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 Crimson wrote:

 Toofast wrote:

That's your view on things. I don't have fun doing anything when I lose, whether it's a game of pickup basketball, Dota, Warhammer, MtG, drag racing, shooting competitions, going to a football game, etc. You're not supposed to have fun when you lose. If we lost a football game, the team bus or plane was to be absolutely silent the entire ride home. You sit there and reflect on what went wrong. Anyone trying to goof around with their buddies after a loss would be running stadiums until they puked the next day at practice. Obviously certain losses are far more serious than others, but having fun losing isn't really something I've ever done. I'm not going to be a bad sport or be in a bad mood all day over losing a game of toy soldiers, but it's still not my idea of fun.

It probably is the best to avoid any games where there is a winner and loser then. In an even environment you're gonna lose about half of the time. I really wouldn't bother with a game where I wouldn't be having fun that often.

If I win 51% of my games, I'm alright with that. If I win less than 50%, it just means I need to work harder on improving regardless of what the activity is.

auticus wrote:
Lemme be honest and say that while I definitely don't like when guys torpedo my campaigns with that mentality, I have taken a few years to really try and understand where they are coming from and I for the most part feel that I do.

They aren't doing what they do because they are trying to be TFG. They aren't doing what they do because they are trying to ruin fun.

To them, these games are puzzles, and they like solving puzzles, and the faster the better.

All they are doing is solving the puzzle as optimally as they can because thats how they enjoy the game.

That is very accurate observation.

ccs wrote:
It's not the list being judged, it's the person playing it. You =/= your list.

Except there's 20+ pages on here of people saying you're TFG for min/maxing your army list within the rules of the game, but not TFG for trying to take extra points.

 Toofast wrote:

ccs wrote:
It's not the list being judged, it's the person playing it. You =/= your list.

Except there's 20+ pages on here of people saying you're TFG for min/maxing your army list within the rules of the game, but not TFG for trying to take extra points.

And they may be correct. Or may not be. The context is what continues to be glossed over. It's not TFG behavior to try to take extra points if you and your opponent are playing a really low-key casual game where that's not unheard of. It's not TFG behavior to min/max your list if you're prepping for an upcoming tournament/event or if you play in a group where everyone is expected to bring their A-game.

Both of these things become TFG behavior if it's done where it's not expected and then insisted upon, which not one person has stated. In fact, it's been said that the issue is assuming it's TFG behavior to merely ASK to go over the points limit, which is ridiculous (it would, however, be TFG behavior to throw a fit over not being allowed it)

"Except there's 20+ pages on here of people saying you're TFG for min/maxing your army list within the rules of the game, but not TFG for trying to take extra points."

It's people saying *some* who min/max their lists in *some* contexts are TFG.

It's (mostly) the same people who say *some* people who want to change the points limit in *some* contexts are not TFG.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sorry, I forgot that for some people "narrative" means "white knight everything GW does and FORGE A NARRATIVE BEER AND PRETZELS". Unfortunately the reality is that "narrative" means something more than publishing a matched play mission pack and a suggestion to use a less-accurate point system, as GW has done. A proper narrative game includes things like rules for creating and advancing your own characters, guidelines on designing army-specific scenarios that are balanced enough to be fun, etc. Hell, even previous editions of 40k used to have more narrative content. There used to be whole expansion books dedicated to narrative-style games (Cities of Death, etc), FW campaign books with piles of fluff and a whole set of campaign missions to let you play out the story of the book, etc. But the reality of 8th edition is that if you're playing a legitimate narrative game it's because you've done all the work of creating those game elements for GW, turning the generic matched play core game into something more story-focused.

The only question with 8th edition "narrative" gaming is why so many narrative players are willing to defend the garbage GW is publishing instead of being outraged and demanding better treatment. But I guess as long as they publish something that's bad for competitive play that makes it "narrative" enough...

Everything you said is completely wrong.

