I was lurking in the Why are you not playing AoS? thread, and came across this discussion. We all play wargames for a variety of reasons, but there's usually one that outweighs the others. I'm a hobbiest first an foremost, so the quality of the miniatures is my top priority. What about you? I'm only polling the most important choice, but feel free to rank the options if you'd like. I'd rank them:
1) Quality miniatures
2) Size of the community
3) Good lore
4) Price of entry
5) Rules/game balance
6) Complexity
1) Size of Community (a game can be the best game written if nobody plays it it doesn't matter, sad as this is)
2) Rules
3) Lore
4) Cost (really tied with quality)
5) Quality (really tied with cost)
6) Complexity
I'm a hobbyist first, and have a great group of narrative players (who also have their competitive side). So getting a game never came into the equation.
Probably, after the hobby side of things (which I interpreted as quantity/quality of minis), I'd go with Rules, complexity.
Could you elaborate on the aesthetic? Are you referring to just the minis, or are you also talking about the terrain, board layout, etc? What's a good example?
It's everything. Mini's, lore, terrain, how the game actually looks on the table. The gameplay has to be good of course but an awful lot of games have good rules but are let down by poor mini's, no real solid lore or just a general visual aesthetic I don't dig.
Okay. I get what you're saying now. I would agree with that being important. I can't remember the name of the wargame FFG tried to launch a couple years ago, but I remember that I wasn't interested at all because it looked very underwhelming. The whole thing looked like something Mattel would put out.
It doesn't matter how nice minis/rules are if I can't play a game of it. I move around a lot. So my option is 40k/AOS or own enough models to just loan it to another player and teach them the game.
Hopefully, I will get to settle down in my career soon and be able to form a strong group that can just pick up new games and try them out and not rely on the pick up game community at local stores.
I think that my answer would be a mix of good background and "other".
what i value most is the ability to use the game as a storytelling tool. I can put up with a lot in the terms of quality of miniatures and rules, since I run mainly cooperative games with my family these days. That means i tend to tweak rules to fit the situation anyhow, and competitiveness isn't too important to me.
But if i don't like the story or find the setting off putting or not appropriate for me group, I'm not going to want to get involved. I think my tastes are pretty niche, though and this is just what is most important to me.
1. Tight, well-written rules/game balance
2. Quality/variety of miniatures
3. Good lore/background
4. Complexity
5. Price of entry/average army cost
6. Size of the community/easy to find a match
But my emphasis on rules isn't really quite defined as "tight" necessarily. I do want rules written as clearly as possible, because I hate gray and trying to interpret what the intended mechanics are. Really, though, I guess it's more of a combination of "tight" and "complexity" from your list with a big dose of "interesting." A rule set that has some interesting, different ways of doing things is much more intriguing to me than a system that, even if very clearly written and balanced, just does the same thing as other games I already have.
If the line has its own models (which, for me, is not a requirement and in fact I can get excited about games without bespoke models if they have good mechanics; e.g. Gaslands), then lore/background/setting is pretty important to me. Of course I like great models, and that is one of the biggest reasons I play games of this type, but a game line with great models but uninteresting rules or setting (to me) is not something I'm likely to do much with.
I know it seems like I should have ranked "Complexity" higher, but I don't necessarily think "complex" equates to "interesting." In fact, I can think of some games off hand that are overly complex that require a lot of bookkeeping and so on that don't really add anything to the gameplay or setting. I do not mind complex games themselves (one of my all time favorites is Star Fleet Battles, after all), but the complexity has to add something other than bean-counting to the game.
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EnTyme wrote: Okay. I get what you're saying now. I would agree with that being important. I can't remember the name of the wargame FFG tried to launch a couple years ago, but I remember that I wasn't interested at all because it looked very underwhelming. The whole thing looked like something Mattel would put out.
Was that Rune Wars by chance? That one just felt too much like "X-Wing in Fantasy!" That is, it didn't have any particularly great grab as far as setting/lore, didn't do anything with really new mechanics (and, IMO, picked a mechanic that was totally unsuitable for the type of game they were aiming for; maneuver templates for foot battles just doesn't make sense), and tokens and clutter that really just added to the clunkiness of the system.
Eh I can't vote for one because they are all interdependent. Fantastic models are great but boring if you can never play with them; similarly a huge local community is great, but not as much fun if you don't enjoy the models or the game etc...
In the end even ranking them is hard because its very reliant on what you're doing at the moment. You might be really ito building or painting so rules and social might not be as important that month; however next month you might have built it all and now the social and gaming side is far more important. So the rankings are always going to be dynamic.
For me, voted "Other", what matters most is my opponent
a dire set of rules that attracts people who are fun to play that game against is way more important, for whatever reason it attracts them, than the tightest set of rules in the world that are played by people who are a struggle to play against
helps when rules discourage "TFG" type play and also rules lawyering
find smaller more oddball games more interesting for this reason, those who are a struggle to play against tend to avoid them
40k can be fun with the right opponent for example, but we all know it can be tiresome against the wrong one
Overread wrote: Eh I can't vote for one because they are all interdependent. Fantastic models are great but boring if you can never play with them; similarly a huge local community is great, but not as much fun if you don't enjoy the models or the game etc...
In the end even ranking them is hard because its very reliant on what you're doing at the moment. You might be really ito building or painting so rules and social might not be as important that month; however next month you might have built it all and now the social and gaming side is far more important. So the rankings are always going to be dynamic.
That's actually a great point. I definitely swing between the "build and paint all the things" and "dammit I want to play something" phases.
I do find, though, that my model buying now often will include the "well, what game would I use this in?" qualifier. Thankfully, since I have a pretty wide collection of rule sets (and continually seem to pick up more), there's usually something that I can use to justify buying whatever neat model I fancy at the moment. Of course, finding the time to play (and, to a degree, someone to play with; though I'm a bit lucky in that a couple of my buddies are pretty open to trying most any random system, especially if they have models that could fit in with it or can just pull out of my collection for test games) is the biggest challenge for me these days.
Valander wrote: Was that Rune Wars by chance? That one just felt too much like "X-Wing in Fantasy!" That is, it didn't have any particularly great grab as far as setting/lore, didn't do anything with really new mechanics (and, IMO, picked a mechanic that was totally unsuitable for the type of game they were aiming for; maneuver templates for foot battles just doesn't make sense), and tokens and clutter that really just added to the clunkiness of the system.
I voted miniatures. Setting is a close second, but if that's poor or boring I can ignore it. Same with rules; if the published rules are no good they can be replaced. The miniatures are the things that get seen and used all the time, while everything else can change. I've played 40k using ten official sets rules as well as one or two unofficial, so clearly they're not important.
Every game I've picked up has been because of the miniatures. In at least two cases, that's all that was available; the official rules came along later.
amazingturtles wrote: I think that my answer would be a mix of good background and "other".
what i value most is the ability to use the game as a storytelling tool. I can put up with a lot in the terms of quality of miniatures and rules, since I run mainly cooperative games with my family these days. That means i tend to tweak rules to fit the situation anyhow, and competitiveness isn't too important to me.
But if i don't like the story or find the setting off putting or not appropriate for me group, I'm not going to want to get involved. I think my tastes are pretty niche, though and this is just what is most important to me.
1) Quality miniatures
2) Size of the community
3) Good lore
4) Price of entry
5) Rules/game balance
6) Complexity
For me,
The Quality of Miniatures gets a game noticed.
The Price of the Miniatures risks scaring me away or throwing me into wild abandon.
The Lore is the backbone of a long term relationship.
The Rules won’t be an issue. If they’re terrible, I’ll use some generic rules as a game aid, and if they are great, it’ll make it easier to play with friends.
The size of the community is irrelevant. I only play with people I’m already comfortable gaming with who are game.
The Complexity... how is that a separate point from the rules?
Tl/dr: the lore is the most important aspect for me, but poor minis or poor prices are a nonstarter.
For me, it is the quality of the community that is probably most important. If the gaming group is huge but is full a players that want something radically different (in my case competitive, tournament style play) than what I want out of a game that is no good. I am looking for a group that is rather like mined in what they want of the game more than anything else.
For me it comes down to a few things, a lot of which have been mentioned above
-Background and models- if the models look bad and the background is garbage/shallow I won't be as interested.
-Size of games/cost- the main reason I play skirmish games more than anything. Low cost means not only is it cheap to start, it's cheap to buy multiple factions to mix up playstyles
-Community- this one is more abstract, but if I have issues with the community for a game I won't stick around or I'll detach myself. This was a major reason I dropped Warmachine, and I'm feeling very burnt out with Malifaux at the moment because that same mindset from Warmachine is seeping in there (because it's the same people in a lot of cases)
meatybtz wrote: Fun, period. Am I having fun. If not, then why am I playing it? Fun can come from a variety of places, even bad rules can be FUN.
This 110%. Due to a variety of factors (age, work responsibilities, lack of a player base), I really only play with my 10-year old son. If the game isn't fun, it's a waste of time for both of us.
I can’t rank those or pick one out, although I did vote for community in the end.
For me there are multiple combinations of the first 5 options listed that I would value equally depending on how any given game’s combo of those washed out in an overall assessment.
The 3 games I play at the moment are LotR, KoW and WH Underworlds, 3 very different games, 3 very different combinations of the listed factors, but whilst I would rank them in the order I wrote them, for me there isn’t much to choose between them.
There's really three main factors. One, and maybe the most important: is there an army that I like the look AND lore of?
Two: is the lore any good?This can be anything from ultra-detailed to barely there, but not getting in the way (for example- Firestorm Armada had lore that was paper-thin, but it didn't make me groan and want to never read it again)
Three: Do I like the rules? Again, it doesn't mean "are the rules complex and deep", more like do they flow better, and can I remember them without referring to the book ten times. Tomorrow's War was a great set of rules, but nigh unplayable due to layout and editing. AoS is simplistic as it gets, but has easy and quick rules that work as intended.
if those three are met, there is a good chance I will give the game a shot, and will be able to talk someone in my small circle into trying it out.
I voted 'Other' as, for me, the most important thing is an equal three-way split between miniatures, setting, and whether or not the game is fun to play, which isn't a listed option.
2. Good lore/background - but if the rules are flexible I can use someone else's setting. (I have used the KoW rules with the Warhammer setting with no problems.)
These are secondary -
3. Quality/variety of miniatures - if the rules and background are good - I can use anybody's miniatures.
4. Price of entry/average army cost - see above - I can use someone else's miniatures if they gouge.
Complexity does not factor in, except in how they pertain to the rules quality and balance.
And I have no problem creating a community, so that is not a factor either. (Most game groups for any system have one or a more people at the core that create that community.)
1) Rules that are immersive and make sense that reward tactical gameplay moreso than clever listbuilding gotchas as well as emphasize battlefield management and maneuver over alpha strike and other over simplified but obvious actions.
2) All Factions that have multiple viable builds and the ability to at least make you feel like you have a chance to do something before the first die is cast.
I've seen it mentioned a few times, so I'll just explain: I thought about putting "fun to play" as an option, but it seemed redundant. To me, the question I asked is another way of asking "what makes a game fun to you?"
EnTyme wrote: I've seen it mentioned a few times, so I'll just explain: I thought about putting "fun to play" as an option, but it seemed redundant. To me, the question I asked is another way of asking "what makes a game fun to you?"
What if it is a combination of above.
Good models are or can be part of the fun.
Good rules certainly don't impede on the fun and if they added multiple easy ways to change it up, then the more power to that ruleset.
Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
Engaging, immersive narrative, that is captured in miniatures, terrain and rules driven interactions. No oversimplified gamey nonsense can satisfy my taste for wargames - that’s what highly abstracted board/card games are for. Because of that it’s not the size but the particular focus of community is what is important. The same with rules - it is not „tightness” or „balance” but the emergent playstyle is important. Quality of miniatures as in miniatures aesthetics is one of the fundaments - I strongly dislike generic feel of many settings...
EnTyme wrote: Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
Why?
There are plenty of cheap games with great rules and no miniatures, so it seems to me the most ardent rules-firsters would have filtered out of the hobby. Everyone left may love the rules, but the miniatures have to be important enough to overcome the significant cost of miniatures gaming in hobby time and money.
Their votes get diluted by those of us who just use the game as a beard for our love of mins and fluff books.
EnTyme wrote: I've seen it mentioned a few times, so I'll just explain: I thought about putting "fun to play" as an option, but it seemed redundant. To me, the question I asked is another way of asking "what makes a game fun to you?"
That's a good question, and a lot harder to quantify.
For me, I have fun when there are interesting choices to make during the game. If there are nothing but "obvious" choices, and mechanically rolling things, it's not terribly interesting. I want to have choices available, though I don't necessarily expect every choice to be a "path to win." At the same time, choices for choice's sake is also just cumbersome if there's not much difference in the actions you're taking (I've seen games that have a load of "available actions" but some are so situational or duplicate of others that it's just over-complex for the sake of having lots of choices).
And of course, I'm drawn to miniature games in general because of the spectacle, which means there should be cool models and terrain on the table, but that's possibly doable with rules that don't have bespoke models, and a great ruleset that has their own crappy models can be easily substituted in most cases with better models.
So when it comes to the system, clean well-written rules are paramount. Its why I loved warmachine and mantic's Kings of War systems. Next up is probably the lore/background, but some systems like Frostgrave work well with just a sliver of that.
Here's the hypocritical part though, above the rules system is whether or not I can get a game in at my local FLGS. I love Warmachine, Other Side, and Battletech but I can't get games in with those systems as the local player meta has collapsed for them. I can get a game in with Warhammer 40,000. Its a creaky, loose rules sytem seemingly designed to create rules debates and house ruling, but there's a dozen players at my FLGS every monday night. In the end, availability and the shepherding of a player meta by a few hardcore players can make even the worst game system paramount over even the best ones.
EnTyme wrote: Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
Why?
There are plenty of cheap games with great rules and no miniatures, so it seems to me the most ardent rules-firsters would have filtered out of the hobby. Everyone left may love the rules, but the miniatures have to be important enough to overcome the significant cost of miniatures gaming in hobby time and money.
Their votes get diluted by those of us who just use the game as a beard for our love of mins and fluff books.
Mostly because Dakka has a lot of rules-focused discussions, but about the only place I see threads about models and lore are in the News & Rumors threads. I figured this forum would skew towards a rules focus with minis being a distant second and lore close behind that. If I did this same poll on Reddit or TGA, I would expect minis and lore to be at the top with rules being way down the list.
EnTyme wrote: Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
This was where I was earlier this year. I expected rules quality to be one of the top, and found out - at least in the GW universe - that that was hardly the case (though if you go to a more KOW or Bolt Action or WM dominated forum, you will find the rules quality option to be a lot more dominant or at least I have when I have asked this question over there earlier this year)
EnTyme wrote: Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
Why?
There are plenty of cheap games with great rules and no miniatures, so it seems to me the most ardent rules-firsters would have filtered out of the hobby. Everyone left may love the rules, but the miniatures have to be important enough to overcome the significant cost of miniatures gaming in hobby time and money.
Their votes get diluted by those of us who just use the game as a beard for our love of mins and fluff books.
Mostly because Dakka has a lot of rules-focused discussions, but about the only place I see threads about models and lore are in the News & Rumors threads. I figured this forum would skew towards a rules focus with minis being a distant second and lore close behind that. If I did this same poll on Reddit or TGA, I would expect minis and lore to be at the top with rules being way down the list.
That makes sense. However, there seems to be more room for bashing out rules than discussing the models. Lore inspires a lot of discussion here and on other forums I frequent, at least for GW games. Smaller games don’t seem to generate much lore discussion either because not many people are familiar with it, it isn’t developed enough to have a big thread, or it isn’t compelling enough to be thought provoking. Might be part of the reason those games stay smaller.
I think once you take a certain stance though, your priorities change entirely. If you decide "I am just going to organise my own hobby, with the minis I like and the rules I like" then the other questions become irrelevant. I will use whatever miniatures I like the look of, and whatever rules I think are best to use with them. And I can use whatever background or story I like for them, too. So by doing so, I am essentially turning my back on the established community and resolving to create my own, even if it means I have to provide both forces and the terrain and shop around to find an interested opponent. I sacrifice ease for having the best experience I can in all other aspects.
But it is a pretty "all or nothing" approach. I think it is pretty reasonable to look for a compromise approach, and you might be lucky and have a rules set that is not strict about minis and a large group of people to play with - that would be my ideal situation but I think for the moment unattainable for a variety of reasons. But I have started 2 wargames clubs before in my life, both successful, so I think I can do it again (and in fact, do it better than the previous two times).
I think once you take a certain stance though, your priorities change entirely. If you decide "I am just going to organise my own hobby, with the minis I like and the rules I like" then the other questions become irrelevant. I will use whatever miniatures I like the look of, and whatever rules I think are best to use with them. And I can use whatever background or story I like for them, too. So by doing so, I am essentially turning my back on the established community and resolving to create my own, even if it means I have to provide both forces and the terrain and shop around to find an interested opponent. I sacrifice ease for having the best experience I can in all other aspects.
But it is a pretty "all or nothing" approach. I think it is pretty reasonable to look for a compromise approach, and you might be lucky and have a rules set that is not strict about minis and a large group of people to play with - that would be my ideal situation but I think for the moment unattainable for a variety of reasons. But I have started 2 wargames clubs before in my life, both successful, so I think I can do it again (and in fact, do it better than the previous two times).
I find it interesting that your perspective is that the rules are the important part of gaming your way. I do exactly the same thing, using miniatures, background and rules at will, but from my perspective the setting or theme is most important, with the minis next, and rules chosen to service them. We both end up in the same place, but our priorities are polar opposites.
If nothing else I think this poll shows at least a bit why Warhammer retains a stranglehold. There seem to be enough people who put the quality of miniatures above a good game.
1 Good lore
2 Good rules
3 Varied and quality minis.
The rest matters less, if a game is pricy i don't need to get 5 armies to enjoy it and can remain under a reasonable limits. I only play with friends of mine so the community as far as I'm concerned refers to something very narrow.
Complexity... I don't think of it as of an actual criteria: a tight, well written rule set does not necesseraly requires complexity to be the bulk of it to be enjoyable.
I think once you take a certain stance though, your priorities change entirely. If you decide "I am just going to organise my own hobby, with the minis I like and the rules I like" then the other questions become irrelevant. I will use whatever miniatures I like the look of, and whatever rules I think are best to use with them. And I can use whatever background or story I like for them, too. So by doing so, I am essentially turning my back on the established community and resolving to create my own, even if it means I have to provide both forces and the terrain and shop around to find an interested opponent. I sacrifice ease for having the best experience I can in all other aspects.
But it is a pretty "all or nothing" approach. I think it is pretty reasonable to look for a compromise approach, and you might be lucky and have a rules set that is not strict about minis and a large group of people to play with - that would be my ideal situation but I think for the moment unattainable for a variety of reasons. But I have started 2 wargames clubs before in my life, both successful, so I think I can do it again (and in fact, do it better than the previous two times).
I find it interesting that your perspective is that the rules are the important part of gaming your way. I do exactly the same thing, using miniatures, background and rules at will, but from my perspective the setting or theme is most important, with the minis next, and rules chosen to service them. We both end up in the same place, but our priorities are polar opposites.
For me that is because I like a variety of different settings and themes, and I like to make my own settings and so on, and find that easier than making my own rules. Making a ruleset is the most work in my opinion, so I want to find one that is fun to play and fits the rest. There are so many rulesets for every genre, historical period or scale that I find it easier to find something to work with.
I would say theme and setting are important to me, but that without a good rule set I will probably not "play" much in the setting, rather build and paint stuff. And eventually, I will burn out on that without a game to play with my stuff at the end that I enjoy.
At the moment I am working on stuff for Grimdark Future and Age of Fantasy, the two One Page Rules systems. They suit me because I will be training in new players, and they are simple and flexible enough to teach while showing off what I think is cool about wargaming. I would like to do some historical stuff with Saga and Hail Caesar at some stage too.
I can write my own backstory. I can find my own miniatures. But I don't have the time or the group to try and fix poorly written rules.
That's not to say that I don't mind doing some work on my end, like creating profiles or scenarios, or even "fixing" a rule or two, as long as the rules states upfront that those are part of the game. And as long as the rules themselves are crazy expensive or insist on getting yearly, "must-own" updates.
EnTyme wrote: I've seen it mentioned a few times, so I'll just explain: I thought about putting "fun to play" as an option, but it seemed redundant. To me, the question I asked is another way of asking "what makes a game fun to you?"
The thing is, being fun to play isn't necessarily linked to any of the things you've listed. The only structural option you have included is having 'tight, well written rules'... Which overlooks that a game can still be fun to play, meaning that the structure of the game creates an enjoyable play experience, while having technically badly written rules. See, for example, multiple editions of Warhammer or 40k.
I think once you take a certain stance though, your priorities change entirely. If you decide "I am just going to organise my own hobby, with the minis I like and the rules I like" then the other questions become irrelevant. I will use whatever miniatures I like the look of, and whatever rules I think are best to use with them. And I can use whatever background or story I like for them, too. So by doing so, I am essentially turning my back on the established community and resolving to create my own, even if it means I have to provide both forces and the terrain and shop around to find an interested opponent. I sacrifice ease for having the best experience I can in all other aspects.
But it is a pretty "all or nothing" approach. I think it is pretty reasonable to look for a compromise approach, and you might be lucky and have a rules set that is not strict about minis and a large group of people to play with - that would be my ideal situation but I think for the moment unattainable for a variety of reasons. But I have started 2 wargames clubs before in my life, both successful, so I think I can do it again (and in fact, do it better than the previous two times).
I find it interesting that your perspective is that the rules are the important part of gaming your way. I do exactly the same thing, using miniatures, background and rules at will, but from my perspective the setting or theme is most important, with the minis next, and rules chosen to service them. We both end up in the same place, but our priorities are polar opposites.
For me that is because I like a variety of different settings and themes, and I like to make my own settings and so on, and find that easier than making my own rules. Making a ruleset is the most work in my opinion, so I want to find one that is fun to play and fits the rest. There are so many rulesets for every genre, historical period or scale that I find it easier to find something to work with.
I would say theme and setting are important to me, but that without a good rule set I will probably not "play" much in the setting, rather build and paint stuff. And eventually, I will burn out on that without a game to play with my stuff at the end that I enjoy.
At the moment I am working on stuff for Grimdark Future and Age of Fantasy, the two One Page Rules systems. They suit me because I will be training in new players, and they are simple and flexible enough to teach while showing off what I think is cool about wargaming. I would like to do some historical stuff with Saga and Hail Caesar at some stage too.
I tend to get into a project based on the setting or lore that interests me at the moment, grabbing miniatures that go with the setting (or are similar enough) for modeling. Eventually I’ll like for rules sets that work for me and my crew. For example, DZC is too complicated for us, so I’ll use DZC minis and terrain with Horizon Wars rules. I’ve used the one page 40kish rules for my 40k minis, too, for the same reasons you used them. I’ve received so many rule sets with starter sets or for free on the internet that I can just try out a couple until I find one simple and thematic enough for my needs.
