A Call for Calm

[GalakStarscraper]

I tried to add the Southern Wastes Scrimmage to the rulebook as the 5th Major and the rest of the BBRC voted it down. Sorry ... I did try.

Tom

[Indigo]

Of course! Or in the way of the world you can pay a small amount of cash to facilitate a network of volunteers with greater expertise/willingness/time. In my comment above when I said "the NAF" I meant "BB players rather than GW". In my mind "the NAF" should be synonymous with "BB players", but obviously it's not at the moment.

With respect, I don't think this is a valid argument. It only makes sense in a "rose tinted", naive view of the BB world really.

The idea of the NAF sending volunteers all over the world to gaming conventions to drum up interest is a non-starter for many reasons. The most common suggestion is that NAF volunteers are sent to games meetups where BB is not being played to advertise Blood Bowl and the NAF in the hope of getting more members. If we try to draw parallels to this in the real world, it'd be like a car upgrade/improvement salesman going to a motorshow and trying to sell their favourite brand of car - it just doesn't happen, because it doesn't work. The car upgrade salesman relies on sales of cars so he can sell his product on top but he cannot (and does not) sell the actual car. In effect, what the upgrade seller is doing is providing a value-add to those people who have the underlying product.

BB is not the NAF's property, it's GW's, and it is not the NAF's place to spend stakeholder money selling a game when there is no guarantee that making a sale gets that same person into the NAF. The NAF is a value-add for people who like the game and want a bit more than their local leagues can provide. While GW were kind enough to allow the NAF the dice for the last decade, that doesn't mean they should become a reseller for BB. Even now, after the dice are gone, the reasons for the NAF to not sell BB remain the same.

Another argument against sending people to events to advertise BB/the NAF is the cost. Even if you get a cadre of volunteers willing to spend their own money to get there and give up their vacation/holiday allowance to attend, if the NAF was going to sell BB it'd need some money spending on it to ensure the chances of a sale were as high as possible. It's not a "free" venture by any stretch of the imagination. Also, you have to remember that even if a sale of BB is made there is no guarantee of the person then joining the NAF. Using the car example again, someone selling high value aftermarket products only needs to sell one or two to break even - if the NAF even spent a modest £100 per convention you'd need to sell 20 copies of BB and have every single person join the NAF, just to break even. A loss-leader approach doesn't work too well when the product you are selling is orders of magnitudes less cost than the cost to advertise, and certainly not for an organisation like the NAF.

Finally, and with the greatest respect to my fellow nerds, who would actually sell it? We're talking about sending someone to an event where they need to stand around for 8+ hours, remain CONSTANTLY cheerful and approachable while at the same time be a superlative salesman to shift dozens of NAF signups. How many NAF people can you name who have those qualities and who have the time/willingness to actually do the job? I'd wager zero.

This is just one example of why the NAF should not spend member funds to market Games Workshop product. It's simply not appropriate or cost effective to do so.

Where the NAF can - and has already - help in attracting more people is by people running tournaments at cross-game conventions (Toy soldier for instance), outreach to community gaming clubs (e.g. schools) and so on. But remember, the NAF isn't some multi-national corporation with endless manpower, it has about 60 staff spread out over the entire world. Your NAF membership isn't paying for people to "do BB stuff for you"; it's not paying for people at all which is a huge misunderstanding as to what the NAF does. It's there as a central organisation to pool our community resources. So as ever, the NAF is there to support COMMUNITY driven efforts to attract players. If the community itself is not making efforts to attract new players then the NAF - which really is just a force multiplier for the community - can't do anything.

[Joemanji]

Where the NAF can - and has already - help in attracting more people is by people running tournaments at cross-game conventions (Toy soldier for instance), outreach to community gaming clubs (e.g. schools) and so on. But remember, the NAF isn't some multi-national corporation with endless manpower, it has about 60 staff spread out over the entire world. Your NAF membership isn't paying for people to "do BB stuff for you"; it's not paying for people at all which is a huge misunderstanding as to what the NAF does. It's there as a central organisation to pool our community resources. So as ever, the NAF is there to support COMMUNITY driven efforts to attract players. If the community itself is not making efforts to attract new players then the NAF - which really is just a force multiplier for the community - can't do anything.

