"Examples of Gameyness " Topic

Stephanpanzer

New Zealanders Rugby? You mean the All Blacks?

Bunch of s.

Ah, don't tell them I said that. I do no want to wake up one morning to find a group Maori warriors doing the haka on my front lawn just before they dismember me for breakfast.

Well this adopted Maori is showing his teeth and starting to dance…. 8)
In the old TSR Chainmail rules, Hobbits cost nothing and were deadly with slings. I actually faced a 100 figure hobbit force along with my opponants regular troops. I was badly out numbered and out shot. I started to buy Hobbitses that very day. One gal that gamed eventually had a force of about 250 of the little bleeps.

I thought game designers want rules lawyers playing their games. They are the one's who figure out the holes in the system for tabletop exploitatino. Wasn't this a tried and true method for game development at A.H. ? Granted, unless playtesting something, and especially if playing new opponents, "gameyness" or rules lawyering might come off pretty poorly. Unless, of course, a person implements a tactic that was intentionally "imbedded" within the rules and the opposing side doesn't grasp the fact.

This is also a minus of the convention format which forces players to rush through their 4-5 hours of alotted PT. One of the first tactics of any kind of "lawyering" is to not allow your opponent time to think it through or investigate the RB or make a case against what your doing. In the past, whenever my opponent and I came across a "gamey" situation, we always took the time to investigate it to its fully before proceeding. Sometimes it took 5 minutes and I can recall there were rare times when it took a hour. But we always resolved it satisfactorily to both sides before proceeding. Made for better games played to their fullest.

But everyone seems to be in a rush these days.

I was playing a Napoleonic game where the generals were basically just markers – your troops had to stay within a certain distance of the general, but otherwise they had no other effect. They were also invulnerable to fire. The purpose was basically to keep divisions together, stop them disintegrating and having the components roaming freely around the battlefield.

My opponent was being beaten, my attack forced several of his units to break and flee. He then placed his general directly in front of my troops and refused to move it, claiming that the rules said his general was invulnerable and there was nothing in the rules that allowed me to pass through him.

Still makes me angry today – I'll never play against that guy again.

[He then placed his general directly in front of my troops and refused to move it, claiming that the rules said his general was invulnerable and there was nothing in the rules that allowed me to pass through him.]

That's just silly, and definitely gamey. In both senses of the word! I think there is no answer to stuff like that other than the one you already found. Don't play him again.

I can see the sense in making a general invulnerable to fire as they were rarely targeted, but if alone and in physical contact with the enemy they should be captured. Never mind what the rules say, it's simply common sense. No rules can cover every eventuality, the players have to take some responsibility.

My opponent was being beaten, my attack forced several of his units to break and flee. He then placed his general directly in front of my troops and refused to move it, claiming that the rules said his general was invulnerable and there was nothing in the rules that allowed me to pass through him.

I'd give this one the prize for the most gameyness moment.

Whatisitgood4atwork

"Never mind what the rules say, it's simply common sense. No rules can cover every eventuality, the players have to take some responsibility"

Amen to that.

This lack of desire to use common sense is what I find infuriating about many wargamers – the old, 'well, it's in the rules…'
Players must indeed take responsibility and a good referee must be on hand to make sensible decisions.

What always amazes me is what possible satisfaction can these rules lawyers / cheats take from their 'victories'?
If any rules lawyers inhabit these pages (and I am sure they must) then perhaps they can explain?

Concentrating the fire of your entire army on a single unit (completely ignoring all realistic priorities, and no matter how extreme or bizarre the angle), in order to induce a morale check and knock-on for surrounding units.

"Concentrating the fire of your entire army on a single unit"

Standard tactic in 'Starfleet Battles', as well as BKC if you actually want to destroy anything…

I've experienced 'playing the rules' on more than once, but one that still sticks in my mind occurred at a local gaming club four or five years back.

My local gaming group decided to attend an open event by this club, and took along WH40K armies.

My first opponent played Necron and had memorised every single rule, incorrectly, and every single errata, incorrectly. A thoroughly unenjoyable game as this lad interpreted all the rules to his benefit and wiped me out.

Second opponent was worse – playing Tau, he proceeded to carefully arrange his army on the start line. As I was playing Imperial Guard I was preoccupied with my own considerable set-up so didn't notice what he was doing until his first turn.

He moved his first unit, and meticulously measured out 2" gap between all the troops – so as to negate the worst effects of blast weapons.

My heart sank as he repeated this for his second unit and by the end of the third squad's movement, he'd spent nearly fifteen minutes moving 30 toy soldiers.

I quit there and then. Life's too short to be involved in things like that.

"My opponent was being beaten, my attack forced several of his units to break and flee. He then placed his general directly in front of my troops and refused to move it, claiming that the rules said his general was invulnerable and there was nothing in the rules that allowed me to pass through him."
A lot of examples here, like the one above, are gamey but only occur because of poor rules writing, and lack of independant proof-reading and playtesting. Surely these rules should have included a rule for what happens when a general is contacted by enemy troops ? Even without the gamey tactics mentioned, it is quite reasonable to expect that enemy troops might contact the general figure at some point, so there should be rules for what happens.

He moved his first unit, and meticulously measured out 2" gap between all the troops – so as to negate the worst effects of blast weapons.