At the end of the day, a broken game system is no fun to play. You may be on the good end once, but eventually you'll get flushed by it. Balanced is the way I go.
Twenty years ago, I'd have said lore. Ten years ago, I'd have said rules. Now, the most important thing is time: how long does it take to set-up, play, and pack away again.
It doesn't matter how good a game is if you never have a big enough window to play it in. These days, I paint models for games that i'll never play. Computer games, board games and card games get played a lot more than war games in this house.
WaveyRaven wrote: Twenty years ago, I'd have said lore. Ten years ago, I'd have said rules. Now, the most important thing is time: how long does it take to set-up, play, and pack away again.
It doesn't matter how good a game is if you never have a big enough window to play it in. These days, I paint models for games that i'll never play. Computer games, board games and card games get played a lot more than war games in this house.
I'll second that, decent rules are a big plus but I'm very much in the 'skirmish' mindset these day so anything under 2 hours has a head start
EnTyme wrote: Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
Depends how you look at it, I suppose. There's plenty of people who define the game by the rules - "playing 40k" means using the rules as published by GW. But to me, "playing 40k" means fighting a battle in the 40k setting. After all, there have been ten different published rules for playing games in the same setting with the same miniatures, so IMO the ruleset doesn't define the game. If I don't fancy the rules on offer I'll find some other ones.
1) The game has to be interesting. AOS did not interest me, as most steampunk and/or skirmish games fail to interest me.
2) There needs to be enough of a community for said game that I can find games. It ultimately does not matter how great I think a game is if no one else in a couple hundred miles plays it.
EnTyme wrote: Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.
Depends how you look at it, I suppose. There's plenty of people who define the game by the rules - "playing 40k" means using the rules as published by GW. But to me, "playing 40k" means fighting a battle in the 40k setting. After all, there have been ten different published rules for playing games in the same setting with the same miniatures, so IMO the ruleset doesn't define the game. If I don't fancy the rules on offer I'll find some other ones.
By that metric using a 40K themed Checkers set to play Checkers "in a 40K setting" is playing 40K. I can't say I can agree with that point.
Most important is a tough call, since a number of conditions have to exist for me to want to invest time/money and energy in a game. I voted the ability to get a game in - size of the community. A perfect game that I can't find an opponent for is not very useful.
Having said that, the lore/background must have a hook for me. When I walked away from 40k in 7th Ed I took a look at Warmachine since there was a big local community. The lore had no appeal so I stayed away. The rules should be comprehensible, but balance is not a big deal.
By that metric using a 40K themed Checkers set to play Checkers "in a 40K setting" is playing 40K. I can't say I can agree with that point.
It's a gradient, not a hard line in the sand. Otherwise you are saying, unless you are playing absolute no-deviation RAW, with no RAI, no home rules, homebrews, non-gw formats (e.g. ITC) or a decision to not partake in certain aspects of the game (e.g. 'We are not really interesting in having super heavies or flyers in our games') then you are not playing 40k either. Heck you could argue that playing forgeworld is not forty-k (and let's not open that can of worms!)
You are technically correct in saying it would not be Xth edition 40k. But 40k is more than just the published rules from GW. Much more than just a rules set. Plenty people either modify, ignore or kitbash GW rules with other systems, or frankly use other rules entirely, and would be perfectly accurate in still stating they're playing 40k (or a t least a modded or homebrewed 40k) because they're still bringing to life their chaos marines and Raptors chapter or ultramarines and doing battle for the emprah in the forty first millennium. That's 40k. Rules are just the clothes you dress them in. Then again, if you little 'un is running round pretending he's a spače marine and shouting 'for the emprah!', and making pewpew noises, that's 40k for them. Like you say, claiming that playing checkers in a 40k setting would be 'playing 40k' might raise some eyebrows (I would not necessarily disagree with you here by the way!), but that would not be the same as saying your games of 40k use an older rules edition with some bits from later editions sprinkled in and some house rules/changes/limits/restrictions added on top.
Like I said, a gradient, not a hard line.
To answer the OP:
What is most important?
Size of the community/easy to find a match: It's like notches on your bedpost really. One partner can still beat all that. Size of the community is a red herring, what's more important is playing with like minded individuals. I play with a great group and if any of us want to introduce a game we just do it. Ultimately though, it's kind of important - at the base level if there are no players the company won't make more stuff.
Price of entry/average army cost:
Firstly, it's a niche luxury hobby, and whatever you do, it's gonna cost you. 'Irrelevant' is the wrong word, but I have long since come to realise that you are misguided if you expect to get absolutely everything out of the hobby without any effort on your part or bare minimum of cost. So 'paying the price' is something that I simply expect, and since I enjoy my hobby, and since I continue to get out of it what I want, I am content to continue paying.
It's more than price of entry or 'average army cost'. Frankly, I'm not interested in either individually - they both are mere facets of a bigger picture. There's the price of entry, price of expansion, price of maintenance/upkeep et . Define 'average' because I've never done that in my life. I like variety and I am frankly not interested in defining my project by a single list. Without coming across as an 'I'm alright jack', I work, and have disposable income. I like my hobby and am happy to put stuff aside for it. I don't think in terms of 'an average army' or the 'current top tier lists' costs £x and I need to buy it all in a one-er. Cost of entry is usually fine, and if there is a good value starter, that goes a long way. I don't mind putting my out £20 or £30 or whatever for a new squad to add to my projects. As I see it, I could spend that for a 2 hour trip to the cinema. I'll spend several hours per dood, so even if it's £40 for ten, or for five models that I actually enjoy putting together and painting, then i consider it time/money well spent. There are limits - I remember when privateer press releases the everblight chosen (centaur-ogre cavalry) and it was £90 for five plastic cavalry models (with a 20% discount). Beautiful sculpts but the price point was frankly ridiculous.
Tight, well-written rules/game balance
Tricky one. Game balance is a bit of a unicorn - we will never have a game thst is truly balanced enough for the expectations of people that you see posting here. These are limited systems with a lot of rough edges. That cannot be helped, and while things can be done to smooth these edges, they also have a price to pay and frankly, I've seen every single fix generate its own share of resentment and complaints. So I would settle for 'I would like the game to be capable of being built towards having compatible opposing forces' with the assumption that this might take a bit of work on our part to facilitate this. Personally, I think this is the best that can be realistically achieved. Now, in terms of rules, I like 'interesting' rules. I don't mind an unbalanced game, provided that the game itself is interesting (scenario, game mechanisms etc) and capable of generating both immersion and a narrative. I like my rules to be like my power - 'clean' is better. Green energy rather than filthy coal, clear rules that say what they mean rather than open to multiple interpretations, at least when viewed from a somewhat reasonable perspective. I would also like the game rules to be thorough and to hopefully cover all situations that are likely to occur as a consequence of the game mechanics (within reason at least - this is a rabbit hole if you are not careful!) - we've all been there where a situation occurs in a game, and there is nothing in the rulebook to mechanise what you are supposed to do.
Good lore/background
Crucial. This is the hook that brings the rules to life. I've played games where the lore was terrible (firestorm armada) and we just played the game itself and while mechanically fine, it was ultimately uninteresting. Lore draws me in, and brings the IP to life. This feeds the immersion and the narrative generated from a game.
Quality/variety of miniatures
Crucial. While I am open in whatnot I regard as a 'good' mini, as a painter/modeller, if the models don't interest me, I'm not getting involved.
Complexity
Ten years ago - absolutely. Now? Not so much. Of my current three favourite game systems, one is Infinity. I regard Infinity as probably the most technically brilliant wargame ever written. It's fantastic, but it's complexity is almost too much at times, as to be honest, once I start playing, I tend to lose interest. Of the other two games, one is GWs (or rather, the Perry's) old lord of the rings sbg game, and more recently GWs warcry. (5 years ago, warmachine hordes would have been on this list, but I'm just not interested in it anymore :() what I like about lotr and warcry is that they are remarkably simple games, mechanically speaking, and yet they are both intuitive, elegant, easy to learn, and though 'simple', have a lot of meat in terms of what you can do , and where you can go. This is what I like. The hard to get synergy of deceptively simple, easy to play and depth. Complexity can often be a mask hiding bloat and can simply add weight to a game without adding depth. I am also less interested in the excessive book keeping that often arises, and keeping track of hunners of different rules, combos, synergy chains and deck stacking in the game, which is often what complexity is represented by on the table top.
Other/not listed (please explain) The most important aspect of a wargame is the people across from you. You can play a rubbish game with great people . You can't play a great game with lousy people. For me, play with like minded individuals is rule one and is a pre-requirement to any game.
So Dakka gives data thats pretty on par for most GW centric forums that I have posted similar polls on.
Roughly 1 in 4 people care about rules first and foremost, and 3 in 4 are happy with sub standard rules so long as the models are awesome and the lore is cool and to a degree how big the community is.
For a fun comparison, find a Kings of War or Warmachine facebook group and post the same poll and see what results you get.
My averages come out to be about 4 in 5 care a lot about the rules as opposed to 1 in 4 when you post that question on those forums.
auticus wrote: So Dakka gives data thats pretty on par for most GW centric forums that I have posted similar polls on.
Roughly 1 in 4 people care about rules first and foremost, and 3 in 4 are happy with sub standard rules so long as the models are awesome and the lore is cool and to a degree how big the community is.
For a fun comparison, find a Kings of War or Warmachine facebook group and post the same poll and see what results you get.
My averages come out to be about 4 in 5 care a lot about the rules as opposed to 1 in 4 when you post that question on those forums.
It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.
It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)
The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).
It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.
Or, hear me out, it's called self-selection. People that care about rules ditch GW, and people that care about lore/"ecosystem" stick with GW. It's like claiming people who pick mayo over ketchup are somehow indoctrinated by the Big Mayo...
auticus wrote: It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)
The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).
@second WTF: the easiest answer to that is that both FB crowd and Dakka poll crowd (not just posters crowd) is much bigger in it’s entirety than competitive crowd. This is best seen in FB terrain groups - those are VERY active, have plenty of members and a very slim part of content focuses on „tournament practice ready” terrain pieces. Instead those groups focus mainly on home tables and dioramas - the „invisible” part of hobbyists when viewed from competitively focused dakka discussions...
@first WTF and @Just Tony vs Deadnight: when you (generic you) have been in this hobby for more than single edition and seen plenty of meta shifts, at some point you realise that changes made at GW headquarters that lessen your enjoyment of the game are not gospel and if you have a group of like minded players available and willing you simply branch the ruleset to your liking. There is nothing strange with that, given that many old players recruit from RPG crowd, where customizing everything and writing own content is the norm. Personally I have not switched to 8th as core mechanics and rolling buckets of dice are simply not to my taste and that have left me with entirely free field to customize anything and everything, and I still consider myself as a „40K player”. I still „borrow” some new ideas directly from GW but I’m not bound by their rules team. And I’m all happy because of that. The only thing I’ve „lost” because of my decision is the ability to take part in endless and futile balance minutiae discussion threads, that never ever result in any community accepted comps or even small adjustments. I still have great people to play with, I still feel excited by miniatures GW releases for my factions, I still paint, I still play, I can still dig greatest parts of the lore...
