Competitive vs. Narrative

[mattblowers]

This thread is not a rant nor is it a Team A vs. Team B. It's just my thoughts on the matter.

As most of you know I'm not the most competitive player but I do play in them. They turn out to be the best way to get a group of games in on a day. Narrative events tend to have too much down time whilst your opponent regales with all their stories of the heroic deeds their characters have performed in games of yore. The opponent might or might not know the rules well and games can drag on forever. But they often look fantastic. The problem with narrative gaming is that it can be really hard to know what one person considers "cheese" and another person considers "fluffy". Player ability, experience, and army familiarity can turn a fun afternoon in a grueling ordeal. In competitive play you know what you are getting into. There is a set of expectations and everyone is on the same page. For this reason I play far more competitive games than I do narrative/fluff based games.

But still there is a large part of me drawn to more narrative gaming. My favorite game is not one where I trounce my opponent, but one where the game is back and forth and close and the win or loss comes down to a single moment or dice roll. I love those times. I prefer a good story over trouncing someone. I'm also pretty laid back and chill when it comes to gaming. I have enough stress in my life and don't want a hobby that brings stress. I prefer to play with nicely painted armies on a good looking board.

With that being said I have experienced more saltiness and griping in fluffy games than in tournaments. In tournaments the ones that are that way tend to be louder and more obnoxious and leads to the poor reputation of competitive events for people that are far more narrative.

That being said the current state of the game, at least in my area of Florida, has the largest gulf between narrative and competitive that I have ever scene. The competitive is ultra-competitive. Many of the lists are the same and very few factions were represented. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's a very different thing than it has been in the past. In this current ITC meta the game leaves very little room for variance. Gone are the days when I can show up with my semi-competitive list that includes some sub-optimal units that I enjoy playing and have a hope at a winning record. That was my expectation going in this past weekend. I like my 'nids so I took them. I wanted to give the heirodule a chance to stretch his legs so I took him. I wanted to play 'nidzilla, so I took that. I played hard and did my best to get as many points as possible and simply got wiped. Two marines drove down from South Carolina because they read about the event online. They got beat so badly the first 2 rounds (so of course they got paired with each other for round 3) that they packed up and went home. They weren't mad, they just weren't prepared for this level of play. They even said all their opponents were really nice. My only win was against Dark Eldar and it was played by a competent player and was a list that was winning major events only a year ago. So at least I know that it's not just me taking an ass list and getting it handed to me.

The game has really evolved and I'm not sure narrative leaning players belong in the competitive scene anymore, but there isn't a narrative alternative that is acceptable. If you want to see how far it has evolved take a look at the terrain from the Atlanta Open. The terrain from Tetonic games is exactly the same on every table. 2 Ls in the middle, 2 ruins, 2 hills, a few craters, and a few forests. The craters and forests are flattened out representations of those. It's played on a standardized mat from Frontline gaming that has the prints for the building placement on the mat with deployment lines and objective auras for every mission (though they have removed vanguard as a deployment option because they want each player on one edge for video purposes). This standardization is very good for the competitive game, but it is 100% about the competition and nothing else. Our event had about 3 of these tables but the store hasn't purchased many yet. I've ordered the mat and practice terrain so that I can get used to playing on it. It is the future. If I am going to keep playing in these events then my mindset needs to shift, my list building needs to get tighter, and I need tons of repetition to work any kinks out. I'm not sure I want that. I might, but it's something different from the way I have been playing for years. That might mean no more 'nids if I want to play in this environment. The verdict is still out on that one. What is the hive's thoughts? Are you experiencing similar things? Are you seeing the standardization? Do you like the way it's going? What's a narrative leaning player that enjoys tournaments to do?

[kurtangle2]

Two things not entirely related to the main points but worthy reading nonetheless:

1) ITC Mission sucks, the standard terrain is fine but the entire format is shaped in a way that only killing matters most. I hope they accept the latest 2019 CA Maelstrom missions as part of their format.

