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 BertBert wrote:

Then one of them will be running Shmeldrad, the long lost brother of Eldrad.

Like I said, that level of mechanics/lore disconnect is not what many people are looking for.

To me named characters are just cooler versions of my favorite units Sucks when they suck, also slightly sucks when theyre so op that everyone auto takes them…

I remember that at least in 3.5 guard codex characters could be use only if the army was big enough, like, creed could only be taken in a 1500 or more points army. Straken was in Codex Catachan that I only got lately. Then 5th edition codex brought a plethora of new named characters and although it didn't used them, I liked the idea of upgraded sergeants. I played for a year maybe, a year and a half with it then 6th codex hit.

Bastogne's story kicked arse in my opinion, but I didn't trust myself enough back then to convert a Bastogne and no mini was released IIRC.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
I tend to avoid them as I’m always afraid tourneys won’t allow them or people will get annoyed at their use. Do you guys run them or ever see any pushback?

Just a HH player's opinion here. I think that if you're bringing a Primarch or a character that can significantly alter an army (Sevatar, for example), you should tell your opponent. It's just good sportsmanship, IMHOP.

In 40K, the primarchs - at least the loyalist ones - don't really significantly alter the army. Even last edition it was more often the named captains that did that (I'm thinking mainly the two DA Captains) - and I wouldn't be surprised to see something in the codex that wrangles extra OC to Ravenguard and/or Deathwing based on a Strat, Belial/Sammael or some such to represent their non-standard "org chart"

 BertBert wrote:

Hecaton wrote:


Nah, the galaxy is a gigantic place. Perfectly reasonable to ban them. What do you do if multiple people want to run them?

Then one of them will be running Shmeldrad, the long lost brother of Eldrad.

Or the battles will simply not be at the exact same time and place.
Also, you can always pick one of the following universal hand-waves: "eldar in disguise", "alpha legionaire", "it's a clone", "the warp screwed up time again" or "because Mork and Gork said so".
You know, just like official novels defining the very setting do.

The only reason to not have multiples is if they are in the same game, or you are using synchronous missions. Outside of that, you are just prioritizing your pet peeve over another player's enjoyment.

Hecaton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
i

And even then, a general ban on named characters is highly questionable, as there are plenty of characters that fit into pretty much any setting (Badrukk, Trayzin and many Eldar come to mind), as well plenty who are scattered around the particular part of the galaxy where your story is taking place.

Nah, the galaxy is a gigantic place. Perfectly reasonable to ban them. What do you do if multiple people want to run them?

Does the same work for people who have the same army? What if multiple people want to play the Ultramarines 2nd Company?

Hell, people wanting to play Custodes, or Space Marines, or Tau? The galaxy is a gigantic place, the odds of Custodes or Space Marines showing up are slim, and Tau? Forget it if you're not on the Eastern Fringe, or near the Startide Nexus.

For me, I use the excuse of "it's a gigantic galaxy" to justify HOW people can bump into eachother. It's a big place, and the timeline is expansive. I'm sure there was at least one time that Captain Sicarius took the 2nd Company out to fight in the Genericus Sub-Sector, or that someone who happened to share a lot of the same traits as Marneus Calgar led the Ultramarines in their defence of the Randomica System.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Hecaton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
i

And even then, a general ban on named characters is highly questionable, as there are plenty of characters that fit into pretty much any setting (Badrukk, Trayzin and many Eldar come to mind), as well plenty who are scattered around the particular part of the galaxy where your story is taking place.

Nah, the galaxy is a gigantic place. Perfectly reasonable to ban them. What do you do if multiple people want to run them?

Does the same work for people who have the same army? What if multiple people want to play the Ultramarines 2nd Company?

Hell, people wanting to play Custodes, or Space Marines, or Tau? The galaxy is a gigantic place, the odds of Custodes or Space Marines showing up are slim, and Tau? Forget it if you're not on the Eastern Fringe, or near the Startide Nexus.

