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From what I can tell, Matched Play seems to have a lot more limitations and is more of a pain in the butt to build your army (especially with the way the indexes are laid out), so can anyone explain to me the difference between the two and why I would want to deal with Matched Play?

Matched play is the community default in pretty much every community I've ever known. It is the best for random pick up games and for tournament games, which make up the vast bulk of games that are talked about online.

Matched play focuses on granularity and listbuilding. Some people say that its more balanced, but the points have never been balanced, and I'll bet the farm that the new edition's points will have large flaws as well but thats just my conjecture. Matched play focuses on playing against your opponent as opposed to with your opponent.

Narrative play is defined in several ways.

For some its just playing a set narrative scenario using the forces dictated in the scenario.

For others it means "casual" games where you are working with your opponent to tell a story rather than against your opponent like it was a sport.

For others it means building armies that are based off of the narrative and not necessarily based off of their spreadsheet power coefficient (if listbuilding min max lists is your primary goal, matched play is more your focus).

Matched play = the normal game of 40k. You build your army to a point limit, and play generic missions designed to fit any possible army.

"Narrative" play = matched play, but the point system is less accurate because all upgrades (regardless of strength) are free. You still have the same basic point system and the missions are still generic, but because it says "narrative" in the name you can be smugly superior about how "casual" you are.

Narrative play = story-based games, not supported by GW. You build forces around a story, then work with your opponent to create scenario rules tailored to the story. GW does not publish rules for this, you'll have to invent all the story-based stuff yourself and modify the standard game into something appropriate for your goals.

I love how we have two staunch supporters of the various styles posting one after the other, picture perfect image of the ideas that matched/competitive (Peregrine) has compared to narrative/casual (Auticus, although he was competitive in the past).

Wayniac wrote:
I love how we have two staunch supporters of the various styles posting one after the other, picture perfect image of the ideas that matched/competitive (Peregrine) has compared to narrative/casual (Auticus, although he was competitive in the past).

I think you're missing the point here. I'm a fan of story-based games, but playing generic tournament-style missions with a less accurate point system (as "narrative play" in the rulebook is) is not the same thing.

That is 100% the truth. You can play narratively just fine by using matched play. Making the game less balanced does not in itself enhance its ability to portray a narrative.

Inbalances can be a part of it, of course. For example, if I am playing a story-focused campaign with Peregrine and he decides to launch a daring mission that will be very difficult to win but very strategically rewarding if he does win, then in that context imbalance is absolutely not a problem. GW could easily write a ruleset around these kinds of situations and it would be fine.

But the imbalances in the context of narrative play that we often see in GW games are often arbitrary, and the seemingly random balance errors that have a habit of popping up in 40k arguably makes the game less suitable if a good story is your main concern. Why is it narratively important if mortars are flat out points inefficient compared to autocannons and thus never taken?

Meh, the narrative gaming being supported by GW is really just casual matched play anyway. We're really just talking about variations of the same way to play, not 2 separate systems. I've already played several of the narrative missions, and open play missions using points anyway and they work just the same way.

Heck, even the matched play rules are pretty bloated and "narrative" compared to other games like x wing.

If GW made a real attempt at narrative play I bet you'd see more people get on board with it.

Matched Play sets the expectations that you're playing against strangers, or at least people who have no inherent interest in whether you have fun or not. It's for people who treat the game as fundamentally adversarial, and for whom beating the other player is both the objective and the goal. The extra restrictions are there because when you're dealing with a stranger you both want to have a common set of expectations going into the game or else things are going to get awkward. Matched uses points because you're attempting to balance things as finely as possible, so a granular points system provides checks and balances against abusive builds.

Narrative Play is designed for people who are coming together and want to have fun as a group. Winning may be the objective, but having fun is the goal. Thus fewer restrictions- you're supposed to be working with your opponent to set the expectations. This makes things anywhere between a little and a lot more loosey-goosey on the balance side. Power levels work for Narrative because a granular point system is unnecessary when the balanced scenarios that Matched is designed around are being messed with in unpredictable ways.

