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Playing to win is always an interesting topic for discussion between myself and gaming buddies.

My gaming buddies cover the scope of wargaming but also card gaming and video gaming.

Games are all about challenging ourselves, learning how to better ourselves, and practising for the real world. I believe that playing to win makes a "game" fun.

There is nothing I like less than someone throwing a game or giving up. How you conduct yourself in a game speaks volumes about your character as a person as well.

This topic has NOTHING to do with being a good sport or outright cheating. Please attempt to understand that important differentiation.

Here is a great article by Malcolm Gladwell that is in essence about playing to win.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true

I especially find the part about the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron Tournament interesting and directly pertinent to gaming which I will cut and paste in this section for others to read, but would encourage people to read the whole thing. For further reading on the topic you can try Sirlins: "Playing to win" http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-Becoming-David-Sirlin/dp/1411666798
Or you could go to the source and read "The Art of War" Sun Tzu

The article section:

<Start Snippet>
In 1981, a computer scientist from Stanford University named Doug Lenat entered the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament, in San Mateo, California. It was a war game. The contestants had been given several volumes of rules, well beforehand, and had been asked to design their own fleet of warships with a mythical budget of a trillion dollars. The fleets then squared off against one another in the course of a weekend. “Imagine this enormous auditorium area with tables, and at each table people are paired off,” Lenat said. “The winners go on and advance. The losers get eliminated, and the field gets smaller and smaller, and the audience gets larger and larger.”

Lenat had developed an artificial-intelligence program that he called Eurisko, and he decided to feed his program the rules of the tournament. Lenat did not give Eurisko any advice or steer the program in any particular strategic direction. He was not a war-gamer. He simply let Eurisko figure things out for itself. For about a month, for ten hours every night on a hundred computers at Xerox PARC, in Palo Alto, Eurisko ground away at the problem, until it came out with an answer. Most teams fielded some version of a traditional naval fleet—an array of ships of various sizes, each well defended against enemy attack. Eurisko thought differently. “The program came up with a strategy of spending the trillion on an astronomical number of small ships like P.T. boats, with powerful weapons but absolutely no defense and no mobility,” Lenat said. “They just sat there. Basically, if they were hit once they would sink. And what happened is that the enemy would take its shots, and every one of those shots would sink our ships. But it didn’t matter, because we had so many.” Lenat won the tournament in a runaway.

The next year, Lenat entered once more, only this time the rules had changed. Fleets could no longer just sit there. Now one of the criteria of success in battle was fleet “agility.” Eurisko went back to work. “What Eurisko did was say that if any of our ships got damaged it would sink itself—and that would raise fleet agility back up again,” Lenat said. Eurisko won again.

Eurisko was an underdog. The other gamers were people steeped in military strategy and history. They were the sort who could tell you how Wellington had outfoxed Napoleon at Waterloo, or what exactly happened at Antietam. They had been raised on Dungeons and Dragons. They were insiders. Eurisko, on the other hand, knew nothing but the rule book. It had no common sense. As Lenat points out, a human being understands the meaning of the sentences “Johnny robbed a bank. He is now serving twenty years in prison,” but Eurisko could not, because as a computer it was perfectly literal; it could not fill in the missing step—“Johnny was caught, tried, and convicted.” Eurisko was an outsider. But it was precisely that outsiderness that led to Eurisko’s victory: not knowing the conventions of the game turned out to be an advantage.

“Eurisko was exposing the fact that any finite set of rules is going to be a very incomplete approximation of reality,” Lenat explained. “What the other entrants were doing was filling in the holes in the rules with real-world, realistic answers. But Eurisko didn’t have that kind of preconception, partly because it didn’t know enough about the world.” So it found solutions that were, as Lenat freely admits, “socially horrifying”: send a thousand defenseless and immobile ships into battle; sink your own ships the moment they get damaged.

“In the beginning, everyone laughed at our fleet,” Lenat said. “It was really embarrassing. People felt sorry for us. But somewhere around the third round they stopped laughing, and some time around the fourth round they started complaining to the judges. When we won again, some people got very angry, and the tournament directors basically said that it was not really in the spirit of the tournament to have these weird computer-designed fleets winning. They said that if we entered again they would stop having the tournament. I decided the best thing to do was to graciously bow out.”

