5e & My first time DM'ing

[Quantumsurfer]

I dig the community, obviously. As far as the game itself goes, I adore the freedom. I can play with shitty rainbow leftovers or crafted and storied armies built over time. I like the storytelling aspect a great deal as well. In 40K, though I liked a majority of the lore, I created a new chapter for my Space Marines, a new craftworld for my Eldar, and a new sept for my Tau. When I played the DOW video games, I made new subfactions for every race and, riding high on the fantasy of becoming a billionaire, wanted to implement armies to that effect. And I still found the whole thing too limiting. I'm a plain sucker for multi-genre and/or versatility/customizability in my games. Doesn't get much more of all that than BW, man. But this is one of the main reasons why RPGs are my "main game type." Freedom to create.

[dilanski]

I dig the community, obviously. As far as the game itself goes, I adore the freedom. I can play with shitty rainbow leftovers or crafted and storied armies built over time. I like the storytelling aspect a great deal as well. In 40K, though I liked a majority of the lore, I created a new chapter for my Space Marines, a new craftworld for my Eldar, and a new sept for my Tau. When I played the DOW video games, I made new subfactions for every race and, riding high on the fantasy of becoming a billionaire, wanted to implement armies to that effect. And I still found the whole thing too limiting. I'm a plain sucker for multi-genre and/or versatility/customizability in my games. Doesn't get much more of all that than BW, man. But this is one of the main reasons why RPGs are my "main game type." Freedom to create.

40K lore is great, but I just couldn't get on with the community. Maybe it was just the people at my local GW store, but most of them were humourless wankers.

[Duerer]

Maybe it was just the people at my local GW store, but most of them were humourless wankers.

I guess it's always the people at GW brand stores that are humourless wankers. Even the 40K players at our LGS that offers a variety of wargaming systems are way more lax.

[stubby]

This is true at every GW store I've ever visited. I think it's part of the franchise license agreement: licensees must not allow any smiling or fun on store premises. Whenever I needed inspiration for what BrikWars was fighting against, I didn't read GW rulebooks, I went to GW stores.

[Quantumsurfer]

Word. 40K was my first intro to wargaming. I bought the second ed box set and one space marine bike. All I had for awhile. Eventually started going to a game/comic store here in town (now long dead) and played there a couple of times. Even the Battletech guys had more fun than the 40K players. And if you've ever played that headache, chart filled miasma of a game with some of the Most Serious Nerds on the planet, then you know how crazy that is.

The 40K guys would actively cheat and then boldly lie about it, even getting angry, loud, and aggressive when clearly in the wrong. They would sneer down their noses at literally everyone. One guy came in with Dark Eldar in the form of Lego one day, wanted to see what the game played like without dropping a billion dollars on it. They made fun of him for months and months after. Shit, I would have played a game with him, had I been there that day. One guy had all of these super cleverly designed origami Tyrannid. I've seen that done a few times before but these were, like, really good. They ran him out of there like he'd dropped trou and had taken a shit on the Holy Bible. That one was almost my last straw with those players. I gave them one more chance after that and the guy who ran the sessions had a fucking rules argument with another player which ended with him picking the other guy up by his head over the table. Then, I was done.

I tried other places but it was always much the same. Bunch of elitist pricks pompously waving their shittily painted thousand dollar armies in one another's faces whilst trying to intellectually one up one another by creating oh-so-clever army lists in the most boring, rules lawyering, and socially backward sessions of mathhammer ever devised. I had a friend who was perfectly amicable whilst playing any other game. The ideal gaming buddy in many respects. But he had apparently spent too much time with the 40K asshole squad. Only game I would never play with him, ever, because he became so agitated, irritable, confrontational, and as humorless as it is possible to be just taking his stupid miniatures out of the box. He could never shake the 40K indoctrination and told me frequently that 40K was a "wargame" and therefore about winning. I would remind him of the "game" part and how it meant fun but he was ultimately dismissive. He turned out to be a doodyhead anyway. But while anecdotal here, I found this brainwashed attitude to be extremely common in many parts of the so-called community. And, man, don't even get me started on the way a lot of these middle-aged losers treated kids and newbies. That inner cruelty would light up their deadened eyes and you could almost see the fuckers twirling their Snidely Whiplash mustaches as they prepared to crush the spirit of some poor ten year old. Not always, but far too often.

So whenever I see something like this from a game designer:

This is true at every GW store I've ever visited. I think it's part of the franchise license agreement: licensees must not allow any smiling or fun on store premises. Whenever I needed inspiration for what BrikWars was fighting against, I didn't read GW rulebooks, I went to GW stores.

I am extremely grateful. Games can do a lot of things for us physically, mentally, and socially but one of the big things games are for is fun. Entertainment. Not to be overly dramatic but I hate seeing them twisted to some other more evil purpose.

[Red_SPAMbot]

I tried other places but it was always much the same. Bunch of elitist pricks pompously waving their shittily painted thousand dollar armies in one another's faces whilst trying to intellectually one up one another by creating oh-so-clever army lists in the most boring, rules lawyering, and socially backward sessions of mathhammer ever devised.

Pretty much succinctly states the entire reason I'm here.

[dilanski]

Man, this reminds me of when I first started playing, and some kid was angry because I was unimpressed that he'd got an X many points Ork army. He seemed to be under the impression that because he'd managed to spend a few hundred quid, that he was entitled to me being impressed by his ability to follow a model assembly guide and slather paint onto them.