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Have you ever played a game of 40K at your FLGS and had it nearly grind to a halt because of the "backseat driver" syndrome? Where several people who happen to be hanging around not playing, but just loitering basically wander over to watch the game and start blurting out their personal interpretations of the rules, confusing the players to the point that you want to start screaming? I blame the game developers myself. They made the rules so unclear that the players are left to figure it out on their own, and being the nerds that we are, we all are set in our own version of what the rules are, and it's damned hard to get us to change our minds. I was playing a 2v2 game, myself and another Ork player against an alliance of IG and GK. (And, just in case you are approached by an IG player and a GK player who want to team up against you, don't do it! It's the combo from hell!!!) By the fourth turn, the GK player had had so much of people taking his codex every time he laid it down that he was barely even paying attention anymore, and the other Ork player, who's pretty squirrely at the best of times, was practically catatonic. I gave up and just started ignoring them, which made the kibbutzing even worse, but so what. I don't mind people looking on during a game, but when they get so loud the players can't even communicate, that's too much. I'm considering going into seclusion until a new Orks Codex comes out. Unless the world ends first, which at this point doesn't seem like such a bad thing either.

I blame people being fethheads over anything else. If I'm playing against SM, I don't want to hear someone's stupid annoying face spout a random theoryhammer about Vulkan vs. Drazhar at 150 decibels. No. Just...shut the feth up, and return to your basement, foul beast.

Odd thread title for the subject.

But yes, I have experienced that situation. At my local games workshop, there's this little kid, maybe around 13, that tries to self appoint himself as referee to games going on. I was trying to play a game with a friend once, IG vs CSM, and he would constantly go from table to table, then stop at ours and try to force feed us rules we already knew. I'll give him credit, he knew a fair bit about the rules, but he was wrong on a few things, and it was damn annoying to deal with. I just ignored him while the rage grew, and when he said that necrons were a top tier army I just let loose on him on the many many ways they aren't. It wasn't even satisfying afterwards because I'm sure he refuses to see the logic behind anything I said.

I would have called this thread "backseat gaming and you" because I had no idea what the thread title was talking about.

I was playing a game a while ago at my FLGS, and there's this one guy who will just sit back there while you have a game and comment on everything, voice his opinions on everything, tell you your rules are wrong when he hasn't read any rules since 1999, and do it all while talking very, very loud. I flat out told him to stop backseat gaming and trying to tell me what to do, and he's backed off a bit. He still sits around back there and talks too much, but he isn't telling me what to do or how to do it anymore. It's terribly annoying.

Yeah, the title in retrospect was a bit vague. It was my choice mainly because the situation ended up with four or five people all spouting off their rules interpretations at the same time. Not only do I not care what they have to say, but I refuse to even try to have multiple conversations at the same time with people who aren't even involved in the game. Sort of wargames PTSD.

I kinda feel guilty of this myself, sometimes. Not the theoryhammer stuff, but the rules. I've made a conscious effort to tone it down, and the end result is that I get more time to hang/chill/play.

I've caught myself doing this sometimes, but I generally keep to myself when watching a game. some people just like to communicate their opinion a little too much unfortunately.

There are a couple of people who are usually present on 40K night who people go to for rules moderation, because of their tournament experience, I've done it myself, but these were just the ordinary knuckleheads who hang around and rarely actually play a game. I guess it's all a matter of perspective.