It isn’t surprising that the tournament directors found Eurisko’s strategies beyond the pale. It’s wrong to sink your own ships, they believed. And they were right. But let’s remember who made that rule: Goliath. And let’s remember why Goliath made that rule: when the world has to play on Goliath’s terms, Goliath wins.

<End Snippet>

So how does this apply to your gaming group and personally on the table top? How has this mentality helped you get better?


(edit for engrish)

I think one should be able to bring whatever list and strategy they want to a game or tournament as long as its legal.....this crap about tournament judges making people alter their lists cuz they are too strong...is just dumb....and people complaining about cheese builds...GW are the big dogs at the top that made the game...they can "fix" it anytime they want. Peoples lists shouldnt be restricted as far as people telling them unoficially what they can/cant bring....or what they do/dont want to see....GW should stop being lazy greedy money goobers.

In Magic the Gathering if a card or combo is way way way too powerful...it might get banned. Tournies or leagues dont tell you how to build your deck or what you can have in it...or what they think is unfair....cuz the Magic the Gathering people are on top of their gak....they monitor what goes on at tournaments...if something is "unfair" its banned plain and simple...

GW should do the same...IF Daemons, VC, or DE are too overpowered in general...they should stop being lazy and balance things out....so people can bring whatever list they want....without people crying about cheese, lame, and telling you what list you can play.

rules should be set in place and monitored....so they can bring whatever list/deck they want as long as its legal

By their own admission GW designers are not designing a set of rules for balanced and competitive play, so if tourney organizers want a game more along those lines they would probably need to alter GW's rules to do so (or play a different game).

As to other games it depends, some games are conscientiously designed for it, others release specialized versus/tournament platforms, other do not balance for it and tend towards certain stratagies and approaches being outright better then the other choices, so those options dominate.

Variety and Balance very rarely come together well.

Jack

Just to nip this in the bud before we get started:

If anyone comes in here and says that they don't play to win, stop lying. If you don't play to win, then you either pay to draw or to lose, and I doubt anyone here actually does either of those without a very specific set of circumstances (ie. teaching a new player, placating a partner, etc.).

brad3104 wrote:and people complaining about cheese builds...GW are the big dogs at the top that made the game...they can "fix" it anytime they want.

Not exactly true. GW's inability to make a balanced game stems from three areas:

1. Ignorance - They don't know there are problems or honestly can't see them.
2. Apathy - The ones they know about don't concern them.
3. Business Model - Their chief aim is to sell miniatures for a game they happen to write, not write a game for some miniatures they happen to make, and this is something they appear to be quite good at. If a quirk or the rules or something unintended results in an increase of sales, then that's a good thing. If a similar occurrence has an adverse effect upon sales, they'll fix it later on when they get around to re-doing the rules.

And none of these three involve any malice. The only whirring and gnashing of teeth comes from the players who want to complain that people are 'abusing' a ruleset, a ruleset written by people who don't know and/or don't care if it’s balanced. I say go with it - if it's legal, bring it. If it's a bad unit and you still like it, bring it anyway. People shouldn't complain when someone finds a killer combo in a terribly written set of rules and, worse, they shouldn't act surprised when these combos are found.

@HBMC i dont play to win , i rather play a game where its a tie because thats for me = where the excitement is at.
(evenly matched opponent )

I build my list on models i like , and of course have to be a legit list , then the rest of course i still try my best, and expect my opponent to too.

In other word the path towards the end is the fun part , the win or lose is nothing but a result.


And for the people that do everything to win , sure they win, but they already lost before they started.

Regardless of army list, playing to win does unfortunately have a huge impact on my games.

Not me, of course. I'm too casual type to play to win. I'm somewhat tired of people I play with trying to Win at all costs.

It's seriously just a game. Feel absolutely free to take 9 obliterators and a lash prince, but don't throw Feth-Bombs at me cause your dice rolled bad.

