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.

Mannahnin wrote:Standard Bearer has drawn both compliments and criticisms. His tone has seemed unnecessarily dismissive and unfriendly to some segments of the game's audience, which seems inappropriate for a standard bearer, around whom theoretically the whole passel of us should be able to rally. Perhaps that's me being too idealistic, but IMO he has often seemed out of touch with a fair percentage of gamers, and not open to some other priorities in playing.

He has been legimately criticized for absolutely terrible design in several codices; including the original 3rd ed Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels books, and the current Dark Angels book. Players of both of those armies in those time periods had legitimate bones to pick with him.

On the contrary, Jervis seems to go out of his way to be friendly and accomodating - far more than those particular segments are toward those who don't play the game with the same competitive spirit that they hold dear. The fact that competitive play is not an important or significant part of GW's market, and GW no longer strongly promotes it, that's really not his fault any more than it's GM's fault for promoting their fuel-efficient Volt & Cruze over their track-storming ZR1. Jervis speaks to the vast majority of players, for whom competitive play simply doesn't exist, and like any good spokesperson, validates their choices to play as they do. For a competitive player, expecting Jervis to stroke their ego makes no sense - they should be getting their validation by clubbing baby seals and winning their events.

He has been unfairly criticized for changing the design direction of a few Codices, by players who cannot confuse mere change with "terrible design". Having a legitimate grievance due to change is not necessarily due to bad design - the player is partially responsible as well. In particular, no Dark Angel army following the Fluff TO&E was invalidated. Quite frankly, from a design POV, both the DA and CSM books are better-designed than before, even if they were possibly less powerful or abusable at the time they were released. In hindsight and in modern context, neither book is especially problematic.

sebster wrote:Jervis was a leading writer on Bloodbowl and Epic Armageddon. Bloodbowl is absolutely GW's best game, by a long way, and Epic Armageddon isn't far behind. They are fairly simple systems, though, and I think it's in designs like that where Jervis' heart lies. The problem comes when you get a guy like that, who wants a clean system where rules interactions produce a range of tactical considerations, and you have them redesign 40k.

Because a significant portion of 40K players really, really like the idea of picking and choosing all kinds of options for their character models and troops, and consider those choices a really important part of design. I don't agree with those people, but it's their hobby too and I understand them being annoyed at the game being changed on them.

Thing is, GW then changed direction, a whole lot. In part because of the hate, but mostly I suspect it was because 'an interesting tactical system with armies with a collection of interesting units that interact in interesting ways to produce an interesting range of tactical considerations' doesn't sell models as fast as 'totally sweet new dreadnaught with mega-powerful new close combat abilities'. So now we're in a bit of a mess, with a couple of codices designed under the old, simple design goals, a couple designed under a halfway point (and I think C:SM and Orks are among the best codices GW has ever released) and everything since released with as many new rules and new models as possible.

It isn't as big a mess as the game was in for, well, the whole of third edition, but it's certainly a mess. It's wrong to point the finger entirely at Jervis, because all I can see him doing was bringing a design philosophy across to 40K that served him well in the other games he released.

But hey, the haters have to blame someone.

Orks really is a pinnacle of design, frankly.

But the issue with some of the more recent codices is simply that they gave new authors too much freedom and it bit them in the rear end.

Kanluwen wrote:So where's the blame for Andy Hoare? His name's on the DA Codex too. Gav worked on it, Alessio worked on it.

No one person is responsible for a codex. It's sheer ridiculousness to pin the blame on one person.

I've always found that a really funny idea, that seems to be repeated constantly with no-one questioning it. As if one guy could sit down and write a whole codex, without any overview to make sure it fitted in with other armies.

Yeah, but I guess it really does just boil down to "the haters have to blame someone".

Which is kinda pathetic, and probably is why GW finds the "Let's not interact with the general public" stance to be their best option in most cases when it comes to codex design.
When the gamers can't even agree amongst themselves, there's no way in hell that GW is going to get any kind of useful feedback.