Indeed, and the NAF can help by publicising any such efforts on a global scale. Sann was brought in as Media Officer and money spent on improving the newsletter functionality, so hopefully this is happening to the satisfaction of most/all now. The praise Sann has been receiving lately for performing his duties suggests the NAF committee have made good progress in this area. But if there is still more people want, they know who to contact!

[JT-Y]

Forgive me a wry smile when you mention Toy Soldier

At the Rumble this weekend there was a lot of interest in BB, not least because we had an FF Fields pitch as first prize and left it set up amongst the trophies.
That generated a lot of people coming to me asking questions, and a fair bit of interest in not only the pitches but the non-GW teams available, along with a bit of wishlisting about the ''new'' edition, which I was happy enough to encourage whilst stating quite firmly that I don't believe long term we'll be moving away from the CRP to play a 4 team boardgame.
But it also generated much talk about the tourney scene, and not least the NAF Champs. Knowing just how many tourneys there are year round is a big wake up call to many, and learning that the GT by another name attracted 160 entrants this year quite literally floors many who didn't know, and I can see that info awakening interest in the glances shared between freinds.

I'm new to BB and don't know enough about the NAF to talk about everything it does, so I'm hardly well suited to doing this.
But the point is that multi-system tourneys are a good tool, provided BB can make it's prescence known and make a few cool, aftermarket things available, and by Christ an FF Fields pitch works a treat.
If you can get some passing interest then you can get questions asked, and once a punter starts asking questions you've got him, provided of course that you have the best answers to his questions.

GW works on the highstreet because the staff are trained to sell in a way that they don't realise that they are trained to sell rather than offer good advice to likeminded gamers or newcomers.
Our highstreet as BB players has to be tourneys and conventions, but I don't agree for a minute that you won't find anyone willing or capable of doing that, and I certainly see how I could have maximised even more on the interest from other systems last weekend.

I personally think Sann is onto something, but the ideas need clarifying and the first thing to decide upon is how money can be taken out of the mix because money is a confuser.

Think how to do this, then worry about any inherant cost, rather think think how cost can facilitate this happening. I've spent money from my own pocket to encourage the game locally and at the Ribble Rumble, and I'm happy todo so because I'm able to. But what really matters is the enthusiasm, and there are literally hundreds of players of this game with that in spades.

[Indigo]

Forgive me a wry smile when you mention Toy Soldier

At the Rumble this weekend there was a lot of interest in BB, not least because we had an FF Fields pitch as first prize and left it set up amongst the trophies.
That generated a lot of people coming to me asking questions, and a fair bit of interest in not only the pitches but the non-GW teams available, along with a bit of wishlisting about the ''new'' edition, which I was happy enough to encourage whilst stating quite firmly that I don't believe long term we'll be moving away from the CRP to play a 4 team boardgame.
But it also generated much talk about the tourney scene, and not least the NAF Champs. Knowing just how many tourneys there are year round is a big wake up call to many, and learning that the GT by another name attracted 160 entrants this year quite literally floors many who didn't know, and I can see that info awakening interest in the glances shared between freinds.

I'm new to BB and don't know enough about the NAF to talk about everything it does, so I'm hardly well suited to doing this.
But the point is that multi-system tourneys are a good tool, provided BB can make it's prescence known and make a few cool, aftermarket things available, and by Christ an FF Fields pitch works a treat.
If you can get some passing interest then you can get questions asked, and once a punter starts asking questions you've got him, provided of course that you have the best answers to his questions.

GW works on the highstreet because the staff are trained to sell in a way that they don't realise that they are trained to sell rather than offer good advice to likeminded gamers or newcomers.
Our highstreet as BB players has to be tourneys and conventions, but I don't agree for a minute that you won't find anyone willing or capable of doing that, and I certainly see how I could have maximised even more on the interest from other systems last weekend.

I personally think Sann is onto something, but the ideas need clarifying and the first thing to decide upon is how money can be taken out of the mix because money is a confuser.

Think how to do this, then worry about any inherant cost, rather think think how cost can facilitate this happening. I've spent money from my own pocket to encourage the game locally and at the Ribble Rumble, and I'm happy todo so because I'm able to. But what really matters is the enthusiasm, and there are literally hundreds of players of this game with that in spades.

