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.

The problem is that the only reason to use 40k's rules is that they're so popular. They might be unclear, unbalanced, and generally a bloated mess, but at least you can be confident that if you show up at your local store's 40k night you'll have people to play against. And that's something no other game can really claim. But once you start making your own version of the rules you lose all of that. You can have the best rules ever but that doesn't matter if nobody else plays it, and nobody else is really interested in learning a whole new set of rules just to play a random pickup game. Meanwhile you're stuck with all the baggage of the existing rules, including awful core mechanics like IGOUGO and the D6-based stat lines, so you probably don't even have a very good game.

The game itself is fine*. The core mechanics for the last 25 years have changed from edition to edition, but the game itself remains fundamentally the same and has spawned other tabletop miniature games to either develop around the core that GW created or a new game using GW's systems as a measuring stick against (I would think warmahordes and all other systems therein would be very different if 40k and Fantasy did not exist or something else was the standard).

*Does the current edition need fixing? Hell yes. Is the slippery slope getting more downward spiral-like? Double down that yes. But I'd argue if the game was total crap, NO ONE would be playing it. Rather, people are trying to rescue it from itself.

 Peregrine wrote:
Meanwhile you're stuck with all the baggage of the existing rules, including awful core mechanics like IGOUGO and the D6-based stat lines, so you probably don't even have a very good game.

Graph, chart, and page number for citation please.

I frankly play the game for the setting, not the rules, and I think a very large number of people are in the same boat as me. I mean, from being with 40K over the years, just in my house, I can play games in the 40K setting with 2nd, 3rd, or 4th edition rules. Or Necromunda, or Gorkamorka. Or Epic. Or go completely indie and use "In the Emperor's Name". I agree though that the modern ruleset is a thoroughly bloated mess of Supplements, FAQ's, Errata, Universal Special Rules, Allies.....blech.

The only think that keeps GW going with 40K so successfully is the mythos, which is why they can make money with all the games and material they publish that isn;t linked to the current ruleset. If they had to stand on rules alone I don't think they could do nearly as well.

I mean, cmon, I can have just as much fun running around as my faction with "In the Emperor's Name", which has absolutely nothing in common with the official 40K rules, as I can with official GW material, to me that speaks quite loudly of the rules.

AegisGrimm wrote:Necromunda, or Gorkamorka. Or Epic.

I'm a little surprised that we're not starting to see a bit more of that, honestly. Even GW is trying to shoehorn different versions of 40k in there.

AegisGrimm wrote:The only think that keeps GW going with 40K so successfully is the mythos, which is why they can make money with all the games and material they publish that isn;t linked to the current ruleset.

Exactly. That and they produce and distribute a durable good, of course.

AegisGrimm wrote:If they had to stand on rules alone I don't think they could do nearly as well.

... unlike countless others. Most miniatures games fail quickly, and fail hard.

Having a "better" rules system isn't enough to drive sales and keep a company in business.

 WarOne wrote:
The game itself is fine*.

Well, it's fine if you define "fine" as "adequate for using your models and imagining a story". By any sane definition the rules of 40k are garbage.

The core mechanics for the last 25 years have changed from edition to edition, but the game itself remains fundamentally the same and has spawned other tabletop miniature games to either develop around the core that GW created or a new game using GW's systems as a measuring stick against (I would think warmahordes and all other systems therein would be very different if 40k and Fantasy did not exist or something else was the standard).

And that's exactly the same. Other companies innovate and make better rules, GW just keeps adding more rules onto the core mechanics of a 1980s fantasy game, resulting in a bloated mess with tons of ambiguous/contradictory rules, horrible gameplay, and a complete lack of identity in what the rules want to be doing.

But I'd argue if the game was total crap, NO ONE would be playing it.

I think you underestimate the "everyone else is playing it" factor. 40k has nice fluff and models that draw people in, and a bad game that you can play is better than a great game that collects dust on your shelf. If 40k was a new release today it would almost certainly fail, but it has a lot of inertia behind it that keeps the game going even when it doesn't deserve it on its own merits.

Graph, chart, and page number for citation please.

Citation for what, that 40k's rules are awful? Do you also want a citation for 1+1=2, or water being wet, while I'm at it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ailaros wrote:
I'm a little surprised that we're not starting to see a bit more of that, honestly. Even GW is trying to shoehorn different versions of 40k in there.

