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Well you are allowed to do whatever you want, which I've said countless times already. However no one better knows what you'd love than you. So you'd need to do some of work to find another system that might float your boat. I mean I see you throw around the word bias a whole lot. You have much of your pro GW bias going on and spout it without shame as you have no well rounded view to speak from when GW is and has been your sole long standing game experience it seems like. Aside from a dabble in WMH. I don't know if I'd keep talking about bias so much.
My comment was more to the fact you say how valuable your time is, yet you spend so much of it here defending GW from seemingly everyone, how is that a good use of your limited and valuable time ? I mean it's not like going through the list is even anything with a time limit on it, you can take your time and glance on through it. Unless you don't want to spend any effort to really expand your horizons at which point just say that as well.
For my "pro-GW bias" I sure have a lot of opinions on how the game could be better or things I think it fails at.
Just because I don't toss around the word "broken" until it loses meaning doesn't mean I think GW is some untouchable paragon of design. I was just trying to be met half way in a legitimate attempt to hear people out and look at other game systems. I didn't realized that asking to bd shown good faith while ttting to show good faith would apparently be so controversial. I guess no one knows what to do when people are willing to actually try and see what the other side is talking about.
And I started this discussion because I felt there was potential for discussion, and have found most of it pretty decent. I mean the disconnect between player perspective and designer intent alone is pretty interesting and I wouldn't have bothered to even consider looking at other games if it wasn't brought up.
Besides, I read this mostly at work when I have down time for breaks or lunch, or when online working on other projects at the same time.
Well, except when arguing with Peregrine. I admit that was a poor use of my time.
I can get that, but all this topic was going to do is prove what most of us already knew. That the gulf between designers and consumers was pretty vast. Part of that reason is that GW themselves talk out of both sides of their mouth. They say how they love narrative and don't really look at balance the same as we do, yet keep trying to feed the tournament scene all the same because they want that money. They saw from the AoS first launch just how wrong they were on people just want to buy models and toss them around with no competitive element to it, had they stayed on that I have no doubt AoS would have died and stayed pretty dead.
A lot of what they say just is so silly, you'd think they may have accidentally figured out what their customers want by now. Instead they laugh off balance concerns and then prop up narrative as a kind of empty shield from being called out. It ultimately feels a bit like a well known lie and leaves a bad taste in some peoples mouth, mine included. I wasn't surprised at all to know the designers have no real clue what the players think, they prove pretty easily and often how oddly disconnected they are while at the same time having more feedback from the community than ever before.
It would be easier to have positive view on them if they were clear to their intent and intentions. clear beyond just that like maybe drop it in a community round up on their page for everyone to read. They made a fair share of mistakes in the past but at least in some regard I felt they were honest with the AoS release in saying they didn't give a crap what we wanted, it was about what they wanted. Also with 7th edition it was a train wreck but they they stayed true to forging the narrative as their push and not really caring at all what tournaments did.
Now it feels like they want to make it competitive but do so poorly and when they screw up laugh it off as it wasn't what they were driving for the whole time. It gives a confused story and makes them look either like they lie, or they are terrible at what they do. I feel like they never really tell us the truth and just keep feeding us lines. Which makes sense as they want to milk us as long as possible but hey, I'd even respect it if they said they do all this to get as much money from us as they can. I doubt they'll ever be that honest with us though but I can dream and on the day they do give us that brutal honesty, I'd respect them. As is, it feels like most of the time they are trying poorly to play us for fools but with a really nice smile.
This is 100%, absolutely spot on. That's exactly what they do. It's corporate doublespeak at its finest. They say in the same breath they care about narrative but are kowtowing to the tournament crowd (poorly) with haphazard balance adjustments because they don't actually understand. So instead they peddle this horsegak constantly where it just seems like lie after lie after lie while pretending that they're trying so cut them some slack.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 14:12:14
However on the AOS end their designers are mostly all tournament players, so I don't think its they don't understand, I think its that they know what makes money, and they know its not narrative play today, its competitive play.
auticus wrote: However on the AOS end their designers are mostly all tournament players, so I don't think its they don't understand, I think its that they know what makes money, and they know its not narrative play today, its competitive play.
