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Coming out of the RaW vs. RaI discussion in the space wolf thread, although this applies to all GW games, not just 40k:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/257681.page

http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/

Gav says: "This approach has two main problems. Firstly, it creates a mindset of false legitimacy. This isn’t just in gaming, it’s in wider society as well. Some people feel entitled to place all responsiblity on the rules-makers (or lawmakers…) with the argument, ‘Well, the rules say I can do it.’ This fundamentally diverts the choices a person makes onto somebody else, absolving them of blame (in their mind). By moving away from a set of rules that tries to legislate for every single possibility, and instead return to the original idea that these books are as much a guide to players as they are rulebooks, we sought to bring back both the responsiblity and the power for players to make the decisions for themselves. They are a framework for players to collect an army of miniature soldiers not a dictat on the way they must do so."

Of course, in the 40k rulebook:
This very line encapsulates my frustration with the GW design team:

"The current Codex is about a very simple foundation that allows players to make hobby-based, aesthetic decisions regarding their army without worrying about the gaming implications.

And there's nothing RaW that says I can't use a sharpie and make my own rules.

I quote on p. 2 of the rulebook:

"The most important rule is that the rules aren't all that important! SO long as both players agree, you can treat them as sacrosanct or mere guidelines-the choice is entirely yours."

RaW, the only legal requirement to using a sharpie and making my own rules is that both players agree.

Edit: Once again, not written for RaW, and I might add, it's "the most important rule." Funny enough, RaW, treating the rules as sacrosant like you are doing is only okay so long as both players agree to play that way...

THis is why GW didn't release FAQS for a long time, aren't a fan of tournament players, and why GW writes rules the way they do. My main point in all this is that this is why one cannot use RaW as a method of rules interpretations because the rules are clearly not written in this manner. This causes all sorts of silly issues to arise because the rules aren't robust enough to handle proper RaW interpretation.

I've always been of the opinion that GW can do both..that clean concise rules are not mutually exclusive from background and guidelines, but they don't agree.

So what you're saying is that the rules are officially un-official?

Yeah, it's stupid in my opinion, but "guidelines" is what they're trying to write. Really, they're trying to push an idea of a hobby, not a game.

Edit: Actually, I should say more than that. It's kinda like casual gamers and noncasual gamers in WoW. THe noncasual players want to go to raids and fight the toughest stuff, etc etc, and they're usually the loudest crowd and want different things from casual gamers. However, there are more casual gamers than competitive ones, so Blizzard caters to casual players by dumbing the game down and making things easier. It's the same idea. Gw is trying to pitch to a "casual" crown of people more interested in bringing their models and moving models around and doing pretend killing. Beer and pretzl's kinda game.

Nurglitch wrote:So what you're saying is that the rules are officially un-official?

Without sugar coating it , yes.

Gav is such a disappointment , they just cant be bothered to admit their rule writing is awful .

scuddman wrote:Yeah, it's stupid in my opinion, but "guidelines" is what they're trying to write. Really, they're trying to push an idea of a hobby, not a game.

Because Hobby is where the money is at right? Like other dakkites have previously said :

The rules and codex are only important to them once they have whored out the product release , they can care less about it after that
and will be working on their next release ignoring any mistakes they made.

The name is a little misleading. Games Workshop is not a gaming company; it is a miniatures company. The game is a vehicle to push their minis --- and this is from their own mouths, not some sarcastic remark by me! Jervis is stuck in the 80s and believes we are all playing DnD in the 40K universe. Hopefully he will one day realise that this game began a push into competitive environments, by their own hands, over a decade ago.

I agree that this is horse manure. I buy the rules so that I can play the same game as others, not so that I can make my own up anytime.

If I wanted to make my own, I'd do so and save a lot of money in the process!

GW rules seem to have plenty of holes in them, typos, and bad organization. When I need to prove a point to an opponent, this gets frustrating! And in the heat of battle, "whatever both players agree on" just doesn't cut it.

It's GW's job to make nice, tight rules. This means Codexes that don't break the game when they're released. It means balance between the various armies. And yes, it means lots of playtesting and EDITING before the release of new rules.

It is shocking how often this isn't done.

If players want to do their own thing, they don't need encouragement. They just do it. This silly nonsense doesn't belong in a rulebook. Rulebooks are for: you guessed it, THE RULES.

40K is a game - and how is a $50 game any good with such ambiguity and cop-outs in its pages?