You can play narrative-style games with Matched just fine, but as you said, there's a bunch of overhead to it that may impede the story you're trying to tell in the name of maintaining a common set of expectations. Which type of game you prefer really comes down to how you want to enjoy your toy soldier game.

 Formerly Wu wrote:
Narrative Play is designed for people who are coming together and want to have fun as a group.

No it isn't. Nothing in the narrative play rules published by GW accomplishes this goal, that idea of "it's all about fun" is something entirely invented by certain players. The actual rules published by GW are just the standard matched play rules with worse balance. And I really wish people would stop giving GW credit for making a good casual/narrative game when all they've done is make the game worse for tournaments.

 Peregrine wrote:
Matched play = the normal game of 40k. You build your army to a point limit, and play generic missions designed to fit any possible army.

"Narrative" play = matched play, but the point system is less accurate because all upgrades (regardless of strength) are free. You still have the same basic point system and the missions are still generic, but because it says "narrative" in the name you can be smugly superior about how "casual" you are.

Narrative play = story-based games, not supported by GW. You build forces around a story, then work with your opponent to create scenario rules tailored to the story. GW does not publish rules for this, you'll have to invent all the story-based stuff yourself and modify the standard game into something appropriate for your goals.

Even with how much I have disagreed with Peregrine in other threads, this is the perfect summary. I'm all abord for narrative style of play (In fact 80% of my games are narrative campaings). "Narrative play™" in the other hand is just... a travesti. It can be fun obviously, but really isn't a good narrative experience in any shape or form.

As Dosiere has said is just casual matched play.

 Peregrine wrote:
e]
No it isn't. Nothing in the narrative play rules published by GW accomplishes this goal, that idea of "it's all about fun" is something entirely invented by certain players.

Yes. Players who want to have fun. As a group. I know this is alien concept to you.

You can change or add rules to Narrative play to add fun things. You cannot do this with Matched and expect to get a game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let me put it this way, Peregrine: Narrative Play introduces a game mode so that when somebody introduces some cool but imbalanced homebrew scenario to you, you can turn them down by saying "I only play Matched," and then they can find someone else interested in playing Narrative.

 Formerly Wu wrote:
Yes. Players who want to have fun. As a group. I know this is alien concept to you.

Everyone plays 40k for fun.

You can change or add rules to Narrative play to add fun things. You cannot do this with Matched and expect to get a game.

Again, this has nothing to do with the rules published by GW. Nothing about "narrative" play makes it easier to add house rules, it's just certain players declaring that this is how they're going to do it.

Let me put it this way, Peregrine: Narrative Play introduces a game mode so that when somebody introduces some cool but imbalanced homebrew scenario to you, you can turn them down by saying "I only play Matched," and then they can find someone else interested in playing Narrative.

IOW, it adds nothing to the game. If "narrative" play didn't exist at all you could do the exact same thing by saying "I only play the standard core rulebook missions".

I have to agree with Formerly Wu that the mere mention of "Narrative" in a GW approbed rulebook is gonna make many people that only see what GW allows them to see to at least think about the idea of playing some kind of narrative play, even if that narrative play has 0 to do with the "Narrative play" officialy put from GW.

At least thats a good thing. If people don't become "No, I only play the offical Narrative Play rules and missions". In that case is a lost cause


EDIT: Auticus has explained it much better.

Call it a psychology thing then.

To most people I know, and communicate with online, matched play implies no house rules and a strict set of RAW that you follow.

Can you houserule matched play? Yes.
Will you have much success getting people to play houseruled matched play? YMMV. My mileage tells me no.

Narrative play implies looser adherence to the rulebook to a lot of people.

Note the word implied. Because I know nothing in the rulebook states this as empirical fact, and I know that a lot of responses deal strictly with if its in the rulebook then it means something, and if its not in the rulebook then what is being said might as well not have even been said.

