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Reece - as I more and more feel about most people in the hobby, I don't think Stelek deserves the kind of lambasting he receives ... he's just another human being, who is different from many in his behavior, but supports the hobby in the way he best knows how. He's also a perfectly solid gamer, and one not to belittle on that regard.

For sports ... again, at present I'm very happy with the results - tons of players were rightly honored for being great guys, and it had no bearing on the overall or generalship scores (and, shouldn't).

Sportsmanship is something that should be a GIVEN of behavior ... and it generally is. The troublemakers are troublemakers one way or another, and are easily and readily identified for a talking to (which is far better than points or really ... almost any kind of voting or scoring by an opponent). More and more I feel it is the branding and management of a tournament, and the "feel" of it, that really accomplishes the goal of sportsmanship management ... as our survey becomes more and more completely filled out by the attendees, the more the message is that the feel and energy of the event was extremely positive, and so players and opponents were all acting in an extremely positive fashion.


87% of our respondents are stating that their opponents' sportsmanship was above the average they expect at a tournament, while only 2 out of over 170 responses so far say their opponents' sportsmanship was below average. Both of those respondents faced people we were able to independently identify and talk to b/c they were troublemakers one way or another, and always are ... regardless of the system in place.

I wonder if we as a gaming community have become too attached to the notion of "scoring" sportsmanship, when really it is more the responsibility of the event in its lead-up, newsletters, branding, and in-event management to ensure the atmosphere breeds good sportsmanship ... and not the responsibility of a sportsmanship "score." Food for continued thought.

@MVBrandt

I couldn't agree with you more on every point. We took the attitude at the BAO that only those who are abusive should be punished. If you set expectations correctly, people come in with the right attitude.

If you open the door to chipmunking and encourage players to have the attitude that they are entitled to control the other players' score in a totally subjective manner, you are asking for problems. Sports scores are a detriment to the hobby, IMO. Set expectations for behavior, set guidelines for consequences if an individual chooses to ignore those guidelines, and things should at the least proceed in a predictable fashion.

At the BAO, with 75 40K gamers in 7 rounds, we had 2 total thumbs down. That is awesome in our point of view. We expect people to conduct themselves like adults, which also means dealing with less than perfect situations without resorting to secretly docking their chances of winning.

And as for Stelek, you are right. As a rule I try to avoid letting things get personal or nasty on the net, but that guy has attacked me personally on more than one occasion and seeing how unbelievably rude he was to people on Dakka before he got the boot, listening to the trash he talks about people (including Yak, who is so nice in person) puts him on my gak list. The fact that he is intelligent and KNOWS what he is doing makes it all the more reprehensible in my opinion. But enough of that.

Re scoring sportsmanship - it is largely unknown in the UK - when I first heard of it in the US it seemed almost alien; you just expect people to be good sports, you're playing a game about toy soldiers. It also seemed incredibly open to abuse - as I think you'll agree

Well, as long as there is some sportsmanship system, I'm grateful- for whatever reason, most events I have played have not had it. Even mikhaila's excellent DakkaCon GT held just after opening his store didn't have it.

Battle for Blobs Park does have "sportsmanship awards", so it will at least be there in some form.

Having been almost exclusively in events without sportsmanship, I highly prefer it to be included in some way... in fact I would probably avoid an event that didn't include it in some fashion at this point.

However, I don't really care if it counts towards the player's score or not. I just want it to be there... my experiences without it have been good at times, but more often than not I've had the feeling when at a non-sports event that certain things that transpired may have gone more smoothly had a sports rubric been included in some form!

Fun thread. Congrats again to Justin/Dash for his award. That's one of the best to get, IMO. It's one thing to smash people's faces in. It's another to be recognized by your fellow hobbyists as someone they really enjoy gaming with.

It is kind of funny to see Andrew's comments about his army list, particularly when his posts about it on his own site beforehand are more or less public record. I have to agree with Reecius about him as a person/internet personality. But he's not a Dakka member anymore, so there's little sense beating that dead horse.

It was a pleasant surprise to see folks saying nice things about my Sports system in here. Thanks, guys!

2d6_Penetration wrote:Well I have played dash and I must say this guy is a jerk. But you all here love his nuts.

Wow, way to start off. Clearly he traumatized you, but don't attack others.

willydstyle wrote:But Dash, that's precisely why sportsmanship *scores* are innately flawed. Some people will play a tight, fair, but taciturn game, and really enjoy the game for itself, and call that "excellent." Some people will play the same game and say "meh, not enough BJs" and score it lower.

The flaw with every system that tries to give each game a sportsmanship score is that a person's score is as much tied to whether they get lucky and play like-minded people or not, as it is to their own behavior.

Personally, my favorite sports system does not use a score at all, but allows each player to hand out a "favorite opponent" to one of their opponents, and everyone who receives favorite opponent votes receives a raffle ticket for each vote, and then Sportsmanship prizes are done as a raffle.

I like that idea on the raffle. I will make note of this for future reference.

2d6_Penetration wrote:Well I have played dash and I must say this guy is a jerk. But you all here love his nuts.

random posts from the peanut gallery for 100 Alex..

2d6.. can you back this up? Where and when was that... or are you just bashin?

Why are you asking for substantiation from someone who has, as a third of his total Dakka post content, the words "but you all here love his nuts"?

porkuslime wrote:

2d6_Penetration wrote:Well I have played dash and I must say this guy is a jerk. But you all here love his nuts.

random posts from the peanut gallery for 100 Alex..

2d6.. can you back this up? Where and when was that... or are you just bashin?

Oh...there's a handful of small-minded folks on the east coast who dislike me AND have played me. Once upon a time, I thought I was being helpful by trying to help people whom I played against (and thrashed soundly with weak lists) by offering them tactical/list advice after a game. The same folks who took serious offense that I would offer to pony up cash to a store to buy them free stuff if they beat me.

The world is full of wonders, but this ain't one of them.

You seemed fine from the two times I asked you about your two games at the invitational against Alex Fennel and Puig. I went on to play Puig in round 5
It was...interesting.
I will reserve my opinion of you until I get to play you myself Dash. Though if we played at the invitational, the matchup would have been very good for you. Venomspam vs Modified Fatecrusher