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 Formosa wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's a term that was floated by some of the WAAC crowd to denigrate those who tried to encourage a healthier game in their communities.

That's really all it is. There's no special meanings to it, it's a term used whenever someone thinks people are trying to 'soften' the game.

As the person who came up with it no, that is not it at all. CAAC refers to "casual" players who whine and cry about anyone who brings a stronger list than theirs, come up with all kinds of arbitrary rules (most of them vague and unwritten) that you're expected to follow, assert moral superiority over everyone who doesn't follow their rules about the "right" way to play the game, and attempt to shun those people from the community. And they assume that "casual" is synonymous with "good", and is the default assumption for everything that isn't competitive. IOW, if a unit/game type/etc is bad for competitive play then it must, by default, be great for "casual" games even if in reality it makes things worse for those games as well. This usually extends to having a poor level of understanding of game design and balance, and even being proud of embracing bad design/balance as proof of how thoroughly they reject the hated competitive style of play.

In short, the term "casual" becomes redefined from its normal meaning of having a low investment in the game and not taking anything seriously to being extremely serious about rejecting the people and play styles they hate. There is nothing at all casual about them, and "CAAC" highlights the absurdity of their chosen label.


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 Galas wrote:
CAAC are the boogeyman of WAAC players. It only exist on the internet to justify themselves. The kind of players that could be really a CAAC don't play in clubs, they play in their garages with their friends. When WAAC are present in reality constantly, and they are capable of destroying comunities or local scenes. Or at least drive many players away.

Not true at all. I have encountered CAAC players both online and in stores.

Yep as have I.

I have encountered more unreasonable casual players than I have overcompetitive players. Usually you hear things like "ugh that unit/ability is so cheap/broken." Or "that is so unrealistic things don't actually work like that if this were real" Or my personal favorite "that list is so unfluffy it would never happen in fluff." All of these things have nothing to do with how competitive or unfluffy the list actually is, and instead its someone coming up with excuses to make their opponent seem scummy for beating them. Playing Tau is one of the fastest ways to spot who the CAAC players are.

auticus wrote:
CAAC is a derogatory term usually wielded by competitive players against players that vocally oppose playing at the min/max level.

Much like WAAC is overused, so too is CAAC.

pronounced "KAWK"

WAAC pronounced "f@??!/^$$#0!3"


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 DominayTrix wrote:
Playing Tau is one of the fastest ways to spot who the CAAC players are.

Yeah, I bet.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Casual player: Tourney play isn't for them, they want to play a fluffy list even if it's not optimal, still plays to win once the models are on the table but doesn't get upset when they struggle to win with said list. Might even politely decline playing a more competitive gamer knowing they'll get their asses handed to them and go find someone else with a fluffy list to play against.
CAAC player: Actively hates the idea of tourneys, feels morally superior for having a fluffy list rather than an optimal one, bitches that their opponent is a jerk for having an OP army when he loses. Probably thinks the hobby would be better if all those people having fun the wrong way at tourneys would just go play chess or something.

I think this is the best description yet of what distinguishes truly obnoxious CAAC types from the rest of the casual/fluffy player community. I would add that CAAC and WAAC players have two important things in common. First, both tend to forget that it's just a friggin' game. Second, both feel entitled to win. The WAAC player will cheat or at least behave in unsportsmanlike ways (such as trying to annoy/distract their opponent with OOG stuff) because winning is the only thing propping up his fragile self-image, while the CAAC player expects to win merely because he turned up, because he thinks he shouldn't have to put any effort in to build a decent list or use any actual tactics. Both are inclined to whine or throw a hissy fit when the outcome of the game fails to match their expectation.

hobojebus wrote:
Anyone that thinks CaaC don't exist has clearly never read a thread where narrative play is mentioned, or games without points.

I'm casual but those guys are intolerable even to me.

Damn straight- It's like people forgot what happened 3 years ago when AoS dropped. Certain people (lets name no names, but some have posted in this thread ) were all in like GW had done some magnificent thing and all games should follow suit. Anytime the topic of points came up it was like POINTS ARE THE DEVIL ITSELF! and you were a WAAC player for even daring to suggest that the game is better with points.

 DominayTrix wrote:

I have encountered more unreasonable casual players than I have overcompetitive players. Usually you hear things like "ugh that unit/ability is so cheap/broken." Or "that is so unrealistic things don't actually work like that if this were real" Or my personal favorite "that list is so unfluffy it would never happen in fluff." All of these things have nothing to do with how competitive or unfluffy the list actually is, and instead its someone coming up with excuses to make their opponent seem scummy for beating them.

This is a bit disingenuous. You hear the same "that unit/ability is so cheap/broken" from WAAC players when things don't go their way as it's a common go to for people to try to shift the blame over to the other person.

The "that is so unrealistic" or "that list is so unfluffy" thing has nothing to do with CAAC or WAAC players--that's best kept into its own category of things.

Playing Tau is one of the fastest ways to spot who the CAAC players are.

Playing as Tau or playing against Tau?