8th edition dragged me back into 40k after a decade because of GW's fantastic attention to narrative play. Went from no hope for 40k and zero bucks a year to it being one of my main games and at least two or three grand spent on it across a half dozen new armies and tons of terrain since 8th launched. (and let's not get me started on how much AOS I've bought as well, after abandoning the dumpster fire that was WHFB8. and AOS is 100% narrative play with points tacked on)

In fact, the Power Level system is the absolute best thing about 8th edition for people like myself and the group I play in.

I know, man, it must be absolutely dreadful to hear this, but 40k 8th narratively with power levels only is by far the absolute most fun I've ever had playing 40k in twenty six years, no fething joke. Perhaps it's because Strategy Battle Game is my favorite GW game of all time, and that pioneered the Open-Narrative-Matched "three ways to play" that GW has been so successful in applying to it's core product lines. The best part is that every single game that I've played of 8th edition - probably fifty by now? - all with no points, by the way, with power levels only - has been indescribably more enjoyable that games in previous editions and almost always comes down to the wire. I've played all of the scenarios in the rulebook, dozens of just open war games, missions from chapter approved, one-off scenarios that come with terrain or are on gw's site (outpost pythos iv for example) and so on. "Hey let's play scenario x, how about 75 power level or so?"

And you know what a nice side effect is? Not a single message in my local community's general discussion threads about "points" or list building. All that crap is just gone. Instead we talk about ridiculous moments that happened in the most recent games and how much fun we had.

What you describe as the "proper" narrative game sounds... well, not fun. No battle in history was ever 'balanced", so don't break out that trope. I'm not playing chess, especially since any game that introduces chance, can inherently never be balanced. It's really bizarre how you speak so authoritatively on how to have "fun" - I imagine you don't actually play games in real life, just discuss how to play them on the internet.

 Crimson wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. The game starts basically the moment army lists are created for the mission. You deciding you want extra points for that fact is therefore cheating and done for an in-game advantage. No excuses.
2. EVERY new player I've met (and that's several) has been more prepared with their lists than the people in this thread defending cheating. In fact that's my main accommodation: I already have a list for those points. New kid brings in 1000 points? Yep I already have something to use, so let's get started.

So by your logic a game with you starts before your opponent even knows that they're playing against you...

I'm trying to prepare TAC lists for every point level based on what I might expect. It isn't like I'm list tailoring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DrGiggles wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. The game starts basically the moment army lists are created for the mission. You deciding you want extra points for that fact is therefore cheating and done for an in-game advantage. No excuses.
2. EVERY new player I've met (and that's several) has been more prepared with their lists than the people in this thread defending cheating. In fact that's my main accommodation: I already have a list for those points. New kid brings in 1000 points? Yep I already have something to use, so let's get started.
In fact that's why I always recommend new players ask to see what point levels typically come up in particular shops so they can be prepared.
3. Research your product purchases or man up and accept your army doesn't get everything you want at specific point levels. Either one works. I mean, you think I have every model ever? Of course not. I'm still prepared though.
Also I'm not trying to say you need to netlist, but if making a list at 2000 points is so hard for you maybe you should look to them for guidance? I won't judge.
4. Tournament styles are house rules and typically means those tournaments are organized. I'd like to see you go to an ITC and ask if you can make your list real quick. Ya know, when the other bunch of people came prepared. If locals use those tournament rules, they will adhere to a same point level.
Not hard to adjust to at all.
5. Why should we make special permissions for people who can't make a list properly? Why do we need to cater to them instead of teaching them they can't always get their way?

I've got to ask, would you consider this scenario cheating per #1.

Two players agree to play a PUG at 1850 points, SM vs Orks. Both players show up and have NOT seen the other persons list. At the last moment before deployment, the SM player decides to swap out a unit in his list with a unit of terminators. Would that constitute cheating because his list isn't EXACTLY the same but is still at/under the agreed upon point limit?

That would be cheating, yes.

