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I don't know how many of you are out there, but I have been posting this message on various tabletop gaming boards as a means of protest against GW for an egregious, and particularly offensive behavior and attitude from one of the Games Workshop managers here in Houston, at the Willowbrook Plaza Store.

Today, the GW store in question was demo'ing Planetstrike, and one of the Strategems chosen was Dawn Assault. Dawn Assault is worded roughly as - "While this strategem is in play, Night Fighting Rules are in effect. At the end of each player's turn, roll a d6. On the roll of a 4(that is exactly as it is in the book, a 4, not a 4+, but a 4), the strategem is cancelled as dawn arrives."

This manner in which the rule is written brought up a dispute whether it was really just a 4 or a 4+. During the dispute, the manager began to lose temper and started to throw insults towards me for my interpretation of the rule as it is written. He asked me if I believed GW was stupid enough to write such a rule, and when I responded yes, that they have made sillier rules in the past, he threatened me in the middle of the store and in front of the other customers saying - "Be glad I am on the clock and in the store, or I would beat the crap out of you and then strangle you for that remark."

During this whole time I had broken no actual rules of the store and had a simple disagreement with the manager. Since then, I have tried to contact the Regional Manager to file a formal complaint but my calls have yet to be returned. I believe I have been gravely wronged and hope that others here will acknowledge my protest.

This behavior is coupled with offensive behavior committed by the same manager several weeks ago. While I understand Texas is a predominantly Republican state, we do have some Democrats here, and when the manager begins to start up a conversation in which he insults the current president and calls him a foreigner and un-American, some of us would find that offensive.

Sounds like you need to find a new store. I admire your restraint, as in situations like the above I tend to return fire. For example, in the last situation, I would complain loudly of a racist atmosphere.

If you really want to hurt him, buy Gwar a plane ticket to Houston and pay him to hang out at the store for a day on full rules lawyer mode. That will result in Lovecraftian madness for the manager.

I don't live in Texas but I would have to say that you have been wronged alot. I do think that the rule was suppose to be 4+ (Althou it is a 4 for now since that is how it is written) but thats not the point... the manager is not the lawyer of the rules and he takes his job way overboard to threaten you for questioning a rule. I feel sorry for you man and I would go elsewhere to play!

Wow this manager sounds like a maniac. One comment though.

When the last president was in office, the other side could barelyt go ten minutes between calling him a monkey or an idiot. Now that it is flipped around and the right is insulting the left, are we going to start filing complaints? The president is always going to take flak from the opposition, let's just be glad it's just stupid insults (B OTH sides do it) and not daily riots like some other places in the world.

Anyway, you should still get this guy canned for the threat

apwill4765 wrote:Wow this manager sounds like a maniac. One comment though.

When the last president was in office, the other side could barelyt go ten minutes between calling him a monkey or an idiot. Now that it is flipped around and the right is insulting the left, are we going to start filing complaints? The president is always going to take flak from the opposition, let's just be glad it's just stupid insults (B OTH sides do it) and not daily riots like some other places in the world.

Anyway, you should still get this guy canned for the threat

It wasn't the fact that he was insulting the current president. It's the fact that, while on the clock, in the store, he was instigating and propogating a potentially offensive conversation during store hours.

But yea, I'm still trying to get ahold of the regional manager. If I haven't gotten ahold of her my monday, I'm calling corporate.

Teroniss wrote:

apwill4765 wrote:Wow this manager sounds like a maniac. One comment though.

When the last president was in office, the other side could barelyt go ten minutes between calling him a monkey or an idiot. Now that it is flipped around and the right is insulting the left, are we going to start filing complaints? The president is always going to take flak from the opposition, let's just be glad it's just stupid insults (B OTH sides do it) and not daily riots like some other places in the world.

Anyway, you should still get this guy canned for the threat

It wasn't the fact that he was insulting the current president. It's the fact that, while on the clock, in the store, he was instigating and propogating a potentially offensive conversation during store hours.

But yea, I'm still trying to get ahold of the regional manager. If I haven't gotten ahold of her my monday, I'm calling corporate.

Yea, I have to agree that that's very unprofessional, managers are supposed to END those conversations

You should have just diced off.

Well, at least we'll know what the first question of the FAQ will be.

