Monocle of Clarity FAQ

Does anyone know of discussions of this card's uses archived on the web? It must have been done to death, but I'd be interested in reaeding what people have come up with. David Cherryholmes P.E.T. Facility, Radiology Duke Clinic d...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu

In article <Pine.GSO.4.21.01010...@petunia.mc.duke.edu>, David Cherryholmes <d...@petunia.mc.duke.edu> wrote: > > Does anyone know of discussions of this card's uses archived on the > web? It must have been done to death, but I'd be interested in reaeding > what people have come up with. > > David Cherryholmes > P.E.T. Facility, Radiology > Duke Clinic > The only thing I remember reading about it is that it's banned for tournament use. There are a few bits and pieces in the errata: Monocle of Clarity - Unique Equipment  Questions about questions may not be asked. [RTR 19950530]  Questions can only pertain to the current game. [RTR 19950530]  Question about the future are only binding until your next untap. [RTR 19950530] Hope this helps DH Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/

It's a start. I knew it was banned, but since I've never played in a tournemant.... oh well. It's just one card. The Concealed Weapon glitch with my Torry gun deck, OTOH, is significant enough of glitch that I think I'll change it and inform everybody in the group that we were wrong. What I was really looking for was a nice, brainless list of eeevviillll questions..... David Cherryholmes P.E.T. Facility, Radiology Duke Clinic d...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 12:16:31 -0500, David Cherryholmes <d...@petunia.mc.duke.edu> wrote: >It's a start. I knew it was banned, but since I've never played in a >tournemant.... oh well. It's just one card. The Concealed Weapon glitch >with my Torry gun deck, OTOH, is significant enough of glitch that I think >I'll change it and inform everybody in the group that we were wrong. > >What I was really looking for was a nice, brainless list of eeevviillll >questions..... Evil questions are exactly why it got banned in the first place, and why the banning happened so rapidly (IIRC). If there were a way to confine people to reasonably simple questions, that'd be one thing. But EVERYONE wants to have the "heads, I win, tails, you lose" question, and that's just no good; the card had to go. I don't know if anyone has even saved a copy of the original two questions that snapped it like a twig. I know the first was some complicated thing that you usually had to read off an index card, and dealt with an elaborate setup that ended up with the answerer, whether he said "yes" or "no", effectively promising to never bleed you. And then you just asked it every turn, to avoid the "binding 'til your next untap" clause. Cute card. Near-impossible to implement properly =( -- Derek Goon-of-the-Month club member "In a MAN's game, you tap things that block." -- F. Scott, 2001

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Derek Ray wrote: > On Mon, 8 Jan 2001 12:16:31 -0500, David Cherryholmes > <d...@petunia.mc.duke.edu> wrote: > >What I was really looking for was a nice, brainless list of eeevviillll > >questions..... > > Evil questions are exactly why it got banned in the first place, and > why the banning happened so rapidly (IIRC). If there were a way to > confine people to reasonably simple questions, that'd be one thing. > But EVERYONE wants to have the "heads, I win, tails, you lose" > question, and that's just no good; the card had to go. I wasn't looking for anything game-breakingly evil, just... painful. But thanks for the info, anyway. David Cherryholmes

On Mon, 08 Jan 2001 13:15:10 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >Evil questions are exactly why it got banned in the first place, and >why the banning happened so rapidly (IIRC). If there were a way to >confine people to reasonably simple questions, that'd be one thing. >But EVERYONE wants to have the "heads, I win, tails, you lose" >question, and that's just no good; the card had to go. There is a way to confine players to simple questions - impose a word limit. 10 words seems about right. >I don't know if anyone has even saved a copy of the original two >questions that snapped it like a twig. I know the first was some >complicated thing that you usually had to read off an index card This would be cheating for "Receiving outside assistance". >Cute card. Near-impossible to implement properly =( Where there's a will, there's a way. Are Americans familiar with 20 Questions? That's a game consisting of little but asking such questions. It works. Andrew

In message <66B9190E57C2D047.73DEAED7...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes >>I don't know if anyone has even saved a copy of the original two >>questions that snapped it like a twig. I know the first was some >>complicated thing that you usually had to read off an index card > >This would be cheating for "Receiving outside assistance". Even were this true, they just learn the wording off pat. At least with it written down on a card, it's easier to hand to the player concerned. -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "What's wrong with wanting more? If you can fly -- then soar! With all there is, why settle for just a piece of sky?"

On Mon, 08 Jan 2001 20:42:56 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Mon, 08 Jan 2001 13:15:10 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>Evil questions are exactly why it got banned in the first place, and >>why the banning happened so rapidly (IIRC). If there were a way to >>confine people to reasonably simple questions, that'd be one thing. >>But EVERYONE wants to have the "heads, I win, tails, you lose" >>question, and that's just no good; the card had to go. > >There is a way to confine players to simple questions - impose a word >limit. 10 words seems about right. 25 words would be more appropriate. "Will you bleed me for more than 1 per action next turn?" is already more than 10 words, and is an eminently appropriate question. And it IS a shame about the card; obviously what you want to do is ask someone things like "Will you be playing any Wakes during my turn?" while they're tapped out. Or "Do you have any Deflections in your hand?" Both of these would be neat. However, the best thing to do is just leave the card gone. Give people enough words to make it TRULY useful, and someone will find a way to make it evil. >>I don't know if anyone has even saved a copy of the original two >>questions that snapped it like a twig. I know the first was some >>complicated thing that you usually had to read off an index card > >This would be cheating for "Receiving outside assistance". How? You brought it with you; it's not OUTSIDE assistance. If a player were to bring in and use the Sabbat War discipline/symbol reference card to help him, it would CERTAINLY not be outside assistance, nor would I dream of making such a ruling. But it's the exact same as bringing in an index card with a question written on it to help you get the wording properly. >Where there's a will, there's a way. Are Americans familiar with 20 >Questions? That's a game consisting of little but asking such >questions. It works. Exactly our point; where there's a will to break the card, there's a way. Someone will break the card. Let's just let it stay gone. [ quoted text not captured ]

>And it IS a shame about the card; obviously what you want to do is ask >someone things like "Will you be playing any Wakes during my turn?" >while they're tapped out. Or "Do you have any Deflections in your >hand?" Both of these would be neat. While the question about Deflections seems rather clear-cut, the former question may be a bit confusing. The card says "If the question pertains to the future, he or she must abide by the answer if possible {until your next untap phase}." If you ask about using Wakes and the player says no, then he obviously can't be playing them, but what if he says yes? If you don't perform any actions (therefore he can't Wake even though he said he would), I suppose this would fulfill the "if possible" clause. But if he said yes, does this mean he has to use it the first opportunity he gets? Or is it a conditional yes? Can he save his Wake for what he hopes will be your 3rd or 4th minion action (though you might not necessarily be performing that action)? If he can't save it for an action that is uncertain, how about for a mandatory action? Halcyan 2

On Mon, 08 Jan 2001 18:48:11 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >25 words would be more appropriate. "Will you bleed me for more than >1 per action next turn?" is already more than 10 words, and is an >eminently appropriate question. That's only 12 words. The words "next turn" are currently redundant but a limit of 12 instead of 10 is fine. It's tight enough to make the questions simple as you wanted. And there's another approach. A question like this is not a valid yes/no question as the only sensible answer is "maybe". I'm not sure what the actual Monocle text is, but the online text goes wrong with "If the question pertains to the future, he or she must abide by the answer if possible". The future is hypothetical and uncertain and so one cannot ask valid yes/no questions about it. If you bar this nonsense then I doubt that you need a word limit. The consequence would be that useful questions could only be about cards that the target player can see but the acting player cannot, i.e. cards in hand, inactive vampires and the contents of the Storage Annex. One might allow questions about deck contents too, provided deck lists are available to refresh a player's memory. In a friendly game, one might also allow questions about a player's state of mind, e.g. "do you plan to bleed me next turn?" but the answers are subject to change, impossible to verify and so this can only be played using the honour principle. >How? You brought it with you; it's not OUTSIDE assistance. >If a player were to bring in and use the Sabbat War discipline/symbol >reference card to help him, it would CERTAINLY not be outside >assistance, nor would I dream of making such a ruling. >But it's the exact same as bringing in an index card with a question >written on it to help you get the wording properly. Competitors are expected to know the rules and so using the SW reference card could be ruled out of order in a tournament. I wouldn't mind this myself but more serious outside assistance would include things such as computers, probability tables, strategy guides - external aids to help you play the game which go beyond acceptable limits. A crib sheet could and should be ruled in this category. >Exactly our point; where there's a will to break the card, there's a >way. Someone will break the card. Let's just let it stay gone. Any card might be broken - Succubus Club seems an equally good candidate. The usual policy is to allow cards to be played and fix them when they break. Fixing the Monocle is easy so just do it and put it back in the game. A ban is laziness. Andrew

