Talking AoS design with Personas

[KrrNiGit]

Personas are a design tool where you outline who you believe your customers are and what they want. They are a useful tool in understanding the value the stuff you sell gives to the customer and why those customers come to you. In reality, Personas are constructs to help us evaluate products and understand who we are delivering for. It helps people stuck in corporate structures remember the end users of their products.

Games Workshop has not been that subtle hiding the Personas they are catering to. In the design of their books you can see 3 identified for us; Matched Play customers, Open Play customers and Narrative Play customers. 

For us end users, I guess other than being curious about GW thinks about us, understanding this helps us determine which GW products are for us. It helps us understand why GW release different stuff, even if it has no interest to us personally. Understanding the diversity helps us to temper our expectations, after all not everything is made for you specifically.  

So who are the Personas of Aos?

 

Matched Play Mitch

Mitch always plays matched play, 2000 points, the tournament standard. Mitch enjoys playing the game. They are the most vocal player, always willing to speak up and give feedback. 

Mitch enjoys tight understandable rules. They want to play a fair and balanced game out of the box and not get involved in an argument.

While Mitch enjoys the models and the lore, it is more important how the army works on the table. Mitch will not play an army that doesn’t “work”. In everything GW releases Mitch wants to know how it works and what it will change in their game plan. If something is weak, no matter how pretty or cool it is, it’s not for Mitch.

 

Narrative Play Nicky

Nicky likes telling stories and connecting the play on the table with the world they have encountered off the table (through books and other media). The play experience on the table is only a small part of their experience with the game. 

Keeping up with the latest and greatest is not important to Nicky, though a moving narrative keeps them engaged. Nicky is deeply invested in their dudes and wants to explore the world through them. 

Nicky is looking for something to hook them in (either in the lore or models or in their nerdy brain) so they fall in love. Nicky has named all their characters (and sleeps with a body pillow of their favourite). If AoS was replaced with a dating sim Nicky would never leave the house again.

 

Open Play Omar

Omar is here for a good time first and the game second. Omar likes to shake things up, try new things and experience the unexpected. Omar is ok with a lack of fairness, as long as the experience is engaging and unpredictable. 

Omar loves new rules, new options and new experiences. They don’t mind if GW has 100 bad ideas as long as they get the options. Omar loves to tinker under the hood of AoS (though they are definitely not qualified).

Omar wants access to the tools to make the game what they want, rather than just having it served to them. Cool elements in the rules are more important to them than a complete play experience. They have the words ‘house ruled’ tattooed across their fists. 

 

So who are you? Are you mostly Mitch? A little Nicky? Or a lot of Omar?

 

So with that said let’s have a look at some of GW’s releases and the pages given to each Persona:

	Matched	Narrative	Open
GHB 2020	41	12	34 + 19
GHB 2021	34	4	0
GHB 22/23	47	6	0
Thondia	14	94	0
Gitz battletome	32	80	0

 

Looking at this tiny sample, I would say that Mitch is the favourite child, though GW does admit and somewhat cater for Nicky’s special needs. Omar they have forgotten about.