If you want to make it serious any kind of physical threat in any kind of business environment like that can warrant a better business bureau complaint or even a police complaint. In houston I can imagine a police complaint for a physical threat might not be taken very seriously ( I say this as someone with a majority of my family in Houston )

Threatening to Strangle someone is not something to be taken lightly, and I would get the complaint on the books. I doubt he is dangerous, people who make those kind of threats are rarely the kind to actually do anything, and frankly a GW store manager is not likely to be a particularly tough individual but that degree of unprofessional behavior should not be taken lightly.

I would contact GW US corporate imediately.

Or you could have gone back to the store after business hours and tell us what happens . . . .

Threatening to beat some up is a crime in Houston. It's called assault.

No threatning is not assualt but is still a crime

assault

A crime that occurs when one person tries to physically harm another in a way that makes the person under attack feel immediately threatened. Actual physical contact is not necessary; threatening gestures that would alarm any reasonable person can constitute an assault. Compare battery.

Hence Assault and battery crimes

However I find it pretty silly both ways.. The manager should be more professional but arguing just to argue is just as annoying. Pretty much every rule is either "on a 1", "on a 6" or "on x+".. Come on its pretty obvious thats a typo

I agree that was completely unprofessinal and should be reported to corporate.

I was a part of that demo, fighting along side of your Christmas Themed Marines Teroniss (Not mentioning your real name because that would be internet foul). If I may bring an outside view of the situation as I have nothing against you or against the management at Willowbrook.

A lot of friction is found when players who might place winning above fun meet rules that might not have been completely fleshed out. The rule did say on a four, that is true, but the other three player on your side were happy to call it a four plus due to the low cost of the strategem. There were two and three point strategems that did not afford the same amount of utility.

It spiraled down to argument when despite the rest of your team you insisted on arguing a point that even bystanders to the game thought was ridiculous. To be fair voices were raised on both sides of that argument. At the culmination He did say "I need a five minute break so I don't strangle him."

The reason for the game's existence is to have fun. Winning at all costs (especially in a demo) to the point that yelling in a public place in front of children over a table top game is pretty silly. It made the experience awkward, and bailing on the rest of your team rather than seeing it through was pretty uncool.

As to the politics in store I have to call shenanigans. Not once, not twice, but on three seperate occassions I can recall the manager asking players to not talk politics in store.

In the end I believe you were both wrong, but in varying degrees. Neither of you should have been moved to raise your voices over a game. The comment about strangulation was probably over the line, but I gotta say to the readers in this thread that ya'd have to be there.

You have a unique army that you've spent alot of time converting and painting. It's theme points to a desire to put aside the seriousness of the dark lore of the game. With that being said you really shouldn't let, what seemed to most of the people there, a typo get in the way of having fun.

Every story has two sides. o.O

Dude, it's Texas. Wait until after the store closes and kick his ass in the parking lot.

Having been on both sides of this sort of thing, the manager should have called for a roll off or let you have your way. When someone is trying to (clearly) exploit a typo to win, it is a clear red flag that "sweet reason" will be sour for that person. However, even joking about violence, or a veiled thread, is uncool.

Tyras wrote:
The reason for the game's existence is to have fun. Winning at all costs (especially in a demo) to the point that yelling in a public place in front of children over a table top game is pretty silly. It made the experience awkward, and bailing on the rest of your team rather than seeing it through was pretty uncool.

As to the politics in store I have to call shenanigans. Not once, not twice, but on three seperate occassions I can recall the manager asking players to not talk politics in store.

After all was said and done, after HE yelled at me, after HE threatened me, he asked me to leave. Its not as though I left out of the blue. I was told to leave. As for the politics, he might ask people not to speak about it in the store, but it sure didn't keep him from talking about them himself that evening in question.

The MANAGER of the store. He is responsible for what happens in that store and if he allows an argument to be raised and people to start yelling it's his fault. No if and or buts it's his job to mediate what happens in his store when he is there especially! If he allowed another person to get into a shouting match with him and he kept on it, then it's his blame. It's his store he could have kicked the OP out before it escalated and been done with it, and I understand that to look on the other side of the OP's argument the guy could have been so frustrated that he said that he would strangle him (this is a common threat when someone is annoying the hell out of you, it's a blunt way to say shut the f*&k up or i'll make you in other words), and truthfully I sincerely doubt he meant it. The problem here is that the owner allowed a yelling match to happen in his store and didn't diffuse the situation. If he had just said "hey guys is a game of toy soldiers let's not make it awkward for the customers and let's just have a roll off and the winner chooses what happens!" or maybe "here lets take this into the back and we can discuss" he would have been in the right and shouldn't have any blame, but instead he allowed the shouting match to happen in front of customers and maybe noobies to the game, and trust me if I saw two adult men in a yell-off playing the game and I didn't know anything about this game prior, it would be a MASSIVE turnoff.

