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I have been thinking a lot about this concept recently, looking at the recent drama that pops up every year with the Aard Boyz, and what I have seen with various other events, I wanted to see what you all thought of this.

I have been playing this game and actively participating in the on-line community for a fair amount of time now, and the same arguments keep cycling over and over again.

The internet makes a very clear definitive line between the "casual gamers" and the "WAAC" competitive gamers, and there seems to be nothing in between. However, I have been around my fair share of gaming stores and major events and I have found the reality to be that most people are in between both concepts. There are those that love to paint and build themed lists, there are those that love a really tough challenging game at the top level of a tournament, and there are every body in between.

I think we as a community allow the few, for lack of a better term, loud mouths dictate the flow of tournaments. The real reason we have sportsmanship scores is because we are afraid of the few douches ruining every bodies fun, but we end up hurting ourselves by creating a system that can be exploited to your detriment.

I think we are too tolerant as a community for abuse in game. I think it is very telling that a particular team was able to play 3 full games at adepticon with a flyer, before the last round opponents questioned it.

Where is the fear to speak up coming from? Could it be the sportsmanship scores, or is it the fear of being called out for accusations and slander.

To me a good tournament should have challenging missions, reward players for their effort in painting their miniatures (or even having them painted), and imply three games against good opponents.

Every time I run a tournament, there are 5 principles I apply:

1. Never punish a player based strictly on what he brings to the table.
2. Have a straight forward sportsmanship scoring, and question players when they turn in zeros.
3. Award painting with as much of a non subjective scoring system as possible.
4. Create missions that are challenging to players, and allows no "easy win" based on your army type.
5. Create an atmosphere where players can openly question their opponents rules interpretations without fear of reprisal.

I think if those concepts where applied to more tournaments, there would be less drama and feelings of being robed by an unfair system.

Just my thoughts.

Sportsmanship should either be eliminated altogether, or have no bearing on best overall. People feel like if they call a judge on their opponent for what might be a broken rule, or possible cheating, or whatever, they'll get marked down, which might drop them out of placement. It's a broken system, it doesn't accomplish anything.

Very good points, I think it might work.

The funny thing is that I don't see where sportmanship scoring and applying it to your overall/final score ever came from...

I don't ever recall in any of my schooling or in later years at conventions and competitions that "sportsmanship" ever had weight on whether or not you "won" or "passed" something...

I do remember sportsmanship awards being completely separate.

Those that won a sportsmanship award did rarely get top placing at tournaments or competitions, but they were recognized as great friendly people.
Why can't Warhammer tournaments follow the same principle?

It's a given that the top placing players are generally going to be douches or somehow cheating the system (not outright cheating, but playing off of others' unwillingness to argue).



If I go to a tournament, I'm generally not going there to make friends-- I make friends at the LGS or at conventions... at a competition, I'm competitive and I'm there to do my best, even if it means calling you out on something that I don't find appropriate.

The game time limit should be enough to make players consider whether calling a judge is appropriate.

Prizes or trophies don't matter to me that much. I like good games between players. As long as the TO doesn’t make any scenarios that change core rules in the main rule book I'm good.

So all I ask is you don't change core rules.

Sportsmanship should not be a score, it should be an absolute. If you cheat and get caught, you are "tabled" for that battle. Simple, effective, absolute. No judgement is required by anyone save the TO, which is as it should be.

Gitsplitta wrote: Sportsmanship should not be a score, it should be an absolute. If you cheat and get caught, you are "tabled" for that battle. Simple, effective, absolute. No judgement is required by anyone save the TO, which is as it should be.

Yeah and we should just shoot all the criminals while we're at it. Would ease the burden on the prison systems.

Hyperbole aside, what happens when I, hypothetically losing badly to you, start inventing things you've been doing to cheat? It turns into a he-said she-said situation and he either makes the "wrong call" and I get away with it, or he makes the "right call" and the system is useless. If sportsmanship should exist, it should be a separate prize at best, not counting for overall (and this is coming from the guy who routinely wins best sportsmanship). Frankly, I'd be fine if it didn't count for anything. Likewise, painting can count for best painted, but shouldn't impact overall. Baseball teams don't get penalized for getting big name players, why do 40k players get penalized for taking 3 Wraithlords, Eldrad, and an Avatar, or, god forbid, a Mech List! GASP!

