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Since I kind of suggested the new tenant #5, I'd like to make one clarification.

I think it's a good thing to be able to say "I think this interpretation of the rules may cause sportsmanship issues." I think that's a reasonable statement of your own opinion and is useful information under the category of how people actually play rules.

I think there's a gray area between statements like (1) "I see sportsmanship issues" and (2) statements that are veiled threats when the same information phrased like "If somebody did this, I'd think they were TFG" or "If you did this, somebody would kick you in the nads" or whatever. Although these statements don't fall strictly under the letter of "calling somebody TFG," they still seek to carry a point by grouping those who disagree with the TFGs.

I don't feel like YMDC should be all touchy-feely, Star Trek NG with language police running around. But at the same time arguments that seek to discredit the opposition by denigrating or labeling posters who disagree do not really address the rules.

I feel that the issue of Sportsmanship should be left to the Tactics or General. This is for Rules and how Rules interact, not how you cry like a 4 year old when someone tries to play by the rules.

I agree with Flavius. I also tend to concur that a discussion of sportsmanship probably is better suited to Dakka Discussions.

I believe there is an already (though not oft used enough) phrase that can solve these problems. YMMV. Or maybe, "When playing in sportsmanship events, YMMV." Perhaps there should be a little aside to #5, saying "post this instead," or better yet a smiley that replaces instances of "TFG" with "someone that I respectfully disagree with about rules issues."

(that last bit was a joke, btw)

Not sure if he is going to post but this is a cogent argument from night Lords on the issue

It is 100% relevant because some people play in tournaments with sportsman scores. Others want to play a clean game where their victories are genuine and not considered dirty wins due to shady ruling. I happen to fall into both categories. The very fact that certain rulings will get me poor sportsman scores has persuaded me to change some of my own interpretations of the rules, most recently the disembarking of transports on opposite sides of an enemy unit.

No matter what anyone wants to claim on here, Warhammer 40k is a game between people in a social environment. The interaction and perception between people can affect the enjoyment of the game, and can affect your overall tournament scores.

If "TFG" and everything related were to be censored, then just change this board to "RAW", rendering this board useless. The fact is, people are going to use these rules in a real world environment, and while some people may act tough and right on here, it doesn't mean squat on the tabletop. Some of the rulings on here can be misleading, and I truly believe that if a ruling is dirty, people should have the right to know before they think of trying to implement it into their game strategies.

In my Opinion, What Night Lord wrote is a load of tosh.

I think it's useful to know when a rules interpretation is going to cause conflict. A player can address it before hand, speak to his club about it, talk to the TO, or even decide not to bother rocking the boat.

YMDC is, and should be, about rules. How rules read, how they should be played, the correct way to play them, the best way to play them, all of that. Focusing on any one of those areas ignores huge areas of the game.

So, er how do we address this polyoly in a balanced manner Polyoly?

Gwar! wrote:I feel that the issue of Sportsmanship should be left to the Tactics or General. This is for Rules and how Rules interact, not how you cry like a 4 year old when someone tries to play by the rules.

Well if we want to just say 'play by the rules' then, in all honesty, once you factor in the 'rules of nature,' we get anarchy. If someone wants to be a prick using the rules, by rule of nature, punch them in the face until they forfeit or stopping being jerks. Well, as much as punching someone in the face can bring about feelings of sanctification, I would rather not have to go about punching my dissenters all the time, eventually I would either break a knuckle, sprain a wrist, or have to deal with someone who might make it difficult to punch in the face, and other complications. So we have to make rules with flexibility that allow everyone to feel satisfied with a game at a reasonable level.

One step in that direction is admitting some rules allow unsportsman-like tactics. Such as punching your opponent in the face when you don't like what they are doing. Not very sportsman-like.

If I want to know how people around me will or do play, I ask them - not YMDC.

If I want understand an arguement and get what both sides think and why, I ask YMDC.

When looking to figure out why people disagree with the way rules are interpreted, it rarely helps to ponder how to play nice. In fact, someone else online telling me how to play nice simply does not help. It may help them, somehow, but honestly I doubt it. On the other hand, someone online telling me how to play the game by the rules? That helps, especially when I am wrong and they can debate/prove/quote why. And about as often, when I am correct the counterpoints help me understand how to explain the real issue to people.