@Deadnight: as usual, a post that is so comprehensive that it is hard to find anything to add I fear I may someday grow angry at you for „stealing” every interesting discussion topic here
1) Rules comprehension. Games with rules that have a high degree of verisimilitude tend to be easy to learn and understand, and rules problems can be solved intuitively. For example, the rules for climbing in Lord of the Rings are simple: if it's half the model's height, you don't need to climb. If it's higher, you can either fall and hurt yourself, ascend with some difficulty, or ascend gracefully. Assign those to 1, 2-5, and a 6 on a D6, and voila, you have simple, easily understood climb-rules. On a 1, you fall. On a 2-5, you get to the top but stop. On a 6, you get to the top and finish your move.
Conversely, look at the debates over verticality and climbing in 40k. Or fly models and verticality (LOTR has fly too and the rules are much more realistic and therefore intuitively easier to understand).
2) Verisimilitude helps with immersion in the game. Not in the lore (yet) but simply in the game. It keeps players from snapping back and doing spreadsheet analysis instead of wargaming.
3) Verisimilitude helps the narrative. As above, except it's immersive in the lore as well as the flow of play. A railgun hitting a Leman Russ and bouncing off makes more sense than a Railgun hitting a Leman Russ but doing some arbitrary amount of hitpoints as if the LRBT was a bag of flesh.
I'm surprised that complexity and low cost are not valued highly at all. I wonder if this response would be different on a forum not primarily frequented by Games Workshop players...
Sqorgar wrote: I'm surprised that complexity and low cost are not valued highly at all. I wonder if this response would be different on a forum not primarily frequented by Games Workshop players...
Low cost or high complexity don't mean good rules or good games respectively.
What does mean a good game is when the ruleset harmonizes with the wished bandwith of complexity and or what the game is. (e.g. a War game might be more complex then checkers.)
Also i'd like to add, the leaks on the new CA aswell as having had some discussions in my group have lead to the fact that we have heavily addapted 40k rules, respectively have changed up on how certain armies work.
We just had no more fun with the game and the state it is in.
And now through that experience i feel confident what i stated on page 2 : good looking models may get you in a game, keeping you there is a ruleset that does not impede on anyones fun. (basically Equal long pikes for everyone)
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auticus wrote: It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)
The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).
1. 8th crowd is relatively new. i know a lot of people that have dropped since 6th edition and especially 7th and are unwilling to pick up 40k again, especially now. I therefore attribute that to the new player wide eye syndrome.
2. Dakka is not just tournament crowd. The P&M department is probably bigger and a lot less dakkatastic. Also unbalanced rulesets allow for cheap highs by crushing your opponents. Many realise that and many more abuse it, it's probably also one of the reasons why 40k online atleast has a "bit"* of a reputation as toxic.
*"bit" considering that Reddit regards dakka as too extreme as do many facebook groups etc.
I interact with a lot of tournament players on forums, facebook, and twitter, and the GW tournament players almost universally pan any critique of the game's rules to "thats just how it is, learn how to take advantage of it, git gud, the rules aren't very good but the tournament crowd is huge thats why I love it"
auticus wrote: I interact with a lot of tournament players on forums, facebook, and twitter, and the GW tournament players almost universally pan any critique of the game's rules to "thats just how it is, learn how to take advantage of it, git gud, the rules aren't very good but the tournament crowd is huge thats why I love it"
"Learn to take advantage from broken rules, so you use overefficent stuff from the list builing"
Imo it's not strategic skill if i just defeat my opponent because my options are just 2x as efficent and i can spam them.
It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.
Or, hear me out, it's called self-selection. People that care about rules ditch GW, and people that care about lore/"ecosystem" stick with GW. It's like claiming people who pick mayo over ketchup are somehow indoctrinated by the Big Mayo...
Just Tony wrote:
It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.
Or just different priorities. The perfect rules set does not exist. GWs rules are pretty woolly, but they're 'good enough' for plenty folks out there to work with them, put up with them, or at least to use them as a baseline.
auticus wrote:It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)
The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).
auticus wrote:I interact with a lot of tournament players on forums, facebook, and twitter, and the GW tournament players almost universally pan any critique of the game's rules to "thats just how it is, learn how to take advantage of it, git gud, the rules aren't very good but the tournament crowd is huge thats why I love it"
Firstly, second, third or fourth on the list is not the same as 'not important'. Let's not be melodramatic.
And secondly, why should it be a wtf moment for you that rules 'quality' isn't number one?
it shouldn't surprise you in the slightest, especially with your history of making a player rules set for Aos. what's important isn't the quality of the rules, even among tournament players who you claim 'should' care about this (an assertion I regard as somewhat questionable) - what's important isn't that the rules are 'good', what's important is that they are 'official'. Because official rules can be bent and manipulated. As to the other side of this coin, there are plenty examples even on these boards of the incomprehension. disapproval, condescension, or even hostility to players who homebrew or mod their games and/or otherwise step outside of this 'officialdom'.
The WTF moment is the point that people ... many people... don't care about the gross imbalances in the game and just shrug and tell you to drink beer and git gud. Its a WTF moment to me because somewhere along the lines things changed in the playerbase, as that was never something tolerated in the past, and today its accepted, and I didn't get the memo and skated a few years into oblivion not realizing that the new gen of players apparently don't care about a badly balanced game or wtf rules.
I can't count how many people I've encountered that hate the game, but will play it anyway because the game is secondary to hanging out and socializing, while getting erased by Timmy the Powergamer who happily meta churns to stay on top.
If *ANY* other company produced 40k or AOS today from scratch, it would die on the shelf, its models used for other games because the models are pretty.
I know all too well about getting bombasted with hostility for using homebrew. That "official"dom is very important to a great many people yes. I've had someone wish cancer on me because I produced a fan comp for AOS that people were using and I wasn't a GW employee so had no right to do so (to them).
Firstly, second, third or fourth on the list is not the same as 'not important'. Let's not be melodramatic.
There's nothing melodramatic about that.at.all. If I have a list of things I care about, #1 and #2 are my pressing concerns, and the rest are kind of there but them not being great don't bother me as much.
I've been lectured more times than I can count on here or the TGA or twitter about how good tight rules just aren't really a concern, or are the domain of the "neckbeard" or some other derogatory.
I think you're looking back with rose tinted glasses, or something. I've been a gamer for a long time, and I've always known plenty of people in the hobby like me who care more that the rules are fun, that they feel thematic and don't get in the way too much, than "good". When we used to play Battlefleet Gothic, balance was not even a term we knew. We just cared that the space battle was awesome. That attitude isn't new; stop blaming younger gamers. Your earlier condescending comments in the thread make it pretty clear you are unable or unwilling to imagine other ways of gaming from your own--you're just more aware that other types of people exist in your hobby space now than you were when you were younger. Step out of your bubble a little further.
You express shock that more people don't share the perspective that the rules are the most important part of a miniature game where minis are 95% of the cost in money and time? I hear there are games with amazing rules that use little wooden cubes. Maybe all the rules #1 gamers have maxed on rules and minned on the Hobby? (I'm not even sure I used those terms right because I'm one of those gamers who doesn't read internet rules debates or know about the meta.)
If 6th edition whfb would have dropped with 3 factions or so destroying everyone else, 6th edition whfb would have died on the vine.
7th edition saw that beginning with GW and it started driving people off.
Somewhere along the line ... the balance issues became a meh who cares.
There's also nothing condescending about what I am saying. Thats a reflection you are adding to my words. Because I don't like something and make that known does not make that actively condescending when I talk about those things that I don't like.
Additionally I deeply disagree with your premise because I have been involved in game dev and design both as a hobby and professionally since the mid 90s and that whole people just play for fun and don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance goes against 20 odd years of experience, workshops, and marketing data everywhere but the gw universe (and even that only the last 10 years or so)
2nd edition Eldar and Space Wolves would disagree with you.
There have always been gross imbalances in GW's games. And casual players have always just shrugged them off, and have generally chosen amongst themselves either to not abuse them, or to make the most of them with like-minded players would enjoy just coming up with the most broken combos possible.
Additionally I deeply disagree with your premise because I have been involved in game dev and design both as a hobby and professionally since the mid 90s and that whole people just play for fun and don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance goes against 20 odd years of experience, workshops, and marketing data everywhere but the gw universe (and even that only the last 10 years or so)
You're conflating two different things here. Accepting that game balance is screwy and 'getting destroyed' by it don't actually go hand in hand. The groups I've gamed with over the years have generally either chosen not to use anything too broken, or tweaked the rules to suit ourselves where we felt it necessary.
It's also worth pointing out (again) that the rules question here is a little skewed, because the poll is offering rules complexity as an option, rather than rules structure. I don't choose a game because it is complex. I choose a game because it is fun to play. Some of the games I play are complex, some are simple. Complexity does not automatically equate to fun.
So the fact that people aren't listing the rules as an important aspect of the game doesn't actually mean that the rules aren't important. It just means that the rules being watertight and complex isn't important.
Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain. If you have a private group that self polices that is great for you, im truly glad you have that.
I am a public event organizer and i can tell you that asking people to self police the abuse is met with in many cases extreme forms of hostility.
Thats why rules quality is so important to me.
Many people in the public play domain also love the bad balance, they can be found dancing on it in listbuilding threads and tournament winner glorification threads and tweets when asked about bad balance.
auticus wrote: Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain.
That's not been my experience.
Yours clearly differs. This will be something that will vary from area to area, but where a venue tends to have a predominance of players with a more relaxed attitude towards the game, they tend to be fairly good at self policing. Players who refuse to leave the broken combos at home eventually either change their ways or find somewhere else to play when they find it difficult to get games in.
And yes, sure, tournaments will often be more cut-throat that casual play. That can be mitigated with sports and comp scoring, through tournament-specific rules packs, or simply by talking to players about what is expected - several local tournaments around here used to just have a 'Don't be a dick' requirement in their rules package, and for the most part that worked just fine.
For me its going to be the community but more on how friendly/fun they are rather than how easy it is to find someone. It's people that makes the game for tabletop. Otherwise I would get play some mmorpg or mobile.
auticus wrote: Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain.
That's not been my experience.
Yours clearly differs. This will be something that will vary from area to area, but where a venue tends to have a predominance of players with a more relaxed attitude towards the game, they tend to be fairly good at self policing. Players who refuse to leave the broken combos at home eventually either change their ways or find somewhere else to play when they find it difficult to get games in.
And yes, sure, tournaments will often be more cut-throat that casual play. That can be mitigated with sports and comp scoring, through tournament-specific rules packs, or simply by talking to players about what is expected - several local tournaments around here used to just have a 'Don't be a dick' requirement in their rules package, and for the most part that worked just fine.
My region is predominantly hard competitive players. Trying to introduce sports and comp scoring in my region will get you ridden out of the region and you will be running events from your garage with your pets and and wife and kids lol. I've tried about a dozen variations of the "dont be a dick" requirement over the past 10-15 years and here it has never.once.worked.at.all. There are always a handful of people that will push that envelope.
Again thats great you have a place with people that will police themselves. I live in a hard edge competitive region where the norm is tournament level lists in casual games and campaigns, so I need the rules to not be a candy mountain lackadaisical mess.
Other for me - how well do the rules let me represent the setting? Do they have the right feel when I'm playing the game? Also, do they let me tell my stories? I'm largely not interested in re-enactments or what-ifs, I want to add to the setting myself with My Dudes. Also, I hate rules that litter the board with tokens - abstraction is one thing, but I don't want to be playing a glorified boardgame; the rules should allow for a battle to play out the way it "should" based on the setting, rather than relying on "gamey" mechanics.
I only care about a handful of IPs enough to spend the time, money, and energy required to do wargaming related to them, and so I'm picky to ensure the experience is worthwhile. I'll buy anything from anywhere, providing it meets that main need of providing a thematically appropriate and enjoyable way of interacting with those IPs.
