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Blackmoor wrote:
If you have cheating gits, they will just manipulate the sportsmanship system. For example: they make a deal with their opponents to give them the maximum sportsmanship score if they return the favor.

That was basically the status quo for years. People would fill out their forms in front of each other showing that they were both getting 10's. The checklist was a big improvement because you knew you couldn't get chipmunked but then if a guy was a pain in the ass to play you could only give him an 8 out of 10.

In the first year of Vegas GT Fat Peter from Toledo was just off the charts with the dick headed maneuvers, arguing for and against the same thing at different points in the same game, placing hills on top of crater templates, you name it he was probably doing it at some point that weekend. I watched two of his games at the next table over where I was just speechless at how much of a douche he was being, I can in all serious testify in a court of law about this day, it is seared in my brain.

He got a 27 out of 50 for Sports in that tournament!!!!!!!!! Edit: I should explain a bit. Many players who witnessed his behavior predicted he would get a 15, 10 or even a 0. Surely not more than 20. However apparently only one or two players did so and he played a tournament vet in round 5 who wouldn't let him get away with anything and they probably just gave each other 10's.

Sportsmanship scores as part of your overall score is to me unfair. I'm a decent guy to play, I like to have some fun and I'm not rude or disrespectful. I feel like I'm the average kind of guy when it comes to sports. And we are at a disadvantage to people who schmooze for good scores. There is a whole skill set that some very social people use to subtly get their opponents into giving them full sports. I don't want the overall award to have an element of "how well do you make people like you in 2 hours".

I don't care if someone is not fun to play. I just want to play some good games regardless of my opponents mood. If you have a guy like the one I described above you just remove him from the tournament after game 2.

Shinkaze wrote:
Sportsmanship scores as part of your overall score is to me unfair. I'm a decent guy to play, I like to have some fun and I'm not rude or disrespectful. I feel like I'm the average kind of guy when it comes to sports. And we are at a disadvantage to people who schmooze for good scores. There is a whole skill set that some very social people use to subtly get their opponents into giving them full sports. I don't want the overall award to have an element of "how well do you make people like you in 2 hours".

I don't care if someone is not fun to play. I just want to play some good games regardless of my opponents mood. If you have a guy like the one I described above you just remove him from the tournament after game 2.

That is my main complaint about sportsmanship. If you are a decent guy, playing a good game of 40k, why should you score a lot less than a guy who is good at schmoozing?

You can work on your paint scores and your comp, but should you have to work on your stand up routine to get a good sports score?

RxGhost wrote:I run tournaments fairly regularly, and we include: comp, sportsmanship, painting/presentation, etc. and we never have a problem with it.

Wanna know the secret? We give out different prizes for different categories. That's right, I don't care how 'broken' you or the other players think your list is (as long as it's legal) it won't hurt your battle score...don't expect to with the comp prize at the end of the day though with your 3 Rune Priest, and six 5xGrey Hunter w/Razorback spam list.

Are you an excellent painter but a terrible player!? I don't care, one has no impact on the other, thus they are graded in different ways with different rubrics. You paint better, you get painting prize! You play better, you get playing prize! Not the biggest a-hole!? YOU GET SPORTSMANSHIP PRIZE!!!!!!

Ahhh, life is so simple and sweet.


Edit: Fixin' mah grammars.

I wish I lived close to these tournaments, they sound perfect.

Taken from another thread...

Shinkaze wrote:sportsmanship(whether I am or am not someone you like to play)?

That's the rub. What you mentioned (Whether I am or am not someone you like to play) also has nothing to do with actual sportsmanship. Unfortunately, that is how it is used, so you have people that are a little shy, play with a different style army than you like/use, or different rules interpretations getting marked down when none of that has to do with actual sportsmanship.

Actual sportsmanship is not cheating, not gloating when winning/getting upset when losing, having an army list/supplies available, being consistant with die rolling and rules, and similar things.

Edit - If you are going to score sports, I would say a pass/fail system, and having to give a valid reason for the fail. (rules arguments and power level of the army are NOT valid reasons).

Blackmoor wrote:

That is my main complaint about sportsmanship. If you are a decent guy, playing a good game of 40k, why should you score a lot less than a guy who is good at schmoozing?

You can work on your paint scores and your comp, but should you have to work on your stand up routine to get a good sports score?

I've only been to a couple of events with sportsmanship (never GT level) and each time, I feel like I have to smile the whole game, let things slide, let little rules violations go unchallenged, grin while my opponent moves 7" on 6" moves....all because I don't want to get tanked for sportsmanship.

