The Case for Hard Caps - Part Deux

Well the post around Hard Cap Composition caused a bit of a stir yesterday. Thanks to everybody who contributed. The comments made were all considered and reflected that some thought had gone into them. They certainly made me consider my thoughts more thoroughly.

Sometimes a TO Wears Many (Hard) Hats

I wanted to pick up on a point one poster, Powerguy made. He said:

“but to me the absolute last thing you should want to be doing as a TO is directly dictating what people bring to your tournament. Indirectly sure (with comp and forcing people to build for scenarios) but with hard caps you are basically trying to redesign and rebalance the entire system yourself, which is a pretty massive task for one person (GW have whole teams working on this kinda stuff full time...). I have never seen a comp/hard cap system which doesn't have the same kind of loopholes as the base systems which GW made to start with.”

Now there are a lot of things in his statement I’d like to comment on as to me they strike at the reason why I favour a hard cap composition system.

The first part of Powerguy’s statement concerns the actions of the TO and whether he should be dictating what people bring to a tournament. I fundamentally disagree with this assertion as I believe it is a fundamental right (responsibility) to determine what should be there. My reasoning on this is twofold.

Firstly, as the TO is the one investing his time in organising and running the event, I believe he has the right to dictate the nature of the event. If he wants the event to be a no-holds barred fight to the death then he can set the parameters to encourage this. Similarly, if he wants it to be a love-in where renditions of “Kumbaya” ring out between each round he can do that. However, he also has the responsibility to publicise the nature and conditions of the event well in advance of the cut-off date so that individuals can make an informed decision as to whether it is the type of event they wish to attend. It may be a generational thing but to say he doesn’t have the right to dictate conditions seems to me to reflect an “entitlement” by the individual that I don’t subscribe to.

Secondly, and more importantly, I do think that TO would want to ensure that the attendees enjoyed the event – not least because he probably wants repeat attendance. Now Warhammer of either genre is not a bloodsport and I expect that most attendees would prefer a level playing field. This might not be the case for all - some will come just to throw dice – but I don’t think anyone actively seeks out a tournament where they are at a known disadvantage. Therefore to ensure that there is a better chance of enjoyment for all, I know I’m attracted to events where the playing field is levelled.

The second point that Powerguy makes concerns one guy undertaking the task to re-balance what GW Design Team have spent months developing. The assertion, quite valid, is that it is arrogant to think you can do better. Now this argument comes up frequently but personally I think it is fundamentally flawed.

Why? GW has a team of up to 10 people in its Design Studio (let’s put aside for a minute that one of them was Gav Thorpe). They also use playtesters but this group is also limited in numbers. Now I am aware of how the playtesting process works – the Warlords had a group of 40k playtesters for 2-3 years – and how many games etc that they play. I’m willing to say that the number of games played with a rulebook, army book or codex in the week after its general release dwarfs any playtesting prior to release. It just a reflection of the market they serve.

As a result of this very quickly any rules problems (remember the Skaven book required 7 pages of errata and FAQs) are quickly identified. Similarly the most effective units quickly become evident. Twenty years ago this didn’t matter as much as playing groups were distant and disjointed. You therefore had local meta games that developed in isolation. This is no longer the case. Internet forums, informative blogs (such as this one), podcasts etc pool and publish this shared experience. It is no accident that the words “net list” has entered our lexicon.

And this is no reflection of the job done by GW but rather just sheer mathematics. You can’t hope to replicate the number of situations that come up in play after release during the playtesting process. GW, themselves, acknowledge this limitation by trotting out the line that their game is not balanced and not designed for tournaments. The shared knowledge grows with time as more and more situations occur.

Given this shared knowledge most comp systems are the result of pooled experience, borrowing shamelessly from around the globe. A good example of this is the “Power Scroll”. To the best of my knowledge the Power Scroll quickly came verboetten in NZ tournaments despite, to the best of my knowledge, no NZ player using the item. This purely was the result of shared experience with TOs recognising how much it could unbalance a game.

I think that it is important to give TOs some credit that where there are any, thought has gone into restrictions. I know in my case they are not there to ruin anyone’s fun but rather to ensure that the enjoyment of the majority is not ruined. However acknowledging that “less is more” the system we use locally is deliberately brief and doesn’t profess to be a catch-all. Instead it is designed to knock out the most egregious offenders. By its nature it is also a living document but hopefully avoids the “Crimes Against Pete” mentality.

So I hope this has explained my reasoning a little more. It certainly isn’t designed to denigrate the views of Powerguy but hopefully addresses some of the points he raised.

Thoughts?