Open Play? "Let's read" the General's Handbook

[Nin Win]

Page 13: "A Coalition of Death battle is fought between two sides, each consisting of a team of players."

There's not a lot of extra rules here.  People pretty much play as if it's one person.  One thing I'd suggest though is that both players do their phases at the same time.  I've seen quite a few multiplayer games where one person on a team stands there and waits while the other player does stuff.  If you see your opponents do this, point out they are doubling the time their turn is taking and ask them to do their phases at the same time unless it really, really matters.

Page 13: "Each player picks a general for their army as normal. Each general is allowed to use a command ability in their turn, but it will only affect the units from that general’s army."

This is a pretty good idea.  It lets everyone have the experience of having a general but keeps things contained to each player.

Page 13: "a wise warlord will always take some time at the start of each round to look at the bigger picture and talk to their sub-commanders, in order to lead the alliance to victory."

If you do this, please keep it brief.

[wayniac]

Honestly I find the only way to deal with that is to make the event invite only and only bring people who you know want the type of games you want it results in a smaller group, this is true, but the end result I think can be a lot better because you can try I'll ton of things that you can't do when you have an open to everyone event because all the competitive people will infest it like termites and do like you said and throw a fit at anything that's not official competitive rules.

 

I have pretty much decided for my group for both AOS and the new 40K that we need to keep it essentially a private club that plays at the game store instead of letting​ anyone show up just to avoid those kind of people coming and forcing their ideas on everyone else.

 

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[KnightFire]

9 hours ago, Auticus said:

 

If I say "the rules are optional, you can use them if you want to... "no one will use them.  Why?  Because they are not the rules as written and most people don't want to use house rules.  I introduced them to try a different way of playing in a casual event (I would never do this in a tournament event).

If I say "we are going to use these rules for campaign day".  What will happen?  The guys that refuse to use them won't use them.  They will insist their opponents not use them.  Campaign day will show up, they will have to use them and rage and throw a fit.  And then quit.  And take half the campaign with them with their drama.  

 

Maybe its just the groups I play in, but that sounds like a very odd group dynamic to me. Especially the bit about not playing the rules as written, given that AoS specifically makes a point of allowing house rules (and the rules of 1 and other suggested matched play rules are house rules, as noted in the generals handbook). 

Perhaps you need to split off with the players that are happy to play narrative and form a new group, if there is likely to be that much drama in the group over a narrative campaign and not wanting to use its rules, you will probably find that the same drama is preventing anyone else from wanting to join the group.

[wayniac]

3 hours ago, Auticus said:

Those are valid points.  It may just be time for me to sit out of the gw hobby for a few years while the tournament craze runs its course and cycles back down in a few years.

These guys don't consider the Matched Play section to be houserules.  They consider Matched Play section to be the real rulebook.  Anything outside of GHB Matched Play section they consider to be houserules with the exception of base to base option, which they also consider to be rules as written.

Ah yes the old "The General's Handbook starts on page 98" mindset, and everything else is just worthless junk that is just taking up space.

[BloodReign]

I think I would possibly leave this group and start an Open / Narrative group. Possibly looking at pushing the Narrative to get each member to produce an series of linked games.

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[Menkeroth]

That's the whole point. Work. Necessity. It has nothing to do with the hobby. As quantity does not beget quality, you will get this result always, but moaning and whining will not change the situation by any means. "Fracturing the community"... pff. Pitiful. Playing with the same but good people who won't spoil your fun and know you won't spoil theirs is way better than playing faceless same pitched battles with different people but always seeing the same result and same models (if any at all). With such mindset change nothing, just keep it as it is as you won't change anything really. Just play different people the same games.

[wayniac]

46 minutes ago, Menkeroth said:

That's the whole point. Work. Necessity. It has nothing to do with the hobby. As quantity does not beget quality, you will get this result always, but moaning and whining will not change the situation by any means. "Fracturing the community"... pff. Pitiful. Playing with the same but good people who won't spoil your fun and know you won't spoil theirs is way better than playing faceless same pitched battles with different people but always seeing the same result and same models (if any at all). With such mindset change nothing, just keep it as it is as you won't change anything really. Just play different people the same games.