On 09 Jan 2001 06:50:18 GMT, halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote: >>And it IS a shame about the card; obviously what you want to do is ask >>someone things like "Will you be playing any Wakes during my turn?" >>while they're tapped out. Or "Do you have any Deflections in your >>hand?" Both of these would be neat. > >While the question about Deflections seems rather clear-cut, the former >question may be a bit confusing. Absolutely. It's this sort of evil phrasing that makes Monocle good to stay banned. >The card says "If the question pertains to the future, he or she must abide by >the answer if possible {until your next untap phase}." If you ask about using >Wakes and the player says no, then he obviously can't be playing them, but what >if he says yes? If you don't perform any actions (therefore he can't Wake even >though he said he would), I suppose this would fulfill the "if possible" >clause. But if he said yes, does this mean he has to use it the first Yep. IF POSSIBLE, so it isn't his fault. >opportunity he gets? Or is it a conditional yes? Can he save his Wake for what >he hopes will be your 3rd or 4th minion action (though you might not >necessarily be performing that action)? If he can't save it for an action that >is uncertain, how about for a mandatory action? Oooo. Isn't that ugly? =) If forced to rule on this, I'd say that your refusing to take actions would fall under the "if possible" clause; when you COULD have taken actions that he planned to Wake on, but didn't, then you've changed the situation, not him, and he's still answered truthfully. [ quoted text not captured ]

>Oooo. Isn't that ugly? =) If forced to rule on this, I'd say that >your refusing to take actions would fall under the "if possible" >clause; when you COULD have taken actions that he planned to Wake on, >but didn't, then you've changed the situation, not him, and he's still >answered truthfully. Yeah but then he can always say that he was "planning" to Wake and still not. =) After you use your last untapped minion to take an action and you notice that he still hasn't played a Wake, he can simply say "Oh I WAS going to play the Wake -- if you had Freak Drived and taken another action." Similarly, he could claim that he was expecting some nasty Force of Will or something to come his way and was waiting for that (which might indeed be a valid reason). =) Halcyan 2

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:D45BB609A9446084.DFC27828...@lp.airnews.net... > Any card might be broken - Succubus Club seems an equally good > candidate. The usual policy is to allow cards to be played and fix > them when they break. Fixing the Monocle is easy so just do it and > put it back in the game. A ban is laziness. > > Andrew Please, Derek, Lasombra, *ANYONE*, find the original post where the Monacle was broken via specific wording and post it on the net so that we can all get on with life. :) -- Kevin J. Mergen, Prince of Madison, WI (remove NOSPAM for direct reply) "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

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:02:26 GMT, "Kevin M." <kjme...@NOSPAMhome.com> wrote: >"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message >news:D45BB609A9446084.DFC27828...@lp.airnews.net... > >> Any card might be broken - Succubus Club seems an equally good >> candidate. The usual policy is to allow cards to be played and fix >> them when they break. Fixing the Monocle is easy so just do it and >> put it back in the game. A ban is laziness. > >Please, Derek, Lasombra, *ANYONE*, find the original post where the >Monacle was broken via specific wording and post it on the net so that we >can all get on with life. :) dejanews is dead though. Can't reach back far enough to find the original broken-ness. =( [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:02:26 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: >>A ban is laziness. > >Please, Derek, Lasombra, *ANYONE*, find the original post where the >Monacle was broken via specific wording and post it on the net so that we >can all get on with life. :) You prove my point. I'll have to do your work for you. From what has been said, the broken question would be of the form: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Is this statement true: "(You will bleed me next turn and your answer will be NO) or (You will not bleed me next turn and your answer will be YES)"? --------------------------------------------------------------------- This has the desired effect - an answer of YES means that "You will not bleed me next turn" must be true, while an answer of NO means that "You will bleed me next turn" must be false. Either way, the player cannot bleed. But this question is trivial to strike down. Pick any or all of the following grounds: 1. It is not a direct question about the game. 2. It is, in effect, two questions not one - will you bleed me and what will your answer be? 3. It is self-referential - "a question about questions". 4. It is too complex. Even if this is written down and studied, a player could fairly answer "I don't know". It demands a clear head and a grasp of boolean logic and these are not mandatory requirements for competitors. 5. It is a trick question and so could be ruled unsporting. And that's just using the existing rules. If you used either of my suggestions - using a word limit or forbidding questions about the future - then the question would be invalid on both of these grounds too. Of course, it should never come to this. Any player whipping out an index card and reciting something like this should first be told, "don't be silly - ask a proper question". Andrew

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:21:00 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 00:02:26 GMT, Kevin M. wrote: > >>>A ban is laziness. >> >>Please, Derek, Lasombra, *ANYONE*, find the original post where the >>Monacle was broken via specific wording and post it on the net so that we >>can all get on with life. :) > >You prove my point. I'll have to do your work for you. From what has >been said, the broken question would be of the form: You haven't even come CLOSE to either of the broken questions' original form. There's a reason it had to be written on an index card, you know? [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > You haven't even come CLOSE to either of the broken questions' > original form. There's a reason it had to be written on an index > card, you know? That's not really the point, is it? It's pretty clear that the "broken" question is about questions. Now the issue is: if we disallow questions about questions (which has already been done), is it still necessary to ban Monocle? One problem I could envision is someone who takes a long time asking a long series of questions ("Do you have Majesty in your hand? How about Deflection? Telepathic Misdirection? A maneuver?" etc.) in order to determine as much as possible about the state of the game. Of course, we could solve this by restricting the number of questions asked per turn, or time spent asking questions, etc. At what point does the disadvantage of having lots of restrictions on how the card can be used outweigh the "advantage" of allowing the card to be played? James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu "What drives you on can drive you mad. A million lies to sell yourself is all you ever had." -- Garbage