Yeah well... that was the ONE LITTLE HOLE in my masterful argument.... which you so cleverly pointed out...

It is a tough call... must be directly related to what you are trying to accomplish. Is the sportsmanship score trying to prevent people from cheating? Is it trying to prevent otherwise legal douchbaggery? In a tournament setting do we CARE of people are douchebags? Many top level pro athletes are total DBs... why should "tournament 40k" be any different?

It's what makes 'Aard Boyz so unique in the 40k tournament scene... total clarity of purpose. Decide what you want you want the sportsmanship score to accomplish, then design the score accordingly... else-wise it's probably a waste of time.

Gitsplitta wrote:It is a tough call... must be directly related to what you are trying to accomplish. Is the sportsmanship score trying to prevent people from cheating? Is it trying to prevent otherwise legal douchbaggery? In a tournament setting do we CARE of people are douchebags? Many top level pro athletes are total DBs... why should "tournament 40k" be any different?

Professional athletes are paid for their services, and to play against other professional athletes. (That said, the NFL, at least, hands out some non-trivial fines for unsportsmanlike conduct.)

I'm playing this game for fun, as is everyone else; there is no professional 40k circuit. I like to reward people who help me achieve my goal of a fun game; sportsmanship scores help me do that. Contrariwise, if the behavior of one individual is so counter-normative as to merit lower sportsmanship scores, then he shouldn't be rewarded.

Fair enough. I'm actually not against sportsmanship scores at all... I just think that if you're going to have them... make sure they're set up to do what you want them to do. Don't just have them for forms sake and they're unlikely to have much of an impact then.

I think Mahu's five points are good ones. Hopefully players feel the MechaniCon 40K tourney does those things.

I think clarity in general is the thing. IMO, it's not about whether sports and/or painting should be in or out across the board, even though these discussions usually devolve that way. It's whether a given event is clear about what it values and goes about rewarding players demonstrating that particular behavior in a clear, fair and consistent way.

I agree, his points are very well thought out. Keeping things clear and objective and free of unforseen tournament loopholes should give everyone a good chance to enjoy the day, even if they don't win. If you're developing new potential scenarios, it certainly doesn't hurt to play test them either... especially if you have an active gaming community that can try them out & report back. One of the regular tournament organizers at our FLGS has been doing that recently, and it's been fun as one of the lab rats to try out his ideas & see how they go.

A good tournament focuses almost entirely on the objective aspects of the game: who wins the most.

Painting should be required, but painting scores should not weigh in on the winner of the tournament. It should be its own separate award to recognize good painters.

Comp and sports should not be present at all.

Good tournaments don't assume that you are responsible for your opponent having fun. Having fun is for casual, friendly games at your LGS, or local events with no real prize at stake beyond like a 50 dollar gift card.

Ostrakon wrote:A good tournament focuses almost entirely on the objective aspects of the game: who wins the most.

Painting should be required, but painting scores should not weigh in on the winner of the tournament. It should be its own separate award to recognize good painters.

Comp and sports should not be present at all.

Good tournaments don't assume that you are responsible for your opponent having fun. Having fun is for casual, friendly games at your LGS, or local events with no real prize at stake beyond like a 50 dollar gift card.

Yes. Toy soldiers is serious business.

If you're not playing for fun, what on earth ARE you playing for? Tournaments are NOT cost-effective; attending Adepticon every year costs me ~$700, which no amount of prize support is going to make up for.

Janthkin wrote:

Ostrakon wrote:A good tournament focuses almost entirely on the objective aspects of the game: who wins the most.

Painting should be required, but painting scores should not weigh in on the winner of the tournament. It should be its own separate award to recognize good painters.

Comp and sports should not be present at all.

Good tournaments don't assume that you are responsible for your opponent having fun. Having fun is for casual, friendly games at your LGS, or local events with no real prize at stake beyond like a 50 dollar gift card.

Yes. Toy soldiers is serious business.

