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I saw this a few days ago, but felt it was worth opeining a can of worms on what GW's "intent" for the rules are.



So for those who don't bother watching: basically the intent is to let you be creative and use the points and rules provided as to tell stories with your minatures. They mentioned the vehicle creation rules and mentioned if you want to use the points values instead, just add up the points like you normally would.

That said there is a large social contract undercurrent with asking others to look at the rules you put together on a model to ensure they're fair to play against.

Basically the intent of the rules team is for people to tell cool stories with their minis instead of focusing on just crushing each other into paste.

Though I'm curious on what the reaction to this will be since it eliminates a lot of claims regarding the studio.

Thats been their stance for 30 odd years. I don't think most people who play competitively really care what the gw design studio intent is. The reality is the rules ARE used to crush each other into paste.

 auticus wrote:
Thats been their stance for 30 odd years. I don't think most people who play competitively really care what the gw design studio intent is. The reality is the rules ARE used to crush each other into paste.

While true, it's still nice to hear it spoken aloud with examples of how you can use the rules to do just that.

Their intent is dumb because evidence shows that what people actually do the majority of the time is try to follow a stricter guideline around a more balanced match up.

Yes, narrative exists and whatever. But people still incorporate rule of 3 into many matches along with psychic focus and other matched play rules. Their intentions dont align with customer wants. People dont want do it yourself rules. They want a good baseline that work. Anyone who wants to break away from that baseline doesnt need gws permission or support to do that.

This video aligns with what I've been experiencing lately. After getting tired of competitive play, I switched mentalities and started thinking of the ruleset as a base with which to play out fun lore-centric scenarios on the tabletop. It wasn't hard to convince my friends to start playing this way. Suddenly, all of those models collecting dust that we've longed to run for months or years now have a purpose! All of those "useless" datasheets suddenly have a ton of value! And since we've all been focusing so hard on competitive strength for the past few years, it's been relatively easy to put our heads together and set up fairly "balanced" lists and matchups before our narrative game session starts.

I'm looking forward to playing more games in this style. It's opened up a whole new dimension of play among my group.

 Lance845 wrote:
Their intent is dumb because evidence shows that what people actually do the majority of the time is try to follow a stricter guideline around a more balanced match up.

Yes, narrative exists and whatever. But people still incorporate rule of 3 into many matches along with psychic focus and other matched play rules. Their intentions dont align with customer wants. People dont want do it yourself rules. They want a good baseline that work. Anyone who wants to break away from that baseline doesnt need gws permission or support to do that.

Theie intent is no more dumb their our assumptions of what that intent is or should be.

More over matched play looks like it's not supposed to bleed over into those casual games as much.

GW charges anywhere from about $40 to several hundred dollars for rules per person. While it's fine to modify the games you play to your hearts' contents, with a good group, I expect that for the money I pay to get a tight, competitive game. I shouldn't NEED a strong social contract to play a fun game of 40k. Obviously I'd like my opponents to be cool people, but the baseline should be pretty damn strong for the money I pay.

 Lance845 wrote:
Their intent is dumb because evidence shows that what people actually do the majority of the time is try to follow a stricter guideline around a more balanced match up.

Yes, narrative exists and whatever. But people still incorporate rule of 3 into many matches along with psychic focus and other matched play rules. Their intentions dont align with customer wants. People dont want do it yourself rules. They want a good baseline that work. Anyone who wants to break away from that baseline doesnt need gws permission or support to do that.

This is more or less incorrect. The majority of players are actually not playing tournaments or matched play. Also, yes, customers want plenty of do-it-yourself rules.

 JNAProductions wrote:
GW charges anywhere from about $40 to several hundred dollars for rules per person. While it's fine to modify the games you play to your hearts' contents, with a good group, I expect that for the money I pay to get a tight, competitive game. I shouldn't NEED a strong social contract to play a fun game of 40k. Obviously I'd like my opponents to be cool people, but the baseline should be pretty damn strong for the money I pay.

And while those expectations are fine, they make it pretty clear that isn't the intent they have for the game. Just listen to his comment about "balance".

