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Yes, it would be nice to think that the other guy's a big meanie and even though he's much better at this hobby than you are, you're lots better in many other ways, so in fact you can maintain your sense of self worth.

But you must realize what a jaskazz it makes you sound that you'd think you could make statements about peoples social skills by reading their thoughts on how to interpret an ambiguous rule. Bravo.

But don't worry, if I ever have the displeasure of playing you, I'll do my best to not only grind you into dust, but make sure to confirm your notions of what a dick people like me are. It's a win/win that way.

Some of the people who frequent this forum are out to win at all costs, so social interaction is out the door for them, other than having another victim to trash time and time again.

Baseless speculation. You now have to prove it.

I could easily say folks like yourself are more into cheating via "common sense" approach, by not wanting to follow the rules...

Posted By Raider on 04/03/2006 4:33 PM

Well, kidding aside, have you ever considered that aspects of the game that seem to be its major flaws, might be an essential part of the overall fun?

In soccer its easily possible to use ingame-video instead of real judges for the important games. But its not done, even though the masses often loudly complain about wrong decisions (by imperfect human judges). I think its not the strong judge-lobby that has prevented video-judgement by now. IMO its the fact that these real judges add a lot of drama to the game, which maintains strong emotions in the audiance, which again keep the game interesting and give fodder to discussions among friends.

So honestly I dont think its only about smartasses. Its about emotion and battle of whitts and about having something interesting to talk about.

The social aspect of WH40k seems to be an important factor to its success. Maybe part of this success are ambiguous rules?

 

The social aspects are important but I don't think the kind of drama that poor rules creates really enhances the game.  There's enough drama from the randomness of the dice rolls.  The stories of a lone grot who manages to beat a terminator in hth.  The invincible Wraith Lord with 1 wound left that lasts for 3 rounds against 2 veteran sgts with power fists, only to grab the Chaplain from your opponents command squad and crush him utterly with his final attack, rendering the remainder of his retinue a non-scoring units, and grabbing you the tie, or the victory.

 

The difference between the rules and the dice are this.  When people get hosed by the dice, they are a nameless entity.  When people get hosed by the rules, it's not blameless.  Either their opponent is exploiting vague or unclear rules, or the rules just didn't make any sense at all.  People may be upset at a particularly unlucky roll, but they will still come back for more and smile all the brighter when their luck eventually changes.  That's like the good drama, the kind that comes when no one is to blame other than just plain dumb luck and no one is hurt in the end.  The bad drama comes from situations that really upset people, turn friends or even complete strangers into bitter enemies, and sour them completely to the game, like reality TV shows.

Posted By skyfyre on 03/31/2006 4:17 PM

All it would take in the case of the biker invulnerable save vs. psy cannon is changing *one* sentence to read "A turboboosting bike GAINS an invulnerable save equal to their armor save..." to resolve the issue. 

Or better still: "Also, a psycannon negates any save to turboboosting bikes. Its psychic loaded ammo interferes in the concentration of the driver making more vulnerable to the weapon when he's driving so fast" 

I remember when I used to play online chess the extremely violent comments some opponents made via the chat line while losing.

"But don't worry, if I ever have the displeasure of playing you, I'll do my best to not only grind you into dust, but make sure to confirm your notions of what a dick people like me are. It's a win/win that way. "

I am such a lucky person!

But that's what you want isn't it? The idea that someone could politely dominate you in such a meaningless pursuit that we've all invested so much time in is more than you can bear, so it's important that you find a way to cast the other person in a bad light so that you can mitigate your failure. It can't be your lack of skill at a child's game. It must be the other guy or something he's doing, right?

So I'm doing it for you sir, not me. Your feelings are important to me. Anything else I can do to enhance or maintain your self esteem, you just let me know.

This is a game that takes two people to play. We should treat our opponents with courtesy and respect. This applies at the highest level of any competition, no matter the whatever the odds. No one enjoys playing people that want you to remove your wounded models as fast as possible so they can kill more O your army. It is hard for some of us to deal with players that only come to the table to win at all costs... i.e., uber competitive to the nth degree. On that note there are a lot of very good players with some extremely nasty army lists. No one army list or person can win every game. Dice rolls are one of the differences between chess and 40k, which is part of the excitement. Missions and terrain are two more differences. I suppose if you can beat another player the majority of the time then you are better. One game doesn't mean much though. If someone keeps beating you that does not necessarily mean you should blame the other person. It could well be that they are just plain better no matter how you slice it and that is not their fault. But if you can have a good time then that there is something to be said to that. I used to know one player that would spray paint his RT Marines whatever color for the Chapter he wanted to play... e.g., blue for Ultramarines, green for Dark Angels, black for Ravenguard. He never won that often but he was always a blast to play and that was cool. Back to the original premise of this thread... saying that there does exist ambigous (sp?) rules is proof that RAW does not always offer a remedy to these unfortunate situations. We can knock GW all we want but we still have to deal with it... and how we deal with it says a lot about our character.

This is a game that takes two people to play. We should treat our opponents with courtesy and respect

That alsop applies in reverse. Ifyour going to use "common sense" over what the actual rules say, how much aof a chump does that make you?