 Grimtuff wrote:
Damn straight- It's like people forgot what happened 3 years ago when AoS dropped. Certain people (lets name no names, but some have posted in this thread ) were all in like GW had done some magnificent thing and all games should follow suit. Anytime the topic of points came up it was like POINTS ARE THE DEVIL ITSELF! and you were a WAAC player for even daring to suggest that the game is better with points.

Oh man that was a weird few months before the General's Handbook came out.
All of a sudden there was this huge surge out of nowhere about how points are tools of the WAAC players and that removing them was going to make the game *more* balanced because then people would just have to cooperatively match their armies against one another.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Oh man that was a weird few months before the General's Handbook came out.
All of a sudden there was this huge surge out of nowhere about how points are tools of the WAAC players and that removing them was going to make the game *more* balanced because then people would just have to cooperatively match their armies against one another.

Oh and don't forget the huge surge out of nowhere of armies full of nothing but Archaons and Nagashes. How people grew out luxurious moustaches to gain in-game advantages, how people started riding around on invisible horses and only playing games at midnight for advantages.



You can misrepresent the argument that was made for pointsless games if you'd like(that points alone don't make for a balanced game), but those statements were arguments made by people against the idea of having a pointsless game. Those actually had nothing to do with lack of points--but had everything to do with the actual rules.

Blastaar wrote:Like others have said, it's Casual At All Costs. Generally used to refer to players who see the idea of playing cutthroat, challenging games with the intention of winning as a moral failing, because enjoying those things is wrong. It shows how polarized gamers have become, and how poorly many games-whether they're GW games, other tabletop games, or video games-are designed, that there are units/characters/races or whatever that are blatantly stronger than all others, and some that are auto -lose, creating an expectation for the different groups on how the game is played, to the point where they aren't playing the same game anymore. Heaven forbid both camps be able to play the same game and still have fun, even against each other.

If a game system is balanced, it accommodates both the casual and competitive scenes simultaneously. Unfortunately NEITHER GW system is at that place now. It was close twice, but it didn't last long.

There are many definitions of waac.

To some people, you enter waac territory if you ever purchased any model for how it plays on the table, have ever played in any event, or have ever corrected anyone on a rule, even if you are extremely delicate about it or even point out that you are fine playing it the way they want.

On the other end of the same pool, some people claim that waac is perfectly synonymous with “outright deliberate cheater,” and anything less does not qualify.

Caac however seems to have a much more stable popular definition, which you can find several examples of in this thread. A big generalization of it is that they insist the game and opponents adjust downwards so that they can win instead of adjusting themselves upwards.

(They also seem to have VERY out-of-touch ideas about what is good/what isn’t in the game, and you can find the more charismatic ones making all kinds of zany house rules for their local group.)

I know one caac player irl, but I’ve seen several more on the nets. Thought I was about to be burned at the stake for witchcraft when I mentioned a simple math probability comparison to help someone decide between some choices.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:

I have encountered more unreasonable casual players than I have overcompetitive players. Usually you hear things like "ugh that unit/ability is so cheap/broken." Or "that is so unrealistic things don't actually work like that if this were real" Or my personal favorite "that list is so unfluffy it would never happen in fluff." All of these things have nothing to do with how competitive or unfluffy the list actually is, and instead its someone coming up with excuses to make their opponent seem scummy for beating them.

This is a bit disingenuous. You hear the same "that unit/ability is so cheap/broken" from WAAC players when things don't go their way as it's a common go to for people to try to shift the blame over to the other person.

The "that is so unrealistic" or "that list is so unfluffy" thing has nothing to do with CAAC or WAAC players--that's best kept into its own category of things.

Playing Tau is one of the fastest ways to spot who the CAAC players are.

Playing as Tau or playing against Tau?

As Tau, it is almost always over savior protocols or the character rule in general, but some of the Commander heavy lists from pre-codex got quite a bit of moaning despite the index being a steaming dumpster fire. You are absolutely right about "that unit/ability is so cheap" being both CAAC and WAAC. If anything that is one of the main traits both share is making excuses that shifts the blame from themselves. I have heard the fluff complaint come out of CAAC players mostly. I think it is because WAAC players are more likely to sacrifice their own fluff to try to win.

Let's be honest there's precious few fluff lists worth a damn in 8th.

A pox on both their houses, in a nutshell.

I've been described as CAAC (and I'm pretty sure I've been alluded to in this thread, or at least conversations I've been a part of), but I wouldn't describe myself as casual at all. To me, a casual player is like the guy playing on his iPhone while waiting at a bus stop. He doesn't go out and look at games, know the names of game designers, or go online and talk about games with like minded individuals. He just plays because he kind of enjoys it, but he kinda enjoys a lot of stuff, so whatever. A casual is a "low involvement fan".

I spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year on this hobby, and untold amount of time assembling, priming, and painting figures to play with. I spend a not insignificant portion of my day following hobby news and discussing it here and other places. This isn't a hobby I just sort of partake in. It is one that I seek out, follow, and absorb myself in. Casual, I am not. But I'm also not a competitive player... and it seems like this hobby (or at least community) doesn't really know what to do with that. If I'm not competitive, then I must be casual, right? I'm just as serious about my gaming as any competitive player (possibly more so).

