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 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
Well, that's why I asked for most important and then asked people to rank their choices if they want. I was honestly expecting rules to be the most popular choice by a large margin, so I'm surprised at how the poll is going right now. Enjoying the responses so far.

Depends how you look at it, I suppose. There's plenty of people who define the game by the rules - "playing 40k" means using the rules as published by GW. But to me, "playing 40k" means fighting a battle in the 40k setting. After all, there have been ten different published rules for playing games in the same setting with the same miniatures, so IMO the ruleset doesn't define the game. If I don't fancy the rules on offer I'll find some other ones.

By that metric using a 40K themed Checkers set to play Checkers "in a 40K setting" is playing 40K. I can't say I can agree with that point.

tightness of rules is definitely #1 for me.
Then a toss up between lore and model quality.
Dont care much after that.

Most important is a tough call, since a number of conditions have to exist for me to want to invest time/money and energy in a game. I voted the ability to get a game in - size of the community. A perfect game that I can't find an opponent for is not very useful.

Having said that, the lore/background must have a hook for me. When I walked away from 40k in 7th Ed I took a look at Warmachine since there was a big local community. The lore had no appeal so I stayed away. The rules should be comprehensible, but balance is not a big deal.

 Just Tony wrote:

By that metric using a 40K themed Checkers set to play Checkers "in a 40K setting" is playing 40K. I can't say I can agree with that point.

It's a gradient, not a hard line in the sand. Otherwise you are saying, unless you are playing absolute no-deviation RAW, with no RAI, no home rules, homebrews, non-gw formats (e.g. ITC) or a decision to not partake in certain aspects of the game (e.g. 'We are not really interesting in having super heavies or flyers in our games') then you are not playing 40k either. Heck you could argue that playing forgeworld is not forty-k (and let's not open that can of worms!)

You are technically correct in saying it would not be Xth edition 40k. But 40k is more than just the published rules from GW. Much more than just a rules set. Plenty people either modify, ignore or kitbash GW rules with other systems, or frankly use other rules entirely, and would be perfectly accurate in still stating they're playing 40k (or a t least a modded or homebrewed 40k) because they're still bringing to life their chaos marines and Raptors chapter or ultramarines and doing battle for the emprah in the forty first millennium. That's 40k. Rules are just the clothes you dress them in. Then again, if you little 'un is running round pretending he's a spače marine and shouting 'for the emprah!', and making pewpew noises, that's 40k for them. Like you say, claiming that playing checkers in a 40k setting would be 'playing 40k' might raise some eyebrows (I would not necessarily disagree with you here by the way!), but that would not be the same as saying your games of 40k use an older rules edition with some bits from later editions sprinkled in and some house rules/changes/limits/restrictions added on top.

Like I said, a gradient, not a hard line.

To answer the OP:

What is most important?

Size of the community/easy to find a match:
It's like notches on your bedpost really. One partner can still beat all that. Size of the community is a red herring, what's more important is playing with like minded individuals. I play with a great group and if any of us want to introduce a game we just do it. Ultimately though, it's kind of important - at the base level if there are no players the company won't make more stuff.

Price of entry/average army cost:

Firstly, it's a niche luxury hobby, and whatever you do, it's gonna cost you. 'Irrelevant' is the wrong word, but I have long since come to realise that you are misguided if you expect to get absolutely everything out of the hobby without any effort on your part or bare minimum of cost. So 'paying the price' is something that I simply expect, and since I enjoy my hobby, and since I continue to get out of it what I want, I am content to continue paying.
It's more than price of entry or 'average army cost'. Frankly, I'm not interested in either individually - they both are mere facets of a bigger picture. There's the price of entry, price of expansion, price of maintenance/upkeep et . Define 'average' because I've never done that in my life. I like variety and I am frankly not interested in defining my project by a single list. Without coming across as an 'I'm alright jack', I work, and have disposable income. I like my hobby and am happy to put stuff aside for it. I don't think in terms of 'an average army' or the 'current top tier lists' costs £x and I need to buy it all in a one-er. Cost of entry is usually fine, and if there is a good value starter, that goes a long way. I don't mind putting my out £20 or £30 or whatever for a new squad to add to my projects. As I see it, I could spend that for a 2 hour trip to the cinema. I'll spend several hours per dood, so even if it's £40 for ten, or for five models that I actually enjoy putting together and painting, then i consider it time/money well spent. There are limits - I remember when privateer press releases the everblight chosen (centaur-ogre cavalry) and it was £90 for five plastic cavalry models (with a 20% discount). Beautiful sculpts but the price point was frankly ridiculous.

