the list of game rules even though it doesn't exist as a rule and is a perfectly valid strategy; it doesn't adhere to what the scrub feels the rules are so it's "cheap" and their opponent is being "Unfair" to use that strategy. That's basically the type of thing Sirlin is talking about - a scrub adds their own arbitrary rules to how the game plays and expects everybody else to follow them as well.
It's harder to find an example in 40k because really the scrub mentality doesn't apply that much to list building, it applies to gameplay. It's not necessarily being a scrub to not want to play LoW, but arguably it is scrublike behavior to let your opponent play a LoW and then call them cheesy for doing it.
Accolade wrote: Heck, I sometimes see the argument that the rules should be more expensive!
No...no...no...
Where? I must see this with my own eyes.
Sorry, finally getting back to this.
I've seen a lot of defense of GW's insane rules cost with the old "I'd just take subscription so it feels like less money" routine. Then they can say how fair $15-25 a month is, because after all everybody can afford such a pittance!
In the Dakka polls, "how much should a 200-300 page rule book cost?" there are a few people who checked over $100. I'm not sure what their motivation was to pay more. Perhaps they were taking the whole "I'd be willing to pay more to have it not suck" angle. Though there were also a lot of people in that topic who didn't seem to understand how much books usually cost, and were drawing comparisons with college textbooks (which are at least triple the price of regular books). It was actually kind of sad to see that people who had failed to do even the most basic research, might be college grads. I suppose having more money than sense is probably an advantage when it comes to education these days, and is likely a great source of comfort when you're a GW apologist.
WayneTheGame wrote: It's harder to find an example in 40k because really the scrub mentality doesn't apply that much to list building, it applies to gameplay. It's not necessarily being a scrub to not want to play LoW, but arguably it is scrublike behavior to let your opponent play a LoW and then call them cheesy for doing it.
That's still listbuilding though, isn't it? One guy builds his list with a LoW in it, one guy complains because he thinks building a list with a LoW is unfair.
Sorry Wayne, but I think most of 40K's scrub problems do come down to listbuilding. It's the kind of example I see most often - competitive players take a list with optimised, powerful unit choices, and casual players complain about how well it does against their fluffy, weaker list. Add on the fact that gameplay actions are rather limited: Stand, stand-and-shoot, move, move-and-shoot, move-closer-and-hit-them-with-your-sword. (not counting the magi... I mean psychic phase. Also, I haven't been au fait with 40K's latest edition - did they add overwatch and little stuff like that?) Most of it comes down to just what you shoot or hit swords with, or at.
Compare to Street Fighter or most other fighting games: for a single game 'listbuilding' boils down to choosing one (1) character. Some may be more powerful than others but that's easily affected by just how you use their repertoire of basic and unique moves, including throwing five times in a row if that's the tactic the situation calls for. (TBH I never played Street Fighter myself, but if it's different versions are anything like ye olde Virtua Fighter, and the terrifyingly huge lists of moves in the manual...)
WayneTheGame wrote: It's harder to find an example in 40k because really the scrub mentality doesn't apply that much to list building, it applies to gameplay. It's not necessarily being a scrub to not want to play LoW, but arguably it is scrublike behavior to let your opponent play a LoW and then call them cheesy for doing it.
That's still listbuilding though, isn't it? One guy builds his list with a LoW in it, one guy complains because he thinks building a list with a LoW is unfair.
Sorry Wayne, but I think most of 40K's scrub problems do come down to listbuilding. It's the kind of example I see most often - competitive players take a list with optimised, powerful unit choices, and casual players complain about how well it does against their fluffy, weaker list. Add on the fact that gameplay actions are rather limited: Stand, stand-and-shoot, move, move-and-shoot, move-closer-and-hit-them-with-your-sword. (not counting the magi... I mean psychic phase. Also, I haven't been au fait with 40K's latest edition - did they add overwatch and little stuff like that?) Most of it comes down to just what you shoot or hit swords with, or at.