2) The gulf between good and bad armies has been increasing as of lately, with the Space Marines release killing every serious talk about the 40k competitive side of the game 'till they get the BIG nerf they desire. There's no excuse for that piss poor balance on GW part and the way they're also handling Psychic Awakening releases (aka not renovating unplayable armies to making them on par with at least the mediocre armies of the game) has made me entirely stopped playing the game. Also the "balancing" part of the CA 2019 is a joke, nerfing units that weren't even run in a competitive setting or that have disappeared from the game (Ogryns and Aberrants come to mind as the perfect example of such (please do not swear)) has taken away the little faith I still had in the 40k designers to the point where I just want all of them fired for the sheer incompetence they've been showing us these past 2 and half years of 8TH edition.

[Col. Duke LaCrosse]

Narrative gaming really requires a different mindset than competitive gaming. In its own way, it requires more work and is more difficult to plan, run, play in, and enjoy narrative events when compared to competitive ones. I'm primarily an AoS player and my community has a very healthy Narrative scene. In fact, AoS in general has a good Narrative community compared to 40k. There seem to be two options open to you.

You can try to find and attend Narrative events. You would know better than I what events might be in your area but unfortunately, it sounds like you've already looked around and there's not much Narrative gaming going on. But keep looking and maybe something will pop up.

The other alternative is to begin creating a Narrative community of your own. 40k has been releasing a number of interesting books and campaigns over the last couple of years. You should check out Vigilus and these new Psychic Awakening books. They're full of interesting story hooks and narrative battleplans. Needless to say, read up on the Narrative and Open sections of Chapter Approved as well.

In my experience, Narrative events run best when you expect your players to step outside their comfort zone. If your Narrative game is just a Matched Play tournament with a paragraph of fluff, then all your players and all the games will just be the same, old competitive games you talked about.

Narrative games should avoid using the Matched Play battleplans but rather use Narrative ones people are unfamiliar with. Do not feel obligated to share the specific battleplans before the event especially if the player's ignorance serves the story you're telling.

Army construction should serve the story being told as well. Perhaps one player can only bring a Vangaurd Detachment and another can bring up to 3 Patrols on an ambush mission. Narrative games work very well with smaller battles around 1000 or 1250 pts since that limits the 'big toys' players can use. Hell, why not use Power Level for a change?

A secondary (but very important) reason for these restrictions is to force those competitive players to make new lists, suboptimal lists, lists that can't spam the same old units but have to make "poor" unit choices. When they complain that your games aren't balanced, your response should be, "No they're not and that's on purpose. You're here to enjoy the narrative, not to win games. If you decide that can't appeal to you then perhaps these events are not for you." Something like that...only with a bit more tact.

It takes time for players to change how they think about the game and how they play. Some of them will fight you on this and try to turn your events in competitive tournaments. Some will never change their mind and refuse to understand why any other way to play even exists. However, if your narrative is compelling and you are consistent with your expectations, you will build up a community of like-minded narrative players. You are not the only one who likes narrative gaming and is looking for these kinds of events, I guarantee it!

Lastly, they're mainly AoS, but you may want to check out these folks and contact them about events they've run: wearetheneon.com/

PS: Btw, when competitive players complain about this or that book that didn't balance all the "bad" armies, well...no, they didn't. Vigilus, Psychic Awakening, and products like them weren't meant to balance the game and they weren't written to appeal to competitive players. That doesn't mean GW failed or that Psychic Awakening and Vigilus are bad. It means the expectations of some members of the competitive 40k community can be myopic and selfish if they refuse to understand that not every product and not every event was created just for them.

[killercroc]

Honestly, I'd have to say a lot of the issues in the game with both narrative or competitive play boils down to poor rules and poor balance. We've all seen it in the rules, shooty armies with buffs slap combat armies to the ground for daring to show up at the same table just because how the game is set up. You gotta go through 2-3 rounds of shooting, than overwatch just to ATTEMPT to charge something, and then after you charge your opponent gets to swing back, or can interrupt, or have units that swing first, etc. Now don't get me wrong, I know it's the 41st Mil and big stompy robots and pew pew lasers and all that sci-fi bull puck, but when balancing a game when you make entire armies that revolve around combat and put them in a game where shooting is king they're going to have a bad time. Why do you all think Orks and Nids are so low on the online % of armies played/armies that win? It's pretty damn obvious that they're at a disadvantage. That right there, there are entire armies that are flat out worse than other armies at the very core has reverberating effects in the game, in both narrative and competitive play.