For me, I use the excuse of "it's a gigantic galaxy" to justify HOW people can bump into eachother. It's a big place, and the timeline is expansive. I'm sure there was at least one time that Captain Sicarius took the 2nd Company out to fight in the Genericus Sub-Sector, or that someone who happened to share a lot of the same traits as Marneus Calgar led the Ultramarines in their defence of the Randomica System.

That depends on the event of narrative. When we do play them we trailer the forces and avoid picking the same and specific ones based on what is being done.
Day even, long story event, it really just depends on the organisers and what they planing, if players don’t like it. Then they can play standard games as well seperate from the events.

It’s really no different from a tournament game with specific terrain set ups, or any other rules they use.

Apple fox wrote:
It’s really no different from a tournament game with specific terrain set ups, or any other rules they use.

It is though. In a tournament, you are always allowed to play every single one of the datasheets in any codex that you own, and in the rare cases when TO meddle with this it's not the case well received at all.

In my personal opinion, for narrative events it's fine to have single games which limit what you can bring, assuming every single army and player can fulfill those requirements. A good example would be a setting where vehicles, monsters and planes are not allowed because of narrow spaces (i.e. Boarding Action) or when you tell everyone to bring a fast list in order to participate in an ork race.
Bad examples from actual GW missions across the years are "all units must have FLY", "all units must have a save of 4+ or better", "no monsters (vehicles are fine)", "all units must be vehicles or inside transports", "no TZEENCH units". I don't think it takes much imagination to figure out which armies get completely boned by such limits.

Just make sure to communicate the limitations before the first game is played, because otherwise you will ruin the fun for some players. I was quite bummed out to find that my ork speed freek army couldn't actually contribute to my side's global campaign goal AT ALL because it required INFANTRY units to perform actions.

A unit should not be unavailable from all games of an event, and if it is, it should be for a very good reason, as described in my previous post.

And mind you, this is for events. Events, as in, "playing games with people who you limited or no information about". Four friends doing their bi-weekly prezelhammer campaign in the same garage for 30 years is not an event. You know everyone's armies and each other well enough to not need outside advice on how to make you games fun. It might still be worth stepping back a second and check if you haven't mistaken peer pressure for a consensus though.

 Jidmah wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
It’s really no different from a tournament game with specific terrain set ups, or any other rules they use.

It is though. In a tournament, you are always allowed to play every single one of the datasheets in any codex that you own, and in the rare cases when TO meddle with this it's not the case well received at all.

In my personal opinion, for narrative events it's fine to have single games which limit what you can bring, assuming every single army and player can fulfill those requirements. A good example would be a setting where vehicles, monsters and planes are not allowed because of narrow spaces (i.e. Boarding Action) or when you tell everyone to bring a fast list in order to participate in an ork race.
Just make sure to communicate the limitations before the first game is played, because otherwise you will ruin the fun for some players. I was quite bummed out to find that my ork speed freek army couldn't actually contribute to my side's global campaign goal AT ALL because it required INFANTRY units to perform actions.

The only time a unit should be unavailable from all games of an event, it should be for a very good reason, as described in my previous post.

All our narrative games had rules all lay out beforehand, just like our tournaments do it. It also is that a narrative even can be a lot of things, like campaigns or a game day.

There is nothing really stopping spread freaks from having truck infantry, so that isn’t a sure issue above.
Also ruin the fun is itself two way, as a narrative event may have those rules to create a different environment for players who find something different fun.

In the end, it’s healthy for a community to run different events in different ways for everyone to get something they like, even if they don’t join everything.
It should be part of the hobby as well. The tournament scene for 40K I honestly don’t hold that high, it’s a bit off a mess out there.

Apple fox wrote:
There is nothing really stopping spread freaks from having truck infantry, so that isn’t a sure issue above.