Tight, well-written rules/game balance

Tricky one. Game balance is a bit of a unicorn - we will never have a game thst is truly balanced enough for the expectations of people that you see posting here. These are limited systems with a lot of rough edges. That cannot be helped, and while things can be done to smooth these edges, they also have a price to pay and frankly, I've seen every single fix generate its own share of resentment and complaints. So I would settle for 'I would like the game to be capable of being built towards having compatible opposing forces' with the assumption that this might take a bit of work on our part to facilitate this. Personally, I think this is the best that can be realistically achieved. Now, in terms of rules, I like 'interesting' rules. I don't mind an unbalanced game, provided that the game itself is interesting (scenario, game mechanisms etc) and capable of generating both immersion and a narrative. I like my rules to be like my power - 'clean' is better. Green energy rather than filthy coal, clear rules that say what they mean rather than open to multiple interpretations, at least when viewed from a somewhat reasonable perspective. I would also like the game rules to be thorough and to hopefully cover all situations that are likely to occur as a consequence of the game mechanics (within reason at least - this is a rabbit hole if you are not careful!) - we've all been there where a situation occurs in a game, and there is nothing in the rulebook to mechanise what you are supposed to do.

Good lore/background

Crucial. This is the hook that brings the rules to life. I've played games where the lore was terrible (firestorm armada) and we just played the game itself and while mechanically fine, it was ultimately uninteresting. Lore draws me in, and brings the IP to life. This feeds the immersion and the narrative generated from a game.

Quality/variety of miniatures

Crucial. While I am open in whatnot I regard as a 'good' mini, as a painter/modeller, if the models don't interest me, I'm not getting involved.

Complexity

Ten years ago - absolutely. Now? Not so much. Of my current three favourite game systems, one is Infinity. I regard Infinity as probably the most technically brilliant wargame ever written. It's fantastic, but it's complexity is almost too much at times, as to be honest, once I start playing, I tend to lose interest. Of the other two games, one is GWs (or rather, the Perry's) old lord of the rings sbg game, and more recently GWs warcry. (5 years ago, warmachine hordes would have been on this list, but I'm just not interested in it anymore :() what I like about lotr and warcry is that they are remarkably simple games, mechanically speaking, and yet they are both intuitive, elegant, easy to learn, and though 'simple', have a lot of meat in terms of what you can do , and where you can go. This is what I like. The hard to get synergy of deceptively simple, easy to play and depth. Complexity can often be a mask hiding bloat and can simply add weight to a game without adding depth. I am also less interested in the excessive book keeping that often arises, and keeping track of hunners of different rules, combos, synergy chains and deck stacking in the game, which is often what complexity is represented by on the table top.

Other/not listed (please explain)
The most important aspect of a wargame is the people across from you. You can play a rubbish game with great people . You can't play a great game with lousy people. For me, play with like minded individuals is rule one and is a pre-requirement to any game.

Cheers,

So Dakka gives data thats pretty on par for most GW centric forums that I have posted similar polls on.

Roughly 1 in 4 people care about rules first and foremost, and 3 in 4 are happy with sub standard rules so long as the models are awesome and the lore is cool and to a degree how big the community is.

For a fun comparison, find a Kings of War or Warmachine facebook group and post the same poll and see what results you get.

My averages come out to be about 4 in 5 care a lot about the rules as opposed to 1 in 4 when you post that question on those forums.

 auticus wrote:
So Dakka gives data thats pretty on par for most GW centric forums that I have posted similar polls on.

Roughly 1 in 4 people care about rules first and foremost, and 3 in 4 are happy with sub standard rules so long as the models are awesome and the lore is cool and to a degree how big the community is.

For a fun comparison, find a Kings of War or Warmachine facebook group and post the same poll and see what results you get.

My averages come out to be about 4 in 5 care a lot about the rules as opposed to 1 in 4 when you post that question on those forums.

