Rules for new card decks?

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by Milo »

garion wrote:
Milo wrote:The variant card rules posted on BloodBowl.com fix that problem, but -- as you mention -- only if a coach knows about the site and goes looking for them
Where? is there a hidden part to this website, as you have directed people here a few times and when I go there i see nothing of use? Only a facebook wall (a social media platform I will not use) and some art work you can download for desktop themes and some very very basic info about the starter teams.
Not hidden, no -- the variant Special Play card rules appear in the Downloads section. However, on some devices, you must scroll left or right to see all of the options (it shows up that way on my mobile phone). If you can find the errata/FAQ and Teams of Legend, that's where you'd find these rules too.
garion wrote:
Milo wrote:It's a false equivalence to say that just because these Special Play card rules are included in the same section, they are not presented as optional. The wording is distinctly different for them.
I strongly strongly disagree with you here. Especially when subsequent rule books point to this section of the book with reference to these rules as core rules and non optional and almost everything else here is so integral to playing the game.

In previous editions cards were correctly clearly partitioned and prefixed with clear warning that they were optional which read as "these will unbalance things".
Where do subsequent rulebooks point back to the Extra Rules and call them core rules? I'm honestly curious, I haven't seen it. I do agree that the cards should be separated out from the other Advanced rules, and I've stated that repeatedly.
garion wrote:It shows disregard for how many many people play the game. Especially the long term competitive players. There are many worrying things about the current rules that could and absolutely should have been avoided. Keeping the rules strategy centric for the competitive player and silly for the funsters are not mutually exclusive. Both can easily be achieving with well thought out rules and organisation of the rules.

...

So if you can please fix it in the next release.
Also move the new Character Coaches should be moved to the Option section so that we no long have to suffer the new wizard that is again pushing the game further into a luck-fest game like dreadball which requires zero skill once you've learnt the rules.
Also the inducement phase is a mess with the TV leader benefiting more than the underdog - it really needs fixing.
I think you're overstating the "disregard" for the people who play the game. GW has had a VERY light touch when it comes to changes in the existing game, largely due to their REGARD for the existing player base. Should Special Play cards have been put in a different section? Sure, you've made some decent arguments for that, so I could concede that point. But suggesting that it going into the "Extra Rules" section is somehow a sign of GW dismissing the desires of the masses is going a bit too far.

Look, GW has admitted they made some mistakes with the first rulebooks (BB/DZ1), published lots of erratas to fix them and took their lumps. They created the playtesting group and started getting more experienced eyes on the rules and generally speaking, I think most people have said that DZ2 was better edited and better quality rules. I am NOT trying to suggest they were perfect nor that GW can't continue to improve, but I do think GW's REGARD for the existing players is the reason they have taken all these steps.

Now, I'm taking the time to engage with you on this and provide my viewpoint, but I'm also listening to your feedback (as I've said numerous times), and will pass it on at the appropriate time. I cannot guarantee all of your changes will come to life -- I'm only one voice on the group, and I'm clearly not persuasive enough to convince you or purplegoo of any of my perspectives on the rules, so I cannot promise I'll be able to convince anyone else of the things you are advocating for.

Just because I like the cards, that doesn't mean I don't understand your perspective, or know that it is shared by many others. I can point out that the wording of the existing rules allows considerable leeway to leave out the special play cards already and STILL recognize that the rules can be improved and be made clearer. Those are not mutually exclusive.

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

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Purplegoo wrote:I personally think you’re on really rocky ground if you start italicising the odd word or two in a sentence and suggesting that emphasis trumps the wider context of where that sentence sits (I'd wager someone of the mind to play that game throughout the rules could have a field day if they chose to), but it’s not really that important because it's apparently not clear enough to be universally accepted. It appears the point both ‘sides’ agree on is that cards have landed in an unfortunate place in the three section format of the rulebook (whatever you want to call them – essentially the sections are first game basics, full rules, optional stuff you take from as you please).
Yeah, I don't think we're really on opposite sides of this argument. I could suggest that you and Garion are saying "these rules are wrong, they shouldn't be there!" versus my "they aren't REALLY wrong, but they should probably be elsewhere". We're not on opposite sides of the spectrum, I'm just closer to the middle ground. I do think it can be confusing, and I do think that, whenever possible, rules should avoid being confusing. I'm not a person who usually takes an absolute position, though, and I recognize that there are differences in the way the rules are written (and there are already LOTS of examples of BB coaches picking and choosing the pieces of the rules they want to implement for certain purposes.)

That's why I say I don't think it's a major concern, because the confusion is resolvable, even with the rules as written, if coaches put their heads together. But I understand your point that the BASELINE is the safest route to take when trying to find consensus within a large group, and it would be better to make that baseline as broadly popular and uncontroversial as possible.