Apocolypse is the worst. All rules, FOCs, and sense of balance go out the window. And what is the excuse? "Don't take it too seriously." After 9 hours for 2 turns of Apoc, you bet I want it to be balanced! Else I may as well have just laid out my models and said, "OOooh, look at what I bought and painted - let's flip to see who wins and then get lunch."

OK, I may be exaggerating a little, but this really is a pet peeve of mine. After 5 editions of the game, I'd really love it if GW would start doing more basic editing in their books for organization, clarity, and balance. But when they pretend it doesn't even matter, as the above posters indicated, then there seems less and less hope of that.

Elric of Grans wrote:The name is a little misleading. Games Workshop is not a gaming company; it is a miniatures company. The game is a vehicle to push their minis --- and this is from their own mouths, not some sarcastic remark by me! Jervis is stuck in the 80s and believes we are all playing DnD in the 40K universe. Hopefully he will one day realise that this game began a push into competitive environments, by their own hands, over a decade ago.

Yes they said that.

But they also said the following to "justify" their pricing to be "fair"

"Games workshop is also a miniature games , which is why the product tend to be pricier than normal model kits"

Which is fine , but they shouldnt just pick w/e thing they have said in the past to conveniently fit their incompetence.

How long have they been writting warhammer rules for?

This is not an excuse.

See, this is the part I don't understand, the whole discussion that GW needs to write tight rules. I've been playing 40k in all its iterations since 2nd edition, and playing in at least one GT (and RTTs) every year, and I have come across exactly 1 (one, uno, ein) instance of a rule being unclear during a GT, and that was the guy with the highlighted sections to prove his interpretation according to RAW (he was wrong btw).

Could I just be lucky? Sure. Are there issues with GW rules? Sure. Is YMDC representative of the kinds of rules issues I've ever seen? No. Imo, YMDC is basically a mental exercise in rules-lawyering and logic, that has as much to do with the game as GW's "the rules are a guideline" stuff.

I believe GW has created a ruleset that can be used to play a pick-up game relatively easily. When rules issues do come up, they can usually be worked out by the players, and are negotiated thousands of times a day, when it's needed.

It only becomes a real issue in the hyper-intense scrutiny of a RAW, word by word dissection of every rule. Which is probably necessary for a 'competitive' game of little toy soldiers. I imagine that Warmachine, SST, or whatever ruleset you care to mention, has the same problems when looked at that closely.

The only difference between GW and the others, is that GW decided to not produce dozens and dozens of pages of FAQs and errata. They tried that in 2nd (it was a massive document), and in 3rd (stuff to cut out of WD, FAQs every month in WD, such that you couldn't find anything), and decided that wasn't worth it. The INAT folks, for example, p[ut together an 80+ page document where if you need it, to play the game, there you go.

Personally, I can play the game at a GT or in my basement just fine without them

So would be ok if we got a few professional game designers to sit down and write a completely new ruleset using 40k minis based on the 40k universe and sell just the ruleset? Or even some non-professionals.

Or even do an "open source" type rules project?

kadun wrote:So would be ok if we got a few professional game designers to sit down and write a completely new ruleset using 40k minis based on the 40k universe and sell just the ruleset? Or even some non-professionals.

Or even do an "open source" type rules project?

They'd be all over you with cease and desist faster than you can say "Ork". However, Gavin nearly asks the community to do so in his above statement. It's quite funny how they align everything they say in a way that it fits the current context best, but in another codex don't care sh*t about what they might have said before. Everything you've been told is a lie, anyone?

I never had a Cease and Desist order when I wrote "Dark Millennium". Never heard peep out of GW.

A couple points:
1. Gav doesn't speak for GW as far as I know.
2. Gav is talking about army theme in the initial quote
3. GW doesn't need to straitjacket things, or deal with non-common-sense issues that don't come up in normal play.

The primary "rules" issues occur in tournament situations in which players are just playing to WIN, rather than just PLAYING (to win). That isn't GW's fault.

I would believe Gav were I playing in a dedicated group of gamers.

Unfortunately, I play regular 40k, with sometimes random opponents, so unless my friends allow me to add ACTUAL bloodletters in a Chaos Marine Army, then I'm stuck with generic daemons.

Cruentus wrote:
It only becomes a real issue in the hyper-intense scrutiny of a RAW, word by word dissection of every rule. Which is probably necessary for a 'competitive' game of little toy soldiers. I imagine that Warmachine, SST, or whatever ruleset you care to mention, has the same problems when looked at that closely.

Thats just it though. No other system I have played has had anywhere near these kinds of problems in writing Rules.