It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.

It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)

The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).

 Just Tony wrote:

It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.

Or, hear me out, it's called self-selection. People that care about rules ditch GW, and people that care about lore/"ecosystem" stick with GW. It's like claiming people who pick mayo over ketchup are somehow indoctrinated by the Big Mayo...

 auticus wrote:
It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)

The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).

@second WTF: the easiest answer to that is that both FB crowd and Dakka poll crowd (not just posters crowd) is much bigger in it’s entirety than competitive crowd. This is best seen in FB terrain groups - those are VERY active, have plenty of members and a very slim part of content focuses on „tournament practice ready” terrain pieces. Instead those groups focus mainly on home tables and dioramas - the „invisible” part of hobbyists when viewed from competitively focused dakka discussions...

@first WTF and @Just Tony vs Deadnight: when you (generic you) have been in this hobby for more than single edition and seen plenty of meta shifts, at some point you realise that changes made at GW headquarters that lessen your enjoyment of the game are not gospel and if you have a group of like minded players available and willing you simply branch the ruleset to your liking. There is nothing strange with that, given that many old players recruit from RPG crowd, where customizing everything and writing own content is the norm. Personally I have not switched to 8th as core mechanics and rolling buckets of dice are simply not to my taste and that have left me with entirely free field to customize anything and everything, and I still consider myself as a „40K player”. I still „borrow” some new ideas directly from GW but I’m not bound by their rules team. And I’m all happy because of that. The only thing I’ve „lost” because of my decision is the ability to take part in endless and futile balance minutiae discussion threads, that never ever result in any community accepted comps or even small adjustments. I still have great people to play with, I still feel excited by miniatures GW releases for my factions, I still paint, I still play, I can still dig greatest parts of the lore...

@Deadnight: as usual, a post that is so comprehensive that it is hard to find anything to add I fear I may someday grow angry at you for „stealing” every interesting discussion topic here

Is verisimilitude on the list?

I find verisimilitude helps with many things:

1) Rules comprehension. Games with rules that have a high degree of verisimilitude tend to be easy to learn and understand, and rules problems can be solved intuitively. For example, the rules for climbing in Lord of the Rings are simple: if it's half the model's height, you don't need to climb. If it's higher, you can either fall and hurt yourself, ascend with some difficulty, or ascend gracefully. Assign those to 1, 2-5, and a 6 on a D6, and voila, you have simple, easily understood climb-rules. On a 1, you fall. On a 2-5, you get to the top but stop. On a 6, you get to the top and finish your move.

Conversely, look at the debates over verticality and climbing in 40k. Or fly models and verticality (LOTR has fly too and the rules are much more realistic and therefore intuitively easier to understand).

2) Verisimilitude helps with immersion in the game. Not in the lore (yet) but simply in the game. It keeps players from snapping back and doing spreadsheet analysis instead of wargaming.

3) Verisimilitude helps the narrative. As above, except it's immersive in the lore as well as the flow of play. A railgun hitting a Leman Russ and bouncing off makes more sense than a Railgun hitting a Leman Russ but doing some arbitrary amount of hitpoints as if the LRBT was a bag of flesh.

I'm surprised that complexity and low cost are not valued highly at all. I wonder if this response would be different on a forum not primarily frequented by Games Workshop players...

 Sqorgar wrote:
I'm surprised that complexity and low cost are not valued highly at all. I wonder if this response would be different on a forum not primarily frequented by Games Workshop players...

Low cost or high complexity don't mean good rules or good games respectively.
What does mean a good game is when the ruleset harmonizes with the wished bandwith of complexity and or what the game is. (e.g. a War game might be more complex then checkers.)

Also i'd like to add, the leaks on the new CA aswell as having had some discussions in my group have lead to the fact that we have heavily addapted 40k rules, respectively have changed up on how certain armies work.
We just had no more fun with the game and the state it is in.

And now through that experience i feel confident what i stated on page 2 : good looking models may get you in a game, keeping you there is a ruleset that does not impede on anyones fun. (basically Equal long pikes for everyone)



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)

The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).

1. 8th crowd is relatively new. i know a lot of people that have dropped since 6th edition and especially 7th and are unwilling to pick up 40k again, especially now. I therefore attribute that to the new player wide eye syndrome.

