I believe rules need to take competive players in mind

[Rated_lexxx]

I have been thinking about this for a while when I heard the rule for 40k were made with the beer and pretzel crowd in mind and not competitive player


Is out of date thinking? 20+ years ago this was true. People didn't have access to the internet to find the "list" or broken combos so for most casual game this wasn't a problem.

Now that people have access to this information and everyone in the world can get together to find the best of everything to play if you want to play to win. This can make casual games not as fun or balanced.

I believe it's time that the rules need to be designed with competitive players in mind. Not just for tournaments but for the "beer and pretzel" crowd.

I have seen to many heated "rule debates" ruin casual games. If we could make the rules more clear and balanced it would lessen the rule arguments, though never get rid of them

[Bunnahabhain]

I'd restate your proposition.
Rules written for competitive players function very well for casual/narrative ones; Rules written for casual players do not function well for competitive players.

I don't think there is any real disagreement about this, merely on how to get to that ideal situation from the current mess.

[yabbadabba]

Rules written for competitive players function very well for casual/narrative ones;

Not necessarily. I'd state both FoW and WM as examples. 20 years ago people were still having all these issues, the interwebz has made it more efficient and given it, IMHO, a misleading air of a wider problem than it actually is.

Short answer is no.

[koran]

Not necessarily. I'd state both FoW and WM as examples. 20 years ago people were still having all these issues, the interwebz has made it more efficient and given it, IMHO, a misleading air of a wider problem than it actually is.

Short answer is no.

Yabba, Im curious what you're using FoW as an example of here. I dont play WM so I cant comment there but FoW is clear and without loopholes and broken combos but still allow for awesome casual play.

[yabbadabba]

Yabba, Im curious what you're using FoW as an example of here. I dont play WM so I cant comment there but FoW is clear and without loopholes and broken combos but still allow for awesome casual play.

WM and FoW are designed with a particular ethos in mind; with FoW the original ethos was to write a set of WW2 rules for competitive wargaming. The key to both of these games is that the rules are kept very, very tight. Its a very different ethos and parameters for GWs games. We all know people who will not play WM but with FoW I know plenty of people who don't play it because, for them, it does not reflect WW2 accurately enough and has an over emphasis on game play.

Looking at WFB I think that GW are starting to move towards a tighter ruleset; while there are still plenty of options, the variance is disappearing from the army books.

What is interesting for me is that those calling for the more competitive focused rulesets is that they only emphasise the potential positives; there are negatives as well including a reduction in the variance of the game, possible threats to customer base, change in design ethos, over emphasis on tournament style play and more (one of which I can't remember right now). GW also has other rule sets far more suitable to competitive play, BFG, Epic, WMaster. I suggest that that there are very good reasons why tournament players do not play these games and curiously, none of them will be related to their "passion" of playing competitive games. Possibly we have a section of the community who are in denial; they want to play competitive GW games, but won't play with GW games ideal for competitions.

[RandomThoughts]

I also agree. Loophole free rules and codices without massively over- and underpowered rules help to make the game far more enjoyable for everyone. It gives competitive players more variety in possible builds, while fluffy players get to use the exact units they feel appropriate without hurting themselves in the game.

PS: I also want to see a single unified Marine codex.

[Rated_lexxx]

I'd restate your proposition.
Rules written for competitive players function very well for casual/narrative ones; Rules written for casual players do not function well for competitive players.

I don't think there is any real disagreement about this, merely on how to get to that ideal situation from the current mess.

I think the first thing they need to do is just start with the concept of building rules with competition in mind. From there just start building up with clear and balance rules. This process could take years but it has to start sometime.

Mtg was like that when it first came. Rules were unclear a lot and cards ran from very powerful to awful. As time went rules were made more clear and balance. They do get cards the are over the top and and rules are unclear but it's better then it use to be

[Yodhrin]

I think the first thing they need to do is just start with the concept of building rules with competition in mind. From there just start building up with clear and balance rules. This process could take years but it has to start sometime.

