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I never stated a single forum, more so lumped most of the mainstream 40k forums/blogs as the vocal minority.

Let me explain it another way. If an FLGS or GW store is a gateway to the hobby, many may look to these forums or blogs for additional information. And what do they find? That these communities are largely comprised of overly competitive/critical complainers who have evidently been playing this game for 10+ years, yet somehow have not tired of this activity to this day.

It paints an entirely poor picture for the hobby overall and would be extremely confusing for a new player. Why are these people so negative towards a game they supposedly care about?

While for some it may stem from passion (if you could call it that), for most it just seems like a waste of time. Deeper discussion about the game/hobby is one thing, unfortunately I don't think it can be said that the majority of content on any of these outlets is anything but toxic.

That's life, though. People like to bitch and moan about everything. The strange thing though is that typically if people dislike something enough to complain about it for nearly a decade, you would think they would have the sense to call it a day on something that seemingly gives them no joy anymore.

XenosTerminus wrote:
This game has never been balanced in the slightest, and has always been a clunky convoluted mess. This is what I don't understand from the majority of the people that are the most outspokenly vocal (and almost always negative) towards this game.

Would a more balanced ruleset benefit everyone? Absolutely. That it has taken this many editions for many of you to accept that this game has never been or will never be balanced is what boggles my mind. Clearly that is not the intention of the designers, regardless how great this would be.

Every iteration of this game has had glaring weaknesses and aspects that can be construed as broken. History is just repeating itself.

What I grow tired of is what is quite honestly the vocal minority (yes, people on these forums ARE the vocal minority when it comes to overall opinions and thoughts on GW game analysis) who have done nothing but complain for the last X editions, repeating their opinions incessantly how this game SHOULD be.

Well, it isn't. Either do something about it (as many people have suggested- this hobby is what you make of it) or deal with it. Clearly something has kept you around long enough (and unfortunately complaining the entire time). There are endless possibilities with this, and any involved hobby. If one aspect is not to your liking, concentrate on another. Flex some creative muscles and utilize all of your effort to actually better the experience for you and others around you. Stop poisoning the hobby.

I think the negativity of the people who decry the game for everything it is are what is harming this game more so than any ruleset or pricing issue.

Seriously? The "vocal minority" attack? I'd bet if we surveyed people as to (a) whether they thought rules and balance could be improved in WH40K and (b) whether that was desirable, you'd find the majority opinion was "yes" to both questions. You just call us a "vocal minority" as a way of dismissing what we say, because you wouldn't say it otherwise.

And you make a Hell of a lot of presumptions about us. As one of the "vocal" people in this thread, I can say that you're wrong to assume I've been complaining every edition. I've never even played 3rd, 4th or 5th. But I do remember playing 1st and 2nd as a kid and finding it pretty un-fun to have my eldar swept off the table by endless hordes of plastic ork boyz every single game. I actually recall several instances of bad blood being caused by rules disputes and unbalanced gaming. Probably one of the reasons my group lost enthusiasm for WH40K.

I mean really? People wanting better rules is "poisoning the hobby" to you? Are a religious fanatic or something that dissension is such a terrible thing? When I was a kid losing to ork hordes every game, the chances of my complaining to others at my school resulting in any actual changes were around zero. There was no World Wide Web, we were just disparate voices. Now those of us that care can actually get together and find others who feel the same. And we can start projects to improve the rules, discuss ways to deal with balance problems and maybe get GW to start paying more attention to these issues. Getting together and complaining is the first prelude to doing something.

So quite frankly, you don't like people complaining, well complaining about us complaining is just more complaints. You can argue why an improvement is flawed - that's welcome. You can argue that you don't need the improvements. That's fine. But telling other people to shut up because they're "poisoning the hobby"? That's just another way of trying to stifle debate. You're not forced to read this thread. If you're happy go and play. Don't leap on other people telling them to just accept things if they're not, though. That's just an attitude of "I got mine".

XenosTerminus wrote:
Why are these people so negative towards a game they supposedly care about?

Because we do care. Do you understand that many could be considered masochists because of the pain we put ourselves through to play this game. Yet as you ointed out we still do and that is because we care about it, the game , the fluff, other players, our hobby. As a whole we realize that this game could be so much better if it was made with at least a semblence of balance in mind. That is why we are negative we know that 40k could be better but the company we pay to play does not see complaints as a concern and thinks that the status quo from 1990 is still good in 2014

There's always the "blame the victim" GW supporters out there.

