Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Narrative players DONT want it to be a beer and pretzel game, they want the complicated rules that require consulting charts and dealing with damage tables. I would say most narrative players want more in depth rules not less that are more common to beer and pretzel games.
AoS, now thats a beer and pretzel game because of the lack of rule depth to it.
Oh the 5th and 6th Tyranid codexes had tables, tables whose only purpose was to screw over Tyranid players, aka Instinctive Behavior tables.
The best thing the 8th edition Tyranid design team ever did was to take all those charts and simplify them into a rule that we Tyranid players can ignore 99% of the time.
You see - that is the crux right here. My Tyranid opponent loved the flavour IB gave to the army. It acted entirely different and required a different mindset than her other armies did. And have created a lot of memorable moments to both of us, good and bad for each side alike. But you hate it. Now who should GW listen to, given that according to the recent Goonhammer survey, it is fundamentally untrue, that majority of 40K games are played in a competitive fashion...
auticus wrote: It is often confused that narrative gaming is screwing off and banging plastic dollies together making pew pew noises.
Thats part of the conflict right there. In fact thats a major part of the conflict.
I kind of see the current game of both 40k and sigmar as masters of the universe dollies banging together without much if any strategic or tactical depth. Competitive OR narrative.
I mean, its common knowledge and a provable fact that no matter your play style, competitive, narrative, or other wise, making pew pew noises as you shoot increases your odds of rolling good.
That is really a peculiar view on what narrative gaming is... "Beer and pretzels" =/= narrative =/= casual and what is most important, narrative mindset requires no less game knowledge as competitive mindset does. I would even hazard an opinion, that it requires more.
True, but this brings a further issue I feel we have kind ignored
"Casual" pick-up games are competitive games. They involve people with no relation beyond the game, none of the compromise and negotiation required for narrative play. Casual pick-up games will always require competitive rulesets and a competitive mindset, for anything else to function you need way more than a spontaneous game can provide.
People don't want to call them competitive, but because of the requirements and limitations of pick-up games, they cannot be anything else but competitive.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/02/17 17:45:17
That is really a peculiar view on what narrative gaming is... "Beer and pretzels" =/= narrative =/= casual and what is most important, narrative mindset requires no less game knowledge as competitive mindset does. I would even hazard an opinion, that it requires more.
True, but this brings a further issue I feel we have kind ignored
"Casual" pick-up games are competitive games. They involve to people with no relation beyond the game, none of the compromise and negotiation required for narrative play. Casual pick-up games will always require competitive rulesets and a competitive mindset, for anything else to function you need way more than a spontaneous game can provide.
True, and "competitive" rules create a frame work in which we can operate in across barriers. It acts as a common 'language' between players and unspoken agreements that allow you to walk into a store and go "Hey lets play a game."
This, is harder, but not impossible to do in narrative style rules. The issue i see with current 40k is that they went way to far into the "Competative" rules where flavor has been lost and things are all just shades of gray.
Like i was saying earlier, 40k now is the most bland its ever been because they have removed out every thing that would be considered "Narrative" the game got sterilized. Its so clean and sanitary now that most of the time the games run on auto pilot.
I have liked current 40k to MTG, most of the game is done off the table, and when you actually show up with your deck/army, you are pretty much along for the ride. You play in a clean room, on the same tables, same itc set ups, same games, same objectives. Its like every game is just a practice game for Tournaments.
THAT imo, is 9th going way to far in one direction.
To clarify and get it out there, as a narrative player, i love rules, i LOVE having a set of clearly defined rules. I ~THINK~ where the break down is, between "Competative" and "Narrative" players is that a lot of the narrative players want a lot more flavorful rules an actions that can be taken in the game that allow them more control over outcomes or to be able to take more chance in out comes.
One such example i always bring up, is the death and glory rule that we once had. This is a great example of a narrative action taht a player can take taht could have dire effects in the moment. This was a very clearly layed out rule with ridget requierments and outcomes, and was considered a very fluffy type of rule/action you could do
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 17:45:12
auticus wrote: It is often confused that narrative gaming is screwing off and banging plastic dollies together making pew pew noises.