That aside, the other issue is what people consider cheese, and what others don't. I'm constantly told that my 40 Genestealers in a 2,500 point game is cheese but the salamander player rocking 12 flame aggressors backed by hellblasters, Captains and Lieutenants is perfectly fine. Boils down to a self entitled "Rules for thee not for me" attitude that a lot of, honestly I'll just say it, terrible examples of human beings have. There are a lot of trash people out there, that means there are trash people in warhammer, and those trash people make it worse for everyone. There is one AoS player at our group that basically runs nothing but combo'd net-lists with all the strongest factions and has only lost a single game in the entire time AoS has been big for the past year at the club. Yeah... why am I suppose to want to play this game with this person? Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy outside of the game but couldn't bring a non-competitive list if his life depended on it.

I've talked about this with a few friends that are in the less... extreme... side of WH and we've all come to the conclusion that the only way to play a narrative game is to talk to people about it before hand. See competitive is easy, tell people it's play to win, no hand holding. Straight and to the point, no fluffing about if you lose or don't like it don't play. But that's competitive. Narrative you really need to talk it out, because one persons fun fluff is not anothers. Example, fluffy Tyranid army could be nothing but Gaunts and Warriors, like it's pretty darn common in all the stories. You know what else is a fluffy list? A bunch of Knights... guess who's gonna win that game?

Even GW's "Narrative" support is weak as a 2 day old fish, most of it is "lol do wat u want" and the other half is half thought up special rules and events. Each narrative is going to be different and if you don't like long drawn out stuff you're going to have a bad time because... well this is Warhammer! Read the novels, I think that's the best place to draw inspiration from and make a story out of. It can be short, like two armies attacking each other and have 3 games to represent the ebb and flow of the war, or you can have a planetary campaign fighting over continents taking place with large games and management of resources and units. The fun is what you make it, no like literally you have to make the fun for yourself cause the game sure as spit won't do it.

[kazetanade]

I think the standardisation is good. Having ITC play is, better than EW only missions. Having consistency is better than Maelstrom only events.

Terrain was one of my huge gripes. My region has finally adopted middle of board terrain that blocks LOS - I no longer need a 40" move just for combat to be viable. Our old "narrative" terrain used to be nice looking terrain that doesn't block anything, and the meta was stale with Knights, or super guns.


What I disagree with is that list building has to be tight, in that there's only 1 or 2 viable lists. Many lists can be viable, but requires an innate understanding of how it works and how it wins. Your heirodule list had no win condition, or had poor win conditions.

I took a Wraith Knight out and went 3-0, beating even Iron Hands. The key was that the list was designed with specific win conditions and recovery strategies in mind (I didn't design it - I modified a Goonhammer list for my own use). That's not too different from taking a Heirodule out, and using it the exact same way you did, but I had more threat vectors than you had.

What I do agree with is that we need to practice - I took an UM list out to play in our major event and came back 2-3, due to misunderstanding the core strengths and win conditions of the list against the meta lists. If I had 15 games of practice instead of 3, I would have come back with 3-2 or even 4-1. If I had practice half as much as my GSC, I would have been 5-0. And it was a list that only used Aggressors from the new buffed list of SM goodies, didn't bring anything else in play (I had Intercessors with normal guns, Grav Devs, Vets, landspeeders, lots of scouts - and practically stood a good winning chance even against the meta Disco and Doritos).

In the end I play this game to get better at it. I play only non-meta lists and devise ways to work around it and to beat the meta with it. That to me, is a lot of fun, and is worth the time investing rather than turning up with an IH Dreadnought Exec gun line and autopilot from there.

[gigasnail]

i love narrative games. i'd love them more if there was better support for them, any sort of a real campaign or escalation rules, for example. every campaign i've been involved with has been a goatscrew.