@knas ser

You put an awful lot of effort into quoting me out of context/misconstruing my words.

I never said a better ruleset, or requesting/discussing one is poisoning the hobby, or that the game cannot be improved. Hell, that is the entire point! There is a lot of discussion of ways TO improve this game because of the way it is.

My main point, along with others, is that many people that incessantly complain about the state of the game DO NOTHING BUT COMPLAIN.

If you are unwilling to take many of the steps to improve this game because of self imposed limitations (it isn't BRB, shouldn't be my responsibility, etc etc) then that is your own decision. I fully endorse any rules discussions or efforts made to improve this game and its rules through logical discussion/debate. That is NOT the issue here.

The issue is how many people carry themselves when such conversations begin in the first place.

XenosTerminus wrote:
That's life, though. People like to bitch and moan about everything. The strange thing though is that typically if people dislike something enough to complain about it for nearly a decade, you would think they would have the sense to call it a day on something that seemingly gives them no joy anymore.

Speaking as one of the most vocal people in this thread and therefore one of the primary people you're talking about, you don't know me. You know very little about me. So where do you get the information that I've been complaining about it "for nearly a decade". I played a bit as a kid with 1st / 2nd ed. Now I've just bought 6th and that's my first exposure to WH40K Table Top for around fifteen years. So whoever you think you're arguing with, it's a phantom of your own imagination. If you really think someone can't pick up WH40K today and just make a criticism, then I don't know what to say other than you're delusional.

And as to the "no joy anymore". You may find that many of us our passionate about the painting. Or the fluff. And we want to bring the third member of the trinity up to scratch. We're not masochists. We're not here because we enjoy suffering. That's just the weird idea that you have of us. We're here because we're optimistic and we believe that things can be improved. For everyone. Whereas you are just here being negative with your complaints about people voicing their legitimate opinions, telling people to just "deal with it" and your fatalistic "it's always been this way so it always will be" attitude.

It is you who is the negative one here.

Well first of all, don't confuse GW/40k with the entire wargaming hobby. It doesn't paint the hobby in a poor light, it simply paints 40k/GW in a poor one. You'll find most of the boards for other games are significantly less negative, for reasons quite obvious.

Secondly, 40k isn't the only wargame, nor is it quite the monolithic entity it once was. There are dozens of other games I'd recommend to a new wargamer before I'd recommend 40k. People searching for more info on 40k might turn them away from 40k/GW, but in to another wargame, which is positive for the entire hobby community.

Many of us who 'bitch' on here as you put it have invested in other games. We still have our 40k armies and have a vested interest in other aspects of the 40k universe. Discussing things politely is not toxic or any other negative connotation you want to give it. That's your perception, and mine is that discussing aspects like balance are healthy for the community.

XenosTerminus wrote:
@knas ser

You put an awful lot of effort into quoting me out of context/misconstruing my words.

I never said a better ruleset, or requesting/discussing one is poisoning the hobby, or that the game cannot be improved. Hell, that is the entire point! There is a lot of discussion of ways TO improve this game because of the way it is.

My main point, along with others, is that many people that incessantly complain about the state of the game DO NOTHING BUT COMPLAIN.

If you are unwilling to take many of the steps to improve this game because of self imposed limitations (it isn't BRB, shouldn't be my responsibility, etc etc) then that is your own decision. I fully endorse any rules discussions or efforts made to improve this game and its rules through logical discussion/debate. That is NOT the issue here.

The issue is how many people carry themselves when such conversations begin in the first place.

I don't believe that I took anything out of context. I responded directly to what you wrote and as to "out of context", I quoted the entirety of your post. The reason this thread is nine pages long is not because people want to complain, as you suggest. It is because we are arguing against people who say (a) our complaints are not legitimate, (b) we should not complain because that's just the way things are or (c) both of these things.

If you disagree with that, then before replying, please go and read the last few pages and see how many of our posts are "I want to complain" and how many of them are us defending our complaints against attacks by others. I guarantee you that 9/10 posts by us are of the latter kind.

If you are complaining about all of this discussion, the correct faction to blame would be those that keep attacking our arguments. If no-one had, this thread would be a few pages of people agreeing there were problems and then discussing positive ways to change that. Instead, it's a stream of defending our position against attacks. Which is how I believe some people want it to be rather than for anything to actually change.

