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Well, I've been playing a long-ish time.

in EVERY game I've played [including all of four tournaments] I've played, I've done random little side stories to go with what happened in that phase, kinda like a phase report saying things like
'so, the guys gun explodes in his face, ripping his head from his shoulder' [which was a more recent one]
and
'Then the melta hits the armour and gets bored halfway through, failing to penetrate your heavy armours.'

Well, both are pretty silly, but you know, it keeps the game interesting.

Then I get these people who just sit there and move onto the next phase, not caring what happened. when I do it, they tend to get pissed at me.

is this normal for gamers? Do we have to be so lifeless when we play?

I know some of my friends and I do things like that occasionally, but we tend to take ages to run our games, so maybe it'd save time if we didnt make comments like that?

well some people like to play a "serious tactical" game while others prefer to play a "fun toy soldiers" game. I'd say you should try to accomedate the "tourny" players that don't know you and run through your game in a serious manner, but if your opponent starts (as you would say "making the game more fun") then by all means join them. Save the fun "DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA" stuff for when your playing a nice friendly game with your friends.

As for your questions, i play seriously when i'm with someone i don't know very well or am not sure if they would be okay with it, but with my regular gaming friends; we talk trash about each others armies and we have the fun with whats going on.

I tend to do that stuff in my head, rather htan saying it out loud.

Not a lack of imagination, I just think you are now puching your imagination of how the events are occuring onto another.

I know I do it in my head, but for the sake of keeping things moving I keep it there.

no, but I ask how people like to play.

most of the people say they're just there to enjoy the game. I'm serious with tournaments. but when your playing an hour long 500 point game, it's not so important.

I love making pew-pew noises and calling "Medic!". I will never understand the mind of a "serious" 40K player.

Captain Solon wrote:no, but I ask how people like to play.

Then don't give a title to the thread as if you're looking down on people feeling superior to them

Oh snap!

Captain Solon wrote:Well, I've been playing a long-ish time.

in EVERY game I've played [including all of four tournaments] I've played, I've done random little side stories to go with what happened in that phase, kinda like a phase report saying things like
'so, the guys gun explodes in his face, ripping his head from his shoulder' [which was a more recent one]
and
'Then the melta hits the armour and gets bored halfway through, failing to penetrate your heavy armours.'

Well, both are pretty silly, but you know, it keeps the game interesting.

Then I get these people who just sit there and move onto the next phase, not caring what happened. when I do it, they tend to get pissed at me.

is this normal for gamers? Do we have to be so lifeless when we play?

Difference in maturity level , nothing to do with them been lifeless.
They dont need to make pew pew sound or make a narration of whats going on ,
for all you know they might be keeping it ( full George Lucas / LoTR Symphony with full battle cry / explosion sound effect ) to themselves in their own head.

I do all that in my head.

One day, I'll remember to bring my camera to some games and make a comic out of the battle.

My friend always jokes that the cadian medic is saying "IT'S NOT TWO-PLY!!!"
Also, one time I fired four hunter-killer missiles at my friend's dreadnought. 3 missed, and one failed to penetrate. We joked that the dread caught the missile; now he bears it on his base.

Its a difference in play style. Some people like it, others don't. What you do about it is up to you. Some people think you should tailor your own play style to your opponent's, rather than play the game the way you enjoy it. Others think you should just play how you want, and ruin the good fun of other people. Either way someone loses. Really, I think that if you are playing in a tourney, you should prolly keep it near the "serious" end of the spectrum. In friendly games, go nuts. But that's just me...

If you were to do that constantly throughout a game, I am almost certain it would begin to get on my nerves.

If you were to do it occasionally for something remarkable/comedic I wouldn't mind, but it would all come down to how clever/funny I thought the comments were, and how much time you spent making explosion sounds and giving your little men funerals.

del'Vhar wrote:If you were to do that constantly throughout a game, I am almost certain it would begin to get on my nerves.

Agreed. The occasional "Curses! Foiled again!" is fine, but I seriously doubt that something happens every phase of every turn that deserves a running commentary.

Interesting topic.

For me, I play to win, so my mind is constantly focusing on strategies and rules and measurements and, well, winning. It's not until AFTER I play the game, when I write up my battle reports that I throw in narratives. It's not usually until I can't actually remember the battle any more and then I go back and read the report that my brain really chews it over for it's imaginative qualities.

It's not that I don't use my imagination, it's that I can't use my imagination and focus on the game at the same time.

My first tournament both me and my opponent mocked my Autocannon Heavy weapon Squad gunners for "sneaking off to spank at dirty pictures" instead of firing(3 full turns of not actually hitting anything even with "bring it down" being ordered on them)

My Last tournament was full of me shouting orky slogans; which my opponent was fine with until i started hitting with nearly every shot, and every Armor save he was called to make with his TH/SS termies came up as a 1.

I don't make noises, and people yelling Waargh all the damn time really annoy me, but I also find the game more fun when we add some character to it. My favourite model is an ork boy called plucky, so named because combined firing took his squad of 30 boyz to just plucky... in one shooting phase. Being plucky, he pass his morale check with ease and charged headlong into a guard regiment and heroically missed with all his attacks and see the guardsmen beat poor plucky into pulp. I always make sure I pay attention to how plucky goes in games now, and mourn his passing.