Agree with this.  I think in many cases you need to fracture the community, because it's already being fractured by the competitive guys.  They are already fracturing it by starting the arms race or just steamrolling poeple who don't and pushing their agenda into everything.  If you help the fracture, you can have a group of like-minded people who all enjoy the same things.  There's also no reason it has to be mutually exclusive; you could have a person who prefers narrative gaming but doesn't mind going competitive sometimes (in fact, @Auticus, you yourself seem to be this way!).  I think the big thing here is that many communities are often already fragmented and vainly try to keep it together instead of letting it shatter, so as a result nobody is happy; the narrative players get tired of the same boring Matched Play, Pitched Battle, no house rules whatsoever games (to say nothing of the high chance of being steamrolled by the competitive lists), while the competitive players get tired of hearing about using house rules ("playing the game wrong") and might get tired of one-sided games against "loser" lists.  Fracturing such a community gives both groups what they want without completely eliminating the ability to cross-pollinate.

[wayniac]

In all honesty, I think it is an uphill battle to both want a core group that prefers narrative games and want it to be large.  Not impossible, of course, but definitely a struggle for precisely the reasons you experience.  Usually a narrative group tends to be small so it is A) Vetted to avoid anyone with the wrong attitude and B) Ensure that everyone wants the same thing out of the group.

[wayniac]

Just now, Auticus said:

Its been pretty large and narrative since 2007.  Ten years now of decent size narrative campaigns.  Its about dealing with a couple guys that want it all competitive all the time.  We do have competitive events too for that very reason but  its the "all the time" part that tries my patience.

So, without derailing this too much into your specific situation, if most of your group want narrative and it's only a handful who want competitive all the time, why not just tell them go go pound sand?  They'll throw a fit, go form their own competitive league, but if most of your group wants narrative anyways what will be the difference?  Wouldn't they choose to play narrative instead, so it would be the competitive guys playing the same 4-5 guys and the rest of you enjoying the campaign as you intended it?

[Menkeroth]

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

Agree with this.  I think in many cases you need to fracture the community, because it's already being fractured by the competitive guys.  They are already fracturing it by starting the arms race or just steamrolling poeple who don't and pushing their agenda into everything.  If you help the fracture, you can have a group of like-minded people who all enjoy the same things.  There's also no reason it has to be mutually exclusive; you could have a person who prefers narrative gaming but doesn't mind going competitive sometimes (in fact, @Auticus, you yourself seem to be this way!).  I think the big thing here is that many communities are often already fragmented and vainly try to keep it together instead of letting it shatter, so as a result nobody is happy; the narrative players get tired of the same boring Matched Play, Pitched Battle, no house rules whatsoever games (to say nothing of the high chance of being steamrolled by the competitive lists), while the competitive players get tired of hearing about using house rules ("playing the game wrong") and might get tired of one-sided games against "loser" lists.  Fracturing such a community gives both groups what they want without completely eliminating the ability to cross-pollinate.

This. Going with the flow mindset is just pitiful - if people don't bother, why they expect it will change? Especially if the fracture already occurred. 

[Nin Win]

18 hours ago, Auticus said:

A fractured group is also the last thing that I want.

So how about a "narrative hijack" you can bolt onto the match play centric approach that some people seem to want?  So that everyone can do their thing?

[Nin Win]

Page 16: "King of the Hill consists of a series of games that carries on until all the players have taken their turn being the ‘doomed defenders’. It is best played over the course of several sessions, though dedicated players could complete it in a single day."

A battleplan that is a series of games?    I wonder how many Age of Sigmar players even know such a thing exists. 

Basically you take 6 units of your choice (with none more than double the minimum size and only one model having more than 10 wounds) and face two to four other players who also have six units a piece.  When it's your turn to be the doomed defender, you'll set up in the middle and everyone else is against you.

You keep track of how many turns you lasted and the number wounds you managed to inflict before you were wiped out.  Each player gets a turn to be the doomed defender and after everyone has a game where they are the doomed defender, the person who lasted the longest wins (with wounds there to break ties for a minor victory).

I actually think this might be the scenario that I would recommend for any gaming group getting going with Age of Sigmar.  The main reason being is that it will set the tone that battles don't have to be equal points pitched battles all the time and you can indeed do some pretty crazy things

Playing through a series of King of the Hill games is probably the best strength training for your open play muscles possible.

I'm running some skirmish events in the future and I think this battleplan combined with the skirmish rules should work great as an ice breaker for the first round.  The lower model count should make it all finish sooner and cut down the wait time for the doomed general while so many models are moved.

[Trout]

Everyone in this thread seems to be of the mind that there is only "Open" and "Matched". What about just using points as a guide and throwing out all the other Matched Play rules? That seems to solve pretty much every problem that Open play solves while still giving you a means to gauge whether you're fielding a comparable army.

 

The problem with Open isn't that people can abuse it. That's an easy problem to fix, you just blacklist such people. The problem with Open is that it makes it difficult to gauge what's fair, especially if you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of every unit. It's too easy to underestimate or overstate the strength of a unit and wind up with really lopsided battles by accident.

