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Apple fox wrote:

 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.

I disagree, I'd say every book that's not a codex focuses mainly on narrative play (Vigilus I+II, 2/3 of CA, Urban Conquest, 2/3 of the rulebook, the Konor campaign). So GW produces quite a lot of narrative content and I don't think they would if it didn't sell. FaQs mainly concentrate on matched and/ or organized play, that's true. In reality matched and narrative overlap anyway, battlescribe makes power level pretty useless, so it's easy to play narrative with points which I'd assume as the default way to play 40K.

I really feel bad for people that bought Vigilius for space marine rules, and now got them over writen a few months later by an updated codex.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Apple fox wrote:

 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.

I disagree, I'd say every book that's not a codex focuses mainly on narrative play (Vigilus I+II, 2/3 of CA, Urban Conquest, 2/3 of the rulebook, the Konor campaign). So GW produces quite a lot of narrative content and I don't think they would if it didn't sell. FaQs mainly concentrate on matched and/ or organized play, that's true. In reality matched and narrative overlap anyway, battlescribe makes power level pretty useless, so it's easy to play narrative with points which I'd assume as the default way to play 40K.

I forgot Vigilus books exist We used it once it think. Urban Conquest was fairly avg for its really high price D:
But yea, most of the rules we use for narrative games (Not just 40k) are just good rules that make the game play in a good way.

 slave.entity wrote:
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'm pretty sure that's the design aim for Warhammer Underworlds, and possibly Kill Team - it doesn't describe 40k, however, no matter how much the tournament crowd want to claim it does.

So the argument is that narrative is the dominant way to play w40k? Because all the narrative/open play stuff GW tends to talk about, seems more like a smoke screen for them to explain why GW products differ from each other so much. To a point where it is unexplainable to me, how the same group of people, that work at the studio for decades, write some stuff back to back.

 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.

This is accurate. IMO it's worth it. But yes, narrative play does require a bit of 'game-building'.

 slave.entity wrote:

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.

Hmm I'm not sure I agree fully. There is a link between the two - for sure - building a pragmatic 'minimum set-up-to-get-going' game mode is absolutely fine. It serves a valuable niche. That serves both mass-participation events like tournaments where you can have loads of people playing, and you need a quick and efficient way of making things move, and also the 'pick-up-game'. As you said earlier, narrative play is far more demanding in terms of prep time and game knowledge, and it's nice to just be able to 'get on with it', and 'have a game'. That said, a lot of things get sacrificed on the altar in the name of this pragmatism. I'm sceptical that it is always worth it.

That said, while the demand for a game where you can, as you say, 'expect to be able to show up at an agreed points limit and have a fair, balanced game against someone they've never met', is that the actual physical reality on the ground and is that truly reflective of the limitations of ttg's and an accurate representation of our hobby? Maybe we are doing ourselves a disservice by pushing a mode of play and an ambition of a type of game that isn't really pragmatically possible, or workable to the levels that some people seemingly insist it should be.

 slave.entity wrote:

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 think it's fairer to say that gw codifying the various ways of play, including match play, along with an attitude shift, social media presence, better communication etc and pushing out in different direction with the various boxed games and specialists games has a lot more to do with it. Gw have always supported 'playing games' after all. In my experience,what you call 'Matched play' was never not supported in earlier editions.

About 'everyone benefits from balance'. At first glance this seems to be true. However, it really depends on how that balance is achieved. If we're talking about adjusting point cost or nerfing an occasional rule that was a tad too powerful, then sure, I fully support that. However, In discussions here it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the only thing the people demanding better balance want. They want restrictions. Limits on how many detachments you can take, how many of which unit you can take, to ban index units, allies, Forgeworld etc. Now this is the sort of 'balancing' that does have negative side effects, and it is something I do not support.

