Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I heard somewhere that:

"A recent interview indicates that these rules were intentional, an attempt to make using the older models "embarrassing" to play in public."

this true or unfounded? cause if true, deik move GW if you wanted fantasy gamers gone just say it you didn't have to try to embarrass us away.

They're trying to embarrass Beardy players by literally encouraging them to compete with their beards.

 Melissia wrote:
It's bizarre that the rule itself requires that

My point it is, it actually doesn't. No more so than, for example, any RPG ruleset requires the players to do anything that makes them uncomfortable or forces any of them to make each other uncomfortable.

As a general mod note, let's try not to insult each other despite the heated disagreement over these rules...

People are free to like the wacky rules, and free to dislike them - this doesn't mean one side or the other is "childish". Rule #1 at all times, please!

 Los pollos hermanos wrote:
this true or unfounded?

It was posted on Faeit 212 and purports to be from "an official representative" at Forgeworld Open Day answering questions about AoS but of course there is (as usual) zero evidence to back this up and no way to know how much this alleged representative did say, if s/he actually exists and said any of it at all, versus the gloss applied by the person reporting the conversation.

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
It's bizarre that the rule itself requires that

My point it is, it actually doesn't.

The rule exists and is a requirement to obtain the full bonuses for a unit.

So yes.

It does require that.

 Melissia wrote:
and is a requirement

I've explained why this is false and am not interested in joining a nuh uh yeah huh spat.

 Manchu wrote:

 Los pollos hermanos wrote:
this true or unfounded?

It was posted on Faeit 212 and purports to be from "an official representative" at Forgeworld Open Day answering questions about AoS but of course there is (as usual) zero evidence to back this up and no way to know how much this alleged representative did say, if s/he actually exists and said any of it at all, versus the gloss applied by the person reporting the conversation.

It originally came from a guy on the Something Awful forums, but still has zero independent verification.

 Manchu wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I understand that this bar is too high for you and others posting ITT

And now that's just unnecessarily insulting.

There is nothing to be insulted about,

I don't know about where you live, but I consider an attack on someone's capability as an insult. Seriously, I think a mod should know better. But then I guess this is the internet, where only calling someone a bad name constitutes an insult, simply saying someone isn't capable of a high level of thought is too indirect to be considered an insult?

I also find it amusing that you yourself accused another poster for making an ad hominen argument and then you turn around and make one of your own What is it you said, oh yes "don't be surprised if educated people can't take you seriously".

this accurately reflects what you yourself posted:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
You're assuming someone has actually read all the rules and spent time evaluating them to understand that the context that the author may or may not have meant was "silly rule which most people will ignore". It's unreasonable to assume that a reasonable person should have to go through all of that to realise "oh, this stupid barrier isn't a stupid barrier, it's actually a stupid insignificant rule".

Between this and the beard thing, I conclude that you are inventing insults.

How on earth does what I said imply that the bar of "careful consideration" is too high for me? Puh-lease, give me a break.

It seems you did fail to comprehend as you seem unable to put yourself in the shoes of someone else. Perhaps you shouldn't talk about other people being reasonable or too low to make careful consideration when you yourself aren't too good at reading other peoples' posts, it just makes you look like an arse.

I was not discussing *me*, I was discussing it as being a barrier for *other people*, that is, people who don't already know about Warhammer, may not know about gaming, etc. It is LOGICAL to assume that for someone who doesn't already know the game that silliness like this will be a barrier to entry because it will be off putting before they get to the point of reading the rules deeply enough to understand the intent.

If you genuinely think a "reasonable person" is one who has to read between the lines of an author they don't know in a game they don't know in a community they don't know then your bar for reasonable person is absurdly high, in fact I don't think you'd clear it yourself, in fact I think people who do belong to that group would be bordering on autistic savant

But at the end of the day, it's all unnecessary. If they really wanted to keep their silly rules they could have done it in a way that wasn't foolishly and unecessarily (albeit only minimally) exclusionary.

The last thing wargaming needs is for the rules writers to start writing rules that automatically assume players are, how did Melissa put it, "nothing more than immature neckbearded manchildren."

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
simply saying someone isn't capable of a high level of thought is too indirect to be considered an insult

I never said you weren't capable of considering all the relevant information. What you (not me) said is, doing so is unreasonable. I would bet you are completely capable of doing so. If you are intelligent enough to invent these acrobatic arguments you must be intelligent enough to realize they are terrible. I guess we both expect more out of the other.

 pretre wrote:
It originally came from a guy on the Something Awful forums, but still has zero independent verification.

The bigger question is, what does it tell us about the source and the target audience that the source expects us to believe a GW employee intentionally explained that the company wants to humiliate players in order to force them to buy new models?

The rule I find most distasteful is Wulfric the Wanderer's "Gift of Tongues," because it specifically instructs you to insult the opponent, not a character. In the 6th edition WH40K rulebook there was a "Forge the Narrative" box explicitly reminding you that if you wanted to issue a challenge IRL you should insult the enemy character, not the opponent.