Mtg was like that when it first came. Rules were unclear a lot and cards ran from very powerful to awful. As time went rules were made more clear and balance. They do get cards the are over the top and and rules are unclear but it's better then it use to be

This would be the same MtG where choosing anything except the absolute best cards available to you pretty much guarantees a loss, and "fluff" plays almost no role whatsoever in deck composition or play strategies? Yeah, not the best example of how competitive rule sets are better for casual and fluff gamers there chief. Warmachine has the same issue, the ultra-competitive mindset which the rules foster and encourage makes fluff-, narrative-, and creativity-based gaming really difficult; one of my mates was disillusioned with 40K last year and tried getting into the local WM scene, made a really stunning army with an "arabian nights" sort of theme, and it took him six months to find an opponent willing to play against him, because he wasn't using "official" models. That sort of attitude is ostensibly on the wane somewhat, but apparently that sentiment has yet to penetrate the local WM groups.

The same issue happens in MMORPGs; you can either have a sandbox experience where the players are given tools to generate their own narratives, or you can have a themepark ride where the player is constantly fed carefully-balanced content by the game but individual creativity is stifled. That's simply the nature of the beast; the more options you give to players, the more space you grant for creativity, the harder a system is to balance. The same is true with tabletop gaming, and if it comes down to a choice I'll take Counts As, Apocalypse, Imperial Armour, and a sometimes shaky ruleset any day of the week, because for my money, the occasional disagreement with some WAAC cheesemonger is tolerable in exchange for all the fun the leeway in 40K rules can enable.

[Rated_lexxx]

This would be the same MtG where choosing anything except the absolute best cards available to you pretty much guarantees a loss, and "fluff" plays almost no role whatsoever in deck composition or play strategies? Yeah, not the best example of how competitive rule sets are better for casual and fluff gamers there chief. Warmachine has the same issue, the ultra-competitive mindset which the rules foster and encourage makes fluff-, narrative-, and creativity-based gaming really difficult; one of my mates was disillusioned with 40K last year and tried getting into the local WM scene, made a really stunning army with an "arabian nights" sort of theme, and it took him six months to find an opponent willing to play against him, because he wasn't using "official" models. That sort of attitude is ostensibly on the wane somewhat, but apparently that sentiment has yet to penetrate the local WM groups.

The same issue happens in MMORPGs; you can either have a sandbox experience where the players are given tools to generate their own narratives, or you can have a themepark ride where the player is constantly fed carefully-balanced content by the game but individual creativity is stifled. That's simply the nature of the beast; the more options you give to players, the more space you grant for creativity, the harder a system is to balance. The same is true with tabletop gaming, and if it comes down to a choice I'll take Counts As, Apocalypse, Imperial Armour, and a sometimes shaky ruleset any day of the week, because for my money, the occasional disagreement with some WAAC cheesemonger is tolerable in exchange for all the fun the leeway in 40K rules can enable.

My use of mtg was it took along time for the rules to become more or less balanced and clear in .I was Not talking about deck building, comptiveness, or comparing games

[DarkDrgon]

This would be the same MtG where choosing anything except the absolute best cards available to you pretty much guarantees a loss, and "fluff" plays almost no role whatsoever in deck composition or play strategies? Yeah, not the best example of how competitive rule sets are better for casual and fluff gamers there chief.

Actually, this right here is kinda dead wrong. The only way to gurantee a loss is if you go out of your way to choose the worst possible cards and not following any kind of logic in your build, and theme decks are one of the biggest parts of the game. One of the Best selling products out right now are sets of 2 decks that are 2 main characters or 2 factions in the story that are meant to be played head to head. Mtg also has some of the best kept rules out there, with a massive rulebook resource of rulings to show you exactly how cards interact. the same issues you point out occur in 40k (A tau build based on stealth suits and mass firewarriors is an auto lose, for example, and aren't there a ton of Space Wolf or GK builds that go against their established fluff)

I wish I didn't need to post the same rant on the MtG boards about warhammer, but I'm amazed how players of both games talk down on the other medium.