[mattblowers]

Dec 17, 2019 1:45:57 GMT kazetanade said:

I think the standardisation is good. Having ITC play is, better than EW only missions. Having consistency is better than Maelstrom only events.

Terrain was one of my huge gripes. My region has finally adopted middle of board terrain that blocks LOS - I no longer need a 40" move just for combat to be viable. Our old "narrative" terrain used to be nice looking terrain that doesn't block anything, and the meta was stale with Knights, or super guns.

Standardization is good, I agree. Now you know what tools you will have to work with at every table. However, the tabletop pro standard is highly functional but unattractive. the hill looks like a squared off pyramid, the forest looks like random mdf bits glued to a flat surface and the crater is decidedly flat. It's not very attractive or immersive. I get the appeal though as it take out the terrain randomization out of the equation and it allows the game to played much faster as you aren't digging through terrain to find and move your models. See the pic below, it's not very attractive. It sacrifices a ton of visual appeal for the sake of game mechanics. Not too much different than the way Warmahordes is with felt pieces to represent terrain. It's the opposite of what I love about Bolt Action with some of the best looking tables out there. It is a distinct shift for 40K though.

What I disagree with is that list building has to be tight, in that there's only 1 or 2 viable lists. Many lists can be viable, but requires an innate understanding of how it works and how it wins. Your heirodule list had no win condition, or had poor win conditions.

My list was bad, I already admitted that. It's a skewed list. It would have worked really well prior to the Castellan list but there is simply too much shooting for it to hang now. Like I said, I was able to handle the Drukhari list well and it was a top list only a year ago. My list actually performed pretty well against all but Tau because I built it to handle ITC missions. It simply ran out of gas beginning in round 4. The problem was the limitations of the codex. The hierodule was a stretch to try, but there aren't any other MC contenders that would have been a better fit to the list. It's a fundamental codex flaw, not a problem with the list. Some are saying that shooting 'nidzilla is the way to go; but I don't think so. The same problem still exists and our best shooters don't outshoot other amries gun lines. Where my list struggled was not getting enough kills on turn 1 and 2 so I gave up the kill more often but I always won hold more. A shooty list simply trades these two and is stuck in the same boat except a shooting lists diminishes faster than a melee list on turns 3 and 4. Turns 5 and 6 is the same problem. Each codex does only have a few lists that have any hope. Most entries in most codexes aren't good enough to make the final cut for optimized lists.

I took a Wraith Knight out and went 3-0, beating even Iron Hands. The key was that the list was designed with specific win conditions and recovery strategies in mind (I didn't design it - I modified a Goonhammer list for my own use). That's not too different from taking a Heirodule out, and using it the exact same way you did, but I had more threat vectors than you had.

Well I took a SM army to a practice session at our club and easily handled all my games: neither examples tells us anything for 'nids. A WK has stomp or can do flat 6 damage, if the Hierodule had that, 2 of my games would have been remarkably different. Apples =/= oranges.
My good friend played a chaos dread list (all dreads and warpsmiths to heal) he went 4-1 and took 3rd. What do they have that 'nids don't? BS 2+. Small enough to actually take advantage of cover. A 2+ or 3+ armor save for small arms fire (depending on the model) and a 5+++(4+++ in close combat), and still decent in close combat. And they can be healed without CP. These are all things that our big guys really need and why they don't handle the meta well. They aren't great at killing hordes OR big things.

In the end I play this game to get better at it. I play only non-meta lists and devise ways to work around it and to beat the meta with it. That to me, is a lot of fun, and is worth the time investing rather than turning up with an IH Dreadnought Exec gun line and autopilot from there.

That works less than than it used to. It's also a bit of red herring. Despite going 1-4 I still scored more points than several netlists. Net lists won't win you any major events right now, but a sub prime list certainly could lose you one.

[kazetanade]

I like the points you brought up - some of it I felt are less correct, like the WK one, but apples and oranges.

About terrain, I did not have to deal with that kind of MDF terrain in any of my games. The terrain was alright, and the functional Ls were done up really nicely. My experience of it has been pretty OK so far, with decent looking tables. Not all tables look the same or have the same terrain either, but having a rough equivalent or rough "this is gonna be there" has helped plan games and strategies while having decent looking boards. Sucks if people are using cardboard for their tournaments, but I dont blame that on standardisation...

