Case Study: Honoring a deal in a 2 player game

Hello All, Consider this situation: A > B > C > D Player C has a tooled up minion with No Secrets minion in play. Player A is playing Ventrue Multiact with no aggressive combat and no stealth, so he will be entirely stopped once A becomes his prey or pred. Player A calls a Banishment, which is clearly going to target the No Secrets minion crosstable so that Player B can oust Player C on his next turn. Player C says, "If you call Banishment on your prey's minion instead, I'll agree to get exactly 1 VP, help you oust your prey, then concede to you." Player A agrees. Predictably, Player C ousts Player D, then Player A ousts player B. In the heads up, Player C calls over the judge and says, "I would like to concede to Player A now, because of a legally made deal earlier in the game. Even though all deals are moot in a 2 player game, I want to honor my deal and concede." The game state at the start of the heads up game is that Player C does have a reasonable chance for more VPs. An added detail, though not particularly relevant, is that there was only 3 minutes left in the round, so it was very likely that both players would get 0.5 more VPs if they both played on normally. The judge rules that the concession is legal, and Player A gets the GW. What would you have done as the judge in that situation? I'm especially curious about LSJ's opinion or any experienced judge. Thanks, Ira

On Dec 24, 6:41 pm, "ira...@gmail.com" <ira...@gmail.com> wrote: [snip non-relevant bits about the details of some deal] > Player C ousts Player D, then Player A ousts player B. > In the heads up, Player C calls over the judge and says, "I would like > to concede to Player A now, because of a legally made deal earlier in > the game. Even though all deals are moot in a 2 player game, I want > to honor my deal and concede." The judge points out that it is not possible to honor a non-existent deal. The idea of whether it can be honored is itself nonsensical: the deal doesn't exist. It can neither be honored nor broken. > The game state at the start of the > heads up game is that Player C does have a reasonable chance for more > VPs. This is all the info needed. If the most VPs C can get (within reason) is 0, xe is free to get those 0 VPs any way xe likes. But that is not the case here. C can reasonably get more VPs, so playing to get 0VPs is a violation of the sportsmanship rule. > An added detail, though not particularly relevant, is that there > was only 3 minutes left in the round, so it was very likely that both > players would get 0.5 more VPs if they both played on normally. 0.5 > 0 If C has a "very likely" chance at 0.5 VPs just by "playing normally", then it follows that C has a reasonable chance at more VPs (which just reaffirms the notion given earlier that C can get more VPs). http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/d90a3ec9cc6755a4

On Dec 24, 5:41 pm, "ira...@gmail.com" <ira...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello All, > > Consider this situation: > A > B > C > D > > Player C has a tooled up minion with No Secrets minion in play. > Player A is playing Ventrue Multiact with no aggressive combat and no > stealth, so he will be entirely stopped once A becomes his prey or > pred. Player A calls a Banishment, which is clearly going to target > the No Secrets minion crosstable so that Player B can oust Player C on > his next turn. Player C says, "If you call Banishment on your prey's > minion instead, I'll agree to get exactly 1 VP, help you oust your > prey, then concede to you." Player A agrees. > > Predictably, Player C ousts Player D, then Player A ousts player B. > In the heads up, Player C calls over the judge and says, "I would like > to concede to Player A now, because of a legally made deal earlier in > the game. Even though all deals are moot in a 2 player game, I want > to honor my deal and concede." Adding to what LSJ said: I'd specifically tell the person "You are mistaken; that was not a legally made deal, in the sense that it set up a condition that could not be legally adhered to (i.e. that you'd concede once the game was heads up.)" The fact that they are calling it "a legally made deal" when talking to the judge does not mean that the terms were actually legal per the rules on deals and head-to-head play. > > Thanks, > Ira -John Flournoy

[ quoted text not captured ] In practice, unless Player C knew what would obviously happen (or realized at some point) and had always intended on going for the +0.5vp-due-to-moot-deal, Player C wouldn't call over a judge. She'd simply concede at the table and the results would've been reported as 3vp-PlayerA 1vp-Player C and that would be that. On paper, I agree with everything LSJ said. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ Please buy my cards! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html Please attend my qualifier! http://members.cox.net/vtesinlv/index.htm

Something similar to this came up in a tournament recently. I believe player A and player D were remaining (4 player table) and had made a deal that player A would allow player D to withdraw, giving them both 1 VP, because both players did not want to risk giving up this 1VP. In the case of player A because this would jeopardize his GW, and in the case of player D because he felt having some VP for sure was preferably to not potentially not having any VP. Player A was a tremere/tremere! wall with heavy dominate bleed, while player D was an Ishtarri cel-gun wall. Both were pretty well tooled up and played A seemed to have the advantage (pool, minions). I pointed out to them that since the game was now 2-player, all deals were void, yet they insisted that both of them wanted to play this way anyway (letting A withdraw). I personally felt that, due to the high amount of combat and ousting power on the table (quite some guns, quite some dominate, not a lot of prevent), had they tried to oust eachother, one of them almost assuredly would have gone down before timeout. Was the way they played legal it out legal?

