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nou wrote:

Quite good summary scotsman! I would add only one other "subtype" of (suposedly) CAAC player - people with RPG/Rouge Trader/2nd ed background who treat 40K more of a mealable tool to express their (usually deep and involved) interest in 40K universe. This does not equal narrative player, mind you. This subgroup "quarrel" with matched play/tournament crowd is based on limiting play options "in the name of balance" and leaving out entire pages of official rules out of the scope "because matched play...". Not to even mention going wild with houserules, custom scenarios, fandexes etc... This subtype, as any other CAAC types "adapt or die": they either find likeminded people and leave groups in favor of garagehammer; leave 40k altogether; or stay within matched play groups playing by group rules, but with a fair amount of grudge under their skin.

I dunno - maybe I'm misreading your post, and if I am, I apologise, but your comment about a caac 'subtype' sounds awfully like you having a go at narrative players for the most part, because thst is what you are describing.

Because those things you list are generally fine and quite common in narrative focused groups.

rpg background- I don't see how or why this can or should be an issue

limiting play options and cutting out superfluous bits of the rules in the name of balance. In other games these would be called 'formats'. 40k itself has some too, both official and unofficial. Generally I s,for this - all scales of things available, all the time with no limitations has its own negative consequences that can be extremely unhealthy.

House rules, custom scenarios - these can be great fun. Pretty common in the historical community too. I genuinely dont see a problem here.

the_scotsman wrote:
They do want to win when they play, but with 40k saying anyone who doesn't have a meta list is a scrub is kind of like saying everyone who doesn't pop all the loot crates to get the special Golden +1 Damage SUper GuN and the Super Rare Loot Crate Only Special Ammo is a scrub and not a SERIOUS *insert freemium game here* player.

This is completely wrong, and highlights the point I'm making. If you're playing a pay-to-win game and you don't pay to win then you aren't a serious player. You aren't putting the time/money/effort into the game required to play at its highest levels, because you don't care enough about it to make that investment. IOW, you are a casual player and it's ridiculous to pretend otherwise. But there's nothing wrong with being a casual player. The issue with CAAC players is when, in the pay-to-win example, they go beyond merely not investing heavily in the game and start whining about how everyone who buys the +1 GUN OF DEATH is a morally awful person and acting like they're entitled to have everyone else turn off their pay-to-win upgrades so they can have a better chance of winning despite not making the full investment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sqorgar wrote:
First of all, Peregrine's involvement in all this makes me feel profoundly uneasy. They say that even a broken clock is right twice a day, but Peregrine is a toilet seat. She came up with the term CAAC as a "no, you are" insult against people using the term WAAC, and in no way should it be considered a legitimate term based on how she coined it.

I love you too. <3

And no, I came up with it as an entirely accurate description of the behavior of certain people and how they appropriate the term "casual" to describe an attitude that is the exact opposite of casual gaming and try to take a ridiculous moral high ground with it. A casual player is the person buying an occasional box of space marines and playing a game with their friend once or twice a year, with whatever rules and models they happen to have at the moment and zero concern given to anything outside of their individual game (forums, metagames, etc). They don't give a about any casual vs. competitive debate because it has nothing to do with them. A CAAC player is the person who obsessively reads 40k forums so they can post angry rants about "competitive players" and how they are "doing it wrong" every time the subject comes up, has detailed opinions about their interpretation of the fluff and will lecture you on how you're a WAAC TFG if your army doesn't follow it, smugly brags about how they play the game for fun and all those awful tournament players don't understand what real fun is, etc. They are not casual at all in their behavior, as they make a huge investment in the game and the stuff around the game, but they appropriate the term as a virtue signalling thing: "casual" is morally superior, I am morally superior, therefore I must be casual.

Now, this doesn't necessarily describe every single person who has ever used the term WAAC, but if you're using it to mean "someone who brings a more powerful list than mine" instead of "will do anything, even cheating/rules lawyering/etc, to win" then it's fairly likely that you're a CAAC player.

Second, I get what you are saying, but I've never seen this sort of behavior before - certainly not together in a single person or group.

Lucky you. Many of us have, both online and offline.

Sometimes people behave in a certain way because they're reacting to others.

Deadnight wrote:

nou wrote:

Quite good summary scotsman! I would add only one other "subtype" of (suposedly) CAAC player - people with RPG/Rouge Trader/2nd ed background who treat 40K more of a mealable tool to express their (usually deep and involved) interest in 40K universe. This does not equal narrative player, mind you. This subgroup "quarrel" with matched play/tournament crowd is based on limiting play options "in the name of balance" and leaving out entire pages of official rules out of the scope "because matched play...". Not to even mention going wild with houserules, custom scenarios, fandexes etc... This subtype, as any other CAAC types "adapt or die": they either find likeminded people and leave groups in favor of garagehammer; leave 40k altogether; or stay within matched play groups playing by group rules, but with a fair amount of grudge under their skin.