You assume that folks come to the table to "win at all costs", where as we just want to play within the rules, sans crazy loopholes or folks trying to interject "common sense" or fluff into the game.

"Maybe, just maybe, it could turn out to be the proverbial straw that gets them to hire the talent they need to support this game." By me in reference to why I would like to see mauleed's letter to GW get finished and sent to them.

@ Bloody t: "It takes some major conjones to make such a statement... or sheer stupidity.

Please explain my stupidity.

 

MOD EDIT: Watch the language.

I remember when I used to play online chess the extremely violent comments some opponents made via the chat line while losing.

But that was down to sportsmanship, not some rules issue where the rules say you can take a piece in any square, but then goes onto define the board as made up of spaces.

The 40K rules do that. Chess doesn't.

BYE

Yes, it would be nice to think that the other guy's a big meanie and even though he's much better at this hobby than you are, you're lots better in many other ways, so in fact you can maintain your sense of self worth.

But you must realize what a jaskazz it makes you sound that you'd think you could make statements about peoples social skills by reading their thoughts on how to interpret an ambiguous rule. Bravo.

But don't worry, if I ever have the displeasure of playing you, I'll do my best to not only grind you into dust, but make sure to confirm your notions of what a dick people like me are. It's a win/win that way.

But that's what you want isn't it? The idea that someone could politely dominate you in such a meaningless pursuit that we've all invested so much time in is more than you can bear, so it's important that you find a way to cast the other person in a bad light so that you can mitigate your failure. It can't be your lack of skill at a child's game. It must be the other guy or something he's doing, right?

With gems of maturity like these and many many more, I wonder how someone could possibly question your social skills Ed.


I still can't figure out why it's bad to treat your opponents with respect and maturity, and expect the same back. Apparently this is a bad thing to a lot of people in here. I'm extremely happy I haven't run across anyone like that when I play.

Insisiting that you get to make the rules up as you go because of your heightened sense of "common sense" is not treating other players with respect. Every single time someone takes the position that ignoring the rules has some sort of moral high ground I will point out what a jerk they are.

If you'd like to defend that position by trying to change the subject to my level of maturity, knock your socks off, but it really has no bearing on the actual discussion.

Insisiting that you get to make the rules up as you go because of your heightened sense of "common sense" is not treating other players with respect. Every single time someone takes the position that ignoring the rules has some sort of moral high ground I will point out what a jerk they are.

Ed, by calling someone who believes common sense has a reasonable application in rules interpretation a jerk, are you not trying to give yourself moral high ground?

Jerks can call other people jerks, just like evil people can call other people evil too. Life isn't a dichotomy.

I still can't figure out why it's bad to treat your opponents with respect and maturity, and expect the same back. Apparently this is a bad thing to a lot of people in here. I'm extremely happy I haven't run across anyone like that when I play.

*******************************************************

Its not (or shouldn't be). I agree with you wholeheartedly. Respect and maturity is absolute requirement.

However,  I don't think that has much to do with the RAW vs. 'common sense' debate.

As I've stated before, I feel a large portion of that article focused on the maturity of players. We all know there are a large number of rulings that can be interpreted in different ways, ones that do not have any clear statement in the RAW (even if entirely illogical like the turboboosting bikes scenario). We know this because otherwise this forum wouldn't even exist. With the bikes example I agree with the author on the common sense of the way the rule is stated but at the same time it's very clear the way the rule is put forth. Things such as the Necron Lord WBB discussion in here are not in any way clearly stated. This leaves room for debate and difference of opinion.

I feel the author is advocating fun, mature play with his article, as well as the use of common sense. This does not mean one gets to "make up the rules as you go" as you irrationally continue to insist on like your childish examples of jumping termies and T6 marines. I have never said to ignore the rules. If someone does ignore them outright, I would think there's a much more mature way to handle it than immediately resorting to sarcasm and insult. Frankly that's grade school behavior on both parts. People can and will abuse the "contraversial" rules just as much stating RAW as they will stating intent. Fortunately we as mature people can choose to ignore those people, politely not play them, and move on to other opponents. It is entirely unecessary to insult someone for their interpretation of a rule simply because you do not agree with it. This most certainly is not treating anyone with respect.

Maturity is, in my opinion, at the heart of this issue.

See, when you continue to insist that there is any ambiguity in the rules in relation to the turbo boosted bike/psycannon issue, how can we take you seriously? You claim it's simply a matter of maturity to resolve it, yet you clearly lack a basic level of reading comprehension or a high school understanding of logic if you somehow, even after it's been repeatedly explained to you, think that this issue isn't crystal clear in the rules.

To be blunt, if you say that you get a save from a psycannon with a turbo boosting bike, after we've now explained it to you, you like to make rules up, pure and simple. So if you're doing that, my marines are all T6 with 3 wounds. Just like the designers intended. It's common sense.

And Russ, it's because I do have the moral highground. But don't tell anyone.