Like this analogy or don't: I'm a West Point graduate, and to my dying day, the phrase, "A cadet shall not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do" will be ingrained in my head.

Sportsmanship scores at tournaments are like enforced tolerance of shenanigans.

I don't know. I always give peole the score I think they deserve. You are a chump if you don't.

G

RxGhost wrote:Wanna know the secret? We give out different prizes for different categories. That's right, I don't care how 'broken' you or the other players think your list is (as long as it's legal) it won't hurt your battle score...don't expect to with the comp prize at the end of the day though with your 3 Rune Priest, and six 5xGrey Hunter w/Razorback spam list.

Are you an excellent painter but a terrible player!? I don't care, one has no impact on the other, thus they are graded in different ways with different rubrics. You paint better, you get painting prize! You play better, you get playing prize! Not the biggest a-hole!? YOU GET SPORTSMANSHIP PRIZE!!!!!!

This...makes...too...MUCH...SENSE!!!! NYAARRRGLLL

That does make sense. I do think it should be on the shoulders of impartial observers to rate that kind of thing though. You don't get to assign your opponent his painting score, because it's very subjective. Winning a game is a lot more of an objective and obvious way of scoring. Army list judgements are also very subjective, you don't want to obviously powergame your codex but at the same time you do want it to have an edge to it. How do they score that?

(I have only ever played at one store tournament, never anything big like adepticon or games day, so my experience is limited about how players get so competetive and underhanded about these points things. Maybe I'm too naive, or maybe I'm just not a jerk?)

(I scored well on sportsmanship though! maybe because I wasn't really worried about it? I wasn't really worried about my score in general I was just there to play. That's actually the only thing I scored high on because I'm kind of unconventional with painting and my play is good but not great, and I can't remember the rules differences from edition to edition because I'm a forgetful kind of guy).

Anyhoo back to the point, wouldn't it solve the whole competative scoring about sportsmanship if it was just judged by 3rd parties, instead of players scoring each other?

Gornall wrote:

Zomro wrote:Pointing out a wrongly played rule does not make you a bad sportsman, it's how you act while doing it.

Still will probably get you marked down on sportsmanship, though. Unless the judges do take the time and effort to police all the scores, if you play a TFG, yeah you can hit his score, but he's also dropping yours, so nothing is solved. It just gives TFG a way to mess with your tournament experience beyond the fact that you had to put up with him for two hours. If the judges are policing scores, couldn't that time be better spent just policing players in general and looking for TFG anyway?

I guess one of my big problems with sportsmanship scores is that it can negatively impact regular guys just as bad as it can TFGs. At best, by the time you mark down sports after the game, TFG has already ruined that game for you. I'd just rather the judge come over and tell him to knock it off so I can possibly salvage a decent game out of it.

Mayhaps we're coming from the wrong perspective.

Sportsmanship, in general is a tool attempting to maintain or modify bad behavior or make the game more enjoyable for both players. Can we agree on that?
-Now lets back up from the tool. How can we maintain or modify bad behavior or make the game more enjoyable for both players. As noted here or another thread, I've quit GW tournament play as I run into too much bad personal behavior that creates unenjoyable games that ruin the whole day, and I have a 100 other things I can do than playing some loser that ruins my day.

How can that be improved? These guys:
-The TFG
-The Lump who sits and grunts
-The Guy Who Knows No Rules (Basic rules, like his own codex, not miniutia or items that perople have to discuss)
-The general er

Frazzled wrote: Sportsmanship, in general is a tool attempting to maintain or modify bad behavior or make the game more enjoyable for both players. Can we agree on that?

I agree that is the goal. I just don't know how much of a real deterence factor it has, TBH. Yeah, you can punish TFG after the fact (but he can also nail you too), but I don't know if it really PREVENTS bad behavior. From what I've seen, TFG is going to be TFG, sportsmanship or not. That is just purely my opinion, though.... it and $3 might buy you a gallon of gas.

Gornall wrote:

Frazzled wrote: Sportsmanship, in general is a tool attempting to maintain or modify bad behavior or make the game more enjoyable for both players. Can we agree on that?

I agree that is the goal. I just don't know how much of a real deterence factor it has, TBH. Yeah, you can punish TFG after the fact (but he can also nail you too), but I don't know if it really PREVENTS bad behavior. From what I've seen, TFG is going to be TFG, sportsmanship or not. That is just purely my opinion, though.... it and $3 might buy you a gallon of gas.

