I guess this whole
oldhammer thing (Of which 3rd edition is the poster child) needs to be seen in the context of newhammer. For me, oldhammer is really representative of 1st, 2nd and 3rd, with 4th ed. onwards representing newhammer. The biggest distinction of the shift between old and newhammer would be the considerable simplication (note - I didn't say
dumbing down - I get why rules are simplified) of the rules, and the good-for-business-but-bad-for-game-design approach of releasing separate army books for each race.
So lets start with Newhammer. I bought into 8th ed. I have the ruleset here, I bought the magic cards. In fact, one of the biggest things that I liked about it was the amount of inspiration it drew from 3rd. In hindsight, it wasn't a lot - but it was more than any other edition since 3rd. At least they
looked at 3rd for some ideas.
I got excited like everyone else and off we all went and played some games. That's when I became aware of what to me felt wrong. Its been wrong with the previous editions as well, but it just hit home in 8th. It was the terrain generation thing. Its not the only thing that was wrong, but it was the thing that made me sit up and take notice:
I've seen tables where a small town house sits on a hill, flanked by a forest. Sounds normal? sure. But the forest eats children. And 50 paces away from the house is a dilapidated chaos temple. If you go and stand there when the moon is full, you will be possessed by a daemon and your head will explode. Just west of the temple is a river of light. Don't go too close to that, kids, it shoots lightning bolts. Fortunately, there is a bridge over the river, which is how you get to the dwarf brewery, which is surrounded by haunted walls. Here's my question - how cheap is the rent on the townhouse that some schmuck from the Empire actually lives there? What did the estate agent actually say that convinced Hans Von Bloodskullspikenstein (the village baker) that this was a good place to live? Is this really what the magical landscape of the old world looks like?
Fundamentally, the whole thing doesn't make sense. But that's okay, right, because I could just suggest that we forgo the terrain generation thing, and lay the scenery out in a mutually agreeable fashion, or get a 3rd party (with a brain) to set the scenery up so that it makes sense, right?
And that's where you slam into the Newhammer tournament mentality. I have never successfully convinced anyone 'just' to lay out the scenery. Players will not budge on this, because its not representative of tournaments. The table described above is tournament legal, so its okay - I don't know why there is a chaos temple in the guys back yard - there just is, so can we start playing already? This type of thinking carries on into other areas.
Here's another story: I like playing with painted figures, so I did the honourable thing - I only brought painted figures. In my case, they were high elves and I could only scrape 1000 points of them. I didn't have a wizard either (What - WTF? This is WFB8 man - gotta have a wizard!!), so I played without. What I thought was, I would challenge other players that they could bring whatever army they wanted (at any points size) and I would play a scenario where I had to defend a bridge or something. First question from my opponent - are you sure you can't make 2000 points? Second question - can I drop my army to 1000 points? - that way its fair.
The player completely missed the point of the thing. The fact that he and I knew I would be massacred by his army meant that this game was no longer a suitable tournament fitting challenge for him. Essentially, that is because he was practising for tournaments, and this was no longer a good practise game for him. In fact, all of my warhammer 8 (and 7th and most of 6th ed) games were all practise sessions for tournaments.
Its the difference between playing tennis because you like playing tennis and playing tennis so that you can be better at it, so that you can play in a better league at the club.
So, a long rant about newhammer and newhammer players. The rant was important, though, because it goes a long way to describing how the ruleset affects the players. Because the players are so hell bent on being tournament ready, they relinquish common sense, narrative and, in most cases, fun, so that they can win. And the point that I'm trying to get to is that the (tournament primed) ruleset encourages this.
Now lets talk about oldhammer (and mainly 3rd edition)
3rd ed
is clunky. There are hundreds and hundreds of rules. its almost as if the designers just brain dumped every fantasy thing they could think of into the rules. Did you know that when a troll wears armour, it can't regenerate? There's a rule for that.
Just in case, you see. That thing about beasts being afraid of fire in 8th ed? That's from 3rd ed, except it was wolves, specifically, that were afraid of fire. There is a spell
just to open a door. Very handy for Hans when he's trying to get away from possessed ghosts around the brewery, if only it was available in his edition of Warhammer.
But - surprisingly, having all these rules is actually an enabler. Suddenly, players are thinking about all sorts of eventualities. They're not game changers, but they just add a little flavour. Also, the little rules add slight tactical nuances to the game.
In the game Blue and I played recently, Blue was stung by the fact that figures riding giant boars suffer a -1 penalty to their leadership, because they are so difficult to control. Blue's general was on a boar. He was immediately challenged with having a good leader vs. a mobile leader. Clunky? Yes. Flavoursome? Yes. Necessary? No.
Players are doing exactly what Erny described - every game. They apply house rules on the spot, they discuss, they change, they try to chase down the spirit of the law, as opposed to the letter of the law (just have a look at any warhammer forum for thoughts on the letter of the law...)
So the 3rd ed rulebooks (and especially the Realm of Chaos suppliments) have a very
toolbox sort of feel to them. Here are lots and lots and lots of ideas, ostensibly presented as rules, but they're very much take-it-or-leave-it in their approach. You have to work
together with your opponent in order to get through the game.
Newhammer can be treated in exactly the same way, but by having such streamlined rules, the potential for new ideas and cute in game idiosynchrasies (which are very real on the battlefield) is just not there, leaving unimaginative players with nothing other other unimaginative players, who collaborate with each other's (apostrophe challenge! Did I do it right?) lack of imagination by falling back into silly terrain generation tables and carefully prepared, but ultimately repeatable and predictable in-book scenarios.
In Newhammer's (8th ed this time) defense, they did add a section about having a Games Master and they even tried to show how a game might be different when using one. They also went further when showing that huge mega battle, where they didn't use points for the some parts of the armies described - or even units from the existing army books (Chaos knights on Juggernaughts of Khorne - that is, like,
so illegal!).
Good luck at finding any Newhammer players that let you do that. I know they're out there, but they are few and far between.
...and if you do, I'll bet you're looking at an Oldhammer player anyway.
So maybe the best analogy I can throw at it is that its the difference between cheap Tesco cider and a fine whisky. Any schmuck can appreciate some cider in the park with his mates, but its only a mature taste that can appreciate the whisky.
26 December 2009, 10:56:00 AM