Truth is, CAAC was coined as a reflective insult in a sort of "no, you are" way. It doesn't mean anything except that you are anti-competitive - which I proudly am. I believe in healthy competition, but the kind of things I see competitive gamers do and say is anything but healthy. In another life, they'd be Wall Street traders or working for Enron or a Savings and Loan office.

Sqorgar, would Narrative At All Costs be a better descriptor than casual to you? It seems that part of the issue is attaching a sweeping label to any large portion of the community is met with indifference by that group at best.

I like tourneys more than I like narrative campaigns that have some lofty ideal behind the match rather than a focus on the actual result. I won't, however, buy everything in my army to wring the last drop off effectiveness out of a codex/army book to win every tournament I'm ever in. Hell, I played a BOC list in 6th that was almost all Minotaurs, and was only almost because I refused to use any models other than the Talisman minis, which puts me at maybe 5 away from being where I REALLY want to be with the list. I wouldn't call that CAAC, NAAC, or WAAC, so where do I fit in?

The biggest issue, which I touched on above and was pretty much ignored, is that ANY of those playstyles should be accommodated by a ruleset. How many of the current rulesets can you honestly say accomplish that?

hobojebus wrote:
Anyone that thinks CaaC don't exist has clearly never read a thread where narrative play is mentioned, or games without points.

I'm casual but those guys are intolerable even to me.

RIP apocalypse, stronghold assault, cities of death, plantstrike and whatever the air combat one is.

 Just Tony wrote:
Sqorgar, would Narrative At All Costs be a better descriptor than casual to you?

I don't think so? Narrative, to me, implies a player who is interested in telling a story or in the story aspects of the setting they are playing in. I couldn't care less about that kind of stuff. Hell, I play Infinity and I've never once read the lore books included with the rule books.

Maybe a story would help. In college, three friends and I would get together every Friday night to play Goldeneye on my Nintendo 64. We only played one mode - pistols, one shot one kill. And it was the most fun I've ever had in a video game. But after a few months, I started getting better than everyone else. Like, a lot better. To the point where I would walk away with dozens of more kills than second place. I couldn't be beat, and though we were still having fun with the game, it was obvious that it wasn't nearly as much fun with such a huge gap in skill level.

So what I did was that I started playing differently every game. I'd set out little goals for myself, like only using slappers for a game or trying to play without ever going through a particular room. I tried camping at the end of hallways, being a roaming death machine, killing only one particular player at a time, using different tactics and playing the game differently every time. And the thing is, it was more fun this way.

My friends also started playing differently too. We'd end up with giant slap fights in the middle of the level or end up with times when people would just stare at walls (to prevent screen peeking) while wandering through levels. I still won most of the games, but it didn't matter because the experience was no longer about winning. It was about having fun together. And we played Goldeneye for years, every Friday night, without ever getting tired of it or getting sick of each other. It's only when the new consoles came out and suddenly 4 frames per second was an eyesore that we were forced to leave Goldeneye behind.

So, would I like narrative campaigns? Sure, I'd try it. But I'm not specifically seeking out those kinds of experiences. I just think that being competitive at games is a temporary goal. If you play with the same people every week, like I do, eventually you'll end up with one player being dominant - and that's not fun for anyone, especially the dominant winner. In order to keep a game fresh forever, you need to work with the other players to create novel and interesting experiences.

And I think competitive gamers understand this on some level. They know that if the "meta" ever gets too static for too long, the game will get stale. It will eventually become a very, very small subset of the game that remains valid and playable - despite the fact that this would innately make the game considerably less fun. Being a competitive gamer REQUIRES a near unending supply of new players and constant releases to keep the illusion going. But if Warmachine stopped releasing things forever, my group could continue playing and having fun with the game for years, while every competitive gamer would abandon it after two months.

That's also why you still see people playing games like Necromunda, Mordheim, or 40k 2nd edition twenty years later, but nobody plays Warmachine Mk1 or 40k 6th. Competitive games have no legs because the second they stop making content, the games die. But the games not built around competition are eternal because winning isn't the primary goal.

The biggest issue, which I touched on above and was pretty much ignored, is that ANY of those playstyles should be accommodated by a ruleset. How many of the current rulesets can you honestly say accomplish that?

I really like Games Workshop's "Three Ways to Play", but I don't think there's enough to differentiate between narrative and open play. To me, they feel too similar in purpose, but at least GW is making a distinction between the people there to win and the people there to play.

 Easy E wrote:
Team WAAC vs. Team CAAC!

Newsflash: We are all on the same team!

"You are Wonkru, or an enemy of Wonkru!" - Blodreina

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Sqorgar, would Narrative At All Costs be a better descriptor than casual to you?

I don't think so? Narrative, to me, implies a player who is interested in telling a story or in the story aspects of the setting they are playing in. I couldn't care less about that kind of stuff. Hell, I play Infinity and I've never once read the lore books included with the rule books.