I dunno - maybe I'm misreading your post, and if I am, I apologise, but your comment about a caac 'subtype' sounds awfully like you having a go at narrative players for the most part, because thst is what you are describing.

Because those things you list are generally fine and quite common in narrative focused groups.

rpg background- I don't see how or why this can or should be an issue

limiting play options and cutting out superfluous bits of the rules in the name of balance. In other games these would be called 'formats'. 40k itself has some too, both official and unofficial. Generally I s,for this - all scales of things available, all the time with no limitations has its own negative consequences that can be extremely unhealthy.

House rules, custom scenarios - these can be great fun. Pretty common in the historical community too. I genuinely dont see a problem here.

Oh, by no means I was "having a go at narrative players", as it basically describes my own attitude towards 40k nowadays and I'm 100% sure, that Peregrine views me as CAAC (some unnamed references in this thread made by various people point to couple of threads I've been vocal in). I was just completing the list of "people who are more or less frequently thrown under CAAC label" that scotsman layed out. The part of "not equalling narrative players" is because it doesn't have to focus on actually telling a fully fledged story each game, it can focus on catching a feel of a certain faction in greater detail than fleshed out in codices, or just experimenting with different "formats" as you call them.

As to existence of this "subtype" - during my time here on dakka I witnessed few "careers" starting with enthusiastic freshman excited about all those possible Cities of Death, Planetstrike and custom narrative scenarios (or recently Malign Portents in case of AoS) that ended up "matched play crowd" simply to get at least some games now and then because they couldn't convince anyone in their local communities to step outside the matched play rut in the slightest. The attitude towards this part of the community (we can encompass it as broad narrative type for convenience) was best seen after last Chapter Approved came out and there was huge outcry that it should be free because it "had no usable content".

@scotsman: I'm not particularily surprised that you have never met this type. Taking myself as an example, I never hang around in FLGSs, I make all my purchases online and I play with the same people for years, because we just have no real interest in "converting fresh blood for our cause" - once you have at least one likeminded partner, the sheer size of 40K makes it nearly endless journey. I've played nearly 200 games since my return to the hobby mid 7th and no two games felt alike, because of abundance of "unusable" official material and "sandbox" nature of this mindset.

And I'm most certainly responsible for making a lot of "houserule trash" as defined by Peregrine.

Edit:
I see that Peregrine posted while I was writing my answer and now I'm even more convinced, that CAAC was conceived at least in part because of me posting in various threads, that 40k can (not has to) be played "seriously" in ways other than competetive/matched...

the_scotsman wrote:
In Peregrine's version, a CAAC player cares more about winning than a WAAC player, they just use different tactics (houseruling, attempting to ostracise people who use too powerful lists, etc) to achieve DAT WIN. I've never experienced this. Maybe it's because I've never given over control of the club in general to these kinds of folks, or been in one that was. Nostalgia driven CAAC players care about the FEELING they get while playing the game, and it requires the game to look and act as close to how it did when they were kids as possible.

They have to be using their old collection.

They can't be seeing models or stuff that's "new" and "weird" and "didnt exist when the game was GOOD."

I never saw this in 40k, but I've absolutely seen it in other games which will go unnamed. A member of the community for said game insisted on playing "themed, underdog lists" (which really weren't, they were decently strong) and only wanted to play against likeminded players. What it really ended up being though was refusing to play anyone halfway invested in the game, and repeatedly "teaching" newcomers, who would then play against the rest of the group to find they'd been cheated and taught incorrect rules to put them at a disadvantage. The attitude that this individual had spread also undermined those of us who put in effort to create and run events, and build communities by claiming we were powergamers and couldn't play any themed lists (which is blatantly untrue, our lists were more themed than most but just built to function). This went so far as them creating a "beginner tournament" that ended up just being invite only, with 4-5 members of the group being the only people not invited (including one who was a legitimate beginner at this stage, with 3-4 months of experience, but did not get along with TO). After that, the community fractured into infighting started by this person's name calling, and now our community is looking at slowly rebuilding itself, 6 months later

 Peregrine wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
They do want to win when they play, but with 40k saying anyone who doesn't have a meta list is a scrub is kind of like saying everyone who doesn't pop all the loot crates to get the special Golden +1 Damage SUper GuN and the Super Rare Loot Crate Only Special Ammo is a scrub and not a SERIOUS *insert freemium game here* player.