At one point, after a match, my opponent challenged me to a "who is the best Fantasy player match". To shut him up, I took Dwarves. He covered the entire board with trees (not area terrain of course, and I do mean the entire area)) I ask him about terrain set up. He states "I'm hosting, I can set up". I told him either he set up fairly or we call off the game. After beating him, he responds.

"It's not fair, your army is too good."

Too good? too good? stop B#$%^ing and deal with a loss! Dear Lord..

In some ways i have the same views as Luna. HMBC you cant say everyone plays to win...thats not right. Everyone has their own reason for playing a certain game. I'm sure theres alot of people that play Warhammer....mostly because they like the fluff and painting...and also like to take their army out for a spin here and there...to have some fun....while trying to be competitve...but not really playing for a win...by playing perfect.

For example...I play basketball. Do i play to win? nope not really. I play 50% for the exercise 25% to have something to do with my friends and 25% to do well...maybe win....ud be surprised how much fun something can be...if you just relax.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Just to nip this in the bud before we get started:

If anyone comes in here and says that they don't play to win, stop lying. If you don't play to win, then you either pay to draw or to lose, and I doubt anyone here actually does either of those without a very specific set of circumstances (ie. teaching a new player, placating a partner, etc.).

How you choose to attempt to do so and how narrowly you are focused on that aspect of the play experience is the thing though.

I personally try to build armies that contain models I like first and foremost or represent certain archetypes. I then try to formulate some strategy and/or list to use them that seems fluffy and in keeping with the spirit of the 40K universe and the army in question.

I'd much rather focus on a cool scenario/campaign and cool terrain then worry about crunching numbers and playing theorymachine. The game is a vehicle to tell an evolving story in a fictional universe/setting for me not a sport designed to crush my opponent for the sake of winning or proving myself. Do my little toys try to survive/win the fight? Sure. After all we are simulating a battle and my role is to utilize my pieces in a way that simulates this, But an equally compelling story can be told if I happen to end up playing the role of the slaughtered who fight to the last against the enemy. My toy soldiers in their roles as fictional beings in a fictional universe "lost", I didn't Lose anything really, I got to witness a cool story and see it play out. The games in which my opponent is equally drawn into bringing the 40K universe to life and telling a good tale in a sense are the ones I still remember years later...

H.B.M.C. wrote:And none of these three involve any malice. The only whirring and gnashing of teeth comes from the players who want to complain that people are 'abusing' a ruleset, a ruleset written by people who don't know and/or don't care if it’s balanced. I say go with it - if it's legal, bring it. If it's a bad unit and you still like it, bring it anyway. People shouldn't complain when someone finds a killer combo in a terribly written set of rules and, worse, they shouldn't act surprised when these combos are found.

I agree. I've gotten past the point of caring about Nob Bikers or Deathstorm drop pods, or whatever. The odds of my winning the game are so fething remote, it's not worth it to get a reputation for being fussy about opponents' lists. That's not to say I don't try to win once the game is underway, but I'm aware of the fact it's a remote possibility at best. My list building skills are pathetic, I have an unreasonable fondness for the shittiest units in the game, and I refuse to field certain things, such as non-converted vehicles (every single one I own is either modified or scratchbuilt).

So yes, the objective of any one game is to win it, for me and for everyone else, but winning games isn't the reason I bother to show up. Looking at my record, it should be obvious.

interesting topic - constantly getting pounded is pretty demoralising, and can reduce the fun of the game. Most people play a game to win (although the fun is in the trying to win). I play a mate who is really very good (doesnt play broken lists, cos he changes it every game - mixes it up), and he is very hard to beat.

I take my enjoyment from improving, and being a challenging opponent!

(ps - great snippet!).
I agree with the cool scenario and terrain improving the game too - i love cityfight, and use lots of capturing buildings and capturing objectives - makes it a bit differnt from simply gettting written off the board every game!

I see it like this:

The point of the game is to have fun.
The objective of the game is to win.

People should always be playing to win, but shouldn't get all pissed when they don't. I play Space Wolves and Lose Quite a bit, But that doesn't stop me having fun with the game.