Should have been more precise. I was running the speed mob army of renown, and that specially excluded all infantry. Which wasn't really an issue for the first chapter of the campaign (three games), by the time we started the second chapter, the only way to get any infantry in my army would been to drop my entire army and start with a new one.

Also ruin the fun is itself two way, as a narrative event may have those rules to create a different environment for players who find something different fun.

I heavily disagree. Claiming that a specific model/unit/unit composition/pain job ruins your fun should never, ever be considered even remotely equal to someone not having fun because they are not allowed to bring their models, playing a game not worth playing or being outright being excluded from playing at all, despite them enjoying the play style.

There is no reason to consider the two sides equal, unless you consider your opponent's enjoyment irrelevant compared to yours and him to only be a necessary evil for your own enjoyment. Which makes you a bad person.

In the end, it’s healthy for a community to run different events in different ways for everyone to get something they like, even if they don’t join everything.
It should be part of the hobby as well.

Named characters and narrative games are not mutually exclusive. It's arbitrary gatekeeping which is absolutely not healthy for any community ever.

I am not sure how is it the players, who picked Angles of Absolution as his army, and uses DA rules for them, as the codex says he should, foult that GW only created a named DW master? Especialy now that units have characters locked to units they can join, often in strange ways, but rules are rules.

At the same time the Tyranid player can just say that his codex lore says that the hive mind reproduces Swarm Lords, Old one eyes etc for different hive fleets. Banning models in narrative or not setting is always a slippery thing to do, and even more so when the player doesn't have, because of how GW wrote the rules for the army, an option to replace the missing models. And that is before taking in to account peoples model collections.

As people like to put words in my mouth, a short summary:
There are a few good reasons to not allow certain unique characters to not be played in narrative games.
If you re-enact the war of Armageddon and you tell the Ultramarine player that they can't play Gulliman, that's fine. If you tell the only ork players that they have to align on who gets to play Thrakka, Snikrot, Zagstrukk and Badrukk, that's also fine. If you tell the only Black Templar player that they can't play Grimaldus, you're a dick. If you tell a necron player that they can't bring the nightbringer, you should not be organizing narrative events.

 Jidmah wrote:


Or the battles will simply not be at the exact same time and place.
Also, you can always pick one of the following universal hand-waves: "eldar in disguise", "alpha legionaire", "it's a clone", "the warp screwed up time again" or "because Mork and Gork said so".
You know, just like official novels defining the very setting do.

The only reason to not have multiples is if they are in the same game, or you are using synchronous missions. Outside of that, you are just prioritizing your pet peeve over another player's enjoyment.

It beggars belief to have that as the norm in the campaign. It also gets away from the focus - which is developing your own fluff, like an rpg character.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:

Named characters and narrative games are not mutually exclusive. It's arbitrary gatekeeping which is absolutely not healthy for any community ever.

They're not, but for the kind of campaign I was running they were.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jidmah wrote:
If you tell a necron player that they can't bring the nightbringer, you should not be organizing narrative events.

C'tan shards aren't named characters.

Hecaton wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


Or the battles will simply not be at the exact same time and place.
Also, you can always pick one of the following universal hand-waves: "eldar in disguise", "alpha legionaire", "it's a clone", "the warp screwed up time again" or "because Mork and Gork said so".
You know, just like official novels defining the very setting do.

The only reason to not have multiples is if they are in the same game, or you are using synchronous missions. Outside of that, you are just prioritizing your pet peeve over another player's enjoyment.

It beggars belief to have that as the norm in the campaign. It also gets away from the focus - which is developing your own fluff, like an rpg character.

As I alluded to above, I think it's fair to say that any notion of developing characters died with 9th edition.

"Boy oh boy, I can't wait to develop my character with fixed weapon choices and no wargear options by giving them the one solitary artefact they're permitted to take! He'll be very different to my other character with the exact same fixed weapon choices and no wargear options. Not to mention different from my opponent's character with fixed weapon choices and no wargear options. And very, very different from the special character version with fixed weapon choices and no wargear options!"