Thats part of the conflict right there. In fact thats a major part of the conflict.
I kind of see the current game of both 40k and sigmar as masters of the universe dollies banging together without much if any strategic or tactical depth. Competitive OR narrative.
...and devolved into an absurd excercise in rolling and rerolling buckets of dice. Especially in competitive context, where the goal is to ensure that most of what you roll is as close to median result as you can.
Those whole buckets of dice can be replaced by just two dice and a simple table for ALL the rolls in the game, while preserving all the details and differences of result distribution between different units and weapons. That is 50-70% game time saved.
Eldarain wrote: With the size of the company there's no excuse not to put more resources into the on table experience for their customers.
I won't get into Matched balance as I feel they are correct in their approach in terms of making money. It's just not what I would want.
However Narrative as a game mode should get as much if not more attention.
Instead of "Matched but don't be a dick" with a sampling of Crusade etc. I'd completely rework how it functions. With the end result of Apocalypse or Epic 40,000 style combat mechanics with a TTRPG approach to the game.
Have games be more telling the story of the conflict with a mix of scripted/random generated elements.
I'd combo that with themed boxes that come with adventure modules and tilesets/terrain themed to that particular story.
There is a ton of narrative content. There's six Crusade mission packs kicking out there right now.
People seem to be ignoring the books in general. I'm guessing the success of those products are in the garage gamer arena and not really seen on the internet.
GW put up beta Maelstrom rules, but no one here ever talked about them again. I made a post about it and it was just crickets.
Eldarain wrote: With the size of the company there's no excuse not to put more resources into the on table experience for their customers.
I won't get into Matched balance as I feel they are correct in their approach in terms of making money. It's just not what I would want.
However Narrative as a game mode should get as much if not more attention.
Instead of "Matched but don't be a dick" with a sampling of Crusade etc. I'd completely rework how it functions. With the end result of Apocalypse or Epic 40,000 style combat mechanics with a TTRPG approach to the game.
Have games be more telling the story of the conflict with a mix of scripted/random generated elements.
I'd combo that with themed boxes that come with adventure modules and tilesets/terrain themed to that particular story.
There is a ton of narrative content. There's six Crusade mission packs kicking out there right now.
People seem to be ignoring the books in general. I'm guessing the success of those products are in the garage gamer arena and not really seen on the internet.
GW put up beta Maelstrom rules, but no one here ever talked about them again. I made a post about it and it was just crickets.
Goonhammer's article seems somewhat clairvoyant.
No one is ignoring these, and i dont think i know anyone that does NOT like the crusade books that are narrative player.
Where my gripe is, is that the core rules themselves are not narrative, and the core rules are balanced around the competitive scene, which then directly effects the outcome of people who want to play narrative games. Because they still are bound by the core rules of the game.
Do they alter the gameplay at all or is it just more things on top of core 9th?
BlaxicanX wrote: A young business man named Tom Kirby, who was a pupil of mine until he turned greedy, helped the capitalists hunt down and destroy the wargamers. He betrayed and murdered Games Workshop.
You see - that is the crux right here. My Tyranid opponent loved the flavour IB gave to the army. It acted entirely different and required a different mindset than her other armies did. And have created a lot of memorable moments to both of us, good and bad for each side alike. But you hate it. Now who should GW listen to, given that according to the recent Goonhammer survey, it is fundamentally untrue, that majority of 40K games are played in a competitive fashion...
And yet looking at the Goonhammer's article about the survey, what is really interesting is what it says about community:
What about the rest? Well 17% of you were competitive first, and for competitive players the most common second priority (38%) was hobby, followed by community (27%). And this is one of the most interesting parts of the whole survey to me:
27% of Competitive-first players list community as their second priority (rank: 2nd)
11% of Casual-first players list community as their second priority (rank: 4th)
There’s an entire book’s worth of things to write about this and what it suggests. Casual-first players were less likely than hobby-first players to prioritize community, and only Narrative-first players were less likely (6%). But why is that the case? I have two theories on this, which are not exclusive and likely both contribute:
Casual and Narrative players are more likely to retreat to small “in-groups” of friends to play with, favoring games at home over building communities in public spaces
Competitive play stands up much better to the rigor and stresses of playing against strangers with little pre-game communication
The net result here is that when local communities are built around a store, it may be more likely that they’ll be built around competitive play or semi-competitive play, such as a league. That’s pretty interesting – and something we’ll come back to later.