It's the critical mass factor. A game of 40k, even as much as the rules get in the way of having fun, is better than sitting alone in the corner wishing that someone would play Epic with you.

Davor wrote:
Or you can make your own house rules, and make the game fun for you and the gang?

This man here gets an exalt.

In my opinion this is what would happen during the rule writting:
"It was better last time" or "that's never going to work" and "how does that make sense? My idea was better!"
I just can't see everyone agreeing on what to do and what to change. Everyone wants something diffrent. Maybe there is a few things that could be agreed on but that's not enough to write a rule set. Not forgetting that it would have to be Play-tested! That would start a whole new argument. I just think that it would never work.

 Peregrine wrote:
Well, it's fine if you define "fine" as "adequate for using your models and imagining a story". By any sane definition the rules of 40k are garbage.

40k rules are not garbage. Now I'm not going to spend several hundred posts white knighting every exact problem in a popcorn subforum for such rule breaks and interpretations, but suffice to say I can sit down with an opponent and play a game without a problem. The rules give us a format that I can pick an army, the opponent can pick an army, and we can play the game without spending several hours arguing how to play.

 Peregrine wrote:

And that's exactly the same. Other companies innovate and make better rules, GW just keeps adding more rules onto the core mechanics of a 1980s fantasy game, resulting in a bloated mess with tons of ambiguous/contradictory rules, horrible gameplay, and a complete lack of identity in what the rules want to be doing.

The basic premise of the game has not changed. Each edition adds or subtracts based on where the company wants to direct the game. A game simply adds more the older it gets in the modern age. Look at MtG. And like MtG, the company should address issues in a game system so old that some mechanics become broken or overpowering. GW does not get off the hook by allowing something overpowering and then ignoring it.

 Peregrine wrote:
I think you underestimate the "everyone else is playing it" factor. 40k has nice fluff and models that draw people in, and a bad game that you can play is better than a great game that collects dust on your shelf. If 40k was a new release today it would almost certainly fail, but it has a lot of inertia behind it that keeps the game going even when it doesn't deserve it on its own merits.

I agree that the history behind the game largely drives it today.

 Peregrine wrote:
Citation for what, that 40k's rules are awful? Do you also want a citation for 1+1=2, or water being wet, while I'm at it?

I'm not sure 1+1 equals 2 as psychic powers stacking seems to break such tenets. And unfortunately on Page 103 of the BRB, water does not necessarily have to be wet. It can also be on fire.

 WarOne wrote:
40k rules are not garbage.

40k rules are demonstrably some of the most complicated of any major game on the market. The wording is not clear, which leads to complications and arguments. There is little to no effort made to balance the game. You being able to sit down and play a game with a friend in a casual setting is fine, but compare it to any other game out there made by a real company and the complete lack of professionalism really shows.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 WarOne wrote:
40k rules are not garbage.

40k rules are demonstrably some of the most complicated of any major game on the market. The wording is not clear, which leads to complications and arguments. There is little to no effort made to balance the game. You being able to sit down and play a game with a friend in a casual setting is fine, but compare it to any other game out there made by a real company and the complete lack of professionalism really shows.

I kind of like that though. It makes the competitive players (who care to argue about unclear rules, rather than just 4+ing it) go away. The balance, I agree, is not there - but that doesn't bother me. I'll tell someone who's being a dick as much to their face, and they've usually gotten better after a good talking to.

I agree about the lack of professionalism, but I really do like that I can just get down, play some 40k games without having to worry about anything, and then go home for the night. I'm unsure why people think it is so impossible to do that.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I kind of like that though. It makes the competitive players (who care to argue about unclear rules, rather than just 4+ing it) go away.

Yes. I love being able to tell the rules to go fk themselves when I and my friends are mid-battle, having a laugh, and can't quite figure out if some guy has a cover save or not.
We also tend to allow a 5+ cover save if we're in doubt about a shooting rule, just to balance it out when we say "ah fk it, make the shot".

 da001 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I'm sure that myself and a couple of gaming buddies could write better rules in a weekend, but no one would use them.

This is true too.