About varied lists - I think it really depends on how you build your lists. My WK build was similar to your Scythed in that it relies on D6 damage dice, which can be pretty swingy a lot. The difference between yours and mine is I move 15" a turn and shoot big guns, you run 30+" and charge on turn 1. The difference in our list is that the WK is not the star in mine - it's a distraction carnifex meant to buy time for the Character Smite star to do work. My Nidzilla list would revolve around Flyrants and SL, making their continued interference the main strategy of the list while I have a HG unit somewhere plinking off as long as possible. An Exocrene would feature as a suicide drop meant to kill something specific or general damage (as our most cost efficient gun chassis), and if I brought a Toxicrene, it would be in a pod and dropped with a 3d6 rerollable charge to make it as likely as possible he'd do work. I wouldnt run 3 up the field. But if it worked well for the strategy then that's a good thing - maybe just need to optimize some choices and it'll start to work.

If you are going at the game with a throw stuff at the wall see what sticks, then yea I'd expect a lot of failures. A lot of games dont go well. The fact you scored better just means you're an objective minded person, and I dont think it speaks to the strength of the list so much as the skill of the player.

The Exec Dreadnought gunline is an example, and I'm not bothered about "whether it works" - its an ubiquitous list that was thrown about as a really hard nut to crack and to many people some kind of instant-lose match up, I could replace it with anything with the same message. Unless you're saying that playing non-meta lists works less than it used to, in which case I dont know where you're going with that.

There's a discussion somewhere about double TFexes with Male/Mala support as a gunbase, which in theory works although I dont like the TFex's gun. I dont think Carnifexen count as a real Nidzilla list, since that's just Carnifex Stampede of its own.

[mattblowers]

Dec 17, 2019 19:05:24 GMT kazetanade said:

If you are going at the game with a throw stuff at the wall see what sticks, then yea I'd expect a lot of failures. A lot of games dont go well. The fact you scored better just means you're an objective minded person, and I dont think it speaks to the strength of the list so much as the skill of the player.

The Exec Dreadnought gunline is an example, and I'm not bothered about "whether it works" - its an ubiquitous list that was thrown about as a really hard nut to crack and to many people some kind of instant-lose match up, I could replace it with anything with the same message. Unless you're saying that playing non-meta lists works less than it used to, in which case I dont know where you're going with that.

There's a discussion somewhere about double TFexes with Male/Mala support as a gunbase, which in theory works although I dont like the TFex's gun. I dont think Carnifexen count as a real Nidzilla list, since that's just Carnifex Stampede of its own.

Fair enough. I think we agree on more than we don't.

To make myself more clear: I'm not saying anti-meta lists don't work as well as they used to. I'm saying it is harder to take a list with a fluffy element in it (like 'nidzilla, or a unit you really like that underperforms) and still have a winning %. I'm never going in to a tournament with the expectation to win it all. I'm happy to compete and every once in a while sneak in there and win the RTT or place on the top tables in a bigger event. I just don't think that can happen now with the current meta. In the last edition I played double skyblight, mawloc spam, genestealer cults, and Dark Eldar lists to top half of major events. My lists always had something quirky that I enjoyed playing. I don't see that happening right now. But maybe I just need more practice after taking the last 6 months of to play Bolt Action (which was a hoot by the way, and I took 2nd at my last big event).

I'm not just throwing random (please do not swear) at the wall to sit what sticks. I often have said that what our 'dules needed was an invul, so when we got access to one I thought it might be worth it to give a whirl. Our melee MCs have always had the problem of degrading on WS/S/A. The toxicrene hits on 3s at top tier and always gets to reroll wound rolls. Having him hit on 2s, 3s, and 4s and healing 1 wound per turn I thought would really be great. Turns out not to be enough. It's close though. I wish one of the fleet special traits was counts as double wounds. That and prey sight would really help our melee monsters. What we got turned out to not be enough to work, but it's getting close. A year ago this update would have been pretty good. The Castellan and SM has meant that even with our new update were actually still falling further behind.