Wayniac wrote:
I really want to get people at my FLGS interested in a narrative campaign with Power Level. But too many people are too focused on points and think narrative play means unbalanced since it's not matched.

Narrative play isn't inherently unbalanced, using power levels to build armies is. Using power level I will win 9 out of 10 games, they're too easy to abuse. There's a reason points are based on weapon loadout and upgrades rather than just what the model is. If someone makes their army by the rules to the specified power level, how do you know if they're trying to game the system or just make the army they wanted to make? Who is the judge of what is a cheesy PL list and what is a fluffy PL list that just happens to be good compared to points? The game falls apart pretty quickly with PL, which is why nobody wants to use it. It doesn't improve on anything, I can make a list in battlescribe to the appropriate point level in 2 mins flat for any army I've ever played. PL doesn't save any time, it just makes an already unbalanced game even more unbalanced. I'm not sure what problem you're "fixing" by using PL. People really don't know how to use Battlescribe or spent more than 5 mins using it to make a list?

That wasn't his question. His question is "Are you really saying your game starts now, while you're building that TAC list, for some PUG likely to happen in February against someone you don't even know yet?"

Because that's what what he quoted says.

 DrGiggles wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
Please, just stop acting like some narrative savior... You have not defended narrative gaming, you have defended your misguided concept of what narrative gaming is. You have actively derailed every rare narrative thread on dakka since I'm logged in by ranting about inadequacy of any 40K edition to narrative play and name calling people who actually can have a narrative games using GW base rules fanboys or "pretend to play narrative while all you do is playing unoptimized competitive games" CAAC and you actively continue to do so even in this very thread.

Seriously, what you think you represent in your head and how other people see you through your posts are two completely different things. Try to look at yourself from an outside perspective sometimes, it might be a revelation to you...

Sorry, I forgot that for some people "narrative" means "white knight everything GW does and FORGE A NARRATIVE BEER AND PRETZELS". Unfortunately the reality is that "narrative" means something more than publishing a matched play mission pack and a suggestion to use a less-accurate point system, as GW has done. A proper narrative game includes things like rules for creating and advancing your own characters, guidelines on designing army-specific scenarios that are balanced enough to be fun, etc. Hell, even previous editions of 40k used to have more narrative content. There used to be whole expansion books dedicated to narrative-style games (Cities of Death, etc), FW campaign books with piles of fluff and a whole set of campaign missions to let you play out the story of the book, etc. But the reality of 8th edition is that if you're playing a legitimate narrative game it's because you've done all the work of creating those game elements for GW, turning the generic matched play core game into something more story-focused.

The only question with 8th edition "narrative" gaming is why so many narrative players are willing to defend the garbage GW is publishing instead of being outraged and demanding better treatment. But I guess as long as they publish something that's bad for competitive play that makes it "narrative" enough...

You mean like what they did by adding custom character creation rules, battle honors, and Cities of Death rules in the latest CA?

Cities of Death really should've just been the generic terrain rules we've been wanting, and the battle honors for vehicles are lame.

I haven't seen the full character creation table yet though. Maybe that'll actually have something.

"That would be cheating, yes."
Similar situation. I'm looking at a chess board. I think, I should take his Bishop with my Queen. Before I move a muscle, I realize I'd lose my Queen. I instead decide to take it with my Knight.

Did I just cheat at chess?

 judgedoug wrote:
In fact, the Power Level system is the absolute best thing about 8th edition for people like myself and the group I play in.

It says a lot that you talk about how great 8th has been for narrative play, but the only aspect of 8th that supports narrative play that you can mention is the fact that the point system is less balanced.

Wayniac wrote:
I do always find it annoying to have that one guy who goes to a campaign and immediately tries to win it as fast as possible. It's like, are you actively trying to ruin everybody's fun by shooting right to the key objective so the campaign ends in 2 weeks instead of 6?