However... when I say narrative campaign, a good chunk of people I know understand that means some tweaking and houseruling and non standard scenarios. Implied.
When I say matched, people that same good chunk of people understands that it should follow RAW as close as possible.

When I say "lets do a narrative campaign" and introduce a houserule, I get less slack as opposed to when I say "lets do a matched play league" and introduce a houserule... because those two words mean very similar things to the bulk of players that I know. Implied.

Player psychology and implications are of course not covered in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

 auticus wrote:
Call it a psychology thing then.

To most people I know, and communicate with online, matched play implies no house rules and a strict set of RAW that you follow.

Can you houserule matched play? Yes.
Will you have much success getting people to play houseruled matched play? YMMV. My mileage tells me no.

Narrative play implies looser adherence to the rulebook to a lot of people.

Note the word implied. Because I know nothing in the rulebook states this as empirical fact, and I know that a lot of responses deal strictly with if its in the rulebook then it means something, and if its not in the rulebook then what is being said might as well not have even been said.

However... when I say narrative campaign, a good chunk of people I know understand that means some tweaking and houseruling and non standard scenarios. Implied.
When I say matched, people that same good chunk of people understands that it should follow RAW as close as possible.

When I say "lets do a narrative campaign" and introduce a houserule, I get less slack as opposed to when I say "lets do a matched play league" and introduce a houserule... because those two words mean very similar things to the bulk of players that I know. Implied.

Player psychology and implications are of course not covered in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Exalted.

BTW thing to note, the guy who leaked the rules did indeed leak the rules but not ALL of the core book, we're missing some bits of fluff, and, notably scenerios.

 auticus wrote:
Call it a psychology thing then.

Sorry, but that makes zero sense. I have to laugh at the absurdity of needing a "this is official" stamp of approval from GW in order to play a game built around making up your own stuff instead of blindly following RAW. The "narrative" rules in 8th edition add nothing that couldn't have been done in previous editions.

 auticus wrote:
Call it a psychology thing then.

To most people I know, and communicate with online, matched play implies no house rules and a strict set of RAW that you follow.

Can you houserule matched play? Yes.
Will you have much success getting people to play houseruled matched play? YMMV. My mileage tells me no.

Narrative play implies looser adherence to the rulebook to a lot of people.

Note the word implied. Because I know nothing in the rulebook states this as empirical fact, and I know that a lot of responses deal strictly with if its in the rulebook then it means something, and if its not in the rulebook then what is being said might as well not have even been said.

However... when I say narrative campaign, a good chunk of people I know understand that means some tweaking and houseruling and non standard scenarios. Implied.
When I say matched, people that same good chunk of people understands that it should follow RAW as close as possible.

When I say "lets do a narrative campaign" and introduce a houserule, I get less slack as opposed to when I say "lets do a matched play league" and introduce a houserule... because those two words mean very similar things to the bulk of players that I know. Implied.

Player psychology and implications are of course not covered in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

My mileage has told me so far that doing a narrative campaign can be done using 'competitive' points and tossing in a few house rules. We follow RAW as close to within the limits of reason and houserule the oddities. Tested homebrews have always been allowed, but everyone I've played with has an eye for balance or spent time designing games. I've always played with very hobby oriented, beautifully painted armies, but when it comes to gaming, we play pretty strict by the rules. I've always played with the aim of winning and the goal to have fun.

For me, narrative has always been a mindset, not a set of codified rules and buzzwords we toss around to divide people. A good balanced, precise ruleset and scenarios benefits narrative play more than anything.

the YMMV statement is the truth. Your experience of this 'GAME' is entirely dependent on your opponent/partner in the experience.

The concept of matched play is the game system attempting to get as close to internal balance as possible and taking reponsibility for the control over your enjoyment. If you start with the concept that narrative play lacks internal balance then the onus is on you and your opponent/partner to create through narrative the concept of deliberate balancing or deliberate imbalance.

