Poor sportsmanship can ruin tournaments

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**Jacksmiles**

ZergSmasher wrote:
There is a difference between playful banter and trash-talk. Playful banter is fun, and helps games to be a little less serious. Trash-talking is just the opposite: it's designed to "psych out" your opponent, something most wargame/boardgame players find offensive. I can tell you I'd get pretty riled up if someone was continually trash-talking me and putting me down the entire game, whether or not I end up losing the game. Trash-talking me is a surefire way to earn a bad sportsmanship score from me (if the event in question has a sportsmanship score). Playful banter, on the other hand, I enjoy and engage in frequently (unless its obvious my opponent doesn't like it).

I still remember the look on one opponent's face when he came back to me and said "Oh man I forgot to even fill out your sportsmanship section!" and I replied "I didn't forget to fill yours out, it was intentionally left blank."

**Bookwrack**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Trash talk me and I'll smile politely, win the game, then bottle you in the car lot after the game, no witnesses.

This is much more amusing in my head, with your avatar and the prevalence of plastic soda bottles in game stores.

**kronk**

carldooley wrote:
How do people usually approach their 'games of toy soldiers'?

Yours?

Looking forward to a fun game with someone new or someone I know. Go in with that attitude, and you'll come out with it more often than not. If someone is a dick, so be it. Just play the game by the rules and don't get sucked into their poor attitude.

It also helps that I'm incredibly handsome, women love me, and I'm more humble than all you mother fethers. So even if i play a poor sport, I know that I'm fething awesome.

**leopard**

Have seldom had problems, though have come across a few players who have had a few issues, like someone gunning for a top three place that needed a 6:1 against my flames army getting uppity about how I refused to concede when he had "obviously" won and proceeded to take enough of him for it to only be a 4:3.

Or the player who moaned about my Soviet infantry horde along the lines of "who brings that to a tournament", before I took him apart 6:1

At an event I play to win, occasionally I succeed, more by random chance than skill generally, and the failures can be comical as anyone who has met my orc general, Thangrot the magnificent, will know.

Some people take it all far too seriously, and as such are far too easily wound up, which I'll only do just enough to stop them concentrating properly, and only when they have tried 'TFG' stuff on me first, otherwise I play to win, but would prefer to be defeated and learn something than win and learn nothing.

**kronk**

DarkBlack wrote:
Banter is good, I usually keep it about the models and their fluff (e.g. a friend of mine plays Khorne and I call his models "dumb brutes" and call my characters idiots when they fail to cast spells)

That's even fluffy if it's obvious the two of you are picking on each other's armies (Calling Khorne brutes, Nurgle followers Snot-Nosed, and so on). You're not attacking the person in this scenario, and you're both having fun. Nothing wrong with that.

It's when you start attacking the person and trash talking them and their army list (You took IG Sentinels? You're stupid) that you're out of line.

**Leth**

While not trash talking one of my personal peeves is people who will intentionally interrupt your thought process with information or questions that are not relevant. Or "jokingly" question you on rules to try and get you to agree to something incorrect.

All of these things are designed to get you to make a mistake and it is super annoying.

**ZergSmasher**

Leth wrote:
While not trash talking one of my personal peeves is people who will intentionally interrupt your thought process with information or questions that are not relevant. Or "jokingly" question you on rules to try and get you to agree to something incorrect.

All of these things are designed to get you to make a mistake and it is super annoying.

I've done this before, but not with the intention of making my opponent make a mistake. Things like when my opponent targets my Land Raider, I say "He's jinking" (in other words, obviously a joke). Never had anyone give me grief about that. I sometimes worry that I accidentally interrupt my opponent's thought process (would never do that on purpose

).

**Leth**

ZergSmasher wrote:
Leth wrote:
While not trash talking one of my personal peeves is people who will intentionally interrupt your thought process with information or questions that are not relevant. Or "jokingly" question you on rules to try and get you to agree to something incorrect.

All of these things are designed to get you to make a mistake and it is super annoying.

I've done this before, but not with the intention of making my opponent make a mistake. Things like when my opponent targets my Land Raider, I say "He's jinking" (in other words, obviously a joke). Never had anyone give me grief about that. I sometimes worry that I accidentally interrupt my opponent's thought process (would never do that on purpose ).

O yeah, that is perfectly fine. It's when it's something so jarrin to the flow that it completely throws off your auto pilot

**NewTruthNeomaxim**

Funny experience that reminded me of this thread.

Last night I ran a small game and use my Space Wolves. I had to, to my embarrassment, speed-paint a bunch of the Wulfen, as I had a dead-line coming up, and had a very short window in which to paint them, if I wanted them painted at all.