If your campaign is designed to last 6+ weeks and there's a possible way for it to end in 2, it was a poorly designed campaign. Make the progression linear instead of allowing a path to the victory condition in 2 weeks and you won't have that problem. For example our recent Kill Team campaign was designed to last 12 weeks. It ended week 11 because only 3 people weren't guerillas and we were far enough apart in points that 1st, 2nd and 3rd had been decided. There was no possible way for everyone to become a guerilla 3 weeks into the campaign.

I just did some cleaning up and warnings have been issued. I would like to remind EVERYBODY here that Rule #1 is not optional.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I haven't seen the full character creation table yet though. Maybe that'll actually have something.

It's garbage. It's just a bunch of buffs with nothing whatsoever on how to pick them or how to balance them. It just says "decide if your hero is awesome or REALLY AWESOME FORGE A NARRATIVE", which determines if you get 4 buffs or 8 buffs. There's nothing on how much it should cost per buff, how to decide whether a character should have 4 or 8, etc. The only question when using it is whether people will be making overpowered nonsense because it's good at winning games, or because the system provides no guidance on how to make something reasonable. I can only imagine that the narrative players praising the "system" haven't got their copy of CA yet and are happy about the promise of a character system, not the reality that GW cares so little about narrative players that they couldn't bother to spend more than 15 minutes making it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I do always find it annoying to have that one guy who goes to a campaign and immediately tries to win it as fast as possible. It's like, are you actively trying to ruin everybody's fun by shooting right to the key objective so the campaign ends in 2 weeks instead of 6?

If your campaign is designed to last 6+ weeks and there's a possible way for it to end in 2, it was a poorly designed campaign. Make the progression linear instead of allowing a path to the victory condition in 2 weeks and you won't have that problem. For example our recent Kill Team campaign was designed to last 12 weeks. It ended week 11 because only 3 people weren't guerillas and we were far enough apart in points that 1st, 2nd and 3rd had been decided. There was no possible way for everyone to become a guerilla 3 weeks into the campaign.

Aside from that, what happened to playing for story reasons? Apparently in this narrative campaign you're supposed to be roleplaying commanders that are too stupid to see the objective and go off on pointless tangents to make the war take longer?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DrGiggles wrote:
You mean like what they did by adding custom character creation rules, battle honors, and Cities of Death rules in the latest CA?

I give GW a tiny amount of credit here. They did finally, years after 8th edition's initial release, publish a stripped down version of the 4th/5th edition CoD book (and some utter trash they're claiming is a character system). It says a lot about GW's opinion about the value of narrative players that it took them this long to do something so minimal.

I never understood the conflict on this issue. Some people like to be competitive and play the game as a game and win. Others care more about the narrative and social aspect and winning is secondary. Both are equally valid approaches. Some people prefer power level others prefer points. You can argue one is superior to the other from your perspective, but from another the opposite may be true. Enjoyment is relative and trying to make objective statements on this topic does not really work beyond what you yourself find enjoyable.

If you like competitive games play with people who likes competitive games. If you like narrative games play with people who like narrative games. Neither side is good or bad for their preference. Just be clear when setting up games the type of game you want and how you define that kind of game. Communication is key.

auticus wrote:
Yeah. I've been a GW participant since the 90s and I will say that people have clamoured LOUDLY for points and rules to be a free pamphlet and that the rest of a codex, rulebook, etc that have to do with art or story be what is sold... because they didn't care about art or story or anything other than rules and only rules.

I just want to point out that many of the people asking for this are veterans who already have previous editions of the codex and core rulebook, and those previous versions have better fluff and art. Why would I want to pay money for the art and fluff sections of the 8th edition IG codex when it's just my 5th edition codex with half the fluff and most of the art replaced with catalog photos from the online store? Give me a downloadable pdf of the rules update, it's the only thing I need.

 Peregrine wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I haven't seen the full character creation table yet though. Maybe that'll actually have something.