This is completely wrong, and highlights the point I'm making. If you're playing a pay-to-win game and you don't pay to win then you aren't a serious player.

That's only true if the only way to engage with a game is by trying your hardest to win at all times. The thing you don't seem able to grasp is there are plenty of ways to be serious about a game like 40k without being super competitive. For a lot of people, playing at tournaments, let alone winning one, just isn't a thing they're interested in. They can still be serious about the game. I'd say someone with an entire company of marines, who organises their club nights, builds terrain and takes the time to teach newbies is serious about the game. They're just serious about it in a different way to your definition.

Slipspace wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
They do want to win when they play, but with 40k saying anyone who doesn't have a meta list is a scrub is kind of like saying everyone who doesn't pop all the loot crates to get the special Golden +1 Damage SUper GuN and the Super Rare Loot Crate Only Special Ammo is a scrub and not a SERIOUS *insert freemium game here* player.

This is completely wrong, and highlights the point I'm making. If you're playing a pay-to-win game and you don't pay to win then you aren't a serious player.

That's only true if the only way to engage with a game is by trying your hardest to win at all times. The thing you don't seem able to grasp is there are plenty of ways to be serious about a game like 40k without being super competitive. For a lot of people, playing at tournaments, let alone winning one, just isn't a thing they're interested in. They can still be serious about the game. I'd say someone with an entire company of marines, who organises their club nights, builds terrain and takes the time to teach newbies is serious about the game. They're just serious about it in a different way to your definition.

Actually, I think he does understand that, his point is that such people shouldn't be calling themselves "casual".

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
They do want to win when they play, but with 40k saying anyone who doesn't have a meta list is a scrub is kind of like saying everyone who doesn't pop all the loot crates to get the special Golden +1 Damage SUper GuN and the Super Rare Loot Crate Only Special Ammo is a scrub and not a SERIOUS *insert freemium game here* player.

This is completely wrong, and highlights the point I'm making. If you're playing a pay-to-win game and you don't pay to win then you aren't a serious player.

That's only true if the only way to engage with a game is by trying your hardest to win at all times. The thing you don't seem able to grasp is there are plenty of ways to be serious about a game like 40k without being super competitive. For a lot of people, playing at tournaments, let alone winning one, just isn't a thing they're interested in. They can still be serious about the game. I'd say someone with an entire company of marines, who organises their club nights, builds terrain and takes the time to teach newbies is serious about the game. They're just serious about it in a different way to your definition.

Actually, I think she does understand that, her point is that such people shouldn't be calling themselves "casual".

Exactly. It's fine if you want to play casually and not invest much, but the term "casual" has a meaning. A player who plays a pay-to-win game and refuses to take it seriously enough to buy the pay-to-win items is not a serious player, a player who invests huge amounts of effort into massive collections and community building and such is not a casual player. But we have this weird morality thing going on where the pay-to-win player demands to be considered a serious player and the 40k player demands the casual title, despite neither of them fitting the definitions of the words they want to use.

So if a player that builds large collections and does a ton of work to help build his community but isn't interested in the competitive aspect of the game is not a serious player and is not a casual player... what is he? A second class player?

 Galas wrote:
So if a player that builds large collections and does a ton of work to help build his community but isn't interested in the competitive aspect of the game is not a serious player and is not a casual player... what is he? A second class player?

They would be a serious player. You know, because they make a significant investment into a hobby they care a lot about.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galas wrote:
So if a player that builds large collections and does a ton of work to help build his community but isn't interested in the competitive aspect of the game is not a serious player and is not a casual player... what is he? A second class player?

They would be a serious player. You know, because they make a significant investment into a hobby they care a lot about.

Oh, ok. As you said that to be a serious player you need to invest in the context of a pay-to-win game, buying the OP stuff and using it, I tought you did make a distinction for people that probably doesn't even likes that much the game but is centered around narrative, building, painting, etc...

 Galas wrote:
Oh, ok. As you said that to be a serious player you need to invest in the context of a pay-to-win game, buying the OP stuff and using it, I tought you did make a distinction for people that probably doesn't even likes that much the game but is centered around narrative, building, painting, etc...

That was specifically about the example of a player in a pay-to-win game. 40k is not a pay-to-win game.

Actually I would arguee that 40k is a pay-to-win game, just like CCG. But thats entering semantics. I understand your point now.

 Galas wrote:
Actually I would arguee that 40k is a pay-to-win game, just like CCG. But thats entering semantics. I understand your point now.

