Nickname wrote:
(This is not intended as directed at any particular person in this discussion. It's a general statement about the concepts under discussion.)
I recognize that you're not making a personal attack at me, Nickname. Sure.
I don't like it when my opponents play slowly either.
And I agree with you, when you say that people's (read: my) learning curves should not occur in tournaments. When I made the triple-movement-breaker squad I didn't realize how difficult it would be to play; if I did, I likely would've chosen something else instead. But that's what you're sometimes going to get when people choose to build new squads for every tournament, rather than net-decking.
As for your comment that the player (read: me) should just settle for the sub-optimal move, well, I'll take that as something to learn from. I think you've got a point.
billiv15 wrote:
You really can't have it both ways. Either we are playing cutthroat competitive, or a more friendly competitive game. I am fine with either - I assumed people would want it a little less hard core after Gencon was over, but it seems people prefer it hard core. Which is all well and good as long as we all understand that's what we are playing.
Actually, I think you
can have it both ways, just not at the same time. Hence my suggestion of alternating tournament types. We can have it any way we want it as long as we
clarify how we want to have it. You just state in the sign-up thread which style of tournament you're going to have. And you're right: none of this is Dean's fault at all, of course...it's the fault of the players. For simplicity's sake in the future, I suggested that the TO makes the decision (or at least advertises it), but it's not his fault if people use certain strategies or get angry about those strategies. Let's not draw Dean into this, other than to apologize to him because we've made an ugly thing out of something that he sacrificed freely for.
Neither you nor anybody else clarified any expectations for these tournaments, and so I'm surprised we haven't had any of this popping up before now. I always tell people in marriage counseling that
"your spouse cannot respond to what he or she doesn't know about; you've gotta communicate clearly. Until you've communicated clearly, your disappointment is nobody's fault but your own." It's no different with SWM. This whole conflict is a lesson in the importance of clarifying our assumptions and understandings with each other. That's all there is to it. We can play the game any way we want...we just have to be clear about it beforehand.
You can also be quite friendly when you play a "highly competitive" game; I made a new friend (Georgiedenbro) at Gencon this year, after he and I played an incredibly competitive and close game, with each of us having to push our skills to the max. After the game, we both had a great deal of respect for each other as players, and we still keep in contact now. I don't like the word "cutthroat" because it implies malice and aggression, which is something that only shows up in a SWM game when one or both of the players is being childish. Some people refer to a game like this as "a game that turned hostile." In SWM, which is a game whose primary purpose is fun, it's always a tragedy when that happens. Not a single one of my "highly competitive" games at the Gencon Jedi Masters this year turned hostile, though there were a number of extremely close games. I think that fact alone proves that "highly competitive" is quite different than "cutthroat."
Cutthroat is to
competitive what
alcoholism is to
alcohol: it's a good thing that's been twisted and turned ugly through misuse.
Billiv15 wrote:
And then in the future, if I request Dean to come in for slow play, no one can get upset about it, or anything else related to technical hard core competitive play.
How do you intend this statement to be read? Do I detect some veiled anger/irritation in there? It looks that way to me.
Once more, there's NOTHING to be angry about. It was simply a
misunderstanding that resulted from a
lack of communication. I've already mentioned (repeatedly) how a simple communication from you would've changed everything for me (and probably for Joruus too). There's no reason whatsoever to get vindictive or vengeful.
Please, for the love of Leia,
let it go, and let's get back to enjoying these Vassal tournaments, as we always have until a month ago.