Reconsidering the ruling on Khorne?

[Gaixo]

Worth reiterating (or possibly saying for the first time) there is no NAF agenda here from me or Gaixo, this is not something that is being actively considered at the moment in committee meetings, at least until BB2 comes out (my understanding).

That's correct.

The official stance is that no decision can be made until we know if Khorne will even exist in the PC game going forward, and if the roster will remain the same. That isn't to say that they would necessarily be accepted so long as they appear and are unchanged in BB2.

[harvestmouse]

Yes, they're all fluff points, but different.

1. We have creatures that aren't what they portray.
2. We have a team that doesn't fit the theme.
3. We have players that don't fit players we already have.

3. I guess is more than a fluff problem, it's compatibility problem too. If we divert from the team building guidelines established by the other teams. We'll lose continuity.

"OK, so the team is subjectively not a well-designed team. Is this in itself a particularly strong reason for inclusion or non-inclusion?"

In my opinion, no it is not for 2 reasons.

1. Designing a team that plays well, but is slightly under-powered isn't actually that difficult. There are lot's of fun combos we could come up with. We could add 20 or 30 fun to play rosters, all with weak to mediocre themes. What this would do is dilute the pretty high quality themes we already have.

2. If a team was to be included purely on how well it plays, then why don't we take the teams we have already and redesign them? Dwarfs aren't that popular and can be immensely fun sapping to play against. So why not redesign them. They'd be more fun with a couple of ma8 players. How about some sort of goblin style player or assassin. There av is a bit high and annoying to play against. Let's weaken that a bit and bring them to just below middle tier............suddenly they aren't Dwarfs anymore. But some dudes with beards that are friendlier to play against and do some more exciting things on offensive drives.

It's key that teams portray what we expect them to be for the integrity of the game. Sure a little slippage here and there won't be disastrous, but where do you draw line? Some rosters are supposed to be 'fun killers' it's their character. Unfortunately they can't all be Underworld, Slann or Pro Elves nor should be try to make them be that way.

[Vanguard]

OK, so the team is subjectively not a well-designed team. Is this in itself a particularly strong reason for inclusion or non-inclusion?

I'm inclined to argue that it is a well designed team, objectively speaking.
Based on the stats (and there are more than sufficient to support this) the Khorne team is solidly in the upper tier 2 region. As I understand it, that was pretty much the design brief, neither over powered nor under powered but favouring the latter so as not to disrupt the current tier 1 teams. So far, mission accomplished.

Harvestmouse (and others) feels the design does not match the fluff. To counter that, I'd point out that gameplay appears to have trumped fluff which surely is the only way that anyone could support. Yes, they could be a fluff matching, team killing squad but that'd break the game so they've been toned down. It's not 'fluffy' that Troll Slayers will play against Trolls - they've sworn sacred oaths to kill such creatures. Of course, the fluff of BB is not the fluff of Warhammer, so equally, anything goes. Khorne and his minions have never appeared before in the BB world, so they only don't match the fluff if you take the fluff of a different game.

Yes, in many ways Khorne was a poor choice and there are many ways it could have been more interesting (I particularly like the Demonic negatrait idea), it was always going to be very hard to find a solution that pleased everyone.
However, the suggestion that a NAF decision on Khorne obligates them to follow Cyanide at every turn is a ludicrous straw man argument. If the NAF endorsed the team based on play testing and stats then that clearly indicates that any other team would have to meet the same standards before even being considered. Fluff is a harder call as it will always be subjective and I doubt any new team (and probably most of the established ones when they were new) would be met with majority approval.
Equally the suggestion that adding a team Cyanide adds requires the NAF to remove any team Cyanide do not support is equally ludicrous and without basis.

[SBG]

"Hate" is a simplification here, for "don't think the fluff fits" in the first part, and "don't like Cyanide making decisions about the board game as they don't know care about it or know anything about it" in the second.

So does that actually summarise the argument, if a lot of the words are removed - HM, Darkson, SBG?

Worth reiterating (or possibly saying for the first time) there is no NAF agenda here from me or Gaixo, this is not something that is being actively considered at the moment in committee meetings, at least until BB2 comes out (my understanding).

You can say I hate the roster. I think we don't need another Chaos team (as we don't another human team). And I'm strongly against allowing Cyanide to mess with the rules TT-wise.

Fred

[SBG]

Worth reiterating (or possibly saying for the first time) there is no NAF agenda here from me or Gaixo, this is not something that is being actively considered at the moment in committee meetings, at least until BB2 comes out (my understanding).

That's correct.

The official stance is that no decision can be made until we know if Khorne will even exist in the PC game going forward, and if the roster will remain the same. That isn't to say that they would necessarily be accepted so long as they appear and are unchanged in BB2.

In my view, the videogame should be based on the tabletop version. Never the other way around.

