the boardgamification of wargames

it's just that we could all be having a much better time

#wargaming #boardgames #warhammer

[zombielizard]

"lets say you have a group of four or five friends into star wars legion"

And right there is I think where the narrative side falls apart, and why the competitive side took over. It's hard enough to get *one* friend who has free time at the same moment you do. My friends and I have tried to do big narrative campaigns, GM and everything. They sound super fun on paper! I wish this worked!

But it falls apart because coordinating a bunch of people is way way way way way harder than "two people show up at the store and use the same ruleset then pack up after its done"

[uwesca]

Whats funny is that gamesystems like Horus heresy 2.0 and necromunda get praised by the scene while being utterly and complete broken. But it works because people approach it from a narrative point of view and not a competitive one.

[DasUnbekannte]

Historical gamers tend to focus on scenarios because they value and emphasize the narrative aspect over game balance, often dismissing the idea of balance since real conflicts are inherently unbalanced. Some even incorporate a game master to enhance this experience. However, this approach remains quite niche. Interestingly, the most popular historical games, like Bolt Action, have developed a competitive scene and have grown because of it. This trend reflects community demand rather than companies promoting this style.

[thefrenchspy]

I think one of the main issues with wargaming is the vocal online competitive warhamner scene. For many editions Games Workshop outright said in the core books "This is a miniatures hobby first that has a unbalanced ruleset." It was the fans of tournament play that demanded a more balanced game which was built off a unbalanced mess. I think one of the biggest obstacles in wargaming is to try something other then Warhammer. Warhammer's universe is so rich and fun it's hard to branch out but I feel if you try different indy games you will probably find something closer to what you imagine. Older GW games like Mordheim and Necromunda have gamemasters to organize campaign play which is closer to rpg play. I personally prefer smaller skirmish play like Infinity, Frostgrave and Necromunda. If you don't like measuring try Battletech tech which has grid maps. If you like to build your worlds from the ground up try Pulp Alley or 7TV. You just have to look beyond Warhammer which I also love.

[hammdogporkington]

"I think it works better if you have a group all in the game" okay so we're in magical Christmas land

[Blue_Maxxx]

I think it's more videogamification of wargames.

[lordmalal]

Needing a judge for games went away because it requires you to now have two friends to play with, when many people don't even have one. And the third guy doesn't even get to play the game.

[maniacalhun]

My own little theory: a lot of former strategy video game players went into wargaming as the strategy video game market is all but dead. Especially for turn based video games. This is where players want to out smart and be out smarted by their opponent. A good play being made is the equivalent to us is the equivalent of a good story being made. This is what me and my gaming group are like.

[derekbry]

Some of my best losses to you in War of the Ring were when we would let the narrative of the different moments we created take the spotlight before beginning the rolls. I haven’t played many other war games but this feels like a spot on take.

[FirstNameLastName-fetu]

There is a MAJOR problem with this. I have a group of friends, 4 of us in total, and there are some games where Because I am the only one that actual reads the rules and stuff...I have to be the ref. And I hate that, I feel disconnected. I absolutely hate the 1 v everyone else games, cause then I am not really having fun with my friends.

But then what can we do? I don't wanna go on discord and join a random thing just to have some random dude be like "I'll be the ref". That's just weird.

[khimeraQ]

The main issue that's driving the divide between competitive and narrative is that, plainly, Warhammer is a strategy game, and strategy game players want to win.

If the rules are clear, concise and measurable, you have competitive players spending hours in the lab, testing maneuvers, doing practice games and formulating a powerful list, and that's all very FUN, and it's one of the most enjoyable parts of the hobby for people into it.

However, this butts heads with the narrative side of the hobby because, even if the intent is to just have fun and tell a story, adding rules that bring chaos to the game and makes strange, unbalanced things happen feels...odd. Worse, if this is something that one of the players introduced to the game, and they win the game, it starts to feel like that player just put in something so he can win that game, and that sometimes feels like cheating. This can be felt often in something like crusade, where players are expected to bring a narrative force, but nothing is preventing you from using combos that you'd only see in a competitive list.

I think a referee or 3rd is a good idea for narrative play, at least to allow players to engage with the game without worrying that their opponents will pull a fast one on them. Narrative requires a level of agreement with each other because at the end of the day, most players are rules lawyers.

[biseinerheult]

I played Warhammer fantasy from the end of 3rd edition to the start of 6th, almost always with the same group of friends. While we rarely played narrative battles, we’d often organise big 10.000 points multiplayer battles between good and evil armies that would last the whole night. Or we borrowed a room from a church and have a whole weekend of Warhammer, pen and paper RPGs and other games and invite people from outside the friend group.

During the last few years I actively played fantasy, a friend of mine introduced me to the competitive scene in our country.

I remember my first tournament and being absolutely trashed by weird min max lists that exploited every loophole they could find.

It was so alien to me, because eventhough these were the days of hero hammer and even in my group we always tried to win games by coming up with super powerful combinations, the idea of having an army that was thematic and beautiful was very important to us. We wanted to live the fantasy of mighty armies, shining heroes and despicable villains clashing with each other and not to win a game by abstractly playing its systems.