Don't get me wrong, in prior editions I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly. However, 10th has killed any notion of customisation or 'your dudes' stone dead. Thus, banning special characters at this point seems akin to shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, sailed to another continent, risen to fame as a minor celebrity, and eventually died of a drug overdose.

Hecaton wrote:
It beggars belief to have that as the norm in the campaign. It also gets away from the focus - which is developing your own fluff, like an rpg character.

This is Colonel John Doe of the Cadian 209349039053460943906905409690546546905th Cannon Fodder. He is great at leadership and commands his regiment from his horse. Here are all the stories of his battles.

vs.

This is Colonel John Doe of the Cadian 209349039053460943906905409690546546905th Cannon Fodder. He is great at leadership and has a plasma pistol and power sword. Here are all the stories of his battles.

How exactly is one "developing your own fluff" but the other isn't? Are you confusing "developing your own fluff" with "picking upgrades from an option table"?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
"Boy oh boy, I can't wait to develop my character with fixed weapon choices and no wargear options by giving them the one solitary artefact they're permitted to take! He'll be very different to my other character with the exact same fixed weapon choices and no wargear options. Not to mention different from my opponent's character with fixed weapon choices and no wargear options. And very, very different from the special character version with fixed weapon choices and no wargear options!"

Hey, sometimes generic characters have options. You can take a plasma pistol and power fist, or you can be wrong. But the theoretical existence of a chainsword and laspistol option means MY choice of plasma pistol and power fist is 100% unique and totally different from named characters with fixed equipment.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
I've never really been a fan but then I started back in 2nd where you had to have permission to field them. None of my friends at the time seemed to care one way or the other.

Same. The named characters of that era were mostly about flavor and I don't recall any of them being a fixture. I never used them because I wanted more guys with guns and in that edition everything was so deadly that even a Bloodthirster could be laid low by a single lascannon shot.

It sounds like GW has (typically) weaponized them by only offering certain buffs if you take them. No idea how orders work, but it seems pretty bad game design to say that all units can get orders, but only special characters can give them to certain units.

Well, maybe not bad game design, but certainly greedy. May as well require special printed cards to give orders and then price them differently based on how cool the order is. (I would not be surprised if that isn't already the case.)

What's irked me over the years is, or, was when they were required to play an army build. I played dark Angels for a very long time and then one day Death Wing as an army build was a thing and it required oll' what's name, just as one example.

 vipoid wrote:
As I alluded to above, I think it's fair to say that any notion of developing characters died with 9th edition.

Sure, I was talking about 9th edition. I haven't played Crusade in 10th.

 vipoid wrote:


As I alluded to above, I think it's fair to say that any notion of developing characters died with 9th edition.

And for matched play, I'd agree 100%.

But let's all remember that what Hecaton was talking about was a Crusade campaign, which provides at least as much customization than more flexible equipment lists from previous editions.

In 9th, every unit qualified for 4 upgrades, plus any Requisition strategems you care to purchase with RP, in which case they become permanent. There were also titular upgrades for some units in some armies, and some mission/ campaign rewards could be granted in addition to any of those rewards. These upgrades often took the form of relics or weapon upgrades- not enough to entirely make up for the loss of equipment options from previous editions, but once combined with Rank rewards, non-equipment Battle Honours and permanent Req Strats, the unit usually ends up with far greater customization than you could get with a flexible equipment list alone.

It remains to be seen whether 10th will provide as much opportunity; both Psychic Mastery Battle Honours and Requisition strats are gone now, so 10th is already in a hole. The lack of generic Crusade Relics and the limited generic Battle Honours in the Core Crusade rules are somewhat problematic, unless you're interested in having YOUR DUDES participate in the Tyrannic War, or some future campaign book.