This reminds me strongly of my experience in a game called Aetherverse. It let you design your own units, and the metagame slowly shifted towards more and more powerful troops. It reached one point where the only way to beat the powerful troops was to make powerful troops, and then 2 new army types emerged. One was made up of really weak units, 10 points each vs 200 point monstrosities, and the other was a very min/maxed unit that was about 40 points that had the same firepower of a 200 point unit, but only 2" range, and auto-die-to-anything survivability, offset by the ability to teleport deep strike.

I play to have fun. Sure, winning a game is fun, but so is loosing so long as it's competative and not a squash. I remember one of my favourite games of 5th Ed being when I had virtually tabled an opponent, but when the game ended niether of us had any scoring units left and so we had to call it a draw. He knew he couldn't win after turn three so he threw all his fire power at my troops, and I tried to stop the little Guardsmen from dying too horribly.

Fun stuff.

I think we almost always play to win, because, well, that's the aim of the game. If the only thing on your mind is winning, though, then I reckon you've just broken the most important rule, and I'll usually try and avoid playing you again. It's about fun, folks, for both sides. If the only way you get any pleasure out of the game is fielding an unpainted army designed to crush all opponents and make sure they have no hope...then you might wanna stick with video games.

I absolutely cannot stand losing.

It's a terrible character flaw I know, but I do anything to stay on top and win. I probably picked the worst army in WFB to not accomplish losing, Greenskins, as they will kill each other sooner or later, sooner probably than later.

But people enjoy my nerd raging rants. They get comedy and action.

I don't have to win, but I refuse to lose.

You should try to play on tournaments in Poland, guys
Generally polish gamers community is set on winning rather than having great fun. And if there are some prizes for top 3 places then surely you can expect things like 2x Demon Prince with Lash of Submission in most CSM rosters And situation with Fantasy Battle is even worse...
Of course those guys are very upset when i start to laugh at them and pity their powergaming efforts

Well let me just explain the 3 type of people

a) play to win , dont care who they face , win is a win.

b) play for the thrill , if the opponent is like a mirror,
then woot! FUN

c) they dont care about anything, period.

I don't particularly care if I win - it's a bonus if I do, but I play to put my painted minis on the table. I was never the most competitive person out there (that's my douchebag little brother). It's more about the story of the game than the trophies for me.

Several of my clubmates ONLY play to win - and are exceptionally bad losers. Throwing dice across the room (or miniatures) language that would make a wharfie blush (from 14 year olds). If they can't win (all scoring units gone), then they give up - the possibility of drawing the game just doesn't sit with them. Even if they still have units more than capable of contesting units.

I'd rather be a gracious loser than an ungracious winner.

chromedog wrote:I'd rather be a gracious loser than an ungracious winner.

QFT x9001

Honestly, I could care less if I win or lose. Now that doesn't mean I won't bring a good list. I very much enjoy list building and trying to come up with cool and challenging army lists and enjoy a good, competitive game that challenges me to make good tactical decisions and earn a win. However, if I win or lose, I don't really care. If I learned something new about how the list performed or what I did wrong to cause me to lose, I like to analyze it to improve my tactics or keep in mind what worked well and use it again.

All of that never comes in the way of me enjoying creating a story on the tabletop and having fun. I don't see the point of sitting across the table from someone for an hour or two just to beat them to a pulp without regard to the fact they may not be having a good time. I'm sure there are plenty of people who could care less and just want to beat anyone with their super hard list, and it's really sad. We're pushing toy soldiers across a table and rolling dice. I think some people should probably do some self reflection if it's very important for them to beat someone else with their toy soldiers at the expense of having a good time.

Well I usally play for fun so who wins is never really important,but my friend whatever we may be playing(wargames,video games,etc.)is a bad winner.He will get up in my face,shouts swear words,does disturbing hip thrusts and genrally just is a total *^$@*!$#$ for the rest of the afternoon.

LunaHound wrote:HBMC i dont play to win

So at no point do you try to win any game you play? If your answer to this is yes, you are a unique human being... or a communist.

Alternativley, see the quote from Gwar below. He got the point across quite well (better than I did):

Gwar! wrote:The point of the game is to have fun.
The objective of the game is to win.

People should always be playing to win, but shouldn't get all pissed when they don't. I play Space Wolves and Lose Quite a bit, But that doesn't stop me having fun with the game.