My heart sank as he repeated this for his second unit and by the end of the third squad's movement, he'd spent nearly fifteen minutes moving 30 toy soldiers.

It is difficult to find fault with the player here though. It is a fault with the rules if they are written to encourage models to be exactly 2.1" apart. If he hadn't measured them all out and your AoE came in, couldn't you crow then to find all of his models to be 1.9" apart and so subject to devastating fire?

"It is difficult to find fault with the player here though. It is a fault with the rules if they are written to encourage models to be exactly 2.1" apart. If he hadn't measured them all out and your AoE came in, couldn't you crow then to find all of his models to be 1.9" apart and so subject to devastating fire?"
I disagree. Many rules have maximum distances between troops in a unit and also have artillery templates. So it is best to keep your figures as spaced out as possible. Most players would just put them roughly 2" apart rather than measuring each one exactly. I think the poster was complaining about the time taken to do it so precisely, not the principle of spreading out your troops.

Sorry chaps – I neglect to mention the point which Mark picked up on; the other chap was meticulously measuring out 2" exactly between the figures.

All of them.

As he was moving units in a box formation, this took considerable time as he was measuring against the adjacent two or three figures.

my friend and i still laugh at this one-we set up our first napoleonic battle using 15mm figs oh say about 18 years ago and set up quatre bras and this gamey thing happened unintentionally.my friend was the british/alled i was french.he only had a 25mm bridge so used it at quatre bras i dashed in as the french and brushed aside the dutch belgians and my cavalry was raving to get to quatre bras before meeeeeter velllington.but i had to cross the damned 25mm bridge and being drunk on success ignored its dimensions-well it took me the whole bloody game to get over .The brits were in quatre bras and in bed while my cav struggled over the damend bridge??? :-))

er, yes, OK

………………..

We've all seen it…in the end I have worked out a fairly successful tactic to stop opponents who employ gamey tactics…I just tell them straight they are a gamey Wan***, and ask them if they REALLY want to do what they have just done…If that doesn't shame them into retracting then I simply say "OK…bear in mind I know these rules twice as well as you do,…and I'll be twice as gamey as you from now on…Are you STILL sure you want to do that?"
It rarely fails.

Most of the examples you mention would result in an invitation to a square go at my club.

Regarding raylev3's experience with marching by the flank in F&F, the designer (Rich Hasenauer) considers such a unit to be automatically vulnerable to flanking fire (its like temporarily forming a march column), which in F&F doubles the fire points. I don't have the rules with me, so I'm not sure it is in there. In Regimental F&F I know that a unit marching by the flank is vulnerable, and a firing unit receives a modifier. Just to point out another thing, raylev3's unit may possibly have refused the flank during its previous movement phase. This is not an uncommon move if a unit has an open flank.

I agree with raylev3 that tournament play leaves you at the mercy of rules lawyers and those that find gimicks. I have experienced and heard about several abuses of the F&F rules in tournament play.

A lot of "gameyness" depends on the GM and how he handles the almost inevitable fuzzy situations that exist in any rule set. I have run games at each of the HMGS East conventions for a number of years, and I try to be sensative to those situations when they crop up while trying to keep to the spirit of the rules.

Mark

My opponent was being beaten, my attack forced several of his units to break and flee. He then placed his general directly in front of my troops and refused to move it, claiming that the rules said his general was invulnerable and there was nothing in the rules that allowed me to pass through him.

A lot of examples here, like the one above, are gamey but only occur because of poor rules writing, and lack of independant proof-reading and playtesting. Surely these rules should have included a rule for what happens when a general is contacted by enemy troops ? Even without the gamey tactics mentioned, it is quite reasonable to expect that enemy troops might contact the general figure at some point, so there should be rules for what happens.

Indeed; in this particular case, the authors of Warmaster have considered this and there's a rule saying (IIRC) that characters on their own are automatically killed if engaged in combat by a unit. Don't blame only the players for sloppy writing.

I checked the brigade-level F&F rules, and there is nothing about marching by the flank presenting a more vulnerable target. So, I guess the GM at the tournament didn't make a mistake in the case raylev3 mentions.

Rich included that concept in Regt F&F probably from the beginning. Rarely have I seen anyone try to march by the flank in front of an enemy regiment. If they do, they are usually punished by enemy fire.

Mark

"Indeed; in this particular case, the authors of Warmaster have considered this and there's a rule saying (IIRC) that characters on their own are automatically killed if engaged in combat by a unit. Don't blame only the players for sloppy writing. "

Nope. Characters are only killed if there isn't a unit they can join with 30cm. They can never stop enemy infantry at all-- the unit would just cross over the character and keep going. This isn't a "sloppy" rule in any way in WM-- on the contrary, I think it's an EXCELLENT rule.

Old WRG WW2 rules, guys used to turn around and fire their bazzoka's to the rear, thereby killing the enemy with the back-blast

Bazooka's weren't very good for this – IIRC they only had a 25m back blast. Recoilless rifles were much better :)

The best gamey thing I recall is from decades ago – a local group wrote their own ACW rules….one of hte players got so used to measuring movement from the front edge of a base to the rear edge taht they made that the official method and named it the "****** inch" (name witheld to protect the guilty 'cos juvenile records shouldn't be held against middle-aged professors! ;))