I have a mate who puts uses a bunny rabbit mini for the tenth man in one of his guard regiments - he tells people not to shoot at that unit because the first casualty will be the bunny...

Agreed, you just have to be sensitive to your opponent's reactions to your playfulness. If he laughs and makes his own jokes, great. If he gives you a polite smile and kind of just brushes past what you're doing, it's probably better to stop. There's maybe no hard and fast rule about what people find enjoyable during a game, we're all so different.

---- Be well, be blessed!
Frankie

Tournament games are timed aren't they? It might be in those cases, that they don't want you to waste the time available. Some people also have different senses of humour as well, believe it or not, which means they probably see your dialogue as annoying, rather than engaging or clever.
And of course, the varying types of people who play the game means that you'll run into people who just don't like that kind of thing.

Joetaco wrote:well some people like to play a "serious tactical" game

Then why are they playing 40K?

I am an enormous manchild. If I had my way, every explosion would have a host of sound effects to accompany it and every charge would be heralded with a warcry.

But I don't do those kinds of things because that's weird.

CT GAMER wrote:

Joetaco wrote:well some people like to play a "serious tactical" game

Then why are they playing 40K?

I know it was asked in jest, but this is actually a very interesting question. If having a "serious tactical" game is the only condition, then any number of games leave GW far behind in the dust. So why play 40k? If I were to guess, it's any (or a combination) of the following factors:

1. You want to play a "serious tactical" game that also has awesome models. GW has a very well established and expansive range of miniatures to choose from.
2. You want to play a "serious tactical" game, but don't want too big a challenge. Applying a "serious tactical" mindset against the average 40K scrub trying to roll dice with their flippers is a path to easy victory.
3. You want to play a "serious tactical" game, but all your friends/all the locals are a bunch of idiots that think Warmachine/Hordes/Flames of War/whatever are too complicated. So you make due with 40k.

SaintHazard wrote:I am an enormous manchild. If I had my way, every explosion would have a host of sound effects to accompany it and every charge would be heralded with a warcry.

Here ya go.

I dont' usually make sound effects when I play, but I have had the chance to add them in my battle reports.

Man, I'd forgotten how time consuming it was to make this.

Anyways, I'm a "Strategy" guy, and I fit in with the first of the above. I like the wargamming aspect, but I also really, really like the hobby aspect to it as well. If I didn't, I'd play chess, but as I do, I play chess on crack.

Petite Francois wrote:Agreed, you just have to be sensitive to your opponent's reactions to your playfulness. If he laughs and makes his own jokes, great. If he gives you a polite smile and kind of just brushes past what you're doing, it's probably better to stop. There's maybe no hard and fast rule about what people find enjoyable during a game, we're all different.

Well said. After all, we are all (hopefully ) playing to have fun. Let your view of your opponent be your guide. I like to imagine the turn events rather like movie scenes in my head. However, I'd imagine my foes growing tired of a running commentary.

Yeah, I make the noises in my head, and every now and again I do a bit of manly fist pumping upon destroying a hard target...that sounded better in my head before I wrote it down.

I actually agree with both sides though here. I think if you are just doing it for the fun then its okay, but its all about context. If you blow up someones Gargant its okay to celebrate a little bit, but not at your opponents expense. So, no chest bumping other players in the store, no jumping on the table and thrusting your face in your opponents and going 'IN YO FACE!' And especially not any of those stupid dances that footy players do when they score a goal...

Unless its that soccer one where they pull thier shirt over thier head and zoom around the field with thier arms out...If you're game enough to do that in a crowded store then you deserve to...

Whenever I use my Duke Nukem counts-as Marbo and he does something, I have to put on my best Duke voice and say a one liner.

"Heheh, what a mess!" upon throwing a pipe bomb.
"I've got balls of steel" upon making a save.

And so on.

I can understand people getting miffed at a tourny since most people who enter are there to win not goof off. But during a game on a saterday afternoon id welcome it.

The great thing about imagination is that you can keep it in your head.

If I'm playing a friendly game, then to be honest I'm usually still commentating on the metagame happenings, and discussing live strategies, with the occasional bit of bluff and nonsense ("ooh, you might want to shoot at that before it gets any closer", "I don't mind at all if you shoot my grots instead of the boys in 4+ cover behind them").

If I'm playing any sort of game with a beginner, I'm usually helping them to play. If it's a mate and it's competitive, the metagame is still interesting enough for us to discuss, unless there's nothing worth discussing. If it's a stranger and competitive, I'm sure as hell not going to weird them out describing the deaths of models on the table.

Solon, if you find people get annoyed at what you are doing, it's probably because you're still very much a beginner player with rudimentary understanding of the game rules in general. Others who are attempting to take the tactical game seriously while teaching a fourteen-year-old how to play would be understandably irked in the situation you have described.

Just because they don't like you making side commentaries about what happens in the game dosen't mean they have a hard time using their imagination.

If you are playing someone at a tournament then chances are they are in the tournament to try and win not for some casual fun gaming which means they would rather focus on the game itself then any narrative that can go with it.

I love narrative in my games but there is a time to use it (when playing with your regular group of friends when games aren't that serious) and there are times to not use it (tournaments and such where players tend to take the game more seriously.

If we knew eachother and played often I'd be fine with the narrative and would probably through it back at you but each round of a tournament usually has a set time limit so if your dragging out phases and turns with unrequired narrative that cuts into the time I have to play and possibly win I would get pissed to.