GW rules writing is bad. Its really bad. The fact that they are coming out and saying "we don't give a sh*t about our game after we have sold you stuff" is incredibly insulting. Thats on top of the fact that they charge you for a $50 rulebook.

It continues to amaze me to this day that people still buy stuff from them. I stopped in the middle of 4th and can't imagine purchasing anything from them ever again. (although I still play the occasional game with some friends with the adepticon FAQ close at hand)

I think you're ok with GW as long as you don't take the game more seriously than they do.

Of course this means don't travel to big events, don't invest time and effort attempting to become a better player, don't analyze all the choices available and then take the clearly best models.
Just crack open a book, buy what you think looks cool, paint it up nice, and then push it around on a table. Prepare for frustration if you want more than this.

IntoTheRain wrote: No other system I have played has had anywhere near these kinds of problems in writing Rules.

No other system has this kind variety over this kind of installed base of players...

I've been with 40K since first, I've owned every edition and haven't only ever tried to play a couple times during 1st and 2nd ed. I just couldn't find people into it, so it became more of a collectors thing. I would read each new rules, but never played with them, I've never experienced the crap rules everybody talks about. Unless you are tournament playing, I would always just play with friends. I get it, you use the rules that make sense to you, you change the ones that don't. It may be irresponsible for GW to want you to have a relax attitude, but then sponsor events in which the rules become very important.

Gav has gak for brains, and he couldn't write a decent codex to save his life.

Oh, and yes, GW rules writing is bad. They don't care, they just want to sell the minis.

Noisy_Marine wrote:Gav has gak for brains, and he couldn't write a decent codex to save his life.

Oh, and yes, GW rules writing is bad. They don't care, they just want to sell the minis.

This is why we need RAI instead of RAW. People [redacted by Mod] who stubbornly stick to RAW as if it came from the Bible obviously have some sort of serious mental block, and it's amazing that they ever find anybody to play the game with. It must be a terrible, terrible existence.

You don't need RAI instead of RAW. You need both.

You have to examine the RAW first. If it is clear and makes practical sense in game terms you use it.

In the cases, such as the Valkyrie case, when the RAW does not work or is too unclear, you turn to RAI or How Do You Play It because you need to find a workable rule.

Once an unclear rule has been cleared up, it can be put in the FAQ list.

Hi all.
Yet another thread about how GWPLC have a severe disconnect with , thier own studio, and thier customers.

The GW studio staff are mostly made up of artists.They produce high quality sculpts and narrative.The game development teams at GW seem to adopt the same playstyle/metality.(Which is understandable.)
They play narrative driven , relaxed /informal games, percived by them as an 'added extra' to thier collecting converting and painting hobby.

The rules and army lists codexes ARE written as 'rough guides to'. They ALWAYS have been written this way AFAIK.

But what Games Workshop became a PLC , the man at the top had to explain to the share holders what was happening-what they are doing.
'We are in the buisness of selling toy sodiers...'
And so this was achived taking tha path of least resistance.(As always with GW PLC.)

Option 1.
Sell as much stuff to as many people as possible , for as much as posible .Focus on short term profits .
Infer the games are perfect for ALL styles of play, and the rules -codexes-army books are written without any erors -problems .
(With out actualy saying' this is the ONLY brand of product for the table top minature game hobby, and it perfect as is...'
So when people kick up a fuss GW can say ' we never implicitly said that, so what is your problem?')

Option 2/
Write a concise and well defined rule set , that is suitable for all playstyles .
Grow the games and interest in the game by promoting the game play above all else.Great games sell minatures !


So GW PLC 'over sells' the games and hobby suplies to maximise short term profit.As it is the path of least resistance.(Fat and lazy GW PLC )

This practice will lead to long term problems.(See my 'Have GW paintedthemselves into a corner' thread. )

In the last 10 years 40k has had minor imrovments in game play and rules layout.

In 8 years Thane Games developed a game with its gaming community to finalisation.(Beta rules were playtested by the community for over5 years.)
AoA has provable levels of balance, and army lists creation methods in the back of the rule book.
AoA has 14 sample armies in the back of the Rule Book.
And using the information in the back of the book you can create and use YOUR OWN army .

Games Workshop was far more open about the type of games they produced.WD showed how to develop YOUR hobby using some GW products and a bit of creative thinking.It was obvious WH and 40k were '3D RPG games' heavy on narrative and creativity, so quite unsuted to the type of competative play some players prefer.

