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 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Oh I agree, I'm just curious why the dynamic exists. It feels like the minority trying to make the majority adjust to them instead of vice versa. I absolutely agree that someone shouldn't go to a "cutthroat" tournament with a casual list and complain about the type of lists they face. However I also find that a lot of venom tends to come from the competitive crowd about casual lists and players (the often "build lists that suck" response), when most tournament lists are egregiously lore-breaking (and typically are not built with any care to the lore). But I also see those same people repeatedly say how bad the rules are, and how the rules let them abuse things, yet continue to abuse it knowing how easily abused the rules are.

Bad rules and unbalanced games don't stop people from playing it competitively

I get that, but with all the people who say how gak the rules are, they sure seem to abuse those gak rules competitively. That's what, I think, doesn't sit well with me. I see a lot of people continually bash the rules, but remain adamant about playing competitively all the while saying how the rules are awful. I just find that sort of behavior odd because if the rules are the game are so terrible that it's easily broken, why play it competitively and willfully abuse the rules, and then on top of that use the poor rules as a crutch to justify the behavior.

Abusing and exploiting the weaknesses of a game IS being competitive. Being competitive means actively gaining as much of an advantage as possible out of the systems the game makes available to you. Calling a game out for being poorly designed and unbalanced is completely irrelevant to playing it competitively.

Hrm, only to an extent. Doing things clearly outside the spirit and intent of the rules moves from being competitive and into simple gimmickry. As an example, lets take the old Battlebots, robots could have projectiles but they had to be tethered. Well, putting a wire guided missile on one might fall within that guideline, but at that point you're no longer participating in the event in a way anyone would recognize. Alternatively, staffing a basetball team with 20ft tall genetic mutants to play against a middle school state champ team isnt being competitive, its breaking the game. Breaking a system isnt the same as being competitive.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Oh I agree, I'm just curious why the dynamic exists. It feels like the minority trying to make the majority adjust to them instead of vice versa. I absolutely agree that someone shouldn't go to a "cutthroat" tournament with a casual list and complain about the type of lists they face. However I also find that a lot of venom tends to come from the competitive crowd about casual lists and players (the often "build lists that suck" response), when most tournament lists are egregiously lore-breaking (and typically are not built with any care to the lore). But I also see those same people repeatedly say how bad the rules are, and how the rules let them abuse things, yet continue to abuse it knowing how easily abused the rules are.

Bad rules and unbalanced games don't stop people from playing it competitively

I get that, but with all the people who say how gak the rules are, they sure seem to abuse those gak rules competitively. That's what, I think, doesn't sit well with me. I see a lot of people continually bash the rules, but remain adamant about playing competitively all the while saying how the rules are awful. I just find that sort of behavior odd because if the rules are the game are so terrible that it's easily broken, why play it competitively and willfully abuse the rules, and then on top of that use the poor rules as a crutch to justify the behavior.

Abusing and exploiting the weaknesses of a game IS being competitive. Being competitive means actively gaining as much of an advantage as possible out of the systems the game makes available to you. Calling a game out for being poorly designed and unbalanced is completely irrelevant to playing it competitively.

Hrm, only to an extent. Doing things clearly outside the spirit and intent of the rules moves from being competitive and into simple gimmickry. As an example, lets take the old Battlebots, robots could have projectiles but they had to be tethered. Well, putting a wire guided missile on one might fall within that guideline, but at that point you're no longer participating in the event in a way anyone would recognize. Alternatively, staffing a basetball team with 20ft tall genetic mutants to play against a middle school state champ team isnt being competitive, its breaking the game. Breaking a system isnt the same as being competitive.

So I'm genuinely curious now where do you draw the line?

This may be better as its own topic, I think we can probably have a good discussion on the line between "competitive" and "breaking the game".

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Oh I agree, I'm just curious why the dynamic exists. It feels like the minority trying to make the majority adjust to them instead of vice versa. I absolutely agree that someone shouldn't go to a "cutthroat" tournament with a casual list and complain about the type of lists they face. However I also find that a lot of venom tends to come from the competitive crowd about casual lists and players (the often "build lists that suck" response), when most tournament lists are egregiously lore-breaking (and typically are not built with any care to the lore). But I also see those same people repeatedly say how bad the rules are, and how the rules let them abuse things, yet continue to abuse it knowing how easily abused the rules are.

