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 kodos wrote:
with points you can have balance, as well as you can have balance without them

difference being scenario based games VS games with fixed lists

the problem here is that the "balance" is always the game system as a whole and not just parts of it

if a game system with points, army roosters that are fixed before you get to know which scenario and opponent you play against, it is part of the balance
if you leave random scenarios out and/or play different ones, you change the balance

there are those games without points were you still have something to determine the size of the game, but what units you chose, how large they are and so on, is not fixed and happens after you know the scenario and whom you play against
same way as some games have a sideboard of units you can exchange, or asymetrical victory conditions for both forces are not the same size


yet points give the illusion of better balance and that it also works if you are only using parts of the rules instead of all

there's also the question of points being purely additive, which doesn't always work in the case of something being a power multiplier.

I get the feeling here that JJ could literally have created the finest fething wargame ever, made from a melding of him and Rick Priestly into a Super Sayan rules writer (powered by the spirit of HG Wells), and he would still have Dark Angels Codex written on his tomb stone..

Please.. for ... feths .. sake.. let... it.... go

Cronch wrote:Chambers is responsible for Starship troopers the wargame, which not only was (imo) one of the best squad-based sci-fi wargames I've ever played, but also THE best example of assymetrical gameplay in a wargame. The core rules for Dropfleet Commander are also excellent (and sadly ruined by the horrible land-based element of the game that had to be there for the name to make sense). Both games leave everything GW ever produced far behind in terms of quality imo.

SST was an incredible game and a shame it never got the traction it deserved.

Fun fact: It was initially meant to be 40k (I think 4th edition) and Andy Chambers wrote the ruleset with that in mind. But, GW wasn't keen as it was such an overhaul of the previous ruleset, and they had already cottoned on to 'slow twist change of rules', everyone buys new rulebooks and codex every few years' business model that has served them so well since). So, Andy left GW and the rules got put into SST.

Albertorius wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Stripping them down is probably a lot harder than we might think. I still hold up 3rd Ed 40K as a “baby with the bath water” error of judgement, in that whilst significantly easier and quicker to play than 2nd Ed, it was at the expense of the game actually being fun.

I kind of violently disagree with that statement, particularly the last part.

'Fun' is definitely a bit of a value statement and a subjective thing.
I would agree that I have more fun with 2nd Ed/NetEpic because of the way the ordering system and game plays (and especially with some armies, such as Orks or Chaos, which are a riot) than I do playing Armageddon, which is much more strategic and clinical in nature. I have heard the same about 3rd edition (and especially with it being more abstract) but it's the one version I haven't played yet.

Cronch wrote:Kharadron are better squats than squats ever could be, so nothing of value was lost.

Perhaps, but for many of us Epic Squats are the true representation of Squats, with their cool land trains, armoured airships and big guns

Not sure the whole “SST was 40K” thing holds water.

Any development Andy Chambers did whilst working for GW, would belong to GW and not him.

Then, I also understand you can’t actually copyright a rules system?

That'd depend on the contract surely?

 Pacific wrote:
I get the feeling here that JJ could literally have created the finest fething wargame ever, made from a melding of him and Rick Priestly into a Super Sayan rules writer (powered by the spirit of HG Wells), and he would still have Dark Angels Codex written on his tomb stone..

Please.. for ... feths .. sake.. let... it.... go

Build a thousand bridges but feth one goat, see if ANYONE calls you a bridge builder.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I get the feeling here that JJ could literally have created the finest fething wargame ever, made from a melding of him and Rick Priestly into a Super Sayan rules writer (powered by the spirit of HG Wells), and he would still have Dark Angels Codex written on his tomb stone..

Please.. for ... feths .. sake.. let... it.... go

Build a thousand bridges but feth one goat, see if ANYONE calls you a bridge builder.

I approve of this message.

But more seriously, Jervis leans a certain way when it comes to game design and since he (along with the rest of GW's designers) is responsible for creating rules and codifying ways to play the game, it's not surprising that people who are looking at games a different way have issues with his work and may be hopeful for GW games after his involvement in their development ends. It's not the literal 4th ed Dark Angels codex that's blamed when that bit is invoked, it's the underlying mindset that created the codex and that wasn't limited to just that codex but was instead a convenient shorthand for Jervis's design ideals. It's hard to let go of a design philosophy you disagree with if that philosophy is still in place and shapes how the games you'd like to enjoy play out.

I'll be interested to see how GW's games develop in the coming years without Jervis's (direct) input.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I get the feeling here that JJ could literally have created the finest fething wargame ever, made from a melding of him and Rick Priestly into a Super Sayan rules writer (powered by the spirit of HG Wells), and he would still have Dark Angels Codex written on his tomb stone..

Please.. for ... feths .. sake.. let... it.... go

Build a thousand bridges but feth one goat, see if ANYONE calls you a bridge builder.

Easy there. It's more a case of build a thousand bridges, then knock one down, and then being remembered as "that guy who knocks bridges" down. Depends if you really liked that particular bridge, I suppose....

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Not sure the whole “SST was 40K” thing holds water.

Any development Andy Chambers did whilst working for GW, would belong to GW and not him.

Then, I also understand you can’t actually copyright a rules system?

100% on the rules front. I worked in a GW a short while after this and heard it from a couple of people I trust, and they had no reason to BS.

