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curiosity is getting the better of me, wondering how much tournaments influence the discussions on Dakka.

Personally, not a tournament player - too many bad experiences in the past. Top it off, I only play 40K once in a blue moon, my game time is generally spent on other systems and RPGs.

I don't go out of my way to get to tournaments, but if I want to binge a day away on 40k tournaments are a pretty great way to get it done.

I don't go to tournaments anymore. The majority of people I know, including competitive players, no longer do so.

I pretty much only play tournaments because it's the only way I can get "enough" games. I don't have a gaming group that plays 40k (they love to rpg) so I need pick-up games.

I can't play mid week because I have a family and demanding job.

I usually need to block off a day to just play 40k so if I'm blocking off the day I might as well get as many games in as I can.

I like playing against good players and good lists. I've had bad experiences with CAAC gatekeepers before and those guys usually don't show up to tournaments. I have fun at them mostly because they are small (20ish players), have a good community (friendly guys and even a girl!!) and everyone shows up expecting pretty much the same thing.

I haven't yet, but I want to just for the fun of it... to see what the tournament scene is like.

SG

 ServiceGames wrote:
I haven't yet, but I want to just for the fun of it... to see what the tournament scene is like.

SG

Be prepared that you will meet a few people that will do anything to win at a game of toy soldiers. Quite pathetic.

 ServiceGames wrote:
I haven't yet, but I want to just for the fun of it... to see what the tournament scene is like.

SG

Be prepared that you may fall head over heals for a high intensity, no quarter given, battle with a winner determined by whose list, tactics, and strategy are superior. Quite awesome.

Eh, sort of, not really. I clicked yes though.

I don't travel for tournaments [it's not within my means], but I'll participate in small ones my local games store hosts, and in my local league.

I would like to play in more, but it's not logistically feasible.

 ServiceGames wrote:
I haven't yet, but I want to just for the fun of it... to see what the tournament scene is like.

SG

Be prepared, you might have a good time and play some fun matches with great people.

But probably not.

I pretty much only play tournament games or prep for tournament games.

No, not anymore. Games with so much randomness in them just don't scratch my "skill based win" itch - when I feel like "no quarters given, cutthroat competition" I go play competetive Bridge. With 40K I very much prefer playing new unique narrative scenario every week rather than waste my time playing samey matched play games, so there is nothing for me in pick-up or tournament scenes. And yes, I'm one of those few lucky people that managed to start and sustain a group of likeminded players.

Wouldn't touch a 40k tournament.
Why game competitively with a ruleset not suitable for it?
Makes no sense at all to me.
It's just an ego boost contest for who spends the most money. Who puts the least effort into their army. Who prints off a list online and most importantly.
Who gets first turn.

Tried a tournament once time, tried to get in to a league too but it required to buy stuff. General expiriance is that either is not worth much, if the army isn't working. If the list is good, and you know how to play well and get a bit lucky, one can win some sweet prizes.

I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

Wow, I’m surprised on the non-tournament players being in the lead. I really though a vast majority of The Dakka community was tournament players.

bananathug wrote:
I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

It is sad, but at the same time I somewhat understand it. I’ve had some downright terrible experiences with 40K tournaments that has made me firmly believe I’ll never participate in one (again). I don’t hate people for enjoying tournaments, but it does annoy me when the tournament mindset carries back into casual games.

I only play in tournaments, but the monthly tournaments in the FLGS in the city I go with a friend are basically 3 casual games in a day with a bunch of friends, we go to eat together, etc...

And then I go to regional and bigger tournaments that are proper tournaments.

 Stormonu wrote:
Wow, I’m surprised on the non-tournament players being in the lead. I really though a vast majority of The Dakka community was tournament players.

bananathug wrote:
I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

It is sad, but at the same time I somewhat understand it. I’ve had some downright terrible experiences with 40K tournaments that has made me firmly believe I’ll never participate in one (again). I don’t hate people for enjoying tournaments, but it does annoy me when the tournament mindset carries back into casual games.

Nah, it's more like a bunch of casual players who have very strong opinions on competitive game balance, tournament rulesets, etc.

I think it's pretty easy to figure out why.

Let's say the community is 70% casual and 30% tournament focused. That's probably close to accurate, but its somewhat irrelevant to the point I'm going to make.

Now let's say you play 40K in any setting that you enjoy and you run into an donkey-cave. While the "community" agrees that CAAC and WAAC are both a thing, I'd say there's about a 80% chance that the douchebag plays tournaments, and a 20% chance he's just super-duper casual and a douche.

So the number of insulting/donkey-cave players people run into are probably more often than not people who partake in tournaments. This will thus give a skewed appearance that all tournament players are dickheads. That doesn't mean that CAAC style douchebags aren't a real thing, but I'd imagine there is a huge skew when it comes to unsavory players.

In my local community there are maybe 40-60 active players, mostly broken into small groups. As a whole, most people get along with everyone. There are four guys that i can think of who most people don't want to spend time with (i.e. they don't attend events with these guys, block them on facebook and generally avoid them). I won't elaborate on the reasons why, but suffice to say they're not highly thought of individuals. It just so happens they're also four of the few people who actively travel to tournaments outside the local area. Now this doesn't impact us per se, but it definitely will give people a bad opinion of our area if they ever consider trying to run an event locally.