Many fan-codexes and house rules that can be found in the Proposed Rules subforums are
1) More clearly written
2) Far, far, far more respectful with the fluff
3) Far more interesting and fun to play
4) In many cases, more balanced
than most stuff GW is throwing out nowadays. They are acts of love instead of acts of money-grabbing. Stuff like the Riptide would be shunned down, let alone a Riptide R´Varna. And if someone writing about the Black Templars ignore that it is the Edict of Nikaea the reason they lack Librarians, he would probably be mocked at. Or someone claiming that Undivided Daemon Princes do not exist, in spite of having many of them alive and kicking in the setting.

But the threads are full of people complaining that their favorite faction will be "utterly destroyed" if any single house-rule is applied. So at the end nobody would use them. They could lose.

I am trying to be positive but I can´t.

Riptides are awesome models. But clearly, they overperform for their points. So they need to be more expensive, or do less on the table top. This kind of logic can applied to every model that is a) never being fielded or b) is ALWAYS fielded. Why GW can't grasp this is truly mystifying.

WarOne wrote:40k rules are not garbage.

The GW rules are 100% terrible as 100% of scientists can tell you with empirical accuracy down to a .001% margin of error. You're ruining scientific literacy (and are an insult to intelligence itself) if you choose to be a GW rules are bad denier.

Saying otherwise is just troll-baiting, apparently.

 da001 wrote:


But the threads are full of people complaining that their favorite faction will be "utterly destroyed" if any single house-rule is applied. So at the end nobody would use them. They could lose.

I am trying to be positive but I can´t.

I wonder if the GW release schedule (rush of releases, and then nothing for months or years) has something to do with the players of different factions being so partisan--that, and the cost of an army making it harder to run more than one faction. For games like Warmachine or Malifaux, where everyone gets a roughly regular stream of new stuff for their faction, there's nowhere near the level of feuding or fear that rebalancing would ruin their faction.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

I kind of like that though. It makes the competitive players (who care to argue about unclear rules, rather than just 4+ing it) go away. The balance, I agree, is not there - but that doesn't bother me. I'll tell someone who's being a dick as much to their face, and they've usually gotten better after a good talking to.

I agree about the lack of professionalism, but I really do like that I can just get down, play some 40k games without having to worry about anything, and then go home for the night. I'm unsure why people think it is so impossible to do that.

Wouldn't it be better if those arguments could be resolved by simply checking what the book says, and then by applying the rules as written? That's not an impossible dream, it's been done. It's not being a dick if both players honestly have different readings of a poorly written rule; rules arguments add nothing to the game, and neither does "You can cheat if you can find an ambiguity in the rules, and then roll 4+".

I've made this comparison before, but have a look at the multi-page threads in the YMDC forums for 40K, and then in Warmachine (or Privateers own rules questions forum). You'll see the difference instantly.

 Selym wrote:

 da001 wrote:
What Filthy Sanchez said was interesting and thought-provoking.

What Psienesis said was the truth.

Most players play only one faction. They will go to great lengths to make their own faction far, far more powerful than the rest, while trying to deliberately break the rest.

Sad, but I think it is the truth

*looks down at feet*

*raised hand*

"Guilty as charged..."

Ork boyz have 4+ FNP choppas are AP2 and are 4 points.
-What happens when you put me in charge of codex orks.

 Ailaros wrote:

WarOne wrote:40k rules are not garbage.

The GW rules are 100% terrible as 100% of scientists can tell you with empirical accuracy down to a .001% margin of error. You're ruining scientific literacy (and are an insult to intelligence itself) if you choose to be a GW rules are bad denier.

Saying otherwise is just troll-baiting, apparently.

They are not the best but if garbage, why play any semblance of the game at all?

GW makes many rule mistakes. They're not incomprehensible. You can drive trucks the size of 16 wheelers through the holes in the rules, but arguing they are garbage would mean you would not play the game at all. Yes there are issues but to argue they are pristine is ignoring the ugly and arguing they are garbage ignores those who do play the game but accepts the faults.

Da krimson barun wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 da001 wrote:
What Filthy Sanchez said was interesting and thought-provoking.

What Psienesis said was the truth.

Most players play only one faction. They will go to great lengths to make their own faction far, far more powerful than the rest, while trying to deliberately break the rest.

Sad, but I think it is the truth

*looks down at feet*

*raised hand*

"Guilty as charged..."

Ork boyz have 4+ FNP choppas are AP2 and are 4 points.
-What happens when you put me in charge of codex orks.

"My Vindicator shall cost 1000 points, and everything else in the codex shall cost only 1 pts, and have Hatred, Rage, Counter-Attack, FnP(2+)!" - Matt Ward, if he was allowed to do anything with a codex.