As a result, several of them have a garish gap in their torsos that I KNOW I should've green-stuffed, but frankly just needed them done.

During said game, my opponent uses every free breath to tell me how ashamed of my hobby job I should be, and how amateurish it all is, and that I am ruining his time by even fielding these models.

I respectfully tried to explain that I was aware of the ONE unit looking mediocre, but you know... considering I have one working hand to do my hobbying, among other challenges... i'm still relatively proud of my crummy little job.

And so it went... maybe ten times before I essentially thanked him for the game, and conceding not needing to hear that for another hour.

So yes... even at a casual venue, and during casual play, bad sportsmanship can come up and really ruin a nice time.

**Buttery Commissar**

...I'm so sorry that someone spoke to you that way... Makes me grumpy, and I wasn't even there.
There's an unspoken rule amongst our playgroups here, that you only trash your own paint jobs, never other people's.

Though you do get to rip on someone who fails to get theirs painted due to new model syndrome.

Someone started on my stuff once, and I just made a universal hand gesture for keeping his own eyes on his own models. He shut up pretty fast when he saw I wasn't amused.

**JNAProductions**

I talk about other people's paint jobs all the time.

Of course, I'm typically saying something like "Nice job!" or "Wow, you can see the effort that went into that!", not "What a crap job." I reserve that for my own poorly painted minis.

**axisofentropy**

jinking tanks are my fav joke too i thought i was the only one

**jreilly89**

axisofentropy wrote:
jinking tanks are my fav joke too i thought i was the only one

That or Drop Pods. I crack this joke as well (though most of my opponents recognize it as a joke)

**MrDwhitey**

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

And so it went... maybe ten times before I essentially thanked him for the game, and conceding not needing to hear that for another hour.

So yes... even at a casual venue, and during casual play, bad sportsmanship can come up and really ruin a nice time.

The person you played is a pathetic sack of flesh.

**feeder**

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
Funny experience that reminded me of this thread.

Last night I ran a small game and use my Space Wolves. I had to, to my embarrassment, speed-paint a bunch of the Wulfen, as I had a dead-line coming up, and had a very short window in which to paint them, if I wanted them painted at all.

As a result, several of them have a garish gap in their torsos that I KNOW I should've green-stuffed, but frankly just needed them done.

During said game, my opponent uses every free breath to tell me how ashamed of my hobby job I should be, and how amateurish it all is, and that I am ruining his time by even fielding these models.

I respectfully tried to explain that I was aware of the ONE unit looking mediocre, but you know... considering I have one working hand to do my hobbying, among other challenges... i'm still relatively proud of my crummy little job.

And so it went... maybe ten times before I essentially thanked him for the game, and conceding not needing to hear that for another hour.

So yes... even at a casual venue, and during casual play, bad sportsmanship can come up and really ruin a nice time.

Gak-talking someone's paint job is not trash talk. It's incredibly sad. If I hear that going on I will call that person out with extreme prejudice.

I'm sorry to hear you crossed paths with such a pathetic excuse for a gamer. At least you know not to waste time on him in the future.

**redleger**

Snoopdeville3 wrote:
redleger wrote:
So Sunday I am playing at local FLGS 1500 pt tourny. I bring my hunter contingent with a stormsurge, but no riptide wing.I didn't want to cheese it up too hard, but still have something to deal with what I see in my local meta.

First game is against 3 knights, and it was a hard fought game, but I pull off the win. The opponent on the table next to me is playing his game, while still complaining about Tau cheese the whole time. He won his game, so we end up having to play each other based on points.

Turn 1 he moves his 2 land raiders and rhino up, pops smoke and says go. I then proceed to move up and start blasting. I do some points to one land raider, I drop anchors on my storm surge, but nothing died. Turn 2 he moves up, disembarks, and then announces tank shock on my anchored stormsurge. I then Death or Glory it, with the D weapon, roll a 6 and the LR explodes violently and he then rage quits.

I mean he packed up, while in charging distance to my stormsurge with all his AP2 weilding termies, and was actually in a position to hurt me. He not only denied me points in the tournament, but denied the third game to his would be opponent as well. His opponent had to sit out the game, and was so bored that he fell asleep on the table watching our game. (the third game was actually quite exciting, I think he was just tired).

So is this normal behavior? I mean is seemed pretty poor form to me. He berated me, my army, and denied games to other players who came to play. This person actually has money and access to way more models than I do, so I am not sure why he would bring a force that can't compete(although in reality I was scared of his assaults). Why blame me because I just happened to pick an army, and practice with it enough to be good. I have seen tau get smacked by good players, so I don't think I can say that anyone who plays Tau should be rage quitted on.

