Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I really don't see why it's necessary. If TFG just destroyed everyone in the tournament, he shouldn't be robbed of his rightful victory just because he brought a good list or even because he was being a dick about it. Painting and play should really be two separate categories that deserve separate but equal recognition as well. The Best General category of any given tournament should be given, objectively, to whoever does the best job of winning scenarios, etc.

It's not like you get a bonus for being a nice player, so a Sportsmanship score is just a way to penalize people for bringing a cheesy list, or more likely playing against TFG who thinks everything that beats him is cheesy. When a game has an objective definition of victory and defeat, there is no need for subjective scores to determine who the best player is unless you're actively trying to figure out who is, on average', the best at both.

And this is coming from someone who routinely loses playing against competitive lists. If someone is beating me, why does their attitude matter?

Kilkrazy wrote:Do you enjoy playing against miserable bastards who make every game a misery?

I don't know how many people there really are like that -- you hear more about from US players than UK, maybe because they are more competitive -- it could be just Internet exaggeration is what I mean.

If it's a tiny proportion it probably isn't worth bothering with.

I enjoy it a little less, but it doesn't ruin the game for me. Even if more than half the players I played did that, it wouldn't really bother me. People need to be a little more thick skinned.

I've probably played fewer cheese-infested-list players than players who, upon realizing that they don't have a chance, start giving me gak about my amateur paintjobs. If anything, that sort of crap is way more annoying than someone just being a braggart.

skyth wrote:Some people don't like people that play different styles than they do and want to be in a situation where they can punish people that play differently.

It seems that a lot of these people are TOs who use comp systems to enforce their own playstyles on everyone else.

I'd probably participate in tournaments more if it wasn't for the prevalence of comp and sportsmanship crap. It's not like I'd have a shot at winning anyway, it just irks me when people other than the obvious best player wins because other players are butthurt about their own losses.

Fearspect wrote:The best solution to this I have seen was a tournament that was run back in September in my area. You could sign up for one of two events:

Event A) Hard battle points, only thing close to a 'soft' score was requiring your miniatures to not be just primed.

Event B) All soft scores. Casuals even had the joy of being evaluated on a one-page story about their army. No battle points were used at all, as I recall.

Those that went I hear enjoyed the split, and they were able to fill both. The best part was that if someone wanted to enter Event B just to win, there was no real way to do it considering the entire score was based on comp/theme/painting/sportsmanship.

Yeah, this really is the best way to do it.