Maybe a story would help. In college, three friends and I would get together every Friday night to play Goldeneye on my Nintendo 64. We only played one mode - pistols, one shot one kill. And it was the most fun I've ever had in a video game. But after a few months, I started getting better than everyone else. Like, a lot better. To the point where I would walk away with dozens of more kills than second place. I couldn't be beat, and though we were still having fun with the game, it was obvious that it wasn't nearly as much fun with such a huge gap in skill level.

So what I did was that I started playing differently every game. I'd set out little goals for myself, like only using slappers for a game or trying to play without ever going through a particular room. I tried camping at the end of hallways, being a roaming death machine, killing only one particular player at a time, using different tactics and playing the game differently every time. And the thing is, it was more fun this way.

My friends also started playing differently too. We'd end up with giant slap fights in the middle of the level or end up with times when people would just stare at walls (to prevent screen peeking) while wandering through levels. I still won most of the games, but it didn't matter because the experience was no longer about winning. It was about having fun together. And we played Goldeneye for years, every Friday night, without ever getting tired of it or getting sick of each other. It's only when the new consoles came out and suddenly 4 frames per second was an eyesore that we were forced to leave Goldeneye behind.

So, would I like narrative campaigns? Sure, I'd try it. But I'm not specifically seeking out those kinds of experiences. I just think that being competitive at games is a temporary goal. If you play with the same people every week, like I do, eventually you'll end up with one player being dominant - and that's not fun for anyone, especially the dominant winner. In order to keep a game fresh forever, you need to work with the other players to create novel and interesting experiences.

And I think competitive gamers understand this on some level. They know that if the "meta" ever gets too static for too long, the game will get stale. It will eventually become a very, very small subset of the game that remains valid and playable - despite the fact that this would innately make the game considerably less fun. Being a competitive gamer REQUIRES a near unending supply of new players and constant releases to keep the illusion going. But if Warmachine stopped releasing things forever, my group could continue playing and having fun with the game for years, while every competitive gamer would abandon it after two months.

That's also why you still see people playing games like Necromunda, Mordheim, or 40k 2nd edition twenty years later, but nobody plays Warmachine Mk1 or 40k 6th. Competitive games have no legs because the second they stop making content, the games die. But the games not built around competition are eternal because winning isn't the primary goal.

The biggest issue, which I touched on above and was pretty much ignored, is that ANY of those playstyles should be accommodated by a ruleset. How many of the current rulesets can you honestly say accomplish that?

I really like Games Workshop's "Three Ways to Play", but I don't think there's enough to differentiate between narrative and open play. To me, they feel too similar in purpose, but at least GW is making a distinction between the people there to win and the people there to play.

You see, your comments on different style of play hit on something in a way that's become a spot of contention between me and my brother. I'm a big fan of the appendix lists, like the ones that were running in the back of the WFB 6th Edition army books. They had a few similar ones in 3rd Ed. 40K, but they were overshadowed by the Chapter Approved take on appendix lists.

The principle was the same. "Here's the codex/army book you've been playing, but this is a modified army structure built around a theme in the fluff. You'll probably have to buy some more models to make it, and it will perform differently than the stock build, but it keeps things fresh!" As it stands right now, I'm looking at trying to bulk up on Dwarf minis and do every appendix force in the 6th book except Slayers.

My brother is not really of the opinion that they should be allowed. He is a Dark Angels player, and recently has formed the opinion that Deathwing and Ravenwing shouldn't be allowed. His issue is that some appendix lists skew balance, and in the pendulum swing that is army book/codex production, it starts an arms race of imbalance that eventually leads to "Take whatever", which is where both systems wound up for a while. He tolerates it to a point, but is usually vocal about his distaste. It's to the point that we house rule short bows for Skinks a la South Lands list simply because of his distaste for the appendix list in general.

The point is, though, that the rule sets for both 3rd Ed. 40k and 6th Ed. WFB were tight enough to allow for BOTH kinds of play. If the current rules would tighten up to that point, I might be bothered to keep current on at least one army per system. As it stands AOS isn't what I want in a system at all, and 40K isn't nearly balanced enough to my liking.

That this thread exists is a sign post on the topic highway of doom.

I call myself a casual player but I suppose by some measure I am competitive instead. I view wargaming as a social event. I go there to have a good time be it LGS or as I used to, tournaments. What is a good time? I suppose that is where perspectives differ. I want a good fight, and I want to win it against a worthy opponent. I want a system that has enough random to ruin my plans to challenge me to adapt, improvise, and overcome. It makes winning all the more flavorful. Win or lose I want to enjoy the bloodbath, the cruel and fickle dice God's, and my opponents mind. I can be and am usually brutal as hell but I despise lists that seek an I win button, that torture the rules or outright break them. I view such things as signs of a weak ego and a poor mind.

I often think and wonder how players would handle the random rules that were the hallmarks of older editins that could screw you good and wreck your plan.
We're balance meant understanding the balance of costs as almost nothing powerful was free of some gotcha that could ruin your day.
Which is why I spent a decade playing orks. They had the most flavor, the most challenge, and some of the most powerful and dangerous to use game rules. Winning took skill and luck and adaptability.

