New Authorage; Tourney Style: On Passive-Agressive Judging

Attention readers - I'm blessed by a large staff of fellow NOVA volunteers, and a large group of friends.  To a degree, I'll be hosting guest author writing from among that and other groups, to help enhance the quality and readability of the blog, and increase the amount of quality mateiral for you all to read on a daily basis.


A guest post by Morgim Dark of http://23lines.com

I AM THE JUDGE!

There are two very broad stances when it comes to judging a gaming tournament, specifically when the game's mechanics and ruleset are somewhat loose (i.e. Warhammer 40k). At the NOVA Open this year we tried both differing styles of judging, and the results were interesting.

Active Refereeing

The first style is actively refereeing a game. This style is very uncommon on the tournament gaming scene as it does not lend itself to larger, Grand Tournament-style events. However, the NOVA Invitational offered us the perfect opportunity to engage in active judging given the small number of players involved and the amount of prize support on the line.

Simply put, active judging is where staff actually get involved in the game itself, closely monitoring the play and ensuring that each player plays as close to the rules as possible. This may include correcting over-movement, proactively clarifying a rule, or even determining movement itself as in the case of a multi-unit assault. 

Active judging is difficult as each table judge may have a slightly different take on the rules, have varying levels of experience, or even have a biased view of certain participants. NOVA staff did their best to level-set expectations through a comprehensive FAQ, well-informed judges and a strong, overall tournament judge. Still, even those measures can't guarantee the exact same experience with active judges across multiple tables.

You have a problem with my ruling?!

Passive Judging
The second style is passive judging. This style is far and away the most common and lends itself to a gaming system that is part hobby and part competitive. Passive judging relies largely on the players to know the mechanics of the game and be able to resolve issues at the table as they arise. It also assumes that when a player has a concern or question that cannot be readily resolved they will actively contact tournament staff for resolution. 

Passive judging does require active involvement from the tournament staff but not at the same intimate level as active judging. For example, if I overhear two players resolving an issue with a dice roll, I would not jump in to correct the situation. The players have decided on an amicable resolution with no need to pull in a judge - all the better within this style.  More importantly, if you only jump into the games you hear things from, the field is inherently unfairly judged as a result.

And everyone left happy!

Moreover, in a tournament of any real scale, judges cannot be everywhere at once and certainly do not have a full view of every game being played. For example, I overheard two players discussing Jaws of the World Wolf and one mentioned the power killed several Crisis Suits. Given that Crisis Suits are normally a subset of Jump Infantry this should not be possible. 

However, I held my tongue and approached his opponent (the Space Wolf player and a friend of mine) and asked whether he really used the power on Crisis Suits. In fact, the Crisis Suits referred to by the Tau player were XV88s (Broadside suits) which are not Jet Pack enabled. Had I said anything at the table, I would have blundered into a situation in which I had no prior knowledge (i.e. that Jaws had targetted Broadsides) and just confused the game for the players.

I have heard and do understand the frustration from GT tournament players who would like judges to take a more involved role. But at the level of the NOVA GT (200+ players), any more direct involvement in games would be ineffective at best and game changing at worst. That is not to say judges should not be accessible and there are certainly ways to ensure that tournament staff is approachable. 

In Summation

In the final analysis, 40k as a tournament game does rely on the social contract between players - judges are really there to ensure consistency across all the games being played and to monitor for any egregious abuses of said social contract.

For more insight on tournament style check out my other NOVA entries over at http://23lines.com - Morgrim Dark

Composition or, How to Have a Not Tournament

Please don't let the title fool you - I don't "hate" Composition, I just feel it is often misrepresented.


Let me elaborate, and as I will in general do, I am talking about Warhammer 40,000.

1) Warhammer 40,000 operates with a published set of rules and codices that are available to anyone who plays the game. More importantly, anyone attending a tournament is probably going to have a rough grasp on this game.

2) People play the game of 40k differently everywhere you go. There's no right way to play it, b/c it is not a professionalized game. This isn't Baseball, or Football, where there are a prescribed set of rules and regulations that apply to the sport anywhere you go.

Or, maybe it is. If you went someplace and watched them play baseball, and runs were worth different points levels depending on how difficult or not the event host considered the scoring play to be, you would be a little perplexed. It might be interesting, it might even be fascinating ... heck, you might even want to grab a glove and a bat and participate. But wait, they don't use gloves and bats. Instead, you have to catch balls with your bare hands the way the original players did. You have to use a railroad crossbar as a bat (seriously). It's a small lead ball that they use, not a Rawlings Baseball.