See, when you continue to insist that there is any ambiguity in the rules in relation to the turbo boosted bike/psycannon issue, how can we take you seriously? You claim it's simply a matter of maturity to resolve it, yet you clearly lack a basic level of reading comprehension or a high school understanding of logic if you somehow, even after it's been repeatedly explained to you, think that this issue isn't crystal clear in the rules.

With the bikes example I agree with the author on the common sense of the way the rule is stated but at the same time it's very clear the way the rule is put forth.

So if you're doing that, my marines are all T6 with 3 wounds. Just like the designers intended. It's common sense.

This does not mean one gets to "make up the rules as you go" as you irrationally continue to insist on like your childish examples of jumping termies and T6 marines.

You obviously have never met "That F%&king Guy". This is an entity within the hobby, usually one per store but sometimes more, who will argue any rule, no matter how simple and clear, if it gets him an advantage. Conversely, if it hurts him, he suddenly "sees the light" and becomes ultra-conservative. This is also the guy who demands a 4+ roll on any contestation, or tosses a fit if the judge's ruling goes against him.

These people don't care about the rules; their "common sense" says it works the way they say it does. "Common sense" is about as common as platinum.

If you agree there is no ambiguity in the bike rules, then what the hell are we arguing about? It was an idiotic example and completely destroyed any argument that "common sense" has any place in rules discussion.

Common sense is perfectly fine in any situations where the rules do not cover what to do. In every other situation, only a lazy moron tries to pawn that crap off as a smart solution.

Flyins,

Your statement is coming across like this:

"The rules clealy say that the Bike has only an invulnerable save when Turbo Boosting.
I do not agree. Common sense says that they also have an armour save.
Common sense should overrule the clearly written rule. If you do not agree with me, we will d6 it."

If this is really what you mean, then you are forcing a d6 over a clearly unambiguous rule. What kind of common sense is that?
Should common sense not state instead that the rule means what it says?


If this is not what you are saying then I apologise. But if this IS what you are saying, then you ARE making up the rules as you go along, and all simply because your concept of "common sense" does not agree with the mechanics of the rule.

"Insisiting that you get to make the rules up as you go because of your heightened sense of "common sense" is not treating other players with respect."

When you say stupid stuff like this do not expect anyone to attempt to have a mature conversation with you.

Flyins,

Your statement is coming across like this:

"The rules clealy say that the Bike has only an invulnerable save when Turbo Boosting.
I do not agree. Common sense says that they also have an armour save.
Common sense should overrule the clearly written rule. If you do not agree with me, we will d6 it."

If this is really what you mean, then you are forcing a d6 over a clearly unambiguous rule. What kind of common sense is that?
Should common sense not state instead that the rule means what it says?

You should go back and read his post, cause that is not what he is saying.

What are you guys arguing about? You all are saying the same thing.

Posted By blue loki on 04/05/2006 2:00 PM
Flyins,

Your statement is coming across like this:

"The rules clealy say that the Bike has only an invulnerable save when Turbo Boosting.
I do not agree. Common sense says that they also have an armour save.
Common sense should overrule the clearly written rule. If you do not agree with me, we will d6 it."

If this is really what you mean, then you are forcing a d6 over a clearly unambiguous rule. What kind of common sense is that?
Should common sense not state instead that the rule means what it says?


If this is not what you are saying then I apologise. But if this IS what you are saying, then you ARE making up the rules as you go along, and all simply because your concept of "common sense" does not agree with the mechanics of the rule.

blue loki, I understand your confusion.  I don't always state things as clearly as they are in my own mind!  I would alter the statement to read this though:

"The rules clealy say that the Bike has only an invulnerable save when Turbo Boosting. Psycannons ignore invulnerable saves so the bike is actually worse off when turbo-boosting. While I do not agree with this based on common sense, it's clearly stated in the rules, therefore it's clear how it should be played. In other cases where it's NOT outright clear, a d6 can be used to quickly solve disputes of unclear rulings."

Gotcha, no problem.

And I concur with that 100%. If the rules are actually amiguous, and you don't agree on how to handle it, the D6 is a great solution. But that's just about the only time it's a good solution. And the article clearly says that you should D6 it even if you know you're wrong, simply because you don't like the rule.

Posted" by="" mauleed="" on="" 04/05/2006="" 9:37="" pm="">
And the article clearly says that you should D6 it even if you know you're wrong, simply because you don't like the rule.

But that makes no sense! If that would be true why should  to bother us with any rule!

And the article clearly says that you should D6 it even if you know you're wrong, simply because you don't like the rule.

Um, I just read the article again, and that's not what he says.

Russ, even though you and I both know that's not what he meant, that's the argument he made when he used the Psycannon vs. Turbo-boost example. He picked a rule that actually is clear when you look at it, and suggested d6ing it if you don't agree with it because it doesn't make sense to you.

Ed has a valid point that common sense really should only come into play where the rules are genuinely unclear or both players agree to a house rule.

I feel the author is advocating fun, mature play with his article, as well as the use of common sense.

The real problem is, which hasnt been address, is WHO's common sense prevails. Its obvious that Russ's common sense isnt the same as ed's who's common sense isnt the same as mine, which isnt the same as flyins.......

Common sense isnt really that common