Competitive players are, on the whole, more concerned with building and expanding the community. This was a bit surprising to me but it makes sense when you consider how common it is for competitive players to start organizing events in their area. Competitive play tends to be a bit more resilient to the challenges of playing against strangers, in part because it settles (to some extent) the issues of mismatched expectations with regard to intent – if both players arrive at the table expecting the opponent to be trying their best to win, then they’ve removed at least one of the major areas of conflict in expectations from the game. Competitive players are good for expanding the game, creating events and communities that bring new players in and encourage existing players to play more games.
Competitive Play is the most visible aspect of the hobby. Because Competitive players focus on building competitive communities, because competitive play happens in public, and because casual play is more likely to happen in private at homes, competitive play ends up being the most readily visible aspect of the game. Which means it’s also the most likely aspect of the game to draw in new players. A strong competitive game that looks fun will naturally attract more players, and as a result, attract more casual, narrative, and hobby-focused players to the game as well. If you want to promote the game, you have to promote it where people can see it and as much as I love beerhammer at home, nobody sees those games.
So there you have it. Competitive players are simultaneously so small a portion of the GW audience that they don’t really matter, but at the same time, it’s still important that Games Workshop think about competitive play and build a game that works for competitive players and casual players alike. Ultimately, a game that’s competitively balanced will benefit players at all levels.
The strength of 40k is its community, its ability to facilitate games between strangers. Competitive players build communities, while narrative players favor isolated groups. Guess which one helps GW to grow its revenue?
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2022/02/17 18:05:33
That is really a peculiar view on what narrative gaming is... "Beer and pretzels" =/= narrative =/= casual and what is most important, narrative mindset requires no less game knowledge as competitive mindset does. I would even hazard an opinion, that it requires more.
True, but this brings a further issue I feel we have kind ignored
"Casual" pick-up games are competitive games. They involve to people with no relation beyond the game, none of the compromise and negotiation required for narrative play. Casual pick-up games will always require competitive rulesets and a competitive mindset, for anything else to function you need way more than a spontaneous game can provide.
People don't want to call them competitive, but because of the requirements and limitations of pick-up games, they cannot be anything else but competitive.
We haven't ignored it, just read mine and TangoTwoBravo posts on 10th page of this thread.
I think that you are conflating two meanings of the word competitive here - "to score as high in a tournament setting" and "adversarial". It might be a surprise to you, but narrative wargames are also adversarial in nature. Only game preparation is cooperative.
But it is also untrue, that most of the games of 40K played are pick-up games, which is usually assumed as a justification for over focussing on pick-up culture and competitive approach to the game. There is also one other silent assumption here - that because pick-up games are blind matchups with strangers, that they cannot be laid back and low power games. What really bothers me all this time is why competitive players fear low power games so much. I mean - games of two balanced armies on top power level require exactly the same tactical skill as two low power games of balanced armies. Heck, you can construct a low power army and a high power army which will have exactly same probabilities involved in the rolls, and this is even obvious when you look at the dreaded power creep within each edition - early balanced armies provide the same level of rivalry as two balanced late armies of an edition. But then any suggestion, that a pick-up culture could be vastly improved by pre-game power level negotiations is viewed as a heresy by many, many players, especially those with "git gud or GTFO" attitude.
Eldarain wrote: Do they alter the gameplay at all or is it just more things on top of core 9th?
Are you talking about crusade?
Yes. To Daedalus' point. I'm intrigued but my impression was more rules but not necessarily a different experience to matched. Just tracking quests, upgrades etc on top of it
BlaxicanX wrote: A young business man named Tom Kirby, who was a pupil of mine until he turned greedy, helped the capitalists hunt down and destroy the wargamers. He betrayed and murdered Games Workshop.