For example, I'll happily buy FFGs Legion models, but I won't be playing the game itself because it's cluttered and "gamey", and the experience caters first & foremost to the "I want my favourite character off that movie" crowd.
The ability to do interesting things. The essence of games, to me, is activity. Choice. Decision-making. I should be doing things that have some kind of a result, my opponent should be doing things that have some kind of a result. The more the game restricts choice, the more the balance turns games into a foregone conclusion, the more things the designers put into the game that don't do anything or are pointless, the worse it is to me.
It isn't about competitive balance, it's about whether there's an interesting/compelling reason to do anything at all rather than being locked into a small set of mono-build army lists that play the game according to short flowcharts.
Not Online!!! wrote: Low cost or high complexity don't mean good rules or good games respectively.
Of course not, just like good lore and nice models don't mean good rules or good games. But it should be the most important aspect to someone. I mean, rules complexity is at least directly related to game rules, while good lore is not. And low cost must be related to one's ability to stay in the game. GW has basically priced me out, so it doesn't matter whether I want to play something like Adeptus Titanicus or 40k - I just can't afford to.
I'd like to see some more complexity in miniature gaming. I feel like things have gotten so streamlined that, for the most part, the games are all sort of becoming too similar. At least with some more complexity, they'd do more to be unique as rulesets. I'd say that my favorite rulesets right now are among the most complex, and it's probably just because I associate these games will wholly unique experiences.
If 6th edition whfb would have dropped with 3 factions or so destroying everyone else, 6th edition whfb would have died on the vine.
7th edition saw that beginning with GW and it started driving people off.
Somewhere along the line ... the balance issues became a meh who cares.
There's also nothing condescending about what I am saying. Thats a reflection you are adding to my words. Because I don't like something and make that known does not make that actively condescending when I talk about those things that I don't like.
Additionally I deeply disagree with your premise because I have been involved in game dev and design both as a hobby and professionally since the mid 90s and that whole people just play for fun and don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance goes against 20 odd years of experience, workshops, and marketing data everywhere but the gw universe (and even that only the last 10 years or so)
Working in game Dev and design is likely part of the problem. The people you choose to associate with are a small, narrowly focused part of the hobby. That you wrote "don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance" indicates a singular perspective with regards to gaming. The people I game with don't consider a game to be a contest of skill and wit. It is a form of relaxing entertainment. One player is not destroying another player; one wizard/tank/spaceship is shooting the hell out of the others. Your workshops, etc. must have selected out the casual gamers.
Players who don't care about balance say "Drink beer and git gud"? Saying rules are either tightly balanced tournament machines or "subpar"? All the WTF's? Sounds like (unconscious?) contempt for other types of gamers to me, like you're incredulous other types exist.
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My region is predominantly hard competitive players. Trying to introduce sports and comp scoring in my region will get you ridden out of the region and you will be running events from your garage with your pets and and wife and kids lol
This right here comes across as disparaging towards casual gamers.
. I've tried about a dozen variations of the "dont be a dick" requirement over the past 10-15 years and here it has never.once.worked.at.all.
Maybe just don't host events with the unfiltered public. I use to work with the public; I would never try to relax with them.
auticus wrote:Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain. If you have a private group that self polices that is great for you, im truly glad you have that.
Playing devils advocate, Maybe the problem is (at least partly) playing in the public play domain.
auticus wrote:
I am a public event organizer and i can tell you that asking people to self police the abuse is met with in many cases extreme forms of hostility.
Thats why rules quality is so important to me.
Fair, but playing devils advocate, Player base quality would be more important to me. Because it sounds to me, the folks you seem to be forced to put up with are a big part of your problem.
You're essentially saying 'I need good rules that I can use as a shield so I can play horrible people'. Good rules are not necessarily the problem, horrible people are.
auticus wrote:
Many people in the public play domain also love the bad balance, they can be found dancing on it in listbuilding threads and tournament winner glorification threads and tweets when asked about bad balance.
So player bad behaviour, yet again? It's almost like a trend.
Seems to me Auticus, that you are (maybe unconsciously?) using 'the rules' as a deflection from another problem that you are likely well aware of. Gw's rules are wooly as hell, and don't help. But I have never come across a set of ttg rules that couldn't be abused and used to metaphorically beat someone over the head with. The perfect set of rules does not exist. Everything else falls short and will have sharp edges that folks will gleefully take ten of and whack over their 'mates' head with.
I'll get no end of flak for this, but I'd argue the problem at least partially is us, ie the player base itself. So often on here we come across anecdotes of toxic clubs or toxic players with toxic attitudes and people that have made others hate their hobby and/or walk away in disgust. And no one actually seems to want to do anything about them. People deflect and while they acknowledge perfect balance is unobtainable they instead want 'better balance' as the solution to horrible people.Thing is, 'better balance' still falls short of 'perfect balance', but no one ever seems to want to step forward and say how much less than perfect is ok or how many problems in their game they would actually be ok with. It seems that sometimes to me at least, people talk of this mythical unicorn-game-balance as the solution/holy grail to their problems, seeing it as the impenetrable shield that can be used to play games against a horrible person in a toxic community without issue, without ever realising that it's the horrible person in the toxic community and a culture that enables this and refuses to stand up to this that is at least, part of the problem.
The problems we have are partially our own - no game is perfect (or even close!) and the frustrating thing is, the game writers get all the blame for not writing the game equivelant of unicorns, and the 'sharp edges' in their games that are impossible to avoid, but they players conveniently never want to share any of the blame for doubling down on all of the sharp edges, and then inflicting them onto their own peers. We are not guiltless - It's both sides of the exact same coin.
Our gaming culture can rapidly become toxic (and not even through malice), and there's seems often to be an unwillingness to face up to this, and just blame some faceless corporate entity and just give up, and be lazy and refuse to do anything about it. when exposed to the ugly face of our own culture, we should instead try to acknowledge it and change it. with social media, we are exposed to these things far quicker than before and our cultures can shift rapidly when peoples eyes are metaphorically opened, and behaviours that were tolerated or accepted are suddenly shown in a new light as folks realise they're all kind of horrible - just look at 'me too', or any amount of twitter hashtags for recent examples that have lofted led to a genuine culture shift.. If a culture has problematic aspects, maybe it's the culture that needs exposed, challenged and change first, rather than wishing for a unicorn to come along that let's you play with awful people.
The people you choose to associate with are a small, narrowly focused part of the hobby.
I've participated in very large conventions where we talk to people who played our games directly, not just a small narrowly focused part of the game. The only only only domain I've ever seen such a lackadaisical fan attitude toward game rules is the 40k and aos crowd, out of dozens of games and dozens of player bases.
This right here comes across as disparaging towards casual gamers.
I don't see how that quote disparages casual gamers. The casual gamers typically don't say anything, which is part of the problem. They just silently leave while the loud people (which in my bubble are the power players almost exclusively) demand no comp and bust our public campaigns because of the bad rules.
Public Events are what I do. So just not doing public events and retiring to the garage is not something that I should be forced to do in defense of GW's very poor rules writing, and is why to me the games balance and rules are my first consideration before I put time into a game.
Seems to me Auticus, that you are (maybe unconsciously?) using 'the rules' as a deflection from another problem that you are likely well aware of. Gw's rules are wooly as hell, and don't help. But I have never come across a set of ttg rules that couldn't be abused and used to metaphorically beat someone over the head with. The perfect set of rules does not exist. Everything else falls short and will have sharp edges that folks will gleefully take ten of and whack over their 'mates' head with.
That is true, and I don't disagree, but I NEVER have this same issue in ANY other game that I play or have played. It is ONLY in the GW game-verse that this is an issue, largely because the balance issues are SO horribly bad whereas in other games the balance issues exist but aren't so gross.
Playing devils advocate, Maybe the problem is (at least partly) playing in the public play domain.
But again I have no problem doing what i've been doing since the mid 90s (public events) with any other game. Just GW.
My biggest eye opener pretty much in my entire career of writing rules came during the AOS era where we had fan comp. I wrote Azyr Comp which was the first fan comp and was one of the top three being used before GW pulled our plugs and adopted SCGT comp. The BIGGEST complaint that I got out of several thousand posts and messages was "your comp is boring, anyone can just make a 2000 point list and it is just as good as anyone else's 2000 point list, I am being punished by not being able to be rewarded for good list building" - meaning there needs to be imbalance and busted elements that people can abuse or else its not fun.
So yes, it is gamer culture that pushes for breaking the game in list building. Whether or not that is seen as good or bad depends on what side of the same coin you stand.
So yes, it is gamer culture that pushes for breaking the game in list building. Whether or not that is seen as good or bad depends on what side of the same coin you stand.
It's a small subset of gamers, rather than the overall culture. While there are certainly those players who want to be able to fine tune lists to eke every possible ounce of efficiency out of them, or who want to find that magical OP list to defeat all comers, from my experience the vast majority just make a list with the units they like, or the units they happen to own, and go from there.
The main crux is that tight and balanced rulesets can work for every type of gamer, whereas loose imbalanced rulesets only really wind up enjoyable to CAACs like Jervis Johnson or to the lunatic ROFLstompers that run the optimized power lists. Tight and balanced doesn't eliminate that WAACs, it just gives them a lesser ability to have an autopilot list.
Just Tony wrote: The main crux is that tight and balanced rulesets can work for every type of gamer, whereas loose imbalanced rulesets only really wind up enjoyable to CAACs like Jervis Johnson or to the lunatic ROFLstompers that run the optimized power lists. Tight and balanced doesn't eliminate that WAACs, it just gives them a lesser ability to have an autopilot list.
This.
THIS SO MUCH.
This would remove a lot of issues because the autopilot rofflestompers would either need to learn to actually play OR leave.
Yep, and while I'm sure there will always be options that are "better" per list, there shouldn't ever be a moment where, like a few infamous builds over the years, it becomes a default choice and visible in every list.
I'm psychotic, though. The second I saw a netlist I immediately tried to find someone who ran it solely for the challenge of quashing it.
That being said, I agree with the sentiments Auticus and Tony express; except I also know it is impossible. Not even Chess or GO can manage perfect balance. No matter what you build, someone, somewhere will break it and put it all on the net. I find the best balancing method is Comp and Scenario. Everything else is secondary and less effective.
Rough choice. for me a massive stickler is cost, but also Lore and background, and they dance between the most important. the thing is.. im not much of a person for models. im more for rules and background, and just kind of found myself in these kind of things. very few games have ever kept my attention for an extended period of time, and usually it's the background or ease of entry that got me there in the first place.
Just Tony wrote:The main crux is that tight and balanced rulesets can work for every type of gamer, whereas loose imbalanced rulesets only really wind up enjoyable to CAACs like Jervis Johnson or to the lunatic ROFLstompers that run the optimized power lists. Tight and balanced doesn't eliminate that WAACs, it just gives them a lesser ability to have an autopilot list.
I want to agree with you. In principle, you are not wrong. The problem though Is that this game does not exist. It's all well and good talking about tight and balanced rulesets, but it's a unicorn - I have never come across a ruleset that was tight and balanced enough to actually accommodate this. With respect, the best we've had, and I'd argue, the most realistic manifestations of this have ranged from various shades of 'more or less good enough'. And that its effect is often purely matter of perspective, and not something objective. Even the best games have come down to a handful of autopilot lists. Because oftentimes, gamers would rather lean on crutches than be creative. And as you say, there will always be options that are better per list.
Just Tony wrote:Yep, and while I'm sure there will always be options that are "better" per list, there shouldn't ever be a moment where, like a few infamous builds over the years, it becomes a default choice and visible in every list.
.