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
GW charges anywhere from about $40 to several hundred dollars for rules per person. While it's fine to modify the games you play to your hearts' contents, with a good group, I expect that for the money I pay to get a tight, competitive game. I shouldn't NEED a strong social contract to play a fun game of 40k. Obviously I'd like my opponents to be cool people, but the baseline should be pretty damn strong for the money I pay.

And while those expectations are fine, they make it pretty clear that isn't the intent they have for the game. Just listen to his comment about "balance".

I'm not listening to a whole hour just to hear a justification for bad balance, so just go ahead and paraphrase.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I saw this a few days ago, but felt it was worth opeining a can of worms on what GW's "intent" for the rules are.



So for those who don't bother watching: basically the intent is to let you be creative and use the points and rules provided as to tell stories with your minatures. They mentioned the vehicle creation rules and mentioned if you want to use the points values instead, just add up the points like you normally would.

That said there is a large social contract undercurrent with asking others to look at the rules you put together on a model to ensure they're fair to play against.

Basically the intent of the rules team is for people to tell cool stories with their minis instead of focusing on just crushing each other into paste.

Though I'm curious on what the reaction to this will be since it eliminates a lot of claims regarding the studio.

I don't understand how it eliminates claims. Everyone already new all of that and no one ever claimed otherwise.

People criticize GW for being incompetent at writing rules, not being competitively minded (because literally everyone knows that they are not competitively minded.)


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 Elbows wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Their intent is dumb because evidence shows that what people actually do the majority of the time is try to follow a stricter guideline around a more balanced match up.

Yes, narrative exists and whatever. But people still incorporate rule of 3 into many matches along with psychic focus and other matched play rules. Their intentions dont align with customer wants. People dont want do it yourself rules. They want a good baseline that work. Anyone who wants to break away from that baseline doesnt need gws permission or support to do that.

This is more or less incorrect. The majority of players are actually not playing tournaments or matched play. Also, yes, customers want plenty of do-it-yourself rules.

Tournaments, yes. Matched play, no. The majority of people play matched. Even most narrative players use matched play rules as a baseline for setting up their own scenarios.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
GW charges anywhere from about $40 to several hundred dollars for rules per person. While it's fine to modify the games you play to your hearts' contents, with a good group, I expect that for the money I pay to get a tight, competitive game. I shouldn't NEED a strong social contract to play a fun game of 40k. Obviously I'd like my opponents to be cool people, but the baseline should be pretty damn strong for the money I pay.

And while those expectations are fine, they make it pretty clear that isn't the intent they have for the game. Just listen to his comment about "balance".

I'm not listening to a whole hour just to hear a justification for bad balance, so just go ahead and paraphrase.

Basically we get too obsessed with chasing this mythical idea of balance over trying to have fun. And based on how there is -always- calls to nerf and buff units constantly I think he's right. There is a strong tendency to get wrapped up in this idea of balancing the game, even when dealing with armies that are sitting in that fat middle of win/loss rates and operating like they should.


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ERJAK wrote:

I don't understand how it eliminates claims. Everyone already new all of that and no one ever claimed otherwise.

People criticize GW for being incompetent at writing rules, not being competitively minded (because literally everyone knows that they are not competitively minded.)

It eliminates claims about their intent for kitbashing and customizing the game. It also spells out how you can jse narrative rules with points costs and talks about making your own custom characters (I rather want to stick a Chaplain in Gravis Armout now).

ERJAK wrote:

Tournaments, yes. Matched play, no. The majority of people play matched. Even most narrative players use matched play rules as a baseline for setting up their own scenarios.

This is one of the reasons I like this Voxcast: it talks about how to use those narrative only things with points and do cool things with the game.

Basically I feel like the tone of the whole thing is "it's not all about being competetive and here are some things you can do with the game".

So... write bad rules and then when people complain tell them they're "too obsessed with trying to have perfect balance".

Geez, I wish I could turn in a load of gak at work and then tell my boss to not get "obsessed" about it being perfect.

No one is asking for perfect balance. At least, no one reasonable is.

But what we do want is the various fluffy things that we hear about actually being good on the tabletop. Why does a Marine Battle Company suck? Why do Speed Freakz suck? Why do Grey Knights suck?

And yes, there are ways to fix that. Give bonuses to a Battle Company, make Bikerz cheaper, give the GK player a handicap. And that SHOULDN'T BE NEEDED. The baseline game should WORK BETTER.