The more contentious threads I have read are pretty quickly added to my lists of things to discuss with my opponent. Never once has it been worth the effort to add the parts describing the nice way to play. The single time that bringing up how to play nice was relevant to a game was the only game I have walked away from. Conversely, very, very often it has been useful to point out the correct way to play.
YMMV

shrug

Night Lords wrote:It is 100% relevant because some people play in tournaments with sportsman scores. Others want to play a clean game where their victories are genuine and not considered dirty wins due to shady ruling. I happen to fall into both categories. The very fact that certain rulings will get me poor sportsman scores has persuaded me to change some of my own interpretations of the rules, most recently the disembarking of transports on opposite sides of an enemy unit.

No matter what anyone wants to claim on here, Warhammer 40k is a game between people in a social environment. The interaction and perception between people can affect the enjoyment of the game, and can affect your overall tournament scores.

If "TFG" and everything related were to be censored, then just change this board to "RAW", rendering this board useless. The fact is, people are going to use these rules in a real world environment, and while some people may act tough and right on here, it doesn't mean squat on the tabletop. Some of the rulings on here can be misleading, and I truly believe that if a ruling is dirty, people should have the right to know before they think of trying to implement it into their game strategies.

I would like to start by saying that in the grim darkness of the future there is only RAW. What constitutes a "clean" vs. "shady" ruling? Those sound like opinions to me, describing what you feel about rules. In general, the rules don't have opinions. They allow you to do certain things, and with a very few exceptions are quite clear if backed up with enough reasoned argument. The areas in which they are unclear are investigated by this forum, and surprisingly (at least by many people's standards), most can be solved by RaW. A good example is the most recent edition of the WBB vs. SA argument. Over time, and through reading the rules, people discovered that their opinions of how a rule works did or did not match up to the facts of what the rules actually said, and we came to a generally accepted conclusion. Whether or not sportsmanship scores affect which of these rules you use, they are backed up by argumentation and fact most of the time. It also happens to be your opinion that you were given low sportsmanship scores because of how you interpreted rules. Perhaps there were other reasons. It is not uncommon for people to enter tournaments and give everyone low sportsmanship scores because they know it will help them win. In any case, this discussion does not belong in a rules forum, unless possibly discussing TMIR. It belongs in general or tactics.

Eliminating name-calling from intelligent discourse would not reduce this forum to RAW. It is called YMDC for a reason. Sure, there are rules discussions about what the rules actually say, but there are many about how you play it yourself. I would not mind in the slightest if several people had a debate about whether or not a house-rule to fix a RAW problem should make sense based on real-life situations vs. game balance. In any case, eliminating name-calling has nothing to do with the problem you are discussing.

Even if it did, it does not make this forum useless. I have personally learned a lot about the rules from RAW discussions. In fact, I'd be willing to bet there are a lot of people who played very incorrectly because their play group had all been playing the wrong way as well, and when they found out that everyone here was doing it another way, they found out that they and their group were wrong. Now there is another group playing correctly out there because of this forum. That doesn't seem useless to me.

If you feel a ruling here is "dirty" then don't use it on the tabletop. Or on vassal (where there are plenty of people who actually do play by strict RAW, trust me). If someone thinks a ruling they've been given is dirty, then they can bring it up on the tactics forum to see how often it is implemented in-game, and whether it's as "dirty" as they think. Or they could just tell their opponent and ask permission if unsure of how dirty it is.

I think YMDC needs a bit of help right now from this angle (name-calling & cleanup), and this makes sense to me as a way to begin to fix it.

Skinnattittar wrote: If someone wants to be a prick using the rules, by rule of nature, punch them in the face until they forfeit or stopping being jerks. ...

I'd like to propose an extra rule, banning any claims of punching people in the face, or other suggestions of violence instigated over rules disputes.

This is a forum discussing toy soldiers. 'Oh, if someone tried that, I'd punch them in the face'-style declarations don't impress anyone, don't scare anyone, are embarrassing for the forum at large, aren't particularly believable, and just make you look silly.

insaniak wrote:

Skinnattittar wrote: If someone wants to be a prick using the rules, by rule of nature, punch them in the face until they forfeit or stopping being jerks. ...

I'd like to propose an extra rule, banning any claims of punching people in the face, or other suggestions of violence instigated over rules disputes.