2. Dakka is not just tournament crowd. The P&M department is probably bigger and a lot less dakkatastic. Also unbalanced rulesets allow for cheap highs by crushing your opponents. Many realise that and many more abuse it, it's probably also one of the reasons why 40k online atleast has a "bit"* of a reputation as toxic.



*"bit" considering that Reddit regards dakka as too extreme as do many facebook groups etc.

I interact with a lot of tournament players on forums, facebook, and twitter, and the GW tournament players almost universally pan any critique of the game's rules to "thats just how it is, learn how to take advantage of it, git gud, the rules aren't very good but the tournament crowd is huge thats why I love it"

 auticus wrote:
I interact with a lot of tournament players on forums, facebook, and twitter, and the GW tournament players almost universally pan any critique of the game's rules to "thats just how it is, learn how to take advantage of it, git gud, the rules aren't very good but the tournament crowd is huge thats why I love it"

"Learn to take advantage from broken rules, so you use overefficent stuff from the list builing"

Imo it's not strategic skill if i just defeat my opponent because my options are just 2x as efficent and i can spam them.

Cronch wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.

Or, hear me out, it's called self-selection. People that care about rules ditch GW, and people that care about lore/"ecosystem" stick with GW. It's like claiming people who pick mayo over ketchup are somehow indoctrinated by the Big Mayo...

That's just what Big Mayo wants you to think!

Just Tony wrote:
It's called indoctrination. It's the only reason I can think of that GW can sell $200 dollar models consistently.

Or just different priorities. The perfect rules set does not exist. GWs rules are pretty woolly, but they're 'good enough' for plenty folks out there to work with them, put up with them, or at least to use them as a baseline.

auticus wrote:It does give me a wtf moment that the game rules are not important to the players of the game. (and I realize a lot of people will say they are important, but they are a #3 or #4 down the list of things they care about)
The second wtf moment is that the tournament crowd is so huge and active, and yet apparently a quarter of them care about the rules, where competitive tournaments should be all about the rules (you would think).

auticus wrote:I interact with a lot of tournament players on forums, facebook, and twitter, and the GW tournament players almost universally pan any critique of the game's rules to "thats just how it is, learn how to take advantage of it, git gud, the rules aren't very good but the tournament crowd is huge thats why I love it"

Firstly, second, third or fourth on the list is not the same as 'not important'. Let's not be melodramatic.

And secondly, why should it be a wtf moment for you that rules 'quality' isn't number one?
it shouldn't surprise you in the slightest, especially with your history of making a player rules set for Aos. what's important isn't the quality of the rules, even among tournament players who you claim 'should' care about this (an assertion I regard as somewhat questionable) - what's important isn't that the rules are 'good', what's important is that they are 'official'. Because official rules can be bent and manipulated. As to the other side of this coin, there are plenty examples even on these boards of the incomprehension. disapproval, condescension, or even hostility to players who homebrew or mod their games and/or otherwise step outside of this 'officialdom'.

The WTF moment is the point that people ... many people... don't care about the gross imbalances in the game and just shrug and tell you to drink beer and git gud. Its a WTF moment to me because somewhere along the lines things changed in the playerbase, as that was never something tolerated in the past, and today its accepted, and I didn't get the memo and skated a few years into oblivion not realizing that the new gen of players apparently don't care about a badly balanced game or wtf rules.

I can't count how many people I've encountered that hate the game, but will play it anyway because the game is secondary to hanging out and socializing, while getting erased by Timmy the Powergamer who happily meta churns to stay on top.

If *ANY* other company produced 40k or AOS today from scratch, it would die on the shelf, its models used for other games because the models are pretty.

I know all too well about getting bombasted with hostility for using homebrew. That "official"dom is very important to a great many people yes. I've had someone wish cancer on me because I produced a fan comp for AOS that people were using and I wasn't a GW employee so had no right to do so (to them).

Firstly, second, third or fourth on the list is not the same as 'not important'. Let's not be melodramatic.

There's nothing melodramatic about that.at.all. If I have a list of things I care about, #1 and #2 are my pressing concerns, and the rest are kind of there but them not being great don't bother me as much.