It's garbage. It's just a bunch of buffs with nothing whatsoever on how to pick them or how to balance them. It just says "decide if your hero is awesome or REALLY AWESOME FORGE A NARRATIVE", which determines if you get 4 buffs or 8 buffs. There's nothing on how much it should cost per buff, how to decide whether a character should have 4 or 8, etc. The only question when using it is whether people will be making overpowered nonsense because it's good at winning games, or because the system provides no guidance on how to make something reasonable. I can only imagine that the narrative players praising the "system" haven't got their copy of CA yet and are happy about the promise of a character system, not the reality that GW cares so little about narrative players that they couldn't bother to spend more than 15 minutes making it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I do always find it annoying to have that one guy who goes to a campaign and immediately tries to win it as fast as possible. It's like, are you actively trying to ruin everybody's fun by shooting right to the key objective so the campaign ends in 2 weeks instead of 6?

If your campaign is designed to last 6+ weeks and there's a possible way for it to end in 2, it was a poorly designed campaign. Make the progression linear instead of allowing a path to the victory condition in 2 weeks and you won't have that problem. For example our recent Kill Team campaign was designed to last 12 weeks. It ended week 11 because only 3 people weren't guerillas and we were far enough apart in points that 1st, 2nd and 3rd had been decided. There was no possible way for everyone to become a guerilla 3 weeks into the campaign.

Aside from that, what happened to playing for story reasons? Apparently in this narrative campaign you're supposed to be roleplaying commanders that are too stupid to see the objective and go off on pointless tangents to make the war take longer?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DrGiggles wrote:
You mean like what they did by adding custom character creation rules, battle honors, and Cities of Death rules in the latest CA?

I give GW a tiny amount of credit here. They did finally, years after 8th edition's initial release, publish a stripped down version of the 4th/5th edition CoD book (and some utter trash they're claiming is a character system). It says a lot about GW's opinion about the value of narrative players that it took them this long to do something so minimal.

I knew it had 3 different levels, but it's disappointing to know there's not much of a balancing mechanic.

I never understood the conflict on this issue.

Often it is the strong desire for a standard one-way-to-play for everyone, so that everyone is playing the game with the same rules in the same way, which means discussions about the game are all about the same way that is being played.

It also unifies the player pool into one way to play instead of dividing it out into warring camps. Smaller communities really struggle with that, as a deep player pool is the main reason 40k has thrived despite its rules and balancing failures.

If everyone plays the same way, the player pool in your area is deeper than if you have four groups playing in four different ways, making everyone's player pool shallower.

It is also a fear that the way you play that I don't like will become the standard way to play which is negative to me, so I will fight against it to do my part to keep your way to play as the niche way and my way to play as the standard way so that I don't have to worry about the standard being something that I don't like and negatively impact my own enjoyment of the hobby (also gives me the ability to lean on the majority rules fallacy and passively know that my way is the way the majority is done and thus "better")

Those are the reasons I have seen in many cases in these regards.

auticus wrote:

I never understood the conflict on this issue.

Often it is the strong desire for a standard one-way-to-play for everyone, so that everyone is playing the game with the same rules in the same way, which means discussions about the game are all about the same way that is being played.

It also unifies the player pool into one way to play instead of dividing it out into warring camps. Smaller communities really struggle with that, as a deep player pool is the main reason 40k has thrived despite its rules and balancing failures.

If everyone plays the same way, the player pool in your area is deeper than if you have four groups playing in four different ways, making everyone's player pool shallower.

It is also a fear that the way you play that I don't like will become the standard way to play which is negative to me, so I will fight against it to do my part to keep your way to play as the niche way and my way to play as the standard way so that I don't have to worry about the standard being something that I don't like and negatively impact my own enjoyment of the hobby (also gives me the ability to lean on the majority rules fallacy and passively know that my way is the way the majority is done and thus "better")

Those are the reasons I have seen in many cases in these regards.

