Competitive vs. Friendly in 40k

[Jack Shrapnel]

This thread is kind of a jumping off point from a discussion that's been taking place in the 1850 Eldar list posted by Shas'O D'Narb....

In efforts not to derail actual list commentary (which is probably what he was looking for originally!) I thought we'd continue the discussion here in a separate thread....

....and yes, I thought of this only AFTER commenting in the original thread

So basically what are your thoughts on competitive vs. friendly 40k?

Is there really purely competitive play happening in tournies? (given most have comp outside of 'Ard Boyz and some have said that their scenario design will give edges to some army builds over others)

Is competitive play a bad thing? Is "fluffy" or "friendly" play better? (or just different)

Should tournies reward the fluff player and punish the competitive player or vice versa?

thoughts?

[Mythweaver]

My belief is that friendly play IS essential to the hobby. Fluffy lists with lots of background and character should be the goal of the majority of players.

However, tournaments are not about the guys (or girls) gettin together and having a good time. (although fun is part of it regardless) Tournaments are competitive in nature whether its backgammon, checkers or 40K.

We take the time to build these models, some taking more care than others. We painstakingly paint them, write lists for them and WE ALL want to see how they will fare against the best. Tournaments are about winning models and making a name for yourself in your community.

The two playing dynamics are equally important. I also believe that someone with a strong competitive nature will excell when designing his fluffy list.

All of this being said, never forget that I am just a newb.

[thesanityassassin]

I really think that there isn't a "better" (and I know this may seem to be somewhat going against my earlier post), just a real need to differentiate.

I understand, as some have said earlier, that for many people their enjoyment of the hobby comes from tweaking and optimizing lists, and then from winning games, and I don't think that it would be fair to tell them that they cannot do such a thing, or try and punish them for doing so. That wasn't the intent of my earlier post. What needs to be done however, is make sure that they have a place/group to get together with and work on the kind of gaming they enjoy, while making sure that that style doesn't override a community and ruin the fun of people who want to play more fluffy, "for fun" games. I don't think such a thing is happening here, but I have seen/heard of such things happening in other gaming communities, where some people start showing up to all friendly events and local tourneys with top tier Win-At-All-Costs lists, which forces half the players to build up to that caliber, and causes the other half to quit.

Having organized a LOT of events in the last several years, I've made a distinct point to do my best to ensure that everyone enjoys themselves, and have tried to match games accordingly, but I have definitely seen, as I'm sure some of you have, people who end up quite frustrated/upset with their experience after being quickly torn apart by a list that they had no chance against.

My personal feelings on friendly/competitive fall somewhere along this line:

Club/For Fun play:

Play whatever you want, but just make sure your foe is on the same page as you. As I've stated before, my biggest concern is avoiding Super-Competitive lists taking over friendly gaming and driving people away. Consider sticking a couple lists in your army case, and talk to your foe about what they think about the game. I know I've found myself on both sides of the board in terms of armies not syncing well, and I know it's miserable to be tabled, but also crappy to want a competitive game, and end up facing a fluffy list that you can blast apart. As Shannon said on the other thread, I think the fun in friendly gaming is in close competition. It's much more fun to play a close game, whether the lists are fluffy or competitive, than have someone get massacred. So I do encourage people to build/play the way they want, but outside of tourney play, make sure everyone is on the same page. And I can say from experience that learning to win with an unoptimized list will go a long way to improving your play when you do go to a high level tourney.

Local Tourneys:

I want the local tourneys to be an enjoyable place to come and play. Ultimately (and this is just my personal opinion), I do want them to be about getting together and having a good time, because in the end that's why everyone plays. That said, "having a good time" can have a lot of different meanings, and I'm by no means suggesting that our local tourneys devolve into "fluff fests". As Brad said, a tourney is a competition first and foremost, and should be held above club gaming in that regard. If you are coming to a tourney, expect to compete, and give it your best shot to win. I like Jon's idea of having a championship, no-comp event once in a while, where people are encouraged to bring out the big guns, because it IS fun to play that way once in a while, so long as everyone knows that's what it is going in. That said, I do want to differentiate "local" and "championship" tournaments. I do want our local tourneys to be a slightly more laid back environment, and that's why I've instituted the pre-judged composition scores. I really would like most of our lists at our tourneys to be a solid 3 (scored between 1 and 5). This means the army is designed to function and fight very well, but has avoided abusive unit-spamming, un-fluffy combinations to maximize power and excessive min-maxing to "Win at all Costs". Such lists are best reserved for our comp-free "championship" style events (which I want to run sometime soon). I'm NOT looking for 5's, and while I appreciate the fluffy lists, I think you'd best save something like that for friendly gaming as well, as in a tourney you should try and build your list to complete and give challenging games to your foes. My feeling for these is that I want the best GENERAL (and not necessarily the best list builder) to win the generalship awards at this one, and the best overall hobbiest to win best overall.

Competitive/Championship tourneys:

As said above, I really do want to start running one of these once in a while, as I do think that there is a place for this. The game is a competition, and there should be a place to reward the people who are best a figuring out how to win such a thing. 'Ard Boyz is a good start, but I'd like to see it done at a 1850/2000 level. These events would simply score winning like 'Ard Boyz (though there would be a big stress on NOT being a jerk), and in that let the best players with the toughest armies sort themselves out. I know such an event wouldn't be for everyone, but at the same time, neither is a "cityfight combat patrol flufflist" event that we have from time to time. I really don't have a problem gaming in this sense, but I just don't want it to be an everyday thing.