I've been lectured more times than I can count on here or the TGA or twitter about how good tight rules just aren't really a concern, or are the domain of the "neckbeard" or some other derogatory.

I think you're looking back with rose tinted glasses, or something. I've been a gamer for a long time, and I've always known plenty of people in the hobby like me who care more that the rules are fun, that they feel thematic and don't get in the way too much, than "good". When we used to play Battlefleet Gothic, balance was not even a term we knew. We just cared that the space battle was awesome. That attitude isn't new; stop blaming younger gamers. Your earlier condescending comments in the thread make it pretty clear you are unable or unwilling to imagine other ways of gaming from your own--you're just more aware that other types of people exist in your hobby space now than you were when you were younger. Step out of your bubble a little further.

You express shock that more people don't share the perspective that the rules are the most important part of a miniature game where minis are 95% of the cost in money and time? I hear there are games with amazing rules that use little wooden cubes. Maybe all the rules #1 gamers have maxed on rules and minned on the Hobby? (I'm not even sure I used those terms right because I'm one of those gamers who doesn't read internet rules debates or know about the meta.)

I don't think its rose tinted glasses.

If 6th edition whfb would have dropped with 3 factions or so destroying everyone else, 6th edition whfb would have died on the vine.

7th edition saw that beginning with GW and it started driving people off.

Somewhere along the line ... the balance issues became a meh who cares.

There's also nothing condescending about what I am saying. Thats a reflection you are adding to my words. Because I don't like something and make that known does not make that actively condescending when I talk about those things that I don't like.

Additionally I deeply disagree with your premise because I have been involved in game dev and design both as a hobby and professionally since the mid 90s and that whole people just play for fun and don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance goes against 20 odd years of experience, workshops, and marketing data everywhere but the gw universe (and even that only the last 10 years or so)

 auticus wrote:
I don't think its rose tinted glasses.

2nd edition Eldar and Space Wolves would disagree with you.

There have always been gross imbalances in GW's games. And casual players have always just shrugged them off, and have generally chosen amongst themselves either to not abuse them, or to make the most of them with like-minded players would enjoy just coming up with the most broken combos possible.

Additionally I deeply disagree with your premise because I have been involved in game dev and design both as a hobby and professionally since the mid 90s and that whole people just play for fun and don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance goes against 20 odd years of experience, workshops, and marketing data everywhere but the gw universe (and even that only the last 10 years or so)

You're conflating two different things here. Accepting that game balance is screwy and 'getting destroyed' by it don't actually go hand in hand. The groups I've gamed with over the years have generally either chosen not to use anything too broken, or tweaked the rules to suit ourselves where we felt it necessary.


It's also worth pointing out (again) that the rules question here is a little skewed, because the poll is offering rules complexity as an option, rather than rules structure. I don't choose a game because it is complex. I choose a game because it is fun to play. Some of the games I play are complex, some are simple. Complexity does not automatically equate to fun.

So the fact that people aren't listing the rules as an important aspect of the game doesn't actually mean that the rules aren't important. It just means that the rules being watertight and complex isn't important.

Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain. If you have a private group that self polices that is great for you, im truly glad you have that.

I am a public event organizer and i can tell you that asking people to self police the abuse is met with in many cases extreme forms of hostility.

Thats why rules quality is so important to me.

Many people in the public play domain also love the bad balance, they can be found dancing on it in listbuilding threads and tournament winner glorification threads and tweets when asked about bad balance.

 auticus wrote:
Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain.

That's not been my experience.

Yours clearly differs. This will be something that will vary from area to area, but where a venue tends to have a predominance of players with a more relaxed attitude towards the game, they tend to be fairly good at self policing. Players who refuse to leave the broken combos at home eventually either change their ways or find somewhere else to play when they find it difficult to get games in.


And yes, sure, tournaments will often be more cut-throat that casual play. That can be mitigated with sports and comp scoring, through tournament-specific rules packs, or simply by talking to players about what is expected - several local tournaments around here used to just have a 'Don't be a dick' requirement in their rules package, and for the most part that worked just fine.

For me its going to be the community but more on how friendly/fun they are rather than how easy it is to find someone. It's people that makes the game for tabletop. Otherwise I would get play some mmorpg or mobile.

 insaniak wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain.