[Nin Win]

Obviously hybrid modes exist and points are a useful guide for those who require them.  As for accidentally lop sided battles, my thinking is that they are opportunities rather than problems that need to be avoided.  For example, it's totally okay to add units or tweak objectives mid game once the unintended nature of the battle is apparent to all participants.  Furthermore it's also okay to simply play it out and let the nature of the battle be a difficult situation for one side or the other.

One of the reasons for the contrast between open and matched in this thread is the constant need for many players to preemptively "fix" areas they imagine to be broken rather than embrace them as potential features.  As long as people have this ideal game of Age of Sigmar in their heads where everything is balanced/fair/predefined/restricted they'll be chasing a ghost.  Open play will seem like a dangerous place to those who think they need their fun protected.

My suggestion would be to skip preemptively trying to solve problems that might not exist and get the models and terrain on the table top and then address only actual issues that come up in play, being mindful that they may not actually be problems once the haunting spectre of matched play pitched battles being the expected norm has been exorcized.

[Nin Win]

Skirmish Doomed Defender idea:. Hero plus five other non hero models each.  Calculate renown but there's no limit.  Everyone gets underdog rerolls based on the doomed defender and the highest of the attacker's renown.  So if you max out on the strongest stuff you'll either deny everyone in your team rerolls or give the entire attacking force loads of rerolls when it's your turn to defend.

[BunkhouseBuster]

56 minutes ago, Trout said:

Everyone in this thread seems to be of the mind that there is only "Open" and "Matched". What about just using points as a guide and throwing out all the other Matched Play rules? That seems to solve pretty much every problem that Open play solves while still giving you a means to gauge whether you're fielding a comparable army.

This is pretty much how our group plays, with some consideration given to keeping a Leader as the General if using Allegiance Abilities.  Not that we made that an official group playstyle, but it just so happened that way.

58 minutes ago, Trout said:

The problem with Open isn't that people can abuse it. That's an easy problem to fix, you just blacklist such people. The problem with Open is that it makes it difficult to gauge what's fair, especially if you don't know the strengths and weaknesses of every unit. It's too easy to underestimate or overstate the strength of a unit and wind up with really lopsided battles by accident.

I am in the boat that any of the playstyles can work, so long as the players know what kind of game they are wanting to play.  If I could do it over again, I would have jumped in and adopted AoS from release day (since I was never too upset about the killing of the Old World).  But it was the irrational fear that some of our local players would be the dreaded "pay-to-win-and-fill-the-board" guy, especially since they did that in 40K with summoning, or other ridiculous shenanigans in order to be WAAC players.  Now, I just avoid those players, and they didn't get into AoS anyways, so yay!

25 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

Obviously hybrid modes exist and points are a useful guide for those who require them.  As for accidentally lop sided battles, my thinking is that they are opportunities rather than problems that need to be avoided.  For example, it's totally okay to add units or tweak objectives mid game once the unintended nature of the battle is apparent to all participants.  Furthermore it's also okay to simply play it out and let the nature of the battle be a difficult situation for one side or the other.

Given the nature of how the dice work, and the Initiative mechanic in each turn giving opportunities for the game to swing wildly, a lot of games aren't nearly as one-sided as they may seem.

26 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

One of the reasons for the contrast between open and matched in this thread is the constant need for many players to preemptively "fix" areas they imagine to be broken rather than embrace them as potential features.  As long as people have this ideal game of Age of Sigmar in their heads where everything is balanced/fair/predefined/restricted they'll be chasing a ghost.  Open play will seem like a dangerous place to those who think they need their fun protected.

I consider it a victory to even get a game in anymore.  I have been so busy with life stuff that I haven't been able to really get a game in in over a month.  I'll play whatever my opponent wants to play at this point!

[Trout]

47 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

As for accidentally lop sided battles, my thinking is that they are opportunities rather than problems that need to be avoided.  For example, it's totally okay to add units or tweak objectives mid game once the unintended nature of the battle is apparent to all participants.

You may call having to make mid-game changes an opportunity. But I think most people would call it what it is, trying to fix a broken a game; a game that would not have been broken  had you looked at the point values.

 

51 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

Furthermore it's also okay to simply play it out and let the nature of the battle be a difficult situation for one side or the other.

If you're a college kid with lots of time and this is one of the dozen games you'll be playing this week...sure. If you're a working professional who gets a game in once in a while, you've wasted your time on a hopeless defeat or easy victory.