If you talk to tournament goers though you'll find that if you play five games at a tournement you can expect one douchebag (two if you're really unlucky). I've heard the same metric mentioned on a half dozen podcasts and my buddies who occasionally attended tournaments agreed. So it's unlikely you're going to have a complete gak time.

 Stormonu wrote:
Wow, I’m surprised on the non-tournament players being in the lead. I really though a vast majority of The Dakka community was tournament players.

bananathug wrote:
I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

It is sad, but at the same time I somewhat understand it. I’ve had some downright terrible experiences with 40K tournaments that has made me firmly believe I’ll never participate in one (again). I don’t hate people for enjoying tournaments, but it does annoy me when the tournament mindset carries back into casual games.

You might want to look at this https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wss_gws/gws-2017-7-31-questions-scenarios-and-tournaments/ . Sadly, we don't have free access to GWs own survey, but I presume it would show something similar. The reason why non-tournament people are less seen here on dakka is that being non-tournament, and especially scenario/narrative oriented (not simply "casual" as in "matched play but on relaxed level") is vastly more "self contained" experience, with only limited need of exposure on the internet, and it is A LOT harder to keep narrative oriented threads running for long, because they usually don't turn into endless debates and die out as people just prefer to play some games rather than talk about playing games (either that or Peregrine shows up derails them with his "what people call narrative 40K isn't narrative at all, you are all just virtue signaling CAAC players" mantra). Every once in a while a poll similar to this one shows up and the results are always surprising for tournament oriented people.

And IRL scenario/narrative people and "garagehammer casuals" tend to stick together in small groups and avoid FLGSs, so again, there is little exposure to the outside world. I've played around 80 games last year (combined count of 40K, SW:A and Oldcromunda and that year was on the less intense side) while in the same period I've been to my closest FLGS only once, and only because I needed a pot of paint "right now" and couldn't wait for online delivery.

Nope because

Seldom have time
Too much like hard work
Too old

I don't go to tournaments. That's partly because I'm quite a slow player and I don't like playing under heavy time pressure, I prefer to have a more relaxed game. Its also because tournaments tend to pack in the games very tightly and I'd rather play less games in a day and take some time to chat to friends or watch other games in between.

 Unknown_Lifeform wrote:
I don't go to tournaments. That's partly because I'm quite a slow player and I don't like playing under heavy time pressure, I prefer to have a more relaxed game. Its also because tournaments tend to pack in the games very tightly and I'd rather play less games in a day and take some time to chat to friends or watch other games in between.

Yea, the time constraint is a bit of a double edged sword. Tournaments are one of the best ways to get like 5-6 games in 40k in a single weekend against a variety of people, but they're also on a pretty tight schedule because of how much 40k they're packing into each day.

I voted casual only, but I used to go to 3-4 tournaments a year between 5th and mid-7th edition. Life changed and now I only rarely get to game so when I do it's a pretty casual affair.

I've had more good opponents and good games than bad ones. I've come dead last in most tournaments I go to, and it's really helped highlight something to me - I do not have the mindset of a competitive player when it comes to list building! My lists are "middle of the road" at best, which is just not good enough for any decently competitive tournament but does just fine at little 1-day events at the local GW.

bananathug wrote:
I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

they perhaps "hate" something they aren't unable to have success with, so they must find any kind of excuse to give tournaments/tournaments players bad name (not because tournaments are really evil, just cause anytime they play with their garagehammer list they are kicked in the nuts, hilarious)

I've tried 40k tournaments. Did my best. Never had an opponent I'd ever call a 'Great guy' as many other tournament players seem to report, but maybe I'm just not 'one of them'.

I have, however, been in Age of Sigmar tournaments, and most of the players I played were all fantastic, excellent human beings.

Strange.

I’ve been tempted to, but I’m pretty content with my monthly meetings with my club/group(and an occasional game scattered in-between).

I play in tournaments, and some of my non-tournament play is tournament practice (with tough lists), but I do enjoy a nice relaxing casual game now and then. Gives me a chance to dust off some of my less competitive models (like Tactical Marines, Terminators, etc.) and do something different. My local tournament scene is brutally competitive (several of the regulars are highly ranked in the ITC), but the players are usually pretty cool even when they roflstomp you. I haven't really had an experience with a TFG player at any of them. No super sore losers, table flips, shouting matches, dice embedded in walls, or anything like that. In fact, in the entire time I've been playing competitive 40k, the only time I've encountered any TFG types was at Adepticon earlier this year, and that was only in one game (had an ugly rules dispute).

 blackmage wrote:

bananathug wrote:
I love how the "no I don't play tournaments" crowd is so toxic and insulting towards people that enjoy them. They are going out of their way to insult people who enjoy playing the game to what end?

they perhaps "hate" something they aren't unable to have success with, so they must find any kind of excuse to give tournaments/tournaments players bad name (not because tournaments are really evil, just cause anytime they play with their garagehammer list they are kicked in the nuts, hilarious)

You do understand the shocking amount of irony in a response like this, correct?

I like casual narrative play more than anything else. Campaigns are great. However, sometimes it is fun to take off the gloves and bring the best list I can make. People don't like that on Thursday 40k night. . . So i reserve it for tournaments only (or tourny prep games)