That's probably a better way of putting it than I did.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

LunaHound wrote:HBMC i dont play to win

So at no point do you try to win any game you play? If your answer to this is yes, you are a unique human being... or a communist.

Alternativley, see the quote from Gwar below. He got the point across quite well (better than I did):

Gwar! wrote:The point of the game is to have fun.
The objective of the game is to win.

People should always be playing to win, but shouldn't get all pissed when they don't. I play Space Wolves and Lose Quite a bit, But that doesn't stop me having fun with the game.

That's probably a better way of putting it than I did.

Damnit HBMC You're meant to say "Gwar! is 100% Right" ;(

But yes, I agree. It's impossible not to play "to win" because the whole objective of the game is to win. If you don't play to win (i.e Playing to lose)you are effectively denying your opponent the right to a fun game.

It all comes down to this simple distinction:

How you answer the question "Why do you play?". I've found that, when gaming, even if I don't have a chance in the world to win, I'll still give my opposition a run for their money, or do my damnedest to do so. Prime example, in my case: I enjoy FPS games for consoles, they're simple, don't require too much thought, and they're a good diversion for a few hours, and I especially enjoy pitting myself against my friends.

However, there's a bit of a snag...

I have mild cerebral palsy in the right half of my body. This makes actually manipulating a controller a bit of a task at times, and responding with lightning reflexes without re-mapping the controls and then having to relearn how to play the game as a result. Physical handicap or no, I'll get in a few games with my friends, some rounds I'll go on an ungodly spree and come in first or second, others will end up with my hand not wanting to cooperate, and I'll end up in dead last, with no kills. It doesn't bother me. I play this game because I enjoy it, and I enjoy the various aspects of it outside of the game itself. I play video games because I find them to be a nice way to spend a bit of free time and blow off some steam.

It's a game. If you feel the need to take up a hobby for the purpose of "winning" you need to look at your priorities.

You try to win in order to better yourself. It's a motivator for personal improvement, and nothing to be ashamed of or looked down on unless it's coupled with unsportsmanlike behavior.

With that out of the way, the crux of the argument for the original post is that games (and other things like war) have rules - some deliberate and some unspoken. When playing to win, you are very likely to trample through many of the unspoken rules if you either do not agree with them or are not aware of them. This is a fault of the game and not the players (yes even in the war scenarios).

So the article is really more about bad games, and how motivated players will expose them as such.

Well, the OP's article raises an interesting point, which is that most games really are about winning, but they're about winning a certain way, or be accomplishing a certain goal. In the Fleet sim described, the goal wasn't to create the best theoretically possible fleet, it was to create the best practical fleet. Hundreds of small PT boats might win an engagment, but will be of little use in patrols, bombardments, riding out storms on the high seas, etc. In addition, attrition and casualties have an impact, both in terms of home front morale and the loss of talent. There were no rules for that in the game set, and so a player that had no concern for the unwritten but generally accepted rules would have a huge advantage: they can use the rules as rules and exploit it.

From what I've read, that was in many ways what Rogue Trader and to a lesser extent 2nd edition 40k was like. There were so many options that the only real thing holding back bizarre yet powerful combos were the taboos placed on them.

Modern 40k (and BTW, we really need a term for 40k since 3rd edition) has tighter codices, a force org chart, and now mission based incentive to include troops. They replaced the old, unwritten rules of "you're army should look like a representative force from the 40k universe" to now requiring that any legal, list conform at least slightly to the background. I now don't feel pressured to not include four librarians in my marine army, I just can't do it.

What does any of this have to do with playing to win? Well, playing to win usually involves trying to win, which means doing things that maybe aren't allowed under the unwritten rules. Not all taboos are as strong, and when the incentive is high (like mixing slaanesh and nurgle in an army) it becomes easier to violate those taboos.

I think in general there are many levels of playing to win:
Cheater: this guy will simply cheat to win.

WAAC: This guy will not cheat, but will do anything legally possible to win. Chipmunking, stalling, arguing rules, and constantly checking LOS are all legal, yet really annoying ways to play.