Bad rules and unbalanced games don't stop people from playing it competitively

I get that, but with all the people who say how gak the rules are, they sure seem to abuse those gak rules competitively. That's what, I think, doesn't sit well with me. I see a lot of people continually bash the rules, but remain adamant about playing competitively all the while saying how the rules are awful. I just find that sort of behavior odd because if the rules are the game are so terrible that it's easily broken, why play it competitively and willfully abuse the rules, and then on top of that use the poor rules as a crutch to justify the behavior.

Abusing and exploiting the weaknesses of a game IS being competitive. Being competitive means actively gaining as much of an advantage as possible out of the systems the game makes available to you. Calling a game out for being poorly designed and unbalanced is completely irrelevant to playing it competitively.

Hrm, only to an extent. Doing things clearly outside the spirit and intent of the rules moves from being competitive and into simple gimmickry. As an example, lets take the old Battlebots, robots could have projectiles but they had to be tethered. Well, putting a wire guided missile on one might fall within that guideline, but at that point you're no longer participating in the event in a way anyone would recognize. Alternatively, staffing a basetball team with 20ft tall genetic mutants to play against a middle school state champ team isnt being competitive, its breaking the game. Breaking a system isnt the same as being competitive.

The spirit and intent of the rules really don't matter in competitive play. All the things you listed as long as they are legal are fair game

That's basically how Sirlin argues it too. If it's allowed within the rules, it's fair game no matter how "cheap" it might be considered, because it's a valid tactic. See also for example winning a martial arts contest by just shoving your opponent out of the ring immediately. Valid, sure, but clearly not the way the contest is intended to work. So most people will consider this "cheap" or "unfair" or similar, but the competitive person is technically in the right by saying that it's allowed by the rules, and therefore is a valid tactic even if 99.9% of people aren't going to do it because they "know" it's not the intention.

Same thing here. Most people can look at things like a super unfluffy list or something taking a lot of undercosted, high-powered things and "know" it's not the right way to win, but it's a legal (as in the rules) way to win, if decidedly unethical.

And therein, I think we have the main question. There is "legal" and "ethical". Just like in business, there are some shady things that are 100% legal, but almost 100% unethical to do, yet there's no repercussions and it's technically allowed. Same principle here: It might be "unethical" to ignore the lore in a game and bring a mishmash power list to a tournament (and it might very well be) but it's not [i]illegal[/b] to do so by the rules of the game.

So in effect, the most competitive minded players willingly operate unethically, because they know it's legal and they aren't concerned with ethics (which to be fair, if going to a cutthroat tournament you can't be concerned with ethics).

A very interesting discussion, i think.

The problem with "ethical" gaming is that it's completely arbitrary and subjective. The line between ethical and unethical basically doesn't exist because it will very between player to player. It's not fair to expect players to be held to ethical standards when those standards can't be reasonably defined.

 CrownAxe wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

 CrownAxe wrote:

Wayniac wrote:

Oh I agree, I'm just curious why the dynamic exists. It feels like the minority trying to make the majority adjust to them instead of vice versa. I absolutely agree that someone shouldn't go to a "cutthroat" tournament with a casual list and complain about the type of lists they face. However I also find that a lot of venom tends to come from the competitive crowd about casual lists and players (the often "build lists that suck" response), when most tournament lists are egregiously lore-breaking (and typically are not built with any care to the lore). But I also see those same people repeatedly say how bad the rules are, and how the rules let them abuse things, yet continue to abuse it knowing how easily abused the rules are.

Bad rules and unbalanced games don't stop people from playing it competitively

I get that, but with all the people who say how gak the rules are, they sure seem to abuse those gak rules competitively. That's what, I think, doesn't sit well with me. I see a lot of people continually bash the rules, but remain adamant about playing competitively all the while saying how the rules are awful. I just find that sort of behavior odd because if the rules are the game are so terrible that it's easily broken, why play it competitively and willfully abuse the rules, and then on top of that use the poor rules as a crutch to justify the behavior.

Abusing and exploiting the weaknesses of a game IS being competitive. Being competitive means actively gaining as much of an advantage as possible out of the systems the game makes available to you. Calling a game out for being poorly designed and unbalanced is completely irrelevant to playing it competitively.