This is like having your significant other hurting you, and your friend telling you "don't tell him/her that he/she is hurting you, you'll only make it worse". Seriously.

I think part of the problem in general is that GW has no reason to balance rules and do things correctly (read: "fairly"), and all the reason NOT to. The game is the definition of "pay to win" where whoever has the most money gets the biggest advantage (see Escalation and superheavies), and the fact that for a decade or more now every new codex to come out is bigger and badder than the rest, resulting in a never-ending arms race as new things come out that are just better than the old ones, enticing you to buy more or even start over again.

Even back in 2nd edition which is what, almost 20 years ago now, the game was never balanced because they want you to buy more, they want you to keep buying every new codex that comes out and start every new army so you can continue to buy the latest and greatest "game winning" unit or model for their outrageous prices. 2nd edition was Herohammer like WHFB at the time, where you had one guy that was half the cost of your army ripping through everything else like it was butter, and since then it's been "Buy the latest new shiny toys for an advantage!" all the time. Armies have no updated Codex while GW will write several Space Marine codexes because that's what sells the most, and they only care about selling Space Marines to kids instead of actually having a hobby game.

People complain because they like the game and want to see it succeed, not become a perpetual arms race where you can steamroll opponents just because you have $400 to spend on an overpowered Forgeworld model that magically is now legal in the game, because that's $400 on one purchase into GW's pockets.

XenosTerminus wrote:
@knas ser

You put an awful lot of effort into quoting me out of context/misconstruing my words.

I never said a better ruleset, or requesting/discussing one is poisoning the hobby, or that the game cannot be improved. Hell, that is the entire point! There is a lot of discussion of ways TO improve this game because of the way it is.

My main point, along with others, is that many people that incessantly complain about the state of the game DO NOTHING BUT COMPLAIN.

If you are unwilling to take many of the steps to improve this game because of self imposed limitations (it isn't BRB, shouldn't be my responsibility, etc etc) then that is your own decision. I fully endorse any rules discussions or efforts made to improve this game and its rules through logical discussion/debate. That is NOT the issue here.

The issue is how many people carry themselves when such conversations begin in the first place.

But we are helping, I improve the hobby by getting poeple into other game. If GW fix their system I gladly get people into it, until then I just be a donkey-cave getting friends to waste money on a company that "hates" them. Until then I do my best to get people to start games where you play a game, instead of waiting around for the other guy to finish, becouse you have no effect on the other guys turn (you cound sleep if you wanted to while playing GW game and not miss anything). So yes, making sure people start a game they will like to play years from now is important, I don't want them staying becouse the invested to much in GW.

WayneTheGame wrote:
I think part of the problem in general is that GW has no reason to balance rules and do things correctly (read: "fairly"), and all the reason NOT to. The game is the definition of "pay to win" where whoever has the most money gets the biggest advantage (see Escalation and superheavies), and the fact that for a decade or more now every new codex to come out is bigger and badder than the rest, resulting in a never-ending arms race as new things come out that are just better than the old ones, enticing you to buy more or even start over again.

Even back in 2nd edition which is what, almost 20 years ago now, the game was never balanced because they want you to buy more, they want you to keep buying every new codex that comes out and start every new army so you can continue to buy the latest and greatest "game winning" unit or model for their outrageous prices. 2nd edition was Herohammer like WHFB at the time, where you had one guy that was half the cost of your army ripping through everything else like it was butter, and since then it's been "Buy the latest new shiny toys for an advantage!" all the time. Armies have no updated Codex while GW will write several Space Marine codexes because that's what sells the most, and they only care about selling Space Marines to kids instead of actually having a hobby game.

People complain because they like the game and want to see it succeed, not become a perpetual arms race where you can steamroll opponents just because you have $400 to spend on an overpowered Forgeworld model that magically is now legal in the game, because that's $400 on one purchase into GW's pockets.

The issue with that is GW fails even at pay to win in a lot of ways. They put out new models with terrible rules all the time. Buff models people already have etc. Now I think how things sell certainly effects their decision to improve the balance. If large quantities of people stopped buying they might change. But that is not what happens.

Breng77 speaks the truth. The codex creep and model buffing are uneven and illogical.

Martel732 wrote:
Breng77 speaks the truth. The codex creep and model buffing are uneven and illogical.