Kanluwen wrote:Orks really is a pinnacle of design, frankly.

Definitely.

But the issue with some of the more recent codices is simply that they gave new authors too much freedom and it bit them in the rear end.

I'm not sure it was that much of an accident. There'd be an oversight committee that knew each new unit and rule that was being introduced.

I suspect there really was a change in codex design, towards having new toys in each codex to spur on new sales.

Yeah, but I guess it really does just boil down to "the haters have to blame someone".

Which is kinda pathetic, and probably is why GW finds the "Let's not interact with the general public" stance to be their best option in most cases when it comes to codex design.
When the gamers can't even agree amongst themselves, there's no way in hell that GW is going to get any kind of useful feedback.

Yeah, there's far too many geeks out there with loud voices and very strongly held opinion for GW to ever get much value out of open forums. Not only would it be of limited value, I suspect it could actually give an incorrect impression of what the total market wants - the worries you see constantly on the internet, for clarification of rules minutiae and the like are just not issues I see in the real among the people I play against.

sebster wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Orks really is a pinnacle of design, frankly.

Definitely.

But the issue with some of the more recent codices is simply that they gave new authors too much freedom and it bit them in the rear end.

I'm not sure it was that much of an accident. There'd be an oversight committee that knew each new unit and rule that was being introduced.

I suspect there really was a change in codex design, towards having new toys in each codex to spur on new sales.

Yeah, but I guess it really does just boil down to "the haters have to blame someone".

Which is kinda pathetic, and probably is why GW finds the "Let's not interact with the general public" stance to be their best option in most cases when it comes to codex design.
When the gamers can't even agree amongst themselves, there's no way in hell that GW is going to get any kind of useful feedback.

Yeah, there's far too many geeks out there with loud voices and very strongly held opinion for GW to ever get much value out of open forums. Not only would it be of limited value, I suspect it could actually give an incorrect impression of what the total market wants - the worries you see constantly on the internet, for clarification of rules minutiae and the like are just not issues I see in the real among the people I play against.

Plus: do we really want to let the tournament gamers get their voices heard?

I say no, we do not!

Me personally?

I was OK with him till I actually met him and talked to him at a Games Day. This was right after Codex: Dark Angels came out, and I was talking with him about the decision to restrict certain options (Terminators unable to use Drop Pods, Librarians unable to use various special weapons such as power fists).

My argument was that GW should, ideally, want me to buy more models, so unless gameplay was really hindered by an option, then allowing it would make good business sense. For example, if I could buy Drop Pods for my Terminators, then GW could sell more Drop Pods. Clearly Deep Striking was not overpowered for Terminators (as most of them get it anyway), so why remove the option? It doesn't affect the game substantially, it makes sense within the game world (Terminators can fit in there), and it is an opportunity to sell more product. Same with special weapons. If someone wanted to convert a Librarian to use a power fist, what should GW care? Work out an appropriate points cost and allow it. Let someone buy a few more models to convert.

Jervis responded that certain options were "iconic", and so GW wanted to promote those images. Terminators typically deploy by Teleportation (when they don't get there on foot or land raider), so that was the option presented. The "iconic" weapon of the Chaplain was the Crozius, and the "iconic" weapon of the Librarian was the force weapon, so the rules needed to preserve that distinction.

I immediately pointed out the splendid Chaplain with Power Fist and Crozius model, produced by GW's own team. I pointed out that (excluding Forge World), GW had never produced a Drop Pod model, so it seemed unfair to assume that Drop Podding Terminators weren't "iconic", since they had no option to be represented as such previously. No real reply.

I got the distinct feeling then, reinforced by reading his Standard Bearer articles, that Jervis believes that the way he plays the game and views the game is the "right way", and other people who disagree are simply misguided. Not evil, or stupid, or bad, but simply confused, perhaps in a slightly adorable way like a small puppy. He seems like a very nice person, and I suspect I would enjoy a game of 40k with him a great deal. On the other hand, I suspect then (and now), he is patronizingly shaking his head at all of the misguided souls who simply "don't get" the game the way he does.

