after reading Gav thorpe's post about CSM (link at bottom) i am far more struck by the attitudes expressed about the nature of a codex than the details of CSM. his opinion as i understand it is that a codex and in a larger scene the rules as a hole are a guideline rather than actual rules. for starters this attitude explains GW's infuriating inability to give answers to even the most basic rule discrepancy in there own material. however this aside the question becomes in this school of thought on the part of game designers good for the hobby or not?
my core disagreement with thorpe's ideas is that treating codex's rules hurts nobody, treating it as guidelines hurts gamers. in this case i use gamers to refer to those who like me enjoy 40k as a game first and as a hobby second. there are many ways to enjoy 40k as model collecting, as model making, as a medium of storytelling, and in many other ways. but in all of these cases codex as rules is no different than codex as guidelines.
however many like myself like 40k as a game and to us codxes as guidelines hurts our experience. the problem with any formalized competition of with 40k is a example is that even the most altruistic and sportsmen like player has a natural tenancy to have outcomes good for them(hence why you roll scatter dice next to the template). therefor an impartial mediator is necessary in sport a referee is used but due to the abstract simplification of games a rule set can be construed such that all (or at least the vast majority of situations) have a prescribed outcome. this allows for a fun ad strategic matching of wits with your opponent.
when i talk about this i am not talking about tournaments i mean simple friendly competition. as of now if i am playing a pickup game i have to break out a list of hose rule and see if we agree on them before we can play. if we disagree we have to figure out who's rules we will use. and in order to get to this point i have had to go true a dozen awkward "well the rules don't really say" moments. what is particularly frustrating is when a lack of rule at a crucial moment in a game causes a dice off to see what happens. in these situation a victory seems hollow an artifact of chance rather than a victory of skill.
some would tell me that i have house rules so whats the problem. to me the problem is that i'm not a game designer i don't get payed to know 40k like the back of my hand. i want a fair balanced rule set and in order to archive that you need an impartial mediator in the rules. any interpenetration hurts some and helps others and i want someone to make there decisions so that the game will fun and balanced i want a game designer not a rules speculator.
some may say that such a set of hard fast rules would discourage the use of homebrew rules and army's. but i would point out that many games with vary hard and fast rules have a huge swath of homebrew material. the type of people will make there own rules without encouragement. a tight rule set dose not hurt anyone
while i understand that given the complexity of 40k some discrepancy in play are unavoidable the bar of game design should be set at making a real rule set not a detailed list of suggestions. i think that such a low standard of quality is the low make of an otherwise excellent game and it is my hope that that this may be corrected and that 40k be allowed to reach its full potential
i know that was a long post but am i the only one that feels this way?
[URL="http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/"]http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/differences-of-opinion/[/URL]