Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by David Johansen

It's the hard core competitive tournament mind set. Some people are primarily concerned with whether they win or not and they want to know that if they lost it was fair.

Fair enough, I suppose. Really, I got to watch two of the worst players around massively improve because they went to Games Workshop tournaments and saw their scores dive on grounds of painting and sportsmanship You never saw such repentant sinners.

Say what you will about GW, in the late nineties to mid noughties they really pushed the hobby aspect and the playing for fun aspect and sixth edition Warhammer was heavily focused on troops and maneuver not sticking the most absurd magic item combos on characters. It held over into mid seventh edition when most of the old guys like Priestly and Chambers moved on, then it was all just spam, spam, spamity, spam.

I've never played Warhamburger because the design style never appealed.

But back in the day we had our own way to deal with the worst players... "You're a buttmunch and I won't play with you." Works.

Well, Uncle, I agree a cyberpunk setting is what we've got today. But some people love to deny it.
I blame Shadowrun. It seems they're not going to admit it until they see elves walking the streets. Though there are people that mod their ears already...

Originally Posted by David Johansen

It's the hard core competitive tournament mind set. Some people are primarily concerned with whether they win or not and they want to know that if they lost it was fair.

When it comes to RPGs, my answer to that tends to be "we're simulating* living in a setting, and life ain't fair, deal with it". People that can't or don't want to (the latter of which I respect) are welcome to find another table.
I'm suddenly interested what would be the wargaming variant of the same statement.

*Though I seem to be considered a "narrativist" player on this board. Probably because I think some of the dreaded story-games had good ideas that work better for simulations.

Well, there's dirty hippy wargames too, where you don't measure distances or movement or worse still where there's no elaborate points system to balance games out. There's also stuff like Chaos in Cairo which comes very close to crossing the line into roleplaying.

"But how will I know if it's a fair game?" one of my young customers wailed when told that Tomorrow's War didn't use a points system. "Some times war isn't fair," I replied. He bought the book but never played it.

Originally Posted by David Johansen

Well, there's dirty hippy wargames too, where you don't measure distances or movement or worse still where there's no elaborate points system to balance games out. There's also stuff like Chaos in Cairo which comes very close to crossing the line into roleplaying.

"But how will I know if it's a fair game?" one of my young customers wailed when told that Tomorrow's War didn't use a points system. "Some times war isn't fair," I replied. He bought the book but never played it.

The first time I played the Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame, Dave Arneson was the ref.

I had four British destroyers and a Destroyer Leader (a slightly glorified tin can, not even CLOSE to a light cruiser.)

The Japanese had one or two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and a mess of destroyers.

I won.

Because my victory conditions were "Escape mostly intact," not "sink all the enemy."

Originally Posted by chirine ba kal

I read your reply, and I can vouch for what you're saying. I see a lot of this kind of gaming locally, and I simply walk away. A 1/16th measurement is simply silly, at least in the games we used to play, and we used to resolve LOS issues by just leaning over or squatting down and looking at the table. These days, simply because it's more fun, I use lovely reverse periscopes to see what my little lead troopers can see, and cheap laser pointers to see what they can hit.

But you must admit, Montressor, that there are a lot of Tin Soldier Shop types that we wouldn't play with for just that very reason. The English Phil Barker was on a tour of various wargame venues in the US once and went to the Tin, and then up to Winnipeg. He told my Canadian wargamer friends that "those people in Minneapolis would rather argue than play the game."

I always figured myself that if I won or lost the game because of 1/16 of an inch, I'd botched my command so badly that I deserved to be taken out and shot anyway.

Gods of Tekumel. On another forum I just saw this: (bolding mine)

"For those that may be interested but missed the announcement.
http://www.choiceofgames.com/petal-t...ource=ourgames

Choice of the Petal Throne
by Danielle Goudeau

In the Empire of the Petal Throne�, will you find glory, or a knife in your back?

"Choice of the Petal Throne" is a 124,000-word interactive fantasy novel by Danielle Goudeau, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based--without graphics or sound effects--and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

M.A.R. Barker's world of T�kumel� is a fantasy universe like no other, where South American, Middle Eastern, and Indian cultures collide. The princes and princesses of the Tsoly�ni empire vie for their father's mystical Petal Throne, tearing the nation apart with civil war and political intrigues.

As a captain in one of their armies, will you play as male or female, gay straight or bi? A brave and forthright soldier, a hedonistic intriguer with a heart of gold, or scheming double agent? "

To quote my response, who gives a fuck?

Is THAT what's happening to Phil's world?

Some people are simply shitty tacticians and try to cover it up by badmouthing the people who hand them their ass in a bucket.