That seems entirely pointless to do in this hobby because of the nature of the beast. The only way to accomplish this is by clearly communicating with the people you are playing with what kind of game you want to play. If you do not do this and this leads to a poor experience that is on you for not adapting to the situation accordingly.

It wasn't too long ago that there was only one real way to play though. You could walk into any store anywhere in the country and the 40k that was being played was largely the same from coast to coast.

That has changed over the past few years and that has some people rattled. THere have been many posts in many forums on that very topic about how people that travel hate not knowing what flavor of 40k is being played at present when before they knew it was the same and they liked that.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. The game starts basically the moment army lists are created for the mission. You deciding you want extra points for that fact is therefore cheating and done for an in-game advantage. No excuses.
2. EVERY new player I've met (and that's several) has been more prepared with their lists than the people in this thread defending cheating. In fact that's my main accommodation: I already have a list for those points. New kid brings in 1000 points? Yep I already have something to use, so let's get started.

So by your logic a game with you starts before your opponent even knows that they're playing against you...

I'm trying to prepare TAC lists for every point level based on what I might expect. It isn't like I'm list tailoring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DrGiggles wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. The game starts basically the moment army lists are created for the mission. You deciding you want extra points for that fact is therefore cheating and done for an in-game advantage. No excuses.
2. EVERY new player I've met (and that's several) has been more prepared with their lists than the people in this thread defending cheating. In fact that's my main accommodation: I already have a list for those points. New kid brings in 1000 points? Yep I already have something to use, so let's get started.
In fact that's why I always recommend new players ask to see what point levels typically come up in particular shops so they can be prepared.
3. Research your product purchases or man up and accept your army doesn't get everything you want at specific point levels. Either one works. I mean, you think I have every model ever? Of course not. I'm still prepared though.
Also I'm not trying to say you need to netlist, but if making a list at 2000 points is so hard for you maybe you should look to them for guidance? I won't judge.
4. Tournament styles are house rules and typically means those tournaments are organized. I'd like to see you go to an ITC and ask if you can make your list real quick. Ya know, when the other bunch of people came prepared. If locals use those tournament rules, they will adhere to a same point level.
Not hard to adjust to at all.
5. Why should we make special permissions for people who can't make a list properly? Why do we need to cater to them instead of teaching them they can't always get their way?

I've got to ask, would you consider this scenario cheating per #1.

Two players agree to play a PUG at 1850 points, SM vs Orks. Both players show up and have NOT seen the other persons list. At the last moment before deployment, the SM player decides to swap out a unit in his list with a unit of terminators. Would that constitute cheating because his list isn't EXACTLY the same but is still at/under the agreed upon point limit?

That would be cheating, yes.

What exactly is it in your mind that makes this cheating, especially since in this situation he doesn't know what the ork player is going to field? Also how is this any different than having 4 lists ready to go at any time (something that you have said you do) and picking one over the other arbitrarily right before deployment?

 DrGiggles wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Crimson wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
1. The game starts basically the moment army lists are created for the mission. You deciding you want extra points for that fact is therefore cheating and done for an in-game advantage. No excuses.
2. EVERY new player I've met (and that's several) has been more prepared with their lists than the people in this thread defending cheating. In fact that's my main accommodation: I already have a list for those points. New kid brings in 1000 points? Yep I already have something to use, so let's get started.

So by your logic a game with you starts before your opponent even knows that they're playing against you...