There should also be bespoke faction-based in each of the dexes, but for some factions, that's a long wait.

I'd argue that Psykers, in general, are in a hole this Edition. So bland, so set-in-stone, and too many weird rules interactions ("Psyker" or "Psychic" is only ever a detriment/weakness).

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Hey, sometimes generic characters have options. You can take a plasma pistol and power fist, or you can be wrong. But the theoretical existence of a chainsword and laspistol option means MY choice of plasma pistol and power fist is 100% unique and totally different from named characters with fixed equipment.

But given that all upgrades are free, you should probably take the best things.

When I’m active, yes. Though I usually go for puns or pop culture references.

Just reading the new Ciaphas Cain novel, where we’re introduced to Veteran Sargent Toba Morie of the Reclaimers Chapter. This is an excellent example of the sort of pun names I favour.

It’s established that the Reclaimers have an unusual amount of Corvus pattern helmets, and they’re issued as a visible mark of honour to veteran battle brothers. That is of course a Beaky Helmet. Which were also known as Wombles due to the shape. And one of the Wombles is named Tobermory.

I laughed!

PenitentJake wrote:
And for matched play, I'd agree 100%.

Crusade is a matched play system and this highlights the issues with trying to apply it to a narrative context. The subject is advancing the story of characters but all discussion of it inevitably comes to which special rules you can stack up to improve their dice math. Yeah, sure, Crusade gives you the choice between re-rolling 1s and +1 AP instead of the removed choice between a chainsword and a power fist but in the end it's all just rules optimization stuff that has no impact on the character or their story.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But given that all upgrades are free, you should probably take the best things.

That's exactly the problem I was referring to.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

PenitentJake wrote:
And for matched play, I'd agree 100%.

Crusade is a matched play system and this highlights the issues with trying to apply it to a narrative context. The subject is advancing the story of characters but all discussion of it inevitably comes to which special rules you can stack up to improve their dice math. Yeah, sure, Crusade gives you the choice between re-rolling 1s and +1 AP instead of the removed choice between a chainsword and a power fist but in the end it's all just rules optimization stuff that has no impact on the character or their story.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
But given that all upgrades are free, you should probably take the best things.

That's exactly the problem I was referring to.

For what it's worth, you seem to be overlooking the possibility that some people will choose their upgrades to fit a theme even if doing so is sub-optimal. I'm sure there's folks out there that prefer to roll their crusade rewards/upgrades instead of pick and then update their lore to explain why these changes occurred. (That said, I will also mention that I'm firmly in the camp of those who miss the wargear costing points).

Breton wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
I tend to avoid them as I’m always afraid tourneys won’t allow them or people will get annoyed at their use. Do you guys run them or ever see any pushback?

Just a HH player's opinion here. I think that if you're bringing a Primarch or a character that can significantly alter an army (Sevatar, for example), you should tell your opponent. It's just good sportsmanship, IMHOP.

In 40K, the primarchs - at least the loyalist ones - don't really significantly alter the army. Even last edition it was more often the named captains that did that (I'm thinking mainly the two DA Captains) - and I wouldn't be surprised to see something in the codex that wrangles extra OC to Ravenguard and/or Deathwing based on a Strat, Belial/Sammael or some such to represent their non-standard "org chart"

Ummm....okay. I was specifically think of 30k, where a Primarch, or sufficiently powerful characters (read: Sevatar), can absolutely change the character of an army. Sorry if that wasn't readily apparent.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:


Crusade is a matched play system and this highlights the issues with trying to apply it to a narrative context.

You keep saying this, and it continues to be wrong. In the game WH40K, there is a play mode called Matched. The term is used in this context to distinguish that mode of play from Crusade, Open and Combat Patrol. All are distinct modes of play.