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 20:23:11 +0000, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> You haven't even come CLOSE to either of the broken questions' >> original form. There's a reason it had to be written on an index >> card, you know? > >That's not really the point, is it? It's pretty clear that the "broken" >question is about questions. Now the issue is: if we disallow questions >about questions (which has already been done), is it still necessary to >ban Monocle? As I understand it, the first was about questions. The second was an elaborate construct of comparative values. The real point is that the fixes to Monocle disallowed questions about questions, questions not pertaining to the CURRENT game, and clarified that questions about the future were only binding 'til your next untap... ...and yet the card still is banned. Obviously the existing fixes weren't enough, and someone said "Oh, SCREW this", and tossed Monocle in the dustbin. >One problem I could envision is someone who takes a long time asking a >long series of questions ("Do you have Majesty in your hand? How about Monocle only permits you to ask "a" question. Sort of self-limiting, that. >turn, or time spent asking questions, etc. At what point does the >disadvantage of having lots of restrictions on how the card can be used >outweigh the "advantage" of allowing the card to be played? My point. The card is a neat toy. But toys are not worth it when you have to go bonkers on restrictions... especially out-of-print, wrong-backed toys that are not going to be reprinted. I say wrong-backed because it DOES matter. one of the goals of White Wolf must undoubtedly be to get as many of the original set onto "Vampire" backing as possible, with current card texts. Eventually, almost everyone will have Vampire-backed cards, and the Jyhad stuff will slowly slide away into oblivion, or card sleeves, as appropriate. In the meantime, WotC and WW are making the right call in not forcing anyone to play with only Vampire-backs, since the supply is limited. But once the supply is no longer limited, eventually it will be appropriate to request that players wishing to use their Jyhad cards put them in opaque-backed sleeves. (NEVER, of course, to ban the cards totally.) [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 20:23:11 +0000, James Hamblin > <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > > >Derek Ray wrote: > >> > >> You haven't even come CLOSE to either of the broken questions' > >> original form. There's a reason it had to be written on an index > >> card, you know? > > > >That's not really the point, is it? It's pretty clear that the "broken" > >question is about questions. Now the issue is: if we disallow questions > >about questions (which has already been done), is it still necessary to > >ban Monocle? > > As I understand it, the first was about questions. The second was an > elaborate construct of comparative values. But without the question about a question, there is no "logical trap" which forces someone to do your bidding. > The real point is that the fixes to Monocle disallowed questions about > questions, questions not pertaining to the CURRENT game, and clarified > that questions about the future were only binding 'til your next > untap... > > ...and yet the card still is banned. Obviously the existing fixes > weren't enough, and someone said "Oh, SCREW this", and tossed Monocle > in the dustbin. Is that really what happened? If so, why weren't the existing fixes enough? It seems like we discuss card limit arguments over and over again, we should be able to retrace the arguments as to why MoC was banned. > >One problem I could envision is someone who takes a long time asking a > >long series of questions ("Do you have Majesty in your hand? How about > > Monocle only permits you to ask "a" question. Sort of self-limiting, > that. Well, if, as you say, the broken question was actually two questions, then you're wrong about something. Looking at the wording now (I don't think I've every actually owned a Monocle), I see that indeed you can only ask one question each turn. My (erroneous) point is withdrawn. But if the card was banned because it was still too broken, then why can't that brokenness (which I can't figure out) be fixed? Wow, there (really) were a lot of parentheses in that paragraph. (Whew.) > >turn, or time spent asking questions, etc. At what point does the > >disadvantage of having lots of restrictions on how the card can be used > >outweigh the "advantage" of allowing the card to be played? > > My point. The card is a neat toy. But toys are not worth it when you > have to go bonkers on restrictions... especially out-of-print, > wrong-backed toys that are not going to be reprinted. I take your point on the backs. But _if_ there was a resonable fix for Monocle, then it wouldn't be a hassle to put the fixed version in one of the new expansions. My question remains: why can't Monocle be fixed? > I say wrong-backed because it DOES matter. one of the goals of White > Wolf must undoubtedly be to get as many of the original set onto > "Vampire" backing as possible, with current card texts. Eventually, > almost everyone will have Vampire-backed cards, and the Jyhad stuff > will slowly slide away into oblivion, or card sleeves, as appropriate. > In the meantime, WotC and WW are making the right call in not forcing > anyone to play with only Vampire-backs, since the supply is limited. > But once the supply is no longer limited, eventually it will be > appropriate to request that players wishing to use their Jyhad cards > put them in opaque-backed sleeves. (NEVER, of course, to ban the > cards totally.) There is an extremely high amount of Jyhad cards in existence. I doubt that they will ever entirely phase out. A requirement to sleeve mixed-card decks may, however, eventually become necessary. Hopefully we will not continue to have noticeably different backs on every expansion... [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:44:22 +0000, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: >> As I understand it, the first was about questions. The second was an >> elaborate construct of comparative values. > >But without the question about a question, there is no "logical trap" >which forces someone to do your bidding. um...how do you know? =) I haven't delved very deeply into the concept of "how to break monocle", because the amount of thought required is NOT insignificant and more than I care to spend over a solved issue. =) But I don't see why just because it wasn't about a question, that you couldn't wangle someone into accidentally agreeing to not bleed you ever again (that was apparently the original question's conclusion, hence the "only binding 'til next untap" fix). >> The real point is that the fixes to Monocle disallowed questions about >> questions, questions not pertaining to the CURRENT game, and clarified >> that questions about the future were only binding 'til your next >> untap... >> >> ...and yet the card still is banned. Obviously the existing fixes >> weren't enough, and someone said "Oh, SCREW this", and tossed Monocle >> in the dustbin. > >Is that really what happened? If so, why weren't the existing fixes >enough? It seems like we discuss card limit arguments over and over >again, we should be able to retrace the arguments as to why MoC was >banned. Beats hell out of me. I wasn't there in '95. =/ I can only combine what I've heard, and what I see as far as errata goes. >> >One problem I could envision is someone who takes a long time asking a >> >long series of questions ("Do you have Majesty in your hand? How about >> >> Monocle only permits you to ask "a" question. Sort of self-limiting, >> that. > >Well, if, as you say, the broken question was actually two questions, No... from what I understand, it was broken once, errata was tossed down, and apparently it was broken AGAIN after the errata. The second question may have resulted in just plain bannage instead of additional errata. >But if the card was banned because it was still too broken, then why >can't that brokenness (which I can't figure out) be fixed? I can't figure it out off the top of my head, either. But I might be able to given enough time; I recognize that words CAN be twisted sufficiently to produce contradictory statements. Just because I can't do it doesn't mean someone else won't. >> >turn, or time spent asking questions, etc. At what point does the >> >disadvantage of having lots of restrictions on how the card can be used >> >outweigh the "advantage" of allowing the card to be played? >> >> My point. The card is a neat toy. But toys are not worth it when you >> have to go bonkers on restrictions... especially out-of-print, >> wrong-backed toys that are not going to be reprinted. > >I take your point on the backs. But _if_ there was a resonable fix for >Monocle, then it wouldn't be a hassle to put the fixed version in one of >the new expansions. My question remains: why can't Monocle be fixed? Because it would require a LARGE amount of effort to fix Monocle; it would mean re-breaking Monocle in a number of different ways, and then slap down limits to cover those. For me, it's much on the order of: What does Monocle add to the game besides another neat toy? Is it worth that much effort for one forgotten card? The answer -must- be "no", as otherwise then there's no reason to not leave Concealed Weapon fixed, etc. >There is an extremely high amount of Jyhad cards in existence. I doubt >that they will ever entirely phase out. A requirement to sleeve >mixed-card decks may, however, eventually become necessary. Hopefully >we will not continue to have noticeably different backs on every >expansion... (shrug) I don't think they're noticeable enough to matter, really. Different colors, sure, that's nice. I wonder if anyone could make it actually MATTER. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:44:22 +0000, James Hamblin > <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > > >But without the question about a question, there is no "logical trap" > >which forces someone to do your bidding. > > um...how do you know? =) By the smile I don't know if this was a serious question or not, but here goes: With a question reference (or answer reference), there is no way that both "yes" and "no" will both give you the same effect. Answer references must also be disallowed because of questions like "Is your answer (to this question) 'no' if and only if you will not bleed me next turn?" If there is no reference to the answer to the question being asked, then there is no way to "trap" someone with your devious logic. Granted, you are allowed to make your question as _confusing_ and _misleading_ as you like, and these are certainly problems. I think I'm beginning to be convinced that Monocle is better off banned, much for the same reasons that Madness of the Bard is banned. If you want to fix Monocle, you have to have subjective rules (like "Questions must be succint" or "Questions must have a single clause", etc.) which are difficult to enforce, especially for an international game like this one. > >There is an extremely high amount of Jyhad cards in existence. I doubt > >that they will ever entirely phase out. A requirement to sleeve > >mixed-card decks may, however, eventually become necessary. Hopefully > >we will not continue to have noticeably different backs on every > >expansion... > > (shrug) I don't think they're noticeable enough to matter, really. > Different colors, sure, that's nice. I wonder if anyone could make it > actually MATTER. I think that if people want to try real hard to give themselves an advantage, however marginal, then they will. I fear that people might try to take advantage of being allowed to mix Sabbat and Sabbat War crypt cards, for example, and have some sort of scheme for knowing how big, what clan, etc. their vampires are. Or have all V:TES Wakes and non-V:TES other cards, to always know when you're drawing a Wake. It's the kind of crap that goes on in Magic all the time; I think those players are so used to mistrusting each other that there's two camps of people. The first camp is naive people like me who trust people to play by the spirit of the rules, and then there is the camp of people who play within (or slightly without) the rules in such a way as to take advantage of the people in the first camp. Now that I know that you don't reveal superior Govern vampires, for example, I feel compelled to always ask a judge to check the vampire. It's not that I really want to, or mistrust the other players, but if I don't do that, there's nothing stopping that person from cheating. Maybe it's my responsibility to make sure (as much as I can) that everyone else is playing by the rules, just like me... Kind of off-topic. Going to bed now. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 00:04:22 -0600, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> On Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:44:22 +0000, James Hamblin >> <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: >> >> >But without the question about a question, there is no "logical trap" >> >which forces someone to do your bidding. >> >> um...how do you know? =) > >By the smile I don't know if this was a serious question or not, but >here goes: It was, by and large, a serious question. Since the card was broken twice before, and I've seen people produce some truly convoluted shit in the past, I hesitate to EVER say that it's impossible to produce something; especially where something as imprecise as the English language is oncerned. >With a question reference (or answer reference), there is no way that >both "yes" and "no" will both give you the same effect. Answer >references must also be disallowed because of questions like > >"Is your answer (to this question) 'no' if and only if you will not >bleed me next turn?" ...Which is why I edge away from saying there isn't ever a "trap". You already stepped beyond your OWN original limits with only minor thought; what other limits can actually be broken? Since I don't care to delve DEEPLY into this sort of thing, I prefer to just leave the thing gone and save everyone the trouble. >If there is no reference to the answer to the question being asked, then >there is no way to "trap" someone with your devious logic. Granted, you >are allowed to make your question as _confusing_ and _misleading_ as you >like, and these are certainly problems. ...I suspect that was one of the reasons the question was on an index card in the first place; to be too long to easily comprehend. "Questions must be understood" is not suitable, of course, because of those momos who would simply say "Uh, I don't understand" to every question. >I think I'm beginning to be convinced that Monocle is better off banned, >much for the same reasons that Madness of the Bard is banned. If you >want to fix Monocle, you have to have subjective rules (like "Questions >must be succint" or "Questions must have a single clause", etc.) which >are difficult to enforce, especially for an international game like this >one. Yes. Partly my point; the other part being that it's just impossible to properly limit. Your question above is 15 words; I could trim it down to 10 and fit within Andrew's suggested limits. ("next turn" is unnecessary, as the Monocle provides those limits. "if and only if" is somewhat redundant and could be shortened to "if", and there's your 5 words.) You just wedge the question in, and then when the player is forced to ask for clarification, then you can explain with additional words, since you must be allowed to explain. I just can't see fixing it being worth the effort. >> (shrug) I don't think they're noticeable enough to matter, really. >> Different colors, sure, that's nice. I wonder if anyone could make it >> actually MATTER. > >I think that if people want to try real hard to give themselves an >advantage, however marginal, then they will. I fear that people might >try to take advantage of being allowed to mix Sabbat and Sabbat War >crypt cards, for example, and have some sort of scheme for knowing how >big, what clan, etc. their vampires are. Or have all V:TES Wakes and >non-V:TES other cards, to always know when you're drawing a Wake. It's Sure, but does it matter? I mix crypt cards all the time, and in some cases it's not difficult to know by looking which vampire is coming up next, although completely unintentionally. But I've never had a situation where it really HELPED me significantly, nor do I think I could create one. Library cards? Well, ok, the theory comes forth that you have all Jyhad Wakes, for example. Or in a S&B deck, all Jyhad stealth so that you always know when to blow the modifier early and draw into your stealth. But how often does such a situation arise that you need to KNOW what your deck is about to give you? And how often is it going to be exactly what you prepared to "mark"? Sometimes you may have plenty of FA, but you need an intercept card; if you've marked your deck such that you can distinguish FA, then you're in trouble (unless the top card is an FA). It's tempting to try it locally once and see whether it matters, but I find it difficult to imagine it could. Just too random a circumstance, and remember that you can't stop and closely inspect cardbacks either; you have to be able to tell at a glance. >the kind of crap that goes on in Magic all the time; I think those ...See my rant in the message to Tom Kassel. It ain't just Magic players; it's found across all games. >players are so used to mistrusting each other that there's two camps of >people. The first camp is naive people like me who trust people to play >by the spirit of the rules, and then there is the camp of people who >play within (or slightly without) the rules in such a way as to take >advantage of the people in the first camp. Now that I know that you >don't reveal superior Govern vampires, for example, I feel compelled to >always ask a judge to check the vampire. It's not that I really want >to, or mistrust the other players, but if I don't do that, there's >nothing stopping that person from cheating. Maybe it's my >responsibility to make sure (as much as I can) that everyone else is >playing by the rules, just like me... Well, the Govern situation only applies when they're transferring OFF of the vampire, as otherwise it will come out, and then you can say "Hey, Gilbert couldn't have Governed to Mariel!" I don't see a solution that can ease your fears, though. Asking the judge to check Governs is insulting at best to the rest of us who DON'T cheat; and causes some serious grief for the judge who might be running all over the place for a LOT of things; i mean, can you tell how many pool someone has when it's in a big pile? Can you count up and see 30 by a glance? He could easily have 32 in there and it wouldn't be noticeable; and two pool matters. But will you stop before every game and count your prey's and predator's pool? Ugh. Forcing people to reveal their Governs? Ugly disadvantage if you intend to actually get the Governed vamp out; even worse if you have to show that it's a dupe of one of your current vamps and you ARE just going for blood gain. Just damn messy. I think that since presently, there are no significant prizes, there really is no incentive to cheat. I'm sure it happens now, but the instances will be QUITE rare, and the risk -is- fairly high; someone caught DELIBERATELY pulling a stunt like that, for whatever reason, could get the boot from all tournaments in the future (at least, I'd sure as hell ban him from any *I* ran). I don't think it's something we need to worry about until/if we actually start getting SIGNIFICANT prizes for these tournaments. THEN we can expect the roadkill to come out of the woodwork, and we can do what we need to in order to de-sludge them. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 02:15:43 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >"Questions must be understood" is not suitable, of course, because of >those momos who would simply say "Uh, I don't understand" to every >question. The requirement for clarity is so self-evident as to not need stating. Someone who pretended not to understand a clear question would be given short shrift by any competent judge. >I just can't see fixing it being worth the effort. What effort? The card has already been fixed. Continuing to ban it is just bureaucratic inertia. Andrew