I think what disappoints me the most is that they don't seem to care about quality rules, just slap something out there so we can sell models. Same goes with most of their things. I picked up a copy of White Dwarf for the first time in... oh god it must be 10 years now. It was trash. No tactics/strategy/unit articles. A few bits about the Tyranids (expected as it was for their codex), some okay painting articles (I like them more than before) but the "heart" of it was gone. I loved the days of Chambers of the Horned Rat, Stillmania, and Tale of Four Gamers and the slew of articles showing a staff member's personal army and having painting and gaming tips/tricks from them based on how they built their own force, not how the studio army was done.

It's little things like that which just... I don't know. I want to like the game, hell I've become interested in it again after 12 years but it just feels like they've stopped caring in general about everything. It almost seems like they'd be happier just redoing the rules to allow for Space Marine vs. Space Marine and that's it, and screw everything else. They cancelled the specialist games that were great little things to play, they constantly increase their prices to near ridiculous amounts, and it just makes me wonder what their actual business plan is; I wonder sometimes if they actually want to be a games company, or just a miniatures company in which case they might as well offload the rules to a third party and focus only on figures. The game's always seemed like it was "meant" to be played with 4-5 friends in somebody's basement, where you had themed armies and narrative battles where the outcome of one affected another, and not the MTG style of show up at the game store with your army in tow and see who's around for a game. There's no substance to that kind of gaming IMO. They need to go back to promoting leagues and campaigns and having ways to actually tell a story with the games you play, even if its something as simple as vying for control of a planet and the overall league winner conquers it.

I've actually considered coming up with some simple league rules to propose to my store's gamers. Just something simple to encourage playing and getting to know the locals (I'm new to the store myself) and get in some good 40k games. No prizes or anything at the end except maybe a photo of the winner with their army (and jokingly maybe something like a toy crown) on the store/group's facebook page that they're the winner of the league and that such and such army conquered the planet.

Let me clarify by saying not EVERYONE in these forums, or other 40k outlets online falls into the complainer category, but surely most of you cannot argue that there are 'lurkers' who wait in the shadows for any thread to crop up so they can offer their insightful opinion on the game and how 'horrible things are', etc.

It's not uncommon to see any news or rumor post quickly devolve into complaints about a new rule, book, etc. Sometimes it's even entertaining to have a countdown until one of these people inevitably show up.

I guess I am just tired of it. Like many of you, I just want to have discussions about the game we all love. It's incredibly disheartening and depressing to come home from a gakky day at work and just read up on some hobby aspects you enjoy only to see yet another negatively spun thread, or a seemingly innocent one be taken over by negativity. That's really the crux of it.

Back on topic though, I agree that GW really isn't sure where it is going with it's flagship product. One thing I can say though is that a lot of the things people are complaining about, was requested (people have been asking for super heavies in standard games for ages). It's just funny to me that even when GW listens to their fanbase people still find reasons to moan about it.

XenosTerminus wrote:

I guess I am just tired of it. Like many of you, I just want to have discussions about the game we all love. It's incredibly disheartening and depressing to come home from a gakky day at work and just read up on some hobby aspects you enjoy only to see yet another negatively spun thread, or a seemingly innocent one be taken over by negativity. That's really the crux of it.

Why are you reading threads you don't enjoy reading?

Seems like a pretty simple solution, really.

 Blacksails wrote:

XenosTerminus wrote:

I guess I am just tired of it. Like many of you, I just want to have discussions about the game we all love. It's incredibly disheartening and depressing to come home from a gakky day at work and just read up on some hobby aspects you enjoy only to see yet another negatively spun thread, or a seemingly innocent one be taken over by negativity. That's really the crux of it.

Why are you reading threads you don't enjoy reading?

Seems like a pretty simple solution, really.

No joke, it is not like the thread title makes it look like people are going to talk all warm and fuzzy about GW.

Your quote box is missing the bracket at then of the [/quote].

Because like I said, most threads don't start this way. It is generally easy to tell when a thread will be bad news from the get go (based on initial rants or sensitive topics), but any sensible conversations are usually hijacked, like this one was.

I also get a good laugh out of people who reply to people that point out blatant whining/complaining with the 'you are just complaining about complainers' comment. There is a difference- commenting about your distaste for overall complaining/negativity is far and between someone who abuses the privilege, if you could call it that. It gets tiresome.

It gets tiresome being target practice for Eldar.