If real life actions give in-game effects does it count as a loss if your opponent walks round the table and thumps you?

That's actually a great example. You're not actually supposed to really insult your opponent to the point where s/he wants to stop playing the game and physically harm you. If that is how you are reading the rule, the problem is with you.

 Manchu wrote:
That's actually a great example. You're not actually supposed to really insult your opponent to the point where s/he wants to stop playing the game and physically harm you. If that is how you are reading the rule, the problem is with you.

In fact, I think the easiest way to get Wulfrik's rule to work is to say something silly about your opponent.

 pretre wrote:
the easiest way to get Wulfrik's rule to work

Whoa whoa, none of that power gaming buddy!

 Manchu wrote:

 pretre wrote:
the easiest way to get Wulfrik's rule to work

Whoa whoa, none of that power gaming buddy!

We should start a tactics thread for which jokes are most proven to work on the most opponents.

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
and is a requirement

I've explained why this is false

No you haven't; you dismissed it and pretended the rule doesn't actually exist.

It's still there. It's still official GW rules, which explicitly state that these various bonuses require these various nonsensical actions in order to be applied. Denial doesn't really change this. You can houserule anything away, but if you have to houserule something because it's so stupid, then well... just admit it's stupid already.

 Manchu wrote:
That's actually a great example. You're not actually supposed to really insult your opponent to the point where s/he wants to stop playing the game and physically harm you. If that is how you are reading the rule, the problem is with you.

Well, the part about getting smacked was obviously a joke. I was thinking more along the lines of feelings getting hurt, unintentionally or otherwise. For example, there are people at my LGS with no filter who I could imagine from personal experience saying some pretty crude things to people they barely know.

The problem is with a rule that says "you can be as insulting as you dare" without including some caveat reminding you to keep the insult in character. Some people are bound to use this as an excuse to go too far.

 Melissia wrote:
you dismissed it and pretended the rule doesn't actually exist

Actually, I made a bunch of posts directly dealing with it in its context. Even provided another example:

 Manchu wrote:
You're not actually supposed to really insult your opponent to the point where s/he wants to stop playing the game and physically harm you. If that is how you are reading the rule, the problem is with you.

 pretre wrote:
We should start a tactics thread for which jokes are most proven to work on the most opponents.

A real power gamer would retort, I am insufficiently insulted so you fail to get the bonus. (Even if they are crying on the inside.) But that's a WAAC player for you.

 Fezman wrote:
Some people are bound to use this as an excuse to go too far.

Some people will use anything as an excuse to go to far. For example, some people will use a joke rule about dwarf beards to accuse strangers of sexism.

 Manchu wrote:
A real power gamer would retort, I am insufficiently insulted so you fail to get the bonus. (Even if they are crying on the inside.) But that's a WAAC player for you.

Wulfrik's rule only requires a change of expression on their face. Pretty easy to get that to happen.

 Manchu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
It's bizarre that the rule itself requires that

My point it is, it actually doesn't. No more so than, for example, any RPG ruleset requires the players to do anything that makes them uncomfortable or forces any of them to make each other uncomfortable.

I don't disagree, but I think you're using a very specific definition of "require" that is very enlightened, but ignores that most people aren't.

You game with who you want, and you don't care enough about winning a game to do anything remotely unpleasant. That's great, but that's not how most people view the rules. You see them as tools, for people to use to amuse themselves. For a huge swath of gamers, the rules are THE RULES, in the same way a child or prisoner views the rules. I think you don't realize how different you are from many, if not most people, that are gamers. I'm hoping that's the case, because otherwise you come off as very pedantic, which I doubt.

It is the nature of most people to accept rules, as you alluded to with your reference to the Milgram Experiement. That's a social fact, and one that you cannot simply ignore. You commented that while rules could be used to hurt, you responsed by saying that so could thumbtacks. In response, thumbtacks cannot be redesigned to not be harmful. Rules can.

In the spirit of ridiculous rules, anyone that can't grow a beard or doesn't want to should instead do a big pantomime Great Big Bushy Beard: hold your hands about a foot away from your chin, the make as if your stroking a beard and say "Look at it. LOOK AT IIIIIIIT!"

Ther are also pant beards, butt beards, back beards... Think outside of the box, people.

 pretre wrote:
Wulfrik's rule only requires a change of expression on their face. Pretty easy to get that to happen.

A single tear down a beardless face.

 Polonius wrote:
You see them as tools, for people to use to amuse themselves.

Yes, I see the rules of a game as tools for amusement. I acknowledge that different folks are amused by different things -- hence why we have all these different games. And I understand, but strongly disapprove of, the slavish mindset of applying a game's rules by rote to affect malicious intent; which is an issue with the player rather than the game.