 ScarletRose wrote:
So... write bad rules and then when people complain tell them they're "too obsessed with trying to have perfect balance".

Geez, I wish I could turn in a load of gak at work and then tell my boss to not get "obsessed" about it being perfect.

I'm heavilly summarizing, but he did call out the fixation on chasing balance specifically. There is a difference than wanting to even the bumps in the game out for more people and trying to every model into the exact points value for the smaller percentage who play at a high level.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
No one is asking for perfect balance. At least, no one reasonable is.

But what we do want is the various fluffy things that we hear about actually being good on the tabletop. Why does a Marine Battle Company suck? Why do Speed Freakz suck? Why do Grey Knights suck?

And yes, there are ways to fix that. Give bonuses to a Battle Company, make Bikerz cheaper, give the GK player a handicap. And that SHOULDN'T BE NEEDED. The baseline game should WORK BETTER.

I can agree the base game needs improvement (even as a toolkit it lacks in things like terrain rules), but if they can match the 8.5 Marines going forward that'll go a long way to fix the base game.

EDIT: I think people are confusing "intent" and "execution" with some of their criticisms. The intent is the game should be a tool box for telling cool stories. The execution may be falling short of that in places, but it is the goal the studio writes the rules for.

If the intent is just a vehicle for cool stories, why does it cost so damn much money?

Marine Battle Companies don't suck.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Marine Battle Companies don't suck.

Outside Gladius and metas where everyone buys one-of-everything and doesn't bother to optimize by even a percent, they suck.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
If the intent is just a vehicle for cool stories, why does it cost so damn much money?

Which is the crux of the issue. I don't need to spend 40$ to tell stories. I already know Marine fluff, and I can get summaries of new fluff for inspiration.

The game should try harder for balance, period.

Short answer: fire everyone involved in writing GW's rules. This kind of incompetence and idiocy is inexcusable from so-called professionals.

 Lance845 wrote:
Their intent is dumb because evidence shows that what people actually do the majority of the time is try to follow a stricter guideline around a more balanced match up.

Yes, narrative exists and whatever. But people still incorporate rule of 3 into many matches along with psychic focus and other matched play rules. Their intentions dont align with customer wants. People dont want do it yourself rules. They want a good baseline that work. Anyone who wants to break away from that baseline doesnt need gws permission or support to do that.

I've found a lot of narrative folks don't post much on the forums. They absolutely exist, there's a reason they keep putting out stuff for narrative players, and not just in the studio. You just don't see them much here.

I still believe a mostly balanced game benefits the narrative players too, but there's nothing wrong with a chill game focused on telling a story. I really wish people would play more "historical" games, they're a lot of fun and a good change of pace from all ITC all the time. Let's you recharge your batteries a bit and let you chill out.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Their intent is dumb because evidence shows that what people actually do the majority of the time is try to follow a stricter guideline around a more balanced match up.

Yes, narrative exists and whatever. But people still incorporate rule of 3 into many matches along with psychic focus and other matched play rules. Their intentions dont align with customer wants. People dont want do it yourself rules. They want a good baseline that work. Anyone who wants to break away from that baseline doesnt need gws permission or support to do that.

I've found a lot of narrative folks don't post much on the forums. They absolutely exist, there's a reason they keep putting out stuff for narrative players, and not just in the studio. You just don't see them much here.

thats no suprise, dakkadakka isn't, as a community, very welcoming to those types.


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Marine Battle Companies don't suck.

Outside Gladius and metas where everyone buys one-of-everything and doesn't bother to optimize by even a percent, they suck.


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 JNAProductions wrote:
If the intent is just a vehicle for cool stories, why does it cost so damn much money?

Which is the crux of the issue. I don't need to spend 40$ to tell stories. I already know Marine fluff, and I can get summaries of new fluff for inspiration.

The game should try harder for balance, period.

in fairness with Primaris it's suprisingly easy to find yourself with a marine battle company almost by accident.

as for the GW philophesy, I think at the core GW sees 40k as more akin to


then

I think what struck me on this whole thread was how closely it followed on the heels of a prev. topic where someone asked why the rules aren't free/cheap.

And the response was "well you're paying for the designers work". Now apparently the designers are saying the game doesn't need to be balanced.

