Games are well-known for their ability to inspire perfectly rational people to have long, daft arguments, and 40k is no exception. I'm sure I'm not alone in having looked at a forum post posing what seemed like a perfectly simple rules question and come away fifty pages later willing to believe that there might be an 18th planet in the Solar System composed entirely of blancmange. The rules of sane, logical discourse go out the window fast, is what I'm saying here. Also that we should prepare for the invasion of the Custard Corps.
Now, it's commonly suggested, when rules issues come up, that it's the fault of Games Workshop (or whatever other developer is involved) for not writing the rules unambiguously in the first place. Sometimes, of course, this is absolutely true. The original designer of Magic: The Gathering used to tell a story of when they were testing the game, and one of the players told him that his deck had a card in it that meant he always won as soon as he cast it. The spell in question was Time Twister, which at the time was worded "Opponent loses next turn." It was supposed to mean that the opponent's next turn didn't happen, allowing the caster to take two turns in a row, but it's easy with hindsight to see where the confusion arose.
Much of the time, however, it's not so much the writing of the rules themselves as it is the mentality of the players reading them. If a player turns up in a mood where they're looking for a fight, they'll find one no matter how tight the rules are. We could look at the infamous 1978 World Chess Championship in which according to some reports a board had to be installed to stop the players kicking each other. Just the other day, there was a story of a bridge champion who went ballistic on being told a piece of paperwork he'd filled in was on the wrong sort of form. (This is an incredibly dull story and involves the guy being autistic and maybe, or maybe not, having his disability misinterpreted etc.)
I remember vividly many years ago (probably around 3rd-4th Ed. 40k) that the UK's Channel 4 ran a series on gaming called Movers and Shakers, which followed players of various high-profile games. One episode looked at two kids who regularly played Monopoly, and a group who played 40k. Now the rules of Monopoly are pretty clear-cut, not to mention that the entire thing was being filmed, whereas 40k's rules were if anything even looser back then than they are now, and the group was playing a custom multiplayer scenario into the bargain. Much to the evident surprise of the documentary makers and most TV pundits at the time, the kids playing 40k ("a violent fantasy war-game about armies of grotesque monsters") had a whale of a time and resolved their rules problems by talking them out and coming to a conclusion, whereas the Monopoly kids had a tearful falling-out over cheating allegations, even though video evidence of exactly what had happened was readily available. Ultimately, it wasn't the rules, but the personalities and mind-sets of the players, that determined whether the game went off harmoniously.
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| Uh-oh, |
I was reminded of all this by a couple of examples this week. A recent BoLS piece, which I'm not going to link because like a large chunk of BoLS stuff it was blatant click-bait, suggested removing LOS rules from 40k altogether. The reason? Because it would 'reduce the number of arguments'. Spoiler: Nope. The exact same claim was made for the removal of templates and I can count the number of times those caused an argument longer than "what do you think, five or six?" in my experience on the fingers of one hand. Throwing templates out was already a case of losing the baby with the bathwater- ditch LOS as well and you're dropping the bath on the poor little guy's head.
The other- and this is an absolute lulu- is the recent Chapter Approved FAQ which felt the need to clarify that if you're playing with the Acceptable Casualties rule (i.e. you can still win on Victory Points even if tabled) and you concede, you lose. Let that sink in for a moment. Savour the taste of it. What manner of person- no, of semi-sentient life-form- could conceivably think that they could say to their opponent 'OK, I give up, you win' and then claim 'however, because of this rule that means I win.'? Even Orks would struggle to rationalise that one, though doubtless the Regimental Standard could pull it off.
Now, when poked with the Stick of Mockery, some characters popped up to inform us that this 'clarification' (Emperor help us all) was needed for events with a 'margin of victory' system- i.e., if player A is winning by 5 points to 3 but concedes, on paper that means player B's margin of victory is -2, which mathematically looks like a loss. We poor simpletons who move in less rarefied circles might simply say 'oh, but you conceded, which means the other guy wins by maximum points and you get the Golden Salt Cellar' but you do then run into the problem of someone 'tactically quitting' to artificially inflate their opponent's score, which they might possibly do for complicated reasons. It's certainly something a TO needs to consider, but it's not a question of who won, its a question of how hard they won. (And the truly committed could simply 'play to lose' if they were that determined to inflate a score.)
This nicely illustrates the point, though- that no matter how tight your rules, how detailed your code of conduct and how diligent your referees, someone is going to find a way to take the piss. Maybe its that old classic, the 'you moved a deep-striker so now your Movement phase is over'* gambit. Maybe its the infamous 'this guy told me he plans to add a decal to his Knight later, so it's not fully painted and is therefore an illegal model' strategy**. Or entering pro-painted models in the 'best painted army' category and pretending its your own work. Or meeting a '3-colour minimum' painting standard by abusing undercoated models with blue spray from the front and red spray from the back***.
And that's the final point, really. No type of entertainment, no pursuit that involves two or more people coming together to have 'fun', is immune to being ruined by That Guy if That Guy decides to ruin it. You can look at international-level sport- cricketers with sandpaper in their pockets to rough up the ball, rugby players faking 'blood' injuries, boxing trainers sabotaging the stitching in their man's gloves to buy more corner-time, footballers 'diving'.
Oh, footballers.
But that's nowhere near an exhaustive list. I've always maintained that no type of gaming or sport- none whatsoever- is improved for the players by going 'professional'****. Sure, e-sports champions and international footballers live enviable lives in many respects, but are they enjoying their 'games'? Look at their faces, and you can see the answer. As soon as a million-pound prize hinges on the result, rolling a 3 when you needed a 4 stops being a fun game mechanic, and starts being something that needs to be avoided at all costs.
To prevent arguments, of course.
*This happened, apparently.
**So did this.
***I'm almost too depressed to admit I've seen multiple examples of this one.
**** I did think of an exception, which is motor racing. Largely because 'amateur motor racing' is usually also described as 'driving without due care and attention' or more simply 'speeding'.
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