If you're not playing for fun, what on earth ARE you playing for? Tournaments are NOT cost-effective; attending Adepticon every year costs me ~$700, which no amount of prize support is going to make up for.

At a tournament, I'm playing to win. Winning is fun. I haven't ever actually participated in a 40k tournament, but why go to a competitive environment if not to try to win? If I wanted to just have fun, I'd stay at my LGS and play casual games. (Actually, that IS what I do.)

Ostrakon wrote:A good tournament focuses almost entirely on the objective aspects of the game: who wins the most.

...snip...
Good tournaments don't assume that you are responsible for your opponent having fun. Having fun is for casual, friendly games at your LGS, or local events with no real prize at stake beyond like a 50 dollar gift card.

Yes. Toy soldiers is serious business.
What tournaments are you going to? It makes it sound like you're going to the World Series of Poker or something.

And you know what, you are responsible for not being a jerk and showing your opponent a 'good game'. Again, maybe it is just me but, you're playing a game.

Pretty sure that for most people even the 'big prize' at Semis for 'Ard Boyz is actually a loss*. You're not going to 'Win Big'. You're going to play 6 games and hopefully have a good time.

* Minimum of 16 hours play time. Count driving, assembly, list building, prep, new models, etc so on... Is that 2500 pt army and $60.00 box worth 20-40 hours and all the money you put down? Probably not unless you're having fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ostrakon wrote:
At a tournament, I'm playing to win. Winning is fun. I haven't ever actually participated in a 40k tournament, but why go to a competitive environment if not to try to win? If I wanted to just have fun, I'd stay at my LGS and play casual games. (Actually, that IS what I do.)

Nice.

You're MVP for my team. /highfive



Edit: That's a winkyface. Hence good-natured fun. No one get uppity.

Ostrakon wrote:A good tournament focuses almost entirely on the objective aspects of the game: who wins the most.

Painting should be required, but painting scores should not weigh in on the winner of the tournament. It should be its own separate award to recognize good painters.

Comp and sports should not be present at all.

Good tournaments don't assume that you are responsible for your opponent having fun. Having fun is for casual, friendly games at your LGS, or local events with no real prize at stake beyond like a 50 dollar gift card.

Ostrakon wrote:At a tournament, I'm playing to win. Winning is fun. I haven't ever actually participated in a 40k tournament, but why go to a competitive environment if not to try to win? If I wanted to just have fun, I'd stay at my LGS and play casual games. (Actually, that IS what I do.)

So, you're espousing a philosophy you don't actually put into practice? Or are you just trolling?

I'm honestly confused now.

Actually, right before Dave Taylor was fired and Go-go left they had come up with the best sportsmanship sheet I have ever seen. It had 10 boxes and were yes/no checks. Only 3 were subjective and it had a little box on the bottom that a judge could mark to say it appeared that this person was not a good sportsman.

Some of the boxes were things like:

Opponent showed up on time
Opponent had a printed copy of his army list to give to you.
Opponent had all relevant rules, faqs, templates, dice necessary to play the game and his/her army
The subjective ones I think were:

Was this opponent fun to play
Was this your favorite opponent of the day
Did this opponent know the rules, attempt to keep the game flowing and played in a consistent manner.

This is enought to show the idea. Most people were going to get 5-7 points and the most fun players would get 8-10. So important in close end results but not going to throw the tourney.

Thats what I think sportsmanship should do, with several players at the exact same levels, painting and sportsmanship have a place to show Best overall.

The painting score was also like this but fully painted and based armies came to 7 points minimum.

I don't play 40k competitively, but I do play MtG competitively. If I did play 40k competitively, I listed what would make a good tourney for me. It's what would make it competitive. Comp, sports, and painting scores that are factored into the main event serve to make the game less competitive because they allow for players who aren't necessarily the best to still end up winning. Sure, there's a luck element to the game, but at the end of the day the top X players should be the best ones at playing the game - a game in which we have clear descriptors and methods to determine a winner and loser. Good painters should be recognized, sure, but as painters, not as players (unless they happen to be good at both, in which case, good for them.) Rewarding comp is stupid, because comp is just a way for a TO to enforce his half-baked version of "balance" on other players and serve as a method to prevent certain players from attending. Rewarding Sportsmanship is equally pointless because it takes literally no skill to be "sportsmanlike", and you can still get zeroed out despite being a good sportsmanship anyway.

