Games and their Fluff

There's changes afoot in the world of games-Billy-enjoys. Wizards of the Coast (WotC - makers of Magic) and Games Workshop (GW - makers of Warhammer and Warhammer40k) are both in the process of changing, to varying degrees, the nature of their games and the ways they approach their customers. I was struggling to figure out how to present this particular situation. I knew that WotC was handling their change far better than GW (surprise surprise), but explaining why without just rehashing previously made points was giving me trouble. To resolve the problem I did something I haven't done for any of my previous blog posts - I started outlining. My result? WotC attempts to understand their game and their customers on a regular, iterative basis. GW ignores its customers and believes utterly in its own view of the world.

I'm writing about this now because for the second time in its 16+ year existence, Magic is getting a rules overhaul. This overhaul won't be as significant as the 5th-6th edition change, but it's definitely going to throw people for a loop. If anyone is interested you can find a very detailed summary of the rules changes here, and the head Magic designer's (Maro) comments about the changes here. I recommend clicking the first link and just looking at how much text they spend explaining the changes. If you want, read one or two of the explanations (pick a shorter one). There's no need to understand the specific rules, just read the way the language is presented. It's clear, concise, and precise. One of the better sections that illustrates my larger point is found under #4 where it states, "The Fix: We are matching most players' expectation by changing the rule such that the owner of a token is, in fact, the player under whose control it entered the battlefield." Again, knowing about token ownership is besides the point. The fact that they changed the rules to match the players expectations is important for a variety of reasons. First, they understood how the rule used to work. Second they understood how their players were confused by the rule. Third, they understood how to change the rules to fit players perceptions. Fourth, they changed the rules to make their games more intuitive.

As Maro said in his piece above, "What is the greatest threat to Magic, in my not so humble opinion? We stop getting new players. While we have excellent player retention, for various reasons, people do leave the game. Without a counter balance of fresh blood, the game would hit the point of diminishing returns and then Magic no longer becomes economically viable to produce. But Magic is an awesome game. How would we ever stop attracting new players? The answer is what I consider to be the biggest danger to the game: complexity creep." These games are not necessarily easy to grasp. Or at least, the perception is that they are complicated. Honestly, I could explain either game to an interested person in about 20 minutes and we could be playing our game fairly effectively within an hour. Sure both have 100+ page rule books, but you can get by on the basics. WotC recognizes that fact, and is working to make their rules match with players expectations. GW - not so much.

There are two examples for this that I can come up with. The first is in a frequently asked questions document found here. One of the many armies in Warhammer has an item, a magic puppet, that lets them modify a very specific type of die rolls. Ok, easy enough, but what happens when both players have the same puppet, whose puppet takes precedence? The answer is as follows, "A. Easy! First the player that rolled the Miscast makes his roll on the chart. Then, either player declares that he’s using the Puppet, rolls the D3 and modifies the result. Finally, the other player (with a swashbuckling move and a sound: ‘aha!’), reveals that he also has a Puppet and modifies the result again by a D3." There are several things wrong with this answer. The first is that it doesn't actually answer the question. Because subtraction is not a commutative property (i.e. 5-2 is not the same as 2-5) it really does matter who modifies the die roll first. In the above answer, the resulting situation is that both players stare at each other waiting for one to make the first move. Ok, so the answer fails miserably because it doesn't actually state how to resolve the situation. It also fails because it demonstrates that the person answering the question doesn't understand the primary purpose of the question. It's not, what happens in total when there are two puppets, it's what happens first. The fact that their rules makers don't understand their own game is a MASSIVE failing on the part of GW. Finally, the answer fails because of the "swashbuckling move and sound" section. Games should have senses of humor. I'm sure chess players have stock jokes (probably something about congress between pawns and queens), that said, rules clarification documents are not places for them. Anyone asking this sort of question wants a black and white answer - neon polka dots should stay away.

The other example came about in the latest revision of the Warhammer40k rules. A definition (defensive weapons) changed from 4th edition to 5th edition. An army was created right at the time when the change was taking place. A unit from that army was designed with full knowledge of the change. The lead designer for the army and the game designed the unit as a mobile gun platform. The change of the rules negated that intent. When asked by the customers in a Q&A session about the role of the unit the designer stated that it was intended as a mobile gun platform. When it was pointed out that the rules (which he had written) didn't allow for his initial intent he was stumped, and then reversed course and said the unit was a troops transport. Regardless of the specifics (and whether the story is apocryphal or not) the mismatch of intention and result still exists. It demonstrates that GW itself doesn't get its own game. Not only can they not provide the clear and concise summary of what is changing that WotC did in the above link, they can't even keep it straight in their own heads!

This brings me to the next issue with GW - intentionally pushing customers out of the store. The most recent way they've figured out to make coming to their game centers less palatable was to do away with the free paints, brushes and hobby supplies. Now sure, it cost them money to have all this stuff sitting out for the free use of any patron. However, it was an AMAZING selling point for coming into the store. You could bring some models, do some work on them and generally just shoot the breeze with like minded individuals all day long. A sizable portion of the stores patronage lacks basic social skills, so the ability to keep your hands and eyes busy during the lulls in conversation made hanging out at the GW store a much more palatable option. And if you're hanging out there it's much more likely that you'll impulse buy something. Now, without that hook, unless you can get a game (on the increasingly limited tables) there's little reason to hang out and wait. Doing away with the free hobby supplies is a classic penny-wise pound-foolish decision. They won't be spending the $100/month on new paints. They also won't be getting the $1000/month in impulse buys they used to receive...

Anyway, that all came out much more rant-ish than I intended. Sorry. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask, and as always, please do sound off in the comments section with any thoughts or feelings.

(7 more calendar days to go at the current job - retirement's looking AWESOME!)