 

52 minutes ago, Nin Win said:

One of the reasons for the contrast between open and matched in this thread is the constant need for many players to preemptively "fix" areas they imagine to be broken rather than embrace them as potential features.  As long as people have this ideal game of Age of Sigmar in their heads where everything is balanced/fair/predefined/restricted they'll be chasing a ghost.  Open play will seem like a dangerous place to those who think they need their fun protected.

My suggestion would be to skip preemptively trying to solve problems that might not exist and get the models and terrain on the table top and then address only actual issues that come up in play, being mindful that they may not actually be problems once the haunting spectre of matched play pitched battles being the expected norm has been exorcized.

Sure, but Open is not the simplest solution, using points is. If you wanna get models and terrain on the table, there is no simpler way than just going..."I have 800 points worth of stuff, what do you have? 500? Ok...I'll go down to 500 then. Now which battleplan were you thinking...?"

[Trout]

On 5/9/2017 at 11:48 AM, Jamie the Jasper said:

Your opponent has a much bigger army than you? Play the 'Desperate Last Stand' battleplan.

Your opponent has brought all monsters? Play the 'Monster Rampage' battleplan.

Your opponent has 6 Nagash's? Play the 'Splintered Avatar' battleplan.

Your opponent has the option to chain summon and flood the board? Let them do it! And make it fun with the 'Relentless Sorcery' battleplan.

I can't seem to find these battleplans. Where did you get them from?

[TheOtherJosh]

I can't seem to find these battleplans. Where did you get them from?

They don't actually exist ... these are all "battleplan concepts" to answer the game issues those types of matchups incur.

[Trout]

2 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

 

They don't actually exist ... these are all "battleplan concepts" to answer the game issues those types of matchups incur.

Oh.

 

Well...I like the idea, but if it doesn't exist then it's not really a very useful idea at this point (unless it somehow encourages people to write and publish such battleplans).

[chord]

18 hours ago, Trout said:

You may call having to make mid-game changes an opportunity. But I think most people would call it what it is, trying to fix a broken a game; a game that would not have been broken  had you looked at the point values.

Two units with the same point values are not equal though.  

 

[Trout]

8 minutes ago, chord said:

Two units with the same point values are not equal though.  

 

Of course. You still need to consider your mix of models, obviously. But using the points is far superior to just guessing their relative power.

[Nin Win]

Superior at what?  Importing the idea of a matched play even points game into another way to play?  And why is doing your own evaluation equated to "guessing?"  

If I play a scenario and my horde of plague bearers are really hard to kill and my opponent has a bunch of stuff that is middling in its damage output (but maybe also resilient or maybe fast whatever) then it doesn't matter what the points are.  My plague bearers will be functionally invincible-- never killed off before the game ends, never unseated off an objective.  I can make an evaluation that despite being equal points, maybe our game needs me to take less resistant stuff or more hard hitting stuff.    

For me, "superior" is when something gives a better game experience.  Points never, ever take into consideration synergy, the ability of the opponent's models, the battleplans, the terrain, etc.,.  They're always in a vacuum based on what the designers think the most likely game situation is and then informed by tournament play which heavily (perhaps entirely) weighted towards the goal of even matches.  The first page of Open Play suggests that maybe things don't always have to be like that.  An evaluation based on a real game situation and then adjusting (either on the fly in that particular game (yes, you can do that) or for the next one) is always going to be a more concrete intervention to produce better game play.   Points are a guideline, but they are also "guessing" a lot of things about the upcoming game when they are set.

There's also a very common current in the advocacy of importing matched play ideas into other modes of play.  To preemptively solve problems or prevent them from happening.  I would put forward an idea:  things aren't problems until they actually are and the actual problems are the only thing that needs solving.  As well, they can be solved in situ and not with a general system applied to everything.  If my plague bearers are sitting on an objective and there is no way my opponent can unseat them and we realize the game was a forgone conclusion before it even began we can have a bunch of Stormcast show up attracted by the daemonic build up.  Or change the scenario and move the objective or how it is scored.  Or admit that despite using the guidelines of points, things didn't work out and we should call the game and set up a new one.

Jamie the Jasper's battleplan names do sort of exist (the last battleplan in the let's read part of this thread for example, is all about being a massively outnumbered doomed defender), but also are an answer to the common fears of imaginary negative play experiences people have when they approach Open Play from the perspective of Matched Play.   Open Play would certainly benefit from having more guidelines to help those who think they need to be protected from their fellow gamers get over that fear.  If people were to approach Open Play for what it actually is rather than the caricature they have in their minds about it, those battleplans wouldn't immediately seem like such a good idea.

