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There's a guy at the shop whose always there and ready for a game.... but....

When the game starts to go against him... he concedes....

Every single time.

I know its every player's right to concede a game if they aren't having fun.

But this guy will immediately say, "Want to play again?" upon conceding.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this feels like a sore loser mentality.

What should I say?

It’s probably a fairly thin line between just fine, and rather rude behaviour.
If they basically give in after a single bad roll, and want a reset, honestly I would tell them No.. a lot.
A lot of players here are MTG players, so conceding from a almost certain loss is common.
Probably hard to say exactly without knowing them. If they are super nice, maybe need to get them playing some board games that don’t count points until the final turn.

 Apple fox wrote:
It’s probably a fairly thin line between just fine, and rather rude behaviour.
If they basically give in after a single bad roll, and want a reset, honestly I would tell them No.. a lot.
A lot of players here are MTG players, so conceding from a almost certain loss is common.
Probably hard to say exactly without knowing them. If they are super nice, maybe need to get them playing some board games that don’t count points until the final turn.

I didn't think of MtG. Players do concede really quickly in that game.

I'll see if he plays. It might be a holdover from CCGs.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Apple fox wrote:
It’s probably a fairly thin line between just fine, and rather rude behaviour.
If they basically give in after a single bad roll, and want a reset, honestly I would tell them No.. a lot.
A lot of players here are MTG players, so conceding from a almost certain loss is common.
Probably hard to say exactly without knowing them. If they are super nice, maybe need to get them playing some board games that don’t count points until the final turn.

I didn't think of MtG. Players do concede really quickly in that game.

I'll see if he plays. It might be a holdover from CCGs.

It could be, but a win state in MTG is easy to spot, and resetting a game for a new one is easy, and low effort. So players here don’t concede so easy in 40K. I still think it unusual for a 40K player to do it, just since setting up can take more effort. And people don’t have time for two games as often even if super fast.

If it's constant, after a time or three I'd probably say either "No, thanks" or "sure, but we play it through"

Some people game for the win, if they can't win they concede because to them there's no point playing if they can't get the win. Or at least if they can't see themselves potentially winning.

If they are also a defeatist individual who is non-adaptive to a game changing state then yeah they could easily be someone who really wants to game lots, but at the same time really wants to win and only win and not play through to a loss.



Honestly if they always do it I'd

1) Politely refuse

2) Agree, but insist that you game through to the very end or at least "end of turn 6"

The fact that they are always up for a game and open for one likely means that they've burned through others at the club as well with this pattern.

Whatever the reason, I'd have little interest in playing this person. In a given game I want to see where the story goes, even if it's in a resounding defeat for me. I never concede unless we're very near the end, the conclusion is clear and there's a time issue

An obvious exception is games like Mordheim where bottling out is part of wise campaign play and multiple games in an evening is encouraged.

 Overread wrote:

Honestly if they always do it I'd

1) Politely refuse

2) Agree, but insist that you game through to the very end or at least "end of turn 6"

The fact that they are always up for a game and open for one likely means that they've burned through others at the club as well with this pattern.

Maybe it's be worth it to gauge their interest level when they want to concede by saying.

"That's ok, but I'm not up to play again tonight, would you like to play another turn or two?"

It sounds like what they're really asking to re-rack, which might have a few motivations.

It's honestly a good way to get practice, as you can get a good feel for the crucial opening plays and learn ways to play the scenario and what kind of threats to be aware of. You can often do this twice in a night even when you can't get in 2 full games.

It's also always possible that they're quick to give up on their chances and want another shot at victory. Also not inherently a bad thing but it can definitely be less satisfying than a full game and can cause players to fail to grasp how to close out the end game. Part of the problem is that if they've given up, they're probably not going to play well enough to mount a comeback regardless, but its still really important to learn to play full games.

It's probably a good idea to get an idea what they're after and set some expectations early. "Want to practice the early game?" is a fine reason. "I'll only play turn 3 if I'm winning" is an attitude that probably needs some introspection.

I'd accept it as a thing that happens sometimes, like 1 game in 10 or something, but if it was a regular thing I'd ask them to stop doing it or stop playing against them. I think it's not really in the right spirit for me, and we're likely playing at cross purposes.

I am not against conceeding a game at all. I mean, if it is a foregone conclusion, why waste time playing out the inevitable. Boring.

It would be more fun to either try again with different factors than to just pointlessly roll dice until I lose.

However, that would mean something would need to change to bother playing again. New mission, swapping armies, adjusting game size, swapping out units, shuffling terrain, etc. A simple reset is just as boring as they same thing will happen.