Play for fun all the time! Ive entered one store tourney, and that was fun, but most of the time im playing just to fly mothereffing Star Wars ships!!! The only real competition is between my son and I...you know the boy wants to beat Dad.

My son is too young...

...for now.

Why did you get into xwing?

I imagine it was for the narrative, the star wars universe, the ability to play out dogfights over the death star.

I cant imagine anyone went , wow that range ruler looks amazing, ive got to play this game.

I sense you are not a Euro player.

This is my problem with narrative players- they see a flaw in the game, but then blame the players for taking advantage of it rather than blaming the game design. It creates an environment of unspoken accusations, assumptions, instead of openness.

The players shouldn't have to buy into a game's theme and play the game a certain way for the narrative to work- that's on the game designer to make sure the best moves make sense. I think FFG has done a pretty good job of this but they could improve. Other game companies seem to demand the players police things to cover up for their laziness in game design.

This happens in fighting games all the time, too. Casual players cry "cheap" at every instance. Fireballs? Cheap. Throws? Cheap. Long combos? Cheap. A character with a faster movement speed? Cheap. 50/50s? Cheap. Everything is cheap.

The game is the game. It's defined by its rules. Play to the rules or you're just playing a different game. Sure, there is occasionally the truly cheap mechanic or broken character. However, most of the time the most interesting mechanics and tactics are born out of bugs or oversights that weren't part of the game design's original vision: cross-ups, kara throws, hit confirms, etc.

X-Wing isn't much different. I *want* people exploiting the rules and discovering new tactics or card combinations. Sure, I don't want anyone doing something that is clearly unbalanced or broken...but the tournament rules already prohibit such things.

Gadge spoke of people not playing in the spirit of the game. This I totally understand. There is an intent behind the game and you should be playing that way. I would argue that not reminding your opponent of actions he clearly would have taken is not in the spirit of the game. I would call those players "gamesmen" and I don't like them one bit. They too, ironically, aren't trying to play X-Wing. They're just trying to score a W. They don't care what the game is. Gadge also mentioned people who intentionally slow play when its convenient for them. These people are just straight-up cheaters and I don't like them much, either.

It's just unfortunate that this behavior seems to be what we're meaning when we berate "competitive players." It sucks because the game, and its inherent competition, is fantastic. This idea also sucks because, in my opinion, it gives players an opportunity to feel free to claim just about anything is "not in the spirit of the game." I've heard people claim that turrets aren't in the spirit of the game. That "fat" pilots aren't in the spirit of the game. That two-ship lists aren't in the spirit of the game. That running away from combat isn't in the spirit of the game. Those are all nonsense and it's sad to see such accusations being considered acceptable while at the same time bemoaning people who play competitively.

If you don't want to play competitively, you still have that ability. You're free to run four generic X-Wing pilots. You're free to build your squadron thematically. You're free to do all of that already within the rules. Imposing even more limitations on other players just to suit your desire to have theme or "narrative" or whatever is absurd. You don't want to play X-Wing then. You want to play your own game with your own rules or else you're just taking your ball and going home.

I'm going to replicate several other posts, because this seems like a "show of hands" kind of thread.

Fun and competitive are not mutually exclusive. If a player isn't having fun playing competitively, he should stop. That doesn't mean that it's generally true, though. There are many of us enjoying the competitive aspects of the game, mathing it out beforehand, tweaking lists, training against sparring partners with meaningful discussion during and after etc.

So yes, I play for fun. I also play to win.

Do I play wacky lists? Sure! Do I play Epic? Yup? Do I play scenarios? Kinda, still working on the 3rd tantive campaign run.

Can you play this game for money?

NOPES... but you sure as heck can PAY TO PLAY this game!

Wowzers... plastic addiction, it is... yes!

I always play for fun, event or at home.

Because I think the game is fun to play, no matter the setting. If I didn't, I wouldn't be playing.

Play for fun all the time! Ive entered one store tourney, and that was fun, but most of the time im playing just to fly mothereffing Star Wars ships!!! The only real competition is between my son and I...you know the boy wants to beat Dad.

My son is too young...

...for now.