[ quoted text not captured ] If A and D remain, that implies that A has 2 VP and D has 0. If D withdraws, A wins, so no question for A: this is play to win. For D, it's play to win if 1 VP is the best D can reasonably get. If there is a reasonable chance for D to get 2 VP, then withdrawing (playing for 1 VP) violates play to win.

[ quoted text not captured ] I'm assuming A is A because he has ousted B and C and therefore has 2 VPs. If so, any play that gets A to 2.5 VPs or more than anyone else at the table is legal, because that's the game win. Basically A wins if he doesn't get ousted so all play that doesn't lead to getting ousted is play to win. If D can oust A, then it isn't legal for D to let A withdraw. If D can't oust A (reasonably), then the best bet for D is that A withdraws because otherwise D only gets half a VP for timeout. So you just have to decide if D can kill A. If he can, then he shouldn't let A withdraw. There's no hard and fast rule here. Ira's example was easy because the player conceding clearly could've had more VPs. In your example, it could be that both players are playing to maximize their winning or it could be that D is giving up a VP. That's where your judgment as the judge comes in.

[ quoted text not captured ] Withdrawing for 1 vp doesn't sound legal to me. http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules.html 3.7. Determining a Game Winner * Victory Points are awarded when a player's prey is ousted and when a player survives a round (or as otherwise specified in the game rules or by effects of cards played, but with only a half Victory Point awarded for withdrawal).

[ quoted text not captured ] True, but that doesn't change much in this case. Even 0.5 VP is more than none. As I was at the winning end of that mentioned deal I'd like to add, that the withdrawing guy was on one pool, after surviving his predator, my prey. My score after ousting my prey was 1 VP, gaining the GW with my second VP after the withdraw. I offered the withdraw before when we were three left to keep him fighting on against his predator and not just dying. Otherwise I wouldn't had the chance to make a GW as it was a four-player-table and two VPs had be gone then. As his shape was so bad at the time his pred. was gone he honoured the deal and I think that was legal. He got well during his attempt to get rid of his library (through use of Specialization) withdrawing with about 10 pool. That could be the reason for Orange Devil's impression he was "well tooled up". Meanwhile I was getting to about 35 pool because of keeping the Edge during the process.

[ quoted text not captured ] > http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/d90a... So in Ira's example from our last tournament, player C, having made a deal, must say "what can I do, I have to kill you now," because there are only the two players remaining and he has a good chance of taking the last two vps? Looking at the tournament rule on conceding, I think I made my judgment in error: 3.5. Conceding Games Players may concede a game at any time provided all but one of the players agree to concede, and provided it doesn't violate the play to win rule, with the result that game is recorded as if the remaining player had succeeded in ousting the conceding players in sequence. Please note that players who attempt to bribe, coerce, or otherwise improperly induce their opponents to concede will be subject to the appropriate section of the V:EKN Penalty Guidelines. I had remembered the first part of that starting sentence, but not the second. I guess that will teach me to have a printout handy. As a player, now I'll be more careful to avoid deals that end with "and when it's just us, I'll...." Brandon

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:07:20 -0800 (PST), Stephanie Iwanciow Haas AKA Brandon wrote: >As a >player, now I'll be more careful to avoid deals that end with "and >when it's just us, I'll...." If the deal is anything other than "and then we'll fight it out" its as worthless as the air used to speak it.

On Dec 28, 8:07 pm, Stephanie Iwanciow Haas <steph.i.h...@gmail.com> wrote: > 3.5. Conceding Games > > Players may concede a game at any time provided all but one of the > players agree to concede, and provided it doesn't violate the play to > win rule, with the result that game is recorded as if the remaining > player had succeeded in ousting the conceding players in sequence. I don't even understand how the concession rule is still a legal rule, given the "no deals are valid during the two-player endgame" rule. Is there a way that the former can actually legally take place, given the existence of the latter? I've been assuming that it's just an oversight that the concession rule wasn't nixed when the "no deals" rule was introduced, but maybe there are situations I've overlooked. John Eno