This is a forum discussing toy soldiers. 'Oh, if someone tried that, I'd punch them in the face'-style declarations don't impress anyone, don't scare anyone, are embarrassing for the forum at large, aren't particularly believable, and just make you look silly.

Which if you finished my post you would know that I was saying that is unacceptable.

...which kind of illustrates my point. The moment you suggest punching someone in the face, I just tune out the rest of the post as not worth reading.

There's just too much eTestosterone around here sometimes. It got old a long time ago.

insaniak wrote:...which kind of illustrates my point. The moment you suggest punching someone in the face, I just tune out the rest of the post as not worth reading.

There's just too much eTestosterone around here sometimes. It got old a long time ago.

Apology.... accepted?

Skinnattittar wrote:Apology.... accepted?

I just read this, along with your signature (which, I must say, is borderline offensive) and I was wondering if you might be able to be a bit nicer and if we could go back to what this thread is addressing. I'd really like to see if you have anything to say about what I had to say, or what anyone else said for that matter.

Kitzz wrote:
I would like to start by saying that in the grim darkness of the future there is only RAW. What constitutes a "clean" vs. "shady" ruling? Those sound like opinions to me, describing what you feel about rules. In general, the rules don't have opinions.

-----

I

Ive sent frazzled a lengthy pm, so Im going to try not to discuss most of those things here, however I will reply to this point:

Rules dont have opinions, people have opinions. Unfortunately when playing in a social setting like in a game store, you are dealing with PEOPLE, and the way the majority sees it goes. The rulebook does not have the power to stop a game from being played any further. It does not have the power to talk to players and tell them the official ruling. When the majority of the people play it the other way, including a TO, guess what? Youre not getting your way, even if youre 99% right. The big arguments on here start when a rule has two different meanings or is a very awkward situation (like jetbikes moving 6" in assault phase) due to RAW. Its the nature of a table top game, you must adapt to it just like pitchers have to adapt to an umpires strikezone. It doesnt matter if your pitch was over the plate if the umpire says its outside. If most umpires dont call the pitch a strike, youre going to have to assume none of them do if you want to perform well.

Understand this forum is for everyone, including people who play strangers in a social environment where there is a standard for many of these rules.

Sorry, I am told I have a very dry sense of humor. I believe I already made a point with Gwar's post. I agree that there are rules that can easily be used to exploit other rules or the game. Since it would impossible to write counter rules we must rely on sportsmanship to help govern. Some people will say that this is just whining, and what they are doing is completely legitimate. By RAW, they are correct, but it ruins the game for others. So we can choose to either abandon this game, as eventually anyone who doesn't want to have a weak army will have to perpetrate the same exploits, probably breaking the game or changing the flavor to something most I don't think will like, or start beating each other up. It is really the story of nature or mankind, really.

Night Lords wrote:

Kitzz wrote:
I would like to start by saying that in the grim darkness of the future there is only RAW. What constitutes a "clean" vs. "shady" ruling? Those sound like opinions to me, describing what you feel about rules. In general, the rules don't have opinions.

-----

I

Ive sent frazzled a lengthy pm, so Im going to try not to discuss most of those things here, however I will reply to this point:

Rules dont have opinions, people have opinions. Unfortunately when playing in a social setting like in a game store, you are dealing with PEOPLE, and the way the majority sees it goes. The rulebook does not have the power to stop a game from being played any further. It does not have the power to talk to players and tell them the official ruling. When the majority of the people play it the other way, including a TO, guess what? Youre not getting your way, even if youre 99% right. The big arguments on here start when a rule has two different meanings or is a very awkward situation (like jetbikes moving 6" in assault phase) due to RAW. Its the nature of a table top game, you must adapt to it just like pitchers have to adapt to an umpires strikezone. It doesnt matter if your pitch was over the plate if the umpire says its outside. If most umpires dont call the pitch a strike, youre going to have to assume none of them do if you want to perform well.

Understand this forum is for everyone, including people who play strangers in a social environment where there is a standard for many of these rules.

Actually we could address this in the commentary.
Here's the discussion. After the discussion "I" note that in how its actually played this will have difficulties (then go into the TFG aspects).
This would be especially good for those threads dealing more directly with "how is this actually played."


Thoughts?