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Weekender XLBS: Tabletop Gaming; What Grinds Your Gears?
May 20, 2018 by dracs
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Happy Sunday from Australia
Happy Sunday from Maine!
Happy Sunday all,
Happy Sunday… Despite that vision of Justin taking a dump confronting me first thing!
As a butterfly gamer that flits between a number of systems, my gears are ground by systems that churn through versions/editions/seasons so frequently that by the time I get back to playing it I find half my collection has been rendered redundant because I haven’t continually invested in this month’s books/cards/tokens/models. I like to get a few factions and the cost of that churn means I soon get left behind by certain systems. It’s an obvious business model to maintain a revenue stream, but not in my case as I’ll probably just drop it.
For example, much as I like the game and backed the original KS getting multiple factions, GuildBall has left me with a pile of redundant card and metal some of which might appeal to an enthusiast for collectable reasons. All I can do is try and keep a couple of teams up to date.
Same for me with Guild ball. Every time I got a game I had to buy a new set of rules and cards 🙁
Oh, me too. I play many many games, and I like breadth of experience rather than depth, and I never play in tournaments or leagues, so I rarely come across those “balance issues” that gamers love to bang on about ad nauseam on forums. So when a company issues a new version of a game the first thing that goes across my mind is “Oh crap, I’m going to have to fork out £100 and spend several evenings reading new rules books and learning the game all over again. As you say, a lot of the time, in fact probably most of the time I just won’t bother. Unless the new edition is really cheap and also quick to get my head around (Wrath of Kings springs to mind here) I am more likely to just leave my old collection languishing and play something else. 40k and WfB did that to me ages ago. Warmahordes and now most recently X-Wing did it too. Bolt Action survived because the tweaks were minor and the redundant rulebooks few.
Right now I’m enjoying quite a few of the Osprey “blue books” (most recently Gaslands and also Broken Legions) largely because they are fun, cheap, quick to learn and because you just know will not go to a second edition for a very long time, if at all.
I agree about the Osprey books. Most of them are very good
Yup thats a good one, its a bugger when you have spent months painting stuff and organising and they change the rules, Mongooses Call to Arms was a serious pain for it.
Happy Sunday everyone
Some lovely work this week for the painting section, congratulations to all those who won a Golden Button.
For the subject that’s the meat of the show I would have to go with repeat sculpt and poses in skirmish games and board games without rank and file. Exact repetition for me takes away from the submersion into the game even with a different paint job.
Justin .. WWX eating your hobby is nothing to be ashamed of man , you are living the dream. I hope this means that there are more wwx videos in the offing soon. Thanks for your hobby sacrifice
Happy Sunday everyone
Happy Sunday! Agree with Bens point on negativity and sams point on over granularity in games. Those grind my gears too!
The cork adapters are maybe from Rathcore. The have different miniature grips and for those grips they have cork adapters in the size S (custom bases 20mm(0,8″) square and 25mm(1″)Round), M (30mm(1,18″) round and round lipped bases), L (25mm(1″) square and 32mm(1,25″) round bases).
Grinds….KS cowboys Like Robotech and Evil Dead 2
Very interesting discussion and good to shine a light on some of the darker areas of the hobby so that positives can be taken.
The thing that grinds my gears most often is that whenever a game company releases anything, up pop the same brigade of people who seem to think that every game company is out to steal the clothes off their back and take food off their tables.
These companies, large or small, are businesses. In my view they have the right to sell whatever they want at whatever price they want. If the price is exorbitant, it won’t sell, that’s economics. Unfortunately a secondary gear grind is that on Kickstarter these same complainers pop up with the single intent of driving the prices down or pushing for more free stuff, and it often works. For me this omnipresent minority puts pressure on a company to be see to be responding to the feedback by giving in to the demands. And this only moves that pressure onto the financial margins and adds risk to the project, which is ultimately bad for everyone.
I see way more examples of game companies going out of their way to be fair to their customers (Warcradle with WWX, even FFG with X-Wing 2.0) than I do companies looking to milk their customers unfairly.
Gears ground!
Theres only one main thing in the hobby that really annoys me, which is when somebody in a game, complains about things going badly all the time…for no reason
For myself, i don’t care about winning, if i enjoy the game, i’m happy. My dice rolls are constantly terrible, so i usually lose, or i make terrible decisions, but 99 times out of 100, i’ll enjoy the game, regardless of how badly im losing, because for me, the game in made fun by the person im playing with, not the game itself.