40k as a game is objective. As a hobby it's an objective game with many subjective elements, but you don't go to a COMPETITIVE tournament because it's merely a hobby. That's why I think tournaments should focus on the objective elements of the game.

Ostrakon wrote:I don't play 40k competitively, but I do play MtG competitively. If I did play 40k competitively, I listed what would make a good tourney for me. It's what would make it competitive. Comp, sports, and painting scores that are factored into the main event serve to make the game less competitive because they allow for players who aren't necessarily the best to still end up winning.

...snip...
40k as a game is objective. As a hobby it's an objective game with many subjective elements, but you don't go to a COMPETITIVE tournament because it's merely a hobby. That's why I think tournaments should focus on the objective elements of the game.

I think this is representative of a lot of people's feelings and it makes these arguments difficult. 40k is completely different from MTG. MTG is competitive. They are setup to be competitive. There is no 'hobby' involved in it really. You don't paint your cards or write fluff for your deck. (I'm broadly generalizing.)

40k is exactly the opposite. 40k is not competitive at the level that MTG is. But it is a hobby. It has painting, fluff, assembly, etc.

40k is a sensory experience as well as intellectual challenge.

I would argue that chess and MTG and 'true' competitive games are not a sensory experience at that level.

A lot of people try to impose the MTG style of competitiveness on 40k and it doesn't fit. It is a different beast, IMHO.

That's not the problem at all.

The problem is players on either side of the spectrum assuming that their way of playing is the right way of playing. MTG is by no means an inherently competitive game. But the same militant anticompetitive attitude pops up there too. Little Timmy doesn't like being told that his painstakingly constructed 300 card mono black zombie deck doesn't have a shot at FNM, so he adopts a sour grapes attitude and blames his opponents victories on the fact that they pour more money into the game.

It's the same thing with 40k. You pick an army because it looks cool, spend a buttload of time painting it up, and then get trashed at a local tourney. I think a lot of players at this point take one of the following actions: devote oneself to getting better at the game, or giving up and looking down on competitive players instead of trying to understand their position.

There's nothing wrong with being bad at 40k or MTG, or even with being only moderately good at either game. The problem is that people forget that fun is subjective. At a tournament, people have a different kind of fun than most casual players are used to, and many people mistakenly assume that "these guys don't care about having fun!" because it doesn't fit their own version of fun. Same goes for people who bring tourney lists to a casual Saturday at an LGS.

The bottom line is that most people are stupid, shortsighted, inconsiderate douchehats. I thought this didn't really apply to nerds like us, and that we were above this type of petty squabbling because we value mental effort and knowledge above all else. As it turns out, knowing things doesn't make you smart, and it turns out Sturgeon's Law applies to nerds just as much as it applies to jocks.

As the man with the responsibility of running Silver Sorceror (dakka UKs second event) this year, this is a subject that has been preying on my mind but the current generally accepted system is that there are three elements for which people should be rewarded at a tournament.

1: Gaming Ability. A combination of rules knowledge, list building, tactics and (lets be honest) luck.
2: Hobby Ability. Modelling, converting and painting.
3: Sportsmanship. Did your opponents enjoy the game?

Now I absolutely agree that the best person in each category should be acclaimed seperately - after all, being the best painter does not necessarily make you a nice guy, for example.

Having said that, is it not also justifiable to claim that someone who is a good player with a well painted army and who people enjoy playing has put in a different, but no less worthy effort by being a generalist? And should this not also be rewarded with an 'overall' ranking?

It seems that a large part of the problem is people whose primary focus is the 'best general' category feel that their achievements are perceived as less worthy than 'best overall' and this is maybe something that could be resolved by a different approach to prize support (best general gets a new army, best overall gets vouchers to spend on whatever they want perhaps???).

For Silver Sorceror (where, sadly there is no prize support, I'm poor ) I'm thinking of making the overall 80% Gaming, 10% Hobby, 10% Sportsmanship, but would appreciate some feedback on this.