40k really isn't, because price and power have little to do with each other. Weak units can have expensive kits, and powerful models can have cheap kits (or cheap conversions). It's only pay-to-win in the sense that you have to pay a lot of money to build an army, but buying a certain number of models will generally cost the same regardless of how well optimized the list is. A true pay-to-win game is one that separates players into two tiers. You can play for free, but you're limited to low-tier options and will never win against people who pay. Or you can get out your credit card and buy the top-tier options that are better than anything you can get without paying. It's usually a shallow game with a business model of spamming as many pay-to-win games as possible in the hope that you lure in the addicts rather than making a quality experience, and your power in the game is directly related to how much money you spend. In that context a "casual" player plays for free, or spends a limited amount of money at most. A serious player is not going to play for free because the free experience is a hopeless slog with little chance of success, they're going to pay to play the real game.

Ok, you are right.

I regularly hang out with top level tournament players and I see how many model kits they buy. 40k is 100% a pay-to-win game.

Just because it isn't free for everyone as a baseline doesn't mean it doesn't require the continuous investment of hundreds of dollars a year to buy the top tier units, either paint them yourself with an airbrush rig good enough to get them done in time or pay someone to paint them, then eBay the units at a loss when they get balanced out of the meta.

Heavy competitive players are constantly spending money on the game and without spending that money you simply will never see a top table. It might be "pay to play, pay more to win" but don't kid yourself, it is pay to win.

the_scotsman wrote:
I regularly hang out with top level tournament players and I see how many model kits they buy. 40k is 100% a pay-to-win game.

Just because it isn't free for everyone as a baseline doesn't mean it doesn't require the continuous investment of hundreds of dollars a year to buy the top tier units, either paint them yourself with an airbrush rig good enough to get them done in time or pay someone to paint them, then eBay the units at a loss when they get balanced out of the meta.

Heavy competitive players are constantly spending money on the game and without spending that money you simply will never see a top table. It might be "pay to play, pay more to win" but don't kid yourself, it is pay to win.

So you only buy models for your one list and never decided to buy more because they looked cool or had a neat mechanic?

Pay-to-win is meant to describe the intentional creation of a system where paying more into it than the base product gives immediate power, make other means to gain that same power incredibly difficult or even literally impossible, and invalidate previous builds.

Buying models in 40k is more like heroes in an MOBA: there's many reasons to have them outside of competition, there's no guarantee the new stuff is powerful (Mutilators, anyone?), and what becomes the new hotness might be something you already own. And as a unique bonus to physical games like 40k, you don't even need to buy the new kit if know you way around the exacto-knife and green stuff.

the_scotsman wrote:
I regularly hang out with top level tournament players and I see how many model kits they buy. 40k is 100% a pay-to-win game.

Just because it isn't free for everyone as a baseline doesn't mean it doesn't require the continuous investment of hundreds of dollars a year to buy the top tier units, either paint them yourself with an airbrush rig good enough to get them done in time or pay someone to paint them, then eBay the units at a loss when they get balanced out of the meta.

Heavy competitive players are constantly spending money on the game and without spending that money you simply will never see a top table. It might be "pay to play, pay more to win" but don't kid yourself, it is pay to win.

Again, no, it's not. "Pay to win" is not a synonym for "expensive", even when high cost prevents you from buying all of the new releases. It's a specific sort of game and the defining aspect is the tiered content system where power is purchased directly. For example, you can buy a 10% damage buff for 30 minutes for a mere $4.99, and you'll be reminded of this fact with constant ad banners. Or maybe you'd like to make it 15% for $5.99, clearly a great deal for a player of your caliber. Sure, you can in theory play the game for free, but you have no hope of winning against a player who bought the 15% damage buff and the $19.99 equipment pack that includes higher-tier gear that you don't have access to. Or, in 40k terms, it would be like if CP were changed to be 1 CP per game (but don't worry, if you don't spend it you can save it up to use later) but you can buy a pack of 10 CP for $9.99 at any time during the game. Oh, and if you buy a special 30-CP bundle pack you get an extra 500 points to spend on your army.

40k, as expensive as it can be, doesn't do this. There is no tiered system with better rules costing more money and shamelessly selling buffs for cash. Kit cost is largely based on the size of the sprues, without any concern for in-game power, and all rulebooks cost the same price.

I am familiar with the pay2win model of freemium video games. But saying 40k is not pay2win is like saying the us presidency is not pay2win. Sure, anyone can be president in theory. But the only candidates you'll ever hear about have spent millions of dollars to make sure you've heard of them.