 Crimson wrote:
About 'everyone benefits from balance'. At first glance this seems to be true. However, it really depends on how that balance is achieved. If we're talking about adjusting point cost or nerfing an occasional rule that was a tad too powerful, then sure, I fully support that. However, In discussions here it quickly becomes apparent that this is not the only thing the people demanding better balance want. They want restrictions. Limits on how many detachments you can take, how many of which unit you can take, to ban index units, allies, Forgeworld etc. Now this is the sort of 'balancing' that does have negative side effects, and it is something I do not support.

Those restrictions (which are an important component of balance) are easily ignored for narrative games. Anyone, for whom balance is not a priority, can freely ignore or create rules the best suit them and their group. But creating balance and tactical depth is best done by the designers in the core rules. If winning truly does not matter, only working together to tell cool stories, why does it matter what the rules allow you to do at all?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
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.

It's not about the quality of the event, and I wasn't criticizing the quality of it (I was at NOVA to play in it!). The point is about this supposed "three ways to play" concept where narrative play is significantly different from matched play, enough that it deserves to be considered a separate way to play the game instead of a subset of matched play. And NOVA's narrative event clearly falls into the second category, not the first. It was a standard matched play event with some background fiction happening outside of the on-table events. Any differences between the narrative event and any other matched play event were small enough that it would be ridiculous to consider it a separate way of playing the game.

If you want to set aside narrative play as a separate way of playing the game then you need to look at the people who create elaborate story-based scenarios/campaigns, create armies and terrain specifically for the game, etc. Do these people exist in any meaningful numbers? Maybe. It's possible, but I doubt it and NOVA's narrative event sure as hell isn't an example of that kind of thing.

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.

"Newbie's first teaching game" isn't a complete "way to play the game", it's a rare and temporary exception to the normal way of playing the game. It is absurd to suggest that this kind of teaching game has equal status with matched play.

On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

 Crimson wrote:
On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

But how is this not just a matched play game?

 Crimson wrote:
On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

How would a more balanced game inhibit a narrative style? Why use points when in GW games they have never been an accurate measurement of a unit's in-game value? To frame it as player attitude suggests that this isn't really about rules at all.

I want more narrative in 40k. Balancing the game helps this. Balance is not necessarily symmettrical, either. There can be diversity and balance, but only with a bit more complexity.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

But how is this not just a matched play game?

It is not using matched missions, which, at least in theory, should be designed for optimal fair competition. Narrative missions really do not need to do that. They can have asymmetric setups etc. Not that it really matter what it is called.

 Crimson wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

But how is this not just a matched play game?

It is not using matched missions, which, at least in theory, should be designed for optimal fair competition. Narrative missions really do not need to do that. They can have asymmetric setups etc. Not that it really matter what it is called.

But the GW narrative missions are mostly just a matched play scenario pack and wouldn't feel out of place in a matched play game. They're generic templates of "convoy ambush" or "fortress assault" or whatever, with no army-specific or story-specific content that would tie the rules into the narrative element. No specific forces to use, no character development over a series of games, no adjustments to the rules based on previous events in the story, etc. You just show up with a matched play list at X points and play a game against whoever happens to be on the other side of the table.

And it does matter what it's called when the question is whether the whole "three ways to play" concept is valid. GW's marketing department can invent whatever slogans they want, but in reality most 40k is matched play with a handful of games being genuinely different narrative gaming or an occasional low-structure newbie teaching game. That isn't "three ways to play", it's "one way to play but with some rare exceptions that aren't worth talking about".

How the three ways is handed is not great. But I still think that having separate matched, competitive or tournament missions is valid. I really don't think asymmetrical mission are good for a tournament for example.

How I would handle it is that there would be two ways, 'open' and 'competitive'. The former would be basically everything, whilst the latter would have a set list of missions and possibly some other restrictions.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

But how is this not just a matched play game?

Narrative missions or homebrew units, rules or wargear means straying outside of the matched play rule framework. Matched Play has a defined set of missions, units and even wargear.