Compare to Street Fighter or most other fighting games: for a single game 'listbuilding' boils down to choosing one (1) character. Some may be more powerful than others but that's easily affected by just how you use their repertoire of basic and unique moves, including throwing five times in a row if that's the tactic the situation calls for. (TBH I never played Street Fighter myself, but if it's different versions are anything like ye olde Virtua Fighter, and the terrifyingly huge lists of moves in the manual...)
40k's scrub problems DO boil down to listbuilding, which is why I don't think the scrub concept can be 100% applied to 40k, because it only IMHO becomes a scrub thing if you allow free reign, hamper yourself and then your opponent is somehow the jerk for building a list with options allowed. That's not the same thing as deciding beforehand that LoW aren't allowed, because then your opponent knows your stance.
I find the list building and rules all combine together on what are your "optimal" choices on how to win a game.
The last two editions have a heavy emphasis on random "choice" rather than an actual choice.
So the opportunity to get the more powerful "guaranteed" psychic power is a strong consideration for instance.
More powerful units that have greater utility against a large variety of tactics or unit types (horde, armor, aircraft, skimmers) are looked for.
Anything that has a high probability of success or manages to ignore many of these random results and has a more certain outcome is the way to go.
Choosing your army list is one of the few things not left to chance.
On the topic of Stockholm syndrome:
I feel no compulsion to identify with or suck-up to my "abuser" to avoid further punishment.
My only "Cognitive Dissonance" is the models being worth the money.
" In long-term relationships, the victims have invested everything and placed “all their eggs in one basket”. The relationship now decides their level of self-esteem, self-worth, and emotional health."http://counsellingresource.com/lib/therapy/self-help/stockholm/3/ I have invested in games outside of GW... all is well.
WayneTheGame wrote: 40k's scrub problems DO boil down to listbuilding, which is why I don't think the scrub concept can be 100% applied to 40k, because it only IMHO becomes a scrub thing if you allow free reign, hamper yourself and then your opponent is somehow the jerk for building a list with options allowed. That's not the same thing as deciding beforehand that LoW aren't allowed, because then your opponent knows your stance.
One of the major differences between a game like Street Fighter and 40k, is that in Street Fighter, when you get your ass handed to you, it's very easy to just change character and try something new. In 40k you have to spend quite a lot of time and money on your army, it's not really practical to just "switch" to Eldar because they're currently top of the pile. So when someone turns up to a PUG with their Black Templars they've been running since 3rd edition, and their opponent pulls out a bunch of strength D weapons and Jetbikes... I understand why people feel exasperated, and want to start crying "cheap". I think that's what happens, but it's still GW's fault really, not the player's.
WayneTheGame wrote: 40k's scrub problems DO boil down to listbuilding, which is why I don't think the scrub concept can be 100% applied to 40k, because it only IMHO becomes a scrub thing if you allow free reign, hamper yourself and then your opponent is somehow the jerk for building a list with options allowed. That's not the same thing as deciding beforehand that LoW aren't allowed, because then your opponent knows your stance.
One of the major differences between a game like Street Fighter and 40k, is that in Street Fighter, when you get your ass handed to you, it's very easy to just change character and try something new. In 40k you have to spend quite a lot of time and money on your army, it's not really practical to just "switch" to Eldar because they're currently top of the pile. So when someone turns up to a PUG with their Black Templars they've been running since 3rd edition, and their opponent pulls out a bunch of strength D weapons and Jetbikes... I understand why people feel exasperated, and want to start crying "cheap". I think that's what happens, but it's still GW's fault really, not the player's.
Exactly. Most of 40k's problems aren't limited to scrub mentality, although it does exist, it's just general lack of balance in the game itself. In order to have the concept of scrubs you kinda need to have a real game in the first place. In Street Fighter for example barring probably/possibly Akuma, the fighters are fairly well balanced.
They want to pass 40k off as catering to everybody, when it clearly doesn't.
It isn't really much simpler than this for ANY game.
And clearly some games are aimed at trying to please a broader spectrum of players than are others, by doing things like including rules for building your own vehicles and weapons, or even your own alien races.