Calling the 40K rules "garbage" or "100% terrible" is a bit much. Yes, they have some very large holes that are often filled with a soup of vague or poorly worded intended rule interpretations, but by and large, the rules are playable to an extent where the game is quite enjoyable. Garbage rules that are 100% terrible generally equals completely unplayable and unfun, something 40K is most definitely not.

I think one of the biggest problems with the rules is that GW doesn't seem to understand the large number rules-lawyers that play their game. Their lazy writing opens the rules up for all sorts of creative interpretation, and we get mired in RAW versus RAI rules for months.

For example, a friend and I have been disagreeing on the Sweeping Advance versus Everliving debate for over two months, sometimes the arguments have been heated, other times they have been civil. But we are still having this disagreement, and are no closer to coming to an agreement. There has been no sign of a meaningful FAQ or Errata from GW in over 6 months. I can forgive sloppy writing, but a complete and utter lack of FAQ support for such a long period of time is inexcusable. Additionally, it just adds to player frustration and feelings that GW just doesn't give one crap about its fan base.

 Peregrine wrote:
The problem is that the only reason to use 40k's rules is that they're so popular. They might be unclear, unbalanced, and generally a bloated mess, but at least you can be confident that if you show up at your local store's 40k night you'll have people to play against. And that's something no other game can really claim. But once you start making your own version of the rules you lose all of that. You can have the best rules ever but that doesn't matter if nobody else plays it, and nobody else is really interested in learning a whole new set of rules just to play a random pickup game.

Exactly.

It's a great idea in theory and, if your gaming group wants a new ruleset then, by all means, create one, but for random pick up games, I wish you luck trying to get people to play "Dakkahammer" with you.

 WarOne wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

WarOne wrote:40k rules are not garbage.

The GW rules are 100% terrible as 100% of scientists can tell you with empirical accuracy down to a .001% margin of error. You're ruining scientific literacy (and are an insult to intelligence itself) if you choose to be a GW rules are bad denier.

Saying otherwise is just troll-baiting, apparently.

They are not the best but if garbage, why play any semblance of the game at all?

GW makes many rule mistakes. They're not incomprehensible. You can drive trucks the size of 16 wheelers through the holes in the rules, but arguing they are garbage would mean you would not play the game at all. Yes there are issues but to argue they are pristine is ignoring the ugly and arguing they are garbage ignores those who do play the game but accepts the faults.

No, they're pretty much garbage. Any system where the wave serpent exists at its price point is 100% bat guano insane.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Calling the 40K rules "garbage" or "100% terrible" is a bit much. Yes, they have some very large holes that are often filled with a soup of vague or poorly worded intended rule interpretations, but by and large, the rules are playable to an extent where the game is quite enjoyable. Garbage rules that are 100% terrible generally equals completely unplayable and unfun, something 40K is most definitely not.

I think one of the biggest problems with the rules is that GW doesn't seem to understand the large number rules-lawyers that play their game. Their lazy writing opens the rules up for all sorts of creative interpretation, and we get mired in RAW versus RAI rules for months.

For example, a friend and I have been disagreeing on the Sweeping Advance versus Everliving debate for over two months, sometimes the arguments have been heated, other times they have been civil. But we are still having this disagreement, and are no closer to coming to an agreement. There has been no sign of a meaningful FAQ or Errata from GW in over 6 months. I can forgive sloppy writing, but a complete and utter lack of FAQ support for such a long period of time is inexcusable. Additionally, it just adds to player frustration and feelings that GW just doesn't give one crap about its fan base.

Nah, it's not quite enough, are allowed to say 110% garbage?

 The Shadow wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The problem is that the only reason to use 40k's rules is that they're so popular. They might be unclear, unbalanced, and generally a bloated mess, but at least you can be confident that if you show up at your local store's 40k night you'll have people to play against. And that's something no other game can really claim. But once you start making your own version of the rules you lose all of that. You can have the best rules ever but that doesn't matter if nobody else plays it, and nobody else is really interested in learning a whole new set of rules just to play a random pickup game.

Exactly.

It's a great idea in theory and, if your gaming group wants a new ruleset then, by all means, create one, but for random pick up games, I wish you luck trying to get people to play "Dakkahammer" with you.

Dunno.