That's not been my experience.

Yours clearly differs. This will be something that will vary from area to area, but where a venue tends to have a predominance of players with a more relaxed attitude towards the game, they tend to be fairly good at self policing. Players who refuse to leave the broken combos at home eventually either change their ways or find somewhere else to play when they find it difficult to get games in.


And yes, sure, tournaments will often be more cut-throat that casual play. That can be mitigated with sports and comp scoring, through tournament-specific rules packs, or simply by talking to players about what is expected - several local tournaments around here used to just have a 'Don't be a dick' requirement in their rules package, and for the most part that worked just fine.

My region is predominantly hard competitive players. Trying to introduce sports and comp scoring in my region will get you ridden out of the region and you will be running events from your garage with your pets and and wife and kids lol. I've tried about a dozen variations of the "dont be a dick" requirement over the past 10-15 years and here it has never.once.worked.at.all. There are always a handful of people that will push that envelope.

Again thats great you have a place with people that will police themselves. I live in a hard edge competitive region where the norm is tournament level lists in casual games and campaigns, so I need the rules to not be a candy mountain lackadaisical mess.

Other for me - how well do the rules let me represent the setting? Do they have the right feel when I'm playing the game? Also, do they let me tell my stories? I'm largely not interested in re-enactments or what-ifs, I want to add to the setting myself with My Dudes. Also, I hate rules that litter the board with tokens - abstraction is one thing, but I don't want to be playing a glorified boardgame; the rules should allow for a battle to play out the way it "should" based on the setting, rather than relying on "gamey" mechanics.

I only care about a handful of IPs enough to spend the time, money, and energy required to do wargaming related to them, and so I'm picky to ensure the experience is worthwhile. I'll buy anything from anywhere, providing it meets that main need of providing a thematically appropriate and enjoyable way of interacting with those IPs.

For example, I'll happily buy FFGs Legion models, but I won't be playing the game itself because it's cluttered and "gamey", and the experience caters first & foremost to the "I want my favourite character off that movie" crowd.

The ability to do interesting things. The essence of games, to me, is activity. Choice. Decision-making. I should be doing things that have some kind of a result, my opponent should be doing things that have some kind of a result. The more the game restricts choice, the more the balance turns games into a foregone conclusion, the more things the designers put into the game that don't do anything or are pointless, the worse it is to me.

It isn't about competitive balance, it's about whether there's an interesting/compelling reason to do anything at all rather than being locked into a small set of mono-build army lists that play the game according to short flowcharts.

Lore/Painting/Quality

Not Online!!! wrote:
Low cost or high complexity don't mean good rules or good games respectively.

Of course not, just like good lore and nice models don't mean good rules or good games. But it should be the most important aspect to someone. I mean, rules complexity is at least directly related to game rules, while good lore is not. And low cost must be related to one's ability to stay in the game. GW has basically priced me out, so it doesn't matter whether I want to play something like Adeptus Titanicus or 40k - I just can't afford to.

I'd like to see some more complexity in miniature gaming. I feel like things have gotten so streamlined that, for the most part, the games are all sort of becoming too similar. At least with some more complexity, they'd do more to be unique as rulesets. I'd say that my favorite rulesets right now are among the most complex, and it's probably just because I associate these games will wholly unique experiences.

 auticus wrote:
I don't think its rose tinted glasses.

If 6th edition whfb would have dropped with 3 factions or so destroying everyone else, 6th edition whfb would have died on the vine.

7th edition saw that beginning with GW and it started driving people off.

Somewhere along the line ... the balance issues became a meh who cares.

There's also nothing condescending about what I am saying. Thats a reflection you are adding to my words. Because I don't like something and make that known does not make that actively condescending when I talk about those things that I don't like.

Additionally I deeply disagree with your premise because I have been involved in game dev and design both as a hobby and professionally since the mid 90s and that whole people just play for fun and don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance goes against 20 odd years of experience, workshops, and marketing data everywhere but the gw universe (and even that only the last 10 years or so)

Working in game Dev and design is likely part of the problem. The people you choose to associate with are a small, narrowly focused part of the hobby. That you wrote "don't care if they are getting destroyed by bad balance" indicates a singular perspective with regards to gaming. The people I game with don't consider a game to be a contest of skill and wit. It is a form of relaxing entertainment. One player is not destroying another player; one wizard/tank/spaceship is shooting the hell out of the others. Your workshops, etc. must have selected out the casual gamers.

