As probably the most vocal critic of the Arnhem tournament rules, and someone who actually attended (and
@Mister T -- tournament rules are
not why a person does, or does not, attend a tournament, why do you persist in your non-argument?), and someone who discussed these rules with some of the other people who attended, I came away with the following conclusions:
0. These are absolutely, 100% grudge rules. I have no proof, but I am completely convinced that each of these rules exist because somebody lost a critical scenario at a tournament and it erks them beyond measure that it happened, so NEVER AGAIN!
1. Dice. Since the dice I regularly use, and even the dice I irregularly use, cannot hope to live up to the standards imposed, I didn't bring any. I borrowed my opponents' dice, which never caused a problem. I would prefer to have been using my own dice, because they're
my dice, and I like them, despite all of the boxcars they regularly generate. And they're not unbalanced. Any
idiot person who thinks their opponent is using unbalanced dice needs to prove it, and that proof involves either documenting a few thousand dice rolls, or taking the dice and making those few thousand DR themselves. Just making the accusation because you didn't like that he rolled a 2, 3, 2, 3 sequence of DR
once and destroyed your carefully-laid plan is not good enough!
2. Everyone that I talked to thought that the various SSR were just as silly and pointless as I do. (Some are worse than others -- the OBA rule is tolerable, the no kindling rule is an excuse for lazy people (mostly scenario designers) who don't like to study a scenario in advance to see if there are flaws in the design, the rest are just plain dumb.) The "hot gossip" was that a very few but but very opinionated and somewhat influential individuals are responsible, and everyone else just tolerates them because it's better than putting up with the whining.
3. None of them ever came up in any of the scenarios I played. The one scenario I played that featured OBA had the radio guy sniped by the second turn; he never had a chance to draw any cards, let alone red ones. None of the other rules were ever relevant or even potentially relevant. However, if that had not been the case -- if any scenario I played looked like it might invoke one or more of the dreaded SSR -- I would have argued
most strenuously to my opponent that we simply ignore that silliness. I came to play ASL, not some other game that some other person thinks is better than ASL. I don't know for certain, but I suspect that most of the guys I played would have been OK with that. So
considerably more effort was involved in composing and publishing these SSR than was ever justified, or could
possibly have been justified.
Guys, in your own house, play by whatever house rules floats your boat. When you're not in your own house, just play by the rules. It's fairer, faster and simpler; or to put it another way, just common-sense.