Agreed - shouldn't. This is not the reality though, and I feel, never will be. Talking about is this is functionally academic at best. And you contradict yourself - If there are options that are 'better' per list, then the unfortunate manifestation of this is the exact thing you claim shouldn't happen - a default choice visible in every list. It will always happen. There has never been a game, whether woolly as hell, like gw's offerings, or tighter with more technical writing, like the offerings from privateer press, cb, wotc, ffg etc that has not ultimately been meta'ed out and brought down to a more or less default choices, with only a handful of builds advertised by the community as being effective, and everything else being dismissed as crap.
I voted for lore/ background. That being said my games are usually already well established IPs. Lotr, Star Trek, AVP. 40K has become well known through PC games as well.
If I look at my STAW minis... no, miniatures are probably not the most important aspect for me Though I went and bought ships to have them all in the same scale at least. I've yet to meet a wargame where I look at the miniatures and think "that might be interesting".
The rules aren't that important for me. They should be fun and able to recreate the background, I view wargames more as RPG than as tactical simulations. That might be the reason warmachine never appealed to me (aside from their ugly miniatures).
Overall the most important question is probably is any of my friends willing to play the game as well. If not, no reason to get into it.
Just Tony wrote: The main crux is that tight and balanced rulesets can work for every type of gamer, whereas loose imbalanced rulesets only really wind up enjoyable to CAACs like Jervis Johnson or to the lunatic ROFLstompers that run the optimized power lists. Tight and balanced doesn't eliminate that WAACs, it just gives them a lesser ability to have an autopilot list.
There's no such thing as a CAAC - at the point at you do anything "at all costs", you can no longer be considered casual. You know what casual players do when the game starts to suck? They stop playing. Because the entire point of being casual is that you have low investment. How could you ever consider Jervis Johnson to be a casual player? That dude has forgotten more about game mechanics and game design than most players will ever dream to know.
The ones who insist and fight and push back against competitive play are not casual. They are every bit as hardcore as what you call WAACs, but their goals are cooperative, and thus supportive and casual-friendly. Low involvement players won't get too far in a hobby that requires hours of prep work and hundreds of dollars to play even a single game - but they can be carried by the hardcore cooperative players who smooth over the bumps and pave the way into the game. Arguably, these types of players are the most important to have, because everybody starts as a casual at first.
You are basically arguing that anything that is not expressly forbidden is expressly encouraged, and that's not a healthy way to look as a game system. Game systems are complicated and have a lot of interlocking piece. They are really a case where a butterfly flaps its wings in Brooklyn and there's a tornado in Hong Kong. The cooperative players sees this and thinks, that's not something I'd like to happen, so let's not do that. The competitive players see this and think, I wonder what would happen if I had two butterflies! I'll bet my opponent would do it.
The WAAC players fill all of Brooklyn with high powered fans pointed at Hong Kong. You can outlaw using butterflies and high powered fans, but they'd just go out and use paper fans or flap their arms really fast. Forbid that and they'll get some hummingbirds. You can't explicitly forbid every negative behavior, nor can you put an abstract ban on nebulous negative behavior. You also can't make a game system interesting enough to be worth playing that is so limited in scope that there is little room for exploitation in the first place (a world without butterflies or fans).
In short, people who want to rape the cracks in your game system will always be able to. Like rats, you'll never be able to full stop them - only slow them down. But the cost of doing this will ultimately ruin your game system and make it extremely unfun for everybody else. "Tight and balanced" is innately unfun, as a system. It is fun for competition, but for a system to be tight and balanced, it must lack breadth and depth. Tight means nothing extraneous and balanced means both sides are the same. It is impossible to make two unequal sides truly balanced. As has been mentioned, games like Go and Chess are still unbalanced just because one players gets to go first. Even if you did somehow create a completely tight and balanced game, the difference in player skill would make it such that you would only have a satisfying game playing an extremely small subset of players - the better you get, the fewer players you'd be able to have a truly competitive experience with.
Instead of worrying about tight and balancing, and chasing some unicorn into the depths of hell, just change your mindset such that these miniature games are cooperative experiences between players. Winning is a goal, not the purpose. The rules are not perfect and cannot be perfect, and thus it is up to the players, cooperatively, to create the kind of game experience the two of them would like to play. Something more narrative is fine, something more competitive is fine. The rules work for you, not vice versa. Since there is an extreme imbalance implied in playing strangers - don't do it. Spend a few minutes before each game becoming acquainted with each other, so that you are not strangers anymore. Figure out the kind of game the two of you want to experience and create some boundaries, for just the two of you, for just this singular game, to help create that experience. If you do that, then it doesn't matter if an expert and newbie both play because the boundaries you create, not the game, will make that game a worthwhile one.
Just Tony wrote: The main crux is that tight and balanced rulesets can work for every type of gamer, whereas loose imbalanced rulesets only really wind up enjoyable to CAACs like Jervis Johnson or to the lunatic ROFLstompers that run the optimized power lists. Tight and balanced doesn't eliminate that WAACs, it just gives them a lesser ability to have an autopilot list.
There's no such thing as a CAAC - at the point at you do anything "at all costs", you can no longer be considered casual. You know what casual players do when the game starts to suck? They stop playing. Because the entire point of being casual is that you have low investment. How could you ever consider Jervis Johnson to be a casual player? That dude has forgotten more about game mechanics and game design than most players will ever dream to know.
The ones who insist and fight and push back against competitive play are not casual. They are every bit as hardcore as what you call WAACs, but their goals are cooperative, and thus supportive and casual-friendly. Low involvement players won't get too far in a hobby that requires hours of prep work and hundreds of dollars to play even a single game - but they can be carried by the hardcore cooperative players who smooth over the bumps and pave the way into the game. Arguably, these types of players are the most important to have, because everybody starts as a casual at first.
You are basically arguing that anything that is not expressly forbidden is expressly encouraged, and that's not a healthy way to look as a game system. Game systems are complicated and have a lot of interlocking piece. They are really a case where a butterfly flaps its wings in Brooklyn and there's a tornado in Hong Kong. The cooperative players sees this and thinks, that's not something I'd like to happen, so let's not do that. The competitive players see this and think, I wonder what would happen if I had two butterflies! I'll bet my opponent would do it.
The WAAC players fill all of Brooklyn with high powered fans pointed at Hong Kong. You can outlaw using butterflies and high powered fans, but they'd just go out and use paper fans or flap their arms really fast. Forbid that and they'll get some hummingbirds. You can't explicitly forbid every negative behavior, nor can you put an abstract ban on nebulous negative behavior. You also can't make a game system interesting enough to be worth playing that is so limited in scope that there is little room for exploitation in the first place (a world without butterflies or fans).
In short, people who want to rape the cracks in your game system will always be able to. Like rats, you'll never be able to full stop them - only slow them down. But the cost of doing this will ultimately ruin your game system and make it extremely unfun for everybody else. "Tight and balanced" is innately unfun, as a system. It is fun for competition, but for a system to be tight and balanced, it must lack breadth and depth. Tight means nothing extraneous and balanced means both sides are the same. It is impossible to make two unequal sides truly balanced. As has been mentioned, games like Go and Chess are still unbalanced just because one players gets to go first. Even if you did somehow create a completely tight and balanced game, the difference in player skill would make it such that you would only have a satisfying game playing an extremely small subset of players - the better you get, the fewer players you'd be able to have a truly competitive experience with.
Instead of worrying about tight and balancing, and chasing some unicorn into the depths of hell, just change your mindset such that these miniature games are cooperative experiences between players. Winning is a goal, not the purpose. The rules are not perfect and cannot be perfect, and thus it is up to the players, cooperatively, to create the kind of game experience the two of them would like to play. Something more narrative is fine, something more competitive is fine. The rules work for you, not vice versa. Since there is an extreme imbalance implied in playing strangers - don't do it. Spend a few minutes before each game becoming acquainted with each other, so that you are not strangers anymore. Figure out the kind of game the two of you want to experience and create some boundaries, for just the two of you, for just this singular game, to help create that experience. If you do that, then it doesn't matter if an expert and newbie both play because the boundaries you create, not the game, will make that game a worthwhile one.
40k is a poor cooperative game as well, though. Co-op games are things like Silver Tower, where players fight together against an "AI" opponent, or pen and paper RPGs, where the party (usually) works together to overcome the baddies thrown at them by the DM and complete their quest. 40k's only real focus seems to be "do something with these minis we sell."
40k is a poor cooperative game as well, though. Co-op games are things like Silver Tower, where players fight together against an "AI" opponent, or pen and paper RPGs, where the party (usually) works together to overcome the baddies thrown at them by the DM and complete their quest. 40k's only real focus seems to be "do something with these minis we sell."
This is a very narrow view Blastaar and I don't think it's entirely correct though I will agree that 40k is, mechanically speaking, at best, if not poor, then an extremely clunky interface. Fwiw, I've also seen plenty examples of RPGs that were not co-op.
'Collaborative' is probably a better word than cooperative, but the gist of what sqorgar is dating is right. Historically, Wargames were no different, Being cut from the exact same cloth and creative energy as RPGs in that collaborative behaviour from the players was a cornerstone of the game. And plenty, inclusing gw's own games had an umpire. RPGs and wargame share a lot of the same energy in terms of how a lot of players approach them and I think it's a mistake to just split them into 2 binary camps because one is adversarial and somehow that trumps everything else. There is nothing Incompatible with the idea of 2 players firstly collaborating on building an interesting/fair scenario, and then playing it out and trying to win it.
What he is referring to is less 'list-building-in-isolation', less 'list-building-for-advantage', and more -'collaborative game-building' with a focus on 'list-matching', often against a backdrop of a themed or specific scenario (mission, terrain set up etc).
It's far from unheard of - You'll often see this even today in historical groups. my group has done this for 5 years now.
40k is a poor cooperative game as well, though. Co-op games are things like Silver Tower, where players fight together against an "AI" opponent, or pen and paper RPGs, where the party (usually) works together to overcome the baddies thrown at them by the DM and complete their quest. 40k's only real focus seems to be "do something with these minis we sell."
This is a very narrow view Blastaar and I don't think it's entirely correct though I will agree that 40k is, mechanically speaking, at best, if not poor, then an extremely clunky interface. Fwiw, I've also seen plenty examples of RPGs that were not co-op.
'Collaborative' is probably a better word than cooperative, but the gist of what sqorgar is dating is right. Historically, Wargames were no different, Being cut from the exact same cloth and creative energy as RPGs in that collaborative behaviour from the players was a cornerstone of the game. And plenty, inclusing gw's own games had an umpire. RPGs and wargame share a lot of the same energy in terms of how a lot of players approach them and I think it's a mistake to just split them into 2 binary camps because one is adversarial and somehow that trumps everything else. There is nothing Incompatible with the idea of 2 players firstly collaborating on building an interesting/fair scenario, and then playing it out and trying to win it.
What he is referring to is less 'list-building-in-isolation', less 'list-building-for-advantage', and more -'collaborative game-building' with a focus on 'list-matching', often against a backdrop of a themed or specific scenario (mission, terrain set up etc).
It's far from unheard of - You'll often see this even today in historical groups. my group has done this for 5 years now.
Just for the sake of completeness: there is one other possible collaborative aproach to 40K, especially it's narrative variant, and it is one that I like the most - players come up with scenario, terrain and forces that represent a particular event and then try their best to collaboratively solve the resulting game, playing it out as close to optimal as dice allow. The result is a true battlefield narrative, without "omnipotent generals" skew and gamey "gotcha" moments that ruin the immersion, most closely representing the actual in-setting battle of two factions utilising rules as a simulation engine. Yes, I know this is rare approach, but it nicely shows, that 40K can be as adversarial or as collaborative as involved parties want it to be.