To say nothing of allowing an expansive difference in technologies that actually makes a difference, rather than everything being basically photocopies of each other wearing different hats (TV Tropes, which is the definitive guide to tropes found in TV, Film, and other fiction - Manga, novels, etc - defines this as the "Planet of the Hats" syndrome).
Some rules really try to please more people than do others. But even they cannot please everyone (for instance those who wish rules written specifically for a particular piece of fiction, or specific time and place, or genre)
IMO, if GW actually wanted to appeal to a wider range of customers.
They should publish books aimed specifically at each sector of their customer base.
Collectors.
Codex Librarium.(Big book of fluff and conversion painting guides.)
Full colour art, with extensive background, With a complimentary sections on craft hobby tips for each race/All the inspirational stuff to get people to collect and enjoy the collecting / craft side of the hobby.
Competitive gamers .
Codex Militarum..
A set of codex books to cover all factions with focus on enough balance for random pick up games and tournament play.
These cover all the core units that reflect the play styles of each faction.
Narrative gamers.
Codex Tempestus.
These are faction specific campaign books , with sample linked scenarios and all the helpful hints players need to play narrative games free from point values and F.O.C restrictions.
(I am sure there are better 'cod-latin' names but you get the idea.)
This way collectors can just buy the inspirational reference they may want , without the need to be lumbered with boring rules they may not want.
Gamers can just buy the rules they need to play they game they way they want to.
And everyone would not be lumped together in a big confused mess, trying to tell everyone else they are doing it 'wrong'.
Speaking of stockholm syndrome I was basically kicked out of a facebook group for "miniature gaming" in the area because while it said that it really meant 40k only because that's all everyone talked about, and an "admin" basically told me to keep my anti-GW talk out of the group. Nope, nothing wrong here only good stuff about Our Saviour GW. So I basically said feth them, they only talk about 40k despite it being for miniatures gaming in general, and left the group.
Still amazes me there are people who are so brainwashed by GW and 40k that they think it's the only game out there.
My older brother suffers from GW Stockholm syndrome. I try and try to talk him into playing other games but he does not want to hear about it. It's like he is a member of some cult that has taken over his mind. I even went out of my way and painted up around 50 pts of Menoth for him. Hoping some Friday night he would go to the FLGS and play them. He is even friends with the local Pressganger at the store so Iam not sure what's stoping him. He even commented to me the other day he would rather quit before he took up another game. It's like he is a battered wife that keeps going back to her abusive husband, I just don't get it. I think it has a lot to do with his group he plays with who won't look at any other game besides GW. Oh well could be worse I guess
Some people don't like change, and rather than simply feel they can admit it, will produce all sorts of tenuous and outlandish statements/reasons to justify it. It's like admitting "I like what I have and have no desire to change it" is not sufficient in their mind.
WayneTheGame wrote: Speaking of stockholm syndrome I was basically kicked out of a facebook group for "miniature gaming" in the area because while it said that it really meant 40k only because that's all everyone talked about, and an "admin" basically told me to keep my anti-GW talk out of the group. Nope, nothing wrong here only good stuff about Our Saviour GW. So I basically said feth them, they only talk about 40k despite it being for miniatures gaming in general, and left the group.
Still amazes me there are people who are so brainwashed by GW and 40k that they think it's the only game out there.
Something similar happened to me a couple of years back with the only gaming group (at the time) in town. The difference was I left because I felt my opinions where unwelcome there rather than being kicked out. I found it less of a battered wife syndrome issue and more of a kool aid one. The guy running it referred to the club constantly as 'his' club and everything was run the way he wanted because of that. The first tourney they ran for fantasy was 1850 points because, despite it being a points level never used in fantasy and us telling him so, that was the points level of the army he went out and bought the week before.
WayneTheGame wrote: Speaking of stockholm syndrome I was basically kicked out of a facebook group for "miniature gaming" in the area because while it said that it really meant 40k only because that's all everyone talked about, and an "admin" basically told me to keep my anti-GW talk out of the group. Nope, nothing wrong here only good stuff about Our Saviour GW. So I basically said feth them, they only talk about 40k despite it being for miniatures gaming in general, and left the group.
Still amazes me there are people who are so brainwashed by GW and 40k that they think it's the only game out there.