From the perspective of someone who helps manage a large wargaming group, and sees hundreds of gamers come and go:

-The two common tropes described on these forums as WAAC and CAAC both exist
-Both groups have about equal numbers comprising about a tenth of the community combined.
-Both are insanely obnoxious to interact with and are generally disliked by people trying to grow a community

But at the end of the day..

If I could exchange all the WAAC players I've ever met for more CAAC players I would in a heartbeat. Without even thinking about it. One is a supernova that only exists to burn what you're working to build, and one is a slowly dwindling white dwarf that will eventually spiral itself into nonexistence.

WAAC gamers are a subset of the competitive gaming crowd that at first glance can appear the same, using the same jargon and slang terms for things in The Meta. By all accounts they almost always look to masquerade as a normal competitively minded player, but where the ultimate goal of a competitive player is to win against the toughest possible opponent (thereby proving that THEY are the toughest possible opponent) the ultimate goal of a WAAC player is to win.

Beating up on a new player, or having a one-sided two turn game against a player with an obviously weaker list holds no satisfaction to a competitive player. They haven't proven anything because there's most likely some other player who's much tougher that they've not beaten. Cheating, similarly, is anathema to the competitive mindset. WAAC gamers generally embrace both things in combination, because a newer player is both the possibility of a crushing victory (the best kind of victory, to them) AND someone far less likely to catch/call them out on cheating. They're after the power fantasy that's usually denied them in their daily lives, lived out in their little game of toy soldiers.

Just one game against a WAAC player will drive away the average new player. You'll never see them again. There's no way to get them back. and because WAAC players typically run out of experienced players willing to put up with their bs, they're usually the most available opponents around for newbies. This combination fething. sucks. Groups that over-enforce zero tolerance policies against WAAC behavior typically see a short term explosion of membership because the new players who would get shoved out by the few actual douchebags actually stick around...at least until the Thought Police stage of an enforced casual gaming group sets in.

A CAAC player on the other hand is almost always (~95% of the time?) a player from an older edition of the game coming back for the express purpose of nostalgia. They want the Exact. Same. Experience. Any deviation is Bad. Anything they remember is Good. They are (in contrast to a WAAC player) merely a parasite, rather than an active hindrance to the group's growth. They can even be helpful, because their collections tend to be painted and they're not terrible for new players to play against. But very quickly the list of things that they Disapprove of in other peoples' armies mounts, and their available group of players dwindles down to 2-3 usually similarly nostalgia driven people who are looking for the same things out of the game.

CAAC gamers can be annoying, because they often complain loudly and vocally and in enough numbers, they can cause the death of a gaming group by ejecting all the other players who don't share their attitude. But in the context of a player group run by people who aren't them, they're generally just neutral in terms of impact. You avoid them, and they avoid you.

the_scotsman wrote:
A CAAC player on the other hand is almost always (~95% of the time?) a player from an older edition of the game coming back for the express purpose of nostalgia. They want the Exact. Same. Experience. Any deviation is Bad. Anything they remember is Good.

I thought those were "grognards"?

I really think "casual" implies a low involvement player, and CAAC is someone who refuses to get involved. Like my wife. I was talking about getting Aristeia and said it was somewhat similar to Shadespire. "Which one is Shadespire?" We've played it together about two dozen times! "Is that the one with the objective cards?" Yes, that one. We literally played it last night. "Oh, I like that one." Then why didn't you bother to learn it's fething name?!

There was this scene in a movie (I think it was called Gamers or something, it was about a fictional CCG that AEG made a promotional version of) and the main character wants to get into the CCG just to talk to a girl. He goes to buy a deck and the guy behind the counter asks what faction? "Green one". The guy explains that picking a faction is not that simple. You need to weigh the pros and cons of the factions and pick one with a play style that... "Green one".

 Sqorgar wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
A CAAC player on the other hand is almost always (~95% of the time?) a player from an older edition of the game coming back for the express purpose of nostalgia. They want the Exact. Same. Experience. Any deviation is Bad. Anything they remember is Good.

I thought those were "grognards"?

I really think "casual" implies a low involvement player, and CAAC is someone who refuses to get involved. Like my wife. I was talking about getting Aristeia and said it was somewhat similar to Shadespire. "Which one is Shadespire?" We've played it together about two dozen times! "Is that the one with the objective cards?" Yes, that one. We literally played it last night. "Oh, I like that one." Then why didn't you bother to learn it's fething name?!

There was this scene in a movie (I think it was called Gamers or something, it was about a fictional CCG that AEG made a promotional version of) and the main character wants to get into the CCG just to talk to a girl. He goes to buy a deck and the guy behind the counter asks what faction? "Green one". The guy explains that picking a faction is not that simple. You need to weigh the pros and cons of the factions and pick one with a play style that... "Green one".

Nope. CAAC as defined by peregrine (see in this thread, made up the term) is a player who takes a moral superiority in playing the game casually (i.e., not competitively, not paying attention to which options are good or bad, not following the "meta", and disdaining tournaments).