Also, if you are going to turn your design philosophy on its head, and do away with tons of little modeling/wargear options, and do away with every option which is not reflected on the model, then stick with your design philosophy throughout the entire edition, OR USE THE INTERNET TO OFFER UPDATES. If the design decision was right in Dark Angels, then apply it to every single book. If it was wrong, then fix the error. It's not like you don't have a web site.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
Yeah, there's far too many geeks out there with loud voices and very strongly held opinion for GW to ever get much value out of open forums. Not only would it be of limited value, I suspect it could actually give an incorrect impression of what the total market wants - the worries you see constantly on the internet, for clarification of rules minutiae and the like are just not issues I see in the real among the people I play against.

While I agree totally that "loud opinions" do not equal "widely held opinions" (oh, god, do I agree), have you really heard anyone complain about the rules being "too clear and well written"?

While only a small group of players really agitate for clear and unambiguous rules, that's a change that could benefit all of their players. There's a difference between catering to a small fraction of the audience, and using your customer feedback to improve your product for everybody. Even people who don't complain might still appreciate an improved product.

I prefer the term 'Jerfisted', but that is just me. Also, can you really trust a guy whose initials look like two coat hooks?

Anyway, I WOULD pay good money for the audio version of any army book or codex he cared to narrate. So soothing...

Da Butcha wrote:While I agree totally that "loud opinions" do not equal "widely held opinions" (oh, god, do I agree), have you really heard anyone complain about the rules being "too clear and well written"?

While only a small group of players really agitate for clear and unambiguous rules, that's a change that could benefit all of their players. There's a difference between catering to a small fraction of the audience, and using your customer feedback to improve your product for everybody. Even people who don't complain might still appreciate an improved product.

Oh certainly, I think there's plenty of unclear and confusing elements to the various 40K rulesets. My point was more on the minutiae of rules debates that go on, where people take sentences as literally as possible with no regard for the intent of the sentence, then crack out the dictionaries and have at it. It seems to me RAW is almost entirely an internet thing, I've never seen folk argue anything like that in real life.

Looking at the internet and you'd think what's needed is highly specific, codeified language with absolutely clear meaning, that can be as dense and multi-layered as needs be, provided the final meaning requires no common sense interpretation. But in real life I see folk looking for simplicity, single sentences that clearly instruct them what to do next, they're much happier trying to reach a common sense interpretation than wade through a paragraph of text.

Balance wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I like Jervis, but then, I like a "cleaner" game system.

In general, I think that complexity, like cholesterol, comes in 'good' and 'bad' flavors. In general, core mechanics should be clean and 'bolt-on' systems need to work with these mechanics, not completely override them.

For example, a 'Sniper' rule that enahnces the base rules is OK, especially if it's clean. If it requires new stats or unusual math of old stats, that might be a problem.

This is all subjective, of course.

40K is the opposite, of course.

The core rules are messy and unnecessarily complicated. The bolt-on systems have multiple overlaps and exceptions, making everything harder to understand.

It isn't subjective, actually. There is plenty of research into pedagogy, human interface design and so on, that shows that these factors can be studied objectively.

Kilkrazy wrote:40K is the opposite, of course.

The core rules are messy and unnecessarily complicated. The bolt-on systems have multiple overlaps and exceptions, making everything harder to understand.

It isn't subjective, actually. There is plenty of research into pedagogy, human interface design and so on, that shows that these factors can be studied objectively.

Oh, absolutely, the system is objective bloated with unnecessary rules complexity but lacks much in the way of a sophisticated tactical game. Thing to remember is the 40K is a system written in bits and pieces, with several efforts to tinker and only one (largely failed) effort at a complete revision. I mean, if you were to write a game about sci-fi company sized engagements (more or less), would you really give every trooper seven stats, three of which only ever see use in hand to hand? Would anyone honestly write a system where you move all your guys 6" in the movement phase, then wait until the shooting phase before rolling a die and moving them all again?

