glad to bring you some amusement.


i would think that if I were "looking at rules" all the time i would want to change some of the obvious fallacies. Once again, no one is asking for everything to change, just a few of the most logical and dumbest flaws in the rules to be changed or an addition to a special ability added for the betterment of the game.

Perfectly stated.

Except that would mean that to keep things consistent, players would then have to declare double/triple/etc. ahead of time as well making a major change in the game itself. Otherwise, with inconsistent rulings such as that, you're forcing people to always keep in mind all the niggling little exceptions to each rule rather than just being able to read the cards/definitions and extrapolate the mechanics from that.

When you start adding in exceptions and odd interactions like that, the amount of info a player needs to keep in mind will skyrocket, making the game both needlessly complicated and unwelcoming towards new players. A great example of this is the Star Wars CCG, as when the final official set was released, the glossary clocked in at 140 pages, filled with all the little exceptions and idiosyncrasies of the game that, while players were not expected to memorize, effectively needed to as to not be caught unawares.



Except when they both make sense, then the simpler one is better. Occam's razor and all that.

When I see a character with a lightsaber attacking, I do not think "Well, if Luke's got his lightsaber than it's a melee attack." No, I think:

IF character.attacker HAS ability.meleeattack THEN attacktype = "melee" ELSE attacktype = "nonmelee"

Trying to add more fluff just needlessly complicates the code.

occam's razor? as if that plays a part in this situation there are two logics to what constitutes simplicity and no way to determine which is more logical. oh wait there is. We have a box office movie showing us exactly what attacking with a lightsaber looks like, we also have tv shows depicting a lightsaber attack and many many many games showing the same thing. They all only point to one conclusion.. do you know what that is? that they are melee attacks
@ bolded your kidding right?


your not kidding...

Its not more fluff, its taking fluff away. The fact of the matter is that Gauntlet knife added the melee attack part to it because it makes perfect sense. Did that ruin the game? did all the sudden people's "heads explode"?

no, it was easy, do the same thing, it will not be a problem

@all,
there is some excellent reflection and discussion going on, which is getting to a lot of how things work.
I also like seeing all the different ways people are explaining how to approach the rules or how to approach the game and meta -
especially the program-esque discourse to rules, which makes much sense (someone needs a poster/tshirt with that on it)
this stuff has been written down in the past, yet I feel most of it has been verbal only until now, and certainly never before with this many people all in the one thread - its awesome!

this is all great pedagogical stuff for when these kinds of questions inevitably come up when new people to the game come and play (or tricky situations arise) - so thanks for the extra ways of looking at stuff to help bring people up to speed, so as we can skip the technical learning curve and get into the strategy and fun of the game

---

forgive the professorly digression that follows,
Let's not fall prey to 'Text Rage" - we can PM/BM each other or have a google hangout or skypechat facetime yada yada to get all the extras that we lose when communicating frankly very abstract and difficult-to-articulate 'post-structural' and meta-concepts
we lose tonal inflection, context, all that extra information we'd normally take for granted when talking in face-to-face real world --- which means misunderstandings might have a higher chance of occurring heh.

---

anywho, I digress...
as I've said here and on previous occasions, and many others have noted in their own way,
SWMinis can function in some 'counter intuitive' ways - such as RotS Dark Side adept having a blaster and lightsaber, yet only having +10 printed damage on card, with Lightsaber 10, which was then Errata'd. etc

so, this can be so counter intuitive, to the point of causing cognitive dissonance in some players
or even dissuading potential players from playing, due to perceived 'lack of 'verisimilitude/realism'
depending on what context the player brings to the game -
objective reality is what it is, we're trying to model what is there and bring our model closer into line with what's actually going on (going philosophical a little).
So, hypothetically, if players are from Tannhauser or from W40K backgrounds --- even from SWRPG or D&D backgrounds ---, maybe there is a little overlap, and those systems encourage visual inspection of the model to ensure 'legality' of a piece etc, so that what is played in games rules matches what is physically represented on the miniature... similarly, if people are from other game systems which model and permit 'terrain deformation' and 'terrain destruction', then people might feel some cognitive dissonance when they discover how SWMinis handles terrain ---
eg "What do you mean I can't blow up the building? --- wouldn't the roof cave in, killing/trapping everyone inside, save 18?
or Why can't I target the low terrain object and blow them up/crush and grind them?"
or, on space maps "what happens if I blow up the floor in your compartment; do you get sucked out into space and I auto win?"
Truly wonderful the mind of beings are - Yoda. This is top level creative thinking.

in those other games systems, it is possible to have things such as "morale checks', pinning checks, fall back checks, smokescreens, EMPs, conditional status, terrain destruction, scattering etc... that's part of those other scenario games utility - in fact, some have used games as a scenario/futures tool for training in part based on that.