Big Dog: This guy won't be a jerk, but wants to win and won't be afraid to pull out an obscure rule or a wicked army combination to do it. It's hard to really hate the guy, because he's playing fair, but playing hard. Don't expect much in the way of being able to go back and shoot forgotten units (unless the Big Dog thinks being owed a courtesy is valuable to him).

Little Dog: This where most of us are. We want to win, when tensions rise we'll play a little tighter, but most of the time we're pretty loose and fun. We'll allow a take back or a forgotten reserve and generally give the benefit of the doubt on things like LOS, blast coverage, cover, etc.

The Nice Guy: This person wants to win, but wants to have fun more than anything. He'll buy you a coke while you're taking your moves, won't question rules, and in general seems willing to go with the flow. Be wary: this persona often conceals a brilliant tactical mind. Extra caution: Nice guys aren't chumps, and if you try to pull something on the wrong one, he'll remember it forever. Many Nice Guys, particularly those that used to be Big Dogs, can adopt that persona again when required.

The Chump: it's insulting, but it's the player that really is just there to move models and roll dice. They either have little knowledge of how to play hard, or choose not to. While a fun opponent in an scenario based mission, he's really not build for any sort of competitive gaming. The best of them will accept a handicap and try to give an opponent a run for their money. The worst will whine when they get stomped again and again.

Anyway, the most successful competitive gamers aren't the WAAC jerks, they're the big dogs that play hard, play fair, but still treat their opponents with respect and dignity.

"It's ooonly a game soooo put up a real good fight, we're gonna be snookering you, snookering you tonight!" God I loved that show It's a given that people play to win in any game, it's just human nature and playing to lose is boring for everyone.

GW games are imbalanced, much like MMORPG's they suffer massivley from power creep and FOTM gaming. Attempts to balance introduce new power swings and around we go again. No-ones perfect and if they have any sense they are not trying to be, a nerf/buff cycle promotes new armies which means more money.

This means that quite a few lists will auto-win against other lists assuming reasonabley skilled generals. So the real competition is in the metagame of working out what the overpowered options are, which ones trump each other and building a list that can trump as many as possible. Then going out and not fething it up.

Personally I cannot afford in time or money to keep up so I buy models I like and tweak them to the metagame as much as I can within the resctrictions of what I have. Ideally though I play in a local club with themed lists in a storyline campaign that has a games master (RPG style), that is the most fun with 40k for me GW should just bring the GM back into the fold like rogue trader days *sigh*

Polonius wrote:Well, the OP's article raises an interesting point, which is that most games really are about winning, but they're about winning a certain way, or be accomplishing a certain goal. In the Fleet sim described, the goal wasn't to create the best theoretically possible fleet, it was to create the best practical fleet. Hundreds of small PT boats might win an engagment, but will be of little use in patrols, bombardments, riding out storms on the high seas, etc.

*Traveller player pipes in* The issue wasn't that there were lots of Battleriders (What you are calling PT boats). Fleets of battleriders carried into battle by a bigger ship to get more of the big guns are part of the traveller canon

Granted, most TCS tourneys now have a pilot number limit and a jump/maneuver rating min now because of that

I'm a competitor. I strive to defeat my opponent, and expect the same of him.

It's most fun to win a difficult game. Next is losing a difficult game. Way down there is a game that isn't a competition (either way), and way below even that is argueing about the game.

BeefyG wrote:

I especially find the part about the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron Tournament interesting and directly pertinent to gaming which I will cut and paste in this section for others to read, but would encourage people to read the whole thing. For further reading on the topic you can try Sirlins: "Playing to win" http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-Becoming-David-Sirlin/dp/1411666798
Or you could go to the source and read "The Art of War" Sun Tzu

From that link I got this quote:

Next is the tough section that's hard for people to swallow. The #1 thing holding back most players is purely mental. You must shed all the rules and limitations that exist in your head about how to play, and instead start using all legal moves available to you to win. You must also give up the ridiculous notion that other players should abide by the made-up rules in your head.

This is what I lot of people have trouble with. I know I do.

I agree Blackmoor, sometimes I think you somewhat hold yourself back with some of your lists. I do it with some of my lists.

I play to win, I wont deny it but I want a challenging win and prefer to play quality players like Blackmoor.