I don't think either person was in the right but the store manager not diffusing the situation and escalating it made it his problem and that was not a good decision on his part. Sure, the OP may have been exasterbating an argument about something that might be a misprint, but allowing something to escalate like that was not a profession move, and one that could endanger your job even if the other guy was being a dick and was also in the wrong.

The actual wording of his asking you to leave the store was "After I kill all of your stuff you can leave the store." A couple things go with that. The first being that you were a quarter of the demo's attacking force so even though the situation had gone to the point of you being asked to leave, he didn't want to further diminish the demo be yanking one of the four on the spot. Second is that even though you were asked to leave, you didn't. You stood brooding at the back of the store for hours after the incident. Why couldn't you have toughed it out for the last hour of the demo if you were'nt planning on leaving anyways? That and if the management was so inclined to offend you then why didn't they call plaza security and have you further embarresed by having you escorted from the property when you didn't leave?

Was the manager in the wrong? Like I said in my original post, yes. As EzeKK stated, he's ultimately responsible for everything that happens in that store. Even so, ya can't go around posting like this and fail to mention how antagonistic you were in debating the issue. He showed more restraint than alot of people would.

There should have been a roll off, and a store rule put in place until the official word comes out on the rule to avoid further problems. Instead there were two adults arguing. Given that the manager was playing a demo in an official capacity his word is law and it should have ended there to allow the game to progress so we could all get a look at how it played out. To that same statement, seeing that the manager was there in an official capacity he should not have been drawn into a shouting match.

Again, the politics bit. I can't speak to the night you are mentioning, because I've never been in store when a political discussion wasn't squashed on the spot. If your intention is to file a complaint about the discussion it ends up being your word versus his, and with a history of squelching political discussions at his back he comes out on top of that argument.

I think you need to take a step back, re-evaluate how that day went and think hard about what you intend to do. I don't believe you were treated as poorly as you make it out to be. What end do you hope to achieve? I seriously doubt a disciplanary action will be taken outside of a "Handle it better next time". The store has already been in contact with the district manager (I was present on the smoke break that the call took place on), there are just too many people to speak for the store, and that's outside of the sheer sillyness of the original point of contention. You could end up on the short end of the stick on this. It's a pretty small community, as evident by my posting on the same board coupled with the fact that everybody who visitis every store here in the Houston area seems to know everybody else. Dragging this thing out and exaggerating the situation rather than taking the high road and moving on will only end up ostrasizing yourself while everybody else continues on as if nothing happened. Both of you were in the wrong. If you were to go into the store with that in mind rather than believing you were in the clear while he was just being a tool I'm sure this issue could be resolved and you'd probably get an apology.

Wait.. you were trying to argue against your own team, the other team AND the person running the game (and trying to sell the product being played) about something like that? I mean, do you honestly believe in the spirit of a nice game and general precedent has shown us that GW would use "4" as the singular number to cancel the effect. "1" maybe, "6" maybe, but a 4? C'mon....
I can understand if you're on the top table in the last round of a tourney with serious prize support, but in a DEMO game? I'm not gonna lie, I'd much rather be concerned with questions about the product, how it plays, etc, rather than trying to take advantage of the obviously illiterate GW proof testers and beat down the rest of the children playing. Yea yea the manager got upset and acted unprofessional, but I can understand his frustration about what you were doing. He's already babysitting a bunch of children, and trying to push his product when you decide to make a rules lawyer move that breaks the most important rule in the game: FUN! He may have offended you, but I know that when I spend my time playing, I'm sacrificing other things I could be doing. When someone pulls a move like that, ruins the game (how awkward is it after that outburst), and makes it harder to complete the point of the demo (how the damned thing works)... I get offended. Don't be offensive to the other players, because you don't want them to feel how you feel now, do you? Do you?



Just as an aside, I think its interesting to see how often our last president was called a monkey. Now imagine the same term being used for the current man... could the hammer of public outrage fall faster? I just think that's interesting (and valid, as cultural memory carries much weight)

Did you just get a death threat over toy soldiers?