I think trying to think about ways to do things without factoring in cost and return is divorced from reality and while you might be prepared to do that, I think it'd be "unprofessional" for the NAF to do that. If you don't mind me asking, how many non-BB players do you think you personally have encouraged to start playing the game and join the NAF as a result of the "non BB" event stuff? I TOTALLY don't mean that to sound harsh whatsoever, it'd just be an interesting statistic to know.

Multi-system tourneys ARE a good place for BB events to be held. The difference is the NAF shouldn't be setting up a stand "dreadball-style" waiting for people to come to them which is what has been suggested in the past. The best route for success is that tournaments held at "other events", supported by the NAF, can then advertise what's new in the game but more importantly LOOK AT OUR ORGANISATION!! I am not aware of any other organisation like the NAF across any of GW's games - even if there are for 40k (are there?), something the scale of NAF for a specialist game is phenomenal.

So in a way I'm not disagreeing about using mass-gaming conventions (toy soldier and gen con were the two that sprung to mind), but the approach is to run tournaments there. A member of the community runs a BB tournament and THAT is what the NAF supports (as it always has). That way the tournament player get the NAF presence that coincidentally advertises the NAF at the wider event without wasting money on a chap standing alone in a booth.

I've done the very same thing at a couple of GW stores and it worked in getting NAF members. Harder to do these days but Veteran's nights are usually a safe bet

I'm not seen anything Sann himself has suggested in order to look at his points directly, do you have a link?

[JT-Y]

how many non-BB players do you think you personally have encouraged to start playing the game and join the NAF as a result of the "non BB" event stuff?

I couldn't hope to guess, and to be honest joining the NAF wasn't my main concern in talking to these guys, I was far more concerned with giving them the info they needed to expand their gaming outside of how far GW has supported this game; giving them contact infor for FF Fields, details of Impact!, Comixininos and Tritex to view and buy aftermarket FF teams, and of fora to use and get details from, the NAF site and this in particular.
edit: This is why it grinds my nerves to see silly argument on here, when I know I've just told newbs to ''get on TFF, it's great!'' and knowing that it only takes one member of a club to stop the entire club visiting any given forum. We all have a duty to be nice to newcomers.
If that then encourages games at home, that then will hopefully encourage NAF membership to get them out gaming at local tourneys.

What I can try to find out in a while is how many pitches Alex has sold off the back of Rumble, and I hope it'll be quite a few as I know of two clubs wanting custom pitches for multiple members and a few individuals.
That should hopefully indicate a small growth in interest.

In respect to NAF Membership and via the two local clubs alone I've brought in ~10 new members at a rough guess, but more importantly twice as many new players and revitalised the interest in a fair few lapsed players.

We don't need to be doing intro games a'la Dreadball, we don't have a game and mini's to sell, rather a community to promote.
The NAF could do worse than have a couple of big banners and a custom FF Fields pitch, maybe even a couple of glass cases displaying mini's from other manufacturers nicely painted, along with examples of Impact! or Chessex blocking dice, and make this 'stand', for want of a better word, available BB tourneys held at multi system events.
we then have the perfect place for data entry, and the perfect place, if made visible enough, to attract people towards.

What I mean by factoring out cost is that anyone running a BB tourney at Britcon, TS, Rumble or the like would be happy, I'd imagine, to make use of this facility and do the talking themselves.
In this country, speaking of what I know, there would almost always be Geggster, Bren, Dave or someone attending said tourney to bring the stuff along.
I'd imagine the same can be done elsewhere. Certainly Spain has the home advantage in this regard, but I daresay other nations have the same sort of unoficial infrastructure that could be used for the betterment of the community.

The GCN tries a similar tactic, as does Lance & Longbow, and the BHGS.
It works for the latter two, but not the first as they have nothing to offer beyond a headache when attempting to join.

It is too late this year, but the NAF does have a very strong way in with the BHGS and Britcon if they choose to use it for next year.

Personally, I think this is the sort of direction we should be moving in, both to grow the NAF and more importantly for the NAF to grow the playing community.

But I'm rambling now, and should be heading to work, so that's it for today.

[Darkson]

You don't need a tournament to drum up interest - normal demo games work just as well, if not better. I'd be hesitant in asking questions of someone playing a game I was interested in if it looked like they were concentrating, but a game were those running it ask if you want to get involved, answer questions and encourage you to ask them will drum up interest.