And before someone goes "doesn't that mean tournaments are narrative?" the difference comes from the reason why the rules exist. Narrative games exist to try to tell stories, tournament rulesets exist to try and even the playing field to (in theory) to find the better player.

Narrative army builds can lean into taking subpar choices on the table to stick to a specific feel or apsect of lore, while competetive armies lean into finding the most powerful combos.

And regarding balance: most players don't want a balance solution that takes away options. I mean rolling Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves into C:SM and then giving them supplements would make everything about the Marine mess better, but how many would actually be happy with that? Not as many as we'd like to believe I'd guess.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Narrative army builds can lean into taking subpar choices on the table to stick to a specific feel or apsect of lore, while competetive armies lean into finding the most powerful combos.

Then again, why are there subpar choices? Why not make those option better? One thing that bugged me on the video was when Gallagher was talking about taking stuff that was not so great but fitted thematically to the army. You are the rules writer, FFS! Making the things that are thematically appropriate for a given faction to also be worthwhile competitively for that faction is your fething job! If subfaction rules have to exist then that is what they should be doing.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
On the video they talked about some GW people who tend to play narrative/matched hybrid. I.e. play in narrative style using narrative missions but with points and matched play rules. I expect this to be be pretty common approach.

But how is this not just a matched play game?

Narrative missions or homebrew units, rules or wargear means straying outside of the matched play rule framework. Matched Play has a defined set of missions, units and even wargear.

And before someone goes "doesn't that mean tournaments are narrative?" the difference comes from the reason why the rules exist. Narrative games exist to try to tell stories, tournament rulesets exist to try and even the playing field to (in theory) to find the better player.

Narrative army builds can lean into taking subpar choices on the table to stick to a specific feel or apsect of lore, while competetive armies lean into finding the most powerful combos.

And regarding balance: most players don't want a balance solution that takes away options. I mean rolling Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves into C:SM and then giving them supplements would make everything about the Marine mess better, but how many would actually be happy with that? Not as many as we'd like to believe I'd guess.

I doubt anyone has solid data on players' views on changing or removing options to balance the game. As a Dark Angel player, I would be fine with marines being rolled together, so long as the unique units are kept. Maybe give variant chapters a bespoke rule or two, but not chapter tactics-style probability buffs. Which would require moving to alternating activation.

How many options in the game right now actually add variety to gameplay? One of my biggest issues with 40k is that the various armies often suck, sometimes badly, with army composition that reflects their fighting style, or when attempted to be played that way. Balance and complexity would make fluffy armies viable for winning games.

In 7th, my usual list was a librarian, two tac squads w/ flamer/missile launcher, sniper scouts, termies, las/plas devs, 6 bikes, a land speeder w/ assault cannon, and a dark talon. Fluffy, but man did I lose a lot of games with them to IKs, Necron decurions, etc. Poor balance punishes narrative play.

I don't have a problem with codex chapters being in the main SM codex with their own supplements, and non-codex chapters having their own individual codexes. GW seem to have sorted out the SM mess that was the first 2 years of 8th edition now. The Primaris line has been expanded, non-Primaris marines are here to stay, and the main SM codex isn't polluted with random characters from a few chapters. I just wish that's how they'd done it in the first place so I didn't have to buy all my rules twice...

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Narrative missions or homebrew units, rules or wargear means straying outside of the matched play rule framework. Matched Play has a defined set of missions, units and even wargear.

But homebrew stuff isn't part of GW's version of narrative play, and it isn't part of the "matched play with narrative missions" concept. For example, NOVA's narrative event that you mentioned required strict RAW matched play armies with no custom units/wargear/whatever permitted. How many people are actually making up their own rules, vs. playing with GW's rules and telling a story about it later?

And regarding balance: most players don't want a balance solution that takes away options.