It wouldn't be hard to write a better sci-fi game than 40K, lots of people have. What's hard is overcoming the legacy in 40K to do it.

Pacific wrote:I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:

First of all - Alessio Calvatore has already claimed responsibility for the last CSM codex, so the finger pointing can stop for that one.

- He is not generally 'hated', and the only people who do so are angry little internet warriors who need something worthwhile to happen in their lives. His 'standard bearer' article is probably the only reason many people still buy WD as sometimes it's the only bit of actual writing that isn't sales-pap in the entire magazine. I would hazard a guess that he probably isn't even being paid to do it, if the rest of the magazine is anything to go by, and he probably only does it out of his regard for the hobby and those of us who have been part of it for any significant time and recognise the heritage of that magazine. Many of the criticisms regarding what he has to say (regarding lack of heed of the tournament scene etc.), well.. of course he is going to cater for the populist demand of readers. People reacting to leaf-blower lists written by a handful of writers on BoLS need to reconise that theirs is not a significant part of the demographic.
- He was instrumental in the development of GW from it's early days and the transformation of the company from a couple of guys putting together rules when they got home from work, to it becoming a massive company (I could say institution) which is a part of millions of peoples lives. For that, I feel he should be deserved some respect.
He helped design so many of the classics: Necromunda, Mordheim, Blood Bowl, even Space Hulk. You also have to think he is one of the only people keeping those games 'alive' in the specialist games section of the website.
- He was Andy Chamber's whipping boy in WD battle reports for many years, and many of us I think will think fondly of him for that reason

In the new hyper-effecient world of Games Workshop, where every new major release is measured against it's benefits to the share holders and even game system rules are being perverted to that effect, he is one of the last relics of what many will say was the golden age of the company. I really hope he keeps a hand in things - kind of like a Games Workshop 'House of Lords' where some of the more extreme and undesirable changes that are being pushed through can be mitigated by someone who I think is a genuine hobbyist, and represents us in that regard.

Are you Jervis Johnson

or are you just hoping he will email you brownie points for trying to lecture people that don't like him

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Standard Bearer has drawn both compliments and criticisms. His tone has seemed unnecessarily dismissive and unfriendly to some segments of the game's audience, which seems inappropriate for a standard bearer, around whom theoretically the whole passel of us should be able to rally. Perhaps that's me being too idealistic, but IMO he has often seemed out of touch with a fair percentage of gamers, and not open to some other priorities in playing.

He has been legimately criticized for absolutely terrible design in several codices; including the original 3rd ed Chaos Space Marines and Dark Angels books, and the current Dark Angels book. Players of both of those armies in those time periods had legitimate bones to pick with him.

On the contrary, Jervis seems to go out of his way to be friendly and accomodating - far more than those particular segments are toward those who don't play the game with the same competitive spirit that they hold dear.

I disagree. He's certainly not as friendly and accomodating toward other styles of play as I am. Jervis doesn't get a pass on his attitude (attested to first hand in this thread by Da Butcha and plastictrees) because some people are jerks on the internet. He the Standard Bearer; he's the guy representing the company, and he is appropriately held to a higher standard.

JohnHwangDD wrote:He has been unfairly criticized for changing the design direction of a few Codices, by players who cannot confuse mere change with "terrible design".

He has been legitimately and fairly criticized (as well as unfairly bashed and labasted) for repeated failures on the codex front. The DA book would not be "terrible" if the other books released since it followed the same philosophy. It would merely be bland. However they do not. GW evidently decided that philosophy was not the right one, and what we can see of sales and army usage seem to support that. Both fluffy players and competitive players want options. They want new models, and to use as much of their existing collection as they can. As Da Butcha said, if GW makes a great Chaplain model with a Powerfist and Crozius, it simply doesn't make sense for GW to remove that armament selection as a codex-legal choice. It annoys the casual gamers even more than the competitive gamers.