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 00:04:22 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: >"Is your answer (to this question) 'no' if and only if you will not >bleed me next turn?" This question wouldn't work. If you answer "No" then you're saying that your answer is not conditional on the bleed and so you can do what you like. I'm fairly sure you need two clauses to make a catch-22, as in my example. >want to fix Monocle, you have to have subjective rules (like "Questions >must be succint" or "Questions must have a single clause", etc.) which >are difficult to enforce, especially for an international game like this >one. That's why I suggested a word limit - that's fairly objective. But you don't need a Monocle to ask verbose questions of the other players. Deal-making questions of the form, "If I do this then will you do that?" are routine. It would be feasible for negotiations of this kind to eat up the game entirely. Games like Diplomacy and Civilisation usually have formal time-limits for negotiation and trading for this reason. VTES just seems to depend upon informal custom and peer pressure to keep this under control. In the last resort, you'd have to use a judge's discretion to shut someone up and the Monocle is little different. It's no reason to ban the card. Andrew

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 17:34:43 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 02:15:43 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>"Questions must be understood" is not suitable, of course, because of >>those momos who would simply say "Uh, I don't understand" to every >>question. > >The requirement for clarity is so self-evident as to not need stating. >Someone who pretended not to understand a clear question would be >given short shrift by any competent judge. How about when they don't speak English and you are asking the question in English? come on, come on, use your HEAD, man. It's not possible to positively determine comprehension. Therefore it doesn't belong as a criteria. >>I just can't see fixing it being worth the effort. > >What effort? The card has already been fixed. Continuing to ban it >is just bureaucratic inertia. Current errata was obviously insufficient, since the card was promptly broken again and then banned. So much for "already been fixed"; HAND. Yammering on like a bozo about "bureaucratic inertia" is simply being a bozo, and should be appropriately ignored. So I do. It seems obvious you have little to no appreciation for the complications involved in creating/designing a game of this nature. While I'll admit that I don't have any special knowledge of it either, I can certainly see that attempting to just offhandedly fix difficult problems does nothing more than create the same problem, but in a different form. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 02:15:43 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > > >"Questions must be understood" is not suitable, of course, because of > >those momos who would simply say "Uh, I don't understand" to every > >question. > > The requirement for clarity is so self-evident as to not need stating. > Someone who pretended not to understand a clear question would be > given short shrift by any competent judge. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew. Can't you understand that a subjective rule is an inappropriate rule? One person's clear and consise is another person's confusing. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > [my "broken" question] > >"Is your answer (to this question) 'no' if and only if you will not > >bleed me next turn?" > >I think I'm beginning to be convinced that Monocle is better off banned, > >much for the same reasons that Madness of the Bard is banned. If you > >want to fix Monocle, you have to have subjective rules (like "Questions > >must be succint" or "Questions must have a single clause", etc.) which > >are difficult to enforce, especially for an international game like this > >one. > > Yes. Partly my point; the other part being that it's just impossible > to properly limit. Your question above is 15 words; I could trim it > down to 10 and fit within Andrew's suggested limits. ("next turn" is > unnecessary, as the Monocle provides those limits. "if and only if" > is somewhat redundant and could be shortened to "if", and there's your > 5 words.) Well, it's not logically redundant. Your propsed question would be: "Is your answer 'no' if you will not bleed me?" which is logically equivalent to: "If you bleed me, then your answer was 'yes'" So their answer can be 'yes' and they're not required to do anything. > >I think that if people want to try real hard to give themselves an > >advantage, however marginal, then they will. I fear that people might > >try to take advantage of being allowed to mix Sabbat and Sabbat War > >crypt cards, for example, and have some sort of scheme for knowing how > >big, what clan, etc. their vampires are. Or have all V:TES Wakes and > >non-V:TES other cards, to always know when you're drawing a Wake. It's > > Sure, but does it matter? I mix crypt cards all the time, and in some > cases it's not difficult to know by looking which vampire is coming up > next, although completely unintentionally. But I've never had a > situation where it really HELPED me significantly, nor do I think I > could create one. Well, you can say "hey, I know my next vampire's a big fatty, so I won't bother spending a pool to try to get it out". That's not hugely significant, but it's an advantage that the other players might not have. > Library cards? Well, ok, the theory comes forth that you have all > Jyhad Wakes, for example. Or in a S&B deck, all Jyhad stealth so that > you always know when to blow the modifier early and draw into your > stealth. But how often does such a situation arise that you need to > KNOW what your deck is about to give you? And how often is it going > to be exactly what you prepared to "mark"? Sometimes you may have > plenty of FA, but you need an intercept card; if you've marked your > deck such that you can distinguish FA, then you're in trouble (unless > the top card is an FA). But, again, it's an advantage. If it helps you win one game out of 100, that's more than you would have won otherwise. And if people think they can get this advantage, and if it's important enough to them, then they'll do it. > It's tempting to try it locally once and see whether it matters, but I > find it difficult to imagine it could. Just too random a > circumstance, and remember that you can't stop and closely inspect > cardbacks either; you have to be able to tell at a glance. That might take a lot of practice, but it can easily be done. > >the kind of crap that goes on in Magic all the time; I think those > > ...See my rant in the message to Tom Kassel. It ain't just Magic > players; it's found across all games. I think it's most prominent in Magic because the stakes are so much higher. But I agree that it's a player-problem, not a game-problem. > Well, the Govern situation only applies when they're transferring OFF > of the vampire, as otherwise it will come out, and then you can say > "Hey, Gilbert couldn't have Governed to Mariel!" Correct. But when they do the Govern, you don't know which way they're using it. > I don't see a solution that can ease your fears, though. Asking the > judge to check Governs is insulting at best to the rest of us who > DON'T cheat; I don't see why it should be insulting. As you say, the problem is not confined to Magic. If asking the judge to check someone's vampire is the _only_ way to know that they're not cheating, then that's what should be done. > and causes some serious grief for the judge who might be > running all over the place for a LOT of things; i mean, can you tell > how many pool someone has when it's in a big pile? Can you count up > and see 30 by a glance? He could easily have 32 in there and it > wouldn't be noticeable; and two pool matters. But will you stop > before every game and count your prey's and predator's pool? Ugh. If you think people would do that, then you should absolutely count their pool, even if just mentally. I refuse to let people at my tables use dice to stand for pool, because I know how easy it is to cheat (even if accidentally) with them. Dice can be knocked over. Counters stay in their little pile. > Forcing people to reveal their Governs? Ugly disadvantage if you > intend to actually get the Governed vamp out; even worse if you have > to show that it's a dupe of one of your current vamps and you ARE just > going for blood gain. Just damn messy. I don't think it's really significant. We've been playing it that way (erroneously) in Madison, and I think we generally agree that we _prefer_ revealing to not revealing. > I think that since presently, there are no significant prizes, there > really is no incentive to cheat. I'm sure it happens now, but the > instances will be QUITE rare, and the risk -is- fairly high; someone > caught DELIBERATELY pulling a stunt like that, for whatever reason, > could get the boot from all tournaments in the future (at least, I'd > sure as hell ban him from any *I* ran). You can't really prove that it's deliberate. "Oh, I misread Mariana, I thought she was a 6, sorry." Plus, if you never get the vampire out, if you just use Govern for pool gain, NO ONE will EVER find out. Some people will do whatever they can to win, regardless of the value of the prize. I don't profess to understand that mentality. But being aware of it, I will do whatever I can (within the rules) to make sure that everyone's on the up and up. > I don't think it's something we need to worry about until/if we > actually start getting SIGNIFICANT prizes for these tournaments. THEN > we can expect the roadkill to come out of the woodwork, and we can do > what we need to in order to de-sludge them. Oh, like flaming them on the newsgroup? Seriously, not to pour salt on old wounds, but the threads about me leaving that tournament early were full of comparisons with Magic mentalities. The "bad people" already play V:TES; the (comparitavely) poor prizes don't keep them out because every card game has its "bad people". I don't think many people consider me a "bad person", but when I did a "bad" thing, everyone got incensed. We need to wake up and realize that the V:TES world isn't some kind of card game utopia. People are going to be unscrupulous, and we have to know what we're doing about it NOW. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 00:04:22 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: > > >"Is your answer (to this question) 'no' if and only if you will not > >bleed me next turn?" > > This question wouldn't work. If you answer "No" then you're saying > that your answer is not conditional on the bleed and so you can do > what you like. I'm fairly sure you need two clauses to make a > catch-22, as in my example. The question is wrong. It should say "yes" instead of "no". Let me spell it out: If the answer is 'yes': Then you will not bleed me. If the answer is 'no': Since the question is logically equivalent to "Is you answer 'no' if and only if you will bleed me next turn" then a 'no' answer _negates_ this equivalence, and so 'no' is equivalent to _not_ bleeding me next turn. > That's why I suggested a word limit - that's fairly objective. In which language? A 5-word question in one language might be a 15-word question in another. > But you don't need a Monocle to ask verbose questions of the other > players. Deal-making questions of the form, "If I do this then will > you do that?" are routine. Of course, these are not binding. > It would be feasible for negotiations of > this kind to eat up the game entirely. Games like Diplomacy and > Civilisation usually have formal time-limits for negotiation and > trading for this reason. VTES just seems to depend upon informal > custom and peer pressure to keep this under control. In the last > resort, you'd have to use a judge's discretion to shut someone up and > the Monocle is little different. It's no reason to ban the card. You can use the judge to force someone to continue with their turn, regardless of the reason they're delaying. The two situations are completely unrelated. [ quoted text not captured ]

>And there's another approach. A question like this is not a valid >yes/no question as the only sensible answer is "maybe". I'm not sure >what the actual Monocle text is, but the online text goes wrong with >"If the question pertains to the future, he or she must abide by the >answer if possible". The future is hypothetical and uncertain and so >one cannot ask valid yes/no questions about it. If you bar this >nonsense then I doubt that you need a word limit. One of the few times I ever got into a heated argument with one of our local group was over Monocle. My contention is that any question about the future has no meaningful answer, so you can never force anyone to abide by whatever answer they give, which is what people were using it for. The only meaningful questions are questions based on what is currently known.

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:46:51 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >How about when they don't speak English and you are asking the >question in English? Please explain how the game can be played at all in this case. The cards are in English. The rules are in English. The VEKN rules are in English. It's a de facto requirement that all players understand this language. >come on, come on, use your HEAD, man. It's not possible to positively >determine comprehension. Therefore it doesn't belong as a criteria. The game cannot work if the players do not explain themselves clearly. When players take game actions, they must make it clear what they are doing, especially when the components do not make this obvious, e.g. the choice between the basic and superior effect on a card. How this is done is left up to the players but there must be minimum standards. If a player failed to make himself sufficiently clear, a judge would have to take him to task. >Current errata was obviously insufficient, since the card was promptly >broken again and then banned. It appears that this was all done long before the current rules team took over. Given that WotC made such a hash of the game during that era, it's no surprise that they would make a hash of this too. Unless you can cite clear evidence of what went on, I'm inclined to dismiss these apocryphal tales as antediluvian chaos. >It seems obvious you have little to no appreciation for the >complications involved in creating/designing a game of this nature. The Monocle of Clarity was designed, tested and approved by the original design team led by Richard Garfield. Who banned it and how many successful games have they designed? Andrew