AOS yes, but the 40k designers aren't tournament players as far as we can tell, it's the same group from 7th edition that were all about "forge the narrative". And as we've both speculated the spotty balance in AOS is a feature, not a bug, to put the emphasis on listbuilding and combo-stacking.
auticus wrote: However on the AOS end their designers are mostly all tournament players, so I don't think its they don't understand, I think its that they know what makes money, and they know its not narrative play today, its competitive play.
This the same lot of designers who thought AoS needed those larping rules or did they confirm that they gave those geniuses the boot?
"Hold my shoota, I'm goin in"
Armies (7th edition points)
7000+ Points Death Skullz
4000 Points
+ + 3000 Points "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor"
3500 Points "Void Kraken" Space Marines
3000 Points "Bard's Booze Cruise"
auticus wrote: However on the AOS end their designers are mostly all tournament players, so I don't think its they don't understand, I think its that they know what makes money, and they know its not narrative play today, its competitive play.
This the same lot of designers who thought AoS needed those larping rules or did they confirm that they gave those geniuses the boot?
That was, IIRC, before they split the teams. So those people are I believe the same guys on the 40k design team (who were pulling double duty; likely not entirely the same people though) since it was for the longest time the same group working on both games. The AOS team is now heavily UK tournament players (who, granted, also like non-competitive play and can do both)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 15:38:01
After turning my group on to narrative play, I'm starting to think the ruleset and overall product lends itself much better to narrative than competitive.
Narrative games where both players are actively involved in tailoring each other's lists for a balanced match plays directly to the two biggest strengths of Warhammer: rich setting and fantastic miniatures.
slave.entity wrote: After turning my group on to narrative play, I'm starting to think the ruleset and overall product lends itself much better to narrative than competitive.
Narrative games where both players are actively involved in tailoring each other's lists for a balanced match plays directly to the two biggest strengths of Warhammer: rich setting and fantastic miniatures.
Exactly. But the poor rules makes that harder because one person's army might be FOTM and much better than someone else's through no fault of their own, or conversely be uncharacteristically weak. That's why people say that a well balanced, competitive ruleset benefits narrative as well; having care put towards balancing things at the competitive level has the effect of making those narrative choices much closer in balance as well.
slave.entity wrote: After turning my group on to narrative play, I'm starting to think the ruleset and overall product lends itself much better to narrative than competitive.
Narrative games where both players are actively involved in tailoring each other's lists for a balanced match plays directly to the two biggest strengths of Warhammer: rich setting and fantastic miniatures.
Exactly. But the poor rules makes that harder because one person's army might be FOTM and much better than someone else's through no fault of their own, or conversely be uncharacteristically weak. That's why people say that a well balanced, competitive ruleset benefits narrative as well; having care put towards balancing things at the competitive level has the effect of making those narrative choices much closer in balance as well.
That aligns with my experience. Part of the reason why switching from competitive to narrative has been relatively smooth for my group is because all of us have been following the competitive scene very, very closely, so we're generally pretty good at balancing the relative power levels of non-competitive units against each other. But that's after like 2 years of approaching the game exclusively from a competitive mindset. Newer players seeking to play narrative without that experience of valuating unit strength would certainly have a much harder time designing a balanced fight between two armies. But from a narrative play standpoint, maybe that's also part of the fun?
The interesting thing I've found with narrative play is that "trash" datasheets are now suddenly useful. My group almost has this unspoken tier list of units across our factions where everyone kinda knows how broken and boring a game will be if you pit eldar hemlocks against chaos space marines or if you throw tyranid bio-tanks against plaguebearers. And since the goal is to set up a fun game and have a good time, when my buddy wants to run B or C-tier units like CSM and maulerfiends, that's when I'll ditch the hemlocks and run my own lower tier units like aspect warriors and wraithlords. Suddenly those useless datasheets serve a purpose and now we can design matchups specifically to accommodate weaker unit profiles.
We're essentially taking the competitive aspect of the game out of the listbuilding phase. And that works because I think everyone can agree that winning a game before T1 even starts is a huge waste of time for both parties involved.