Something similar happened to me a couple of years back with the only gaming group (at the time) in town. The difference was I left because I felt my opinions where unwelcome there rather than being kicked out. I found it less of a battered wife syndrome issue and more of a kool aid one. The guy running it referred to the club constantly as 'his' club and everything was run the way he wanted because of that. The first tourney they ran for fantasy was 1850 points because, despite it being a points level never used in fantasy and us telling him so, that was the points level of the army he went out and bought the week before.
It just bugs me. This group plays at a Hobbytown USA so you'd think they'd be more open, but nope I specifically asked and it's like mostly 40k and nothing else. Just so ignorant of alternatives.
Do you find its mostly down to a few strong personalaties and a case of group think for the rest or are they all aggressivly opposed to the idea of other games?
jonolikespie wrote: Do you find its mostly down to a few strong personalaties and a case of group think for the rest or are they all aggressivly opposed to the idea of other games?
Honestly I think it's just a matter of "good enough" (which is a problem in more than just the wargaming community in my opinion). I feel that a lot of people picked up 40k when it was still the only game in town really, spent a lot on it and then feel they NEED to stick with it so they don't feel stupid for spending hundreds of dollars on a subpar game. They need to make it work to justify to themselves that they aren't dumbasses for doing it. That and it's usually that you get people that don't want to look elsewhere for the usual reasons (e.g. no other game has "large" armies, or big figures, or the quality of the figures or the aesthetics, all the common "Why I play 40k and not X" reasons you see).
I really don't know why that doesn't sit well with me (after all it's not my money). I think maybe because I feel that it's silly to have a "Warhammer Club", you should instead strive to have a "Wargame Club" and encourage different games so there's cross-pollination and the community as a whole grows instead of focusing on just one game and push that to the exclusion of everything else, which I also find has a lot to do with the idea that it's the gamer's job to support the store and not vice versa; I've seen some stores that won't let you play anything there that they don't sell, which I find silly because it's very limiting. That idea is not limited to Warhammer of course, I see it even with Warmachine sometimes where it's more popular, but I find the idea that Warhammer/GW is the center of the universe that everything revolves around is much more prevalent in 40k-centric communities than others. You still have people that might not want to invest in multiple games (which is understandable), but often they aren't adamantly against the idea and immediately retort with reasons why X game sucks when it's even brought up.
For instance, if I started talking about Infinity to my Warmachine group, I'd probably have some people who looked at it or knew about it, and there would be a slim chance there might be some interest in getting it in the shop and playing. If I said the same thing to the 40k crowd I'd probably be shouted down and told to stop pushing "[my] pet game" on everybody else (I actually had this happen; someone cussed me out for saying that I'd play Kings of War before I'd touch Fantasy, and suggested that the rules be looked at for a viable alternative) or have people immediately jumping on why Infinity sucks compared to 40k. At least that's how I typically find 40k players to be; they are just out and out ignorant of alternatives and tend to feel that any suggestion for something other than 40k is a slight, which is why I suspect it's related to not wanting to look stupid for spending so much on such a poor game. Similar to how in business companies will spend hundreds of thousands on a terrible solution and then still see it through and use it so they don't have to admit that they goofed.
In my case, I got into dropzone commander but it never really took off locally so I'm likely to sell it to recoup some of the cost. A lot of 40k seems like sunk cost fallacy 101
Slightly related to this topic, I found a great quote from Jay Larsen (a well-known Warmachine player, also the Season 1 World Champion) in an article talking about David Sirlin's book and the application of the theories therein to Warmachine.
I thought this quote in particular is pretty apt for Warhammer, although the context is in regards to "self-limiting players" (he chooses not to use the word "scrub" as in Sirlin's book) who feel that the game (Warmachine in this case) isn't properly balanced:
Many self restricted players believe that it is the duty of the players to create social contracts that discourage certain play styles or models for the fun or health of the game. They are wrong, these players are assuming the responsibility of a game designer rather than that of a player. If the game designer is not able to create a well balanced and fun game, then the player should find a better game instead of trying to apply band-aids to a broken product.