[miles]

My experience on the difference between competitive and more fluffy players is this.. One gets pissed off and concedes the game the second it looks like they might not win, or constantly nags their opponent to concede because it's obvious their opponent will lose and they don't want to waste time playing it out. The other gets a bit frustrated at some dice rolls, but overall tends to stay in and considers the enjoyment of both players.

Those are just my general experiences, there are exceptions to each, and it only represents the people I've actually gamed with.

[hivefleetkerrigan]

I've had a bit less luck with the hyper competitive crowd to be honest. I think it's a matter of running into one of the bad apples at the LGS repeatedly in a local league.

Matt, to me it sounds like you want a semi competitive tournament. I'm thinking this akin to a local sports league for adults who are not trying to go pro. Right now, all ITC 40k tournaments are submitted for the top points, so I'd you're showing up to go for best painted or to just get in some games, you're also against the people who are there to try to take the top ITC spot in the country. To me, that's akin to a professional sports star showing up to a pick up game: it changes the entire game. Maybe ITC or the local tournaments could look at doing some sort of rating system so you could have x or below ratings for less competitive players?

Another idea is to try to and attend non-ITC tournaments. In my opinion, ITC limits effective armies via secondaries. The secondaries also hit each faction differently. For example, gang busters really hits tyranid warriors and custodes, but doesn't hit intercessors or GSC. I think that eternal war and maelstrom missions allow for more of a list diversity as lists aren't penalized by secondaries. As such, I think you can take a good ITC list and perform well in maelstrom/ew, but not necessarily vice versa.

Finally, for a narrative style, looking at doing a campaign with some custom rules is a lot of fun. A friend and I do this to play around with new rules or units we don't often field competitively. We usually also put limits on the units we can field but buff our armies a bit with custom characters and the like.

[mattblowers]

Dec 18, 2019 16:03:23 GMT hivefleetkerrigan said:

Matt, to me it sounds like you want a semi competitive tournament. I'm thinking this akin to a local sports league for adults who are not trying to go pro. Right now, all ITC 40k tournaments are submitted for the top points, so I'd you're showing up to go for best painted or to just get in some games, you're also against the people who are there to try to take the top ITC spot in the country. To me, that's akin to a professional sports star showing up to a pick up game: it changes the entire game. Maybe ITC or the local tournaments could look at doing some sort of rating system so you could have x or below ratings for less competitive players?

I like the sound of that. It's not an option for me right now. I think I need to tighten my belt, put on my big boy pants, and toughen up. I need more practice, tighter lists, and no fluffy choices. If I find I'm not having fun with that, then I will take a break from 40K. I can get all the semi-competitive games I want in Bolt Action. We've all run into those events where we were totally unprepared for the meta and just get absolutely smashed. ITC seems to be that in every event if you don't bring your A game.

[kazetanade]

Dec 18, 2019 15:37:17 GMT miles said:

My experience on the difference between competitive and more fluffy players is this.. One gets pissed off and concedes the game the second it looks like they might not win, or constantly nags their opponent to concede because it's obvious their opponent will lose and they don't want to waste time playing it out. The other gets a bit frustrated at some dice rolls, but overall tends to stay in and considers the enjoyment of both players.

Those are just my general experiences, there are exceptions to each, and it only represents the people I've actually gamed with.

Funnily enough my experience is the opposite.

Fluff players whine, hate, and will gladly pull what they consider "cheese" on you on surprise to get a pubstomp game, then complain when their tailoring or cheese fails and blame their top tier WS army faction that it's weak and bad. They'll also flub or make up rules or pretty much cheat to secure the win. They're also more likely to show off or rub it in your face or throw tantrums.

Competitive players on the other hand, will give you certain expectations of what you'll be facing, then give you a good game and encourage you to play til the end, and often will correct your basic game knowledge to play better, and on ocassion give you good feedback on what to improve on. The game isn't pleasant unless you're of the same mindset, (as no game where you are getting handed your ass is pleasant) but you seldom have to deal with bad sportsmanship and terrible attitudes.