Given JJ's other achievements, Blood Bowl in particular, I forgave him the poor work on the first 3rd ed Chaos codex; heck, it too was one of the early books of a generation, and while it was almost the only book that had to be revised during 3rd edition, it was obviously a trial run. I forgave him the first 3rd ed Dark Angels book too; again, it was poor work, and GW released a better version before we even got to 4th edition. I certainly don't actually "hate" him for screwing it up yet again with the current DA book. I'm just disappointed, and increasingly convinced that he should never be given lead design responsibility for an army.

Mannahnin wrote: I'm just disappointed, and increasingly convinced that he should never be given lead design responsibility for an army.

May all of your Codices be written by Thorpe and/or Cruddace henceforth.

Say what you will about his GW work, but he and Rick did crank out the most excellent Black Powder rules. Though I get the feeling Rick did most of the work and Jervis was just being tall.

Kanluwen wrote:
@Kilkrazy
There's Jervis, Andy Hoare, Phil Kelly, Graham Davey, Jeremy Vetock, and Gav Thorpe still around for the games development 'studio'.

..errrmm.. just for the record.

Andy Hoare no longer works for GW, he's freelance and ahs been for quite sometime now. He left in the summer of 2009

Graham Davey no longer works for GW, he left in 2010 and has done a variety of freelance projects since.

Gav Thorpe left GW ages ago, and whilst he does indeed write for BL -- note he is not "employed fulltime" by them at all, but works on a book to book/series to series contract. This is why he has a book out/others coming with other publishers and has been working on miniature rules for another company -- avast ye lubbers and so on. But we'll leave his situation alone as covered.

Jeremy Vetock does indeed work for GW still, although he has relocated back to the USA, for the sake of his family and is no longer a day to day member of the design studio.

Messrs. Johnson and Kelly are indeed still there however.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Pacific wrote:I want to clear things up for a number of people here, and especially the younger forumites who don't have the benefit of having seen some of the history of JJ, and are just basing their assumptions on a few confused posts on this thread:


blah blah (see above)

.

Are you Jervis Johnson

or are you just hoping he will email you brownie points for trying to lecture people that don't like him

Haha, no I'm not (are you Mike McVey, famous miniature sculptor and painter? )

I just thought that I should give some counter-discussion, because a lot of people's perceptions of him are based by comments from a very vocal minority in terms of the games buying public. Without wanting to sound like a brown-nose, I think GW (and by extension us) have benefited more from him working at the company, than if he had not ever done so, and I was listing some of those positives that people might not be aware of beyond the odd patronising (to them) standard bearer article, or cry of "codex x sucks" on whichever message board. Surely that's the most important conclusion to reach in the end?

I got the distinct feeling then, reinforced by reading his Standard Bearer articles, that Jervis believes that the way he plays the game and views the game is the "right way", and other people who disagree are simply misguided. Not evil, or stupid, or bad, but simply confused, perhaps in a slightly adorable way like a small puppy. He seems like a very nice person, and I suspect I would enjoy a game of 40k with him a great deal. On the other hand, I suspect then (and now), he is patronizingly shaking his head at all of the misguided souls who simply "don't get" the game the way he does.

That's not the impression I get, and I don't agree with what he says (even though I can always follow his logic), but then I supposed that it's subjective to anyone reading it.

I too am rather appreciative of the feller.

Bloodbowl 1st edition was my intoduction to gaming and still has pride of place mid-centre of my bookshelf and Epic will be my favourite system of all time (nothing else capture the grand nature of the setting).

True there will be some things that chop and change of 25+ years and so some will not agree, but to hate someone that has consistantly been a driving light in a hobby that we all enjoy seems a little purile [says the man with the earlier JR comment ].

Standard Bearer has always been a decent enough read the few times I have read WD recently. Even if you don't agree I can't see how you can blot his copy book for a monthly column.

I view JJ as something of a relic of the past; he's served his purpose and now the game has moved beyond what he can competently add to.

