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Do you play in tourny's just to win or have fun?


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Oh yeah please check out my gallery and xomment. Any tips are awesome.

Tournaments are mostly a good place to see a bunch of cool armies, play multiple games in a single day, and meet new opponents.

Most people aren't going to win, so you're setting yourself up for unhappiness if you make your satisfaction dependent on victory.

I've played in a couple tournaments before. I primarily play to have fun, but I do go with the intention of winning games. I won't do it at the cost of sportsmanship, however. I take a list I know will be effective and fun for me to play and I play as well as I can. I see it as an environment where I can play a bunch of folks I wouldn't usually play against, and test my skills against more competitive players.

Sorry OP, I don't really plan on leaving a "xomment" on your gallery. If you want traffic to your images, post threads about them in the painting and modeling sections. Also, apostrphes aren't for plurals. It's "tournies" not "tourny's" - that would mean "tourny is" which doesn't make much sense in this context. Sorry for being a pedant, but some things just bug me!

Why can't I do both?

I think that if your opponent has no desire to play the game to win, then any competitive challenge is lost. A challenging game can be a lot of fun win or loss, which is why I like to play in tourneys. That is not the only fun to be had at a tourney, but it is a component.

Thus, if you are not playing to 'win' then IMHO you are robbing either yourself or your opponent of some enjoyment of a tourney.

For example, imagine you enter a tourney, and every opponent at the start of the game says that you win automatically, they just want to chat and have a beer and show off their fantastic models. So you win the event, chat with a bunch of people and see some awesome models. You dont actually play any 40k though, and while that can be a GREAT time, that is not the kind of experience you paid money to enter.

IE, you dont go to a waterpark to sit in a chair and read a book while staying dry the entire day. Perhaps you may have a good time doing so, even the best of time, but you still choose to enter the waterpark in the first place--why do so if you dont want to get wet?

So to the OP, I feel playing to win and having a fun time are not exclusive to each other. To consider them exclusive is to miss the point entirely I think.

Well i don't register to lose and hopefully have fun.

I play so I can taste the tears of my victims after I butcher them with my cookie cutter internet list that I was too stupid to create myself because I am craving dominance over others.

So I play for fun, obviously.

Lol its just like any sport in wreslting tournaments I never went in thinking oh win or lose I'll have a great time! Course I will but your only goal is to win you don;t go into a match saying meh w/e. Infact if that's how you feel don't enter tournaments you are not making them better infact you a making it worse overall for other players because your letting someone who cares demolish you most likely because you don't care either way. The whole point of a game SHOULD BE TO WIN, Checkers, chess, boxing, underwater basket weaving tournaments you are trying to win and that shoudl always be your goal.

I play all tourney's to win. I have fun whether I win or lose though. I only dont have fun when I dont bring my best game.

Why can't you do both? I don't understand, lol...it's not a difficult concept: play to win, but have fun doing it.

I've lost games but had a great time doing it. I've lost games and been completely demoralized by my opponent being TFG.

I've won tough games that required a ton of effort to pull out. I've won games where we both laughed the entire time.

I like to win. I like to have fun. Both is best but I hope to get at least one.

I would say that at this point I play primarily to have fun. Clearly most people do the same, unless they define "winning" as something other than winning first overall.

I aim to win more than I lose, and have good games. For me to spend a full day off playing a game but not having fun is a waste.

For me it's for the fun over the winning. If I lose it's ok as long as I have a good time doing it.

Oh, it's the community's favorite loaded question again.

Since when is trying to have fun incompatible with trying to win? Why enter a competition if one has no interest in winning? Why play a game if one is not interested in having fun?

I'm not sure it's a loaded question. A poorly worded one, perhaps.

I mean, when you break it down, the words become quite vauge. What does it mean to "win?" Or to "have fun?"

It's common, but sloppy, turn of phrase to call a something "fun" when they mean "casual", "laid-back," or even "goofy."

So, while the question, read in one way "do you play only to win games or to enjoy yourself" presupposes that one does not or cannot enjoy yourself while playing to win, I don't think that's the real question being asked. I'd imagine the OP is wondering if people attend touranments with the goal of winning, or with the primary goal of playing games that are enjoyable.

That said... I've watched enough tournaments to understand why people think those that "play to win" aren't having fun. While I reject the idea that you can't have a lot of fun while winning, it's naive to pretend there aren't a lot of humoress guys out there beating face.