No regular hobbyist/collector is going to spend as much on models and painting as a top tables tournament player. There's a vast difference between adding a new unit to your collection for rules or aesthetics and the constant churn of whole new armies required to keep your list at the top of the meta.

It doesn't matter that the money for kits ratio is relatively constant. Only 5-10% of the units in the game are competitive at any given time and even if you are willing to eBay everything but your current collection it costs at least 1k a year to have any chance of keeoung your list playable.

Or do you think most of the serious competitive community didn't have to buy a new army after the edition change, flyer netfs, chapter approved, beta deep strike rule, rule of three, smite nerf...?

That's a "cost of doing business" if you want to win a gt. Don't want to pay that? Good luck winning with your scatbike/wk list, your 5 stormravens, your flyrant list, your malfic Lord smite list, etc

 Peregrine wrote:
The term "casual" has a meaning.

Actually it has several meanings.

1) Irregular/occasional
2) Happening by chance/accidental
3) (For clothes) Informal/inappropriate for certain occasions
4) Without serious intent/careless or offhand
5) Relaxed/easy going/without commitment

So you can be 'Casual at all Costs' if your approach is easy going/relaxed. It would certainly be hard to argue that someone who got really distressed about WAAC players was 'casual', but someone could frequent message boards, run introductory games, play every week and play to win and still be a 'casual' player if they were relaxed in their approach about playing/commenting on games.

I mean, people who have sex with numerous different partners on a frequent basis are having 'casual' sex; this doesn't mean that they rarely have sex, don't take the act itself seriously once they get down to business.

 Denny wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The term "casual" has a meaning.

Actually it has several meanings.

1) Irregular/occasional
2) Happening by chance/accidental
3) (For clothes) Informal/inappropriate for certain occasions
4) Without serious intent/careless or offhand
5) Relaxed/easy going/without commitment

So you can be 'Casual at all Costs' if your approach is easy going/relaxed. It would certainly be hard to argue that someone who got really distressed about WAAC players was 'casual', but someone could frequent message boards, run introductory games, play every week and play to win and still be a 'casual' player if they were relaxed in their approach about playing/commenting on games.

I mean, people who have sex with numerous different partners on a frequent basis are having 'casual' sex; this doesn't mean that they rarely have sex, don't take the act itself seriously once they get down to business.

TIL I'm CAAC because I refuse to play my games in a suit and tie

 feeder wrote:

 Denny wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The term "casual" has a meaning.

Actually it has several meanings.

1) Irregular/occasional
2) Happening by chance/accidental
3) (For clothes) Informal/inappropriate for certain occasions
4) Without serious intent/careless or offhand
5) Relaxed/easy going/without commitment

So you can be 'Casual at all Costs' if your approach is easy going/relaxed. It would certainly be hard to argue that someone who got really distressed about WAAC players was 'casual', but someone could frequent message boards, run introductory games, play every week and play to win and still be a 'casual' player if they were relaxed in their approach about playing/commenting on games.

I mean, people who have sex with numerous different partners on a frequent basis are having 'casual' sex; this doesn't mean that they rarely have sex, don't take the act itself seriously once they get down to business.

TIL I'm CAAC because I refuse to play my games in a suit and tie

I don't take opponent's seriously without a top hat and monocle.

Sqorgar wrote:I've been described as CAAC (and I'm pretty sure I've been alluded to in this thread, or at least conversations I've been a part of), but I wouldn't describe myself as casual at all. To me, a casual player is like the guy playing on his iPhone while waiting at a bus stop. He doesn't go out and look at games, know the names of game designers, or go online and talk about games with like minded individuals. He just plays because he kind of enjoys it, but he kinda enjoys a lot of stuff, so whatever. A casual is a "low involvement fan".

I spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year on this hobby, and untold amount of time assembling, priming, and painting figures to play with. I spend a not insignificant portion of my day following hobby news and discussing it here and other places. This isn't a hobby I just sort of partake in. It is one that I seek out, follow, and absorb myself in. Casual, I am not. But I'm also not a competitive player... and it seems like this hobby (or at least community) doesn't really know what to do with that. If I'm not competitive, then I must be casual, right? I'm just as serious about my gaming as any competitive player (possibly more so).

Truth is, CAAC was coined as a reflective insult in a sort of "no, you are" way. It doesn't mean anything except that you are anti-competitive - which I proudly am. I believe in healthy competition, but the kind of things I see competitive gamers do and say is anything but healthy. In another life, they'd be Wall Street traders or working for Enron or a Savings and Loan office.

this is basically how I view myself. not casual, really interested in the models and fluff, game a lil less so