Then what am I paying for?

BrianDavion wrote:
as for the GW philophesy, I think at the core GW sees 40k as more akin to

Spoiler:

then

Spoiler:

Then GW's rule authors are delusional, because that's not at all how the rules work.

GW already HAS games that emulate D&D in their universe. Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader come to mind. And while I can appreciate that they want a more narrative driven game, the rules they wrote are designed to create competition.

In D&D, it doesn't matter if the Wizard is more powerful than the Fighter, because they work together to solve problems. It's a cooperative game. Same for Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. 40k isn't like that at all. It's you against your opponent. That's just the game they made.

And, if they really want people to just have fun and play the armies and games they WANT to play, then balance is incredibly important for that goal. As much as I'd LOVE to field a Stompa, or some Burna Boyz, I understand that doing so is not only going to decrease MY enjoyment of the game, but also my opponent's.

So, because balance isn't important for GW, we really CAN'T play the narrative style they want us to. 40k just isn't built for it like D&D is.

And beyond the issue of cooperative vs. competitive 40k doesn't have the narrative elements that define a game like D&D. In terms of how the printed rules function, not GW's inane author commentary about "DRINK BEER* AND FORGE A NARRATIVE", 40k is just a straightforward tabletop miniatures game with poor balance and dysfunctional rules. All of the "narrative" elements in 40k exist in purely competitive wargames, but GW seems to depend on creating a wall around their private retail chain and selling to customers who don't know about any other games.


*It should really say something that GW's strongest demonstration of a "narrative" gaming approach is a concession that they're a bunch of marginally-functional alcoholics.

 flandarz wrote:
As much as I'd LOVE to field a Stompa, or some Burna Boyz, I understand that doing so is not only going to decrease MY enjoyment of the game, but also my opponent's.

This may not be work for everyone, but when I want to field underpowered units, I'll just tell my opponent what I'm running, and they are usually happy to adjust their lists accordingly. This may be because I don't play with people who only care about stomping their opponents into the dust 100% of the time (though we do also play plenty of competitive-style games). Most of my opponents are really just looking for a fair fight so winning a game in the listbuilding phase before turn 1 even starts is pretty boring for all parties involved, and usually people won't mind putting in a little effort to avoid it. Luckily this is an easy problem to solve. All you have to do is share your lists in advance.

 slave.entity wrote:

 flandarz wrote:
As much as I'd LOVE to field a Stompa, or some Burna Boyz, I understand that doing so is not only going to decrease MY enjoyment of the game, but also my opponent's.

This may not be work for everyone, but when I want to field underpowered units, I'll just tell my opponent what I'm running, and they are usually happy to adjust their lists accordingly. This may be because I don't play with people who only care about stomping their opponents into the dust 100% of the time (though we do also play plenty of competitive-style games). Most of my opponents are really just looking for a fair fight so winning a game in the listbuilding phase before turn 1 even starts is pretty boring for all parties involved, and usually people won't mind putting in a little effort to avoid it. Luckily this is an easy problem to solve. All you have to do is share your lists in advance.

We shouldn't have to play amateur game designer and negotiate which units each player is allowed to bring just to be able to use the rules and models we pay quite a bit of money for.

The problem I tend to run into is that my opponent also has a structure they'd like to run in a game. So, if I ask them "hey. You mind playing down to me, because I wanna try this very weak unit out", then they won't be able to field the units (and tell the narrative) they want to.

And even when they acquiesce, neither one of us tends to have as good a time as we could have. Because we're both "playing in the shallow end" you could say. Whether we're both just playing weaker units, or if we're "taking it easy" on each other, we both know that we COULD be playing better.

Lastly, as Peregrine inferred, it's still pretty much a cop-out. Instead of balancing units so they can all be competitive with each other, GW would prefer we, basically, write the rules for them.

That's a fair expectation. I'm just saying that it's not impossible to have fun with underpowered datasheets if you have the right group. Better than watching those beautiful FW vehicles (sersiouly nice stuff btw) you posted in the FW thread sit around and collect dust, right? But yes, YMMV.

 ClockworkZion wrote:


Basically the intent of the rules team is for people to tell cool stories with their minis instead of focusing on just crushing each other into paste.

No joke