As for the rules being copy-writable I'm not sure. Maybe he had been working on them on his own for a while and they hadn't been published in any official capacity yet? Remember also those years ago, how senior Andy was and the company was a lot smaller and wouldn't have had all of legal rules documents wedged up its behind in the same manner. I can't imagine anyone trying to stop he or Rick Priestly walking out of the building with their notebooks, although I absolutely don't think the same thing would happen these days.

There was also a quite nasty rumour going around of why he had actually left GW and it wasn't because of the 40k rules update, but it's of a personal nature and slanderous so I'll annoy everyone by not repeating it here..

Just Tony wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
I get the feeling here that JJ could literally have created the finest fething wargame ever, made from a melding of him and Rick Priestly into a Super Sayan rules writer (powered by the spirit of HG Wells), and he would still have Dark Angels Codex written on his tomb stone..

Please.. for ... feths .. sake.. let... it.... go

Build a thousand bridges but feth one goat, see if ANYONE calls you a bridge builder.

BrianDavion wrote:

 kodos wrote:
if a game system with points, army roosters...

Well, that's a bit of a cock-up, isn't it?

 Pacific wrote:

100% on the rules front. I worked in a GW a short while after this and heard it from a couple of people I trust, and they had no reason to BS.

Well, I was there for SST, so... Rumour Control...

The core of SST was built on the Gangs of Mega-City One game that came out a year(ish) earlier. You will see the foundations of the four-action system, reactions and so on in there.

Whether Andy brought anything with him from GW, I do not know, but he never mentioned it in any of the conversations we had over the game.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

100% on the rules front. I worked in a GW a short while after this and heard it from a couple of people I trust, and they had no reason to BS.

Well, I was there for SST, so... Rumour Control...

The core of SST was built on the Gangs of Mega-City One game that came out a year(ish) earlier. You will see the foundations of the four-action system, reactions and so on in there.

Whether Andy brought anything with him from GW, I do not know, but he never mentioned it in any of the conversations we had over the game.

Well, first-hand evidence beats third-hand I think so fair play!

Now have to go and re-evaluate everything I knew about the development and history of wargaming

Apologies MDG - would have been prepared to stake my reputation on that! (and.. there we go, that says a lot I think! )

 Pacific wrote:


Well, first-hand evidence beats third-hand I think so fair play!

Now have to go and re-evaluate everything I knew about the development and history of wargaming

Heh

Incidentally, the legacy of Gangs of MC-1 and SST continues today - the latest iteration of that rules set forms the basis of Warlord Games' SPQR...

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Pacific wrote:


Well, first-hand evidence beats third-hand I think so fair play!

Now have to go and re-evaluate everything I knew about the development and history of wargaming

Heh

Incidentally, the legacy of Gangs of MC-1 and SST continues today - the latest iteration of that rules set forms the basis of Warlord Games' SPQR...

Now I'm going to have to check that out!

I just read the last ever J-files. Made me cry a little bit (the theshold is quite low. I cried at the end of Bad Boys Forever). JJ you will be missed!

Well, JJ can be a happy guy.
Not everybody is able to turn a hobby into profession and its a very nice hobby as we all know.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not everybody is able to turn a hobby into profession and its a very nice hobby as we all know.

In the industry, Jervis was known as 'the nicest man in gaming.'

We are going to have to find someone else for that now :(

MongooseMatt wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Not everybody is able to turn a hobby into profession and its a very nice hobby as we all know.

In the industry, Jervis was known as 'the nicest man in gaming.'

We are going to have to find someone else for that now :(

And the nominations are …?

Bob Lorgar wrote:
It would be hard for me to name a nicer, more generous person I have ever met.

Before there was the Dakka bulletin Board, or Warseer, or any of the others, there was the 40k Mailing List, run by Edwin Voskamp and Chris Bickford.

Thanks so much for sharing that Bob/Graham! I had a similar experience with Jervis.

When I was 15 and getting really into WH40k I found the 40k mailing list, and became a prolific poster and started writing up custom background, rules, and concepts.

Jervis Johnson and Andy Chambers were lurkers on the mailing list, and both sent me nice responses to my posts. Jervis was really encouraging, and suggested I submit some articles to White Dwarf and Citadel Journal. I *think* a tiny sidebar ended up in a WD, but the Journal did publish a couple of my articles.

I lived in Hawai`i, but my junior year in Highschool my family spent a semester in Leicester, England. Jervis invited me to visit the studio, and was so generous with his time. He picked me up from the train station, gave me a tour of the studio, introduced me to tons of people (including Paul Sawyer who was the editor of the Citadel Journal, and the best), got some of my models photographed in the pro studio, played a game of 40k with me, and turned me loose in the bins of freshly cast pewter models!

At that point in my life I was pretty sure I wanted to work for Games Workshop, and I was strongly considering skipping college and instead applying to work at the Studio. I talked to Jervis about it, and much to my parent’s eternal thanks, he suggested I give college a try, because I could always apply to the Workshop later, and it would be better to first have wider experience. That was 100% the right advice for me, and I ended up truly loving art school, and the career and life it made possible.

I set aside “the hobby” for almost two decades, and got back into it about 7 years ago. When I returned to Nottingham to play in Shibboleth’s amazing Lesotho game, I reached out to Jervis to let him know I was visiting. He was once again very kind and generous, and it was fun catching up with him and showing him the game we were playing.

Jervis has always shown a love for the games he works on and for the people who play them. He was clearly an incredibly important part of Games Workshop and I’m sure he will be missed. I hope he has a wonderful retirement.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Good bye and good riddance.

Can you show us on the doll where one of the architects of everything GW hurt you?

The man who mismanaged BFG so badly? You're joking, right?