WayneTheGame wrote: Slightly related to this topic, I found a great quote from Jay Larsen (a well-known Warmachine player, also the Season 1 World Champion) in an article talking about David Sirlin's book and the application of the theories therein to Warmachine.
I thought this quote in particular is pretty apt for Warhammer, although the context is in regards to "self-limiting players" (he chooses not to use the word "scrub" as in Sirlin's book) who feel that the game (Warmachine in this case) isn't properly balanced:
Many self restricted players believe that it is the duty of the players to create social contracts that discourage certain play styles or models for the fun or health of the game. They are wrong, these players are assuming the responsibility of a game designer rather than that of a player. If the game designer is not able to create a well balanced and fun game, then the player should find a better game instead of trying to apply band-aids to a broken product.
Sorry but I feel characterizing 40k in its current form as one game is simplistic, it's many things to many people and that's at the core of its problem (and also an aspect some celebrate). Apoc and 40k used to be separate games, now they've been badly stitched together and we're all supposed to nod and agree that we've always been at war with eastasia. Only scrubs have memories I guess.
Just saying "go along with it, don't limit yourself or quit" isn't being realistic. (it also ignoes the hundreds of fournament formats) Sunk cost fallacy or not, people have spent decades and invested countless hours into their armies. If they choose to weather the storm in hopes the game will right itself because of said investment rather than sell it all off for pennies on the dollar, I can't blame them. This is no different to me than someone with 5 knights trying to infer a prospective opponent is "afraid" of facing his army in a vain attempt to get a game in. I'm only afraid of wasting my time playing a game with little entertainment to be found. Which is why I don't think it's a good use of my time to play an opponent I won't enjoy playing just for the chance to be passive agressive towards his preference in gaming, I'll simply choose another opponent who wants to play 40k instead of apoc rather than "man up" or start calling others waac, scrub or fluff bunny.
I actually quite enjoy a challenging opponent, but I think noting the difference between challenging oneself and making a hobby out of becoming a masochist is an important distinction. Or maybe anyone who doesn't want to play against my 3 transcendent c'tan list is just a scrub... or maybe name dropping scrub and waac, like playing against 5 knights, isn't a very useful application of my free time.
WayneTheGame wrote: Slightly related to this topic, I found a great quote from Jay Larsen (a well-known Warmachine player, also the Season 1 World Champion) in an article talking about David Sirlin's book and the application of the theories therein to Warmachine.
I thought this quote in particular is pretty apt for Warhammer, although the context is in regards to "self-limiting players" (he chooses not to use the word "scrub" as in Sirlin's book) who feel that the game (Warmachine in this case) isn't properly balanced:
Many self restricted players believe that it is the duty of the players to create social contracts that discourage certain play styles or models for the fun or health of the game. They are wrong, these players are assuming the responsibility of a game designer rather than that of a player. If the game designer is not able to create a well balanced and fun game, then the player should find a better game instead of trying to apply band-aids to a broken product.
I Don't necessarily disagree with jay, but I dont think what he says is right either. I think this handwaving away of responsibility is a very selfish and lazy attitude to take, and one that ultimately can be as self defeating and self destructive as any kind of Waac attitude. I think it's wrong to out of hand dismiss player responsibility and player input.
Ultimately, there are three paths to take. Accept it for what it is, and plod along. Walk away. Reshape the game so that it works for you. Ge wrongly dismisses the last option. Social contracts are not ideal, but they're not bad either. There's nothing wrong with 'we don't use flyers of super heavies.' Etc. now obviously, this goes with the caveat that this only really works amongst close friends and groups of like minded individuals. It's not something that works well for tourneys or pugs, but I also don't see either of these types as defining of all table top gaming can be.
Thryre not 'wrong' for assuming the responsibility of the game. They're simply making it theirs. They're empowering themselves to tweak the game into something that works for them. And fair play. Why the distinction between player and designer? Why can't I be both? Why can't we treat the rules as a giant sandbox? Some people actively enjoy all that tinkering and tweaking, and playing around with different mechanics. We do it all the time in our flames of war games. Why should I, or anyone else be pigeonholed into playing someone else's game? 40k is a mess, but actively trying to make it work amongst your own group is not necessarily a bad thing.