Kushiel <invisibl...@gmail.com> writes: [ quoted text not captured ] The core of the tournament rules is PTW. Deals allow you to ignore PTW in certain circumstances (the deal was PTW when made, a later decision is not PTW based on gamestate but required by the deal). The deals-are-void-when-duelling rule says that PTW is in full force again when there are only two players left, so plays may not be based on prior deals unless they are PTW. PTW requires you to play for the GW or as many VPs as reasonably possible. Therefore, once you have the GW, you can do anything you want, which includes conceding, withdrawing, letting someone withdraw, etc. cheers, -jakob

[ quoted text not captured ] after 45 mins of play or so when everyone's got an idea of how the table's going... "Hey predator, you let me roll over my three preys, and i'll fall over for you at the end!" predator might think 2vps is the most he can reasonably expect to get, so this deal is legal. me, i get 3vps and a GW. So i've played to get a GW. and then, and the end, i am allowed to fall over and give my predator 2vps. because i already have a GW, so it doesn't matter what i do (other than play gambit accepted and THEN all over, that'd be dumb). -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009, Kushiel wrote: > I don't even understand how the concession rule is still a legal rule, > given the "no deals are valid during the two-player endgame" rule. Is > there a way that the former can actually legally take place, given the > existence of the latter? I've been assuming that it's just an > oversight that the concession rule wasn't nixed when the "no deals" > rule was introduced, but maybe there are situations I've overlooked. The point of the concession rule is that if one guy is clearly going to take all remaining VPs and the other players are clearly not going to have any VPs, then they can concede. The easiest example of this is when it is down to 2 players. Example: I am playing a bleed deck with light stealth and you are playing some awesome wall of doom. Everybody else is ousted and there are 90 minutes of game left. Every time I take an action, my vampire ends up in torpor, but we each have like 20 pool left. The best thing for you to do is concede. Oh wait. That's not right. Anyway, I think you get the point. Even if there are multiple players left, one could contrive of an example where one player is very, very likely to take all remaining VPs and there is plenty of time remaining for her to do it. I think when in doubt, people should play the game, but there may be circumstances in which it's convenient to call it. I think I've seen a couple of very late tournaments at Origins called this way. It's clear who the winner will be and not really worth sacrificing sleep to have it demonstrated. In fact, I think I've mostly just seen this rule invoked in finals.

On Dec 29, 3:59 am, Jakob Sievers <cad...@gmail.com> wrote: > PTW requires you to play for the GW or as many VPs as reasonably > possible. > Therefore, once you have the GW, you can do anything you want, which > includes conceding, withdrawing, letting someone withdraw, etc. Which is only possible when someone already has three VPs and no one else has been ousted. Okay. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] Invoking the concession rule is possible any time all remaining players have no reasonable chance at VPs. It may be possible contrive of an example in which all five players are remaining but four have no reasonable chance at VPs. Unlikely, sure, but if we put our heads together, we could come up with something. Basically PTW says get the win or at least as many VPs as you can. Concession says you don't have to play it out if the outcome is inevitable. So if all non-winning players have already maximized their VP potential in any of the zillions of scenarios in which that could occur, then they can concede the game.

This sort of tortured crap is why I stopped playing in tournaments.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Legendre wrote: > This sort of tortured crap is why I stopped playing in tournaments. Oh yeah, it bothers you that players have to achieve their best possible result?

On Dec 29, 12:54 pm, Legendre <glav...@gmail.com> wrote: > This sort of tortured crap is why I stopped playing in tournaments. Which tortured crap? Playing to win, or trying to avoid playing to win? The PTW rules as presented and incredibly straight forward and intuitive--try and win. If you can't win, do as well as you can. If "as well as you can" is losing with nothing, you can lose with nothing in any way that makes you happy. Very cut and dry. The only issue is when folks go through mental gymnastics to try and get around doing those things. Although why they would want to in the first place generally is out of the realm of reason. -Peter

On Dec 29, 10:51 am, "Matthew T. Morgan" <farq...@io.com> wrote: > Invoking the concession rule is possible any time all remaining players > have no reasonable chance at VPs. It may be possible contrive of an > example in which all five players are remaining but four have no > reasonable chance at VPs. Unlikely, sure, but if we put our heads > together, we could come up with something. Yeah, I'm more interested in what happens during actual play than on- paper-only possibilities. Mr. Feuerstein's on vacation at the moment, but I'm sure he'd be happy to cook up some scenarios with you once he gets home. :) > Basically PTW says get the win or at least as many VPs as you can. > Concession says you don't have to play it out if the outcome is > inevitable. So if all non-winning players have already maximized their > VP potential in any of the zillions of scenarios in which that could > occur, then they can concede the game. Sure. I can see why the existence of the concession rule can be a desirable thing. I guess it just seems to me that its existence also allows for the possibility of de facto table split deals, and it seemed to me that the whole reason to introduce the "no endgame deals" rule was to eliminate table split deals. That's why the simultaneous existence of the two rules has always seemed uncomfortable to me. Could be that I'm merely jumping at shadows, though. John Eno

