Welcome to A Winner Is You, a weekly segment on aspects of wargaming culture that are "temporally challenged", as the kids would say.
First up: the culture that Games Workshop has fostered in the wargaming community. Its no secret that the vast majority of people coming to "the hobby" (side note: that term's ridiculous and deserves its own AWIY segment) have come from Games Workshop. They have a strong presence in the states with their own shops in malls, their IP is in several popular video games, and their games are extremely easy to play.
Little Billy just got his first taste of SPAYZE MUHREENS and is "totally freaking out, man".
This first experience has a lot of nasty side effects down the road, namely in terms of setting social norms for wargaming. Namely:
- "I play my army based upon its background..." - I get it, I get it... back in the days of yore Warhammer was essentially an RPG product that morphed into the board-game/RPG hybrid that we know today. Like a lot of RPGs, Warhammer (and its cousin with 39,999 more hammers) gave players a large amount of freedom in how they played their armies. Granted, the possibility to have "broken" armies existed, but like... that's not roleplaying, man.
Fast forward to today: Warhammer (and 4.0 X 10 ^5 Moarhammerz) aren't RPGs anymore. Yet the notion that "Well, you really shouldn't play something broken..." still exists. The problem is, "something broken" is all in the eye of the beholder. Which brings us to...
- "... and if you don't, you're a POWAH GAMER!!!" - Agreeing to a set of house rules is all well and good, until you try to take your rules of your house.
For a myriad of reasons, there comes a point where you play people outside of our immediate play group - be it a tournament, a convention, or just to mix things up. When the stranger your playing pulls out some combination that's contrary to your house rules, all hell can break loose. And by "loose", I mean dribble out in passive-aggressive torrents.
Bob tried to play a counts-as army with a new gaming group. Poor, poor Bob.
Since this is a bit of grey area (there's no actual rules governing this), and since most wargamers have the social grace of a toddler, this is usual resolved as passive-aggressively as possible ("Oh, I guess you could do that...").
Granted, given GW's "stellar" game design, this could be a completely legitimate complaint (Exhibit A - Teclis) in one of their games. As someone who principally plays Warmachine, there's nothing I dread more than playing someone who's decided that they are the anointed arbiter of Privateer Press' canon and MUST let me know that my army is totally historically inaccurate as the mercenaries in my army were nowhere near each other before 641... blahblahblahblah. Thanks C.H. Firth, can we roll some dice now? On that note:
Dating, hygiene, smoking outdoors - None of these could keep Cornelius from his vigil, ensuring that no one would ever suggest playing Night Lords using the new Blood Angles codex without feeling his wrath.
- "Soft scores at tournaments are a great idea!". On a scale from 1 to 5, this is an awful idea.
I'm fine with trying to get people to paint their models via other means (requiring painting as an eligibility requirement, door prizes for having a painted army), but having your peers rank your painting/army background/sportsmanship just doesn't work. Like communism or a 3-way, sounds great in theory but never works in practice.
What soft scores quickly become is a new social way to win. Play your friends, rank each other high (but give them slightly worse scores than yourself) and rank anyone who beats you in an actual game low. Yay, a day of "Let's play a glorified board game" became "Let's politic to douche our way into a paltry prize". Really, it says something about the average wargamer (also the subject of an upcoming AWIY) when getting their egos off by chipmunking people comes before actually playing the game. But hey, as long as their carefully skewed view of canon isn't violated and you didn't have the temerity to put an unpainted model on the table, the world has their permission to continue spinning.
"You dare beat me?!?! Sportsmanship score of -3,000!!!"
Its a shame this sort of behavior continues to go on, especially with an increasingly grey wargaming fan base (because really, who else has the disposable income?). Looking at the comments section of Bell of Lost Souls (Poor, poor Goatboy) or some of the drivel on Dakka Dakka!, this crap continues to perpetuate itself because its "wargaming culture". No. Stop. Bad fatties. No donut.
Here's a gem from Dakka, taken from a thread regarding whether it was "OK" (side note: never ask the Internet is something is socially acceptable. Have you seen what goes on here?) to use his blue SPAYZE MUHREENS as red SPAYZE MUHREENS. chaos0xomega chimes in with this gem:
... In fact, why care about models at all right? Its not part of the hobby or anything, they are just markers for use with the rules. Maybe I should just start using little wooden mannequin dollies instead of actual models. That way I can play them as Grey Knights/Blood Angels/Space Wolves/Black Templars/Dark Angels/Ultramarines/Eldar/Tau/Necrons/Dark Eldar/Orks/Fantasy Empire/Fantasy Ogres/Fantasy Skaven, etc. etc. etc.
The minis, their paint scheme, and their interaction with the rules are important aspects of the hobby. , you're re-enacting battles that might occur in a fantasy setting that took years of thought (and plagiarism!) to create. Space Wolves and Blood Angels don't oprerate and fight the same way. There is a reason they look different, there is a reason they have different rules. Its more than just a difference in paint scheme, etc. You're doing the fluff a disservice every time you codex hop. I'm a bit more forgiving if its a custom chapter, I mean, really they can be whatever the hell you want, but I have a limit to how far I can suspend disbelief.
Emphasis mine. Yes, God (sorry... "Emprah") forbid someone want to play with their overpriced plastic models using different rules. You aren't just playing a game, man. This is serious, like Tron only not remotely at all.
Bravo, chaos0xomega, you've saved the sanctity of Moarhammerz fictional background. Maybe you'll get sucked into that world someday and get a girlfriend. Until then, don't quit your day job.
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