It's good feedback, and I'll express it to the rest of the group when I can.

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by garion »

Milo wrote: Now, I'm taking the time to engage with you on this and provide my viewpoint, but I'm also listening to your feedback (as I've said numerous times), and will pass it on at the appropriate time. I cannot guarantee all of your changes will come to life -- I'm only one voice on the group, and I'm clearly not persuasive enough to convince you or purplegoo of any of my perspectives on the rules, so I cannot promise I'll be able to convince anyone else of the things you are advocating for.

Just because I like the cards, that doesn't mean I don't understand your perspective, or know that it is shared by many others. I can point out that the wording of the existing rules allows considerable leeway to leave out the special play cards already and STILL recognize that the rules can be improved and be made clearer. Those are not mutually exclusive.
It is appreciated. don't get my wrong, my writing style can read as abrasive I know. But I am just posting my opinions while there is some one that is listening and while something can be done to rectify the situation, as there are parts of this edition that are getting worse than before which undoes a lot of the amazing stuff that is being done. Don't think I don't appreciate your communication, because I do.

I just feel the need to stress that this is actually a pretty big deal to a large number of people. And when we are told 'Everything is optional', 'Everything is up to the league commish' for every piece of feedback provided, well.... frankly those arguments are nonsense. Perfection is what the target should be, it may not be possible to achieve but getting as close to it as possible sounds like a good idea to me.
Milo wrote:Not hidden, no -- the variant Special Play card rules appear in the Downloads section. However, on some devices, you must scroll left or right to see all of the options (it shows up that way on my mobile phone). If you can find the errata/FAQ and Teams of Legend, that's where you'd find these rules too.
Yup just spotted them, me being a div. My mistake :)
Milo wrote: Where do subsequent rulebooks point back to the Extra Rules and call them core rules? I'm honestly curious, I haven't seen it. I do agree that the cards should be separated out from the other Advanced rules, and I've stated that repeatedly.
I already posted these examples in another thread, maybe deathzone 2 feedback? If you wish I can point to specifics. The gist of it is - In Deathzone 1 and 2 there are sections called New Rules that are separated clearly from the optional rules (therefore clearly intended to be core rules) in these places the rules only work if you are using many of the things from the Extra Rules section, that are apparently Optional, even though they clearly aren't.

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by Milo »

garion wrote: I just feel the need to stress that this is actually a pretty big deal to a large number of people. And when we are told 'Everything is optional', 'Everything is up to the league commish' for every piece of feedback provided, well.... frankly those arguments are nonsense. Perfection is what the target should be, it may not be possible to achieve but getting as close to it as possible sounds like a good idea to me.
Perfection is a reasonable target, but we're also talking about printed documents that cannot be easily updated. Yes, there can be errata posted online, but as we just discussed with the variant Special Play card rules, sometimes those documents posted online are hard to find, and you run into situations where half the leagues aren't even aware that things have changed. And it's one thing to post an errata changing one sentence, but rearranging wholesale sections of the rulebook is not as easy.

I understand your point about the placement of those rules, and how they would be clearer elsewhere. My arguments were simply to show that the rules -- as written and organized today -- already have the necessary wiggle room for people to exclude them if they want. I'm not trying to say that I'm 100% satisfied with that answer, either, but perhaps those points make the status quo somewhat more acceptable until such time as the rules can be fixed.

If we wind up doing a BB2026 at some point, I'll suggest we reorganize the rules in a clearer fashion. If there's room to revise some of them in future DZs/rules supplements, I'll suggest we do so. And maybe there are other ways to clarify the rules in the future -- but I don't know if there's a reprint in the cards to fix the existing BB2016 rulebooks.
garion wrote:
Milo wrote: Where do subsequent rulebooks point back to the Extra Rules and call them core rules? I'm honestly curious, I haven't seen it. I do agree that the cards should be separated out from the other Advanced rules, and I've stated that repeatedly.
I already posted these examples in another thread, maybe deathzone 2 feedback? If you wish I can point to specifics. The gist of it is - In Deathzone 1 and 2 there are sections called New Rules that are separated clearly from the optional rules (therefore clearly intended to be core rules) in these places the rules only work if you are using many of the things from the Extra Rules section, that are apparently Optional, even though they clearly aren't.
Ah, for instance, you're talking about Kari Coldsteel counting as cheerleaders, but cheerleaders themselves are part of the "Extra Rules"? I can see the inference that cheerleaders are core rules as a result, but that's just an inference; it doesn't actually refer to cheerleaders as core rules anywhere.