Grognard as I've heard it is a much older player with a "kids these days" attitude. You can definitely be both, but in my experience grognards are usually historical game guys while most nostalgia based 40k players are mid life crisis guys who get back into the hobby remembering it from high school/20s.

They are looking to capture the feeling of being a kid playing with toys they remember again. In sufficient number they will destroy a game group, because they will find fault with all things new, typically they'll go back to playing a "good old" edition of the game and all growth will cease, turning the group into a clique and slowly fading it to nothing. Or they'll encounter a fundamental disagreement about what the correct good old edition they should all play and thr group will implode instantly.

But what I see extremely rarely if at all is the pure virtue-signaler CAAC player who is driven by a desire to win but must do so using "scrub tactics" and limiting their opponents. This seems to just be a boogeyman of peregrine's, trotted out as a counter to people getting annoyed at rules lawyering and competitive play regarding itself as "real" 40k.

I think the biggest distinction for me is the motive. In Peregrine's version, a CAAC player cares more about winning than a WAAC player, they just use different tactics (houseruling, attempting to ostracise people who use too powerful lists, etc) to achieve DAT WIN. I've never experienced this. Maybe it's because I've never given over control of the club in general to these kinds of folks, or been in one that was. Nostalgia driven CAAC players care about the FEELING they get while playing the game, and it requires the game to look and act as close to how it did when they were kids as possible.

They have to be using their old collection.

They can't be seeing models or stuff that's "new" and "weird" and "didnt exist when the game was GOOD."

gamey, analytical combos are hated because they make the game feel very different, and usually end very fast. An ideal game for the CAAC gamers I've met is two players playing old collections of models that were around when they were kids, the game going five hours with models moving, shooting, using the occasional psychic power and slowly (but not too slowly) dwindling down what exists on the field while they drink beers and reminisce with their opponent. Everything should look a certain way. Everything should move a certain way. Nothing should have a special rule that's too confusing. These guys came back in DROVES with the launch of the 8th ed indexes, and very quickly fractalled away as they found tiny cliques that play the game the way they like it.

Because that's what CAAC players naturally do. They weed out their opponent pool until there's no sense them actually coming to the group meetup anymore, then they all just meet at each others garages.

Well, I have been a WAAC player (the worst you can think of) but now I'm more a CAAC guy.
Casual is trendy and sexy.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
A CAAC player on the other hand is almost always (~95% of the time?) a player from an older edition of the game coming back for the express purpose of nostalgia. They want the Exact. Same. Experience. Any deviation is Bad. Anything they remember is Good.

I thought those were "grognards"?

I really think "casual" implies a low involvement player, and CAAC is someone who refuses to get involved. Like my wife. I was talking about getting Aristeia and said it was somewhat similar to Shadespire. "Which one is Shadespire?" We've played it together about two dozen times! "Is that the one with the objective cards?" Yes, that one. We literally played it last night. "Oh, I like that one." Then why didn't you bother to learn it's fething name?!

There was this scene in a movie (I think it was called Gamers or something, it was about a fictional CCG that AEG made a promotional version of) and the main character wants to get into the CCG just to talk to a girl. He goes to buy a deck and the guy behind the counter asks what faction? "Green one". The guy explains that picking a faction is not that simple. You need to weigh the pros and cons of the factions and pick one with a play style that... "Green one".

Nope. CAAC as defined by peregrine (see in this thread, made up the term) is a player who takes a moral superiority in playing the game casually (i.e., not competitively, not paying attention to which options are good or bad, not following the "meta", and disdaining tournaments).

Grognard as I've heard it is a much older player with a "kids these days" attitude. You can definitely be both, but in my experience grognards are usually historical game guys while most nostalgia based 40k players are mid life crisis guys who get back into the hobby remembering it from high school/20s.

They are looking to capture the feeling of being a kid playing with toys they remember again. In sufficient number they will destroy a game group, because they will find fault with all things new, typically they'll go back to playing a "good old" edition of the game and all growth will cease, turning the group into a clique and slowly fading it to nothing. Or they'll encounter a fundamental disagreement about what the correct good old edition they should all play and thr group will implode instantly.

But what I see extremely rarely if at all is the pure virtue-signaler CAAC player who is driven by a desire to win but must do so using "scrub tactics" and limiting their opponents. This seems to just be a boogeyman of peregrine's, trotted out as a counter to people getting annoyed at rules lawyering and competitive play regarding itself as "real" 40k.

I think the biggest distinction for me is the motive. In Peregrine's version, a CAAC player cares more about winning than a WAAC player, they just use different tactics (houseruling, attempting to ostracise people who use too powerful lists, etc) to achieve DAT WIN. I've never experienced this. Maybe it's because I've never given over control of the club in general to these kinds of folks, or been in one that was. Nostalgia driven CAAC players care about the FEELING they get while playing the game, and it requires the game to look and act as close to how it did when they were kids as possible.

They have to be using their old collection.