In the club i used to go to however, there was one guy who, as soon as something went bad for him, he would complain. It could be the last turn, he could have been rolling amazing dice all game and it could be impossible for him to lose. Then he would roll one bad dice, and all of a sudden he would start complaining about how he always rolls badly, how his games never go well and he would just ruin the mood in the room and just be completely dis-interested in the rest of the turn.
The other scenario is that the game could literally have just started, he rolls badly and again, starts complaining about always rolling badly etc and again, be completely dis-interested in the rest of the game, and at that point, completely ruins the enjoyment of the game for those playing and those watching.
If something does go bad once or twice, then sure you might complain about that, or of you are actually having a bad game which there is no way for you to enjoy it, then sure. But when you have virutally no reason to complain, either the game has gone well and its been a brilliant game, or the tiniest thing has gone wrong, maybe out of your squad of 10, one model missed, then theres no need to complain about how things always go bad for you, especially not to the point where it ruins it for everyone involved.
Oh yes – some people come into a game with a the-world-is-against-me complex. Or an if-I-lose-it’s-not-my-fault worldview!
Nothing really grinds my gears. There are things I don’t like such as scale snobbery. It wasn’t too long ago when 28mm gamers were derided when everyone knew 15mm was the only proper scale to game in. Times change except people not liking 2mm but I’m strong enough in my little darkened room to cope 🙂
I suppose following that is rule makers claiming games are 28mm,15mm etc. I’m just not sure I get this at all along with gamers not wishing to play games with figures that the company has also produced. Again this seems apart from a couple of exceptions to be a very recent development.
Probably not an annoyance but games seem to be getting shorter do people not set out to play games with their lunch packed and knowing that they will be happily playing for 5 or 6 hours. I get the feeling that people seem to get bored with something after an hour and a half. Thinking about it I guess it’s part of a wider social development and policies of various governments that seem to decrease people’s lesiue time due to economic pressures
Happy Sunday
Viking 878 is a superb game Ben should definitely get it, it’s lots of fun as are the other academy games games:-)
I fully agree with @commondorerob it is a great game that can be a beer and (not around my game) pizza game, a teaching tool or just a great evening of fun
Also just to say, my Spitfire was the simplest of paint jobs, base coat colours, transfers added using Decalfix which effectively melts them on to the model. Then I used Army Painter Darktone dip brushed on. Followed by AP anti-shine and a few edge highlights and done the longest part was the waiting for the decals to set and the dip to cure 🙂
@brennon opinions on model poses vary. I like static commanders, done well the pose conveys authority, or just “does-not-give-a-monkey’s-ness”. I also don’t like every last rank and file figure being in some kung fu movie super action pose.
I agree on feet on rocks (ammo boxes, logs, frogs, etc.) that needs to stop.
Oh and an anecdote to back up the games snobbery, I was talking to a small manufacturer of MDF kits at a show last year.
MDF kit man: looking for anything in particular?
Me: your Normandy stuff looks good.
MKM: 15mm?
Me: 28mm
MKM: oh, which game are you playing?
Me: Bolt Action
MKM: (20 minute diatribe of all that’s wrong with Bolt Action)
I’ll give you 20 guesses how many of his buildings I bought that day.
Happy Sunday to all, reference the grid my gear segment . Solo play, I have found a lot of game snobbery towards this. I have people say to me why would I bother playing solo and my answer is because snobs like you, i remember once emailing the dice tower to ask if they would review some solo games and the email I got back was five words…I DON’T PLAY SOLO GAMES… and that was it , so i answered back you are a board/ miniatures game review website so you only review games you play or your group play need to say I didn’t get an answer. Due to my work and family commitments solo play is the only way I can get any gaming in, the challenge of facing an opponent and the banter i miss but solo play can also have its reward i am not reliant on and fitting a game around a certain time of date, I play golf action solo and also use the platoon forward rules from TWO FAT LARDIES this makes for great play. Then there is the LORD OF THE RINGS off game excellent for solo play , I will finish on a great thank you to your site for covering solo play games in your weekenders when Ben talks about new games you have introduced me to some games that I did not know could be played solo.
I agree with you on Solo play! It is , for me, the only way I get to play on a regular basis.
The local game shop, (if it ever truly was a real game shop, more of a card shack), closed down and the gamer group dried up as they believed that to be a real adult you can’t play and enjoy table top games.
I’ll Solo game for an entire day. My aponent, (me), is always available when I’m ready to play.