I'm trying to prepare TAC lists for every point level based on what I might expect. It isn't like I'm list tailoring.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DrGiggles wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

1. The game starts basically the moment army lists are created for the mission. You deciding you want extra points for that fact is therefore cheating and done for an in-game advantage. No excuses.
2. EVERY new player I've met (and that's several) has been more prepared with their lists than the people in this thread defending cheating. In fact that's my main accommodation: I already have a list for those points. New kid brings in 1000 points? Yep I already have something to use, so let's get started.
In fact that's why I always recommend new players ask to see what point levels typically come up in particular shops so they can be prepared.
3. Research your product purchases or man up and accept your army doesn't get everything you want at specific point levels. Either one works. I mean, you think I have every model ever? Of course not. I'm still prepared though.
Also I'm not trying to say you need to netlist, but if making a list at 2000 points is so hard for you maybe you should look to them for guidance? I won't judge.
4. Tournament styles are house rules and typically means those tournaments are organized. I'd like to see you go to an ITC and ask if you can make your list real quick. Ya know, when the other bunch of people came prepared. If locals use those tournament rules, they will adhere to a same point level.
Not hard to adjust to at all.
5. Why should we make special permissions for people who can't make a list properly? Why do we need to cater to them instead of teaching them they can't always get their way?

I've got to ask, would you consider this scenario cheating per #1.

Two players agree to play a PUG at 1850 points, SM vs Orks. Both players show up and have NOT seen the other persons list. At the last moment before deployment, the SM player decides to swap out a unit in his list with a unit of terminators. Would that constitute cheating because his list isn't EXACTLY the same but is still at/under the agreed upon point limit?

That would be cheating, yes.

What exactly is it in your mind that makes this cheating, especially since in this situation he doesn't know what the ork player is going to field? Also how is this any different than having 4 lists ready to go at any time (something that you have said you do) and picking one over the other arbitrarily right before deployment?

Whether or not the Terminators make the list in question better doesn't matter in the situation presented. The list is "submitted" in that both players had the armies ready to go, and a last minute switch is dishonest and likely done for some benefit.

If the other player hasn't seen the list yet, how can it be dishonest?

First reason: dishonesty requires the one communicating to intend to misinform. There's nothing in the example suggesting the reason for the swap was to misinform.

Second reason: the "original" list was never communicated to the second player. How could the last minute switch then be dishonest? How is this any different, to the second player, than if the first player had always planned to use that list?

Third reason: What benefit could altering your list just before exchanging lists with the opponent (thus being unaware what's in theirs) provide that the first player wouldn't have had when originally writing the list? Aside for more time for reflection, which isn't generally considered an aspect of list building (I haven't seen competitive-timed-list-building even attempted)?

Based on that response here is my last question (and this applies to Peregrine too). Why do you ALWAYS attribute malice (trying to weasel in an advantage over the other player) to the person wanting to make a change?

EDIT: Bharring pretty much sums up how I feel about this.

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
I never understood the conflict on this issue. Some people like to be competitive and play the game as a game and win. Others care more about the narrative and social aspect and winning is secondary. Both are equally valid approaches. Some people prefer power level others prefer points. You can argue one is superior to the other from your perspective, but from another the opposite may be true. Enjoyment is relative and trying to make objective statements on this topic does not really work beyond what you yourself find enjoyable.

If you like competitive games play with people who likes competitive games. If you like narrative games play with people who like narrative games. Neither side is good or bad for their preference. Just be clear when setting up games the type of game you want and how you define that kind of game. Communication is key.

The conflict comes from competitive gamers doing things that narrative gamers find unfluffy or unfair both with their lists (here's my 32 guardsmen allied with a knight army, making them twice as powerful) and their gameplay choices (I have occupied this ruin, you now cannot assault me) but which are totally legal, and narrative gamers generally doing things outside the confines of the game to make it harder for competitive gamers to get a game. Usually, choosing not to play them.

 DrGiggles wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

nou wrote:
Please, just stop acting like some narrative savior... You have not defended narrative gaming, you have defended your misguided concept of what narrative gaming is. You have actively derailed every rare narrative thread on dakka since I'm logged in by ranting about inadequacy of any 40K edition to narrative play and name calling people who actually can have a narrative games using GW base rules fanboys or "pretend to play narrative while all you do is playing unoptimized competitive games" CAAC and you actively continue to do so even in this very thread.

