The Wiggidy Whack World of WYSIWYG

What Is WYSIWYG?

For the uninitiated, WYSIWYG is a term in the world of tabletop gaming that means "What You See Is What You Get," referring to whatever weapons and armor a model has is what it's using. This is primarily seen in games like Warhammer 40k where a single model comes with several weapons that could be equipped.


Taking Sides

Upon first inspection, WYSIWYG seems great.

• It prevents confusion when you're looking at a model. If a model has a sword, you know it can attack you with a sword and not a rocket launcher, allowing you to plan accordingly.
• Games are more cinematic, allowing players to become further immersed in the game in front of them.
• It draws a hard line on using proxies with no room for arbitrary arguments.
• It keeps people focused on how to play a unit with their equipped weapons, rather than bouncing from weapon loadouts from week to week and never learning how to properly play them.
• After proxying a model or its weapons for awhile, players can get lazy about buying the actual one if they don't have to.

However, this also carries with it some broad problems.

• It divides the community, often causing a sense of elitism among those who will only play WYSIWYG, and resentment for those who don't like it.
• It leaves gamers with 3 options: glue their models together and hope they won't want different weapons later; attach magnets to pieces so you can swap things out; or buy new models and attach the other weapon loadouts.
• Those first two problems cause player burnout because they're pressured to play models they don't want, or to buy models so they can play what they (might) like.
• It leads to some extreme situations. If a model has a standard option (say a sidearm) but it's not even sold with the model, can it use it?

Weighing It All

Of course there are many smaller issues that arise, but that's the typical debate I've seen everywhere. So how do we resolve it?

If you guys have been here long enough, you've probably noticed a small set of tenets I use in almost any discussion like this.

• No one tells you how to play a game that you've paid for.
• Any non-critical issue that causes a divide in a community needs to be resolved, not battled over. Cheating is worth fighting about, power-gaming is not.
• People on both sides are usually right, but are also wrong depending on the setting. 
• Players should be sacrificial for their friends. If an agreement can be made for both sides to have fun, even if neither gets exactly what they want, then that's the answer.
• If there's nothing on the line for winning, let it slide.
• Talk to the person, not about them.

So with that in mind, how should WYSIWYG be handled?

Just Chilling

This argument is most heated when it comes to casual gaming. In this argument I'd define casual as anything without a prize attached to a win. So how should WYSIWYG be handled?

Basically, it needs to be thrown out. I fully understand that players who want it have valid reasons, and I have no problem with it. But a player being afraid they might forget a model's actual weapon is no incentive for me to spend unnecessary time or money rectifying the situation.

Now before I go on, I need to address non-WYSIWYG players. If they want to bring a super laser on a model equipped with a butcher knife, then do it. But they need to be ready to go out of their way to make it easy on the opponent. It's not fair to simply paint a weapon a different color, or just tell the opponent to remember what has what with no visual indicator, and expect them to juggle their entire army along with an obscure code for figuring out a model's loadout. Bring a blatant visual aid, stick the actual weapons on their bases with some Blu Tac, warn them if they're about to make a bad move that a player wouldn't normally make if they'd remembered, or whatever else you can think of to make sure the opponent doesn't forget.

Let there be no ambiguity!

And of course if they do something bad because they forgot, don't take advantage of that. If a mistake is caught right away, let them take it back. If it's too late to fix the mistake, then work it out so that it's not to your advantage. If that means not attacking with the models they forgot about, then so be it. To put it bluntly, you're the one making the game difficult for your opponent, and if anyone needs to be at a disadvantage for it, it should be you.

As far as WYSIWYG players, it's important to get some perspective in a casual setting. WYSIWYGers are usually the ones who spend hours painting up their armies, and want to have a good visual, cinematic experience to reward their efforts. Maybe they're the guys who are really competitive and because the rulebook says WYSIWYG, that's how you need to play. But they need to keep in mind that not everyone is like them. What's fun to them is drudgery for others. People don't have expendable income to buy extra models, or time/skill to drill out a model's tiny wrist for a magnet. It sucks to forget a model's weapons, but in a setting where winning really doesn't matter, WYSIWYG is a battle that's simply not worth fighting about.

There are also some extreme WYSIWYG players out there. I like to think that most are just players who wish people would just use the weapons on the models, but don't make a fuss about it. Of course we never hear about those, we hear about "WYSIWYG Nazis" who have the social graces of a turnip. 

[[NSFW... or children who like to repeat words]]

These are the guys who will make passive-aggressive comments like "I sure hope that Space Marine doesn't shoot me with his fully automatic force hammer!" or even something more childish like telling another player they're lucky he's not making them play WYSIWYG. Maybe they'll throw an actual fit about losing to a "cheater" and go home angry. These are weird examples until you realize that these are paraphrases of stories I've heard.

About a casual game.

With friends.

Where people were trying to have fun.

Now if a WYSIWYG player refuses to play any other way, then that's fine. That's the game they want to play, and in a casual setting there should be no pressure on them to play a way that they simply aren't comfortable with. However, if they are in a setting where people get together once a week to take a break from real life and relax to a game of Warhammer, then demanding WYSIWYG can ruin the night for many people out of sheer stubbornness, and that's toxic to a player community.

What I'm basically saying is that in a setting where people meet as friends, encourage but don't enforce. WYSIWYG makes games so much easier, but there's a time and/or monetary cost involved that isn't fair to someone who only thinks about the game a few hours a week.


And remember, all confusion can be instantly cleared up by saying "Can you remind me what that model has?"

Going for Gold

Now of course there's a completely different side to this argument, and that's WYSIWYG when winning matters. In a tournament setting, it's imperative that there be no confusion between players, and it's key to err on the side of caution. I've seen a lot of people upset because they can't compete in a tournament, and it boggles my mind.

Here's the real difference between playing for fun and playing for prizes: one is a purely optional part of the game that few people participate in. Although tournaments seem like a big deal that should include everyone, a small percentage of a game's customers will ever compete in one. Tournaments are meant to be tight, competitive arenas where players can't gain advantages outside of the rules and the game can be put on public display. If a player makes a bad move because they forgot about a proxied model then they've effectively been cheated out of a win. That's not fair, and players should be glad that a tournament organizer is trying to keep things fair for everyone.

Blurred Lines

But of course nothing is black and white. What about things like leagues where winning "matters," even though you only get a trophy? This is where community is great! Get the league's core group together and discuss it. If there are people who just can't swing WYSIWYG  then consider what the purpose of the league is. If it's to prepare people for tournament play, then treat it like a low-grade tournament and enforce things appropriately (and fairly). If it's to get new people in to the hobby, or to let casual players have a more structured environment, then what good does it do to inhibit them?


We're Almost to the End

I think the key to everything is communication. If you have a WYSIWYG in your group that is causing problems, talk to them. If there's a player who has been proxying weapons on the same model for years, talk to them. I'm amazed at how many threads I read on forums that basically say "We have a player that annoys everyone. What should I do?" and after a few posts they admit that no one has taken the first step in talking to them.

Talk it out. Be reasonable. Don't forget the point of gaming.



See you tomorrow!

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