Don’t get me wrong, I jump at the opportunity to game with others. But I’m picky these days. If a player is known to be a cut-throat tournament only rules, (and only 2D terrain), with no room for backstory or larger campaign style, ( think bigger picture ), then I’ll pass him/her up and play alone.
My wife has become one of my favorite opponents, (when time permits), as she enjoys story and setup as well.
that’s hilarious as i saw dice towers gloomhaven review and Tom played it solo.
Gripes.
Fan boys. I have tried to hobby and game as cheaply as possible. I am the only bread winner, so any money spent could have been saved for a rainy day or spent towards a family project instead. But some smaller company fan boys will tear you down for using alternative models to those produced by the company, claiming you are eating into their margins. If I buy the rulebook, play the game, spread the word that it is a good game, do they really think that everyone at my club will go through the hassle of buying and converting cheaper models? Or that I will never buy the companies models in the fulness of time if I enjoy the game?
Then you get veteran fan boys of bigger game systems that hate anyone making comments on their forum / Facebook page unless you know the lore or rulebook as chapter and verse as they do. Or perhaps just hate on you because you are bringing up a question which they have seen a dozen times that month. Telling someone new to shut up and read the codex, or shut up and look at last week’s feed for the answer is rude, off putting and dragging the game down. Because a game is big and there are plenty of players for it sadly people short-sightedly feel they don’t need to encourage new players to join. They have their pool of players and don’t care if they put off new comers by lording their superior knowledge of a game over them and belittling them.
Fan boys might be useful to generate enthusiasm and energy around a game, (“if they love the game so much, perhaps I might like it?”) but I almost stopped projects, or stopped playing games because of the sour taste left after being criticised for not knowing enough or not enjoying the game in the way that they have deemed to prescribe for everyone.
Happy sunday folks!
Gear grinding….mmm…… As the guys stated on the video, everyone is entitled to their opinion….. so buckle up this could get bumpy!! 😀
What grinds my gears? (I know this is going to be contentious) 8th Ed 40k, for a multitude of reasons that I shall expand on which to be fair, where mentioned on the show. I’ve played every edition since 2nd Ed, and until June last year I played 40k once, sometimes twice a week. Enter 8th Edition, a major step change in play style for the game. I bought it, tried it, played for about 2 months but I found the rules lacking for my narrative gaming brain. I stopped playing for 8 months. After much coercion, I’m currently giving it a second try, but still struggling to get into it. In my 25yrs in this hobby, I have never known a ruleset be so divisive to it’s own community, it has created real vitriol and the birth of the 8th Ed evangelists.
Snobbery (8th Ed evangelists)
When FW released the Horus Heresy, I and many others were branded “30k elitists” because we preferred it to 40k. Whilst it maintained the core rules, it was at it’s heart a narrative system and exactly what I was looking for, where 40k was moving to the competitive side. I still played and enjoyed 40k as well, but the fact I had a 30k army as well….
Now the 8th Ed evangelists slate us “30k’ers” for not moving to 8th Ed ruleset as it’s “a superior ruleset”. From my experience (FB HH groups and events), the vast majority of the 30k community prefer the 7th-Ed based rules (Age of Darkness v1.0 as they are now), there are some calling for it to change. but most are happy with the current setup. However the evangelists preach that 30k must move to 8th Ed rules or it will die…. no sorry I don’t agree with that. At the slightest mention of 7th Ed on some FB groups, you are immediately labelled as “one of them” as if it was social stigma for preferring 7th Ed. Don’t we get enough of that already for being wargamers!? 😀
Streamlining
I’ll hold my hand up to this one straight away, 7th Ed 40k was suffering from bloated rules. However that was mainly due to power creep within the codexes, at it’s core rules it was a happy little system that just needed tidying up here and there. 8th Ed design brief – “Create a ruleset that tournament players can’t break”. Those were the words from one of FW’s rules designers when I asked him about it earlier this year. 8th Ed at it’s core is designed for tournament play and this unfortunately has been at the cost of narrative play. Whilst the rulebook has a narrative play section…. it feels fundamentally lacking in narrative elements. Why? Because they slow down tournament play. Whilst I don’t begrudge tournament play, everyone has their own way of playing, mine happens to be narrative, and I can’t help but feel I’ve had that taken away with this edition. Terrain, templates and scatter dice were key elements to that play-style, now I just roll a random number of dice to see how many shots I get. Artillery barrages and Titans would roam the battlefields in Apocalypse games dealing death with templates covering multiple units caught in the blast… now they just shoot one unit with a random D6 roll number of shots… Terrain counts for nothing unless you’re stood right next to it for a measly +1 to your armour save, you can freely move around unaffected by the elements… failing morale leads to additional casualties instead of a unit regrouping and coming back from the brink…. the cinematics have been lost, all in the name of tournament play.