The thing is, I'm not sure that having this huge discrepancy in power level between a competitive unit and a non-competitive unit is necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it frequently causes problems by creating unwinnable situations where the outcome of a match is decided before the game even starts. That is a problem for sure. But it also adds a certain amount of flexibility in the way narrative players can design their matchups. It's possible to balance a broken, busted OP unit in an army by filling the rest of the list with C-tier garbage, trash datasheets. And from a narrative perspective where both players are actively involved in designing a fair matchup for each other, that's actually kinda cool.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/09/13 17:58:06
I've found a lot of narrative folks don't post much on the forums. They absolutely exist, there's a reason they keep putting out stuff for narrative players, and not just in the studio. You just don't see them much here.
That's a very convenient thing to claim. That these people must exist somewhere, despite there being near-zero evidence of that fact. I maintain that the "narrative players" are all but extinct today. Perhaps they existed in editions before now, but the culture surrounding the game has chewed them up and spat them out ages ago.
Personally, I drew my own conclusions about how I was treated by the community at large, as well as the game designers, and how the game didn't accommodate the kind of armies I wanted to play, and stopped playing it. This has made me significantly happier and more positive as a person. Sure, it's sad that there isn't a game out there for me, but on the other hand, beating my fists at the unyielding fortress of arrogance and idiocy that is the GW rules department never got me anywhere.
40k is a terrible game for narrative gaming, and anyone attempting to use it for such should re-examine the meaningfulness of their actions, and Let. It. Go. You're never going to get what you want out of the half-formed chimera that GW has nurtured in its bosom for all these years, and regularly lining up to pay the latest releases is never going to change that.
I don't know if this is entirely fair. For one thing, there still are a lot of narrative players, though I haven't seen them much on the forums. I've seen a few on YouTube, but honestly most of the people I know who are in it for narrative show up to clubs and don't engage much online. I don't know that its helpless to try a narrative style army, you just have to play with like minded people. I will concede that the GW certainly doesn't do a lot to help with that though...
slave.entity wrote: After turning my group on to narrative play, I'm starting to think the ruleset and overall product lends itself much better to narrative than competitive.
Narrative games where both players are actively involved in tailoring each other's lists for a balanced match plays directly to the two biggest strengths of Warhammer: rich setting and fantastic miniatures.
Exactly. But the poor rules makes that harder because one person's army might be FOTM and much better than someone else's through no fault of their own, or conversely be uncharacteristically weak. That's why people say that a well balanced, competitive ruleset benefits narrative as well; having care put towards balancing things at the competitive level has the effect of making those narrative choices much closer in balance as well.
That aligns with my experience. Part of the reason why switching from competitive to narrative has been relatively smooth for my group is because all of us have been following the competitive scene very, very closely, so we're generally pretty good at balancing the relative power levels of non-competitive units against each other. But that's after like 2 years of approaching the game exclusively from a competitive mindset. Newer players seeking to play narrative without that experience of valuating unit strength would certainly have a much harder time designing a balanced fight between two armies. But from a narrative play standpoint, maybe that's also part of the fun?
The interesting thing I've found with narrative play is that "trash" datasheets are now suddenly useful. My group almost has this unspoken tier list of units across our factions where everyone kinda knows how broken and boring a game will be if you pit eldar hemlocks against chaos space marines or if you throw tyranid bio-tanks against plaguebearers. And since the goal is to set up a fun game and have a good time, when my buddy wants to run B or C-tier units like CSM and maulerfiends, that's when I'll ditch the hemlocks and run my own lower tier units like aspect warriors and wraithlords. Suddenly those useless datasheets serve a purpose and now we can design matchups specifically to accommodate weaker unit profiles.
We're essentially taking the competitive aspect of the game out of the listbuilding phase. And that works because I think everyone can agree that winning a game before T1 even starts is a huge waste of time for both parties involved.
The thing is, I'm not sure that having this huge discrepancy in power level between a competitive unit and a non-competitive unit is necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it frequently causes problems by creating unwinnable situations where the outcome of a match is decided before the game even starts. That is a problem for sure. But it also adds a certain amount of flexibility in the way narrative players can design their matchups. It's possible to balance a broken, busted OP unit in an army by filling the rest of the list with C-tier garbage, trash datasheets. And from a narrative perspective where both players are actively involved in designing a fair matchup for each other, that's actually kinda cool.