 Polonius wrote:
You commented that while rules could be used to hurt, you responsed by saying that so could thumbtacks. In response, thumbtacks cannot be redesigned to not be harmful. Rules can.

We'll agree to disagree about the possibility of a revolution in thumbtack design. Regarding AoS, any conceivable harm (absent anti-social behavior) is too insignificant to merit changing the rules much less the amount of effort we have spent talking about it. It feels like you are arguing all hallways should have safety railing installed.

 monders wrote:
In the spirit of ridiculous rules, anyone that can't grow a beard or doesn't want to should instead do a big pantomime Great Big Bushy Beard: hold your hands about a foot away from your chin, the make as if your stroking a beard and say "Look at it. LOOK AT IIIIIIIT!"

Ther are also pant beards, butt beards, back beards... Think outside of the box, people.

There's also beards as in spouses that are there to provide an impression of heterosexuality. That's available to pretty much anyone.

 Fezman wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
That's actually a great example. You're not actually supposed to really insult your opponent to the point where s/he wants to stop playing the game and physically harm you. If that is how you are reading the rule, the problem is with you.

Well, the part about getting smacked was obviously a joke. I was thinking more along the lines of feelings getting hurt, unintentionally or otherwise. For example, there are people at my LGS with no filter who I could imagine from personal experience saying some pretty crude things to people they barely know.

The problem is with a rule that says "you can be as insulting as you dare" without including some caveat reminding you to keep the insult in character. Some people are bound to use this as an excuse to go too far.

And those people will lose the game, because their opponent will pick up his army and walk out, or they will get banned from the club, or in the worst case they might get a punch in the face.

Then they can write to GW customer service to complain.

I don't believe the story that GW made the rules to annoy people. They made them for fun but haven't got their finger on the pulse of the players.

 Manchu wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Besides, using "SJW" as a way of dismissing someone's criticism is beneath you.

I thought I was mirroring your ironic use of the term, just like "play like you have a pair."

Now I am just confused. I had mentally attributed the Special Snowflake post to you and had been reading your posts as condescending and insulting towards anyone who might feel excluded. Now I'm not sure what you are saying.

Now I feel we are playing waltzing goal posts, instead. But as to this:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Are you seriously saying you can't understand why someone who physically can't satisfy the criteria for the "fun" rules might not think they're "fun"?

I'll recapitulate my position: any non-mechanic can be substituted for any other non-mechanic without affecting the game. At first, I was tempted to call out the overly legalistic approach to "beard rules" as a bad faith attempt to foment internet argument. But I am beginning to understand this is just part and parcel of the same mindset that cannot imagine a game without a points system being plausibly playable.

?

Are you saying that because the "beard havening" part of the rule is not a game mechanic, it doesn't matter? It comes across as if you are saying that the 'fun' parts of the rules do not affect the mechanic parts of the rules and thus can be ignored as trivial. Thus, if the dwarf entry read "The person with the lighter skin" instead of "with the longer beard" that wouldn't matter to you and you wouldn't see why anyone would get upset since they can just change it in-house? I'm seriously asking if that is what you mean, because that is how I am reading your statement.

If that is what you mean, I believe you and Stephen Colbert are the only two beings in the world capable of seeing the world with such pure optimism.

Like I said, they made the rules without giving them any thought.

 Manchu wrote:
That's actually a great example. You're not actually supposed to really insult your opponent to the point where s/he wants to stop playing the game and physically harm you. If that is how you are reading the rule, the problem is with you.

But some of the people who play this game will interpret it like that, and insult their opponent, believing that, socially, it's ok because it says they can do it on a piece of paper. Yes, that means there's a problem with that person, but a problem that would likely have been averted had there not been a rule which says to insult your opponent. Wulfic's rule has gone too far, in my opinion.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
but haven't got their finger on the pulse of the players

Not ours around here anyhow. This is a good a time as any to reiterate that while I don't think the rules are sexist, exclusionary, malicious, or intended to leverage humiliation and degradation as a marketing ploy ... I also don't think this is top quality game design. As has been pointed out, Stormcast require no jigs, reels, fox trots, waltzes, polkas, polonaises, mazurkas, ballets, or any other form of dance so far as I can tell.

bitethythumb wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Polonius wrote:


That's fair. I don't think it's conciously or maliciously sexist, but in general I just avoid the word sexist because it tends to bring the worst out of all people online.

You may have a point there.

Unfortunately, I was simply trying to be accurate, not to use the term as a pejorative, and may have stumbled into an Online Context Problem.

its capitalism not sexism

Those are not mutually exclusive. However, considering the sheer hate AoS has generated among the fanbase, I'm not sure you can really call it capitalism. At least, not successful capitalism, which gets right back to the problem.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I had mentally attributed the Special Snowflake post to you

So you made a mistake, no worries. I forgive you but I am not going to entertain your false equivalency argument.