But after converting to GW PLC, they simply wanted to shift product, using the easiest methods available.
IF someone buys a load of GW product because they have been mislead, then GW wins, in the short term.(GW even refer to thier prime demoghraphic a 'vunerable'. )

The ONLY problem with writing another rule set for 40k, is the 'GW PLC installed 'official only GW Hobby' mentality.
I have been using other rule sets for ages!

TTFN
Lanrak.

Lanrak wrote:But after converting to GW PLC, they simply wanted to shift product, using the easiest methods available.
IF someone buys a load of GW product because they have been mislead, then GW wins, in the short term.(GW even refer to thier prime demoghraphic a 'vunerable'. )

Sorry to pick a tiny point out of your post, but this pricked my ears...

It seems very sensible for GW to focus on short-term selling, since I guess their customer base IS very vulnerable. Apart from a few veterans, the VAST majority of their customer base is kids, who may only be 'into' the game for a few years until they tire of it, find a new hobby, or move to college or something. In this situation, I can completely see why the focus is on short term sales.

If they concentrated on making a great game system they'd attract more 'gamers-for-life' but I doubt even that would be a big enough customer base to sustain the company - a good reason why the smaller companies out there seem to be writing the best rules - they NEED to to keep their small, specialist customer base of veteran gamers.

GW are far too big to be sustained by the serious veterans, who are coincidentally the ones wanting the highest quality of rules-writing.

ArbitorIan wrote:

Lanrak wrote:But after converting to GW PLC, they simply wanted to shift product, using the easiest methods available.
IF someone buys a load of GW product because they have been mislead, then GW wins, in the short term.(GW even refer to thier prime demoghraphic a 'vunerable'. )

Sorry to pick a tiny point out of your post, but this pricked my ears...

It seems very sensible for GW to focus on short-term selling, since I guess their customer base IS very vulnerable. Apart from a few veterans, the VAST majority of their customer base is kids, who may only be 'into' the game for a few years until they tire of it, find a new hobby, or move to college or something. In this situation, I can completely see why the focus is on short term sales.

If they concentrated on making a great game system they'd attract more 'gamers-for-life' but I doubt even that would be a big enough customer base to sustain the company - a good reason why the smaller companies out there seem to be writing the best rules - they NEED to to keep their small, specialist customer base of veteran gamers.

GW are far too big to be sustained by the serious veterans, who are coincidentally the ones wanting the highest quality of rules-writing.

Unfortunately, you're right but this will eventually damage their sales, once enough people realize that you can get used mini's on Ebay cheaper than anywhere else. Mine are going up there pretty soon, and good riddance to GW.

No it won't, because they just get new kids interested...

The op took the quotes out of context, Gav was writing on the codex; chaos space marines, and how every one was complaining about it, this was said as to why it was laid out in the way it was.

This doesn't give anyone the right in gameplay in my opinion to go and just change rules cause they want to or say GW doesn't care, they care enough to change a set of rules to minimize nerd-in-fighting. I think that would be blatantly obvious, Gav just wrote this to get something off of his chest, and that was the constant complaining of players.

I think that alot of people need to look long and hard at how the think about the codex's that have been produced.

The New Romance wrote:

kadun wrote:So would be ok if we got a few professional game designers to sit down and write a completely new ruleset using 40k minis based on the 40k universe and sell just the ruleset? Or even some non-professionals.

Or even do an "open source" type rules project?

They'd be all over you with cease and desist faster than you can say "Ork". However, Gavin nearly asks the community to do so in his above statement. It's quite funny how they align everything they say in a way that it fits the current context best, but in another codex don't care sh*t about what they might have said before. Everything you've been told is a lie, anyone?

he key is "SELL"I, if you were sellign it and making money off it .. if it was open source (free) can't see why - you need the buy the rules and the miniatures to play. As long as you don't release that, and charge for it. Honestly I don't see them really caring about how you play - just as long as you buy gak.

That being said - only being into 40k for a short while, and having two sedts of rules, it seems (uneducated opinion) that they are definitely
"dumbing the game down" in the guise of speed of play.

chaplaincliff wrote:The op took the quotes out of context, Gav was writing on the codex; chaos space marines, and how every one was complaining about it, this was said as to why it was laid out in the way it was.

This doesn't give anyone the right in gameplay in my opinion to go and just change rules cause they want to or say GW doesn't care, they care enough to change a set of rules to minimize nerd-in-fighting. I think that would be blatantly obvious, Gav just wrote this to get something off of his chest, and that was the constant complaining of players.