Upon inquiring about the odd equipment, the event organizers tell you that this is how the game is SUPPOSED to be played, and that it encourages a totally different and unique approach, and it's way more fun. You protest, that you've played baseball the same way your entire life, and how are you supposed to excel at this new version of the game?

You can see where I'm going with this.

It's totally functional and alright to play the game of Warhammer 40,000 differently, but as soon as you diverge materially from the rules of the game, you aren't playing the game anymore. You're playing YOUR version of it. It's not Warhammer 40,000. It's Tourney Organizer X's Warhammer 40k.

Interestingly, you can't actually avoid this. No matter what you do, it's not going to be pure 40k, and probably for the best. Nevertheless, Composition requirements and limitations greatly exacerbate this problem.

If you don't like that 40k allows for a wide variety of army builds, that range greatly in terms of their competitiveness, please consider avoiding the tournament notion of the hobby, and continue to play among friends who believe that you should only build lists a certain way, or rather should never build them a certain way (6 and half dozen as those opinions are).

Warhammer 40,000 is - for better or worse - written by amateurs. The people who craft the game are not graduates of the Oxford School of Wargame Rules Writing. In some (or many) cases, they are not even fully college educated. This isn't a knock on them, but it's a wake-up call to the fact that they aren't pure pros - their rules aren't perfect. Acknowledge that the reason for this isn't that they are stupid. They're just people with jobs. Regardless, all of us tournament organizers nationwide are ... ALSO not professional rules writers. We're also amateurs. We have our opinions about the game. We are not BETTER qualified to regulate a game that we didn't write in the first place. We may prefer it were different, and that's fine, but consider strongly whether that preference - as individual and opinionated as it is - belongs in a COMPETITION.

Wherever possible, I will keep my own opinions about what units or army lists are best or most creative or how it should be done OUT of building a tournament setting. Wherever possible, I will encourage people to play by the rules of the game out there.


The most important "why" behind my stance on this is as follows: A competition should be competitive. Professional sports are competitive b/c their rules are codified and regulated across the depth and breadth of their pursuit. With only subtle variations, the game of baseball is the same for a 13 year old as it is for a 33 year old. You can learn this game via the official rules, which anyone can access. First base is first base, a run is a run, a strike is a strike.

Since everyone who attends a tournament is likely in possession of and is aware of the rules of Warhammer 40k, and the details of at least their own codex, it best supports a competitive and reliable environment on the gaming front to utilize those rules, instead of instilling our own homegrown restrictions.

Will we develop a FAQ to answer questions not addressed by GW? Probably, to as much of a degree as we absolutely must. Will we consider different restrictions for Warhammer Fantasy, where the game is *arguably* far less balanced? Possibly. Will we come up with missions and objectives that are not identical to the ones in the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook? Again, possibly.

What must be said, though, is that composition will likely NOT play a role in the Warhammer 40k side of our event. It is just too extreme (unless it's mellow to the point of being pointless) an amendment to the BASE game. It is in and of itself unfair to the wide margin of participants, who effectively must attempt to investigate, comprehend and react to a set of entirely new army build restrictions with whatever time the organizers give them for digestion.


What are your thoughts on composition?

The NOVA Open - Hosting a Large Tournament

On August 7 (or August 14, possibly) of this year, we'll be hosting an Independent Circuit Qualifying Tournament for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy.

This will be a 128 person (64/system), 4 round, single day tournament. Although I've hosted several tournaments, this will be the largest one I've done.

There's a lot left for us to figure out. We're finalizing location (probably the Dulles Expo Center, pending them hitting the right contract mark) and website design before publicizing it too aggressively.

For me, this will be an interesting event to host. My primary focus will be on overall event coordination, and the Warhammer 40k portion, as I am not a Warhammer Fantasy player.

Hosting a 40k event is always a challenge. There's an enormous variety of opinion and personality within the hobby, and it's always important to make sure you address this when you host a large enough event.

This brings up the important question of what a tournament should be, and what standards should be used for it.

So what is a tournament? It's different from event to event, but if we were to take it at its most fundamental level:

A tournament is a competition, involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:

1. One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentrated into a relatively short time interval.
2. A competition involving multiple matches, each involving a subset of the competitors, with the overall tournament winner determined based on the combined results of these individual matches.

It is my opinion that #1 most clearly describes the typical 40k tournament, in that there are numerous separate competitions occurring within the event. There are often competitions for best general, sportsmanship, painting, converting, theme, composition, and others. Most often, there's an "Overall" award that factors all of these in to varying degrees, depending on the venue.