I've been around a few local clubs. If somebody puts the idea out and asks people to start a round of Infinity, Saga, Malifaux, Mercs, DZC whatever, it usually happens. I've never had problems getting people to play other systems. I've played DreadBall fairly religiously for the past year. Dabbled in X-Wing and Dropzone Commander.. Deadzone is pretty hot right now.

And yet, plans to "start" 40K always come back. People gravitate back to it even when (or especially if) they've been doing other games for a while. And I haven't had to rely for a totally "out-of-the-blue" pick-up game for years.

40K does attract people, even long-term gamers with a plethora of experience in other systems, in ways that the "everything-about-40K-rules-except-their-popularity-is-bad"-stance doesn't allow for.

Except what attracts people? The rules? Or the models, their own army, nostalgia, and/or the fluff/atmosphere?

 StarTrotter wrote:
Except what attracts people? The rules? Or the models, their own army, nostalgia, and/or the fluff/atmosphere?

When games are played without cheese and with good friends who're happy to solve a dispute on a 4+ (serious doubt calls for a 5+ with my group), it's great fun.

It's when somebody is going for the win that things degenerate rapidly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
In some ways, I actually like the clunkiness of the rules. Roll to hit, wound, save, Ld. It just feels right. Bulky. Like my CSM.

But then you get all the extra crap with the idiotic mess that are terrain rules, the exceptions on exceptions on exceptions etc...

 Selym wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
Except what attracts people? The rules? Or the models, their own army, nostalgia, and/or the fluff/atmosphere?

When games are played without cheese and with good friends who're happy to solve a dispute on a 4+ (serious doubt calls for a 5+ with my group), it's great fun.

It's when somebody is going for the win that things degenerate rapidly.

Again, what's wrong with going for the win in a game? That's surely the point of playing a game with somebody, rather than an activity with no winner or loser. The link of winning, or trying "too hard" to win, to being a douche is something I only ever seem to see in conjunction with GW, which suggests that the rules are indeed busted. Let's suppose that instead of going with 4+ on a rules dispute, you check the rulebook, find the answer written there in an unambiguous way, and implement it. Does that make the atmosphere more hostile somehow? Not in my experience with more balanced games.

 Elemental wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
Except what attracts people? The rules? Or the models, their own army, nostalgia, and/or the fluff/atmosphere?

When games are played without cheese and with good friends who're happy to solve a dispute on a 4+ (serious doubt calls for a 5+ with my group), it's great fun.

It's when somebody is going for the win that things degenerate rapidly.

Again, what's wrong with going for the win in a game? That's surely the point of playing a game with somebody, rather than an activity with no winner or loser. The link of winning, or trying "too hard" to win, to being a douche is something I only ever seem to see in conjunction with GW, which suggests that the rules are indeed busted. Let's suppose that instead of going with 4+ on a rules dispute, you check the rulebook, find the answer written there in an unambiguous way, and implement it. Does that make the atmosphere more hostile somehow? Not in my experience with more balanced games.

I agree that there shouldn't be anything wrong with going for the win, but the 40k ruleset does not take kindly to it. It has been written with the mindset of "beer and pretzels storytime" by some pretty biased rulemakers, who have a penchant for making totally disorganised and self-contradicting rules.

 Selym wrote:
I agree that there shouldn't be anything wrong with going for the win, but the 40k ruleset does not take kindly to it. It has been written with the mindset of "beer and pretzels storytime" by some pretty biased rulemakers, who have a penchant for making totally disorganised and self-contradicting rules.

And this is exactly why 40k's rules are garbage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 WarOne wrote:
40k rules are not garbage. Now I'm not going to spend several hundred posts white knighting every exact problem in a popcorn subforum for such rule breaks and interpretations, but suffice to say I can sit down with an opponent and play a game without a problem. The rules give us a format that I can pick an army, the opponent can pick an army, and we can play the game without spending several hours arguing how to play.

That's a ridiculously low standard. I'm sure plenty of parents have had fun playing "roll a die and move that many spaces" games with their young children, but I don't think anyone is going to defend the rules for those "games". 40k is the same kind of game: the rules are terrible, but sometimes you can have fun despite the rules.

And I also disagree about being able to sit down and play. That only works if you and your opponent don't have different ideas about how powerful your lists should be, don't disagree on any major rule interpretations, etc. Real "sit down and play" games don't have these problems.