I agree that a tight rule set will benefit anyone who plays. a game where it is an actual rule that if no one can figure out how the rules work, the person who rolls better gets to decide how things work is just asking for trouble

[AlphariusOmegon20]

I think the first thing they need to do is just start with the concept of building rules with competition in mind. From there just start building up with clear and balance rules. This process could take years but it has to start sometime.

Mtg was like that when it first came. Rules were unclear a lot and cards ran from very powerful to awful. As time went rules were made more clear and balance. They do get cards the are over the top and and rules are unclear but it's better then it use to be

MTG is a perfect example of where the competitive crowd (admittedly, along with the Card Collectors) ruined a perfectly good beer and pretzel game. The problems were not with anything being unclear. At first, everything was VERY clear and quite balanced, as how a combo was resolved was spelled out in the basic rules. It was later, after the competitive crowd got a hold of the game, that everything went to hell in a hand basket concerning clarity and balance.

[snottlebocket]

I have been thinking about this for a while when I heard the rule for 40k were made with the beer and pretzel crowd in mind and not competitive player


Is out of date thinking? 20+ years ago this was true. People didn't have access to the internet to find the "list" or broken combos so for most casual game this wasn't a problem.

Now that people have access to this information and everyone in the world can get together to find the best of everything to play if you want to play to win. This can make casual games not as fun or balanced.

I believe it's time that the rules need to be designed with competitive players in mind. Not just for tournaments but for the "beer and pretzel" crowd.

I have seen to many heated "rule debates" ruin casual games. If we could make the rules more clear and balanced it would lessen the rule arguments, though never get rid of them

Competitive players are by far the loudest, most vocal, most present segment of wargamers. They're also a minority. GW's biggest audience is young teenagers playing on the kitchen table.

Why do you think GW's game worlds are so incredibly over the top full of skulls, silly violence and even sillier heroes and monsters. I have chaos books from 20 years ago that are full of nudity, rape and even implied beastiality, back then chaos lived up to it's reputation. As GW's customer base got younger so did the tone of the games change.

GW calls it a beer and pretzels game which is true enough. Cola and chips might be even more accurate.

[Mikial]

Competitive players are by far the loudest, most vocal, most present segment of wargamers. They're also a minority. GW's biggest audience is young teenagers playing on the kitchen table.

Why do you think GW's game worlds are so incredibly over the top full of skulls, silly violence and even sillier heroes and monsters. I have chaos books from 20 years ago that are full of nudity, rape and even implied beastiality, back then chaos lived up to it's reputation. As GW's customer base got younger so did the tone of the games change.

GW calls it a beer and pretzels game which is true enough. Cola and chips might be even more accurate.

You sure got this right! I've been playing since RT days, and the tone of the game has changed tremendously. The old Chaos (Slave to Darkness and Lost and the Damned) books were works of art, but they were really dark as were the old rulebooks. But this is back when the game was written for college students and above. GW has toned it down to make money and stay competitive in the market, and no one can blame them for that. If they weren't still in business, we would probably not be commenting on this forum . . . because there wouldn't be one.

But, I also agree that the rules need to be tightened up. That would make the game a lot more enjoyable and would certainly reduce the number or either head-scratching discussions between friends and arguments between players who are, shall we say, less-mature in their gaming style.

[Phaeron Setek]

I would agree that closing the loopholes in the rules would be a step forward for GW.

However, as it stands today, both crowds seem to get along well enough wih the rules that I don't see GW changing things anytime soon..

Also, the arguments I've had over rules tend to rest more with the competitive players (especially WAAC players), as the casual players I play against tend to just roll off and move on after about 30 seconds or so.

[Wishing]

It's an interesting question. I don't think anyone would disagree that the game being balanced would be a good thing, in theory. However, I don't think you would ever get the GW designers to agree that the game is not currently balanced. They will most likely agree that the game isn't designed with competitive play in mind, since it clearly is not, but going from that to saying that the game is poorly balanced isn't something that can exactly be conclusively proven - it will always be a question of opinion. And presumably most of the people who enjoy playing 40k competitively don't actually mind the state of the game, otherwise you'd imagine they would play something else.

