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In message <1127828592.196881.143040@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
x5mofr@gmx.de writes:
>James, you did not answer to the point of my message. The rules about
>the final seating imply that the players know something about the other
>players or their decks.
Which is entirely possible. Ask them. Or ask someone who played
against them. I've certainly seen players ask who's in the finals, what
they're playing, what they like to play and so on. All entirely
possible without judging intervention.
>A final seating with absolute anonymous players (wearing masks for
>example) and absolute anonymous decks (because the players never played
>against each other) would be silly.
Right. But since the finals structure doesn't allow for that - you
always know who the players are. The index cards (or alternative
method) clearly identify the player's name.
>Instead of choosing seating you
>could randomize. So the rules want, that the players know why they seat
>themselve at a place.
The intention behind the rules is one thing. What the rules actually
say is another.
A judge's responsibility is to enforce the rules, not what he thinks the
rules should be. Any judge who believes it is his job to enforce what
he thinks the rules should be, instead of what they are, should not be a
judge; such behaviour is entirely contrary to the required behaviour of
a judge.
A detailed example of intent vs the rules is given at the bottom.
>James Coupe wrote:
>> The rules don't allow you to force players to tell each other anything
>> about their decks, however. Judges aren't allowed to pull new rules out
>> of their ass just because they think it's better that way.
>
>I played it that way before there were any official tournaments. I
>played it that way even in big tournaments without any contradiction of
>the players. So i really didnt pull it out of my ass.
Erm, it's not part of the rules of the tournament *and you know it*.
That's pulling a rule out of your ass.
Note that "But Miss! Miss! The bigger boys in the playground didn't
stop me doing this" isn't an argument for saying "My rules are legal."
Plenty of mistakes get made at tournaments. People are human.
>Judges have to ensure that the players play after the rules and they
>have to give a fair playing environment. Both are not hurt by my
>behaviour.
A "fair playing environment" is given by enforcing the rules laid down
by V:EKN. All players can find out what those rules are before they
turn up to a tournament. They do not suddenly find themself thinking
"Hey, wait, with this rules change 'for fairness', I'm screwed."
Can you tell me precisely what is fair when I turn up to a tournament
and get penalised for behaviour which is entirely legal, such as making
a deal? LSJ has ruled many times about just how legal this is. Or is
this just what your sense of fairness tells you? Oh right...
Enforcing your sense of fairness onto players who happen to know what
the real rules are is not part of the role of a judge in a sanctioned
tournament. Any judge who cannot deal with that should resign and allow
someone else to judge instead.
A History Lesson
* ******* ******
Consider: many players - myself included - some years ago found that
"Table Split" deals were distasteful.
In brief: if two decks sat next to each other that would mutually
annihilate each other if they went at it like normal, they would often
make a deal to get one of them 3VP and the other 2, by concentrating on
other players on the table, then one deck allowing itself to be ousted.
The usual example was 2 combat decks that would send each other to
torpor and get 0 VP. The deal they made was entirely legal, but
distasteful to many players.
Why was it distasteful? Well, to many players it felt like being ganged
up on. You've suddenly got your predator AND your grand-predator
rushing your vampires and quite possibly a prey who's there blocking you
and doing his own nastiness. So, instead of 1 to 2 Methuselahs trying
to get you at any one time, you've suddenly got 3. And they're probably
doing it with a turn of speed.
Problem: this is the optimal course of action for the two decks. If
they go at each other, they get zero VPs. So they have to do this.
Now, some judges would want to rule this illegal. It is not a "fair
playing environment" for the player(s) victimised in this fashion. So
you rule the play illegal. But it's still the best course of action for
them. So they still want to do it, whether you rule the deal illegal or
not. It's still *completely* the right move for them.
We can also be pretty certain that this sort of thing is not what the
game's rules were set up for. How do we know? Because Richard Garfield
has said so. The intent - for him - in a multiplayer game like Jyhad is
not to make a free-for-all (like when you sit down on a table of Magic
players and the last person standing wins, no other restrictions), but
also not to make it multi-player solitaire. And also, we know that he
wanted the ability for players to co-operate when it was in their mutual
interest, but that their interests should be diverse - this is the
foundation of the predator/prey structure (to give sometimes over-
lapping, but different, requirements for each player to follow), and
also why the predator gets the pool and VP no matter who performs the
oust. Various people suggested to him that the ousting player could get
the pool or the VP or something. But no, the idea is that each player
has a distinct set of goals. If they choose to oust someone else, it is
because there is something in it for them. For example, the player
might be contesting or disrupting every single major resource they have
(for instance, two master heavy decks contesting each others' copies of
The Parthenon, Anson and so on), or they might have struck a deal to get
some assistance - but that is not freely doable, since the mechanisms
for providing assistance are difficult and sometimes unreliable
(depending on precisely what mechanism you choose). Votes can be
cancelled, master cards reversed, actions blocked or whatever.
So, there's a strong belief that two decks should not always have the
same core goals. (Excluding a particularly weird Storyline set-up, for
now.) So a table-split deal victimises the players not involved, and is
against the founding principles of the game - a predator and prey should
not have the same goals for the entire game, until one of them rolls
over! But - if we enforce the "fairness" that an individual judge sees
behind this, we're going to have a whole hell of a time where deals that
are legal over here are illegal over there. So you don't magically
decide on a new "fair" rule out of your ass.
End result: The rules got changed to provide a heavy disincentive
against this (and against other deck types, at the time). The concept
of the Game Win was introduced, so that a player would need to be able
to get 3 VPs to do consistently well. This makes it quite a bit harder
to organise the deal in situations where table-splits were previously
possible - the difference between 3VP and 2VP was slight, the difference
between 1GW and 0GW was not slight. Yes, you might still take it if it
was your only option - but the change in the rules meant that playing
decks that can coast along on three rounds of 2VP and *maybe* the odd
3VP are strongly disincentivised too. (Specifically, this also hit
"bad" wall decks - those which sit there and don't move forward,
expecting to get 2VP for last man standing. These days, a good wall
deck must be able to get 3VP to get the GW - so will have forward
pressure, which is another precept of the game that Garfield wanted, and
has said so with regards the fact that he provided the Edge as a carrot
for this.)
Lessons to be learnt: Don't enforce your own interpretation of the rules
because you think it's "fair" - making players jump through arbitary
hoops that you decide upon isn't fair.
Lessons to be learnt (2): If you take the problems to V:EKN, they'll
look at the situation and see if they can improve it in the next
revision of the rules.
--
James Coupe
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR.
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING.
13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
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