These tournaments are almost always also in the category known as a "Group Tournament," which basically means that everyone participates in a fixed number of rounds and/or events, and that the winner is determined based on the overall score they achieve throughout these rounds and events. Nobody gets knocked out, sent home early, etc. Part of the appeal is knowing you'll get 4 games in (although most events settle for only 3).

What is a "real" competitive tournament, in Warhammer 40k?

There's actually no "firm" answer to this question. The only real truth is that for a tournament to be truly competitive, it must be absolutely transparent about what it is evaluating. That is to say, that if Painting is 50% of the score of the OVERALL winner, that needs to be crystal clear well ahead of time. It would be disingenuous not to elaborate upon how things work.

The question for a tournament organizer, then, is "What will YOUR tournament place its competitive emphasis on?" Ah so, therein lies the rub.

It will take evaluation of the subjects of Game Competition, Visual Competition, Soft Scoring, and Composition to come up with an answer, and that's part of what this blog will investigate in the coming bit (presuming there are enough people visiting it to merit that investigation!).

Composition will be first.

What's In a Name?

I play tabletop wargames. I didn't always play them. In fact, there was a point in my life where such an activity never once entered the faintest corners of my imagination. Nevertheless, I do now, and like many things in the life of a young man the story of how I picked it up started with a girl.

During first half of the first decade of the new millennium, I met said girl.

Like 9 out of 10 stories in today's dating world, this one didn't end all that well. Don't worry, though. This isn't a story about a girl.

That said, the departure of this girl led to a consolation party thrown by a friend, which led to making a new friend, which led to a fortuitous Friday night visit to the house of one of THAT fellow's friends. This guy, the homeowner, was named Joe.

Still with me?

There, I was reintroduced to a game I'd played in my teens called Warhammer 40,000, produced by Games Workshop. I was also introduced to Whiskey, which until then had not been one of my beverages of choice. I'd always been a beer guy. I still am a beer guy, actually, but that's not what's important. What's important is that now I'm a whiskey guy too. A Whiskey & 40k guy.

You see, now the title of this post makes sense. So, too, does the title of this blog. I was amazingly subtle about delivering it, no?

Since that fortuitous Friday night, I've made and seen pass many a friend, including the one who threw my long-forgotten consolation party, and including the one who introduced me to Friday nights at Joe's for Whiskey & 40k. Nevertheless, Joe fast became and remains one of my closest friends, and it's because of Friday nights at Joe's that I'm writing this blog. Which, of course, means this blog is very indirectly about a girl.



So, to the meat of things.

This blog will be rambling, and generally unimportant. There will be, however, a few consistent and oft-repeated themes.

1) Warhammer 40,000. It is this subject that I will use to bring you people back from time to time. Rumor amalgamations, links to threads in various forums and blogs that I find interesting on a given day, and of course (as it wouldn't be a blog without it) my thoughts about the game of Warhammer 40k.

2) Alcohol. Note that I am neither a drunk, nor an alcoholic. I do, however, possess an enormous appreciation and palette for some of the world's most revered and ancient beverages, most especially beer. I'll recommend beers on a near-weekly or more than weekly basis, will share my stories of fantastic places to try said beverages, and will ramble about them from time to time if I try something truly fantastic.

3) Tabletop wargaming and hobbying in general. I don't *only* play Warhammer 40k.

4) The NOVA Open - my very own tabletop wargaming tournament. This year will be the first formal year of the Open, it will be a Games Workshop Independent National Circuit Qualifier (aka the top finishers will get invitations to national championships in Las Vegas), and will be a bear to plan. I hope whatever visitors I can rustle up for the site will help me with planning and detailing out some of the components of the event.

5) Ramble ramble. I will no doubt have some other recurring themes, I just don't know what they are yet.



A quick caveat on me; I think that people who utilize Blogs to self-podium their own amazing sense of the game of 40k, or games in general, are kinda douchey. It's not personal, and they probably aren't really douches, but it's a simple, non-professionalized game. It's not a sport, it's not a hobby that people compete for hundreds of thousands of dollars with. I'll no doubt share my own opinions on it frequently, and give advice about how to play it, etc. This is based purely off the fortune of only having lost a couple of games of it over the course of the past thousand or so games. Since it is a dice-based game, and since I don't travel the country playing the best of the best, I'm aware of the fact that my opinion is only that - a simple opinion. So is everybody else's.

I would compare myself to some of the other strong-opinioned "internet tough guys" of the 40k world out there, only less of a condescending asshat. I would, but I won't, b/c that would just make me another condescending asshat.

Anyway, enjoy!