IDK, I was just kind of taken back, and it ruined the tourny for me. Has this happened before to any of you?

Im confused... how did he cost you points by quitting. Since he quit isnt that an automatic win for you? Forgive me I don't do tournaments.

Totally didn't follow this thread and didn't realize it go so popular after the first week of posting.

To answer the question that's been asked, I won the points for the game, but was denied kill points, which would be used as a tie breaker at the end if I tied with someone. I ended up taking first anyway if I remember correctly, but it could have cost me. Plus the dude totally could have owned me, as I made a tactical error with my stormsurge. I am pretty sure it would have still been a close game. I mean the Stormsurge has lost its luster, and although still a good addition to an army, its no wraith knight.

**Fenrir Kitsune**

MrDwhitey wrote:
NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

And so it went... maybe ten times before I essentially thanked him for the game, and conceding not needing to hear that for another hour.

So yes... even at a casual venue, and during casual play, bad sportsmanship can come up and really ruin a nice time.

The person you played is a pathetic sack of flesh.

However - he got the win!

**MrDwhitey**

The sad thing is for some that's enough.

**ZergSmasher**

Buttery Commissar wrote:...I'm so sorry that someone spoke to you that way... Makes me grumpy, and I wasn't even there.
There's an unspoken rule amongst our playgroups here, that you only trash your own paint jobs, never other people's.

Though you do get to rip on someone who fails to get theirs painted due to new model syndrome.

Someone started on my stuff once, and I just made a universal hand gesture for keeping his own eyes on his own models. He shut up pretty fast when he saw I wasn't amused.

I agree 100%. Ripping on someone else's paintwork/conversions/modelling stuff is never okay, even in jest. Fortunately no one's ever been so bold as to openly insult my painting (or lack thereof in the case of, well, most of my stuff), so I haven't had the police called on me yet. I do sometimes ask for constructive criticism, and have gotten useful tips on how to make my painted stuff look better, or how to get my unpainted stuff done faster, etc. I suppose I'm blessed because we don't have any really toxic people in our local play group.

JNAProductions wrote:I talk about other people's paint jobs all the time.

Of course, I'm typically saying something like "Nice job!" or "Wow, you can see the effort that went into that!", not "What a crap job." I reserve that for my own poorly painted minis.

I do that all the time as well, enough so that I worry that people think I'm just being a suck-up or something.

MrDwhitey wrote:The sad thing is for some that's enough.

Ain't that the damn truth? For me, I play to have fun, throw some dice around, and gawk at awesome models. Winning is just a welcome bonus. Winning would mean nothing if I had to be an a-hole to do it.

**chromedog**

I never got the concept of "trash talk".

Maybe it came to a head in the 80s with that crap play-fighting WWW malarkey, maybe not.

I thought it was stupid in the schoolyard, and my opinion hasn't softened on it in 30+ years.

**gunslingerpro**

chromedog wrote:
I never got the concept of "trash talk".

Maybe it came to a head in the 80s with that crap play-fighting WWW malarkey, maybe not.

I thought it was stupid in the schoolyard, and my opinion hasn't softened on it in 30+ years.

It has a legitimate, though occasionally hated, role in professional sports. Kevin Garnett, currently of the T-Wolves and perhaps most famously a former Celtic, is a league renowned trash talker. He has been able to mentally take high level players (Bosh, Noah, Pierce to name a few) entirely out of the game, causing poor performances. As a facet of professional sports, it is absolutely a real, valid tactic.

As something to be used in any game (video games, board games, table top) that is not being played at the professional level (i.e. paid players), it is a jerk move and doesn't really have a place.

**notprop**

Yeah I do the same in a game of Rugby. A bit of verbal sparing can go along way to putting an opponent off their game. I works on some but not on others. Equally I've seen player gobbing off and just distracting themselves. Of course the flip side is that you can make a target of yourself and cop an unfortunate one in the eye if it goes beyond the pale. The ref is also there to step in, admonish and if needs be penalise this sort of behaviour.

Wargaming being a social activity just doesn't have a place for trash-talking opponents. It is not competitive in the same way as sports and there is also not the same atmosphere that comes from it being a Team endeavour. Anyone trying to create a edge just doesn't get it and doesn't really belong at a gaming table.

To intentionally incorrectly paraphrase a great football manager: Wargaming is a game of life and death, it's just not as important.

**allen**

Bad sportsmanship can ruin tournaments. But if you concede you should give your opponent all the points they can get. For example, if you're playing purge the alien and if your opponent can get up to 15 points then if you concede your opponent should get all 15 points, not just the points earned up to the moment.