I understand what you are trying to imply by using the lowercase "m" - but that is your personal semantic axe to grind and it has nothing to do with any argument I am making here or have ever made in the past, because anytime I've ever used the word Matched, I've been referring to the play mode, whether I remembered to hit shift when I typed "m" or not. When most people used the word matched in reference to 40k, I'm sure that in most cases, they're using it the same way, which makes your weird semantic hang-up just as irrelevant in responses to them as it is in response to me.

I'd advise you to to abandon this peculiar semantic obsession, because it undermines your credibility.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

The subject is advancing the story of characters but all discussion of it inevitably comes to which special rules you can stack up to improve their dice math. Yeah, sure, Crusade gives you the choice between re-rolling 1s and +1 AP instead of the removed choice between a chainsword and a power fist but in the end it's all just rules optimization stuff that has no impact on the character or their story.

People are free to play Crusade in any way they choose, provided they can find opponents who consider their behaviour acceptable. Some roll battle honours randomly, some choose them freely and some play games that are moderated by a GM who has the option of approving thematic choices in lieu of random rolls.

Every Battle Honour I've ever chosen has been related to the story events which generated the XP necessary to purchase it, because that's my preference, and the GM has always agreed that my choices were appropriate and granted approval on that basis.

And finally, while it's true that some of the Battle Honours are as simple as those you mention (especially in 10th), others are far more interesting.

Either way, if a player feels like the equipment options they've lost in 10th are compromising their enjoyment of the game, playing Crusade might provide them with a way to get some of that feeling back, again, provided they can find a group of people to play with who will agree to play under those circumstances.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:
For what it's worth, you seem to be overlooking the possibility that some people will choose their upgrades to fit a theme even if doing so is sub-optimal. I'm sure there's folks out there that prefer to roll their crusade rewards/upgrades instead of pick and then update their lore to explain why these changes occurred. (That said, I will also mention that I'm firmly in the camp of those who miss the wargear costing points).

I'm not overlooking it, I just don't think it's a meaningful choice for anything but dice math optimization. Competitive players may find it fascinating to analyze and choose between +1 AP and +1 damage but from a story point of view it's all meaningless. The hero has a cool pistol, move on. It's a trivial background detail that would barely merit a single sentence in a 500 page novel.

And I really don't get the appeal of RNG for narrative play. It's a useful balance constraint in matched play games, to prevent players from automatically stacking up all the best stuff ASAP and breaking the game but from a story point of view it makes no sense. If upgrades have any story merit at all they should be decided based on what best fits the story. Rolling randomly to see what you get and then rationalizing it afterwards gets it completely backwards IMO, and ends up feeling like the lore rationalizations for why every devastator sergeant has a free plasma pistol and thunder hammer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PenitentJake wrote:
You keep saying this, and it continues to be wrong.

It continues to be correct. Crusade is not Matched Play, the GW sanctioned tournament format, but it absolutely is a matched play format. It is a system that makes compromise after compromise sacrificing narrative elements to better function in a matched play environment where you bring your force to the local store/club and play pickup games in stock missions against random opponents. It has been designed, and even designed well IMO, from the ground up for that specific purpose.

it has nothing to do with any argument I am making here or have ever made in the past

It has everything to do with matched play. Your description of upgrades is about how they work in a matched play system where list construction for on-table performance is the goal. And, as I said, it highlights how Crusade's design focus on matched play games makes it a poor narrative system. Instead of focusing on actual story elements you're encouraged to get bogged down in the details of whether you should take +1 AP or +1 strength on your weapon upgrade.

Every Battle Honour I've ever chosen has been related to the story events which generated the XP necessary to purchase it, because that's my preference, and the GM has always agreed that my choices were appropriate and granted approval on that basis.

And it still has very little to do with actual character development or storytelling. You're falling into the trap of GW bolter porn "lore", where characters are defined by their equipment choices and most impressive battlefield feats. We know nothing about who a character is as a person but we know he's equipped with a Primaris Bolt Rifle and Power Fist and he has killed over 9000 Chaos Space Marines.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

And it still has very little to do with actual character development or storytelling. You're falling into the trap of GW bolter porn "lore", where characters are defined by their equipment choices and most impressive battlefield feats. We know nothing about who a character is as a person but we know he's equipped with a Primaris Bolt Rifle and Power Fist and he has killed over 9000 Chaos Space Marines.