I see what you're saying, but that only works if you and your opponent can meet ahead of the game and arrive to the table knowing who you will be facing. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it (probably is ultimately preferable) but the rules as written don't lend themselves to pick-up games, which are still pretty common at a lot of clubs (at least in my area). In my group, we try to have thematic armies/ campaigns, but we don't always know who will be matched up with who upon arriving to the club (mostly a logistical issue).
If the rules were more balanced, they would lend themselves better to games that don't require as much planning/ needing your opponent to go over your list with you. We would get more good games in if we could just show up with a list and play, trusting the ruleset to be balanced enough to be fun.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 18:41:04
I think RE: Pickup games the most ironic thing is that there's no reason to have a blind pickup game. Most groups/game stores have Facebook pages and most people use Facebook. It's not that hard to hash out all of the "ahead of game" stuff before game day via posts on Facebook or whatever so you don't have to do it after.
Yet for some reason, people insist on essentially deciding at random to travel to the game store and hope that someone else had the same idea, rather than pre-arrange that.
Wayniac wrote: I think RE: Pickup games the most ironic thing is that there's no reason to have a blind pickup game. Most groups/game stores have Facebook pages and most people use Facebook. It's not that hard to hash out all of the "ahead of game" stuff before game day via posts on Facebook or whatever so you don't have to do it after.
Yet for some reason, people insist on essentially deciding at random to travel to the game store and hope that someone else had the same idea, rather than pre-arrange that.
Why yes, it's entirely inconceivable that an LGS might, say, schedule a set time every week where a particular game system is played. Who would ever do that?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 19:02:40
Wayniac wrote: I think RE: Pickup games the most ironic thing is that there's no reason to have a blind pickup game. Most groups/game stores have Facebook pages and most people use Facebook. It's not that hard to hash out all of the "ahead of game" stuff before game day via posts on Facebook or whatever so you don't have to do it after.
Yet for some reason, people insist on essentially deciding at random to travel to the game store and hope that someone else had the same idea, rather than pre-arrange that.
Why yes, it's entirely inconceivable that an LGS might, say, schedule a set time every week where a particular game system is played. Who would ever do that?
I don't know about you, but even when there's Friday Night 40k, there's no reason to just show up out of the blue rather than arrange a game on the group's Facebook/Meetup/etc. page first. My point remains. There's no reason to just head on down and walk into a blind game against someone who also just came down rather than hash things out beforehand, so the excuse of "I don't want to discuss things before playing" is pretty much a load of gak since you can do it before you ever get to the store.
Or is it really that hard to say "Gonna be at the store at 6 on Friday for 40k. Anyone up for a game" and then discuss what sort of game you want.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/09/13 19:08:44
Wayniac wrote: I don't know about you, but even when there's Friday Night 40k, there's no reason to just show up out of the blue rather than arrange a game on the group's Facebook/Meetup/etc. page first. My point remains. There's no reason to just head on down and walk into a blind game against someone who also just came down rather than hash things out beforehand, so the excuse of "I don't want to discuss things before playing" is pretty much a load of gak since you can do it before you ever get to the store.
Or is it really that hard to say "Gonna be at the store at 6 on Friday for 40k. Anyone up for a game" and then discuss what sort of game you want.
Translation: you're incapable of comprehending that other people might function socially different than you do.
Not hard, no. But it shouldn't be necessary. If the game was balanced correctly, you wouldn't NEED to hash things out, tweak lists, and adjust strategies. I could literally invite you over to my house for beer, watch some T.V., then say "Hey, I'm bored. Wanna play a few rounds of 40k?" And we could just set up models and go.
Wayniac wrote: Sure it does. There's no excuse for not wanting to arrange a fething game beforehand and instead just head on down. feth off with that idiocy.
Thats a big ole nope. Also, somebody's feeling a mite touchy about not being able to dictate how other people interact within their social circles.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 19:19:25
Basically the intent of the rules team is for people to tell cool stories with their minis instead of focusing on just crushing each other into paste.
Adopting this approach to 40k has been an enriching experience for me personally. Especially after getting bored with exclusively following competitive for the past couple of years. Like many here I agree that competitive 40k can be pretty shallow and can sometimes feel like a lot of wasted effort and shelved minis with every balance patch. Lucky for us there are other ways to play, even with the current ruleset.
Basically the intent of the rules team is for people to tell cool stories with their minis instead of focusing on just crushing each other into paste.