Mezmorki wrote: Some of what's happening is that we're all getting fire-hosed by a deluge of detail dressed up as fancy bespoke rules, but it's really all the same stuff.
The fast majority of special rules, stratagems, faction traits/doctrines, etc. come down to simply adding re-rolls or modifiers to die rolls. And there are only so many different rolls in the game (to hit, to wound, to save, to charge, to break) and so many ways they can be modified. Every codex is playing around with the wording and nuanced conditions of when these re-rolls and modifiers apply.
But they don't always. Yet we're playing a game of dice, so, modifying stats and rolls is logical, right?
Anyway it seems like people are completely ignoring other stuff like...
Thousand Sons Cabal
GSC Crossfire, which in itself grants modifiers, but does so in a mechanically interesting way
Model resurrection
Anti-Fallback ( more and more crucial with T'au )
Fight First/Last
Manipulation of Obsec
Modifying movement status
Deepstriking into combat / Blocking Deepstrike
Strands of Fate, which modifies rolls, but does it in a narratively interesting way
Reroll blocking
GMDK's that can teleport when shot at and other teleport shunting
Actions and other abilities that fall within that umbrella
Redployment - both before and during battle
Interacting with other characteristics like reducing moves and charges
Pile-in/Consolidation mods
Transport strats
Eldarain wrote: Do they alter the gameplay at all or is it just more things on top of core 9th?
Are you talking about crusade?
Yes. To Daedalus' point. I'm intrigued but my impression was more rules but not necessarily a different experience to matched. Just tracking quests, upgrades etc on top of it
Yeah you can think of them like campaign books, they give you a setting for a series of pitched battles
You can do things like upgrade characters so they get better, there are unique starts that are just available to the missions in the books.
Bonus objectives, things like that.
auticus wrote: It is often confused that narrative gaming is screwing off and banging plastic dollies together making pew pew noises.
Thats part of the conflict right there. In fact thats a major part of the conflict.
I kind of see the current game of both 40k and sigmar as masters of the universe dollies banging together without much if any strategic or tactical depth. Competitive OR narrative.
I mean, its common knowledge and a provable fact that no matter your play style, competitive, narrative, or other wise, making pew pew noises as you shoot increases your odds of rolling good.
Backspacehacker wrote: No one is ignoring these, and i dont think i know anyone that does NOT like the crusade books that are narrative player.
Where my gripe is, is that the core rules themselves are not narrative, and the core rules are balanced around the competitive scene, which then directly effects the outcome of people who want to play narrative games. Because they still are bound by the core rules of the game.
Gotcha. I do hope we see Maelstrom make a return. There certainly seems to be a big enough group that's into it.
I don't imagine GW will make a narrative mission set outside Crusade, because they do love their books...
I dont disagree about the theory on competitive players. They do care about the community size because small tournaments suck and don't really showcase a lot of validity to who wins.
No one cares if you win a 4 man tournament.
Winning a 180 player GT brings all kinds of rewards from the community, from street cred to subs on their youtube and ad revenue.
Same with tournament organizers. Where I left, the tournament organizers were doing their damndest to making running tournaments profitable to them.
The more people they can attract to their events, the more money they pocket for themselves.
Growing the community is huge for them.
Narrative players more than likely to play at home? Yes and no. We had a large narrative group that played in the store and I ran narrative events regularly for the stores in my area. I acknowledge that these things are rarities though.
The conflict was when trying to run public narrative events, that the competitive players in my area did their damndest to turn those narrative events into ITC standard tournaments and were VERY aggressive when we would deviate from ITC standards and would go out of their way to crap on it publicly and try to dissuade people from playing in it because it wasn't "proper 40k".
That created the conflict and drama and instead of how it should be - people going "well your narrative scenario isn't for me, I prefer playing competitive standard ITC but good luck" - it was a number of people making an us vs you scenario.
That story is shared by several people in the communities and helps deepen the divide.