At least that's been my experience at the two Salutes I've been to (and Salute is why we picked up Mercs).

[Darkson]

That was a reply to indigo's post, as JT replied as I was typing.

And let's not forget BB already has a demo "mode" in the starter rules.

[Indigo]

True, but is it effective? Remember game selling is not the goal, it's NAF selling.

Maybe the dreadball chaps have some stats as to how many game sales they've had from attending tournaments? Anecdotal (and I realise non-scientifically ) personally I've not seen a single sale

I maintain it's better to run a tournament at one of these events and knock people's socks off - remember they are often there for tournaments themselves - than have a guy playing a demo game. Also, while that guy is playing a demo game he will be ineffective in selling the NAF to anyone else. Whereas in a tournament the organiser can chat to people who come in to see what's going on and show off the vibrant community ("if you think this is big you should see the NAF World Cup" for example )

When the underlying question is "can multigame events be used to advertise BB" it's yes. When the question is "should the NAF run demo games and a stall to advertise BB" it's no. As I've said, the middle ground that COULD work is an enthusiastic community member running a NAF tournament and going to the committee with a business plan saying "I want £xyz for this, this and this, I think/hope I'll get abc new members as a result". That way we are killing two birds with one stone - tourney players are benefiting from the organiser leveraging the NAF and because the NAF have invested in the TOURNAMENT, it's chance of getting new members rises too.

edit - corrected some shocking grammar

[jdmofo]

...giving them contact infor for FF Fields, details of Impact!, Comixininos and Tritex to view and buy aftermarket FF teams, and of fora to use and get details from...

In terms of getting bringing new blood into the game, would it not be better/easier to just point them to GW? They still have the box set at about £50 (while stocks last) with everything you need to play the game. You'd never be able to do it that cheaply buying all the bits separately from 3rd party suppliers, and its a hell of a lot easier to just get the whole lot in one box. I know there's a lot of GW hate in here but surely what's most important would be giving someone the easiest route to BB?

Once people have the bug for the game they can start exploring all the cool sh1t that's out there from all the other great suppliers, but if I was recommending someone the game as a total newb, I'd say picking up the original 3rd edition and then maybe also mentioning that once they get done with the basic rules, to download the CRP rather than reading the rest of the rulebook.

Doesn't answer any of the NAF questions (I'm not a member myself) but was just my two pence.

[JT-Y]

Remember game selling is not the goal, it's NAF selling.

I actually think the NAF should be community selling, and that will in turn sell it.
The world is full of gamers who play WFB, 40k, WM&H and numerous others, and the vast majority of them are pretty unaware of just how widely played BB still is.

That ties in with this:

In terms of getting bringing new blood into the game, would it not be better/easier to just point them to GW? They still have the box set at about £50 (while stocks last) with everything you need to play the game.

No.
And I'll tell you for why.
Because the majority of the people we need to attract into our community already know about that box, have seen it, probably own it, and know it's at least 15 years old and woefully out of date.
What they don't know about is the wider community.
They don't know about FF Fields or any of the other places making cool pitches, they don't know about any of the companies making amazing miniatures, and they don't know about all the useful gaming accessories available from so many other sources.

That is what potential gamers need to know to get into BB. There is a huge community of gamers playing GW games away from the stores and free from the interferance of the company, buying whatever mini's they want from wherever, and this goes for all the guys playing other systems from other companies.
But down the years BB has been allowed to slip into quite a small, niche product. We can change that, the NAF can change that, and in doing so will grow itself, along with all the small companies who'll sell more and so release more.

BB isn't the gateway game to something else anymore, those days are gone. We need the other games to be the gateway into BB.
Later this year GW will release something new and call it done. What they release won't be what we want, but by God it will sell. It may be a blessing and may bring fresh interest.
But in all honesty it will likely be a curse as everyone out there with a passing interest in BB see's it released and knows GW is done with the game. They'll buy it and there their passing interest will be sated and will die.
GW are not releasing a new BB box for us, do not fool yourselves. They are releasing it to keep hold of every existing GW customer BB as it is today could potentially attract away and towards other companies.
Space Hulk, Dreadfleet and soon BB aren't designed to increase the hobby potential, but to solidify the core games in the market place. I was there the day Fanatic got made redundant and I know the reasons why. Personally I don't blame GW for any of this, but I'll always blame hobbyists for being daft enough to capitulate.