[Tyber]

Little Wars TV is a great channel with a narrative focus to their wargaming. Its almost exactly what you are describing.

[wyrdhunter]

Rogue Trader wasn't a balanced game and called for a referee in the book itself. But somehow, somewhere it changed. I remember local stores running tournaments back during 3rd edition of 40K. Pages and pages of rules would have to be created to try and balance what was really an unbalanced game. The inclusion of categories like Composition (how hard or how soft your army and list was) as a criteria for entry much less winning one of these tournaments is a testament to the lengths people were willing to go through. Why? I have no real clue. I don't know why people suddenly started shifting to trying to make the game work as a valid tournament-style game. And, as a side effect, any pick up game you got at your local FLGS just became people practicing for an upcoming tournament. And with each edition GW kept shifting the more away from flavor and narrative to rules and "balance".

Now its hard to find a wargame that doesn't have a tournament scene as its primary focus. And every pick up game I've found always adheres to the balanced tournament format rules. Which kills me. There are some games (no wargames) that I don't mind playing competitively but there are just some that are too complex for it. I love the L5R tcg but I never could stand to play it competitively in a store and being rushed to finish as much as I can in the allotted time slot. And I feel the same way with most wargames. Constantly being pressured to finish as fast as possible is super annoying and not really any fun. And its especially worse when there is nothing on the line. When there is no trophy or accolade for coming in 1st place. Those instances just make me feel sad for those people.

But as someone has said, for GW it's due to money. Their adoption of "seasons" for 40K and AoS and releasing more and more books which change everything every few months is just a simple push to make as much as they can off of players. Meet the new hot thing, same as the old hot thing.

But the saddest part of all is how difficult it is to get people to want to play in a campaign of any wargame these days. It's worse than pulling teeth. And any non-official narrative games are like four-lettered words to most people. i'm just glad that my wife is into wargames so I at least have 1 other person not interested in hardcore competitive play.

[clonetf]

Warhammer 40k is not becoming like a boardgame,
Dont get me wrong, theres a host of wargames that are suffering from boardification.

But the warhammer games are suffering by becoming like card games,
Your army is only legal for X amount of time, when said time is over which is gonna be 3 to 6 years from this point and if youre unlucky there is gonna be an edition launche with indexes (the fact that from 8thto 10th we have gone back to indexes is really fucking bad)
You will have four options for your army:
Full shelf it because it doesnt exist or is barely legal
Partly shelf it andhave to get new units
Have to seriously retrofit it to fit the new edition
Or simply get a new army

At the end of it, it is done ny GW for no other reason than to sell you more minis, they dont want you to have a legendary blood angels army anymore that is 10k points, instead they want you to have 5 2k armies, preferably even more. I personnally genuinely honest to god think that only the most dedicated of competitive player should bother with 10th edition at this point.

If you dont play 10th atleast once a week, dont bother playing 10th, the time it takes you to add something new to your army, get it painted and on the table it will be too late and it doesnt work anymore.
10th ed is to me the fools warhammer. You are better off a million times choosing your favourite edition and playing that with your mates and when some new model for your army comes out and you wanna play it, you go and retrofit it into your old edition.

A small edit:
This is all on the assumption you know about MTG and its standard rotation!

[jujitsugiraffe]

You just described Necromunda.

Abitrator acts as the game master, the campaign has territories that generate resources/other benefits, there are non-player factions that can be allied with and they have their own needs.

There's also Sub-Plots and Intrigues that generate secondary missions which offer additional rewards if completed.

[rangda_prime]

Me, an old Grognard: You're describing historical wargaming. That's simply it. It's been here all along, it came up with all of these solutions and attitudes likely before you were born. The fact that most people play the large brands and have to reinvent the wheel to be able to have fun with their games is quite sad, since they're not in touch with the actual tradition of modern wargaming which is still an unbroken line of gaming from the 1960s to this day.

[kingbonezai]

Logistics are the key.

Anyone can build an army they like at a points level, show up at the time and place and play the game in a tournament. If someone doesn’t show up everyone is ok.

In a narrative, you have to get a group of people to all agree and commit on not just time and place, but also what is being played, and they have to work together to make sure that they have the miniatures needed. Likewise, if someone doesn’t show up it could cause massive issues.

Not to mention some players will be set on some game/army/narrative types, and others won’t want to play it. Tournaments at least allow people to play with the stuff they like, even if the against they can’t control.

Oh, and the phycology of competition and strategically building and playing armies you designed can be exciting too

[roguedm]

I think the answer is money. For the companies making the game it's easier to sell the product based on a unified agreement on what the game piece does instead of trying to suit thousands of small narrative games. So over time this is where the focus from the people who sell the hobby has shifted.

That won't change until either campaign books become the norm (and popular!) or we get some sort of critical role moment that D&D has had that specifically brings the narrative gaming to a wider audience (who then spend money on it and cause the shift in the market)

[Geeko]

Another reason I think Wargames are being turned into Board games is that, no one wants to put the time and effort into being the GM.

My local Battletech group has been wanting to do another big campaign for a while, but no one wants to put all the time and effort into planning it, nor clear their schedules to participate.