Hrm, only to an extent. Doing things clearly outside the spirit and intent of the rules moves from being competitive and into simple gimmickry. As an example, lets take the old Battlebots, robots could have projectiles but they had to be tethered. Well, putting a wire guided missile on one might fall within that guideline, but at that point you're no longer participating in the event in a way anyone would recognize. Alternatively, staffing a basetball team with 20ft tall genetic mutants to play against a middle school state champ team isnt being competitive, its breaking the game. Breaking a system isnt the same as being competitive.

The spirit and intent of the rules really don't matter in competitive play. All the things you listed as long as they are legal are fair game

Only if your definition of competitive play is "win at all costs", which isnt usually the case, and you end up trying to "play" something completely different than what the game was designed for and what the other players are there for, and thats no longer competition.

Wayniac wrote:
That's basically how Sirlin argues it too. If it's allowed within the rules, it's fair game no matter how "cheap" it might be considered, because it's a valid tactic. See also for example winning a martial arts contest by just shoving your opponent out of the ring immediately. Valid, sure, but clearly not the way the contest is intended to work.

Thats something that a competent martial artist should be able to react to and at least try to do something about. In my last fencing tournament, someone tried basically that exact thing on me and got a Dussack to the side of the face for it when I stepped offline and was able to pivot around and riposte. If someone showed up with an AK, well, the rules may not specifically address that, but nobody would consider that "competitive", but intentionally breaking the competition. Nobody is going to award you the victors medal.

With some of the stuff in 40k, you routinely get issues like the latter there often there's nothing an opponent can realistically do about some things, there's no test of command ability to react and counter, the math is just too heavily stacked.

To everyone suggesting that I'm "casual at all costs" or that I'm purposely handicapping myself: I have a limited amount of money I can spend on 40k, and I prefer casual to competitive, so I've bought more casual stuff than competitive stuff. Almost half of what I own is DW, so I really don't have a ton of options for anything over 1000 points, I pretty much have to take some DW. If I had 20 razorbacks I'd use lion's blade in a tournament, but I can't drop $500 on razorbacks (and there's stuff I'd rather buy with that money anyways). If I take tacticals they're likely to be on foot.

On top of that, I don't dislike anyone for what they bring to tournaments. I've often ranked the people that beat me as my favorite game of the tournament, because they were the ones that were the most fun to play against. Bring your 7 riptides and your 5 WKs, just know that I can't suddenly decide I want to buy 50 RW or a dozen razorbacks, I'm stuck running what I own.

I have always been rather torn as a player.

I like the "fluff", books and descriptions of various battles.
Playing historical gaming can do that to a person.
So I really like to create "re-enactments" which can lead to a more "casual play".

BUT

I really like competitive play.
I will religiously play within the rules.
There is no such thing as "breaking the game": was it within the "rules as written"?
"Rules as intended" is always a slippery slope, never-mind that reading into a developer's intent is a path leading to madness.

In the end, to play a game the only common element me and my opponent have is the rules written down we agree to play to.
There is nothing wrong with coming to some agreement contrary to those rules as long as we are playing the same game.
Anyone claiming my list is "cheese" or "unfair" is not playing the same game as agreed and needs to explain themselves.

I think in the pure definition of being a "best sportsman" is to make it clear you are playing by the rules and understand that if you or your opponent do not find joy in it, the game is rather pointless.
Doing your best is in the spirit of being a "sportsman" and just "letting you win" is rather belittling.
I will tear victory from my opponent, not have it handed to me...
Because in the end I want to look them in the eye, shake their hand and really mean the words "great game!".

 oldzoggy wrote:
Na it isn't a pity price its a trick used to trick some of the more competitive minded players to play nice..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Its the grown up equivalent for the kindergarten good behavior stamps.

Way back when, the GW US Grand Tourneys used to determine Best General by combining Battle points with (opponent voted) Sportsmanship score, The "Kick Your Ass and Make You Like It" award... Ahhhh, the good ol' days.

Ultimately to be a good sport, you need to be open and transparent about the rules and how you're using them, be polite and friendly regardless of how competitive you are, and be gracious in victory as well as in defeat.

Because we all know of sore losers, but sadly there IS such a thing as a sore winner. And in 40k it's a lot more common than you'd think-- time and again I hear people complaining about people having "overpowered armies" that the person never admits to actually losing to. It's oftentimes just they hate being challenged by other players' stuff. And THAT is a poor sport right there.