Asking questions is not making assumptions, FB.

I'm seriously curious as to how the "birthday rule" could've come up enough times in your experiences to make it an issue/seriously disliked item in the rulebook!  Is your birthday only on a leap year?  

You've implied that that single box of text potentially negates the validity of EPIC:A as a serious game for new players; the implication being that "beer and pretezels" games are of a "lighter"/less important variety than "serious games".  It boggles my mind that something so small in the rules could have such a negative effect.

I'm not trying to take the piss or anything, I'm honestly curious, as most, if not all, the people I've played with have found it humourous, but not "childish", and we still usually just "roll off" on the odd occasion "unresolved ties" come up.

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Actually, it's two. Who gets the first turn, and who is considered higher for purposes of table edge and deployment. Two fairly significant areas, and when playing with the same SR's, not an uncommon occurance.

Put me down as someone else who "doesn't get it". I just don't think it's got any place, even  though (or maybe especially because) I would get the most out of it. Nearly all my regular opponents have birthdays within 6 weeks of mine, all after. Just the idea that something so meaningless can have an actual tangible effect on the game, just rubs me the wrong way.

I guess I take a different approach. I'd rather the rules be rock solid, and then allow the implementation of them to be flexibly lax, rather than have them be ambiguous, and have to argue with different interpretations.

Edit: We roll off in these instances too, Chroma. The fact that the birthday rule is an inclusion just means some anal-retentive will attempt to use it for advantage. Which would just set the whole tone of that game off from the start.

Morgan Vening
- Apparently humourless.

Aye I edited my post just before you quoted me.


Here's the joke:

- It's a comment on the nature of wargame rules writing and how rules for tabletop wargaming can only ever achieve a vague illusion of balance at best (Jervis has clearly written a bizarre and unbalanced rule, quite intentionally) and it is clearly not actually intended to be used. It's Jervis poking fun at Jervis, at least in part, saying "If Epic turns out not to be a fun game, it's my fault for writing crappy rules, sorry guys!".

- It's a gentle poke at a certain type of "competative minded" gamer (common in the GW Core Games it must be said) who treat the "letter" of the rules as more important than the "spirit" of the rules.

- It's a reminder that we all have birthdays (we're all human!) and that we're only playing a game of toy soldiers. Get to know your opponent not just as an enemy, but also as a person.

-  It's worth noting that if two players are meeting and playing for the first time, then the rule is balanced! (Unless you're both born on the same day, then the world must end, clearly, as what happens then isn't covered anywhere in the rules!   )

- It's a subtextual encouragement from Jervis saying "It's okay to modify the rules of Epic, write new army lists, etc..."

- It's a reminder that the game is for adults, because only adults would tend to make the conceptual leap to understand that the rule was never actually meant to be taken literally.


It is, quite simply, the only "poetic" wargame rule that I know of.

It's meant as many things, but it's not meant to be taken literally, and it's not meant to have any effect whatsoever on your games, because it's not meant to be used.



Then the joke is on him; he has read the letter of the rules, but missed the spirit...

...so Jervis has left a nice warning for you right at the start of the game (the only place the rule can normally occur) that your opponent intends to play by the "letter" of the rules and not the "spirit"... so you are forewarned right at the start of the game and have the opportunity to back out of the game and not spend the next two hours playing a rules-lawyering numpty...

...and that also is part of the joke!


And Epic is rock solid, so that too is part of the joke!



Geddit?

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Last time i checked Epic ist was made out of paper not of rock  

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They're reasonably robust, for a GW game. To say they're rock solid is pushing things a fair bit. There's still quite a few slack rules (with regards interpretation), and a few more bad ones.

And I still don't "get it". It seems, to understand, you need to know Jervis in some manner. Having never communicated with the man, and not read much in the way of commentary, it just seems to be some wildly inside joke that requires a certain understanding.

Maybe it's the years of crushing GW rules anguish (40K and WFB), but I've always taken GW to be about as subtle as a baseball bat to the forehead. That something like this should be interpreted in such an off-beat way, just seems a reach.

Should all such similar concepts be construed as such? If so, the 40K rulebook should be a laff-riot.

Morgan Vening

Personally, I always ensure I schedule games immediately after my opponents' birthdays, so as to take full advantage of this rule.

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This sort of stuff?  This is where English departments come from.

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This is a cool way to explain the Scout rules. See, I can give compliments.
Being forced to get into base to base would represent the Scout ambushing your advancing patrol soldiers, whilst being forced to move out of ZoC represents the effects of sniping, unknown enemy number, firing coming from nowhere that forces troops to relocate to assess the threat.



I'll join the group that 'doesn't get it', I've never equated random arbitrary imbalance as 'fun'. Nor do I think it's the height of wit and smug designer subtext to create them. The "Random=Fun" argument eventually put me off the 40k ruleset entirely.

If you have regular opponents who's birthdays are just a few days or months after yours it can come up a lot.

Don't get me wrong, we didn't fight over it or any such thing Jervis wanted to bait, we maturely ignored the absurd rule.

In short, do I need a designer to throw in such jokes to remind me it's just a game?
If I'm in a tournament and it comes up, do I just flick to the invisible page about the spirit of the game?

I think the large section on campaigns, scenarios and larking about is adequate amounts of 'it's just a game' for me.

If he wanted 'ice breakers' but to keep balance Rock/Paper/Scissors for it would have been sufficiently informal.

I've always found the Birthday thing amusing...and have found this thread to be really quite entertaining!
My regular opponents and I play stone, paper, scissors to settle ties and rules disputes: it's more fun than rolling yet more dice!
R>

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An opponent of mine who I gamed against 2 or 3 times a week for 5 or 6 years had his birthday just 2 days after mine.

As soon as we found out we just ignored the rule and re-rolled any ties that it would affect as with the sheer number of games we played ties happened quite a lot, to me it would have been dashed unsporting going into games knowing I had such a big advantage   .

At tournaments I believe it's the norm to just re-roll or roll-off (in the case of strategy ties) until someone gets the advantage, how long does it take to re-roll dice anyway.

*shrug*

I "got" the joke long before I met the guy.


"...the mature approach... is rather appropriate for a game like Epic, which when all is said and done is designed for experienced wargamers rather than experienced rules lawyers. 'Nuff said, I hope!" - Page 33 of Epic:Armageddon ("Rules Questions").

The tone of that paragraph tells me all I need to know about how to use (and interpret) the Epic rulebook.


And that too (the meta-comment on the nature of the GW Core Games) is also part of the joke.

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Epic doesn't need a "spirit of the game" page (which most game rulebooks do have to have!). All it needs is the Birthday Rule.


But that would actually be a literal rule, and wouldn't say anything about the human condition.

What's the point in that??!?  

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I think this thread has gone off track long enough.

Thank you everyone for your input.

Closed.

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