They can't be seeing models or stuff that's "new" and "weird" and "didnt exist when the game was GOOD."

gamey, analytical combos are hated because they make the game feel very different, and usually end very fast. An ideal game for the CAAC gamers I've met is two players playing old collections of models that were around when they were kids, the game going five hours with models moving, shooting, using the occasional psychic power and slowly (but not too slowly) dwindling down what exists on the field while they drink beers and reminisce with their opponent. Everything should look a certain way. Everything should move a certain way. Nothing should have a special rule that's too confusing. These guys came back in DROVES with the launch of the 8th ed indexes, and very quickly fractalled away as they found tiny cliques that play the game the way they like it.

Because that's what CAAC players naturally do. They weed out their opponent pool until there's no sense them actually coming to the group meetup anymore, then they all just meet at each others garages.

Quite good summary scotsman! I would add only one other "subtype" of (suposedly) CAAC player - people with RPG/Rouge Trader/2nd ed background who treat 40K more of a mealable tool to express their (usually deep and involved) interest in 40K universe. This does not equal narrative player, mind you. This subgroup "quarrel" with matched play/tournament crowd is based on limiting play options "in the name of balance" and leaving out entire pages of official rules out of the scope "because matched play...". Not to even mention going wild with houserules, custom scenarios, fandexes etc... This subtype, as any other CAAC types "adapt or die": they either find likeminded people and leave groups in favor of garagehammer; leave 40k altogether; or stay within matched play groups playing by group rules, but with a fair amount of grudge under their skin.

the_scotsman wrote:
Nope. CAAC as defined by peregrine (see in this thread, made up the term) is a player who takes a moral superiority in playing the game casually (i.e., not competitively, not paying attention to which options are good or bad, not following the "meta", and disdaining tournaments).

First of all, Peregrine's involvement in all this makes me feel profoundly uneasy. They say that even a broken clock is right twice a day, but Peregrine is a toilet seat. He came up with the term CAAC as a "no, you are" insult against people using the term WAAC, and in no way should it be considered a legitimate term based on how he coined it.

Second, I get what you are saying, but I've never seen this sort of behavior before - certainly not together in a single person or group. Not here, though I stay out of the 40k section. I've seen bits and pieces of it, especially when there is an edition change. Warhammer 40k 8th comes out and suddenly there's a bunch of people saying they are going to stick with 6th or go back to 4th when it was still halfway decent. Saw it a lot when Age of Sigmar first released as well. But I think the source of that behavior is a obstinate resistance to change more than an adherence to nostalgia.

Because that's what CAAC players naturally do. They weed out their opponent pool until there's no sense them actually coming to the group meetup anymore, then they all just meet at each others garages.

But isn't that a good thing? What should they do?

the_scotsman wrote:
[But what I see extremely rarely if at all is the pure virtue-signaler CAAC player who is driven by a desire to win but must do so using "scrub tactics" and limiting their opponents. This seems to just be a boogeyman of peregrine's, trotted out as a counter to people getting annoyed at rules lawyering and competitive play regarding itself as "real" 40k.

Certainly isn't a boogeyman, I have met many of them in each and every edition of 40k. You may not have any in your area, good for you. The CAAC players in my area are the first to berate players who show up for even "Casual" tournaments where we include soft scores. Because competitive (mind you, soft scores) tournaments where people actually do play to win are just bad, for everything. Competitive 40k isn't the "real" 40k, it's just the one that matters for a great amount of players who are stuck in a situation where either tournaments or a pick up game in a non "my basement" environment means the common default is to a format that everyone has ready access too.

It's often the default format for forums as well. Simply because the opinion that is centered solely around "my basement" where you can impose any limit or open any door doesn't really have much to add other than. I don't play that way at home.

WAAC and CAAC are two sides to the same coin. They’re exact polar opposites, but both only want to play “their way” and frown on people having fun differently. WAAC players look down on people playing casual as they have the attitude “git gud noob” and beat them down. CAAC frown on people playing hard to challenge themselves. Both are toxic unless they’re only playing against like-minded individuals.

Wait until we get the WAACC players! (Win at all casual costs); can only play thematic, fluffy lists, but you have to mush your opponent into the ground and use every dirty trick possible to do it!

 Sqorgar wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Nope. CAAC as defined by peregrine (see in this thread, made up the term) is a player who takes a moral superiority in playing the game casually (i.e., not competitively, not paying attention to which options are good or bad, not following the "meta", and disdaining tournaments).

First of all, Peregrine's involvement in all this makes me feel profoundly uneasy. They say that even a broken clock is right twice a day, but Peregrine is a toilet seat. He came up with the term CAAC as a "no, you are" insult against people using the term WAAC, and in no way should it be considered a legitimate term based on how he coined it.

Second, I get what you are saying, but I've never seen this sort of behavior before - certainly not together in a single person or group. Not here, though I stay out of the 40k section. I've seen bits and pieces of it, especially when there is an edition change. Warhammer 40k 8th comes out and suddenly there's a bunch of people saying they are going to stick with 6th or go back to 4th when it was still halfway decent. Saw it a lot when Age of Sigmar first released as well. But I think the source of that behavior is a obstinate resistance to change more than an adherence to nostalgia.