To me it's clear that he plays 40k in a beer-and-pretzels manner, and things like tight and clear rules and solid inter/intrafaction balance is not only unnecessary, but somehow interferes with 'playing for fun'.

JJ seems to epitomize this contradiction between sloppy rules sets and magically knowing the intent behind the rules. Dicing off is not a viable solution for any type of gamer when problematic distinctions can meaningfully affect how entire armies work indefinitely.

What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Apparently John, everything is wrong with playing 40k as beer-and-pretzels. It needs to be played as competitive--OR NOT PLAYED AT ALL!

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

There's no problem with that.

There's also no problem in designing a game that can also be taken seriously without all the ambiguity in the rules.

40k is good at beer and pretzels.

It fails at the latter.

Jervis wrote the rules for the 2 best games GW has:

Bloodbowl and Epic 40k

Like I said before, I blame Gav and Alessio way more for what they did to the CSM than what Jervis did.

Personally I don't think 40K really qualifies as a B&P game because it is too complicated.

It doesn't mean you can't play it just for fun of course.

OTOH having a tight ruleset doesn't mean you can't play a game just for fun.

GW is to blame, for having promoted so many competitive events over the years. Their latest effort is Ard Boyz, which has stimulated the growth of the points level from the fine 1750 to the too big (but sells more models) 2500 and set the imprimatur of official status on unpainted armies (which sell more quickly).

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Because you can't d6 forever on whether Deffrollas work or not. Thankfully GW's gotten its collective head out with the new FAQs so now we know how Jervis-it's-meant-to-be-played-Johnson intends the game to be played, but players--competitive, casual, whatever--need to know how the game actually works in order to play the game. Otherwise you just have an assortment of house club rules (INAT FAQ?) that you have to memorize for wherever you play at.

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Kanluwen wrote:Apparently John, everything is wrong with playing 40k as beer-and-pretzels. It needs to be played as competitive--OR NOT PLAYED AT ALL!

I'm not sure if these comments are poor attempts at humor, intentionally obtuse, intentionally inflammatory, or some combination.

A little of humor+obtusitude.

sourclams wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Because you can't d6 forever on whether Deffrollas work or not.

Thankfully GW's gotten its collective head out with the new FAQs so now we know how Jervis-it's-meant-to-be-played-Johnson intends the game to be played, but players--competitive, casual, whatever--need to know how the game actually works in order to play the game.

Otherwise you just have an assortment of house club rules (INAT FAQ?) that you have to memorize for wherever you play at.

Actually, you can, once you recognize that it's such a tiny and insignificant part of playing a game with friends for fun. That said, our Ork player is sufficiently hapless, and we're sufficiently good sports, that we probably wouldn't care one way or another. Even if it cost one of us the game.

You seem to think that players need to be told how to interpret things, and cannot figure something out for themselves. We have in our group a number of smart guys, and long time gamers, too, so this simply isn't a problem for us. I'll gladly accept one of our other player's interpretations and go forward from there. And even if we *gasp* get it "wrong", who cares? It's simply an asterisk in the writeup, to be remembered the next time we play.

In any given "house", you d6 it exactly once, and are done with it. You don't need something like the INAT abomination, which exist simply to keep one group of tools from out-tooling the other group of tools. The INAT FAQ is by WAAC players, for WAAC players, mostly to cover arcana tied to deliberate attempts at rule-twisting upon which insistence would likely get one booted from any reasonable club. Never needed it, don't expect to need it, don't care. The number of actual issues is so small as to not matter.


@Polonius: I fail to see how I was being inflammatory in my initial post (unlike my follow-up above). I play 40k B&P, and it's fun that way.

When you yourself can see that it is inflammatory, it's probably against our rules to post. ~Manchu

I like Jervis Johnson. He views these games pretty much the way I do. I like his WD articles, too.