Adopting this approach to 40k has been an enriching experience for me personally. Especially after getting bored with exclusively following competitive for the past couple of years. Like many here I agree that competitive 40k can be pretty shallow and can sometimes feel like a lot of wasted effort and shelved minis with every balance patch. Lucky for us there are other ways to play, even with the current ruleset.
Ah if only more people felt the way you do instead of immediately throwing away 2/3 of the game to focus on 1/3 (i.e. Matched Play) and then taking that to its most extreme level, without knowing when to dial it back (or, worse, thinking such a thing is a mortal sin)
I am a big proponent of unequal points/PL or buff/debuff games.
More and more of the "new" players(as in coming back to game after absence) are former heavy tourney players. they have said on more than one occasion that they really like the more laid back narrative focused games with tons of terrain and like minded players.
Now we have recently had an influx of comp players that actively participate in tourneys and there has been small uptick in people asking to play ITC(I dont play them but others do). I'll ask them what they've played before and 90% will say MTG. We've also had a fair amount of burnout(hobby and $$wise) from them. They'll buy the newesthotness, either paint it themselves or pay pro, go to some tourneys, not have any fun and say peace out. I understand that's how it's supposed to work but isn't it bad for the hobby in general?
I just hope that more people would just fall in love with the lore first then pick which army best represents them not by which rules are "best"(which will change).
That's a very convenient thing to claim. That these people must exist somewhere, despite there being near-zero evidence of that fact. I maintain that the "narrative players" are all but extinct today. Perhaps they existed in editions before now, but the culture surrounding the game has chewed them up and spat them out ages ago.
Personally, I drew my own conclusions about how I was treated by the community at large, as well as the game designers, and how the game didn't accommodate the kind of armies I wanted to play, and stopped playing it. This has made me significantly happier and more positive as a person. Sure, it's sad that there isn't a game out there for me, but on the other hand, beating my fists at the unyielding fortress of arrogance and idiocy that is the GW rules department never got me anywhere.
40k is a terrible game for narrative gaming, and anyone attempting to use it for such should re-examine the meaningfulness of their actions, and Let. It. Go. You're never going to get what you want out of the half-formed chimera that GW has nurtured in its bosom for all these years, and regularly lining up to pay the latest releases is never going to change that.
It's funny that duting 6th and 7th the cry was to let competetive 40k go because it was dead and now the cry is to let Narrative gaming go instead. How about we all stop telling people the right way to play with their toys and let them have fun how they want?
Basically the intent of the rules team is for people to tell cool stories with their minis instead of focusing on just crushing each other into paste.
Adopting this approach to 40k has been an enriching experience for me personally. Especially after getting bored with exclusively following competitive for the past couple of years. Like many here I agree that competitive 40k can be pretty shallow and can sometimes feel like a lot of wasted effort and shelved minis with every balance patch. Lucky for us there are other ways to play, even with the current ruleset.
Ah if only more people felt the way you do instead of immediately throwing away 2/3 of the game to focus on 1/3 (i.e. Matched Play) and then taking that to its most extreme level, without knowing when to dial it back (or, worse, thinking such a thing is a mortal sin)
I don't know about you, but I would much rather play 3/3 of the game, and play the units I like, without needing to tone my list down, or hope my opponent will adjust theirs to tell cool stories. Balance aside, the ruleset, on a mechanical level does not facilitate storytelling well- the chosen deign space is too narrow. Most special rules are minor variations of rerolls, + or - to a save, mortal wounds, etc.- that isn't decision making, or telling stories, it's modifying probability. 40k 8th is extremely limiting at its core.
If GW were to move to AA, that would open up myriad options that aren't feasible with IGOUGO. For example, in 40k a "hit and run" was passing an initiative test to withdraw from being locked in combat, now it's the "fly" keyword- falling back with no penalty. Functional, but not interesting or exciting. MEDGe has the best execution for guerrilla warfare that I've seen- the unit makes a double move, passes over/through the opposing unit, makes its attacks, and receives defensive fire. That is some cool storytelling, embedded within the rules, not reliant on playing pretend.