Players who don't care about balance say "Drink beer and git gud"? Saying rules are either tightly balanced tournament machines or "subpar"? All the WTF's? Sounds like (unconscious?) contempt for other types of gamers to me, like you're incredulous other types exist.


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My region is predominantly hard competitive players. Trying to introduce sports and comp scoring in my region will get you ridden out of the region and you will be running events from your garage with your pets and and wife and kids lol

This right here comes across as disparaging towards casual gamers.

. I've tried about a dozen variations of the "dont be a dick" requirement over the past 10-15 years and here it has never.once.worked.at.all.

Maybe just don't host events with the unfiltered public. I use to work with the public; I would never try to relax with them.

auticus wrote:Being able to agree to not abuse the bad system does not tend to work in the public play domain. If you have a private group that self polices that is great for you, im truly glad you have that.

Playing devils advocate, Maybe the problem is (at least partly) playing in the public play domain.

auticus wrote:
I am a public event organizer and i can tell you that asking people to self police the abuse is met with in many cases extreme forms of hostility.
Thats why rules quality is so important to me.

Fair, but playing devils advocate, Player base quality would be more important to me. Because it sounds to me, the folks you seem to be forced to put up with are a big part of your problem.

You're essentially saying 'I need good rules that I can use as a shield so I can play horrible people'. Good rules are not necessarily the problem, horrible people are.

auticus wrote:
Many people in the public play domain also love the bad balance, they can be found dancing on it in listbuilding threads and tournament winner glorification threads and tweets when asked about bad balance.

So player bad behaviour, yet again? It's almost like a trend.

Seems to me Auticus, that you are (maybe unconsciously?) using 'the rules' as a deflection from another problem that you are likely well aware of. Gw's rules are wooly as hell, and don't help. But I have never come across a set of ttg rules that couldn't be abused and used to metaphorically beat someone over the head with. The perfect set of rules does not exist. Everything else falls short and will have sharp edges that folks will gleefully take ten of and whack over their 'mates' head with.

I'll get no end of flak for this, but I'd argue the problem at least partially is us, ie the player base itself. So often on here we come across anecdotes of toxic clubs or toxic players with toxic attitudes and people that have made others hate their hobby and/or walk away in disgust. And no one actually seems to want to do anything about them. People deflect and while they acknowledge perfect balance is unobtainable they instead want 'better balance' as the solution to horrible people.Thing is, 'better balance' still falls short of 'perfect balance', but no one ever seems to want to step forward and say how much less than perfect is ok or how many problems in their game they would actually be ok with. It seems that sometimes to me at least, people talk of this mythical unicorn-game-balance as the solution/holy grail to their problems, seeing it as the impenetrable shield that can be used to play games against a horrible person in a toxic community without issue, without ever realising that it's the horrible person in the toxic community and a culture that enables this and refuses to stand up to this that is at least, part of the problem.

The problems we have are partially our own - no game is perfect (or even close!) and the frustrating thing is, the game writers get all the blame for not writing the game equivelant of unicorns, and the 'sharp edges' in their games that are impossible to avoid, but they players conveniently never want to share any of the blame for doubling down on all of the sharp edges, and then inflicting them onto their own peers. We are not guiltless - It's both sides of the exact same coin.

Our gaming culture can rapidly become toxic (and not even through malice), and there's seems often to be an unwillingness to face up to this, and just blame some faceless corporate entity and just give up, and be lazy and refuse to do anything about it. when exposed to the ugly face of our own culture, we should instead try to acknowledge it and change it. with social media, we are exposed to these things far quicker than before and our cultures can shift rapidly when peoples eyes are metaphorically opened, and behaviours that were tolerated or accepted are suddenly shown in a new light as folks realise they're all kind of horrible - just look at 'me too', or any amount of twitter hashtags for recent examples that have lofted led to a genuine culture shift.. If a culture has problematic aspects, maybe it's the culture that needs exposed, challenged and change first, rather than wishing for a unicorn to come along that let's you play with awful people.