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:10:42 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: >The question is wrong. It should say "yes" instead of "no". This still doesn't work for me. An answer of "no" denies a relationship between the answer and the bleed. In which case, one can bleed as one pleases. >> That's why I suggested a word limit - that's fairly objective. > >In which language? A 5-word question in one language might be a 15-word >question in another. "Yes" and "No" are English words, right? If people want to translate the game into other languages, they are free to make adjustments as appropriate. >> But you don't need a Monocle to ask verbose questions of the other >> players. Deal-making questions of the form, "If I do this then will >> you do that?" are routine. > >Of course, these are not binding. Deals are somewhat binding in the case of Succubus Club. And we are told that other deals between the players are required to be open and clear. My point is that players cannot simply hold the floor because they feel like speaking at length. There must be practical limits and currently these will be enforced in a subjective way by a judge. >You can use the judge to force someone to continue with their turn, >regardless of the reason they're delaying. The two situations are >completely unrelated. In all cases, a judge is required in the last resort to ensure good order. A player who tried to abuse Monocle by reciting some 10,000 word horror should be slapped down by the judge in the same way as a player who tried to negotiate deal terms at similar length. A player who speaks in incomprehensible riddles should be ignored or expelled from the game if he persists. Such sanctions rarely arise in practise because most players will behave themselves and play the game in a sensible manner. The judge is there to deal with the occasional drunk or asshole. Monocle would not cause any difficulty once players understand that silly abuse will not be permitted. I would not hesitate to play with the card myself but I've yet to acquire a copy. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 15:10:42 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: > > >The question is wrong. It should say "yes" instead of "no". > > This still doesn't work for me. An answer of "no" denies a > relationship between the answer and the bleed. In which case, one can > bleed as one pleases. If I say "If I don't rush one of your vampires, then will you not bleed me?" and you say "no", you're not denying the relationship between the two clauses. You're saying that the statement: If I don't rush one of your vampires, then you will not bleed me is false. Which logically means that the statement "I will not rush you and you will bleed me" (the negation of the above statement) is true. Now, your counter argument to this might be "well, you shouldn't apply logical rules to English statements." But this is the kind of trap Monocle can create; not only a logical trap which forces someone to do something, but an interpretive trap where the same question and answer can have vastly different effects depending on the judge, location, etc. That's unacceptable. > >> That's why I suggested a word limit - that's fairly objective. > > > >In which language? A 5-word question in one language might be a 15-word > >question in another. > > "Yes" and "No" are English words, right? If people want to translate > the game into other languages, they are free to make adjustments as > appropriate. Then it's not objective, is it? Maybe you should go look up "objective" in a dictionary. Maybe it's me. Maybe "objective" means something different in American English. > >> But you don't need a Monocle to ask verbose questions of the other > >> players. Deal-making questions of the form, "If I do this then will > >> you do that?" are routine. > > > >Of course, these are not binding. > > Deals are somewhat binding in the case of Succubus Club. ...which is also banned. We are talking about tournaments here, Andrew. If you want to require everyone to stand on their head while they play in your group, feel free. > And we are > told that other deals between the players are required to be open and > clear. But they're still not binding. > My point is that players cannot simply hold the floor because > they feel like speaking at length. There must be practical limits and > currently these will be enforced in a subjective way by a judge. But specifically in the case of Monocle, it wouldn't be inherently disruptive to ask a long-winded question. This wouldn't require the intervention of the judge to get things moving along. > >You can use the judge to force someone to continue with their turn, > >regardless of the reason they're delaying. The two situations are > >completely unrelated. > > In all cases, a judge is required in the last resort to ensure good > order. A player who tried to abuse Monocle by reciting some 10,000 > word horror should be slapped down by the judge in the same way as a > player who tried to negotiate deal terms at similar length. A player > who speaks in incomprehensible riddles should be ignored or expelled > from the game if he persists. It is pretty clear that you can abuse Monocle with questions containing fewer than 30 words. Spare me your pointless hyperbole. > Such sanctions rarely arise in practise because most players will > behave themselves and play the game in a sensible manner. The judge > is there to deal with the occasional drunk or asshole. "Asshole" can cover a lot of people (and it's subjective; maybe you should look that one up, too). Many people are just trying to win by taking advantages where they see them. If Return to Innocence were still legal, people would be playing broken RtI decks. If repeat actions weren't disallowed, people would be playing the Gangrel loop decks. Other people may condemn these actions as "cheezy" and the people as "assholes", but they're just trying to win; how can we fault them, and not the game, or at the very least the cards which cause the problem? The judge cannot (and should not) get in the way of someone who is trying (within the rules, of course) trying to win the game. If they are being disruptive then it is an entirely different story. > Monocle would > not cause any difficulty once players understand that silly abuse will > not be permitted. The problem (do you even understand what I'm trying to say?) is that "silly abuse" is subjective. Where do you draw the line between silly abuse and a reasonable use of the card? How do you _define_ the "correct" way to deal with complicated or multi-clause questions? If you prohibit those, how do you define "complicated" and "multi-clause" in a way which is universally enforcable? Monocle + Tournaments = a big ol' can of worms. > I would not hesitate to play with the card myself > but I've yet to acquire a copy. Well, maybe I should send you a little care package with a Monocle and a Madness of the Bard. When's your birthday? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 00:53:55 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Thu, 11 Jan 2001 13:46:51 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>How about when they don't speak English and you are asking the >>question in English? > >Please explain how the game can be played at all in this case. The >cards are in English. The rules are in English. The VEKN rules are >in English. It's a de facto requirement that all players understand >this language. Oh, dear me, that's not so at ALL. SURELY you know better. Just because someone is capable of understanding the cards does not mean they are capable of understanding a question posed to them in the language, especially one that might be slightly complicated? And if someone was taught by another person, they might not ever have had to read the rules, the VEKN rules, or the cards in the first place. That would certainly put a bit of a crimp in the Europeans' game, wouldn't it? I doubt they are ALL totally fluent in English. >>come on, come on, use your HEAD, man. It's not possible to positively >>determine comprehension. Therefore it doesn't belong as a criteria. > >The game cannot work if the players do not explain themselves clearly. The game can be played in near-silence, actually. The cards explain nearly everything; the only things that would require speech are the cardless-action statements like "i bleed", "i hunt", "i diablerize", and a few others. >When players take game actions, they must make it clear what they are >doing, especially when the components do not make this obvious, e.g. >the choice between the basic and superior effect on a card. How this single word: "inferior" or "superior". We played with someone from Poland. His comprehension of English was excellent. He didn't speak it nearly as well, but he was able to make himself understood easily by such mechanics as above. >is done is left up to the players but there must be minimum standards. >If a player failed to make himself sufficiently clear, a judge would >have to take him to task. If a judge were to base Andrezj's English fluency on how well he spoke, he would be making a grave error. But until you've been around him for awhile, you don't REALIZE that he understands it almost perfectly. I ask you again; how do you PROVE comprehension? And I answer again; you can't. >>Current errata was obviously insufficient, since the card was promptly >>broken again and then banned. > >It appears that this was all done long before the current rules team >took over. Given that WotC made such a hash of the game during that >era, it's no surprise that they would make a hash of this too. Unless >you can cite clear evidence of what went on, I'm inclined to dismiss >these apocryphal tales as antediluvian chaos. Well, of COURSE you're so inclined. But that doesn't change the facts of What Has Gone Before. >>It seems obvious you have little to no appreciation for the >>complications involved in creating/designing a game of this nature. > >The Monocle of Clarity was designed, tested and approved by the >original design team led by Richard Garfield. Who banned it and how >many successful games have they designed? Even Michael Jordan misses shots. So much for THAT paragraph. (Actually, judging from the timing (1995, 5/30) and the fact that it quotes 'RTR', i wonder if it might not have been BANNED by the original design team, which would really shoot holes in that argument, now wouldn't it? Its not being reprinted in V:TES lends some credence to this.) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:01:36 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: >If I say "If I don't rush one of your vampires, then will you not bleed >me?" and you say "no", you're not denying the relationship between the >two clauses. This is a different question - your third attempt. The effect of saying "no" in this case is that, if the questioner doesn't rush the answerer, then the latter must bleed him. So what? >Now, your counter argument to this might be "well, you shouldn't apply >logical rules to English statements." But this is the kind of trap >Monocle can create; not only a logical trap which forces someone to do >something, but an interpretive trap where the same question and answer >can have vastly different effects depending on the judge, location, >etc. That's unacceptable. I've had little trouble sorting out your questions. But in awkward cases, the burden of proof is upon the questioner. To make the Monocle stick, he has to accuse the respondent of cheating if the answer is not honest. It therefore behooves the questioner to make his questions clear rather than obscure. >>>> That's why I suggested a word limit - that's fairly objective. >Then it's not objective, is it? It's close enough. You could nitpick the word-counting procedure but the foreign language objection is ridiculous. In the first place, someone who shows up at a tournament and wants to converse throughout in Chinese, say, has a lot more to worry about than sticking to a word limit for the Monocle. And in the second, there's little reason that you couldn't use the same word limit for all if you wanted. >> Deals are somewhat binding in the case of Succubus Club. > >...which is also banned. We are talking about tournaments here, >Andrew. If you want to require everyone to stand on their head while >they play in your group, feel free. I'm talking about the VEKN rules. I'm not sure what you're talking about as the Succubus Club is not banned by these rules - perhaps you're the one that should be looking things up. I can understand why your group might ban it too as it is similar in nature to the Monocle of Clarity. But do the purists of the VEKN Inquisition know of your heresy? >"Asshole" can cover a lot of people (and it's subjective; maybe you >should look that one up, too). Many people are just trying to win by >taking advantages where they see them. ... Other people may condemn >these actions as "cheezy" and the people as "assholes", but they're >just trying to win; how can we fault them, and not the game, >or at the very least the cards which cause the >problem? The judge cannot (and should not) get in the way of someone >who is trying (within the rules, of course) trying to win the game. If >they are being disruptive then it is an entirely different story. Deciding what's being disruptive and what's just being cheesy is down to the good sense of the players and must necessarily be enforced at some point by a judge. I think the problem here is that, because of the common WotC background, VTES has attracted more than its share of Magic players. The tournaments for that game train you to be an obnoxious asshole and/or rules lawyer - see one of Derek's rants for details. Things are different in other games. In L5R, folk who try to abuse cards with silly tricks are routinely dismissed by liberal application of the "wanker rule". It seems to work - L5R tournaments attract huge numbers of players. >The problem (do you even understand what I'm trying to say?) is that >"silly abuse" is subjective. Where do you draw the line between silly >abuse and a reasonable use of the card? How do you _define_ the >"correct" way to deal with complicated or multi-clause questions? If >you prohibit those, how do you define "complicated" and "multi-clause" >in a way which is universally enforcable? If you cut out the self-referential nonsense by enforcing the "questions about questions" ruling then you probably don't need to. But if you want belt and braces then use a word limit. >Well, maybe I should send you a little care package with a >Monocle... I was talking to the UK's best singles dealer at the Card Mart yesterday. He doesn't carry VTES cards but I suggested that he ought to and he seemed interested. And I'm planning a sealed deck league at the club with the box of Jyhad starters that I've been sitting on for some time. No doubt I'll pick up a Monocle from some such source at some point. Hang on to yours in case you get a chance to use it again. Andrew