Which is why I use a houseruled aos (and 40k) ruleset that uses alternate activation. THe game opens up a whole lot more and is tons more fun (to me and the people that play with me).
flandarz wrote:Not hard, no. But it shouldn't be necessary. If the game was balanced correctly, you wouldn't NEED to hash things out, tweak lists, and adjust strategies. I could literally invite you over to my house for beer, watch some T.V., then say "Hey, I'm bored. Wanna play a few rounds of 40k?" And we could just set up models and go.
'What size board, what size game, what scenario'?
Not everyone wants the same thing.
Table top games are very limited systems that can only handle so much weight. With respect, no game will ever be 'balanced correctly enough' to avoid these things or allow for all things to simultaneously be equally capable/viable/workable across all scenarios and occasions without any external input or pre-game effort. This is a unicorn. And as I pointed out earlier, every balance mechanic has a cost associated. Not everyone wants it, or agrees with the 'solution'. At the end of the day, There are only so many things the writers can actually do. And aside from that, at the end of the day, and more importantly from my perspective at least (feel free to differ, by all means) we are still dealing with people (and let's face it, the person at the other end of he board isn't an npc), and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect different people to have different expectations and different likes and dislikes. This will translate to hashing things out in some form. This is not necessarily a good, or a bad thing, just a thing. Does that mean you have to cater to every whim, or surrender everything that's important to you? Or them to you? Or talk endlessly in circles for hours or days? Probably not. I would at least suggest to folks to be open to accommodation (as opposed to accommodation-at-all-costs) or listening at the very least, and if your tastes are actually too different/divergent, then fair enough, say no, shake hands and politely look elsewhere. No egos need be bruised.
I don't see any problems with hashing things out, making accommodations. tweaking or adjusting things when I'm doing stuff, or planning stuff with my wife, or friends/family, for me at least, it's not too much of a stretch to extend this to the folks at the other end of the table to me.
Sterling191 wrote:
Translation: you're incapable of comprehending that other people might function socially different than you do.
Your point doesnt remain.
He has a Point though. I don't think it has anything to do with people functioning socially different - With respect, the reality on the ground is that often the blind match up pick-up-games are hugely vulnerable to 'gotcha!' Match-ups and 'negative play experiences'. Maybe you don't see it this way, but wayniac obviously has a different frame of reference. And I have enough negative experiences of blind pick-up-games (and posiiive ones too, to be fair) to at least be wary of it. I don't think it's ever smart to walk into a situation 'blind'. I don't do it in work, I don't do it in my day-to-day plans, why would I do it do it for my actually-valuable hobby/game time? At the very least, I want to know the people and the type of 'game' they bring to the board. And I don't think it's unreasonable to actually want to enjoy one's actual game-time. I don't think it's unreasonable to want to talk about it with ones peers, if this results in getting that good game. I can't imagine many people want to walk into a seal clubbing [either end]. This is as true for 40k as many other games. As with anything, when it comes to the pre-game talk, it's doesn't have to be huge. it's not black and white - there is a spectrum.I don't think it's an unfair, or unreasonable suggestion to put up a flag and say 'guys, heading down to the game store at 8. I'm seriously tempted to bring my 2000pt tourney prep marines/semi-competitive orks [insert build]. Anyone up for a game?' It's also true some folks might genuinely enjoy the game building aspects of the minutiae of building a scenario before turning up. Neither is wrong.
I wouldn't expect to take a girl out and have a good time without talking to her, or putting some effort into it too (back in the day at least!). This is helpful for anything that has a social aspect. And that includes gaming.
Again, just my $0.02
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/13 23:34:32
The thing is, I'm not sure that having this huge discrepancy in power level between a competitive unit and a non-competitive unit is necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it frequently causes problems by creating unwinnable situations where the outcome of a match is decided before the game even starts. That is a problem for sure. But it also adds a certain amount of flexibility in the way narrative players can design their matchups. It's possible to balance a broken, busted OP unit in an army by filling the rest of the list with C-tier garbage, trash datasheets. And from a narrative perspective where both players are actively involved in designing a fair matchup for each other, that's actually kinda cool.