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by Mori-mori »

Milo wrote:
fanglord13 wrote:Can we not having pissing contest over the relative merits of the cards (old system was fine) and help with the original query?
You mean, your request to have us share copyrighted information with you? I'm sorry, but I personally do not feel comfortable with doing that, regardless of whether or not the cards were including in the rules before.
Just out of curiosity (as I see this topic popping up here and there, from time to time) - is there an issue with copyrights, really? Afaicr, from different discussions on the matter, the game's rules are not subjects of copyright in any way, and can be shared freely, at least under US laws. I also believe somebody mentioned Spain before as an example of European country where it's the same. GW still is a British company, so may be under British laws it's a different case, yet the point is it's not universally illegal, right? So, sharing pictures of cards may violate something, but what if just sharing the text? Except for the cases when text contains some copyrighted lore parts from Warhammer, perhaps. Should be okay, isn't it?

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by Wifflebat »

Mori-mori wrote:
Milo wrote:
fanglord13 wrote:Can we not having pissing contest over the relative merits of the cards (old system was fine) and help with the original query?
You mean, your request to have us share copyrighted information with you? I'm sorry, but I personally do not feel comfortable with doing that, regardless of whether or not the cards were including in the rules before.
Just out of curiosity (as I see this topic popping up here and there, from time to time) - is there an issue with copyrights, really? Afaicr, from different discussions on the matter, the game's rules are not subjects of copyright in any way, and can be shared freely, at least under US laws. I also believe somebody mentioned Spain before as an example of European country where it's the same. GW still is a British company, so may be under British laws it's a different case, yet the point is it's not universally illegal, right? So, sharing pictures of cards may violate something, but what if just sharing the text? Except for the cases when text contains some copyrighted lore parts from Warhammer, perhaps. Should be okay, isn't it?
As I understand it, It goes like this:

You can't copyright a rule. So you can't copyright having a player on a field 26 squares long who can move 7 of those squares on a turn and having a certain Strength score, etc. But the "expression" of the rules--that is, the way they're written--is subject to copyright, so sharing the actual text would be an infringement, as would using the actual text of cards in your own product or game.

I would also guess that sharing almost any part of the rules (including functional descriptions of the cards) with the purpose of allowing players to use the rules without having to buy them would be actionable, because the publisher is actually incurring possible damages. "Fair use" is a nebulous concept, but doing something that essentially gets somebody a product without paying for it is a trigger for calling something infringement.

IANAL, not saying I agree, etc. Just what I've come to understand as a guy who's seen a lot of discussion and sometimes makes stuff.

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by mikeyc222 »

well, having just received a very cordial message from Andy Hoare himself via FB early this morning, i can say that he told me (and i'm paraphrasing here) that he doesn't mind photos or rules descriptions of a couple of cards, but he would prefer that people not make it too easy for others to bypass purchasing the cards. at the end of the day, if people don't buy the products, the game will go back OOP. if you want the game to stay on the shelves and see new products released, just buy the cards if you plan to use the rules written on them. but that's just my $.02

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

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Where's that like button?

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

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Will definitely buy them if Cyanide will finally implement them in some meaningful way in BB2 :wink:

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by Baxx »

mikeyc222 wrote:well, having just received a very cordial message from Andy Hoare himself via FB early this morning, i can say that he told me (and i'm paraphrasing here) that he doesn't mind photos or rules descriptions of a couple of cards, but he would prefer that people not make it too easy for others to bypass purchasing the cards. at the end of the day, if people don't buy the products, the game will go back OOP. if you want the game to stay on the shelves and see new products released, just buy the cards if you plan to use the rules written on them. but that's just my $.02
To be honest, I'm not sure if Blood Bowl is the right game to make such expectations. Last tournament there were quite a lot of players, all playing with miniatures 20-30 years old or 3rd party (non-GW) models. I brought a new official GW team only to find that all pitches were having the old dimensions, so at least one of my opponents complained about space issue (models didn't fit in square, unclear where which model was).

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by mikeyc222 »

honestly, i'm not sure what board sizes at tournaments has to do with suggesting that if people want to use rules printed on special play cards, then they should probably buy them, but... tournaments are always going to have some space restraints, but the tourney i was at a few weeks ago actually had a number of new players since the re-release of the game. we ended up using almost all older boards only because table size was a premium with some many players. i can say that in local league games, there is definitely a mix of old and new boards.

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Re: Rules for new card decks?

Post by Baxx »

mikeyc222 wrote:honestly, i'm not sure what board sizes at tournaments has to do with suggesting that if people want to use rules printed on special play cards, then they should probably buy them, but... tournaments are always going to have some space restraints, but the tourney i was at a few weeks ago actually had a number of new players since the re-release of the game. we ended up using almost all older boards only because table size was a premium with some many players. i can say that in local league games, there is definitely a mix of old and new boards.
It's not having anything to do with that, but more to do with "at the end of the day, if people don't buy the products, the game will go back OOP.". Unless people buy new stuff but bring really old stuff to tournaments (that was NOT my impression).

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