Blatant power creep
From day 1, it was clear what the role of the Primaris Marines was – to get players with established marine armies to buy more. How do they do that? As @dignity mentioned, they all get better rules than existing units because they want the sales.
And with that, I shall step down from my soapbox, and wish you all happy gaming. In the words of Abraham Lincoln in Bill & Ted, “Be excellent to each other” 🙂
@brennon, I disagree about kickstarter helping create positive mindsets in the community.
I’d say it’s the complete opposite. communities are acting as if they own the brand, and creating such toxic responses to new releases that companies feel they need to rethink THEIR own product because the community is backlashing so hard.
This is certainly true on kickstarter itself but it has definitely crept into “normal” releases too.
It’s become a big issue in the video gaming industry, take a look at starwars battlefront 2, the communities toxicity has killed the game. The absurd allegations against their loot crates caused boycotting. It cut off the funding that would then pay for all the free dlc. So now the dlc is crap because there isn’t a point in supporting what would have been a fantastic game.
This will most certainly become more common in the tabletop sphere too as people become more and more self entitled.
!Happy Sunday, everyone!
It’s badly written rulebooks for me, Either they are difficult to understand lacking logical progression, the layout is badly designed or you are flicking between 4-5 pages to figure out what needs to be rolled. Whether it’s a board game, miniature games or RPG’s, if it’s acting as a barrier to someone playing the game or learning the game it cannot be a good thing.
I find it annoying if rulebooks don’t have an need in the back
Index even
What grinds my gears is forums without the option to edit your posts… 😉
🙂 🙂 🙂
I thought it was just me that couldn’t figure out the magical ‘Irish Edit Secret’.
(sigh of relief)
Absolutely concur!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My Peeves,
The people/social side:
The Old Grognards who will not allow a gaming system to evolve forward. They are so vocal and will defend bad mechanics just because this is how something has always been and they believe in more of the same despite many wanting change. Many in the Battletech community seem to fall into this category. Many Criticisms are shot down on the official forums which turns many off to the point now it is hard to find anyone to play with as there are so many other game systems available.
The False Experts. I see this on Reddit often. People who post recommendations to others and state things that are simply not true. Recently there was a post I responded to because a person was trashing Mythic Battles and Joan of Arc and obviously had not played either and this persons criticisms of the mechanics made no sense since this was not how the games are played. I see a lot of this especially on table top forums. I have played a lot of games and it just annoys me especially when someone is new and is looking for a suggestion and is not getting the facts.
The One and Done Crowd. These are gamers that try a game just one time and apparently are now experts and will tell anyone they can how a particular game sucks or is the greatest game ever made. For me, a single play, cannot possible give you the full depth of a game. Sure, there are games that you play once and you want to play again. There are other games that may take a few play throughs. Not everyone will clearly like a single game but after a single play through you do not know a enough and I find many miss a lot of rules which made the experience poor to begin with. I see this a lot about Decent 2nd Ed. and other games with large rule books.
The PC/Politics Crowd. I use games to escape for a few hours like many do with books or movies. It seems impossible to escape the same divisive issues even for 30min. At a visit to a gaming club a few weeks ago someone interrupted our game of Conan simply because of the past controversy of the Conan Game Rule Cover and the art of the game. We did not invite this person to come over. We did not want to have a discourse about the issue, we simply wanted to play the game. This person became so vocal and intense and threatened to rip up the game. The shop keeper finally asked the person to leave. The same heated discussion happens online as well. What makes me mad is that all types of expression of art should be allowed. If you don’t like it, don’t buy the game. There are so many games surely you can move on to another game. Instead, often on KS campaigns you see those who ruin the comments trying to get their PC ideas into the game. My favorite is still a game where someone argued that portraying witches as evil was unfair to those who practice Wicca and wanted the witches removed from the game. Not sure why people are backing the game except to express a political view and ruin the experience of others.
The rules police people. Enough said.
The people who do not come prepared to play or are more interested on checking Facebook every 5min then actually playing. We have a rule among my friends that all phones go into a box before we start playing.
On the gaming/mechanics side:
I am with Justin on the stat cards. If a game requires me to dig into a rule book for every stat it is an instant no purchase for me. I understand for smaller companies it may be expensive to create the cards but you can put them online and allow gamers to print them out. This is actually better since as the balance needs to change you only update online and everyone just prints out their own new cards.