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:06:36 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >That would certainly put a bit of a crimp in the Europeans' game, >wouldn't it? I doubt they are ALL totally fluent in English. Well there's always l'exception française but English was the lingua franca at the recent European Championships even though there were few English or Americans there. >The game can be played in near-silence, actually. The cards explain >nearly everything; the only things that would require speech are the >cardless-action statements like "i bleed", "i hunt", "i diablerize", >and a few others. This is not my experience. Playing with Madness of the Bard makes one appreciate how much speech is necessary to make the game function. Try conducting a combat without speaking, for example. >If a judge were to base Andrezj's English fluency on how well he >spoke, he would be making a grave error. But until you've been around >him for awhile, you don't REALIZE that he understands it almost >perfectly. I ask you again; how do you PROVE comprehension? And I >answer again; you can't. You wandering a long way from your original dumb assertion - that a smart-alec could make a mockery of the game by repeatedly saying "I don't understand" to a clear question. Who judges your tournaments? Are they really so lame that they couldn't rumble this? >(Actually, judging from the timing (1995, 5/30) and the fact that it >quotes 'RTR', i wonder if it might not have been BANNED by the >original design team, which would really shoot holes in that argument, >now wouldn't it? Its not being reprinted in V:TES lends some credence >to this.) The main credits for VTES go to Paul Peterson, Matthew Burke and Brian Campbell. These would be the same bright sparks that changed the card backs and suggested their own variant rules which have been completely ignored. Where are they now? Andrew

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 22:43:36 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:06:36 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>That would certainly put a bit of a crimp in the Europeans' game, >>wouldn't it? I doubt they are ALL totally fluent in English. > >Well there's always l'exception française but English was the lingua >franca at the recent European Championships even though there were few >English or Americans there. And again, how many of them were fluent in it? I am betting that English was the only COMMON language they all shared. Neither of us were there, so we have no idea. But I would expect that even broken English is far superior to nothing at all. >>The game can be played in near-silence, actually. The cards explain >>nearly everything; the only things that would require speech are the >>cardless-action statements like "i bleed", "i hunt", "i diablerize", >>and a few others. > >This is not my experience. Playing with Madness of the Bard makes one >appreciate how much speech is necessary to make the game function. >Try conducting a combat without speaking, for example. Again, you can handle it by simple words: "before range?" "maneuver?" "strike?" "press?" It is not difficult to use gestures to convey "wait!", either, if you have an effect that takes precedence. All of these are appropriate to expect someone who plays the game to know, by the way, no matter what language they speak. >>If a judge were to base Andrezj's English fluency on how well he >>spoke, he would be making a grave error. But until you've been around >>him for awhile, you don't REALIZE that he understands it almost >>perfectly. I ask you again; how do you PROVE comprehension? And I >>answer again; you can't. > >You wandering a long way from your original dumb assertion - that a >smart-alec could make a mockery of the game by repeatedly saying "I Just because a smart-alec does not speak fluent English does not make them any less capable of being a smart-alec. I don't see much of a "wander", myself; i see a valid issue, especially with the number of countries' borders this game crosses. >don't understand" to a clear question. Who judges your tournaments? >Are they really so lame that they couldn't rumble this? If a native American (note small 'n'), especially a well-known player, attempted this, he would obviously be laughed out of the tournament... but my point remains. How would you deal with someone in the above situation? Declare that they were obviously faking it? >>(Actually, judging from the timing (1995, 5/30) and the fact that it >>quotes 'RTR', i wonder if it might not have been BANNED by the >>original design team, which would really shoot holes in that argument, >>now wouldn't it? Its not being reprinted in V:TES lends some credence >>to this.) > >The main credits for VTES go to Paul Peterson, Matthew Burke and Brian >Campbell. These would be the same bright sparks that changed the card >backs and suggested their own variant rules which have been completely >ignored. Where are they now? But this quite ignores the original point; who were the RTR who originally banned Monocle, and were the three names you mention part of the original design team? I mean, it's an easy call to not reprint a banned card when you're arranging a reprint, even if you weren't the ones who banned it in the first place. For example, I doubt we'll EVER see a reprint of Return to Innocence. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:58:18 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >Again, you can handle it by simple words: "before range?" >"maneuver?" "strike?" "press?" It is not difficult to use gestures >to convey "wait!", either, if you have an effect that takes >precedence. It'd be interesting to know how the francophones do this stuff. >>>If a judge were to base Andrezj's English fluency on how well he >>>spoke, he would be making a grave error. But until you've been around >>>him for awhile, you don't REALIZE that he understands it almost >>>perfectly. I ask you again; how do you PROVE comprehension? And I >>>answer again; you can't. It's impossible to prove anything to someone as ornery as you. But a judge doesn't have to prove anything - he has the privilege of deciding the matter for himself. There will always be awkward situations - I saw one at a tournament yesterday. The judge called time and stopped a game but the players didn't realise that they were under the gun. The judge said he'd given them a time warning but it hadn't registered. The rights and wrongs of the matter aren't important - my point is that feathers were ruffled and someone had to lose out. The call was made and the matter soon forgotten. So it goes. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > > On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:01:36 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: > > >If I say "If I don't rush one of your vampires, then will you not bleed > >me?" and you say "no", you're not denying the relationship between the > >two clauses. > > This is a different question - your third attempt. This was not an attempt at a "broken" question. It was an example of a question which uses logical connectives (like "and", "or", "if...then...", etc.) to combine clauses. You had said: > This still doesn't work for me. An answer of "no" denies a > relationship between the answer and the bleed. In which case, one can > bleed as one pleases. implying that a "no" answer to a multi-clause question denied the connection between the clauses instead of simply negating the truth value of the statement. That is the statement I was refuting, and, as usual, you were wrong and completely dodged the issue when you were called on it. This is really getting tiresome. > The effect of > saying "no" in this case is that, if the questioner doesn't rush the > answerer, then the latter must bleed him. No, you're wrong. The effect of a "no" answer is what I said it was in my previous post. > >> Deals are somewhat binding in the case of Succubus Club. > > > >...which is also banned. We are talking about tournaments here, > >Andrew. If you want to require everyone to stand on their head while > >they play in your group, feel free. > > I'm talking about the VEKN rules. You got me here. I'm not sure why I thought SC was banned... I think it was banned a long time ago and it got unbanned during the couple years I stopped playing. See? I said something wrong, you pointed it out, and I admitted my mistake. > >"Asshole" can cover a lot of people (and it's subjective; maybe you > >should look that one up, too). Many people are just trying to win by > >taking advantages where they see them. ... Other people may condemn > >these actions as "cheezy" and the people as "assholes", but they're > >just trying to win; how can we fault them, and not the game, > >or at the very least the cards which cause the > >problem? The judge cannot (and should not) get in the way of someone > >who is trying (within the rules, of course) trying to win the game. If > >they are being disruptive then it is an entirely different story. > > Deciding what's being disruptive and what's just being cheesy is down > to the good sense of the players and must necessarily be enforced at > some point by a judge. There's a mile of difference between disruptive and cheesy. Asking one question, no matter how convoluted (notwithstanding your pointless hyperbole), cannot be considered disruptive without some extenuating circumstances. Just because it would be a strategy that people wouldn't like doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed. > I think the problem here is that, because of > the common WotC background, VTES has attracted more than its share of > Magic players. The tournaments for that game train you to be an > obnoxious asshole and/or rules lawyer - see one of Derek's rants for > details. I played tournament Magic myself for over a year; I know what it's like. Being an asshole or not is in the eye of the beholder. If I was playing against someone in a tournament and they made a minor mistake, I would 100% definitely call over a judge and call them on it. It might have been something minor like accidentally drawing an extra card, but (depending on the tournament) that could make them lose the game. The point is that the stakes are higher, and so it matters more. As for being a rules lawyer, if I understand the rules better than my opponent, then that's an advantage I can exploit to win the game, even they have a deck which is better than mine. _None_ of these things are restricted to V:TES (or any other game) except for the level of the prizes. _Because_ the prizes are worth so much (millions of dollars if you add over all tournaments for a year), you _have_ to do whatever it takes within the rules to win. Now, there are some people who cheat, and that's certainly not acceptable. But if there are rules loopholes, and I can exploit them, why should there be anything wrong with that? Just because you want to have a casual game where you can "enforce fun" by keeping people from doing "cheesy" things doesn't mean that you can do this in a tournament setting. > Things are different in other games. In L5R, folk who try > to abuse cards with silly tricks are routinely dismissed by liberal > application of the "wanker rule". It seems to work - L5R tournaments > attract huge numbers of players. Well, that sounds like a game I wouldn't want to play in tournaments. If I were playing by the rules, but got punished for doing something that other people found "abusive" or "silly", I would be very upset. In V:TES, people used to do lots of things that were generally considered "abusive": playing Stealth Bleed, playing loop decks, using broken cards like RtI or ToR3... But instead of leaving the game as is and shaming people out of doing things we didn't like, we changed the game for the better. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu "You seem to think you know it all Let me tell you something, you can't win." -- Pat McGee Band

James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote in message news:3A63A773...@math.wisc.edu... > > > > This still doesn't work for me. An answer of "no" denies a > > relationship between the answer and the bleed. In which case, one can > > bleed as one pleases. > All of a sudden I am reminded of an old episode/book (I don't remember which though) of Star Trek where Spock is sentenced to death, and is allowed to make one statement. If the statement is true, he will have his head cut off. If the statement is false, he will be hanged. What does Spock say????? "I will be hanged" What does oAFLORD say????? "I will not use Monocle for fear of losing friends" oAFLORD aka Thomas Kuster Prince of Caledon "Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe." John Milton Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 1.