Most players are wrong. 40k is a bloated mess of options that shouldn't exist, primarily because way too many people have bought into the GW myth that anything that doesn't have explicit rules on the datasheet doesn't exist in the fluff. Consolidating the bloat into a smaller set of genuinely different and interesting options would be good for everyone, narrative or competitive.

I mean rolling Blood Angels, Dark Angels and Space Wolves into C:SM and then giving them supplements would make everything about the Marine mess better, but how many would actually be happy with that? Not as many as we'd like to believe I'd guess.

Everyone that doesn't play marines would be happy, for a start. And the issue here isn't narrative vs. competitive rules, it's people being ignorant of good game design principles and demanding special snowflake rules for every single sub-faction of space marines (but no other army!) even when it's bad for the overall health of the game.

Or, we give all the sub-factions their own Codex. Codex: Goffs. Codex: Hive Fleet Behemoth. Codex: Cadians. See? Makes perfect sense. They're all so different.

 flandarz wrote:
Or, we give all the sub-factions their own Codex. Codex: Goffs. Codex: Hive Fleet Behemoth. Codex: Cadians. See? Makes perfect sense. They're all so different.

RULES FOR THE RULES GOD! BLOAT FOR THE BLOAT THRONE!

 flandarz wrote:
Or, we give all the sub-factions their own Codex. Codex: Goffs. Codex: Hive Fleet Behemoth. Codex: Cadians. See? Makes perfect sense. They're all so different.

They aren't different enough to warrant their own codex. Variant army lists/force organization charts within one book would be much more elegant, I think.

I know. It was a joke.

 flandarz wrote:
I know. It was a joke.

Oh, the joys of sarcasm without tone of voice to convey it.......

Codex: This One Cadian Infantry Squad With A Grenade Launcher And Lascannon And A Power Fist For The Sergeant.

Peregrine wrote:Most players are wrong.

O all hail the mighty Bird, who's understanding of Everything must clearly be superior to anyone else's opinions and preferences.
You hear that? If you disagree with Peregrine here, you are wrong.



Dude, you can give your opinion, but this is blatantly ridiculous. You have no right to call the way people enjoy things "wrong".

 Peregrine wrote:


Most players are wrong.

That's a mighty big Clydesdale your riding partner.


Maybe, instead of making broad generalizations about what others want/think, you come up with something better and we can bask in your greatness.

The game works for everyone in my local area and I've never had a problem that cant be figured out in 5 seconds(with rational thought) with a discussion. But you have a very adversarial tendency to the game, so discussing something with the person you're playing with is completely foreign to you.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You have no right to call the way people enjoy things "wrong".

Watch me: those people are wrong. They're wrong, much like if someone says a $1 fast food burger is the best hamburger ever, or that a child smearing their all over the walls has created a masterpiece worthy of putting in a museum. We can speculate about why they are wrong, but in the end they're still wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Maybe, instead of making broad generalizations about what others want/think, you come up with something better and we can bask in your greatness.

I've already come up with better things and said them over and over again. In this case the answer is to consolidate all marine factions into a single codex, with a single chapter tactics rule for each sub-faction. All of the various special snowflake units can use the same rules as the standard unit and their specialness can be represented entirely by aesthetic choices. Repeat with all of the other redundant options for other factions. You don't need a million different options that are different only in slight variations in dice optimization in a game where a titan can wipe out the entire squad with a single shot.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
You have no right to call the way people enjoy things "wrong".

Watch me: those people are wrong. They're wrong, much like if someone says a $1 fast food burger is the best hamburger ever, or that a child smearing their all over the walls has created a masterpiece worthy of putting in a museum. We can speculate about why they are wrong, but in the end they're still wrong.

Maybe not, but expressing yourself in this fashion doesn't make people inclined to listen to you.

None of us know what "most players" want. The only data is GW's yearly-we'll-give-you-the-results-but-never-follow-through-survey and sales info. Making claims about the player base merely because we believe (or want) them to be true is unproductive.