It would go so far to have GW stream and showcase narrative events that were NOT competitive based but were using asymmetrical scenarios and using forces that were not all about competitive optimization.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 18:22:35
Backspacehacker wrote: No one is ignoring these, and i dont think i know anyone that does NOT like the crusade books that are narrative player.
Where my gripe is, is that the core rules themselves are not narrative, and the core rules are balanced around the competitive scene, which then directly effects the outcome of people who want to play narrative games. Because they still are bound by the core rules of the game.
Gotcha. I do hope we see Maelstrom make a return. There certainly seems to be a big enough group that's into it.
I don't imagine GW will make a narrative mission set outside Crusade, because they do love their books...
Oooo i loved maelstrom, and i loved open war card just because it made things so wild.
Funny enough one of the best systems GW ever had was the one the dropped like a hot potato in 7th, which was the old apoc expansion.
nou wrote: But it is also untrue, that most of the games of 40K played are pick-up games, which is usually assumed as a justification for over focussing on pick-up culture and competitive approach to the game. There is also one other silent assumption here - that because pick-up games are blind matchups with strangers, that they cannot be laid back and low power games. What really bothers me all this time is why competitive players fear low power games so much. I mean - games of two balanced armies on top power level require exactly the same tactical skill as two low power games of balanced armies. Heck, you can construct a low power army and a high power army which will have exactly same probabilities involved in the rolls, and this is even obvious when you look at the dreaded power creep within each edition - early balanced armies provide the same level of rivalry as two balanced late armies of an edition. But then any suggestion, that a pick-up culture could be vastly improved by pre-game power level negotiations is viewed as a heresy by many, many players, especially those with "git gud or GTFO" attitude.
Competitive games don't fear low power games. There was a guy who took a single titan to major tournaments. They guy just wanted to tool around with his awesome miniature. If you ever go to a big tournament there's players of so many stripes. The guys who put their heart and soul into a diorama, the fluff bunnies, the newbies, the laid back but super competitive, the just happy to be playing, and of course the ( rare ) cranky donkey-caves.
You see - that is the crux right here. My Tyranid opponent loved the flavour IB gave to the army. It acted entirely different and required a different mindset than her other armies did. And have created a lot of memorable moments to both of us, good and bad for each side alike. But you hate it. Now who should GW listen to, given that according to the recent Goonhammer survey, it is fundamentally untrue, that majority of 40K games are played in a competitive fashion...
And yet looking at the Goonhammer's article about the survey, what is really interesting is what it says about community:
What about the rest? Well 17% of you were competitive first, and for competitive players the most common second priority (38%) was hobby, followed by community (27%). And this is one of the most interesting parts of the whole survey to me:
27% of Competitive-first players list community as their second priority (rank: 2nd)
11% of Casual-first players list community as their second priority (rank: 4th)
There’s an entire book’s worth of things to write about this and what it suggests. Casual-first players were less likely than hobby-first players to prioritize community, and only Narrative-first players were less likely (6%). But why is that the case? I have two theories on this, which are not exclusive and likely both contribute:
Casual and Narrative players are more likely to retreat to small “in-groups” of friends to play with, favoring games at home over building communities in public spaces
Competitive play stands up much better to the rigor and stresses of playing against strangers with little pre-game communication
The net result here is that when local communities are built around a store, it may be more likely that they’ll be built around competitive play or semi-competitive play, such as a league. That’s pretty interesting – and something we’ll come back to later.
Competitive players are, on the whole, more concerned with building and expanding the community. This was a bit surprising to me but it makes sense when you consider how common it is for competitive players to start organizing events in their area. Competitive play tends to be a bit more resilient to the challenges of playing against strangers, in part because it settles (to some extent) the issues of mismatched expectations with regard to intent – if both players arrive at the table expecting the opponent to be trying their best to win, then they’ve removed at least one of the major areas of conflict in expectations from the game. Competitive players are good for expanding the game, creating events and communities that bring new players in and encourage existing players to play more games.