My point is that while I think the OP's point is sound on a theoretical level, it will always be entirely theoretical, because the designers don't intentionally set out to make the game unbalanced (I presume) and it isn't possible to actually prove that it is so, on any significant level.

[orlando davion]

It's an interesting question. I don't think anyone would disagree that the game being balanced would be a good thing, in theory. However, I don't think you would ever get the GW designers to agree that the game is not currently balanced. They will most likely agree that the game isn't designed with competitive play in mind, since it clearly is not, but going from that to saying that the game is poorly balanced isn't something that can exactly be conclusively proven - it will always be a question of opinion. And presumably most of the people who enjoy playing 40k competitively don't actually mind the state of the game, otherwise you'd imagine they would play something else.

My point is that while I think the OP's point is sound on a theoretical level, it will always be entirely theoretical, because the designers don't intentionally set out to make the game unbalanced (I presume) and it isn't possible to actually prove that it is so, on any significant level.

GW made a mistake with the GK codex; it was far too powerful. I know of a number of people who did not pick up necrons on thier new codex because there quick view was "inferior to GK".

If the shiny new over the top (tiny army model wise) GK begin to affect sales of other releases there is hope there may be some movement.

My big fear is the new chaos realse may be as broken as GK.

Mind you thanks to GW pricing structure the local growing armies are warmachine; flames of war & Dystopian Wars.

[WildWeasel]

A well-designed game will be good for everyone.

As for "netlists" ruining everything: most netlists are just the blatantly obvious. Psyflemen dreads are no-brainers as soon as you see "Psybolt ammunition: 5 points." Purifiers, Paladins, and DCA are all obviously things to build lists around. Razorback spam and mech-Guard and Venom spam are all straightforward examples of the long standing MSU concept. Lash Princes plus Obliterators are so obvious it hurts.

This isn't one person coming upon some clever, out-of-the-box build, which then gets spread around. It's everyone looking at Imhotek, then at Solar Pulse, then at Imhotek, then at Solar Pulse, and going, "Well, duh."

[ehlijen]

I don't think GW truly needs super watertight competitive rules. It's not a game designed for tournaments and it seems a large chunk of players don't even enter them.

However, that is no excuse to not at least try to not ruin the core game with new special rules and gear each codex. I believe GW could do a lot better than they currently do with not too much more effort. Waterproofing the rules with legalese is a lot more effort and not something I want, but I am baffled as to why GW let's the blunders into published materials that it does. Who at GW honestly thought letting jaws snipe upgrade models in units was a good idea?

[althathir]

I also agree. Loophole free rules and codices without massively over- and underpowered rules help to make the game far more enjoyable for everyone. It gives competitive players more variety in possible builds, while fluffy players get to use the exact units they feel appropriate without hurting themselves in the game.

PS: I also want to see a single unified Marine codex.

Honestly with hardcore fluffy players to a degree its impossible to make them happy, cause the fluff and the rules just don't matchup well. I think they need to pay more attention to them mainly by giving more support to narrative gamers.

We really need a stickied unified marine dex thread, I'm not gonna get into why I disagree with you here because threads OTs have a habit of dying as soon as this the debate starts

My use of mtg was it took along time for the rules to become more or less balanced and clear in .I was Not talking about deck building, comptiveness, or comparing games

Magic has a lot less dimensions to worry about. Its part of why I wouldn't mind losing TLoS. Thats not say they can't learn some things from the system but I really wonder how much of it is that Wizards has always embraced the tourney scene because its easy for them to do so. For GW its hard because designing the models is time consuming, and terrain is always gonna be a wild card so keeping it fresh can be difficult & their is more risk.

To be honest what I think they really could learn from magic is how to have a website that promotes the product and caters to both player bases. Cause GW could make battle reports that show tricky situations and give a solution to them, and could drive some sales by giving a better a ideal of what typical marine strike force looks like (cause its not a battle company)

[Rated_lexxx]

This is kinda what I am talking about. I want the rules written with completive players in mind because of tournaments but to get a better set of rules, clearer rules, and more looking into how new rules ala codexs will affect older ones