Seriously, what you think you represent in your head and how other people see you through your posts are two completely different things. Try to look at yourself from an outside perspective sometimes, it might be a revelation to you...

Sorry, I forgot that for some people "narrative" means "white knight everything GW does and FORGE A NARRATIVE BEER AND PRETZELS". Unfortunately the reality is that "narrative" means something more than publishing a matched play mission pack and a suggestion to use a less-accurate point system, as GW has done. A proper narrative game includes things like rules for creating and advancing your own characters, guidelines on designing army-specific scenarios that are balanced enough to be fun, etc. Hell, even previous editions of 40k used to have more narrative content. There used to be whole expansion books dedicated to narrative-style games (Cities of Death, etc), FW campaign books with piles of fluff and a whole set of campaign missions to let you play out the story of the book, etc. But the reality of 8th edition is that if you're playing a legitimate narrative game it's because you've done all the work of creating those game elements for GW, turning the generic matched play core game into something more story-focused.

The only question with 8th edition "narrative" gaming is why so many narrative players are willing to defend the garbage GW is publishing instead of being outraged and demanding better treatment. But I guess as long as they publish something that's bad for competitive play that makes it "narrative" enough...

You mean like what they did by adding custom character creation rules, battle honors, and Cities of Death rules in the latest CA?

*mic drop*

How is this thread still running?

I just bought Xiphons because they're OP at 220 points, does that make me WAAC? Or perhaps Win-At-Very-Clearly-Quantifiable-Cost?

 Marmatag wrote:
How is this thread still running?

In circles...

the_scotsman wrote:

 Tibs Ironblood wrote:
I never understood the conflict on this issue. Some people like to be competitive and play the game as a game and win. Others care more about the narrative and social aspect and winning is secondary. Both are equally valid approaches. Some people prefer power level others prefer points. You can argue one is superior to the other from your perspective, but from another the opposite may be true. Enjoyment is relative and trying to make objective statements on this topic does not really work beyond what you yourself find enjoyable.

If you like competitive games play with people who likes competitive games. If you like narrative games play with people who like narrative games. Neither side is good or bad for their preference. Just be clear when setting up games the type of game you want and how you define that kind of game. Communication is key.

The conflict comes from competitive gamers doing things that narrative gamers find unfluffy or unfair both with their lists (here's my 32 guardsmen allied with a knight army, making them twice as powerful) and their gameplay choices (I have occupied this ruin, you now cannot assault me) but which are totally legal, and narrative gamers generally doing things outside the confines of the game to make it harder for competitive gamers to get a game. Usually, choosing not to play them.

As long as narrative players and competitive players do not mix up what kind of game they are playing then there is no conflict. Like I said communication is key. You need to communicate what kind of game you want to play if you intend to have a good time. This was the case before and it's the case now.

auticus wrote:It wasn't too long ago that there was only one real way to play though. You could walk into any store anywhere in the country and the 40k that was being played was largely the same from coast to coast.

That has changed over the past few years and that has some people rattled. THere have been many posts in many forums on that very topic about how people that travel hate not knowing what flavor of 40k is being played at present when before they knew it was the same and they liked that.

It's not changed. I started in 7th so I admit I am still relatively new compared to many others here, but from what I have read the following applies to pre 7th as well. You've always need to establish what kind of game you want to play in accordance with how strong of lists you are bringing. If you want to have a balanced game you need to establish to what levels are both guys playing. Back in 7th my group would say what kind of power level they were aiming for when setting up a game. Did they want a fluffy game? Did they want a moderately competitive, but not tournament level game? Did they want to go full out cutthroat? All modes of play are perfectly fine when both armies play to that level. I couldn't set up a game in 7th without be specific as to what level we were playing at and the same goes for 8th. I can't just take my Primaris marines to the store and set up any game with anyone and expect to get a good game in balance wise. Same goes for dark eldar for the opposite reason.

You always needed to have a common understanding of what kind of game you wanted and that is still the case today.