I think that alot of people need to look long and hard at how the think about the codex's that have been produced.

It's hardly out of context. My assertion is that GW rules design is not written for gameplay purposes. Jervis has said that, the rulebook reflects it, and now here Gav is saying the same thing. The concept is pretty clear. They don't make a game and make minis for the game like most people in the hobby think. THey make minis, and then make "cool" rules for the minis so you'll buy more. Gav was hired as a games designer not because he had large amounts of game design experience or ability, but because he was a prolific fiction writer.

Edit: Originally the whole point of the post was a commentary on how they make rules and how we, as the consumers, interact with them. You look at many of the assertions in YMDC, and many of them don't hold up because the rules aren't made to fit those assertions.

OK, dug this out based on something I saw in another thread.

White Dwarf #320 (US), Standard Bearer Article by Jervis Johnson re: Rules Questions.

Without re-typing the whole thing, I'll pull out the relevant parts:

"It's a fact of the hobby that rules questions come up. Some players dream of heving a "loophole-free" rulebook. However, I think it's important to accept that the detailed rules we produce, combined with the free-form nature of tabletop gaming, pretty much guarantee that rules questions will come up. It is the price we pay for having such a flexible and detailed hobby."

Then goes on to talk about the importance of playing, and not getting bogged down in rules arguments.

"The first thing we need to do is to go back to the rules and attempt to apply them exactly as they are written, the "rules as written" or RAW principle. Some people don't like it RAW - the principle can sometimes lead to situations in which troops act in a way that doesn't seem quite right. Nonetheless, if RAW gives a clear and unambiguous solution to a rules question, then you must use it."

Then he talks about the (at the time) issue of Marine Drop Pods and immobilization and giving up VPs.

The rest devolves into the 1) Check rules, 2) Dice for it (to speed game play), 3) Check the website for errata/faq, 4) Contact GW for answers process of getting your answers.

Later he mentions the rationale for not making too many rules-changes between codexes as a means to 'not confuse' people who all might not have access to the FAQs, etc.

So, at least last year, GW was trumpeting RAW, while admitting their rules aren't perfect. They still fell back to the 'its important to play' and not get hung up. This was their foray into organizing the FAQs in one place, which, as we've seen, has been spotty, and not all that rapid.

I also did come across another later SB article which was regarding Tournaments, maybe I'll dig that up for a good laugh

That is just nonsense -- I know you didn't write it, just quoted out of WD.

Plenty of much more complicated rules have been and are written without 1/10th the amount of argument and problems that 40K has. That is not just because 40K is more popular. It is because 40K is badly written.

There are two reasons why 40K is so unusually bad.

1. All the different books are written at different times by different people and there is no editorial control. This is nothing to do with detail and complexity, it is to do with not being bothered to put in a bit of effort to do a proper job. It couldn't cost more than £100,000 a year to have a editorial office. That's less than one thousandth of GW's turnover.

2. GW refuse to admit they have a problem. They prefer to paper over the yawning cracks with Standard Bearer articles and advice about D6ing for it.

GW sometimes even manage to make contradictory rules within a single codex. That is simply sloppy and lazy. They should hang their head in shame. A codex isn't some little fan publication put out by a couple of students in their spare time. It is the product of a £100 million international corporation which claims to represent 95% of the world's table top wargame industry. A book which has taken at least a year to develop, and costs the user £15. At the same time, it contains under a dozen pages of actual information, the rest of it is padding.

WH has been around for nearly 30 years. It just can't happen that weird new situations keep popping up all the time. For example, the question of whether it's possible to place an objective on top of a tall object which non-flying troops can't reach. Has that really never, ever, ever, once occurred since 1981? What the hell are the design doing in all their playtest games? Clearly they aren't testing play.

I don't expect perfect rules. I don't expect a disorganised shambles and a bunch of excuses either, especially at the prices they charge.

Pah!

I disagree that Gav cannot write a codex. The Dark Elf Book is just fantastic, and is on par with many other Armybooks (The newer ones, of course)

I also disagree that RAI should replace RAW. RAW is RULES AS WRITTEN, meaning that the rule is written to mean exactly what it means. If we played a pure RAI standpoint, then who cares about the rules, as they can be interpreted to mean anything by anybody. Both are required, but RAW should still be prominent.

As for d6ing it, I would go for it should the rule be too unclear. It's rare for me to have too many arguments in games, and for me, D6ing does speed it up. Though, at tournaments, they should really clarify everything to ensure that cheating is disallowed.