Set hims up so he can still watch Pops... so it will get ingrained in him. Dat way when he old nuffs to push ships without breaking 'em... GOOD TO GO!

Really, do you play for fun? Haven't taken a game too seriously since Regionals, I got burned out from competitive mode but I love X-Wing so much that I could never play another competitive event again and still be happy. I still buy all of the new stuff, I still play to win, I still enjoy generic T-65 X-Wings, I still like playing and playing against turrets (even without Autothrusters), I still like Brobots, I still like TIE Swarm, I still like 4K'ing my Defenders to victory... I think you get the idea.

One thing I have noticed in the recent weeks is that there is a rampant increase of "Fix-it" and "New Core Set is doing/going to _____" threads that are popping up. This leads me to assume that a good amount of people are either not having fun with the game or are only looking at the competitive/tournament value of the game, and I've participated a bit in those as well.

I'm just wondering if we're all still having fun with X-Wing. I mean, jousting values and calculating points cost is nice and stuff, but when are you gonna dust off and bust out the X-Wings and TIE Bombers and StarVipers for fun again and not worry about MoV or the brokenness of whatever card cramping your style? Because lately it seems that most of what I'm hearing is grief about something not being playable when in reality everything is playable when it comes to having fun!

Im just glad we have a game that is fun for everyone. It doesn't matter if you are playing in your basement with made up rules or getting your thrills from high level competition. Its just a solid fun game.

Has this been linked yet? (trigger warning: fun, games, French, Patreon)

The ONLY reason I play this game is for fun. I also love being efficient, but I am not against running ships I know might be less efficient than others if it is just different. I like trying new things and discovering new combos. I also like discovering what ships and tactics I enjoy. I guess you could say I'm a seeker who is just having a lot of fun along the way, because there is value for me in any game even if it is a loss.

I'm not against tournaments or tournament players. If you like tournaments, math-winging and what have you, by all means play on. "Fun" is different things for different people and no one size fits all. So there is no definitive definition of "fun", it's subjective.

Yes, X-wing - and most other games - are competitive in nature. Playing a game for "fun" does not mean it's "non-competitive". It's a fact of life that there will be winners and losers in any competitive event.

I think the thing personally that puts me off tournaments is the level of competitiveness that - unfortunately - has a tendency to bring out the worst in people. Now I'm not bashing tournaments or tournament players, I have played in a few for many different game systems over the years and organized them for a couple different games and companies (PM me if you're interested to now which ones). I've seen great battles and demonstrations of sportsmanship and I've also seen rules-lawyers and outright cheaters. The latter are what puts me off tournaments as I don't see as many of those in "casual play" because mostly I'm playing with people I know.

I do think though that too much emphasis is placed on the tournament scene and not enough support is given to those that enjoy more scenario or campaign driven play. Which many people find more "fun" than just trying to blow up your opponent.

At the end of the day though I think we can all pretty much agree that - tournament play or not - any time we can put our little toy spaceships on the table we're having fun.

Playing Tournaments is all about collecting more victories than the other players competing with you. I found out that this is the reason I don't enjoy competitive and especially tournament play. I win a game, but can't enjoy the victory, because there are a coupla more games ahead of me I have to win to place as high as possible (to get the prizes). That puts much more stress on a recreative activity than I am comfortable with.

During casual, narrative, campaign or (even better) casual narrative campaign play, every battle and thus - if you happen to have the chance for one - victory counts by itself, making these type of games much more fun to me then the format mentioned above...!

I'm with the people who say that tournaments are chances to play our game with friends and potential friends. I try to win the match, but I try harder to be the opponent you want to play with, win, lose, or draw.

I'd love to try other formats, but 'till they become more prevalent, I'll play the competitive standard.

I'm so glad, even when playing competitively, I play for fun first. Because I just got a bunch of shiny new playable X-Wings, and looking around the forums no one else did.

Why else would you play? if not for fun. I am more casual than competitive, though I occasionally play in a tourney here or there.

I'm so glad, even when playing competitively, I play for fun first. Because I just got a bunch of shiny new playable X-Wings, and looking around the forums no one else did.

I'm gonna too, here in about two weeks.

The people who can not be happy have nothing to do with what we do... except that it is kinda funny... in a tragic way.