The Gaming Contract

I received an email from a chap called Matt a while back and I’ve been working on a proper reply to him, as he asks some very interesting questions. As I can only speak for myself, perhaps other gamers would like to add their answers and views in the comments.

This is a topic that’s been on my mind for awhile and has been brought back to the foreground after ‘Ard Boyz.  The North American blogosphere is divided over how much of an influence tournaments have had over 40k and Fantasy and many seem to feel that ‘Ard Boyz is symptomatic of that.

These events are always majorly competitive with the lists that many people consider to be broken.  To use an example from your own work, Lash of Submission is one such thing.  I have no wish to condemn you over your work on Codex: Chaos Space Marines but wish to use an example you’ll be familiar with.  When dual CSM Sorcerors appeared with Lash and for a time dominated tournaments.  The response that came from GW as a whole that the company was shocked that anyone would do such a thing.  This suggests to me a fundamentally different mindset that we on the other side of the Atlantic aren’t familiar with.

I think you overstate any shock or viewpoint from GW as a whole – or certainly it seems to have come about through a Chinese whispers method. As a developer, I saw it as my job to eliminate obvious abuses while at the same time acknowledging the fact that competitive gamers will always approach any army list with a view to maximum efficiency regardless of other factors such as the background. I don’t have a problem with this, as each competitive player has equal access to all armies and compositions. In short, if a player’s only consideration is winning games and a particular army and selection fulfils this criteria I would expect them to field that army. As turns out, aesthetic, background and other considerations come into play for all but the most hardcore of players, and so variety is maintained. It would be a sad day if everybody decided that double-lash Chaos Marines were the way to go and that was all you saw in tournaments; proof from the frontline suggests that this is not the case thankfully.

I would like to know how the Games Workshop team (present and former) approach actually playing games of 40k and Fantasy.  I have tried reading Jervis Johnson’s Standard Bearer articles.  However, he is writing from a different cultural mindset and there are certain unspoken assumptions in his writing that don’t exist over here.

I would disagree that the cultural divide you describe is as pronounced as you seem to think. The greatest difference between the UK and US is simply one of size. The dispersion of the US gaming community over a much wider area creates a certain bias towards organised events (usually tournaments) and a tournament-heavy internet community, but I do not think that the competitive mindset is massively more prevalent than anywhere else. It was from large ‘garage floor’ games held by many US gamers that the inspiration for Apocalypse arose, for instance.

What I do find particular about the US approach to gaming, as in others areas of US culture, is a leaning towards statutory, rules-based solutions. Even in non-tournament environments, there is a desire for absolute clarity from outside, and an underlying suspicion of compromise and solutions agreed between the players themselves. Put another way, US gamers have a tendency to want independent, blanket arbitration even on issues that can be simply resolved on a case-by-case or local basis. In law, in sports rules and even just in society, there’s a definite bias towards rules-based solutions rather than behavioural changes; or the acceptance that sometimes things need to be fudged to work.

With regard to Jervis’ articles, the cultural difference is due more to generation and experience than any geographical location. As a long-time gamer, Jervis and other senior folks at GW cut their teeth in a very different environment to the one that exists in Warhammer, 40K and The Lord of the Rings today. Coming from a mainly historical wargaming perspective, with very few rulesets universally adopted, the previous generation of gamers depended upon doing their own research, amassing army composition and painting information from many different sources,  and creating their own rules far more than those who have been nurtured on the teat of boxed starter sets and all-in-one Army Books and Codexes. As a child of Rogue Trader, my gaming maturation occurred during a period of shift between the one and the other, and the experience of having to fend for oneself to a much greater extent still remains with me.

Tournament play has been a part of wargaming for decades, but for the majority of the time it has been a subset of the community, with the majority of wargamers refighting historical battles, ‘what if’ scenarios and with an unspoken convention of narrative and accuracy as informed by history and study. Wargaming was indivisible from the love of history, whereas today the gaming aspect of toy soldiers (particularly in a fictional world such as 40K) has become more abstract, and often an end in its own right.

No one particular style of play is given prominence over another in terms of games development policy. This can cause problems, because the needs and demands of different sorts of gamers can be very contradictory, and added to that are the competing requirements of novice and veteran gamers. At the heart of it, GW games were created to allow fans to collect, paint and game with cool toy soldiers, expressing the stories and imagery of the universes on the tabletop. Just as a military enthusiast might want to collect a Republican Roman Legion and live out their exploits in miniature, a 40K enthusiast can collect an army of Ultramarines and do the same for the fictional background.