With all that said, I think that gaming, whether competitive or fluffy, should ALWAYS be friendly. Whatever our goals are, the game should be about both people enjoying the experience. So long as everyone knows what the limits are before hand, I think it always should be. There is NO place in this gaming community for people who are poor sports, either sore losers or rude winners, and I think a certain someone who is no longer welcome at our events perfectly exemplifies that. I don't want people around who have trouble playing because no one wants to be across the table from them knowing it will be a bad experience either way. There is no reason to gloat and mock if you're winning, or to whine and quit if you're losing (griping at dice is occasionally acceptable ) Again, if everyone knows what kind of game they're getting into before the fact, I think this will cut down on it quite a bit. I know at any level of play you might run into an army list that you have a lot of trouble beating, but I think it's pretty easy to tell if it's abusive or not (And if it is, it should have been agreed on that BOTH players would play such lists). So in the future, if you are running into serious problems with someone being a poor sport, particularly in an organized play event, please talk to me/whoever else is in charge!


Soo much writing. I think that's about it....hopefully I've managed to get my feelings on things relatively clear.

[danydaigle24]

Personnally, I expect my oponent to show his best list during a tournament. I would be very disapointed if someone come to a tournament with just a fluffy list where there is no competition at all. Im a very competitve person and I think we should all give our best in a tournament but we have to keep in mind that its a game and we have to stay good winner or good looser. BTW I have seen someone saying that his thinking about doing a group of player that would go around and try to compet in Tournament... I would be interest if he wants to contact me I dont remember who was this person.

[redshirt2375]

I was going to quote Matt's entire post, but figured I'd just say ditto instead

I've been on the receiving end of the "show up for a friendly game only to face down a min/maxed Super list" and have the game end on turn 2. It was my first fantasy game and I was using the army from the army box at the time. I actually stopped playing fantasy right then since I didn't see it as the fun game my roommate had made it to be when he and I played.
(needless to say that player ended up getting baned for 3 months and no one would game with him for being such a jerk to a new player)

So talking to you opponent first and being on the same page is a good idea, especially against newer players.

I've found that at this point in my gaming career () that I'm more interested in playing the crazier/fluffier lists more so than the lists designed to win-win-win. I like to know that my wins were came more from my ability as a player instead of just maximizing the power of that particular army. He and I have had a lot of fun games using weird lists that we come up with just to see if they work or not and then usually spend hours picking them apart and coming up with new combinations to try out.

Don't get me wrong, I like to win, but I find I'm more interested in finding new ways to be competitive while still keeping my lists some what fluffy.

I just wish I could manage to get more games in, but alas work tends to put a cramp in that most of the time :S

[shasodnarb]

Competitive/Championship tourneys... I really do want to start running one of these once in a while

Something like that, held just once a year, and having the winner's name engraved on a nice trophy kept at Nexus would be a really cool thing, for sure.

[Mythweaver]

I really like the idea of a trophy or a plaque with dog tags to engrave names on. Count me in if it ever becomes more than just talk. D'Narb and I would be willing to pitch in $20 each to help see this come to fruition.

Any other takers?

[Jack Shrapnel]

A nominal entry would easily cover the cost of a trophy / engraving....

no prize support, just bragging rights and engraving on a trophy....

no soft scores (other than the "don't be a git" rule of course)

Just bragging rights.... no scenarios favorable to one army over another...

yeah, I could get into that..... once a year, no holds barred Best General Tourney....

winner takes all.....

[usscott]

will i didnot read all the post but on being com. or frenldy . konw your seting if i just a nexes for just a game and i got a real com list .try play if your dump like deep stik i all the worg spot and try to come back try sacking the odd agetst your self and see if u can pool it out you will find win you what to win that yull be frbater at it . in trunments there are alot hard thing to win then just your 3 game like .Try play deamon in warhammer and try win bast spots man . I try to play must of the game i play to a draw or a turn 5 cleft hage .

[Jack Shrapnel]

good point about the daemons in Fantasy Scott - yet in 40k they seem far less over the top...

and yes, the setting is everything.... our friendly games are far different than a tournament... where you do want to bring your A-game and compete....

[Tommy]

My take on it is every game should be a "friendly" game, but some games should be more competitive then others. As long as people are aware of the competitivity of the tournement then i think some games with strong lists are fine.. The problem is the new player that joins up and is either unaware of how competitive it is, or dosnt know how to create a "hard" list. Going to a tournement a notch down from inexperiance is one thing but when your already another notch down beacuse everyone has brought the most min maxed lists out there it can make for a difficult time, and may make some new players unmotivated to come out..

[trevor]

i find i have the most fun playing against armys i dont normaly face like orks or eldar. the suprise factor i think. not knowing exzactly the stats on your aponents models makes for a game full of surprizes. the first time i played against the new orks was alot of fun even thought i lost bad ;D.

[thesanityassassin]

Like Tommy said, I find that a lot of new/inexperienced players use our tourneys, especially 40k, as their sole opportunities to play. This is why I like our average local tourney to be toned down a little bit.

[Mythweaver]

Having read through the whole thread again, it seems to me that there is a general theme being walked around.

Everyone plays the game primarily for the fun of facing off against friends new or old. Mixed with the gratification we each get from building and painting models, writing stories about our armies etc...win or lose.

Most of us are thrilled by close fought matches, win or lose.

Many of us however have a need, some even driven by it, to compete and be the best at what we do. Win or lose.

IMHO I think we need to provide a platform for the more competitive folks to fulfill that need away from the local tournaments. If the ultra competitive folks can get that fix a few times a year ('Ard Boyz included), perhaps the interest in Fluffy, balanced tournaments will increase. The very new people to the hobby, like me, may be more likely to have a fun learning experience...even at tournaments.

Then again, maybe not.

[thesanityassassin]

I agree Brad. I think I want to set up a 40k Championship event for the city, likely in early September when I'm back from Fan Expo...completely cut-throat and designed with winning as the primary goal.