Personally, although sometimes it can be clunky, I find the 'clunkiness' of SWMinis to be... charming,
and there's always home rules etc...
and the rules fit with the Movie universe we see -
lets remember that the SWMovies and comics, the source material for the game... "Stormtrooper Shooting" trope (can never seem to hit the main protagonists), flashy cinema swordsmanship trope, hyperspace/timetravel paradox trope, superman power levels trope (for force users), etc... there are some clunky things happening even in the source material .

So, there'll be a degree of change in the 'official' rules...
recalling that many have already highlighted Roland Barthes "The Author is Dead", Magritte "C'eci une Pipe", Derrida, Korzybski "The Map is not The Territory", the Signifier is not The Signified etc...
though I'm reminded of the Munchausen Trilemma/the old "tricorn hat" british variant -
My hat it has 3 corners, 3 corners has my hat, if any other number of corners "my" hat had, then it would not be my hat.
SWMinis is what it is, what you want it to be, what consensus makes it to be...
above all, its a game that people agree to play as a form of fun

EDIT: there are other rules systems too, that SWMinis/Imperial Assault figures can be used for - it can be fun to come up with decent proxy rules and convert into other systems

True.

But it was very funny.

I suggest that the rules discussion end, its not getting anywhere.

I would still like to bring up the idea of special rules tournament. If people have ideas about those than they can post the variations they would like to see happen

+1

That's why I support Bronson's Legacy series of tournaments on Vassal. If you are talking about special face to face tournaments I'd support that as well.

And yet, Poisoned Blade and Guantlet Knife added some very, very unintuitive interactions with other abilities. That is what you don't get. You look at the immediate interactions. Not the wider whole.

My issue is that most that want the rules to be more "thematic", essentially are in favor of Bombad Gungan rules. Or, rule by intent. Your answer becomes "because that is how it works". Which is headache upon headache.

Your proposals may seem innocent and small, but they aren't. It would require a major reworking of the precedents established in this game.

@ sithborg

The way to make things fit in without making a mess is to actually sit down and think it through.

For instance this lightsaber being melee idea. We have already seen a few instances where what we thought would work, might not cover everything. this is called thinking it through.
-end towards sithborg

Now the rule might need to state:
A character who is depicted as having a lightsaber or who has a force power with the word lightsaber in it is considered to have melee attack when attacking adjacent opponents.

Seems better already. any more problems with pieces that this does not cover?

Because those could be worked through as well. Once again, you guys keep throwing these things out as if it is such a big deal. If a certain change was going to be made, like someone pointed it it would have to be done in a precise and careful manner. Right now we are just discussing if their should be a change at all.

The idea that change will cause disruption is flawed.
Case in point, Legacy has made changes and the people playing have adapted without a single complaint. No problems whatsoever, if the rule changes were going to throw everything topsy turvy would there not have been some kind of discussion about the problems the rule changes made?

You guys are making presumptions off a theory. the theory being that it will cause chaos when in fact we have seen it already and it has not caused any chaos and has been well received by the people who have actually played.

My suggestion, try it out.

Gathering Forces portion of the Legacy League s about to start!!


WOOT! WOOT!

Actually what jen'ari has been proposing is the idea that standard mini's should change a few rules just because it makes perfect sense. Almost every single person has agreed that it makes sense.

With that in mind, why wouldnt the change occur? was the next question.

a question that was already answered.

V-set pieces will not really be affected that much to the two rule changes being discussed. Mouse droids are not an issue and the melee attack thing has kind of been taken care of with new things such as gauntlet knife that has some of the wording needed to make it make better sense.

Jen'ari and I have discussed this idea for a long time. We would love to be more a part of Standard mini's, but the mouse droids and silly rulings being taken advantage of make it difficult to have fun. So he brought it up in forum format to see what others thought.

Really it became a conversation about making rule changes rather than the real purpose of trying to bet people to see eye to eye on a few issues. Everyone sees the silliness of the rulings what to do about it is what is different.

No big deal. Legacy has done a great job in making the game better represent Star Wars by the few rule changes they have created and by making Jedi have the advantage against most types of fighters. It really is a fun way to play. So fun that Jen'ari opened this discussion to see what others thought about a few rule changes.

Once again not trying to force anything, trying to open up communication. The rule changes suggested here would definitely work in V-set standard.
The reason I have kept up the discussion is because people keep basing their thoughts off of assumptions and the idea that it would be such a hard thing to do. It really wouldn't be that hard, and if that is the only thing stopping them than they can get over that and let the silliness (that they themselves recognize) be abolished.

So, I will not discuss these particular rule changes again any time soon ;)

I, too, will say that I would love to see a Dynamic Duo online tournament.