Edit: suffice to say, I've never enjoyed a "fluffy" game I've had in this hobby, but I often enjoy every "competitive" game I've had, even when the matchup was bad.

[mule]

Dec 18, 2019 19:37:21 GMT kazetanade said:

Dec 18, 2019 15:37:17 GMT miles said:

My experience on the difference between competitive and more fluffy players is this.. One gets pissed off and concedes the game the second it looks like they might not win, or constantly nags their opponent to concede because it's obvious their opponent will lose and they don't want to waste time playing it out. The other gets a bit frustrated at some dice rolls, but overall tends to stay in and considers the enjoyment of both players.

Those are just my general experiences, there are exceptions to each, and it only represents the people I've actually gamed with.

Funnily enough my experience is the opposite.

Fluff players whine, hate, and will gladly pull what they consider "cheese" on you on surprise to get a pubstomp game, then complain when their tailoring or cheese fails and blame their top tier WS army faction that it's weak and bad. They'll also flub or make up rules or pretty much cheat to secure the win. They're also more likely to show off or rub it in your face or throw tantrums.

Competitive players on the other hand, will give you certain expectations of what you'll be facing, then give you a good game and encourage you to play til the end, and often will correct your basic game knowledge to play better, and on ocassion give you good feedback on what to improve on. The game isn't pleasant unless you're of the same mindset, (as no game where you are getting handed your ass is pleasant) but you seldom have to deal with bad sportsmanship and terrible attitudes.

Edit: suffice to say, I've never enjoyed a "fluffy" game I've had in this hobby, but I often enjoy every "competitive" game I've had, even when the matchup was bad.

Yep!

Only fluffy games ill attend are the big apoc games.

That was my first experience with gw when I was 12. 10000 points of nids vs 5000 points of tau vs 5000 points of marines.

Anyone who showed up was given a unit. My fire warriors took down a carnifex because i didnt know good good target firing. Was fun as hell.

Then I got into LOTR and after the third movie came out the game basically died so I moved to nids and orks in 40k.

Fluffy games need lots of people 1 on 1 fluffy lists are bs.

[miles]

Dec 18, 2019 19:37:21 GMT kazetanade said:

Dec 18, 2019 15:37:17 GMT miles said:

My experience on the difference between competitive and more fluffy players is this.. One gets pissed off and concedes the game the second it looks like they might not win, or constantly nags their opponent to concede because it's obvious their opponent will lose and they don't want to waste time playing it out. The other gets a bit frustrated at some dice rolls, but overall tends to stay in and considers the enjoyment of both players.

Those are just my general experiences, there are exceptions to each, and it only represents the people I've actually gamed with.

Funnily enough my experience is the opposite.

Fluff players whine, hate, and will gladly pull what they consider "cheese" on you on surprise to get a pubstomp game, then complain when their tailoring or cheese fails and blame their top tier WS army faction that it's weak and bad. They'll also flub or make up rules or pretty much cheat to secure the win. They're also more likely to show off or rub it in your face or throw tantrums.

Competitive players on the other hand, will give you certain expectations of what you'll be facing, then give you a good game and encourage you to play til the end, and often will correct your basic game knowledge to play better, and on ocassion give you good feedback on what to improve on. The game isn't pleasant unless you're of the same mindset, (as no game where you are getting handed your ass is pleasant) but you seldom have to deal with bad sportsmanship and terrible attitudes.

Edit: suffice to say, I've never enjoyed a "fluffy" game I've had in this hobby, but I often enjoy every "competitive" game I've had, even when the matchup was bad.

Not too surprising, mine's just anecdotal for the area I'm in. I like fluffy games, preferably without a lot of power combos and units. Most of the people I play are like that, though we have a few competitive people. Those are the games that never seem to last the full number of turns, and the ones who show up with 3 knights to play against newbies. I was really wanting to get into the competitive scene in the hopes of it being another fun aspect, until I started meeting competitive people locally. Maybe I need to travel more to find the friendly competitive ones.

OP - Sorry, didn't mean to go too off topic. As to what to do for a narrative/competitive person, would be to organize your own event, maybe even reaching out to people in other areas to ask for events they've designed.