I just did my first league in 40k. Its a pay money and cash prizes game stretched out over 2 months. I had 2 goals in mind, have fun, and not suck so badly I'd be dead last.

Being my first tourny I thought they were great goals. so after the 6 round robin games, I'm 5-0-1 with 33 out of 36 points so I'm having fun and winning my way into a top 8 spot

I'm down for both. I try to win but go to have fun!

I play to win as much as I can, and try to have fun doing so.

I know how bad it can be to play someone who plays the "what's the point?" game if they've clearly lost, but when forfeiting comes with extra downsides for the forfeiter, so if it ever comes to that then I no longer play to win, I play to annihilate X unit, or to attempt to do balls-to-the-wall insane stuff I'd never even attempt during a normal game, like charging a Dreadknight with a Chaplain on a single wound just to see what would happen (he died, but took a wound off the knight before he did so).

So yeah, I play to try and win as many games as I possibly can, but if I know I can't win, I might as well try and have a bit of fun and grab a few moral victories along the way.

Fun is synonymous with playing-to-win.

and Beer.

well, if I pay £50 to enter (see throne of skulls) then damn strait I'm going to win. I'd like to think that I have enough skill to play honestly without being the WAAC type though

I attended tournments to look forward to 5-6 solid, challenging competitive games. I like to win, but I can enjoy a game just as much where I lose and feel thoroughly challenged by a opponent in a spirited nature.

Walking into GT's I expect to see the best of the best, with some fantastic armies. I expect to also raise a pint to my opponent given appropriateness at the event (not all events allow adult beverages, and if my opponent is under 21, i'll shake his hand and offer to buy him a burger or something). I want my opponent to walk away thinking they would welcome a change to play me again, and that I made them think, challenged them appropriately, and I made their tournment experience worth while.

Most people I run into at GT's have the similar view. They like challenge. Very few walk in thinking "i'm going to steam roll everyone" because they expect people on their level. Win or loss, i've attended very few events I would not return to.

On a similar note to Brother SRM: Not certain why your using a tournment post to drive traffice to your gallery. If you put post in painting people would like traffic there. Not really appropriate here.

swordbrotherjim wrote:
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Oh yeah please check out my gallery and xomment. Any tips are awesome.

Shameless self promotion is shameless (I agree with other poster, not really appropriate)

On the question however, I would enter a tournament to have fun, but still try to win. I agree, why cant you go for both? Paying 50 squid to go to a tournament, win (Possibly) and be a massive arse and not really enjoy it yourself just to have at some prizes, I would think you may have a slight problem.

swordbrotherjim wrote:Do you play in tourny's just to win or have fun?

Both, but IMO the "having fun" part is a million times more important than winning.

I can't understand why anyone would want to give up their free time to play a game that they're not enjoying, even if they do win. If you truly enjoy your hobby then you should be able to have as much fun getting beaten as when you win. A person that stops the game being fun just so they can win isn't the sort of person I'd ever want to play again, but I'll happily get my face beaten in a hundred times over if the person I'm up against makes half an effort to make it an enjoyable couple of hours.

To have fun.

Its a GAME. The objective is to have fun

Winning is also good, but less important that both players having a good time.

The folk that insist that the game is only about winning are missing the point, as far as i'm concerned. I'll play to win, but i'm not going to make my happiness contingent on it.

First of all, there is a problem with the way the question is framed. The options are not only WIN or FUN as if they were mutually exclusive. By virtue of the game, it has a winner and a loser and is competitive in nature...You play to have fun but also to win so the two are so intertwined that to try and separate them is like trying to argue if the point of eating pie to enjoy the crust or the filling. The point of eating pie is because it tastes good (essentially)...

To some people, the winning is the filling while to others simply throwing down with a cool army and rolling dice is the filling (assuming the filling is the most enjoyable part in this analogy as I personally love the crust of the pie the best, mmm).

The question is really what is your favorite part of the pie since both winning and having fun are parts of it and to try to make them mutually exclusive is to err. After all, the whole POINT of a tournament is to compete on some level (battle, sports, painting) and winning is involved in that (like air is a part of breathing). Having fun as you accomplish that is key. I think everyone WANTS to win but not everyone can win while everyone WANTS to have fun. When your fun is all about winning then that is where things go sour if you don't win. so the key is to have fun without needing to win while still trying to win. For example, if you are playing just to have fun, every time your dude kills another person's dude, he wins on some level and that is fun so winning is equivocal of fun on that level.

Neither. I try to lose and hate everything about it.