This is a joke surely? I would have said the same thing to you-are you under the age of 18 by chance?

Personally I think you should just stop shouting your mouth of-the fact that someone else who was there has come in and explained more then you chose to says alot really-I can think of numerous conversations said in the store i used to go in, although, generally after the door was shut.

Now, if he had actually strangled you, i'd care.
I think you started this thread to boost your ego and expected people to jub on your bandwagon and shout "it says 4-unlike any other rule in GW which are either 1, 6 or X+, but you must be right" followed by bowing at your feet.

I just remembered why i stopped playing.

Regardless of how abrasive the OP may have been, the Manager had no right to act unprofessional. Threatening to strangle you is indeed assault. Report him to his higher up. They can replace him with another minimum wage making cog in the machine. In this litigious society we live in, the store (GW for that matter) is responsible for that managers actions and can be held accountable in court for anything that he/she might do. I've never been to that particular store, but the Rice Village store has some good guys at it. You should check it out.

Toxxic, One can only hope that you're not held to that lofty standard if you were to say something to the effect of "That makes me so mad I could just strangle you." There is a differnce between a turn of phrase and a threat. At no point was the OP under serious threat. The manager did not get in his face or physically intimidate the OP. Could it have been handled better? Yes, there is no doubt there, but to read all of these prison lawyer posts about assault and what-not is too much. I have been overly gracious in my wording about how the situation occured in an attempt to be diplomatic. Let me assure you that if this situation were to be elevated to a point where people present in the store for the incident are asked to give any sort of statement, the manager would be cleared with possibly a verbal "do better next time" and a "I can't believe you didn't drop kick him outta the store" later over a beer. This thread along with his other efforts for some kind of vindication has done more to hurt the OP than anything else, and if you believe that it will cause the dismissal of a senior Hobby Manager then you are delusional.

I think posters really need to give a little credence to the "You'd have to be there" rule before voicing an opinion. Between the incident itself, the phone calls after, the forum posts and the general emo quality of the whole thing, this farce has gotten much bigger than it ever should have. I gave the other side of the story that the OP did not have the testicular fortitude to include. Hopefully people will see the situation for what it is and move on.

I agree, I was not there. I only go by what was posted.

And I DO know that GW can be held legally responsible for the actions of its employees.I've sat through enough "You and the Law" seminars in my 8 years of management to know that. If I were to voice something along the lines of "Be glad I am on the clock and in the store, or I would beat the crap out of you and then strangle you for that remark."(what the OP stated was said). I could damn well be assured that at the least I would find myself in HR the next day because said employee would have called the corporate help line. I'm also fairly confident that I would lose my job if it came to light that I did indeed make that statement. Violence in the workplace is a serious issue. And is still considered so even if one of the people is not employed.

If you or the OP want to keep this quiet, you should not have posted this on a forum that is read by people world wide.

Having been in a situation while working at a GW store in which litigation was wrongfully threatened, let me speak to this.

As soon as I read the first post I suspected something was fishy. The whole story was not being told. Now that I have heard from a third party who was witness to the event, it is much more clear. It seems ultimately what happened is the OP whined and complained like a child when things didn't go his own (ridiculous) way. It's a misprint, it's an OBVIOUS misprint. Everyone there agreed that it was except the OP. He just HAD to be right.

Sure the manager got upset, sure he may have raised his voice. What he should have done was tell the OP to leave and then be sure he did. Even if Security needed to escort him out.

I got news for you, Regional Managers generally have their employees backs especially against frivolous and spurious claims of abuse of customers.

Next time, behave like an adult and these situations are much less likely to happen. Oh, and by the way...IT'S JUST A GAME!

Coming to whine about it on the internet, under the charade of a "warning" doesn't help your credibility much. It basically makes you look like a baby.

I secretly want to call this store and ask for the story... but now my secret is out!

Mad Rabbit wrote:Sounds like you need to find a new store. I admire your restraint, as in situations like the above I tend to return fire. For example, in the last situation, I would complain loudly of a racist atmosphere.

I'd like to go OT for a second and respond to this. Why does criticizing the current president instantly mark a person as a racist? I'll bet you'll find that 99% of the people who don't like Obama, ALSO didn't like Clinton (myself among them). Instantly "playing the race card" as soon as somebody voices their dissent with the current establishment is pure prejudice and hypocrisy.