This thread has been largely sensible as far as forums go. Its been true to the topic at hand, which started out as largely GW negative. I don't know what you expected from this thread, to be honest.

Martel732 wrote:
It gets tiresome being target practice for Eldar.

Curious- do you typically play pickup games via FLGS? How many people do you see playing 'competetive 40k' style lists?

I ask this seriously, because I rarely play pickup games. The issues with 40k many people speak of are really only an issue for pickup games, which as stated earlier does not appear to be a format that is friendly any longer with the current 'take whatever you want, abuse whatever you want' configuration GW has given us.

The game really does favor structured/more narrative play, but then again that is the way GW has always intended the game be played.

XenosTerminus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It gets tiresome being target practice for Eldar.

Curious- do you typically play pickup games via FLGS? How many people do you see playing 'competetive 40k' style lists?

I ask this seriously, because I rarely play pickup games. The issues with 40k many people speak of are really only an issue for pickup games, which as stated earlier does not appear to be a format that is friendly any longer with the current 'take whatever you want, abuse whatever you want' configuration GW has given us.

The game really does favor structured/more narrative play, but then again that is the way GW has always intended the game be played.

The people I usually play with like to win. Are you going to blame them for wanting to win? They keep up fairly well on the meta and bring close approximations to competitive lists. I have never seen or heard of a "narrative" game in 18 years and three cities of play. People seem to like the structure of list building and trying to defeat another list.

I blame GW for allowing abusive lists and printing dozens of trap units in their codices.

XenosTerminus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It gets tiresome being target practice for Eldar.

Curious- do you typically play pickup games via FLGS? How many people do you see playing 'competetive 40k' style lists?

I ask this seriously, because I rarely play pickup games. The issues with 40k many people speak of are really only an issue for pickup games, which as stated earlier does not appear to be a format that is friendly any longer with the current 'take whatever you want, abuse whatever you want' configuration GW has given us.

The game really does favor structured/more narrative play, but then again that is the way GW has always intended the game be played.

This is spot on and bears repeating again. Most of the complaints about OP and cheese seem to be the result of the MTG mentality of show up at the store with your army and see who's also decided to show up at the store with their army, or if you're luckier having a dedicated "miniatures" night in between MTG drafts. This is a far cry from having a friendly narrative league/campaign with buddies where you know that nobody is going to plonk down a Reaver titan just because they spent $400 and the rules let them.

Here's another analogy: I play World of Warcraft somewhat seriously and have for a couple of years now. When you use the random matchmaking for group content (i.e. a pick-up group) you run into all kinds of people. Sometimes they're good folks and you have fun, but sometimes they are scummy who do rude things just because they can get away with it. It's a similar thing here - if all you play is pick-up games against random people (even people you play often) at your FLGS, you're basically dealing with whatever random person decides to show up, with whatever they choose to bring and if they want to bring a titan, well they are technically allowed and it's a random one-off game of 40k.

I really wish they'd go back to promoting league/narrative play and leave the entire concept of "pick up games" to tournaments where they belong and where you can basically expect people to pull all the stops. Facing a Taudar or Cron Air or Screamerstar or whatever the fromage du jour is at a tournament where you're paying an entry fee and the winner gets a prize is a far cry from going to your FLGS on "Miniatures Day" so you can actually play the hobby you've put money into and running into some maniac who only cares about winning so they can brag about it on facebook.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to win. I also enjoy list building. The problem comes with different opinions of 'fun', or how the game is enjoyed. Some people enjoy the experience, others just want a means to win. I would argue 40k is not the optimal choice for the 'just want to win' style of gameplay (unless you want to spend a lot of money via an arms race). The unfortunate thing about it is GW doesn't playtest with this methodology. Just look at the White Dwarf Battle Reports. Their lists are what many people would consider to be 'noncompetitive' or 'unfocused'. Basically, fluffy lists or just whatever they wanted to bring/the new models for a release.

A better way of handling the FOC would fix a lot of these issues and also make list building a bit harder, which would be a good thing. It's too easy to scour through a codex, find the best/optimal configuration, and in some cases simply pay the 'troops' tax to unlock it. Or.. even worse- just take a specific HQ to unlock the unit you want to min/max AS a troop.

Their design, I think, never assumes people will abuse ANYTHING, because quite honestly their play testers/designers don't think this way. If they had community play testing I am sure more effort would be placed into ensuring some of these balance issues don't crop up, but that is not how they analyze it/don't really care.