I’ve tried to explain this very thing in numerous threads over the years - from narrative standpoint, the more true variety in unit behaviour you have available, the richer your exploration of the game can be. And because balance is very dependant on scenario/terrain/win conditions and cannot be simplified to just appropriate point costs it often means that units very valuable to narrative players just end up outside of any utility or are borderline OP in competitive context. But if they were to be ballanced according to competitive tastes the overall landscape of the game available to narrative players would narrow. From narrative standpoint you want to have units that barely do anything and units that are one model army capable of trumping all others, because then you can focus different narratives around such varied cores and then tailor the rest of your scenario to match utilising all other cogs in the system. But such approach to the game fundamentally requires cooperative and quite meticulous preparation, far beyond what is already considered too much from a pick-up culture perspective.
And because this seems to be how GW envisions their game for the last 30 years, but now also want to cater to more competitively focused players we live in realities of an uneasy compromise that doesn’t look like changing anytime soon.
But such approach to the game fundamentally requires cooperative and quite meticulous preparation, far beyond what is already considered too much from a pick-up culture perspective.
Good point. These small shifts in cultural attitudes/expectations are probably a great source of angst.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/09/14 02:48:16
nou wrote: From narrative standpoint you want to have units that barely do anything and units that are one model army capable of trumping all others, because then you can focus different narratives around such varied cores and then tailor the rest of your scenario to match utilising all other cogs in the system.
None of that is incompatible with competitive play because point costs exist. You can have cheap cannon fodder and you can have expensive god-level units, you just have to assign them accurate point costs. If you balance them for competitive play they will work just fine in narrative play, nothing is lost from the narrative point of view.
This is a pretty weak argument given the fact that the NOVA narrative event was a matched play event using the conventional point system and tournament rules (RO3, etc) and a pretty typical matched play scenario pack. The majority of the story stuff happened outside of the on-table events and you could easily ignore it and play it as a standard 40k tournament without noticing its absence.
(Now, why you would want to do so instead of just playing in the competitive event is a good question, but unrelated to the point that the existence of a "narrative" event at NOVA doesn't prove the existence of these supposed narrative-focused players that genuinely play the game differently.)
Wayniac wrote: Ah if only more people felt the way you do instead of immediately throwing away 2/3 of the game to focus on 1/3 (i.e. Matched Play) and then taking that to its most extreme level, without knowing when to dial it back (or, worse, thinking such a thing is a mortal sin)
It isn't throwing away 2/3 of the game just because GW's marketing department came up with a "three ways to play" slogan for 8th. Open play is, at best, 1% of the game content and has zero reason to exist. Throwing it away is losing nothing of value. Narrative play, as created by GW, is mostly just matched play with a different scenario pack and a much less balanced point system (which offers nothing in return for this lack of balance). So what you have is a game that is 90% matched play of various levels of competitiveness, 9% true narrative games run by people who go way beyond the published rules, and 1% random nonsense that nobody cares about. Focusing on matched play means focusing on the overwhelming majority of the game.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/09/14 03:25:44
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
This is a pretty weak argument given the fact that the NOVA narrative event was a matched play event using the conventional point system and tournament rules (RO3, etc) and a pretty typical matched play scenario pack. The majority of the story stuff happened outside of the on-table events and you could easily ignore it and play it as a standard 40k tournament without noticing its absence.
(Now, why you would want to do so instead of just playing in the competitive event is a good question, but unrelated to the point that the existence of a "narrative" event at NOVA doesn't prove the existence of these supposed narrative-focused players that genuinely play the game differently.)
The point wasn't to speak to the quality of the event but rather to point out that there is enough draw to run a narrative event, even if it follows matched play rules for easier scenario crafting (because PL is fine for local pick up games, but points just make more sense). The claim that narrative players don't exist doesn't really hold up when there are enough of them around to fill an event like this consistently enough that these events are a staple at most large conventions.
That said, it feels like AoS has the better narrative event online community right now. Not sure why, but they seem to be more out there promoting their events and visiting podcasts, ect. Maybe it's because, very broadly speaking, the online community focuses more on competetive play so there are less places for them to get their voice out. Don't know, just something I've noticed.
EDIT: I would argue open play has one very good reason to exist as a game format: you can do very basic games of 40k with it only using the free core rules and the datasheets thst come in a box of minis. This makes it perfect to use to get games in for players who are still learning before they have a legal army, and let's you teach them how the core mechanics work before we branch into missions, scoring, points, CP, detachments, ect.