Because that's what CAAC players naturally do. They weed out their opponent pool until there's no sense them actually coming to the group meetup anymore, then they all just meet at each others garages.

But isn't that a good thing? What should they do?

Then your interactions with the 40k community are probably largely online, or your 40k group is probably largely teens/college kids.

I find the younger the person is, the more they are likely to be attracted to the competitive mindset, because "the metagame", net-listing, and gaming as a competitive quasi-sport is a much more common thing among the e-sports/MTG crowd of younger nerds.

My situation is that there are several game stores in the area, with ours accessible by the public transit system but slightly farther out of the way, and we play on weekends and have copious free parking available. Meanwhile there is another store with no parking, but right near the city center and between two huge universities.

The gap in the average age of the players at the store our club is based out of and the other stores playerbase is probably 10 years. "30-40 year old dad" is our average player, "18-22 year old college student" is theirs. I played in that group for 3 years (while I was in college, go figure) and moved to primarily play with this group when I got a big boy job and weekends became much easier than tuesday nights until midnight.

I NEVER met a "dedicated casual" virtue-signaler at the college age group, I met an absolute crap-ton of WAAC scumbags. And remember, NOT every competitive tournament-focused 40k player is WAAC...you just tend to play more of them if you are not wealthy/interested in chasing the meta game and your list is not as good, because WAAC gamers seek out people they view as easy to beat, while legitimate competitive players do the opposite because stomping someone is gakky practice.

Fast forward to my current group, and we get a TON of returning nostalgia-focused players. I have never met an RPG "fluff gamer" convert type like was described above.

To me, a person that actively contributes to my community is anyone who is pleasant to be around, plays in the different events we run, buys stuff to support the store reasonably often, and actively seeks to have a good game by playing against opponents around their level or adjusting their list's power up and down if they have large collections. As much as Peregine Doth Protest about this, this is indeed the Average Real Life 40k Player. They are limited by the expense of the hobby and can't (or don't care to, because following the meta is a time investment many people just don't put in) run a bleeding-edge competitive meta list. They do want to win when they play, but with 40k saying anyone who doesn't have a meta list is a scrub is kind of like saying everyone who doesn't pop all the loot crates to get the special Golden +1 Damage SUper GuN and the Super Rare Loot Crate Only Special Ammo is a scrub and not a SERIOUS *insert freemium game here* player.

Competitive tournament players and Pure Nostalgia guys are kind of neutral to me. They almost never buy anything from the store (the former because they ebay their army every 6 months and the latter because they only want to use their old collection from when they were kids) and theyre typically only interested in their kind of game. I agree with Peregrines "nuh uh you TOO" assessment...because honestly, there isn't much of a gulf between a CAAC nostalgia guy and a dedicated tournament player. They both just kind of pad numbers and the most positive contribution I can attribute to either group is they make the club look nice and bustling and happy. But theyre not the guys that help me bring in new players.

WAAC players actively harm the community. They may be the "opposite and equally bad" of the CAAC crowd attitude-wise, but they make the life of a person trying to keep the community growing and happy way, WAY harder.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
WAAC and CAAC are two sides to the same coin. They’re exact polar opposites, but both only want to play “their way” and frown on people having fun differently. WAAC players look down on people playing casual as they have the attitude “git gud noob” and beat them down. CAAC frown on people playing hard to challenge themselves. Both are toxic unless they’re only playing against like-minded individuals.

Wait until we get the WAACC players! (Win at all casual costs); can only play thematic, fluffy lists, but you have to mush your opponent into the ground and use every dirty trick possible to do it!

If I had a dollar for every player (not saying only space marines, but USUALLY space marines of some sort) who cheated to win games and justified their cheating internally by saying "well it SHOULD be like this BECAUSE OF THE FLUFF"....well, I'd have at least one free model kit.

the_scotsman wrote:

I think the biggest distinction for me is the motive. In Peregrine's version, a CAAC player cares more about winning than a WAAC player, they just use different tactics (houseruling, attempting to ostracise people who use too powerful lists, etc) to achieve DAT WIN.

This is a great way to describe it. I've definitely run across it, though I feel like its something I'm more accustomed to in fighting and other videogames. Certainly I've run across my fair share of fighting game players who believe they deserve to win without being bothered to learn to block. I feel like its an attitude that's harder to justify and thrive in the age of global internet communities and frequent rules updates, but there's definitely a subset of players that feel entitled to win their games and fail to respect their opponent's own right to win.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Wait until we get the WAACC players! (Win at all casual costs); can only play thematic, fluffy lists, but you have to mush your opponent into the ground and use every dirty trick possible to do it!

This is basically the current state of Warmachine and probably the reason I'm really enjoying it...

the_scotsman wrote:
Then your interactions with the 40k community are probably largely online, or your 40k group is probably largely teens/college kids.

Well, that's the thing. I don't play 40k, nor do I have a 40k community that I interact with - but I follow and belong to communities for a bunch of miniature, card, and board games. Are you saying that this sort of behavior is unique to 40k?