Competitive Play is the most visible aspect of the hobby. Because Competitive players focus on building competitive communities, because competitive play happens in public, and because casual play is more likely to happen in private at homes, competitive play ends up being the most readily visible aspect of the game. Which means it’s also the most likely aspect of the game to draw in new players. A strong competitive game that looks fun will naturally attract more players, and as a result, attract more casual, narrative, and hobby-focused players to the game as well. If you want to promote the game, you have to promote it where people can see it and as much as I love beerhammer at home, nobody sees those games.
So there you have it. Competitive players are simultaneously so small a portion of the GW audience that they don’t really matter, but at the same time, it’s still important that Games Workshop think about competitive play and build a game that works for competitive players and casual players alike. Ultimately, a game that’s competitively balanced will benefit players at all levels.
The strength of 40k is its community, its ability to facilitate games between strangers. Competitive players build communities, while narrative players favor isolated groups. Guess which one helps GW to grow its revenue?
Competitves do not "build communities" and narratives are not closing themselves in isolated groups because they wish to do so, but because they are driven away from said "communities" by competitive-at-all-times players. But let's not derail this thread with a topic, that has a thread of its own, and this goonhammer interpretation of data to praise competitve mentality is discussed at length there.
EDIT: the story that auticus wrote above is pretty much a common narrative players experience. I have even experienced this kind of powergaming in Necromunda campaigns (!). It is really not surprising, that narrative players keep away from competitive "communities".
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/02/17 18:30:41
auticus wrote: Winning a 180 player GT brings all kinds of rewards from the community, from street cred to subs on their youtube and ad revenue.
I am absolutely dumbfounded by the money people throw at 40K celebrities these days. One guy was tossing around $100 "super chats" on youtube on AoW and that guy is probably already paying them $30/mo for all their content.
I think it's great the community has successful business ventures around the hobby, but the spend some people do just confuses me.
There is a ton of narrative content. There's six Crusade mission packs kicking out there right now.
People seem to be ignoring the books in general. I'm guessing the success of those products are in the garage gamer arena and not really seen on the internet.
GW put up beta Maelstrom rules, but no one here ever talked about them again. I made a post about it and it was just crickets.
Goonhammer's article seems somewhat clairvoyant.
This right here.
If all you ever play is GT missions at the 2k level, it isn't that the game is dull; it's that the version of the game that you are playing is dull.
Now I know that many people are will say they are forced into playing 2k matched because that's all they play at your store, and the store is the only place you can play. I get that- I'm not saying "it's your fault." It isn't. It's the fault of the space in which you play for not creating opportunities to explore the facets of the game that go beyond the bare minimum play experience.
We are still at the very beginning of the Nachmund season. The War of Faith rules in White Dwarf 472 were decent, though there were some real power options in there. There are quite a few War of Faith Agendas in there that should mix up your games. The Nachmund Crusade Mission Pack has scenarios for every size of game, and contains some Crusade specific content. The Vigilus alone Campaign book contains even more rules about waging wars of faith.
If you are bored with 2k matched, the next time you go to the game store to play, ask all the other people who are there if any of them are interested in playing something outside the box and see if you can meet on a night that's not a regular pick-up game night to get a Crusade on. And truth be told, you don't have to go all the way down the crusade rabbit hole either- just play an asymmetric mission from the Crusade mission pack using a White Dwarf theatre of war as if it was a GT mission.
There is a ton of narrative material out there- more than there has ever been. But it doesn't have any impact on the game if you don't use it.
auticus wrote: Winning a 180 player GT brings all kinds of rewards from the community, from street cred to subs on their youtube and ad revenue.
I am absolutely dumbfounded by the money people throw at 40K celebrities these days. One guy was tossing around $100 "super chats" on youtube on AoW and that guy is probably already paying them $30/mo for all their content.
I think it's great the community has successful business ventures around the hobby, but the spend some people do just confuses me.
For sure! I remember reading a group that were all GT top placers that would make you army lists for $200-$300 a pop. And they were used quite a bit! I think a lot of that chasing the money thing has blown the community up even bigger because of the opportunity to cash in on the community, and size matters greatly in that regard.
Eldarain wrote: With the size of the company there's no excuse not to put more resources into the on table experience for their customers.
I won't get into Matched balance as I feel they are correct in their approach in terms of making money. It's just not what I would want.