It's best use is basically training wheels to get people into the game at a comfortable pace.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/14 06:10:39
This is a pretty weak argument given the fact that the NOVA narrative event was a matched play event using the conventional point system and tournament rules (RO3, etc) and a pretty typical matched play scenario pack. The majority of the story stuff happened outside of the on-table events and you could easily ignore it and play it as a standard 40k tournament without noticing its absence.
(Now, why you would want to do so instead of just playing in the competitive event is a good question, but unrelated to the point that the existence of a "narrative" event at NOVA doesn't prove the existence of these supposed narrative-focused players that genuinely play the game differently.)
The point wasn't to speak to the quality of the event but rather to point out that there is enough draw to run a narrative event, even if it follows matched play rules for easier scenario crafting (because PL is fine for local pick up games, but points just make more sense). The claim that narrative players don't exist doesn't really hold up when there are enough of them around to fill an event like this consistently enough that these events are a staple at most large conventions.
That said, it feels like AoS has the better narrative event online community right now. Not sure why, but they seem to be more out there promoting their events and visiting podcasts, ect. Maybe it's because, very broadly speaking, the online community focuses more on competetive play so there are less places for them to get their voice out. Don't know, just something I've noticed.
EDIT: I would argue open play has one very good reason to exist as a game format: you can do very basic games of 40k with it only using the free core rules and the datasheets thst come in a box of minis. This makes it perfect to use to get games in for players who are still learning before they have a legal army, and let's you teach them how the core mechanics work before we branch into missions, scoring, points, CP, detachments, ect.
It's best use is basically training wheels to get people into the game at a comfortable pace.
I like how quick some are to dismiss open play as useless, lame, etc...
If you've never played a game before, OPEN play allows an easy route to learning the game. which you can then use as a springboard to the "deeper" levels of the game. There are also players that dont care about codecies, supplements, and the like. They just want to plop models down and roll dice, OPEN play, allows for this. We all know certain players that find the entire OPEN play premise unconscionable and an affront to their "higher"(horse) sensibilities, but it exists nonetheless. Funny thing about OPEN play, it's really kinda OPEN.
I do think there will ultimately be more money for GW if they continue to focus on improving balance for competitive play. Narrative play is far more demanding in terms of prep time and game knowledge and seems to require more of a prior relationship between parties involved, especially if the goal is to have a fair fight between two armies.
On the other hand, the competitive play mindset is much easier to teach to new players and is better suited to pickup games between total strangers at your local store. People want and perhaps expect to be able to show up at an agreed points limit and have a fair, balanced game against someone they've never met. The demand is clearly there.
I think the 8E focus on matched play, while far from perfect, is still definitely one of the bigger factors in 40k's recent surge in popularity. Games that focus on narrative and role play will generally be more niche than games that are balanced, well-defined contests of skill. There is simply less friction in getting started with a skill contest game: just learn the rules, show up at a store, and you're good to go.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/09/14 06:28:56
slave.entity wrote: I do think there will ultimately be more money for GW if they continue to focus on improving balance for competitive play. Narrative play is far more demanding in terms of prep time and game knowledge and seems to require more of a prior relationship between parties involved, especially if the goal is to have a fair fight between two armies.
On the other hand, the competitive play mindset is much easier to teach to new players and is better suited to pickup games between total strangers at your local store. People want and perhaps expect to be able to show up at an agreed points limit and have a fair, balanced game against someone they've never met. The demand is clearly there.
I think the 8E focus on matched play, while far from perfect, is still definitely one of the bigger factors in 40k's recent surge in popularity. Games that focus on narrative and role play will generally be more niche than games that are balanced, well-defined contests of skill. There is simply less friction in getting started with a skill contest game: just learn the rules, show up at a store, and you're good to go.
I would love if they put out rules for better narrative play, with there books they probably could put some effort in there and i think it would be great. But ultimately i think most of the rules we use for narrative, are just good rules that are designed to give the game a good feel anyway. Its why i think 40k falls flat for narrative so often, and why i think the matched play as actuly been more pushed in all the time GW have been throwing out there narrative focus.
I think the biggest issue GW has is its no real care to the size and what a normal game of 40k represents. What infantry are for, and what they do in there game. Its as much design as it is rules.
7000+ Points Death Skullz
4000 Points
+ 
+ 3000 Points "The Fiery Heart of the Emperor"
3000 Points "Bard's Booze Cruise" 