The basic premise of the game has not changed. Each edition adds or subtracts based on where the company wants to direct the game.

And that's exactly the problem! The basic premise of the game is awful. IGOUGO is incredibly boring, the D6 core mechanics cripple diversity (for example, your only choice for a unit's BS is hitting on a 4+ or hitting on a 3+), and the basic unit stats still have the baggage of a 1980s fantasy game where melee combat dominates and effective shooting is rare. And each edition GW just makes some superficial changes (usually by adding on more rules without any overall plan beyond "this sounds cool") without any consistent direction for the game. Instead of refining the game into its ideal form GW is just wandering aimlessly and throwing more rules onto the bloated mess.

A game simply adds more the older it gets in the modern age. Look at MtG.

Yes, a game adds more, but there's a place for those additions: the codices/expansion sets/etc. The core rules don't have to get more complex, and they haven't in MTG. The basic structure of MTG is the same, all the extra complexity has come in the individual sets where you only have to deal with a small subset of that complexity at a given moment and you can scale it up or down by adding or removing complex cards. Contrast this with GW where the core rules keep getting more and more stuff to deal with on top of all the extra complexity in each army.

I agree that the history behind the game largely drives it today.

Then you have to consider that history when talking about the quality of GW's rules. Questions like "if it's so bad then why does anyone play it" ignore the history of the game and GW's dominance of the market (often through driving independent stores out of business through questionable tactics).

Peregrineo you even play any more?Or do you just come here to moan?If you hate them that much why do you play them?(If you even do anymore)

Some people play the game for other reasons than for the game itself. Like me. I play because I love the idea of the Imperial Guard and I like using my tanks.

The game is utterly stupid and the fact that people have to 4+ rules in the first place is just a damning example of it's stupidity. It's weird how people use the "If you don't play it seriously, it's good" defense. It's completely irrelevant to the discussion since it only shows how you enjoy the game not how good the rules are.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Some people play the game for other reasons than for the game itself. Like me. I play because I love the idea of the Imperial Guard and I like using my tanks.

The game is utterly stupid and the fact that people have to 4+ rules in the first place is just a damning example of it's stupidity. It's weird how people use the "If you don't play it seriously, it's good" defense. It's completely irrelevant to the discussion since it only shows how you enjoy the game not how good the rules are.

There can be fixes for these problems but it has to come from GW to make the rules better than they are now.

Fixes by players unfortunately do not count. We have a rule set that can be enjoyed but we need participation from GW. Balance between codices, fixing loop hopes and the like and delineating which parts of rules for playing expansions or certain armies would make a semi decent rules et become better.

If the 40k rule set was complete and utter garbage, it would be abandoned and left behind for a newer edition or other game systems. Such as it is, it does need fixing and it does need GW to step up to the plate to make it better. Taking a page from WoTC, use player feedback to fix it like from DnD 3.0 to 3.5 and 4.0 to 5.0.

 Selym wrote:

I agree that there shouldn't be anything wrong with going for the win, but the 40k ruleset does not take kindly to it. It has been written with the mindset of "beer and pretzels storytime" by some pretty biased rulemakers, who have a penchant for making totally disorganised and self-contradicting rules.

It's a quirk of gw games where winning is sinning, and is actively frowned upon. I feel that it's almost implied and heavily guilt tripped by some folks that I nearly have to apologise for winning a game, and the win should come about by accident, as it were. Gw games are the only games I know where 'casual' and 'competitive' enjoy such mutually exclusive connotations amongst larger segments of the player base - in other games, you just rock up, put your bits on the board and have at 'em.

I sometimes wonder if it's the players collective histories that cause this. Face it, a lot of us are nerds. A lot will be, or were on the bottom of the social ladder (as distinct from 'those' players, who rate lower!) and how many of us got bullied at school? I know I did, back in the day (happy to laugh it off now though). And sometimes I wonder if we all carry a collective sense of 'baggage' with regard to this stuff, and we carry it over to our hobby - one some level, I feel there is an implied attitude amongst the players of 'if no one wins, no one loses, and I'm tired of being a loser'. it's interesting. Since I've gotten into more competitive, and far more physical pursuits since school, my outlook towards 'doing my best' and 'pushing' things has changed completely from my attitudes in school, back in the day. Far less of the 'stop playing so hard against me' and far more 'I'm taking you down punk, bring it on.' (Punk being tongue in cheek, obviously)