My initial instinct was that it would be great if Jamie the Jasper's ideas were a reality (and I too assumed that something like that would be later in the chapter), but now I'm thinking the opposite is true.  If you made battleplans that reinforced the caricature of Open Play in people's minds, then you'd make it a reality.  People out there actually think Open Play is about whoever buys more models gets to put them on the table and always win because they outspent or outpainted their opponent.  It's hard enough to get people to loosen up about their gaming without them thinking that's what Open Play is actually about.
 

[TheOtherJosh]

...If you made battleplans that reinforced the caricature of Open Play in people's minds, then you'd make it a reality.

Battleplans exist to embrace a tactical or scenario based idea.

Yes, we know that there are "concepts" associated with Open Play, including that the game is broken when you play that way.

If the scenario changes the Win condition so that having (as an example) 6 copies of Nagash doesn't make it any easier to win. (The first time the a spell is cast, it succeeds. Past the first Roll a die, for each additional shard subtract one from the roll?) Perhaps the shards are fighting for control of each other? And the opposing player can take control of one of them (randomly) in their turn on a successful dice roll?


Or, if you're having issues with monsters, a "city fight" scenario where you have lots more terrain, that gives cover to units and is placed in such a way that the monsters can't get in, or have limited movement between the building? Or the building may collapse on them due to their weight because it is collapsing ruins? Or Units with the monster keyword are bogged down/slowed due to really muddy ground that lighter troops don't have an issue with?

By "changing the rules" of the battlefield, you create options that didn't exist before. People, being people, may still want to play crazy Open games. (And likely still will.)

[Trout]

7 hours ago, Nin Win said:

Superior at what?

 

Giving you an idea of which units you should be bringing into the battle based on the kind of competitiveness or challenge you are after.

 

7 hours ago, Nin Win said:

And why is doing your own evaluation equated to "guessing?"  

Because many players, myself included, do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the units of every faction and how they synergize. In fact, I only have a firm grasp of what the units in the factions I actually play or play against regularly do. All of the Stormcast Eternals look identical to me...big guys in golden armor. If I had to figure out what the relative power of a unit of Stormcast Golden Badasses (or whatever they are called) is compared to my Freeguild Guard, I would have to: guess, hope that my opponent knows about Freeguild and can tell me, or start studying his warscrolls and figuring out the synergies in order to devise some sort of more educated guess. Looking at the point value in the General's Handbook is clearly superior to that approach.

 

7 hours ago, Nin Win said:

If I play a scenario and my horde of plague bearers are really hard to kill and my opponent has a bunch of stuff that is middling in its damage output (but maybe also resilient or maybe fast whatever) then it doesn't matter what the points are.  My plague bearers will be functionally invincible-- never killed off before the game ends, never unseated off an objective.  I can make an evaluation that despite being equal points, maybe our game needs me to take less resistant stuff or more hard hitting stuff.

Sure, so what? Clearly points are not better than an encyclopedic knowledge of all units. But points are better than guessing.

 

7 hours ago, Nin Win said:

For me, "superior" is when something gives a better game experience.  Points never, ever take into consideration synergy, the ability of the opponent's models, the battleplans, the terrain, etc.,.  They're always in a vacuum based on what the designers think the most likely game situation is and then informed by tournament play which heavily (perhaps entirely) weighted towards the goal of even matches.

Aren't you the guy claiming that we shouldn't be worrying about problems preemptively? Yet above you came up with a make believe nightmare scenario and here you are again creating another horrible scenario of what could go wrong if we use points. Rather than preemptively trying to solve the problems created by points, or prevent them from happening. I would put forward an idea: things aren't problems until they actually are and the actual problems are the only thing that needs solving.

 

7 hours ago, Nin Win said:

If my plague bearers are sitting on an objective and there is no way my opponent can unseat them and we realize the game was a forgone conclusion before it even began we can have a bunch of Stormcast show up attracted by the daemonic build up.  Or change the scenario and move the objective or how it is scored.  Or admit that despite using the guidelines of points, things didn't work out and we should call the game and set up a new one.

 

Exactly! Using points still allows you to adjust the game however you wish.
 

7 hours ago, Nin Win said:

If you made battleplans that reinforced the caricature of Open Play in people's minds, then you'd make it a reality.  People out there actually think Open Play is about whoever buys more models gets to put them on the table and always win because they outspent or outpainted their opponent.  It's hard enough to get people to loosen up about their gaming without them thinking that's what Open Play is actually about.

 

Rather than trying to preemptively solve the problems that new battleplans might create or prevent them from happening. I would put forward an idea: things aren't problems until they actually are and the actual problems are the only thing that needs solving.