And there is absolutely nothing casual in such games - they require the same amount of investment, devotion and mental heavy lifting as competitive games. Only the goal of such games is entirely different.
Narrative play, competitive play, whatever play- that's all fine. Really. But those are attitudes players approach the game with. There isn't anything about the present rules, particularly its poor balance, that facilitates any approach all that well.
Blastaar wrote: Narrative play, competitive play, whatever play- that's all fine. Really. But those are attitudes players approach the game with. There isn't anything about the present rules, particularly its poor balance, that facilitates any approach all that well.
You missed the point of what Deadnight and I wrote - in collaborative approach there is no such thing as balance issues - differences in power level of codices/codex entries are only scale factors to consider at scenario/lists creation stage. The biggest advantage of this style of play is that there are no gak choices - you can utilize any and all miniatures you may aesthetically like as long as you build the scenario accordingly. The only thing you don’t always use are numbers that GW provided.
However, I can agree with you that nature of 8th ed core rules combined with choices that GW made to deepen them make this particular edition the most unwieldy of all for any style of play.
Blastaar wrote: Narrative play, competitive play, whatever play- that's all fine. Really. But those are attitudes players approach the game with. There isn't anything about the present rules, particularly its poor balance, that facilitates any approach all that well.
You missed the point of what Deadnight and I wrote - in collaborative approach there is no such thing as balance issues - differences in power level of codices/codex entries are only scale factors to consider at scenario/lists creation stage. The biggest advantage of this style of play is that there are no gak choices - you can utilize any and all miniatures you may aesthetically like as long as you build the scenario accordingly. The only thing you don’t always use are numbers that GW provided.
However, I can agree with you that nature of 8th ed core rules combined with choices that GW made to deepen them make this particular edition the most unwieldy of all for any style of play.
And, as always, the idea of coming together as friends to experience peace and love and harmony while we all collaborate together to create a wonderful experience based on mutually agreed modifications to the rules is a very nice one that is completely impractical for many people in practice.
People earlier were talking about auticus having a "narrow" view based on who they associate with, but if that accusation can be levelled against anybody then it is GW themselves. They constantly design games based on how they play them; as a regular group of mates with a similar approach to things. But that isn't how a huge portion of their audience actually play, because the options available to them are A: play pickup games with people you don't know or, at best, the odd infrequent casual acquaintance, or B: don't play at all.
If your only opportunity for gaming is to show up for a table booking at a store or to an evening at a club to play against random folk, then spending half the time you have available having a lovely cup of tea and a chat with your potential opponent to hash out some revised version of the rules or custom scenario that will give you both an enjoyable experience is a joke, since you won't have enough time left to play the actual sodding game.
And what's particularly irritating about the way people try and use the "friendly game of cricket wot wot" approach and glaringly obvious remarks about how perfect balance is impossible to dismiss criticism of GW's rules is that nobody is demanding perfect balance, merely balance adequate enough to support pickup gaming, and also that the presentation of this as some impossible dream is sheer nonsense given GW have done it before. And the example was brought up in this very discussion; 6th Ed WHFB was not perfectly balanced, but it was sufficiently balanced to support pickup gaming in a way that other editions and other games from GW haven't been, and it was still one of if not the most content-rich editions for the casual gentlemen crowd with endless addons and theme lists and extras.
If my experience was based solely on gaming in my garage with a handful of the same people all the time who could all agree to not break the game, then I can agree that rules may not be as big a deal to me.
That however is not where I am with games in general. I do public events so I need the rules to not be easily abused and busted wide open after 30 seconds of reading them.
Blastaar wrote: Narrative play, competitive play, whatever play- that's all fine. Really. But those are attitudes players approach the game with. There isn't anything about the present rules, particularly its poor balance, that facilitates any approach all that well.
You missed the point of what Deadnight and I wrote - in collaborative approach there is no such thing as balance issues - differences in power level of codices/codex entries are only scale factors to consider at scenario/lists creation stage. The biggest advantage of this style of play is that there are no gak choices - you can utilize any and all miniatures you may aesthetically like as long as you build the scenario accordingly. The only thing you don’t always use are numbers that GW provided.
However, I can agree with you that nature of 8th ed core rules combined with choices that GW made to deepen them make this particular edition the most unwieldy of all for any style of play.
What happens if my collaborator(s) and I can't agree on everything? Say I want to bring a bunch of Deathwing, and my collaborator is unwilling to tweak their model selection to balance it, perhaps they don't even own sufficient quantities of the appropriate models, or are missing units entirely? Maybe we can't quite agree on the kind of scenario to play?
What many narrative players seem to be hung up on is that their idea of "narrative play" is creating their own scenarios, with their own fluff for why it is happening, and their own rules and restrictions. I just want narrative in "normal" bring-a-list-and-roll-up-the-mission-play. Even tournament games. The narrative is whatever happens while playing- I don't need to "write" the story, or force it to happen. Let it happen organically. But GW games are terrible for this. I can think of one moment, in all my 40k-ing, that is particularly memorable or "narrative." 7th edition, I was playing my DA against a knight list, and my RBK sergeant survived a full round of shooting from a knight, jinking like mad, and stole an objective on my next turn. And for that single moment, I didn't need to craft a special mission to make it happen.
Blastaar wrote: Narrative play, competitive play, whatever play- that's all fine. Really. But those are attitudes players approach the game with. There isn't anything about the present rules, particularly its poor balance, that facilitates any approach all that well.
You missed the point of what Deadnight and I wrote - in collaborative approach there is no such thing as balance issues - differences in power level of codices/codex entries are only scale factors to consider at scenario/lists creation stage. The biggest advantage of this style of play is that there are no gak choices - you can utilize any and all miniatures you may aesthetically like as long as you build the scenario accordingly. The only thing you don’t always use are numbers that GW provided.
However, I can agree with you that nature of 8th ed core rules combined with choices that GW made to deepen them make this particular edition the most unwieldy of all for any style of play.
And, as always, the idea of coming together as friends to experience peace and love and harmony while we all collaborate together to create a wonderful experience based on mutually agreed modifications to the rules is a very nice one that is completely impractical for many people in practice.
People earlier were talking about auticus having a "narrow" view based on who they associate with, but if that accusation can be levelled against anybody then it is GW themselves. They constantly design games based on how they play them; as a regular group of mates with a similar approach to things. But that isn't how a huge portion of their audience actually play, because the options available to them are A: play pickup games with people you don't know or, at best, the odd infrequent casual acquaintance, or B: don't play at all.
If your only opportunity for gaming is to show up for a table booking at a store or to an evening at a club to play against random folk, then spending half the time you have available having a lovely cup of tea and a chat with your potential opponent to hash out some revised version of the rules or custom scenario that will give you both an enjoyable experience is a joke, since you won't have enough time left to play the actual sodding game.
And what's particularly irritating about the way people try and use the "friendly game of cricket wot wot" approach and glaringly obvious remarks about how perfect balance is impossible to dismiss criticism of GW's rules is that nobody is demanding perfect balance, merely balance adequate enough to support pickup gaming, and also that the presentation of this as some impossible dream is sheer nonsense given GW have done it before. And the example was brought up in this very discussion; 6th Ed WHFB was not perfectly balanced, but it was sufficiently balanced to support pickup gaming in a way that other editions and other games from GW haven't been, and it was still one of if not the most content-rich editions for the casual gentlemen crowd with endless addons and theme lists and extras.
I think I can safely guarantee that most younger players, who didn't start in the Battletech/Rogue Trader era or thereabouts, are unlikely to have buddies who play something as involved and obscenely expensive as 40k. Mine don't. Pickup games were all I had before I broke free of the GW ecosystem. Skirmish games, sure, that's only 10-ish minis and maybe a couple $100 if you aren't attending tournaments regularly. But $600+ armies? Fully painted? Not likely. Even in wargaming, there are some strong generational differences. That money, and time, goes to Magic, video games, and board games.
Blastaar wrote: What happens if my collaborator(s) and I can't agree on everything?
Jesus Christ, you compromise! If you can't figure out a way to agree on a completely optional entertainment experience with people who actually choose to engage with you, I hate to think what your coworkers and boss must think of working with you.
I think I can safely guarantee that most younger players, who didn't start in the Battletech/Rogue Trader era or thereabouts, are unlikely to have buddies who play something as involved and obscenely expensive as 40k. Mine don't. Pickup games were all I had before I broke free of the GW ecosystem. Skirmish games, sure, that's only 10-ish minis and maybe a couple $100 if you aren't attending tournaments regularly. But $600+ armies? Fully painted? Not likely. Even in wargaming, there are some strong generational differences. That money, and time, goes to Magic, video games, and board games.
Very few people start with a $600+ fully painted army with no opponents to play. The majority of miniature games have two-player starter sets that cost roughly the same price as a board game, that gives two players an easy and obvious in. I often shoulder the cost of starter sets and play with friends, who decide to invest in the game afterwards. Actually, GW games are the only ones this doesn't work with because GW's reputation (or rather the reputation of its players) precede it. Had one person who I played Warmachine with refuse to try out 40k with me because the 40k guys in his Facebook group are all jerks. They were so odious that he was unwilling to even try - for free - the game they play.
Maybe there isn't anything wrong with wargaming, there's just something wrong with wargamers.
Jesus Christ, you compromise! If you can't figure out a way to agree on a completely optional entertainment experience with people who actually choose to engage with you, I hate to think what your coworkers and boss must think of working with you.
I know you mean well... but I will say that a good many gamer personalities have a hard time compromising and that is why the official rules are such an important thing. If the rules are solid, there is no need to compromise.
If we had to spend our time compromising with people, or politicing or social engineering as I call it, a good number of people would abandon table top games in general in favor of video games or something else that has no compromise, and you just fire it up and play by its rules. Social engineering is exhausting and in many cases not worth the hassle for the reward in the end. If you have to play a bad ruleset and constantly compromise over it to get a good experience out of it, each individual will have to weigh if social engineering is worth the cost of playing that bad ruleset.
Blastaar wrote: What happens if my collaborator(s) and I can't agree on everything?
Jesus Christ, you compromise! If you can't figure out a way to agree on a completely optional entertainment experience with people who actually choose to engage with you, I hate to think what your coworkers and boss must think of working with you.
Don't insult me. My point is why the should any of us need to "compromise" so frequently just to enjoy the darn game? How is this situation acceptable? Only GW and the "Games Workshop Most Amazing Hobby TM" could get away with selling such poor rules. People would be screaming bloody murder if Corvus Belli or Wyrd released a new edition so awful. Even Magic players, as cardboard-crack addicted as they are now, don't tolerate horrific mistakes like the past year of op cards that have warped formats, spiked prices and finally been banned.
I think I can safely guarantee that most younger players, who didn't start in the Battletech/Rogue Trader era or thereabouts, are unlikely to have buddies who play something as involved and obscenely expensive as 40k. Mine don't. Pickup games were all I had before I broke free of the GW ecosystem. Skirmish games, sure, that's only 10-ish minis and maybe a couple $100 if you aren't attending tournaments regularly. But $600+ armies? Fully painted? Not likely. Even in wargaming, there are some strong generational differences. That money, and time, goes to Magic, video games, and board games.
Very few people start with a $600+ fully painted army with no opponents to play. The majority of miniature games have two-player starter sets that cost roughly the same price as a board game, that gives two players an easy and obvious in. I often shoulder the cost of starter sets and play with friends, who decide to invest in the game afterwards. Actually, GW games are the only ones this doesn't work with because GW's reputation (or rather the reputation of its players) precede it. Had one person who I played Warmachine with refuse to try out 40k with me because the 40k guys in his Facebook group are all jerks. They were so odious that he was unwilling to even try - for free - the game they play.