Thry should find a better game? Well, fine. It's an option, and a very valid option. I did. And I don't regret it, But I'm also not adverse to having a deadnighthammer 40k as a side project. I think if I had the right group with the right mindset, I could still be playing 40k and having a blast.
our only true responsibility as gamers is to try to enjoy the games we play. Whether it's a new game, or a band-aid to an existing game, or a home brew, who cares? If you're having fun, essentially you're doing it right.
WayneTheGame wrote: Slightly related to this topic, I found a great quote from Jay Larsen (a well-known Warmachine player, also the Season 1 World Champion) in an article talking about David Sirlin's book and the application of the theories therein to Warmachine.
I thought this quote in particular is pretty apt for Warhammer, although the context is in regards to "self-limiting players" (he chooses not to use the word "scrub" as in Sirlin's book) who feel that the game (Warmachine in this case) isn't properly balanced:
Many self restricted players believe that it is the duty of the players to create social contracts that discourage certain play styles or models for the fun or health of the game. They are wrong, these players are assuming the responsibility of a game designer rather than that of a player. If the game designer is not able to create a well balanced and fun game, then the player should find a better game instead of trying to apply band-aids to a broken product.
I Don't necessarily disagree with jay, but I dont think what he says is right either. I think this handwaving away of responsibility is a very selfish and lazy attitude to take, and one that ultimately can be as self defeating and self destructive as any kind of Waac attitude. I think it's wrong to out of hand dismiss player responsibility and player input.
Ultimately, there are three paths to take. Accept it for what it is, and plod along. Walk away. Reshape the game so that it works for you. Ge wrongly dismisses the last option. Social contracts are not ideal, but they're not bad either. There's nothing wrong with 'we don't use flyers of super heavies.' Etc. now obviously, this goes with the caveat that this only really works amongst close friends and groups of like minded individuals. It's not something that works well for tourneys or pugs, but I also don't see either of these types as defining of all table top gaming can be.
Thryre not 'wrong' for assuming the responsibility of the game. They're simply making it theirs. They're empowering themselves to tweak the game into something that works for them. And fair play. Why the distinction between player and designer? Why can't I be both? Why can't we treat the rules as a giant sandbox? Some people actively enjoy all that tinkering and tweaking, and playing around with different mechanics. We do it all the time in our flames of war games. Why should I, or anyone else be pigeonholed into playing someone else's game? 40k is a mess, but actively trying to make it work amongst your own group is not necessarily a bad thing.
Thry should find a better game? Well, fine. It's an option, and a very valid option. I did. And I don't regret it, But I'm also not adverse to having a deadnighthammer 40k as a side project. I think if I had the right group with the right mindset, I could still be playing 40k and having a blast.
our only true responsibility as gamers is to try to enjoy the games we play. Whether it's a new game, or a band-aid to an existing game, or a home brew, who cares? If you're having fun, essentially you're doing it right.
Are people changing the game because they enjoy changing things, or because they feel they need to in order to make the game work properly/fun?
WayneTheGame wrote: Slightly related to this topic, I found a great quote from Jay Larsen (a well-known Warmachine player, also the Season 1 World Champion) in an article talking about David Sirlin's book and the application of the theories therein to Warmachine.
I thought this quote in particular is pretty apt for Warhammer, although the context is in regards to "self-limiting players" (he chooses not to use the word "scrub" as in Sirlin's book) who feel that the game (Warmachine in this case) isn't properly balanced:
Many self restricted players believe that it is the duty of the players to create social contracts that discourage certain play styles or models for the fun or health of the game. They are wrong, these players are assuming the responsibility of a game designer rather than that of a player. If the game designer is not able to create a well balanced and fun game, then the player should find a better game instead of trying to apply band-aids to a broken product.
I Don't necessarily disagree with jay, but I dont think what he says is right either. I think this handwaving away of responsibility is a very selfish and lazy attitude to take, and one that ultimately can be as self defeating and self destructive as any kind of Waac attitude. I think it's wrong to out of hand dismiss player responsibility and player input.