Communication
Organization
Timeliness
Fairness
Clarity
Challenge
Rewards & recognizes desirable things- good play, good sportsmanship, good appearance
Attractive terrain/tables

I could go on and on about what makes a good event. In practice, you don’t need much. As long as you’re organized, communicate well, and have tables with decent terrain, you’re ahead of the game. People are going to have fun. It’s a fun game.

If you really care about putting on the best possible event, you can go beyond just that. You want challenging, balanced missions. You want a scoring system which is not too complex, which rewards superior play and painting, and which rewards good sportsmanship and/or punishes bad sportsmanship/cheating.

You can certainly run events which reward these things in different ways, and to different degrees. There’s a lot of room for personal taste, and the community is richer for the variety in events.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mannahnin.

If a mission has a stated goal, the players in question should be forced to meet that goal, and not rely on going for the table. Many players in my area expressed a desire in a multi objective mission, to literally let the game go on without their opponent, so they can see how many objectives/ bonus points they can capture.

I know if I ever run another event, I will remove the Massacre portion of the rules, and still stick to using Adepticon styled, multi objective missions. Last time I did that is a small 10 person tournament, it got universal praise from the participants.

Run the Nova Open, that tournament is impressing the hell out of me and I will be running a mirror of it late Summer.

what makes a good tourney... a tourny where the organizers reward those who participate in all aspects of the hobby, not just playing/winning (ala ard boyz). the TO's should know the rules and publish both the faq (or link to the one they're using) and the missions in advance. battlepoints should be the highest total points for scoring and there should be a best general award. in addition, their should also be scoring for sportmanship as well as painting and awards for both (as well as a 3 color minimum painting entry standard). for comp, it should be used to determine pairings for the first half of the rounds only. i used to think that comp points should go towards the overall score until i saw how badly whole codices where chipmunked and tourny organizers who played in the tourny were awarded almost max points with much cheesier armies in a dakka advertised tourny from a respected member.

Transparency is the most vital component. People need to know where they stand on all things and having clear and transparent rules does exactly that. No matter what you do with soft scores, as long as everything is open and objective, it will work well.

In_Theory wrote:....It's a given that the top placing players are generally going to be douches or somehow cheating the system ...

Hmmmm ...... a little over the top with your broad generalization me thinks.


Anyway, to answer Mahu,
1: yes
2: Just do away with sportsmanship or make it so small that it's really more of a reminder to try and play nice.
3: yes
4:yes
5: yes...this is the one thing that I wanted to respond to. This year was the first year I went to 'ardboys, and the fact that I didn't feel "hampered" by not wanting to upset my oponent by not having a dispute was very refreshing and liberating. NO... it didn't mean that it opened up the door for me to be a jerk, but it did open up the door for me to not feel penalized for defending myself or calling a judge over to get a correct ruling. Case in point the third game in my 'ardboys experiance was against a rules lawyer, and if sportsmanship were in place, I may have been more inclined to let him get away with his shenagins, but I was emboldened by the no sportsmanship.

GG

Fearspect wrote:Run the Nova Open, that tournament is impressing the hell out of me and I will be running a mirror of it late Summer.

Color me flattered. Sent you a PM, btw.

I'll throw in my two cents here, and maybe a bit later.

As far as the sportsmanship things goes, I handle it a bit different. I run a series of escalation tournaments that start at 500pts and run through 4 games up to 1750. There is sportsmanship and army painting on each of the "player cards" that I hand out to each player before the game.

For each game, they rate their opponent 1-5 on Sportsmanship, and Army Appearance. It has no effect on the outcome of the tournament, but each week I take about $10 out of the prize pool, and save it for a "Grand Prize" The Grand Prize winners are calculated by how many games won, lost and drawn, and how well your opponents rated you on sports and appearance.

I've found that after 4 tournaments, the noise gets filtered out, and you have a pretty good rating of where everyone stands. It's been pretty successful so far, it keeps people coming back for each event, and gives them a reason not to be a jerk.