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Kushiel wrote: > Sure. I can see why the existence of the concession rule can be a > desirable thing. I guess it just seems to me that its existence also > allows for the possibility of de facto table split deals, and it > seemed to me that the whole reason to introduce the "no endgame deals" > rule was to eliminate table split deals. That's why the simultaneous > existence of the two rules has always seemed uncomfortable to me. > Could be that I'm merely jumping at shadows, though. I don't see how the concession rule does any such thing. You can only concede the game if you can't gain more VPs. Can you gain more VPs? Then you must keep playing. I'm just not seeing the problem.

[ quoted text not captured ] VEKN Tournament Rules, Section 3.5: Players may concede a game at any time provided all but one of the players agree to concede, and provided it doesn't violate the play to win rule [snip] VEKN Tournament Rules, Section 4.8: [snip] For tournaments, playing to win means playing to get a Game Win if it is reasonably possible, and when a Game Win is not reasonably possible, then playing to get as many Victory Points as possible. [snip] Exception: when only two Methuselahs remain, the tournament rules no longer acknowledge any deals. Prior deals are voided, even if they were play to win when made. When only two Methuselahs remain, both Methuselahs must play to win based only on game state, without regard to any deals. Now, my grasp of English is perhaps not as solid as I had hoped, but to me, nowhere does this indicate that I must keep playing for more VPs when I already have the GW. As such, as John Eno so astutely observed, 3/2 table-split deals are very much possible (the concession rule, however, merely makes them more convenient to implement; one could always transfer out instead). cheers, -jakob

Kushiel wrote: > Sure. I can see why the existence of the concession rule can be > a desirable thing. I guess it just seems to me that its existence also > allows for the possibility of de facto table split deals, [snip] As a judge I have disallowed players from conceding when it was clearly not Play To Win, so I'd say that if you have a judge who is willing to JUDGE then you'll have few issues. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 29, 5:56 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > As a judge I have disallowed players from conceding when it > was clearly not Play To Win, so I'd say that if you have a judge > who is willing to JUDGE then you'll have few issues. Oh, absolutely. I don't think I'll have any issues with this. I haven't in the past, and I certainly hope I won't in the future. It just strikes me as odd that, by my reading of the concession rule, you can potentially violate the spirit of the "no table split deals" rule while still following the letter of both rules. Given the nebulous nature of such deals, I'm really not sure that it's possible to have written rules to adjudicate this, and I'm sure that competent judges are more than capable of handling any such situations if they come up. Rest assured, The Sky Is Not Falling. :) This thread was just an opportunity for me to try to gain some insight into something that's been a minor puzzlement for some time now, and particularly to see if I've just been misunderstanding how one or both of the rules that cause that puzzlement work. John Eno

On Dec 29, 5:16 pm, "Matthew T. Morgan" <farq...@io.com> wrote: > I don't see how the concession rule does any such thing. You can only > concede the game if you can't gain more VPs. Can you gain more VPs? Then > you must keep playing. > > I'm just not seeing the problem. If that's how the PTW rules actually work, then I'm totally with you. I thought, like Jakob, that you didn't need to worry about PTW once you'd gotten a GW (hence my comment earlier about how the concession rules interact with someone who's already gotten three VPs and therefore a GW). That last sentence probably needs more acronyms, but I can't figure out where to squeeze them in. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] In practice, what actually happened is that Player C made the deal without remembering the rule about nullifying deals during heads up. Then, once the players were heads up, Player C remembered the rule, wanted to keep his deal for long-term reputation benefits, and also knew the PTW rules. Since he both wanted to keep his deal and not knowingly cheat, he called over the judge. Personally, I think many players will choose to follow the rules, even if it's easy to cheat (in this case, by conceding while knowingly violating PTW.) And to John, regarding legally made deals, I believe a legally made deal is defined by a deal that was PTW at the time it was made. Ira

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Jakob Sievers wrote: > Now, my grasp of English is perhaps not as solid as I had hoped, but to > me, nowhere does this indicate that I must keep playing for more VPs > when I already have the GW. Yes, you're right. You can quit if you've already won. Sorry, I was looking at it from the other side of things. > As such, as John Eno so astutely observed, 3/2 table-split deals are > very much possible (the concession rule, however, merely makes them > more convenient to implement; one could always transfer out instead). Okay, yeah, if things have gone that far, then there's not much you can do to stop it. But someone explain to me how it's PTW to sit idly by while your prey takes 3 VPs. It's not. This is the illegal behavior. If you can't stop your prey from taking 3 VPs, then it's not really a table split deal, even if you wind up with 2 VPs at the end. So yes, you could have two players sitting next to one another make a 3/2 split, but this deal is only legal if 2 is the best the losing player can do. Obviously if somebody is doing this kind of thing, you should get a judge who must be convinced that the losing player could never, ever oust his prey.