Beyond this basic principle there is the desire to allow people from all over the world to come together and play their games on a common ground. Everybody plays the same game. In this sense, the tournament approach starts to make itself felt. Coming together with your friends, devising armies and a scenario based on a historical event or speculative encounter before you play takes preparation and commitment. Conversely, having pre-defined army lists and an agreed framework of battles allows players who have never met before to put their models on the table and start playing with the minimum of fuss. This is the ‘pick up’ game, and it is this more than tournaments that I feel has changed wargaming.

In order to ensure such pick up games give each player a reasonable chance of victory, issues of game and army balance come into the equation. However, such a consideration must always be tempered against the first principle – that of players being given freedom to collect and paint the toy soldiers that they like and to recreate the battles they envisage. Such is the nature of this conflict that balance between the two demands will never be perfect. At one end of the spectrum is giving players free rein to collect what they like regardless of the gaming consequences; at the other is heavily restricted force compositions that ensure a fair fight but tell people what they have to collect. Individual rulesets and army list styles sway along that spectrum.

I have no desire to ask you to reveal details covered by an NDA.  I only wish to be informed of the mindset that goes into the game as GW employees and the British wargaming community at large plays 40k and Fantasy.  What reasoning determines what miniatures you acquire and paint? What determines what units you put on a table? How do you go about writing a list? Does your opponent have any say in your list or do you have a neutral third party create your lists? How do you set up the board and determine win/loss conditions? How much terrain do you use? Do you do unique scenarios often? Does the British wargaming community do tournaments as well or do they do more story-based campaigns.

There is no single answer to these questions, either personally or as a community. I think that British wargamers are just as diverse as any others, and as prone to tournament mentality or narrative play as anybody else. There is a thriving tournament scene in the UK, some of which are free-for-all like the ‘Ard Boyz, some of which have additional composition restrictions and scenarios to create what the organisers see as a more level playing field.

No single approach, to gaming, events or tournaments is going to fit everybody. The issue GW must address is how to stream this varied message to the relevant parts of the gaming community. Take War Machine, for example. Designed as a no-holds-barred CCG with miniatures, it revels in its status as a competitive game and a ‘death to the weaklings’ approach. ‘Ard Boyz and other non-restricted tournaments take a similar approach. Conversely, GW games also address those who want to play campaigns, or design their own scenarios, or use ‘counts as’ armies to explore parts of the worlds for which miniatures don’t yet exist, or provide opportunity for those whose passion is simply for painting and modelling, and every shade in between.

GW does not take this decision for gamers, but endeavours (to greater or lesser success) to provide materials that the gamers can then do with as they wish. It is at this point that the gamers take responsibility for their own hobby and recognise what it is they want to get out of it. A major part of this is finding a group of like-minded gamers who are seeking the same thing, so that conflicts of what the players want to get out of their games do not arise.

And to come back to your first point, this is where I think tournaments and competitive gaming get a disproportionate amount of influence and press. Those players who are happy with a more freeform approach, who have found a comfortable gaming club or group of regular opponents are not thrown into the potential conflict of fresh opponents every weekend that tournaments and in-store pick up games might create. Their issues are resolved amicably and quietly between friends, rather than debated hotly over internet forums and with tournament umpires.

I would say that the first part of any gaming contract is with yourself and comes about from exploring what gaming has to offer and admitting without fear of prejudice what it is you like and don’t like from your games. Having done this, you are in a position to seek out those venues and opponents that are most likely to share your goals. Nobody should feel apologetic if they love the tactical challenge and the gaming aspect far above the other parts of the hobby, in the same vein that Golden Demon painting winners don’t feel the need to apologise for not being awesome generals on the tabletop. Regardless of aim, players should conduct themselves with reasonable decorum and do not seek to judge or denigrate the gaming preferences of others. For most of us, we exist in that fuzzy area between all of the extremes, enjoying the gaming, collecting, painting, background and beer in roughly equal measure.

Within that overall context, my choices as a gamer and a games developer are different. As a professional developer it was my job to weigh up the different demands, and the games I played covered the spectrum from trying to break lists to ensuring themed armies were characterful and entertaining. As my natural inclination is towards the narrative end of the spectrum, I was very keen to make use of others whose outlook was from a more competitive standpoint – and even if I disagreed with them I hope that they understand how much I valued their input and dedication.

On a personal level, I am moving back to a less organised and structured approach to gaming, reclaiming some of the spirit of invention and imagination that drew me into this hobby in the first place. I’m still firmly of the mind that I’ll do what I want with my soldiers and games; I don’t need anyone else’s permission (expect my opponents!) and I don’t need outside authority to legitimise my choices. I have some lofty ideas and plans, but unfortunately at the moment don’t quite have the time to push them through to fruition – but that’s the same for most folks, isn’t it?