40k Deep Thoughts: The Social Contract
Today we talk about the Social Contract we all game within, the root of tabletop problems and how to fix them!
On my show, Forge The Narrative, we often talk about what we call the Social Contract. We use this term to describe the behaviors associated with sportsmanlike conduct usually in a tournament setting.
What is the Social Contract?
I came to this term somewhat organically because our early shows were largely focused on explaining and expanding the tournament scene in 40k 6th edition. The game had changed more from 5th to 6th than it had since 2nd to 3rd. We saw a shift from a lot of the old tournament regulars to a new crowd of participants and an even larger group of people who were on the fence about attending national events.
Anyway.. Long story short, FTN’s early mission was to help make sense of the tournament scene to those that may be unfamiliar to it. A large part of what makes a tournament enjoyable is the sportsmanship, gamesmanship and friendships you have at the table.
The idea is that you are going to be spending 2-3 hours playing a game you love with another person and you might as well make it as enjoyable as you can.
The Social Contract you may be thinking about, written a long time ago, was about political power and normalizing the sorry state of affairs. It takes for granted that we have freedom and equality endowed upon us but we end up having to surrender pieces of those things to form a society that benefits everyone. That guy just appropriated older theories going all the way back to Socrates and there is no reason we can’t do the same for Wargaming.
Enough of that!
We toss around the phrase Social Contract a lot. I believe that instead of looking at it a grand level and speaking about the tournament scene as a whole (even though I do think we are a giant collected community) that we can boil this down to the individual game level. We can maybe start to claim the Social Contract term as our own and speak more to the Social Contract Theory. We don’t have to give up anything to appease the powers that be and the only governing/ruling body is our own peer group creating events worth traveling to.
What if we considered every table that we play on in a game store or at a tournament like it was a table in our own home? Would we play differently if we were hosting the game at our house than we do in a tournament hall or even as a guest in another house? I think we would.
That is just the beginning of what I would like to translate. To many of us, this game is much more than just moving generic game pieces around a board. Most of us spend countless hours assembling and painting our models. The portion of the time we spend actually playing the games is small compared to the other things we do surrounding the hobby – this includes just fantasizing about playing or building army lists or whatever. If you add up all those hours – I take that back.. maybe it’s better if we don’t add up all of those hours, but you get the idea.
I’d bet good money that most of the people I encounter playing this game have similar hours logged and an admirable dedication to the same hobby I care about so much. I think that should come with a large amount of respect before we even roll the first die.
These two points, acting as if we were hosting the game in our own home and having a basic peer-like respect for others, I think are the foundations for claiming the Social Contract as ours.
The Seeds of Discord…
From here things are going to get a lot more subjective. I am not going to suggest that anyone compromise their playstyle, list choices, or personal beliefs for the sake of some ‘ideal’ or ‘dogma.’ I am going to suggest a few things to consider while playing even at the highest level.
Many post-game wrap ups where someone takes issue with their recent opponent have a lot of similarities.
- He didn’t show me his list.
- He didn’t tell me his unit could do X or Y
- He played Eldar (this is a joke).
- He rolled hot and it seemed like his dice were on fire.
- I couldn’t buy a 6!
- I had him until he pulled off a lucky stomp.
- He was using some dumb formation or had X points in free wargear.
You don’t often hear things like “this dude was just a freaking jerk and everything he did irritated me.” Believe it or not, hearing this sort of thing is very uncommon on the tournament circuit. Most people there are trying to have a good time and don’t want to be seen as TFG but since we’re essentially just a loose collection of gamers who exist in different environments some of our intentions get lost in translation.
So How Do We Fix This?
In addition to the two tenants above, we have to take one thing for granted:
We’re all playing this game to have a good time.
That is very origin of this Social Contract. Things go off the rails when we forget this basic element.
We can tell when things are getting tense at the table. I consider these moments a crossroads. At each of these crossroads, we can let things progress and get tenser or we can take a step back for few moments to communicate more with our opponents. No matter what the clock says, there is ALWAYS enough time in the round for this. A direct ‘Yo, can I please see that in the codex, “or “Let me show how my combo works before I start rolling dice” will go a long way.
I’ve used a game mechanic here as an example largely because that’s the primary basis for our interaction at the table. Thing get pear shaped often because both players simply understand something about the game differently. This doesn’t have to end poorly.
I know I haven’t always played the game with this in mind. I know there have been times where I have been too focused on the win and not focused enough on the experience my opponent is having on the other side of the table.
This is just one type of thing that we talk about on the FTN Podcast. We also do a weekly live show on YouTube every Monday at 10pm EST.
Episode 122 – We put our money where out mouth was and held the first total hobby and social experience tournament in the land called Warzone: Atlanta. In the episode below we give a brief recap of the weekend.