My other annoyance is cards that are information dense and use small cards. As I have creeped into 50s range my eyesight is NOT what it used to be. If I cannot read the cards then I am not playing. On games I have really liked, thanks to the magic of a photo scanner and special software I have made my own cards that are bridge size so that I can more easily read them. While many have argued with me this is a copyright violation, I do not really care because otherwise I would simply not be able to play. Since I am not selling these and they are for my own personal use, I ignore the rules police.
I am too done with super long rounds. I can no longer tolerate games where a single players turn may take 20min to play. These game become too long and no longer fun.
Length of rules. On the tabletop wargaming side, I know there are those who love high fidelity games. I am not one of them. I do not need to know if someone slipped on the cobble stone while running across it. I do not need the wind to affect the aim of my arrow. I rather have streamlined play. I believe that the level of fidelity from the FFG Star Wars games is just the right length. If I need a book per army unit I am done. Same for board games. If the rules book is beyond 20 pages then the game is not for me because it is way to hard to teach to others. Since most of my friends will never do their homework before we play, it has to be explainable by me in 15min or less.
Too many icons and symbols. I do not mind custom dice or symbols on cards. It does get to be a bit much when you need to refer to a reference guide all the time. I see many struggle playing Race for the Galaxy or even 7 Wonders because of this.
I agree with all the stated criticism about miniatures on the show.
Regarding miniature wargaming. IMHO, there are far too many systems and they are all very expensive to get stuck into and it often dilutes the community. It gets hard to find a game for a specific system. I recently watched someone come to a game night all excited to play Infinity and no one showed up to play infinity because now everyone is stuck into Star Wars Legion. In 6 months it will be something else.
As I have become older and my kids will soon move on to university later this fall, I find I fall back to painting miniatures because I can get into my fortress of solitude for 1hr without worrying about any of the above.
I worry that while this hobby in general has grown, how much is it tailored to the existing community versus attracting a lot of new people.
Ouch Ben, the ‘Old Hands’ comment! Well I guess I am a lot older than you guys! 🙂
Guess I might as well own it, hence my call sign SilverFox. Was given that nickname by some of my friends spouses at the Army War College. Think it was more the grey hair than anything else!!!!
What grinds my gear during gaming.
Agree with Ben on the negativity comments, life is way to short to focus on the negative. Work on getting a positive outlook and life will be much better.
OK now on to my two issues.
People that answer cell phones and text during gaming – ABSOLUTE NO GO!!! Really rude and if you do that with me that typically is the last game I’ll play with you. Exceptions wife calls or texts due to an emergency or some other thing that causes you to have to stop gaming and do something else outside the game. That can’t be helped sometimes, but to continuously stop gaming to text etc…. is a no go. My time is important to me also so have some respect for your opponent.
Second one, don’t mind if you have a beer or two during a game but when you start drinking to the point that it effects you mood in any way, I’m done. Just don’t have time for that and I lump that into the same area as having no respect for those you are playing with.
Probably have some more but those are my two biggest!
Great show again as usual. Thanks guys!!!!!
When it comes to board-formatted wargames, @brennon … GO FOR IT. Take the plunge. I’ll have you sitting at a Panzer Leader table before you know it.
Bwa ha ha ha ha!
THEN you can say you are a “wargame commander.” 😀
878: Vikings are to Panzer Leader, what grain, yeast or hobs are to to beer, a step in the right direction but not yet there.
Agee with Justin on 1st turn slaughter, especially with 40k I have spent all that time saving, buying, building, painting and putting an Army together and due to a dice roll, I see 1/2 my Army disappear before I even done anything with them.
I now use the Bolt Action mechanic of dice in a bag for each unit. Makes games so much more competitive. Ironically if the originals had been involved in the evolution of 40K (RP and AC) this mechanic would be in play.
All the phases stay the same, it’s just for that Unit rather than the whole.
@dracs “Why will it not stick?!” Mold Release.
I’ve found that more models than you might expect still have mold release on the bits, and this completely interferes with the curing process of the glue.
After I started washing my Infinity minis in the same way that I wash resin parts, I stopped having such big problems with the glue simply not working.
I agree about washing all models. I know the “experts” like to say you don’t need to wash models these days and if you do, “Your wasting your time!”. But I’m old school and I wash my models before I do anything else. Always start with a soild foundation. It only takes a minute or two.