Ultimately, there are three paths to take. Accept it for what it is, and plod along. Walk away. Reshape the game so that it works for you. Ge wrongly dismisses the last option. Social contracts are not ideal, but they're not bad either. There's nothing wrong with 'we don't use flyers of super heavies.' Etc. now obviously, this goes with the caveat that this only really works amongst close friends and groups of like minded individuals. It's not something that works well for tourneys or pugs, but I also don't see either of these types as defining of all table top gaming can be.
Thryre not 'wrong' for assuming the responsibility of the game. They're simply making it theirs. They're empowering themselves to tweak the game into something that works for them. And fair play. Why the distinction between player and designer? Why can't I be both? Why can't we treat the rules as a giant sandbox? Some people actively enjoy all that tinkering and tweaking, and playing around with different mechanics. We do it all the time in our flames of war games. Why should I, or anyone else be pigeonholed into playing someone else's game? 40k is a mess, but actively trying to make it work amongst your own group is not necessarily a bad thing.
Thry should find a better game? Well, fine. It's an option, and a very valid option. I did. And I don't regret it, But I'm also not adverse to having a deadnighthammer 40k as a side project. I think if I had the right group with the right mindset, I could still be playing 40k and having a blast.
our only true responsibility as gamers is to try to enjoy the games we play. Whether it's a new game, or a band-aid to an existing game, or a home brew, who cares? If you're having fun, essentially you're doing it right.
Are people changing the game because they enjoy changing things, or because they feel they need to in order to make the game work properly/fun?
Probably a bit of both.
In a perfect world, gw should make a more 'professional' game - on thst we're agreed. But the facts on the ground are they don't. The sad truth Is that they'll never fix its problems. On that we are also agreed. Which means that at the end of the day, if you want to enjoy 40k, it's up to you to do the legwork. As Wayne and his quote says, you can certainly walk away. You are not wrong for doing do. But you can also step up, race responsibility for your own enjoyment and make it work for you. Some people embrace this. Some people don't. Neither is wrong. The only thing that's wrong in my mind is sitting back complaining, whilst simultaneously doing nothing about it.
The only thing wrong in my mind is realizing the product you buy is defective.
And then expecting everyone else to fix the problems themselves because some people are ok with doing that .Or complaining about it on the internet and keep buying defective products anyway.
As both these behaviors reward the company policy of turning out sub par products.
Accepting the defects exist and inform others of the defects and possible ways to work round them if they want to is OK IMO.
Not accepting the defects at all and stop buying the products is OK too.IMO.
Lanrak wrote: The only thing wrong in my mind is realizing the product you buy is defective.
And then expecting everyone else to fix the problems themselves because some people are ok with doing that .Or complaining about it on the internet and keep buying defective products anyway.
As both these behaviors reward the company policy of turning out sub par products.
Accepting the defects exist and inform others of the defects and possible ways to work round them if they want to is OK IMO.
Not accepting the defects at all and stop buying the products is OK too.IMO.
I'm guessing we've seen a lot of people complaining who, during the process, began purchasing less and less of the product. It seems to be a grudging acceptance that a game you enjoyed only a few years ago has shifted so radically in an undesirable direction. I know I personally fell into this category when 7th was getting ready to come out. Since then I've purchased maybe two or three kits, and sold off the beginnings of a third army. My remaining two armies continue to shrink. I think I keep them because I like the models very much, but the game for them has become a farce of an actual game.
To that end I've stopped posting in a lot of the 40k topics and tend to relegate towards topics like this. So I think I've begun to fall mostly in the latter category you mentioned.
)
I mean, if you absolutely have to have the rules right now, get the White Dwarf books! They're so much cheaper! People like that are the ones who insulate 
) who has only one expectation: that the rules be followed, meets player B ("Sansa") who has more than one expectation: the rules be followed, and also the game corresponds to some subjective narrative that only exists in her head; itself based on even more subjective ideas about what the designers might have intended, all muddled up with arbitrary notions of "fun" and "fairness"... In this situation, our English teacher friend from 