Thats why I am suggesting, step back adn think about how to address that. Thoughts?

In many areas, there aren't enough players around to support win-at-all-cost type tournaments.

Without a way to tone down bad behavior and keep from alienating folks who don't want to deal with jerks, a tournament organizer won't have a big enough population of players to draw from to fill an event.

As long as people's definition of 'jerk' is 'anyone who doesn't play like me', there's going to be issues with sports scores.

jshbchnn wrote:In many areas, there aren't enough players around to support win-at-all-cost type tournaments.

Without a way to tone down bad behavior and keep from alienating folks who don't want to deal with jerks, a tournament organizer won't have a big enough population of players to draw from to fill an event.

Nor should they. Who wants to play with a jerk?


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skyth wrote:As long as people's definition of 'jerk' is 'anyone who doesn't play like me', there's going to be issues with sports scores.

Strawman. you and I both know there are lots of jerks. If you don't know about the jerks then maybe...

I think Mannahnin's idea no.3 is the best.

It is simple.

It identifies problem characters.

If someone hands out five 'noes' in one event, they are probably a problem character themself and should be investigated.

There is not perfect system and the judges should attempt to review and make final decisions on any results through up by a numerical system.

jshbchnn wrote:In many areas, there aren't enough players around to support win-at-all-cost type tournaments.

Without a way to tone down bad behavior and keep from alienating folks who don't want to deal with jerks, a tournament organizer won't have a big enough population of players to draw from to fill an event.

This.

skyth wrote:As long as people's definition of 'jerk' is 'anyone who doesn't play like me', there's going to be issues with sports scores.

Hey we're all social people here, otherwise we wouldn't be typing on-line for conversation, right? Um... okay bad example. You can tell when you meet TFG when he's argumentative, socially backward, and WAAAY to into needing to win. Bitching about dice, making micromeasurements for LOS (except for when their interest is at stake) and how much time the other guy takes is generally a bad score IMO. I had a wolf player at the store I used to game at who claimed LOS on his turn, and wanted me to measure it on mine, from the same friggin model... Besides that it was LOS on the feathers on the Autarch's head he was using a laser pointer he was that anal. Now that's just plain dumb. I let him take his shot but he didn't let me take mine without using his laser pointer. Okay that is just a jerk. That's not the rules being interpreted differently, it's just a jerk. I didn't mind him taking his shot he thought he had at my Autarch, but he quarrelled about my Autarch's shot (it was a reaper cannon so kind of I felt bad for taking it because it kills stuff easy, and then the whole game would be won-or-lost based on that one call)... but that kind of assholery and blatant micromeasurement (only when it serves your purpose) is what the sporty laws are for.

I heard at gencon once, when I asked for directions... "just go that way, you can smell the wargamer room" or something along those lines.

Truthfully, I think a turn time limit that forced games to finish correctly in 5-7 turns (and enough referees to prevent players from stalling games on opponents turns) would do more to make games fair and fun than any sportsmanship score. But of course, nothing is more annoying to me than stalling to hope for a turn 4 win.

When people play most sports in a competitive environment, there are judges/referees/whatever right there watching the whole game, deciding every rules dispute, etc. They also keep the game moving, but the games aren't typically time limited in a way one player or team can stall anyway.

Even then, there are sportsmanship rules - technical fouls, red cards, ejections or forfeits, etc for particularly egregious violations...but these are all handled by the referee.

With a 40k tournament (and many other game tournaments) this is not the case. It would be pretty difficult to have a trained judge for every table, along with a head referee, etc. But it wouldn't be hard to have a universal turn timer for every game.

Sportsmanship scores are fine in theory, but in reality they're just another way for jerks to cheat. If they were completely handled by the referee at the table (-1 point, swearing at your opponents, -1 point, arguing a rule after the judges decision, blah blah) then it would be fine, it would be like penalties in any other game.

You could expect the players to call over the ref every time they want to report a sportsmanship complaint - have a special sportsmanship ref, and just write it down and signal the referee to come over - or you could do what was mentioned elsewhere in the thread and expect everyone to get 10's in sportsmanship, and discuss with players any time someone doesn't, and reserve the right to reset the score to 10 if their reasons for docking points aren't good enough or are disputed.

All of this is just ironing out kinks though, and don't solve all problems with sports. I will say though, to say there is "no evidence" that it is needed is a little unfair - where is the evidence that it isn't needed? No one has any evidence for anything through their own anecdotal experiences. Some people are nice enough that they easily diffuse jerks, while others, without being jerks themselves, set the jerks off. Some people are or appear easily bullied, so the bully in the opponent comes out, while other people don't have that problem ever because of their physical or social stature. That doesn't make it not a problem, just not one you see.