I have gone as far as buying a utra sonic jewellery cleaner, for this purpose (and to try to see if it can strip some models)
The main thing that drives me crazy at the gaming table is an opponent who needles and argues about anything and everything, not because of a legitimate difference of understanding but because they are deriving their entertainment from “pushing your buttons.”
It doesn’t matter to them if the game grinds to a halt over a rules question, if they’ve discovered something that really annoys you. They’ll use that to needle and distract in order for them to win the game.
I don’t buy my miniatures to be display pieces, i buy them to play with, but i do want them to be as true to scale as possible and if that means fine ‘easy to break’ details then so be it. I think there are things that could possibly be done to make fine parts less easy to break, such as making them separate parts out of tougher materials than the rest of the miniature, and such as making sure there is a place on the miniature and/or base that it can be picked up by.
On that note, i find miniatures very off putting when they are advertised in such generic scaling terms that i’ve no idea what size they and what size they are meant to represent.
Grinding gears: recently I have been thinking a lot about scenarios. There are couple of types of ready made scenarios that really grind my gears:
1. Scenarios that do not create a fun game for both sides. I prefer asymmetrical scenarios, but if the setup is such that the other side just pushes models to the table to get killed, it is just weak writing and poor testing from the game developer.
2. ”Gamey” scenarios where the objectives are purely designed to create the game, not to have narrative. So boring. It is especially bad if all the scenarios in the rulebook are like that (looking at you, Batman Miniatures game). I can create my own scenarios, but it’s often difficult if you’re playing a new opponent.
Sam make a great point here. I started playing 40k in the 90’s weekend would come and we’d go hit our local shop to play a game and we’d walk in and card players are taking up every single bit of space around every table. It happened so often to us that I used to get irritated but just card players being there taking up all play areas and to this day it turned me so off of card games that I still don’t play them. Now when I see them at my local shop some days a flash of anger still goes through my system even though it really doesn’t matter anymore most places have a card playing area and a war-gaming area so everyone has their space. Justin most of your points are probably influenced by 40k and I agree with them mostly, I hate digging through books looking for stat lines and I am not a huge fan of the way your build a list now, units here..points at the back. Commence flipping back in fourth for at least a couple areas. I have now made my own stat cards which I keep in front of me when I play(even toyed with an idea on how to work with the vehicles stats changing depending on damage). The turn length does seem to be a real issue I enjoy that part of countering after a devastating round,but you have a valid point there. I can say that the Necromunda Underhive new rules where you swap off activating guys does keep people interested. Ben I usually never read comments about anything (unless its the XLBS) and I know your sort of have to so I can see why that whole “it’s crap” with no valid argument why or what is wrong is annoying. I had no idea there were people out there that didn’t like the new sisters sculpt for example until you mentioned it. And lastly Foot on Rock Syndrome IS A THING.
Warhammer, Age of Sigmar, I hated this game, but now I’ve played it, and have enjoyed every game from the first game I’ve played.
Got myself saying “Its a better game once I’ve played it”…….
Still, have my Warhammer Armies on square bases. Now have more, just base my Age of Sigmar forces on see-through bases as we also play on much better game mats now and like to see my figure standing on the game mat, not a completely different base as to what area is I’m playing on.
Hmm. There’s a subculture in the competitive gaming sphere that seems to really look down on narrative play or ‘fluffy’ list building. Narrative and a degree of authenticity are important to me. I’m not a purist (alternative history is cool when it’s well thought out) but when it comes to historical gaming in particular I do appreciate a reasonable attempt at having some degree of authenticity as it helps me with the submersion – you can have your confederate vampires and a shotgun-axe-toting Abraham Lincoln because they look cool, but it’s nice to have the right flags on the right regiments! Power gaming appeals to some, I get it, and if that’s what you enjoy then fair play – going hammer and tongues in a competitive environment isn’t my particular cup of tea but I don’t see why I should be laughed at for playing fluffy lists, or narrative campaigns with my friends.
Only other thing that grinds my gears is when people who are clearly heavily invested in a game develop a superiority complex to more casual/restricted gamers. I have a busy life, I don’t get a lot of time for gaming anymore and to be honest I’ve got a short attention span at the best of times, I’ll go after something obsessively for a while, get bored and move on. Could be a year before I come back to a game. My issue is that fair enough I don’t play twice a week religiously or I haven’t invested hundreds of hours (and pounds) into any one particular game but that doesn’t mean I don’t have utmost respect for the game in question, be it the rules, the sculpts or the artwork direction. When I’m playing something I’m there to enjoy it, even if I do get rules wrong from time to time or I haven’t optimised a particular unit as I should have done. Pal, I’m there to have some fun, not get glared at for the slightest mix-up because I’m not as ‘hardcore’ as you…
Happy Sunday All! Another great show as ever, and as is common with XLBS very thought-provoking.