As far as the cheating goes, I have a no tolerance policy. You get caught cheating, you are removed from the tournament, and will not be allowed to play in any further events run by me. It wasn't even an issue until I had someone doing some funny stuff with dice, and was alerted to it by another player. It's understandable when you bump a model every now and again, or sometimes miss a dice, or move the tape measure when moving models. We all do it, it's not intentional, and it's not cheating. I implimented a few "ground rules" for the store, that seem to cut out those kind of things:

Use the movement sticks for movement phase and assualt. - I cut up a bunch of the GW movement sticks, and used a caliper to get them within one thousandth of an inch of 6 inches. Way way more accurate than any tape measure, and you can't "float" the sticks

When rolling dice, pick up the misses.

Roll dice in the middle of the table, and scatter dice next to the target.

I've got a whole list, but those are just things that seemed like common sense to me, and other things that I picked up here on Dakka and thought were really good ideas.

Our 'ard Boyz went very well, and even though I screwed up a pairing, I haven't heard any complaints (and believe me, when I do screw up I hear about it!)
Didn't get any out of town people, for which I was a bit disappointed, but I still had fun, and everyone else did as well.

I guess the biggest thing you can do to make a good tournament is listen to your players. After all, they are the ones paying the entry fees, and know what they want. Do the guys want comp and sports in your area? Give it to them! I don't like comp (for reasons I've stated elsewhere, won't get into it here) but if the guys wanted to start using it, I'd come up with a system.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Phazael wrote:Transparency is the most vital component. People need to know where they stand on all things and having clear and transparent rules does exactly that. No matter what you do with soft scores, as long as everything is open and objective, it will work well.

Forgot to mention that, but this, 100%. Almost all of the problems I read about on here are due to lack of communication. I post info at the store, through our email list, and in our forums. I still have a person or two show up and give me the "Well I didn't know that!" line, but at that point, they willfully ignored what I put out!

Mahu wrote:I have been thinking a lot about this concept recently, looking at the recent drama that pops up every year with the Aard Boyz, and what I have seen with various other events, I wanted to see what you all thought of this.

I have been playing this game and actively participating in the on-line community for a fair amount of time now, and the same arguments keep cycling over and over again.

The internet makes a very clear definitive line between the "casual gamers" and the "WAAC" competitive gamers, and there seems to be nothing in between. However, I have been around my fair share of gaming stores and major events and I have found the reality to be that most people are in between both concepts. There are those that love to paint and build themed lists, there are those that love a really tough challenging game at the top level of a tournament, and there are every body in between.

I think we as a community allow the few, for lack of a better term, loud mouths dictate the flow of tournaments. The real reason we have sportsmanship scores is because we are afraid of the few douches ruining every bodies fun, but we end up hurting ourselves by creating a system that can be exploited to your detriment.

I think we are too tolerant as a community for abuse in game. I think it is very telling that a particular team was able to play 3 full games at adepticon with a flyer, before the last round opponents questioned it.

Where is the fear to speak up coming from? Could it be the sportsmanship scores, or is it the fear of being called out for accusations and slander.

To me a good tournament should have challenging missions, reward players for their effort in painting their miniatures (or even having them painted), and imply three games against good opponents.

Every time I run a tournament, there are 5 principles I apply:

1. Never punish a player based strictly on what he brings to the table.
2. Have a straight forward sportsmanship scoring, and question players when they turn in zeros.
3. Award painting with as much of a non subjective scoring system as possible.
4. Create missions that are challenging to players, and allows no "easy win" based on your army type.
5. Create an atmosphere where players can openly question their opponents rules interpretations without fear of reprisal.

I think if those concepts where applied to more tournaments, there would be less drama and feelings of being robed by an unfair system.

Just my thoughts.

Personally I dont think sportsmanship should effect scores in anyway....

Ive played a few games at tournament level now ( Halo 3 , Card Games) and in all of these people use mind games, so me saying "wow did you really make that move ?" or , "Haha who picks that in there army". Should not effect my score.
Because Im simply saying these things to win the game, If we ever went over the line we would apologise as soon as the game was over and shake hands.

I guess that would make me a "WAAC" player , But thats why I play tournaments to win them.

being new to this hobby I dont know how things work though, just giving an outside point of view on sportsmanship.