But I never understood why people who want a strategy game with clear and concise rules and balanced armies play WH40k, because that is what chess is for. If you play 40K, crying for perfect balance and perfectly clear rules is a load of gak. It is a strategy game based on roleplaying. You cannot on one hand allow for anything thinkable to be playable and on the other hand expect perfectly simple rules.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

sourclams wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:What's wrong with playing 40k beer-and-pretzels? Is that not fun?

I play 40k as beer-and-pretzels, and have a great time of it.

Because you can't d6 forever on whether Deffrollas work or not.

Thankfully GW's gotten its collective head out with the new FAQs so now we know how Jervis-it's-meant-to-be-played-Johnson intends the game to be played, but players--competitive, casual, whatever--need to know how the game actually works in order to play the game.

Actually, you can, once you recognize that it's such a tiny and insignificant part of playing a game with friends for fun. That said, our Ork player is sufficiently hapless, and we're sufficiently good sports, that we probably wouldn't care one way or another. Even if it cost one of us the game.

You seem to think that players need to be told how to interpret things, and cannot figure something out for themselves. We have in our group a number of smart guys, and long time gamers, too, so this simply isn't a problem for us. I'll gladly accept one of our other player's interpretations and go forward from there. And even if we *gasp* get it "wrong", who cares? It's simply an asterisk in the writeup, to be remembered the next time we play.

You miss the point, John. Yes, in your own house with a limited group of gamers, you can settle a standard ruling. However casual players like playing outside their own house sometimes too, and clear, consistent rules are helpful and better for them too.

This is the point about clear rules: They're necessary for competition, and also HELPFUL for casual games. Jervis' conceit that writing clearer rules would somehow be prioritizing the small subset of competitive gamers over the casual guys is an entirely false pretense, an abdication of responsibility to the casual gamers, and shirking his obligation to do a good job as a writer and designer.

Several of the casual gamers I used to play 40k with have moved over to Warmachine and Hordes, despite those games being ostensibly written for a more competitive mindset. The thing that really appeals to those casual gamers is that the rules are rarely unclear, and they are almost never stuck trying to figure something out or have an excessively-complex rule used to their disadvantage and explained to them by a more-competitive player. Pretty much every time they have a question, they can just look in the main rulebook or the glossary and find the answer. 40k's been getting better, no doubt. I love 5th edition. But there are still rules that are excessively complex and counterintuitive (like multiple assaults, and wound distribution in complex units) and GW leaves obvious questions unanswered.

JohnHwangDD wrote:[ You don't need something like the INAT abomination, which exist simply to keep one group of tools from out-tooling the other group of tools. The INAT FAQ is by WAAC players, for WAAC players, mostly to cover arcana tied to deliberate attempts at rule-twisting upon which insistence would likely get one booted from any reasonable club. Never needed it, don't expect to need it, don't care.

This is possibly the second-most offensive thing I've ever seen you post. Are you trying to troll Yakface now? Or just every competitive gamer who uses the FAQ? Or every competitive gamer anywhere? Or every gamer who occasionally plays a game with a stranger?

Go read the introduction and afterword from the INAT FAQ. Then go feel ashamed of yourself.

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Polonius: I fail to see how I was being inflammatory in my initial post (unlike my follow-up above). I play 40k B&P, and it's fun that way.

Then you're either failing at humor or being intentionally obtuse.

Nobody has ever said that playing 40k for fun in your basement with three other dudes isn't fun. But that's not how a lot of us play.

It's a lot of fun to be friends with a woman, and go to movies and talk all the time. Nothing wrong with it.

But for many guys, it's also fun to have hot, dirty, nasty sex with her as well.

Until it's explained how better rules hurt anybody's fun, it seems like a net positive for the hobby to have them.

John thinks that "Tournament Gamer" and "WAAC" players are one and the same. It's not so much offensive Sourclams as it is 'the usual' when it comes to Jonny-boy's antics. The fact that he seems to think that "Just play beer and pretzels 40K" is a valid excuse for not having a tight ruleset pretty much pegs why his opinion is laughable in any sort of rules discussion.