To comment on @brennon thoughts about talking directly to creators, this is a really tough one. I spent some time in the video games industry on a licenced GW title. It was, in many ways, wonderful to be pouring my heart and soul into a project that I truly loved. It felt like the game I had been destined to work on since 12/13 year old me first walked into a GW store and learned about this wonderful world. You can bet I pushed myself, and my family, to probably intolerable limits, to put the hours in on that product, to make it the best it could possibly be.
We had a community manager who handled a lot of the forum stuff, but I did a few stints on there and trying to reason with people who were upset about one thing or another, or one choice or another we made. I totally understand people raising issues about stuff they didn’t like, or thought should have been different, or even things, fair enough, we got wrong. What was difficult, were people saying I didn’t care, or being generally abusive about both me personally and the team who had also worked really hard on the product. I found the response (of ultimately a small minority) so toxic, that I pretty much removed myself from all GW products as a gamer at home. Not because of the company at all, but because I really didn’t want anything to remind me of that experience, that was, for want of a better word, soul destroying. I will say, I am eternally grateful for those people who did enjoy it and said as much online in one form or another!
So to this day, I no longer engage with any GW products (RPG, Wargames, specialist etc..), read the books, or play the computer games. I recently went into a GW store again, and there is some cool stuff I see there I think, maybe I can get back to it at some point. Time heals all! But yeah, for sure complain, for sure make your voice heard, but remember that nearly everyone who works on these things, they care, they love it as much as you do, and they are probably working really hard to make it great.
On homogenised rules, this is a tricky one. So I find games like Dropfleet, with very homogenised rules, are great for tournament play and are easy to learn and understand. The downside, the units and characters lose a lot of flavour. I really think Malifaux strikes a good balance here with trying to have lots of flavour and unique stuff for each model, but the core rules are consistent and easy to understand. For my own game Deneb, I’ve tried to go a similar route. The golden rule was if a rule is totally unique to a model, it must be described (ideally as fully as possible) on their stat card. I don’t want anyone ever having to look something up in the rules once they are basically familiar with the game.
It’s a very old game now, but the MEGA Roleplaying system, it’s pretty hilarious how much table referencing there is even in taking a single action. By modern standards the game is unplayable, but it is fun to get out and just try and figure out how complex it got for a single combat roll!
happy XLBS great show guys.
Happy Sunday!
My gear grind is GW-specific although I’m sure other companies do it too, and that’s eliminate sensible and reasonable equipment options from rules because of model availability.
Back in the day you used to be able to customise a lot of your troops and characters. (Way, way back in the day, arguably you had too much freedom.) For a long time though, any Space Marine character could have a chainsword, powersword, bolt pistol, etc. They might not have been particularly useful, but they could all have this standard equipment.
Some years ago they shifted to make wargear options much more restrictive. Not (wholly) for game balance, but because the miniatures didn’t come with other options. A recent example is the Nurgle lord guy in the new core box set. You can only equip him with an axe. There’s no sensible reason in the setting why he shouldn’t be armed with any other Nurgly weapons, but you are stuck with what the official model carries.
A related niggle was/is the way that theme would be disrupted across armies for the same reason. E.g. mono-god forces with ‘Plague Marine’ troops with Nurgly special rules but army commanders without the special rules their troops had: they were stuck with a Mark of Nurgle to tie them to the army.
Very frustrating!
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I have a non-GW gear grind as well, about one of my favourite games: Dropzone Commander.
The Resistance faction don’t play as I think they should play. They may be balanced rules wise (I’m not a very good player, so can’t really comment), but they don’t play like a bunch of scavanging veterans. They play like an elite army equipped with very specialist equipment. Their motorbikes are insanely fast, their trucks incredibly tough (compared with tanks that other factions field). And so on. I’m sure that a lot of this is to make the faction balanced, but it comes at the expense of theme, to me.
I would much prefer the faction to rely far more on hiding and sneaking and knowing the terrain they were fighting on. I want them to operate like guerilla fighters, not like (to mix gaming metaphors) Eldar Aspect Warriors.
What grinds my gears?….a dodgy clutch!
I’ll pay that 🙂
Happy Thursday!!!