Since you can't perfectly divorce mechanics from flavor, having a progression system is important for the same reason having it in DnD is important.

Hecaton wrote:
Since you can't perfectly divorce mechanics from flavor, having a progression system is important for the same reason having it in DnD is important.

It's important in D&D because D&D is a skirmish-scale wargame with a flimsy story attached to set up the combats, when it succeeds at telling a compelling story it's usually in spite of the rules not because of them. Leveling up in D&D is cool because it makes you better at the dice game, not because it makes much narrative sense or is essential to having a good story.

Same thing in 40k. You absolutely do not need any kind of progression system to tell stories in 40k, it's just desired because people imagine how cool it will be for their best unit to get re-rolls and extra attacks and stack it with their favorite stratagem and character buffs.

 Jidmah wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
There is nothing really stopping spread freaks from having truck infantry, so that isn’t a sure issue above.

Should have been more precise. I was running the speed mob army of renown, and that specially excluded all infantry. Which wasn't really an issue for the first chapter of the campaign (three games), by the time we started the second chapter, the only way to get any infantry in my army would been to drop my entire army and start with a new one.

Also ruin the fun is itself two way, as a narrative event may have those rules to create a different environment for players who find something different fun.

I heavily disagree. Claiming that a specific model/unit/unit composition/pain job ruins your fun should never, ever be considered even remotely equal to someone not having fun because they are not allowed to bring their models, playing a game not worth playing or being outright being excluded from playing at all, despite them enjoying the play style.

There is no reason to consider the two sides equal, unless you consider your opponent's enjoyment irrelevant compared to yours and him to only be a necessary evil for your own enjoyment. Which makes you a bad person.

In the end, it’s healthy for a community to run different events in different ways for everyone to get something they like, even if they don’t join everything.
It should be part of the hobby as well.

Named characters and narrative games are not mutually exclusive. It's arbitrary gatekeeping which is absolutely not healthy for any community ever.

A curated experience with more restrictions is not arbitrary gatekeeping, if everyone wants to play something different or wants to try something different with an event or campaign, or let a organiser do something different.
It’s the same reason I don’t turn up to every tournament, a lot are run in ways I wouldn’t enjoy the games anyway. But i assume the players attending are having fun. Those days can be for them.

Apple fox wrote:
A curated experience with more restrictions is not arbitrary gatekeeping, if everyone wants to play something different or wants to try something different with an event or campaign, or let a organiser do something different.

It is gatekeeping when the reasons for "curating" are arbitrary as they are with named characters. It's no different than "curating" an experience where marines (and only marines) are not allowed to take weapon upgrades on any of their units.

And if everyone wants to play without named characters then why do you need a rule banning them? Its like making up a rule banning Eldar for being overpowered when nobody in your group has or has any interest in getting an Eldar army.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Apple fox wrote:
A curated experience with more restrictions is not arbitrary gatekeeping, if everyone wants to play something different or wants to try something different with an event or campaign, or let a organiser do something different.

It is gatekeeping when the reasons for "curating" are arbitrary as they are with named characters. It's no different than "curating" an experience where marines (and only marines) are not allowed to take weapon upgrades on any of their units.

And if everyone wants to play without named characters then why do you need a rule banning them? Its like making up a rule banning Eldar for being overpowered when nobody in your group has or has any interest in getting an Eldar army.

Sometimes the story being told is a certain way, sometimes we decide we want to not see certain things.
Then we open up events, and campaigns to others to join.
Not everyone wants to organise big events or campaigns but wants to join in, we haven’t had any issues and people still play as normal outside the event itself.