WayneTheGame wrote:


This is spot on and bears repeating again. Most of the complaints about OP and cheese seem to be the result of the MTG mentality of show up at the store with your army and see who's also decided to show up at the store with their army, or if you're luckier having a dedicated "miniatures" night in between MTG drafts. This is a far cry from having a friendly narrative league/campaign with buddies where you know that nobody is going to plonk down a Reaver titan just because they spent $400 and the rules let them.

Here's another analogy: I play World of Warcraft somewhat seriously and have for a couple of years now. When you use the random matchmaking for group content (i.e. a pick-up group) you run into all kinds of people. Sometimes they're good folks and you have fun, but sometimes they are scummy who do rude things just because they can get away with it. It's a similar thing here - if all you play is pick-up games against random people (even people you play often) at your FLGS, you're basically dealing with whatever random person decides to show up, with whatever they choose to bring and if they want to bring a titan, well they are technically allowed and it's a random one-off game of 40k.

I really wish they'd go back to promoting league/narrative play and leave the entire concept of "pick up games" to tournaments where they belong and where you can basically expect people to pull all the stops. Facing a Taudar or Cron Air or Screamerstar or whatever the fromage du jour is at a tournament where you're paying an entry fee and the winner gets a prize is a far cry from going to your FLGS on "Miniatures Day" so you can actually play the hobby you've put money into and running into some maniac who only cares about winning so they can brag about it on facebook.

The problem is I can play league/narrative play with the other system I play as well (MY imagination does depend on the system I play) and I can play pick up game too. Both without working out the what offical rules we are going to use first between us, so we can focus on the game or the story we are telling. And, if the game had a 400 dollor model he can play it becouse it is balanced system.

The other problem with the narrative model of play is that the rules don't mimic the fluff, either.

XenosTerminus wrote:
There is nothing wrong with wanting to win. I also enjoy list building. The problem comes with different opinions of 'fun', or how the game is enjoyed. Some people enjoy the experience, others just want a means to win. I would argue 40k is not the optimal choice for the 'just want to win' style of gameplay (unless you want to spend a lot of money via an arms race). The unfortunate thing about it is GW doesn't playtest with this methodology. Just look at the White Dwarf Battle Reports. Their lists are what many people would consider to be 'noncompetitive' or 'unfocused'. Basically, fluffy lists or just whatever they wanted to bring/the new models for a release.

A better way of handling the FOC would fix a lot of these issues and also make list building a bit harder, which would be a good thing. It's too easy to scour through a codex, find the best/optimal configuration, and in some cases simply pay the 'troops' tax to unlock it. Or.. even worse- just take a specific HQ to unlock the unit you want to min/max AS a troop.

Their design, I think, never assumes people will abuse ANYTHING, because quite honestly their play testers/designers don't think this way. If they had community play testing I am sure more effort would be placed into ensuring some of these balance issues don't crop up, but that is not how they analyze it/don't really care.

Here is the issue with the "they don't anticipate abuse" line of thinking. So I'm Joe Shmoe hobbiest and I go pick up the latest Tau book, and I really love the idea of battle suits. So I pick up say 2 riptides, and some crisis teams, and some broadside teams. And when farsight comes out I make a list of all my suits..,because hey cool l love me some battle suits, and I painted them up all awesome and stuff...and I play my buddy with his thousand sons csm army....and obliterate him. Now I have an army I love that I cannot play my buddy with because I'm going to stomp him...and it is not really any fun. So now we are stuck either making up rules to make the game fair or one of us is spending more money on units to make the game fun.

Right- and if your buddy is a level headed person with the same basic goal in mind (to have fun)- this would be easy to fix via some simple house ruling. Nobody would have to buy anything else, and both players could enjoy their lovingly crafted armies.

This is an example of a situation that is not problematic, because even GW suggests you use their rules as a guideline to play the game how you want to. To those that view the BRB, despite this, as sacrosanct that must be played to the T with no wiggle room, is the issue.

So pickup games are still the issue, unless the other person is willing to relent a bit and adjust things (I know that this may require the awkward situation of conversing with a human being through a medium other than the internet, but sometimes social interaction is necessary).

If the entire method of having fun requires disregarding the written rules to write your own, then why the hell do you buy and play their games in the first place?