@brennon I agree regarding static commanders with one two two exceptions. Basically Imperial Guard Commanders are fine in static poses. Most famously, Creed. I think it fits them. 🙂
I have to admit to sometimes being a bit of a gamer snob about 40k. I can’t stand the game, although I love the universe. I try to curb my cynicism about the game, but I let myself slip more often than I would like. I do think 8th edition is a massive step forward, but there is work to be done and I JUDGE YOU IF YOU LIKE IT! which is obviously completely unfair, people can and should play the games they like and I don’t like that quality in myself!!
My pet peeves for this hobby
1. People who are critical without any constructive component. Constructive criticism is great for improvement, but it really bothers me when I hear or see someone saying that someone elses conversion/paintjob/background is bad, or needs improvement. I don’t get people who can’t look at something and even if it isn’t good, find something that they did well and say “hey – nice job with X, you could try Y next time”…. I always make a point to find the best part of the job done and praise that.
2. Nit pickers! Related to the first point, I have a friend who can’t look at a model without without picking out some detail that might have been missed by the painter. The model could be spectacular but one spot behind the weapon could have been missed and that’s what he’ll point out. It’s not so much the fact that it’s pointed out, but the fact that they go out of their way to find it.
3. Selfish gamers. Those players who don’t care about the other people playing the game. They only care that they are having fun and if it is at someone elses expense, so be it – or worse, those who actively love it when it is at someone elses expense!
What grinds my gears? People in the hobby who treat their models as toys, smashing them about and constantly glueing the bits back on…. who ALSO trwat other people’s models the same way. Not cool, for those situations we can be polite and let them know kindly that we treat our models differently. Now that I don’t play 40k pickup games I have not run into this again.
What grinds my gears? Both edges of the Bell Curve, the super fanboys that will never find anything wrong with the game the company and fight you to the death over it, while the other side is the negboys for lack of a better term, these are the ones that can’t find anything nice to say about anything. They only seem happy when they are attacking.
The irony of asking the question here at BOW is that this is a place for the biggest part of the bell. Will there be times that we will individually move to the edges for a bit? Yes, of course, but the largest part of this community stays to the middle and are wonderful people to be around even if it is only online.
When it comes to games and issues there, how a game and have index of upgrade creeping. If you don’t buy the newest books and models then you really can’t compete. I don’t mean this in the natural expansion of a game but more in the wave nature of games that the newest is the best and can dominate.
These items have been mentioned before and explained better by others but that is my take. Now back to looking over this BoW 2.0 thing.
@brennon 878: Vikings are a great game, I did get it from the kickstarter with an extra neoprene playing map.
Alfred does show up as a leader of the Saxons
What really grinds my gears? Well…
1) The “elite” of a gaming group/organisation – They aren’t really elite, of course, but for some reason they think they are God’s Gift and the only people whose opinions count. One gaming club I know of is run by a committee (all part of the same friend group) who organise events at a FLGS. Those events are almost always 40K events (very occasionally Age of Sigmar). When I questioned when there would be events for other systems I was rudely told “We run events that our members want us to run.” (I don’t remember the club ever being canvassed for their opinions) When the FLGS ran their own events for various systems (Infinity, Warmahordes, X-Wing, Star Trek: Attack Wing, etc.) they would always be full, with 80% of the players belonging to the gaming club (but not the committee). I left the club shortly after this, and the 40K-bias has continued. Definitely an example of the committee arranging what they want to play, not what the club wanted, because they are a self-obsessed “elite”. Which is a shame, because the club had the only source of communal scenery, which you had to be a member to use. Just a shame it was 90% Gothic ruins…
2) Other people handling your minis without permission – It’s annoying. Stop it. On one occasion, I was in a GW store where my friend worked. i had a Mordheim Witch Hunter Captain (actually, I think it was the Warhammer Quest Witch Hunter character that I was using to lead my Warband). I’m not a particularly good painter, but I was proud of that model (one of the few I’d actually painted!). My friend picked the model up, got annoyed at the face, then proceeded to give the face a coat of flesh wash for shading. Never have I been more demoralized in my hobby, which probably explains why so many of my minis remain unpainted today.
3) Game snobbery – Just because you have a favourite game, does not mean that other people can’t enjoy their games (I may have ranted about the 40K-obsessed committee in point 1, but I completely respect their right to play it, even if I’m not a fan. It’s their forcing it on other people I don’t like.) I’ve been in an FLGS preparing for a Game of Thrones card game event having to listen to very loud, obnoxious people slagging the game off (despite never having played it) simply for not being X-Wing or 40K (ten guesses which organisation they beliged to?)
amybody play BattleTech= great fluff and better game 🙂