Frazzled wrote:

skyth wrote:As long as people's definition of 'jerk' is 'anyone who doesn't play like me', there's going to be issues with sports scores.

Strawman. you and I both know there are lots of jerks. If you don't know about the jerks then maybe...

It's not a strawman. I've seen too many people refered to as jerks because of what army they play.

Frazzled wrote:Thats why I am suggesting, step back adn think about how to address that. Thoughts?

I'm not too proud to admit that I honestly don't know how to prevent TFG from wanting to show up. Maybe kick the person with the lowest sportsmanship score in the junk at the end of the tournament?

lambadomy wrote:Truthfully, I think a turn time limit that forced games to finish correctly in 5-7 turns (and enough referees to prevent players from stalling games on opponents turns) would do more to make games fair and fun than any sportsmanship score. But of course, nothing is more annoying to me than stalling to hope for a turn 4 win.

I have a problem with this.

I play mechanized orks.

Turn1 move phase: 2 minutes. Turn1 shoot phase: 5 minutes. Turn1 assault phase: 10 seconds.
Turn2 move phase: 20 minutes. Turn2 shoot phase: 20-30 minutes. Turn2 assault phase: 30 minutes.
Turn3 move phase: 2 minutes. Turn3 shoot phase: 2 minutes. Turn3 assault phase: 10 minutes.

My 40k games are 1-2 turns of maneuvering, 1 turn of solid krumping, and 1-2 turns of cleanup afterwards.

Am I going to be denied my Waaaugh! and assault because its the most time-consuming event in the game?

If everyone just gave everyone a 10 then no problem. So why bother in the first place. If I get points knocked off for saying a naughty word, by someone who wasn't actually offended, just given an excuse to act so to knock my score down, I would be kind of mad enough to use another dirty word, y'know? A lot of that has to do with the age and parental control of some of the younger players, and the store ref's wanting to put on a good face... but if I say "bullsh!t" to a 35 year old I really don't expect him to report me for naughty language. Some of them might though just to up their relative score by lowering mine. fork shoot piz arse etc kind of doesn't matter unless parents are around, where we all play without our explatives. You all know what "sh!t" means, is it really worth docking a point? Of course, I smoke cigs too and go for a smoke break between turns, and have a drink before the game, which some mormons or whatever might be offended by, (why are rich suburbanites with xtian values always the most uptight? never mind... stupid question... it's the gamer breeding ground...) is that a point taken too for all those 'offenses'?

The main thing I like about the sports score is that it cuts down on whining. I've realized that that's what I really like about tournaments as compared to casual play. Your opponent isn't there making you feel sorry about their dice rolls or your new codex or whatever. You just play the game and fight to win. I'm willing to take my chances with somebody hitting my scores in order to enjoy myself more, so I'm all for sports scores even if it means that the best (or luckiest) person may not win the tournament. I'm willing to lose a few points on my less than golden demon painted army in order to get to play against beautifully painted armies too.

In the end, its about culture. Red cards can help create a culture of good sportsmanship, scoring can do it too. In a perfect world innate good manners and honor would do it, but we don't live in that world.

I think some guidelines on what constitutes good sportsmanship is advisable, as most people will want to score accurately but may have different ideas about what is OK.

I would join the chorus in saying that separate prizes is probably a good idea.

The idea that judges should "referee" sportsmanship is ridiculous, IMHO. Barring blatant cheating and misbehavior, how do they really know what is going on without watching your entire game?

but some of us do play with innate good manners and honor... and lose sometimes and win sometimes, based on an arbitrary score policy or win sometimes based on the lack of it. You are right sir, that it puts a 'niceguy' factor into the game, but even that just ends up getting spun and used by the competative crazies... arguing for points about not being argumentative is not very constructive and it does create that controversy that the score exists in the first place. This is not, never has been, and never will be, an exact game... so even having prizes in the first place makes people into gladiators of the mind, all trying to out-do each other but none of them have the balls to just play chess (or poker ) to hash out who is really better... they sit and argue and whoever argues best wins... yay.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think it is because of that element that a sportsmanship award (or probably penalty in many cases) serves well in the 'overall' category... can you paint? can you win? can you design a good army? can you NOT BE A DICK? yeah that last question would knock off a lot of 40k players from the finals.... but the nature of the game is to be competetive, so we can pat all the nidzilla list guys, or fish-o-fury guys on the head with the fondness of a parent of a slowed child.