However Narrative as a game mode should get as much if not more attention.
Instead of "Matched but don't be a dick" with a sampling of Crusade etc. I'd completely rework how it functions. With the end result of Apocalypse or Epic 40,000 style combat mechanics with a TTRPG approach to the game.
Have games be more telling the story of the conflict with a mix of scripted/random generated elements.
I'd combo that with themed boxes that come with adventure modules and tilesets/terrain themed to that particular story.
There is a ton of narrative content. There's six Crusade mission packs kicking out there right now.
People seem to be ignoring the books in general. I'm guessing the success of those products are in the garage gamer arena and not really seen on the internet.
GW put up beta Maelstrom rules, but no one here ever talked about them again. I made a post about it and it was just crickets.
Goonhammer's article seems somewhat clairvoyant.
No one is ignoring these, and i dont think i know anyone that does NOT like the crusade books that are narrative player.
Where my gripe is, is that the core rules themselves are not narrative, and the core rules are balanced around the competitive scene, which then directly effects the outcome of people who want to play narrative games. Because they still are bound by the core rules of the game.
Eldarain wrote: Do they alter the gameplay at all or is it just more things on top of core 9th?
Are you talking about crusade?
Yes. To Daedalus' point. I'm intrigued but my impression was more rules but not necessarily a different experience to matched. Just tracking quests, upgrades etc on top of it
It's progression for the sake of progression. But it's still hampered by the foundation it is laid upon.
Eldarain wrote: Do they alter the gameplay at all or is it just more things on top of core 9th?
Are you talking about crusade?
Yes. To Daedalus' point. I'm intrigued but my impression was more rules but not necessarily a different experience to matched. Just tracking quests, upgrades etc on top of it
The difference in terms of gameplay is that the MISSIONS themselves are quite a bit different and not nearly as much of a symmetrical stand-off - they have more interesting and varied primary objectives. Add to this are the AGENDAS that units can work towards within the game. The presence of agendas often creates a decision point for a player about whether they try to play to the mission objective or focus on agendas (or some blending of the two). The game is a little more multi-dimensional in that regard.
Plus then, you have the built-in meta and progression of seeing what everyone's lists started with and thinking through what units to add to best counter those forces, etc. It lends itself to using a different range and mix of units than you might otherwise in an open competition where you're likely to face known "meta" opposition.
That is really a peculiar view on what narrative gaming is... "Beer and pretzels" =/= narrative =/= casual and what is most important, narrative mindset requires no less game knowledge as competitive mindset does. I would even hazard an opinion, that it requires more.
True, but this brings a further issue I feel we have kind ignored
"Casual" pick-up games are competitive games. They involve to people with no relation beyond the game, none of the compromise and negotiation required for narrative play. Casual pick-up games will always require competitive rulesets and a competitive mindset, for anything else to function you need way more than a spontaneous game can provide.
People don't want to call them competitive, but because of the requirements and limitations of pick-up games, they cannot be anything else but competitive.
We haven't ignored it, just read mine and TangoTwoBravo posts on 10th page of this thread.
I think that you are conflating two meanings of the word competitive here - "to score as high in a tournament setting" and "adversarial". It might be a surprise to you, but narrative wargames are also adversarial in nature. Only game preparation is cooperative.
But it is also untrue, that most of the games of 40K played are pick-up games, which is usually assumed as a justification for over focussing on pick-up culture and competitive approach to the game. There is also one other silent assumption here - that because pick-up games are blind matchups with strangers, that they cannot be laid back and low power games. What really bothers me all this time is why competitive players fear low power games so much. I mean - games of two balanced armies on top power level require exactly the same tactical skill as two low power games of balanced armies. Heck, you can construct a low power army and a high power army which will have exactly same probabilities involved in the rolls, and this is even obvious when you look at the dreaded power creep within each edition - early balanced armies provide the same level of rivalry as two balanced late armies of an edition. But then any suggestion, that a pick-up culture could be vastly improved by pre-game power level negotiations is viewed as a heresy by many, many players, especially those with "git gud or GTFO" attitude.