Maybe there isn't anything wrong with wargaming, there's just something wrong with wargamers.
Sure, GW's embarrassing "I would never even think of doing that, Jervis Johnson and Robin Cruddace "those people" who built lists or otherwise twisted the rules that we wrote to do mean things-style writing is just fine, it's the player's fault for expecting a product they spent their hard-earned money on to work as-is. Incompetence is virtue.
Those 2-player starters usually contain less gameplay content or value than an actual board game of similar price. Number of dollars spent isn't the only factor, however. This is also a matter of priorities.
Magic can be as expensive, and certainly far more expensive, than 40k, but more folks my age find value in that expenditure compared with, say, a box of 10 space marines for $50 that then need assembly and painting to be ready to play in a game with shallow, dysfunctional rules. Powerful and or/rare cards usually retain the value that was spent to buy them in the first place, for one thing. Minis don't really do that. A box of marines is sold for $50, but list them on eBay and even after painting they won't sell for what you paid for said box more often than not. Some of this is also Magic culture, some if it is that Magic, despite the cost, is simply more fun to engage in than building, painting, and playing a game of CCG-style combos and hoping for 6's. Why not just play a CCG at that point?
Older gamers may be perfectly content to tolerate a poor ruleset and make adjustments, but us younger folk don't want to spend our time or our money to fix something that was broken when we bought it. Yeah, we want "competitive" games, whether at big tournaments, FNM-style events at the LGS, or just playing at home with friends. Having to adjust the ruleset every time you play a game simply isn't fun.
Jesus Christ, you compromise! If you can't figure out a way to agree on a completely optional entertainment experience with people who actually choose to engage with you, I hate to think what your coworkers and boss must think of working with you.
I know you mean well... but I will say that a good many gamer personalities have a hard time compromising and that is why the official rules are such an important thing. If the rules are solid, there is no need to compromise.
If we had to spend our time compromising with people, or politicing or social engineering as I call it, a good number of people would abandon table top games in general in favor of video games or something else that has no compromise, and you just fire it up and play by its rules. Social engineering is exhausting and in many cases not worth the hassle for the reward in the end. If you have to play a bad ruleset and constantly compromise over it to get a good experience out of it, each individual will have to weigh if social engineering is worth the cost of playing that bad ruleset.
Exactly! Needing to hold a committee before every game is a PITA, and also makes it difficult to plan lists and purchases because the rules are constantly in flux. I just want to be able to bring my toys to the table and have fun.
auticus wrote: I know you mean well... but I will say that a good many gamer personalities have a hard time compromising and that is why the official rules are such an important thing. If the rules are solid, there is no need to compromise.
How do you pick who you play and when? Do you just show up at a random store and sit around with your box of models until someone shows up willing to play you? In my circle, we have a Facebook group. When we want to play, we'll post something like "hey, I'm free on Saturday. Anyone up for a game?" Someone will go, ah, I'd love to, but I can't make it until after 2. Okay, after 2 it is, but I got to pick up my kids at 3:30, so it'll have to be a shorter game. You see what we did? We worked out when we will play - compromising as needed.
This is how I assume most people get together and play. I'm just saying, take it one step further. "Okay, after 2 works great for me. I'm thinking of trying out a Necron list I found on the internet. Be sure to bring your toughest army" or "Okay, after 2 works great for me. I'm not looking for a high pressure game. I just want to chill and roll dice. Is that cool?" One extra sentence is all it takes to set up the expectations of the game you play.
If we had to spend our time compromising with people, or politicing or social engineering as I call it, a good number of people would abandon table top games in general in favor of video games or something else that has no compromise, and you just fire it up and play by its rules.
Maybe that's not a bad thing. The game is probably better off without people who are stubborn and unwilling to engage in the human aspect of playing games. Especially when they might see the act of "compromising" as "politicing or social engineering". People aren't little plastic soldiers. You don't minmax them or tell them what to do. You don't need to manipulate them. You just ask them.
If you have to play a bad ruleset and constantly compromise over it to get a good experience out of it, each individual will have to weigh if social engineering is worth the cost of playing that bad ruleset.
I've had a wonderful time with terrible games with great friends, and I've had my worst experiences ever playing Warmachine, which was considered the kind of "tight and balanced" ruleset you seem to be advocating for. It might be time to admit that your agenda is built around playing a very specific type of miniature game, and anyone or anything which doesn't directly contribute to that, you treat as an enemy... which is probably why you encounter so much hostility from the people you play with.
How do you pick who you play and when? Do you just show up at a random store and sit around with your box of models until someone shows up willing to play you?
There are three primary ways people play here.
1) the most common. they bring their army to the store on a weekend and ask for a random game.
2) tournaments. They get paired up against who they are told they are getting paired up against.
3) my public events. they are paired up against who they are told they are getting paired up against on campaign day and during the month there is a set schedule they play against set opponents.
To your first point - yes that is reasonable and what most people do.
Now where it falls apart for some people is when someone says "i just have a casual army so not looking to play a tournament army". At that point, there are three outcomes that will happen here.
A) the opponent will agree, and tone down to what he feels is adequate enough and the other person is fine.
B) the opponent will agree, and tone down means removing like a guy and still having a tourney powered list. The opponent will not be fine, and this game will generate bad feelings.
C) the opponent will lecture the other player that he is bringing a legal list and as long as its legal that should be good enough (meaning tournament powered)
I see all three pretty much equally. There is a fourth I have seen a few times the past few months.
D) both players unload their armies. One looks at the others, realizes he's lost before beginning, concedes the game and the two play a different game. That happens in 40k and AOS only.
Just Tony wrote: The main crux is that tight and balanced rulesets can work for every type of gamer, whereas loose imbalanced rulesets only really wind up enjoyable to CAACs like Jervis Johnson or to the lunatic ROFLstompers that run the optimized power lists. Tight and balanced doesn't eliminate that WAACs, it just gives them a lesser ability to have an autopilot list.
There's no such thing as a CAAC - at the point at you do anything "at all costs", you can no longer be considered casual. You know what casual players do when the game starts to suck? They stop playing. Because the entire point of being casual is that you have low investment. How could you ever consider Jervis Johnson to be a casual player? That dude has forgotten more about game mechanics and game design than most players will ever dream to know.
The ones who insist and fight and push back against competitive play are not casual. They are every bit as hardcore as what you call WAACs, but their goals are cooperative, and thus supportive and casual-friendly. Low involvement players won't get too far in a hobby that requires hours of prep work and hundreds of dollars to play even a single game - but they can be carried by the hardcore cooperative players who smooth over the bumps and pave the way into the game. Arguably, these types of players are the most important to have, because everybody starts as a casual at first.
You are basically arguing that anything that is not expressly forbidden is expressly encouraged, and that's not a healthy way to look as a game system. Game systems are complicated and have a lot of interlocking piece. They are really a case where a butterfly flaps its wings in Brooklyn and there's a tornado in Hong Kong. The cooperative players sees this and thinks, that's not something I'd like to happen, so let's not do that. The competitive players see this and think, I wonder what would happen if I had two butterflies! I'll bet my opponent would do it.
The WAAC players fill all of Brooklyn with high powered fans pointed at Hong Kong. You can outlaw using butterflies and high powered fans, but they'd just go out and use paper fans or flap their arms really fast. Forbid that and they'll get some hummingbirds. You can't explicitly forbid every negative behavior, nor can you put an abstract ban on nebulous negative behavior. You also can't make a game system interesting enough to be worth playing that is so limited in scope that there is little room for exploitation in the first place (a world without butterflies or fans).
In short, people who want to rape the cracks in your game system will always be able to. Like rats, you'll never be able to full stop them - only slow them down. But the cost of doing this will ultimately ruin your game system and make it extremely unfun for everybody else. "Tight and balanced" is innately unfun, as a system. It is fun for competition, but for a system to be tight and balanced, it must lack breadth and depth. Tight means nothing extraneous and balanced means both sides are the same. It is impossible to make two unequal sides truly balanced. As has been mentioned, games like Go and Chess are still unbalanced just because one players gets to go first. Even if you did somehow create a completely tight and balanced game, the difference in player skill would make it such that you would only have a satisfying game playing an extremely small subset of players - the better you get, the fewer players you'd be able to have a truly competitive experience with.
Instead of worrying about tight and balancing, and chasing some unicorn into the depths of hell, just change your mindset such that these miniature games are cooperative experiences between players. Winning is a goal, not the purpose. The rules are not perfect and cannot be perfect, and thus it is up to the players, cooperatively, to create the kind of game experience the two of them would like to play. Something more narrative is fine, something more competitive is fine. The rules work for you, not vice versa. Since there is an extreme imbalance implied in playing strangers - don't do it. Spend a few minutes before each game becoming acquainted with each other, so that you are not strangers anymore. Figure out the kind of game the two of you want to experience and create some boundaries, for just the two of you, for just this singular game, to help create that experience. If you do that, then it doesn't matter if an expert and newbie both play because the boundaries you create, not the game, will make that game a worthwhile one.
"... just change your mindset" which translates roughly to CAAC. See? They do exist, but their tactic isn't break the rules to milk an advantage like the WAACs, their tactic is to bludgeon you with shame and bad feelings, so you don't have the gall to try to play competitively in their circles. Can't have that "wrongthink", after all...
Blastaar wrote:Narrative play, competitive play, whatever play- that's all fine. Really. But those are attitudes players approach the game with. There isn't anything about the present rules, particularly its poor balance, that facilitates any approach all that well.
And that's the crux of what I've been saying. A good, tight, balanced ruleset facilitates all three methods of play. Period. Slop rulesets facilitate the CAACs and the WAACs, and leave all the middle player base at their mercy.
auticus wrote:
How do you pick who you play and when? Do you just show up at a random store and sit around with your box of models until someone shows up willing to play you?
There are three primary ways people play here.
1) the most common. they bring their army to the store on a weekend and ask for a random game.
2) tournaments. They get paired up against who they are told they are getting paired up against.
3) my public events. they are paired up against who they are told they are getting paired up against on campaign day and during the month there is a set schedule they play against set opponents.
To your first point - yes that is reasonable and what most people do.
Now where it falls apart for some people is when someone says "i just have a casual army so not looking to play a tournament army". At that point, there are three outcomes that will happen here.
A) the opponent will agree, and tone down to what he feels is adequate enough and the other person is fine.
B) the opponent will agree, and tone down means removing like a guy and still having a tourney powered list. The opponent will not be fine, and this game will generate bad feelings.
C) the opponent will lecture the other player that he is bringing a legal list and as long as its legal that should be good enough (meaning tournament powered)
I see all three pretty much equally. There is a fourth I have seen a few times the past few months.
D) both players unload their armies. One looks at the others, realizes he's lost before beginning, concedes the game and the two play a different game. That happens in 40k and AOS only.
If I can't PUG with a miniatures wargame system, then it is totally useless to me.
Yeah. I used to be pretty CAAC/"forge the narrative"/"Bad rules are fine for narrative reasons."
But honestly, the best rules for narrative have the following qualities:
1) Accurately reproduce the background. 40k has basically never done this, regrettably.
2) Are balanced. Think of rules as the structural materials out of which you build your narrative - the more spongey and rotten the materials are, the less useful they are for precision architecture, and the more difficult it becomes to have a finely-crafted scenario that truly captures the background of the game.
should any of us need to "compromise" so frequently just to enjoy the darn game? How is this situation acceptable? Only 