They should just turn it around and award sportsmanship points to whoever doesn't have to argue so much about sportsmanship points... or during the game. It might actually make sense then.

anybody here ever won a Dungeons And Dragons tournament? How the heckll do you win a dnd 'tournament'? What you played the best 'stupid fighter' role? scoring on certain things just seems dumb. My shricats shoot 12" and get 2 shots, and come with my sidekick scatterlaser... that's all I know. I prefer to keep the game pure in that way. That's why these scores are taken into account.

Guitardian wrote:If everyone just gave everyone a 10 then no problem. So why bother in the first place. If I get points knocked off for saying a naughty word, by someone who wasn't actually offended, just given an excuse to act so to knock my score down, I would be kind of mad enough to use another dirty word, y'know? A lot of that has to do with the age and parental control of some of the younger players, and the store ref's wanting to put on a good face... but if I say "bullsh!t" to a 35 year old I really don't expect him to report me for naughty language. Some of them might though just to up their relative score by lowering mine. fork shoot piz arse etc kind of doesn't matter unless parents are around, where we all play without our explatives. You all know what "sh!t" means, is it really worth docking a point? Of course, I smoke cigs too and go for a smoke break between turns, and have a drink before the game, which some mormons or whatever might be offended by, (why are rich suburbanites with xtian values always the most uptight? never mind... stupid question... it's the gamer breeding ground...) is that a point taken too for all those 'offenses'?

Maturity also means, you know acting mature. We usually get out of the "look I'm old enough to [insert whatever here] aren't I matuurrreee" thing out when we hit adulthood. Its just sad after that.

You know if you're a disgusting human being I wouldn't be around in Real Life why would I want to be around you in a tournament? If you don't dress or act appropriately then you're out on your ass in any other tournament. GW tournies should be the same.

@Dashofpepper

good point, but nothing says that every turn has to have the same length, or that there can't be ways of breaking up the time limits or having extra time post game for slower games to finish up. A universal clock probably won't work in general, because every turn is different and some people play slower or faster and you'd have a lot of wasted time if people had to wait for the clock. Maybe everyone gets a chess clock and each player gets an hour on their clock, and if you run out of time and your opponent doesn't you're penalized in some way. But an hour for one turn is a long time regardless of what army you're playing.

@frazzled

Oh please, we've all been on a playground before. It's not as if hearing that word that fat smelly guy in the gamer store changed your life. playgrounds happen. I dont think it should be worth a point.... oh yeah, bud... thanks for calling me immature. I take it as a compliment.

I am so bringing a chess clock to my next tournament... I'm actually fairly slow in playing, so it'll hopefully make me play faster.

I wanna just show up with a chess set personally and say "that's right b!tchazz! How you like me now! Nobody cares if your a good sssssport or whatever any more can ya beat me?"

APPOLOGIES FOR APPROXIMATED LINGUISTIC BIT

Dashofpepper wrote:

lambadomy wrote:Truthfully, I think a turn time limit that forced games to finish correctly in 5-7 turns (and enough referees to prevent players from stalling games on opponents turns) would do more to make games fair and fun than any sportsmanship score. But of course, nothing is more annoying to me than stalling to hope for a turn 4 win.

I have a problem with this.

I play mechanized orks.

Turn1 move phase: 2 minutes. Turn1 shoot phase: 5 minutes. Turn1 assault phase: 10 seconds.
Turn2 move phase: 20 minutes. Turn2 shoot phase: 20-30 minutes. Turn2 assault phase: 30 minutes.
Turn3 move phase: 2 minutes. Turn3 shoot phase: 2 minutes. Turn3 assault phase: 10 minutes.

My 40k games are 1-2 turns of maneuvering, 1 turn of solid krumping, and 1-2 turns of cleanup afterwards.

Am I going to be denied my Waaaugh! and assault because its the most time-consuming event in the game?

If you used a chess clock you'd have half the game to make your moves. So in a 2 1/2 hour tournament game you'd have 1 hour and 15 minutes to take your turns and your oppenant would have 1 hour and 15 minutes to take his.

Dash- I don't know if you've ever been slow played but it is one of the worst game experiances out there IMO. 2 years ago in 'ard boys I only got through 2 1/2 turns with a Necron player due to slow play and I was playing Mech Tau!

By having a chess clock you'd be able to show someone that they've taken between 70-80% of the game's time on their turns.