So what we need to do is get out there and find the gamers with the passing interest. We then need to take it upon ourselves to introduce them to the wider community of players and wonderful world of aftermarket sellers.

Why point someone towards something passé when what we need to do is show them everything else
Likewise running intro games. The world is full of people know how to play BB. That's not the issue. The issue is that those people are not, for whatever reason, playing BB right now.
Get them playing BB and they'll attract new players and teach them.
I've done exactly that locally.

Nothing worth doing is easy, and expanding the BB playing community is certainly worth doing.

[JT-Y]

I should add here as well that what I see happening is BB becoming like WRG7th.

WRG (Wargames Research Group) was for many years the b-all and end-all of wargaming, and from the 1960's through to the late 1980's was the worlds most widely played game.
GW was birthed from a desire to have that sort of game in a fantasy setting.

WRG7th was widely considered the best edition, but along came 8th and largely ruined the game and certainly the tourney scene.
One author went to do other things and the other, the hugely fat and miserable Mr. Barker, released DBM, in doing so he overnight cut all ties to WRG and refused afterwards to acknowledge those rules even existed.
DBM became the most played game in the world from then on, and today it's a hard call to judge if DBMM (the current rewritten DBM) or FoG is the bigger game.
Believe it or not, both of these games kick 40k into a cocked hat in terms of popularity worldwide but we don't see it as they are what I'd call 'garage games'.

And yet WRG7th remains one of the most commonly played games in the world today, still popular at tourneys, and illicit photocopies of the original saddle stitch, typeset book still change hands.

BB will become the WRG of the fantasy football world. And we'd be daft to expect GW to do anything to help us out. They've done a Barker and washed their hands of it.

It is an interesting time.

[SinisterDexter]

BB is not your average game. It is a game without ownership in a way because GW really only want the IP inasfar as it relates to WFB and can be licensed to Cyanide/FFG for spin offs. The tabletop, and FUMBBL, communities are pretty much on their own. This throws up some serious issues in regard to who has the responsibility to lead the game forward.

I think it's pretty clear that almost no-one wants GW to do it, even if they did seem to want to themselves. I doubt anyone wants Cyanide to do it given Khorne. So who leads?

The NAF, regardless of its original charter, is in an interesting position because it is perceived to be in that leadership position. Khorne demonstrates this because the community didn't wait for GW or Cyanide, they waited for the NAF to make a judgement.

What the NAF needs to decide is whether they want this mantle of leadership and, if so, to what extent. That decision will then guide the future of the organization and the game itself.

Having said that, I can see a role for the NAF in promoting the game in novel ways at Cons. For example, if they could bring together FF Fields, Impact (or one or more additional mini producers) and, say, Chessex, the four of them could put together a sales package that includes everything needed to play plus NAF membership. They could share costs amongst themselves, promote the game AND promote the NAF all in one go. If this were tried at a Con close to one of their HQs with just one volunteer on the stand, the idea could be verified and, I suspect, volunteers could be recruited in many locations to roll it out (hell, I'd do it).

[Deathwing]

Hmmm. Been keeping an eye on this thread without commenting so far. Yet again I'm a little stupefied how the level of debate can degenerate. Bradley, Manning et al are important issues. This is a board game. A hobby. Something most of us do for escapism and light relief from the real world. Quite how egotism and quasi-political posturing from all sides can take such importance is utterly beyond me. Walls of text, insults, offence, apologies, point scoring... really? It's frankly nothing short of pathetic from some quarters.

This is a beer and pretzels game. Roll dice. Paint teams. Get excited about new minis. Make friends. Buy your opponent a beer when he fails that gfi to win. Place hands on forehead and despair at double skulls with no re-rolls left. Listen to improbable tales of ridiculous strings of dice rolls. Tell your own. Laugh about them. Share your love of these things with those like-minded. That's what it should be all about. Facilitating these things are important, and how to best do so is a worthwhile discussion as long as it remains measured.

All the rest is just BS, pure and simple.

[Long_Bomb]

Deathwing + 1