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Kushiel wrote: > On Dec 29, 5:16�pm, "Matthew T. Morgan" <farq...@io.com> wrote: >> I don't see how the concession rule does any such thing. �You can only >> concede the game if you can't gain more VPs. �Can you gain more VPs? �Then >> you must keep playing. >> >> I'm just not seeing the problem. > > If that's how the PTW rules actually work, then I'm totally with you. > I thought, like Jakob, that you didn't need to worry about PTW once > you'd gotten a GW (hence my comment earlier about how the concession > rules interact with someone who's already gotten three VPs and > therefore a GW). Yeah, I was fixated on the wrong point, but I think you guys are as well. Imagine: A->B->C->D->E A says to B, "B, I can never ever oust you in a million years! Let's work together to clear off the table and you can give me the last two!" B says "Sure!" So C, D and E get ousted quickly. Now B concedes. That part is legal since B has won. The part I'd take issue with is the part where A never tries to oust B and never tries to win the game. This is when a judge should be called to rule whether or not A really has a hope of winning. The other thing to watch out for is what if D plays really well and gets E before the combined efforts of A and B take him out. Now B can no longer legally concede the table and must either oust A, withdraw, let B withdraw or play to time to get the win.

On Dec 30, 1:26 am, "ira...@gmail.com" <ira...@gmail.com> wrote: > And to John, regarding legally made deals, I believe a legally made > deal is defined by a deal that was PTW at the time it was made. True. But that deal is still struck from history once you reach the two-player endgame. So far as I know, you can no longer legally honor such a deal, because it doesn't exist once there are only two players left in the game. These threads of yours always make my head spin, Ira... :) John Eno

"Matthew T. Morgan" <far...@io.com> writes: > On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Jakob Sievers wrote: > >> Now, my grasp of English is perhaps not as solid as I had hoped, but to >> me, nowhere does this indicate that I must keep playing for more VPs >> when I already have the GW. > > Yes, you're right. You can quit if you've already won. Sorry, I was > looking at it from the other side of things. > >> As such, as John Eno so astutely observed, 3/2 table-split deals are >> very much possible (the concession rule, however, merely makes them >> more convenient to implement; one could always transfer out instead). > > Okay, yeah, if things have gone that far, then there's not much you can > do to stop it. But someone explain to me how it's PTW to sit idly by > while your prey takes 3 VPs. It's not. This is the illegal behavior. > If you can't stop your prey from taking 3 VPs, then it's not really a > table split deal, even if you wind up with 2 VPs at the end. There are many situations where this is perfectly reasonable. The classic example I guess would be your prey playing rush and you playing a deck without combat defense, with no one on the table willing to help you. I would consider 2 points a very reasonable result on such a table. > So yes, you could have two players sitting next to one another make a > 3/2 split, but this deal is only legal if 2 is the best the losing > player can do. Obviously if somebody is doing this kind of thing, you > should get a judge who must be convinced that the losing player could > never, ever oust his prey. Any kind of VP deal should be verified by a judge. That said, the judge would only have to be convinced that the losing player couldn't reasonably hope to make more than 1.5 VPs. Additionally, the judge would have to take into account that one or both parties to the deal may well intend to break it when the opportunity arises. cheers, -jakob

"Matthew T. Morgan" <far...@io.com> writes: [ quoted text not captured ] Or one of {D, E} could just transfer out out-of-sequence...

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009, Jakob Sievers wrote: > There are many situations where this is perfectly reasonable. > The classic example I guess would be your prey playing rush and you > playing a deck without combat defense, with no one on the table willing > to help you. I would consider 2 points a very reasonable result on such > a table. Well, perhaps. If I were a judge, I'd still be cautious about approving such a deal. I've been in a lot of situations in which a soft, squishy deck which is predator to a rush deck can just bide its time and strike when the time is right. If I guy sits down and wants to throw the game on turn 1 because his prey is playing weenie pot, I wouldn't like to see a judge approve that.