You can do this with terrain, house rules, mission rules, varying victory conditions. Its your sandbox

 auticus wrote:
Matched play is the community default in pretty much every community I've ever known. It is the best for random pick up games and for tournament games, which make up the vast bulk of games that are talked about online.

Matched play focuses on granularity and listbuilding. Some people say that its more balanced, but the points have never been balanced, and I'll bet the farm that the new edition's points will have large flaws as well but thats just my conjecture. Matched play focuses on playing against your opponent as opposed to with your opponent.

Narrative play is defined in several ways.

For some its just playing a set narrative scenario using the forces dictated in the scenario.

For others it means "casual" games where you are working with your opponent to tell a story rather than against your opponent like it was a sport.

For others it means building armies that are based off of the narrative and not necessarily based off of their spreadsheet power coefficient (if listbuilding min max lists is your primary goal, matched play is more your focus).

What's the book say

I'm 100% with Peregrine on this one. Power levels serve no purpose. In fact, I bet the worst complains about balance will come from people playing with power levels and thinking they should be getting a fun, fair game.

 Nithaniel wrote:
If you start with the concept that narrative play lacks internal balance then the onus is on you and your opponent/partner to create through narrative the concept of deliberate balancing or deliberate imbalance.

You can do this with terrain, house rules, mission rules, varying victory conditions. Its your sandbox

Why would you want to start from a point of poor balance? All of those interesting story things work even better when you build on a balanced foundation, the only thing gained by reducing balance is the smug superiority certain players have when telling everyone how "casual" their games are.

I don't know about narrative play specifically, I think I'm with Peregrine here. I don't really see the point of it.

However, I do see the point in Power Rating (PR). If I am spending a day at my local gaming club, and I just want to play a bunch of games in succession, PR is going to be much quicker and less cumbersome to add up and just get to playing. If I'm planning the matches in advance however, it's going to be points all the way.

To me, Narrative Play means that I don't "choose armies to a points level"; I choose forces based on what makes sense.

Doing a frontal assault against defended trench lines? Set up lines of trenches, fortifications and defense guns, then set up the defenders - Basilisks, Hydras and Medusas, Conscripts and infanty squads in the front lines with Veterans and Ogryns in the reserve trenches, officers in the fortifications (or next to the Valkyrie on the landing pad, in case it all goes pear-shaped).

The attackers get assault squads and veterans with flamers for the initial assault, supported by terminators in land raiders and whirlwinds, thunderfire cannon and Stormtalons for fire support. Perhaps some Scouts to infiltrate the lines and sabotage the defender's artillery.

Now, we know that the attacker should have a 3:1 advantage in this sort of situation. You could use points - I always field my armies WYSIWYG, so I could have a set of index cards (or something equivalently electronic) with the costs of all my units recorded - and say "well, the defender's units come to 1572 points, so the attackers should have 4716 points", but depending on the level of pre-planning, that might not be possible. The last time we did a game like this, there were five players and we didn't know exactly what we were using until everyone turned up, so we just chucked everything on the table and had at it. Now if we do the same thing, we can pile all the models onto the board, say "Well, the defender's got 75 power level, the attacker's got 200. That's a bit less than ideal, so you guys can recycle 30 power worth of casualties as reinforcements." Or give them some bonus CPS or free stratagems or something.

To me, the power level isn't an up-front balancing mechanism like matched play points; it's retro-active, to give the underdog a bonus. That's why so many of the narrative scenarios have rules which only kick in if the power levels are mismatched.

 Peregrine wrote:


Why would you want to start from a point of poor balance? All of those interesting story things work even better when you build on a balanced foundation, the only thing gained by reducing balance is the smug superiority certain players have when telling everyone how "casual" their games are.

In a straight up competitive setting you never would. 4ok by its nature is a competitive game but there are times when acknowledging poor internal balance can produce fun games by tweaking factors. For example setting up custom missions where the objective victory is not in beating your opponent but achieving very specific objectives against overwhelming odds.