Fred

[harvestmouse]

From a design point of view, I don't think it's a million miles away from meeting a lot of the criteria. For me personally, I'd be pretty happy with it, with the following:

+1ST on the Heralds and Thirsters.
Instability neg trait added.
This becomes the only roster able to take PO.
Letters dropped and Heralds renamed Letters.

There are some more changes I'd like to make, but I could live with these.

Some of these radical changes, but at least this then does portray Khorne and deals with the CPOMB problem to a certain degree.

Of course this me. I do not represent anybody else with a problem with the roster nor attempt to do so.

[sann0638]

Good summary, thanks.

[harvestmouse]

It's not 'fluffy' that Troll Slayers will play against Trolls - they've sworn sacred oaths to kill such creatures. Of course, the fluff of BB is not the fluff of Warhammer, so equally, anything goes.

Well here BB fluffs trumps Warhammer fluff. BB fluffs indicates that war is not the prime concern, playing BB trumps everything. In one sense it has replaced wars, battles take place on the astrogranite. Therefore a troll maybe a sworn enemy of a troll slayer in the warhammer world, but not in BB. However dauntless indicates that big guys are still a chosen target of a slayer. Excellent portrayal.

Khorne and his minions have never appeared before in the BB world, so they only don't match the fluff if you take the fluff of a different game.

Actually they have. They were official for 4th edition and 'gold' possibly too. The team design wasn't a great one, but the players did portray the beasts they were meant to portray.

Yes, in many ways Khorne was a poor choice and there are many ways it could have been more interesting (I particularly like the Demonic negatrait idea), it was always going to be very hard to find a solution that pleased everyone.

So why o why did they choose Khorne? I don't mind it as a decision, if they were going to be brave about it. It's just a half way job with an unpopular idea. This alone shows bad design skills.

However, the suggestion that a NAF decision on Khorne obligates them to follow Cyanide at every turn is a ludicrous straw man argument.

I don't thinks this is the case to be honest. If the NAF did sanction Khorne, there would be incredible pressure to sanction any further Cyanide roster. And a lot of bad feeling for anybody pro that roster if they were declined for good reasoning. And looking at Cyanide's track record, even recent track record, you cannot rely on them to make good roster decisions. I think pressure to allow further rosters if this one was allowed would be damaging. However if Cyanide came up with a roster I liked (very possible) I would want it added.........so.....not strawman but hypocritical maybe.

[Digger Goreman]

You can say I hate the roster. I think we don't need another Chaos team (as we don't another human team). And I'm strongly against allowing Cyanide to mess with the rules TT-wise.

Fred

+Infinity

[Valen]

Harvetsmouse, thanks for those messages, I wasn't trying to be obtuse at all, seriously, was just not seeing any reasonable arguments, now I have thank you for that.

I do see your point, I will have a think about this as I am not sure right now.

[spubbbba]

It's not 'fluffy' that Troll Slayers will play against Trolls - they've sworn sacred oaths to kill such creatures. Of course, the fluff of BB is not the fluff of Warhammer, so equally, anything goes.

Well here BB fluffs trumps Warhammer fluff. BB fluffs indicates that war is not the prime concern, playing BB trumps everything. In one sense it has replaced wars, battles take place on the astrogranite. Therefore a troll maybe a sworn enemy of a troll slayer in the warhammer world, but not in BB. However dauntless indicates that big guys are still a chosen target of a slayer. Excellent portrayal.

Seeing as how the Trollslayer can kill the Troll on the pitch I don't even grant that. Plus troll's are not the sworn enemy of slayers, they are picked as 1 on 1 the slayer's death is virtually guaranteed and Trolls are probably the most common large monster in the world's edge mountains. Any suitably impressive death is the aim, be it a powerful opponent or large number of foes.

However, the suggestion that a NAF decision on Khorne obligates them to follow Cyanide at every turn is a ludicrous straw man argument.

I don't thinks this is the case to be honest. If the NAF did sanction Khorne, there would be incredible pressure to sanction any further Cyanide roster. And a lot of bad feeling for anybody pro that roster if they were declined for good reasoning. And looking at Cyanide's track record, even recent track record, you cannot rely on them to make good roster decisions. I think pressure to allow further rosters if this one was allowed would be damaging. However if Cyanide came up with a roster I liked (very possible) I would want it added.........so.....not strawman but hypocritical maybe.

If the NAF does saction Khorne then they will immediately come under pressure to do the same for Bretonnians and any other team added by Cyanide.
I think a very good question is can the NAF not add a different Khorne roster, why must they be stuck with Cyanide's effort? Plenty of teams have changed in the past.
I don't think their effort is too powerful, just not very interesting. Norse already had the role of frenzied team and heralds and bloodletters are too similar. If you are going to make a team called daemons of khorne then drop the pit fighters and make a team of bloodletter linemen with the option of 2 or 4 heralds that are more different. I quite like the idea of making them powerful but with a bad trait like wild animal.