If you bring the best list you can and I bring the best list I can, whether the game is even or not becomes a question of either player skill or GW's terrible balancing.
If you say 'bring a low power army' you're the only one who knows what that means. Is that a functional list but with some good stuff swapped out for meme stuff? Is that all meme stuff? If that a janky gimmick? Is that an entire army of footslogging assault marines?
If you bring footslog assault marines and I bring a Custodes netlist but I brought some sisters of silence instead of one of the bike units and an Allarus ShieldCaptain instead of Trajann, that's still technically two 'low power armies'.
Racerguy180 wrote: It's progression for the sake of progression. But it's still hampered by the foundation it is laid upon.
I'd say it depends on which army you're playing for Crusade. Space Marines and their Subtypes are bottom-tier garbage with the absolute bare minimum of Crusade content. GSC and T'au on the other hand have awesome systems for you to actually plan out a story and play it out with different outcomes depending on certain results. For example, the T'au annexation system has different rules for "winning" one of the planets you create. If you win diplomatically then you gain access to the bonuses the planet awards. However, if you win militarily, the planet is razed and you get no bonuses. It's a built-in system to prevent people from just steamrolling through and blowing everything up. Similarly, with GSC, you have to balance rapid expansion with staying undiscovered so the Path to Ascension can continue. If GW continues in the vein of GSC, T'au and Drukhari then Crusade will be great for everyone but Marines.
Sucks for my Salamanders. Unless Traitor guard gets something actually cool for crusade it, doesn't look like I'll be joining one for the foreseeable future.
I really want to like crusade as I'm about a narrative player as you can get, but the core mechanics just suck.
There is a ton of narrative content. There's six Crusade mission packs kicking out there right now.
People seem to be ignoring the books in general. I'm guessing the success of those products are in the garage gamer arena and not really seen on the internet.
GW put up beta Maelstrom rules, but no one here ever talked about them again. I made a post about it and it was just crickets.
Goonhammer's article seems somewhat clairvoyant.
This right here.
If all you ever play is GT missions at the 2k level, it isn't that the game is dull; it's that the version of the game that you are playing is dull.
Now I know that many people are will say they are forced into playing 2k matched because that's all they play at your store, and the store is the only place you can play. I get that- I'm not saying "it's your fault." It isn't. It's the fault of the space in which you play for not creating opportunities to explore the facets of the game that go beyond the bare minimum play experience.
We are still at the very beginning of the Nachmund season. The War of Faith rules in White Dwarf 472 were decent, though there were some real power options in there. There are quite a few War of Faith Agendas in there that should mix up your games. The Nachmund Crusade Mission Pack has scenarios for every size of game, and contains some Crusade specific content. The Vigilus alone Campaign book contains even more rules about waging wars of faith.
If you are bored with 2k matched, the next time you go to the game store to play, ask all the other people who are there if any of them are interested in playing something outside the box and see if you can meet on a night that's not a regular pick-up game night to get a Crusade on. And truth be told, you don't have to go all the way down the crusade rabbit hole either- just play an asymmetric mission from the Crusade mission pack using a White Dwarf theatre of war as if it was a GT mission.
There is a ton of narrative material out there- more than there has ever been. But it doesn't have any impact on the game if you don't use it.
I wish I could get enough games in to get bored of any of the mode of play. I don't even remember the last game I got to play outside of a tournament.
Part of the reason I don't care about crusade is because the system is built around the idea that you'll play multiple games over several weeks. That never works out, at least for me. I've joined leagues and always end up dropping within the first couple weeks because it's such a chore. You have to carve out time to devote to the games, you have to set up times with your opponent that match THEIR schedule, people absolutely suck at making plans (You wanna get our game in this week? Sure! ...Okay when? Oh, whenever's fine! Is Saturday good. Oh, no I have underwater basket weaving that day. ...I hate you so much.), life gets in the way, etc, etc.
TLDR, being bored of the game sounds like a 1st world problem and I have no sympathy for it. Being MAD at the game for how bad GW has been at balance, specifically in 2022, is much more relatable.