Think about situations like Rynn's world where the crimson fists have been decimated by the orks but there objective was to reset the orbital plates to allow reinforcements to arrive rather than actually defeat the orks.

I've tried to recreate these scenarios in 7th edition because a point balanced game of 7th with crimson fists vs orks was heavily unbalanced in the fists favour.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Narrative stuff.

All of this can be done better by a more accurate point system and better balance, and nothing is gained by using the less-accurate point system instead.

And I still say: sometimes nothing is gained by using the more accurate points system.

but to answer the question: Matched play is a mode where more restrictions apply (usually to prevent spam/abuse) and uses a more granular point system to ensure the "fairest" game possible. The restrictions are not just in army building but also of the top of my head apply to reserves and psychics. People have explained this better than me earlier in the thread.

Aren't there bunch of narrative scenarios in the new rulebook (sabotage, ambush, etc.)? Those are quite good example what it is about.
Another good example would be the campaign books released by forgeworld and gw, which have all sorts of scenarios, special army lists and formations etc.

 Peregrine wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Narrative stuff.

All of this can be done better by a more accurate point system and better balance, and nothing is gained by using the less-accurate point system instead.

Pre-game time is saved. I don't need to know the points cost of everything. All I'm doing is roughly balancing the starting forces and assigning a bonus to the underdog. Ifwe all know the exact forces ahead of time, or if we all already know the individual points value of all our units, then it'd work. But usually these sort of games are an excuse to spring that new unit or tank one of us has finished painting, so we're doing all of this rather on the fly as we set up. It's much quicker and easier to set up a Tactical squad, add 20 (or whatever) to the running total in my head and move onto the next unit than it is to set up a Tactical squad, add up the points costs of 9 marines, a sergeant, 7 bolters, a bolt pistol, a chainsword, a missile launcher and a flamer then move on to the next squad.

If we play enough games, I suppose we'll get a feel for doing this without even Power Level ratings, but we don't play enough 40k for that, I think.

For clarity; I'm not interested in "balanced" games. I'm interested in "interesting" games. If my side is totally outclassed? Well, I'll get thrashed, but I'll try for a "victory" of my own (can I take out his general before I'm wiped out? Can I last until the end of the next turn?) and next time we'll change things. That doesn't work in what seems like a more "American" approach of games arranged on the fly where the two opponents don't necessarily know each other, but then it's not supposed to.

Some times, we might even want to do some Matched Play ( the set of "interesting" does overlap with the set of "balanced", but either one is not a complete subset of the other) in which case we'll use points.

I'm amazed that people are so down on power levels. If you are looking to play a narrative game, and balance is not something you are concerned about beyond a rough estimate. Then power levels are a nice compromise between no points (no idea if things are way out of wack) and granular "I'm paying for every weapon" points.

I think they are great for quick pick up games in a casual environment. Now I would need to play more to see how well they work for this. But if I'm at a shop and a new player only has say 1200 points (rough estimate) and I don't have a ready made list for that level (most of mine are 2k at this point, even during past editions I typically only had things as low as 1500). We can quickly see what his power level is and I can grab stuff to match, and have a quick fun game without me taking half an hour of list building.

Also, for things like demo games. I think it could be very useful to use power levels. Or in teaching games, break people into list building (especially with borrowed models/proxies) with power levels and slowly move them up.

Finally, and this is perhaps where I think Power levels are straight up superior to points, there are apocalypse level games. If each side is playing with the equivalent of 10,000 points I have little interest in paying for individual weapons on models that are going to be scooped off the table in droves. These games are never close to balanced anyway so I think saying "each side take 1000 power" is just a better solution than matched play. Further if we are looking at Narrative vs matched play and the "rule of one" for psykers does not scale well to these huge level games.

Matched play is likely to be my most often played mode of the game, but I can see plenty of times where I might not be interested in that level of granularity.