[Gaixo]

The question is: should the NAF do that?

There was some interest in a new BBRC created by the NAF (hopefully to include representatives of the FUMBBL and Cyanide communities as well as tabletop leagues and tournaments), but that created outcry on the other end. "Who are the NAF to make new rules?" and similar.

Without ownership of the game (even with it, perhaps), there is always a risk of fracturing the community or alienating some portion of it.

[VoodooMike]

With GW no longer officially supporting or developing BB, there's a major leadership vacuum where the future of the game is concerned, and players are looking for new, stable, and rational direction for the game they love. Many players have been hoping that NAF will man up and assume that role, but thus far only Cyanide has stepped up to the microphone.

The question is not "should the khorne roster be made official", it's really a question about the direction of BB as a whole, and the role the NAF will play in it. Thus far the NAF has stuck with CRP, but not with a firm stance on CRP-only... in essence, it's decision has been indecision, and that seems to be based on fear of making the wrong choice, or more likely, fear of negative reaction from their support base. By remaining effectively undecided they can put off the repercussions of a decision in either direction.

What about the Khorne Roster?

Most players seem to be in favour of, or at least accepting of, the idea of changes to the game even if GW itself doesn't stamp its approval on the changes. This includes (minor) rule changes and roster additions, changes, etc. The issue there really is "who decides?" and "what are the criteria used for those decisions?". The NAF has no clear and firm policies for that sort of thing.

So why the Khorne roster? Why not the Apes of Wrath? Why not plasmoid's Bretonnians? Why not Space Marines? The answer is that the Khorne roster was rolled out by Cyanide and actually got played. That's really the sum of it. The Khorne roster isn't better, fluff-wise... it's not better designed than the others. It's what Cyanide published.

If the NAF accepts the roster as offical without having created criteria by which it will make/accept future "official" changes then the criteria firmly becomes "because Cyanide says so", which in essence eliminates the NAF's relevance to the future of the game. The NAF can "safely" accept the Khorne roster as official after it has created and posted the guidelines by which it will extend the game past CRP, but accepting it before that would be a blanket endorsement of Cyanide's authority over the game as a whole.

So really, this is about the NAF deciding, once and for all, if they want to be leaders or librarians. Personally, I'm terrified of a future controlled by Cyanide, since we know their changes are fairly arbitrary and certainly profit motivated (maybe it IS just like still having GW around), but one way or another the NAF has to stop being a bunch of pussies and choose a real position.

Make a decision and stand by it.

[harvestmouse]

Ok cool Valen. I know fluff is important to you too (from your team/player naming policy)

My view on the last 2 posts is this:

I like VD's post, it's a good neutralish stance. However I feel his conclusion is a bit tough on the NAF. Online and TT play have really developed differently, and I don't think the NAF generally should be or should feel obliged to govern online perpetual environments.

Further to this, the NAF was never set up to make rule and roster decisions for the ruleset. I'm not saying they couldn't necessarily do the job; just that it isn't an easy one and outside their remit.

Lastly, I feel that a large portion of the NAF player base are competitive tournament TT gamers. And that any decisions the NAF make would be suited to their player base. Those who play for the universe fluff (lets call these GW game players) and online perpetual league players, are both quite different. Of course these are 3 points of a triangle that many of us are between 2 or 3 of the points.

I feel particularly towards the end, the BBRC was very NAF orientated. The ruleset really is awesome for resurrection style tournaments, yet has glaring weaknesses for long haul perpetual divisions. Removing the eye because of ease of use and TV match making being clear 2 examples (in my mind).

I'm not anti the NAF, I kind of pity them for the position they find themselves in, I'm sure they never asked to be the judges and executioners. However the idea of putting together a new BBRC that has sympathies to all parties is a totally different prospect. If players understood this, then I only see one reason for a legitimate objection.

This being where would Cyanide stand on this? Obviously their interest is commercial and they have an official licence or are the official online version (whichever is correct). However it does look very much like they're using Plasmoid's (a community based roster) for at least the base of this Bret roster coming out. I doubt they could legally use a new ruleset not rubber stamped by GW. So this would mean a split playerbase. So would this mean that a new BBRC would just be a committee for yaying or naying Cyanide proposed changes?

[Darkson]

Removing the eye because of ease of use and TV match making being clear 2 examples (in my mind).

Just to say:
The Eye was removed because JJ thought there were to many dice rolls in the game ( ) to which the BBRC had to find an alternative (so not really the BBRCs fault).
And not sure what you mean by the second. If you mean equalising a game via Inducements, yeah, still don't like them. If you mean matching teams for a game by TV, then that's nothing to go with the BBRC.