**kronk**

How many points my opponent gets when I concede for him being an ass-hat is completely up to the Tournament Organizer. I don't give a rip at that point, nor am I under any obligation to give 2 feths.

That's all on the TO's shoulders.

**Elric Greywolf**

I know this is a bit necro...but still.

I think it's really odd that this thread hasn't touched on sport at all. There was one throwaway comment about golf, but that was it.

Almost the entirety of NBA coaches' game presence is trash talking, screaming at the refs, screaming at the other coaches, etc. The never seem to get called on it. I saw some old dude literally red in the face with assistants holding him back. (I wished they had let him go so his big fat bluff would've been called.)

Football and American football have all kinds of player confrontations. For hockey, fights are 60% of the reason people watch games at all!

Athletes get paid a lot of money, and part of their game is yelling, scuffling, and other aggressive posturing and maneuvering. And the vast majority of humans like watching/playing sport. Why is tabletop gaming held to such a different standard?
I can understand the restriction on physical aggression, since this is not a physical game. But the verbal sparring? This double standard between sport and tabletop doesn't make sense to me. Someone please explain.

**Shieldwolf Miniatures**

Elric Greywolf wrote:

Athletes get paid a lot of money, and part of their game is yelling, scuffling, and other aggressive posturing and maneuvering. And the vast majority of humans like watching/playing sport. Why is tabletop gaming held to such a different standard?
I can understand the restriction on physical aggression, since this is not a physical game. But the verbal sparring? This double standard between sport and tabletop doesn't make sense to me. Someone please explain.

My explanation would be a combination of the quality of the community base but also what's at stake (see underlined part above).
Argument 1. Most people in the hobby probably hold a higher intelligence status and therefore prefer enjoying themselves without any verbal abuse, it's after all not necessary for a good sport let alone a noble behaviour.
Argument 2. Professional athletes are not in it for the "joy" of the game, but they are instead actually working during their games. Correct me if I'm wrong but I am not aware of any professional tabletop player nor the possibility of that ever existing.
Just my thoughts... :-)

**notprop**

Elric Greywolf wrote:
...Athletes get paid a lot of money, and part of their game is yelling, scuffling, and other aggressive posturing and maneuvering. And the vast majority of humans like watching/playing sport. Why is tabletop gaming held to such a different standard?

Because wargaming is not a sport. Sports promote themselves as a conflict competition, indeed often being contact sports.

The poor behaviour in the sports you note is condoned by the inaction of the sport organisations, therefore it becomes more common. It seems to be more common in US sport, UK sports (Football/Rugby/Cricket) at least attempt to punish this sort of thing when it happens.

Wargaming is a past-time, a social endeavour. Aggression and belittling opponents has no place in wargaming to do so in very poor form and would see you removed from any club/FLGs I have attended.

So why is it held to a different standard; because it is a) different from sport b) invariably participated in by people that are more cerebral and less monkey like.

**vercingatorix**

notprop wrote:
Elric Greywolf wrote:
...Athletes get paid a lot of money, and part of their game is yelling, scuffling, and other aggressive posturing and maneuvering. And the vast majority of humans like watching/playing sport. Why is tabletop gaming held to such a different standard?

Because wargaming is not a sport. Sports promote themselves as a conflict competition, indeed often being contact sports.

The poor behaviour in the sports you note is condoned by the inaction of the sport organisations, therefore it becomes more common. It seems to be more common in US sport, UK sports (Football/Rugby/Cricket) at least attempt to punish this sort of thing when it happens.

Wargaming is a past-time, a social endeavour. Aggression and belittling opponents has no place in wargaming to do so in very poor form and would see you removed from any club/FLGs I have attended.

So why is it held to a different standard; because it is a) different from sport b) invariably participated in by people that are more cerebral and less monkey like.

I just really got to comment on that last line. Really? calling ALL athletes monkeys seems a bit over the top. I just really have a hard time believing you've ever hung out with athletes before or you'd be less arrogantly superior.

Have you ever heard wrestlers talk about wrestling? It's all moves, counter-moves, and thinking ahead. How about researched a weight lifting plan specific to a sport while recovering from a specific injury. There is a reason people have degrees in this stuff.

Honestly, I shouldn't even have to justify the fact that a huge portion of the population is, in fact, not monkey level intelligence.

I hadn't really gotten why everyone called Dakka poisonous but now I kind of do.

**notprop**

I was a Semi-Pro rugby player, you need to lighten up chap.

**vercingatorix**

Then quit saying stuff like that! You should know better. I know that's a stereotype about athletes but we don't need to re-enforce it.

Besides, every study I've seen of college athletes shows them doing better than their peers in and out of the classroom.