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> a écrit dans le message news: E35A78255887FEC3.D9B8EC48...@lp.airnews.net... > On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:58:18 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > > >Again, you can handle it by simple words: "before range?" > >"maneuver?" "strike?" "press?" It is not difficult to use gestures > >to convey "wait!", either, if you have an effect that takes > >precedence. > > It'd be interesting to know how the francophones do this stuff. (snip) you really want to know ? we use a mix of french and english words to stick to the cards original wording "rien avant les manoeuvres ? très bien, je reste au contact. tu manoeuvres ? bon, voila mon strike : doigt dans l'oeil. je ne préviens pas. pas d'additionels. Et toi ? ben, pas de press. tu presses pas non plus. fini. " sometime it's a little different... "ah, immortal grapple... Merde alors... okay ben pif, un point. Ah, pushing the limit, ben voyons. okay, je prends 4. pas de blur... ouf ! Psyche ? quoi Psyche ? aaaaaaargh" we also use a lot of different words for hunting, bleeding or strinking with hands for one, mainly to play a humoristic way. Sometime we all end laughing when very stupid things are said. Jyhad is always fun here. reyda

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> a écrit dans le message news: 8057305FDEC3EAEA.424F3C9D...@lp.airnews.net... > On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 12:01:36 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: > > >If I say "If I don't rush one of your vampires, then will you not bleed > >me?" and you say "no", you're not denying the relationship between the > >two clauses. > > This is a different question - your third attempt. The effect of > saying "no" in this case is that, if the questioner doesn't rush the > answerer, then the latter must bleed him. So what? > That sounds funny ! in France, all the players i know always used the monocle for very simple questions, short sentences. we used to ask : "can you deflect my next bleed ?", "do you have any Wake in hand ?" or "how many prevention cards do you have in hand ?". We almost never asked questions about the future !! becaus we knew that a lot of thing do change due to intercept and card cycling: you can't predict what will happen next turn. besides this, it's foolish to ask "will you stop me if i bleed", since the response is "yes, i will do anything i can to stay in the game and you're gonna sweat a lot before you gain those 6 pool, if you ever do". I think we used the Monocle the right way... reyda

>> >> But you don't need a Monocle to ask verbose questions of the other >> >> players. Deal-making questions of the form, "If I do this then will >> >> you do that?" are routine. >> > >> >Of course, these are not binding. >> >> Deals are somewhat binding in the case of Succubus Club. > >...which is also banned. We are talking about tournaments here, >Andrew. If you want to require everyone to stand on their head while >they play in your group, feel free. ?? To the best of my knowledge, Succubus Club isn't banned...right? Halcyan 2

On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 09:50:56 +0100, "Reyda" <re...@noos.fr> wrote: > >"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> a écrit dans le message news: >E35A78255887FEC3.D9B8EC48...@lp.airnews.net... >> On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:58:18 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >> >> >Again, you can handle it by simple words: "before range?" >> >"maneuver?" "strike?" "press?" It is not difficult to use gestures >> >to convey "wait!", either, if you have an effect that takes >> >precedence. >> >> It'd be interesting to know how the francophones do this stuff. >(snip) > >you really want to know ? >we use a mix of french and english words to stick to the cards original >wording > >"rien avant les manoeuvres ? >trčs bien, je reste au contact. tu manoeuvres ? >bon, voila mon strike : doigt dans l'oeil. note of amusement: why does so many areas have people getting punched or poked in the eye when the strike is only for 1 point of damage? ("poke", around here, means someone is using claws, but still. =) just funny, it seems, that the particular turn of phrase seems to cross language barriers. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 23:52:22 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:58:18 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >>>>If a judge were to base Andrezj's English fluency on how well he >>>>spoke, he would be making a grave error. But until you've been around >>>>him for awhile, you don't REALIZE that he understands it almost >>>>perfectly. I ask you again; how do you PROVE comprehension? And I >>>>answer again; you can't. > >It's impossible to prove anything to someone as ornery as you. But a Not impossible. But if you keep dancing 'round the issue instead of tackling it head on, you might find it quite difficult. >judge doesn't have to prove anything - he has the privilege of >deciding the matter for himself. There will always be awkward >situations - I saw one at a tournament yesterday. The judge called >time and stopped a game but the players didn't realise that they were >under the gun. The judge said he'd given them a time warning but it >hadn't registered. The rights and wrongs of the matter aren't >important - my point is that feathers were ruffled and someone had to >lose out. The call was made and the matter soon forgotten. So it >goes. The matter will not be 'soon forgotten' if any significant prizes ever show up. As it stands now, I can shrug off not getting some extra boosters of Sabbat War from a tournament, and so can most players; if I couldn't, I wouldn't play the wack decks I do. But even for a prize as low (comparatively) as $1,000? I would want to be CERTAIN that as little as possible was left to a judge's subjective opinions, to reduce any ruffled-feather potential. The Monocle doesn't belong, sorry. Witness (again) the back-and-forth between you and James Hamblin; you can -always- create questions that cause discord, and if the questionee happens to not realize the problem and call a judge over, he could end up hosed. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 09:50:56 +0100, Reyda wrote: >you really want to know ? Ben oui! Your post was most entertaining and educational. >we also use a lot of different words for hunting, bleeding or strinking with >hands for one, mainly to play a humoristic way. We get this most when we play Lunch Money. Something for the early ousts to try, perhaps. Andrew

On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:44:37 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >The matter will not be 'soon forgotten' if any significant prizes ever >show up. As it stands now, I can shrug off not getting some extra >boosters of Sabbat War from a tournament, and so can most players; if >I couldn't, I wouldn't play the wack decks I do. But even for a prize >as low (comparatively) as $1,000? I would want to be CERTAIN that as >little as possible was left to a judge's subjective opinions, to >reduce any ruffled-feather potential. We're entering the realms of fantasy here. But supposing that there were ever a VTES tournament with a prize purse this large, the Monocle would be the least of your problems. Your real problem would be dealing with the inevitable collusion and bribery. See rec.gambling.poker for details of what to expect. You get these problems as it is with Magic but VTES would be more vulnerable because it is a multi-player game and its format already encourages players to split tables. Once you have a large fungible prize then you're no longer playing for VPs or to win - you're playing for a slice of the cake instead. I recall a long thread on rgtcm in which Ryan Dancey said that FRPG would never run a serious big tournament using a multi-player format because collusion would be rife and suspicion would poison the atmosphere. He had a point. An additional problem is that the VEKN rules are one-size-fits-all. It seems that many players will only consider playing the game using the VEKN tournament rules. Banning the Monocle from all levels of play because of an occasional big money tournament is making the tail wag the dog. The big money tournaments are rare or non-existent and so should have their own house rules to suit their special circumstances. It would be like the levels of enforcement that you get in Magic. Andrew

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 19:44:19 -0600, James Hamblin wrote: >This is really getting tiresome. Agreed. Your attempts to construct your own catch-22 still depend upon using the answer in a self-referential way and so don't pass the "questions about questions" test. What is your point? >There's a mile of difference between disruptive and cheesy. Asking one >question, no matter how convoluted (notwithstanding your pointless >hyperbole), cannot be considered disruptive without some extenuating >circumstances. Just because it would be a strategy that people wouldn't >like doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed. No, the players do not get carte blanche - it's up to the judge. If someone asks a question which to which the answer is immaterial or obscure then, ipso facto, they are abusing the intent of the card. The VEKN rules give a judge the power to close loopholes as he sees fit and the player has no appeal: "The head judge is the final authority regarding card interpretations." You can squeal all you like about subjectivity but the judge gets the last word. If you continue to argue, you can be penalised. These are the rules. >Well, that sounds like a game I wouldn't want to play in tournaments. >If I were playing by the rules, but got punished for doing something >that other people found "abusive" or "silly", I would be very upset. That's probably one reason that L5R is so successful - they have an ethos of playing with honour and by the spirit of the rules. Rules-lawyers are despised and repelled and the ordinary player cheers. I don't play L5R myself but play Doomtown which comes from the same stable. The rules for that game are sloppier than I like but I just leave it to the judge to settle the fine points as they arise and concentrate upon the game's true strategy and tactics. It works. >In V:TES, people used to do lots of things that were generally >considered "abusive": playing Stealth Bleed, playing loop decks, using >broken cards like RtI or ToR3... But instead of leaving the game as is >and shaming people out of doing things we didn't like, we changed the >game for the better. Monocle of Clarity got errata too. As you said yourself, it's not clear why it is still now banned. The details are lost in the mists of time and, now that the game is being revived and there's an influx of new blood, it's time to reconsider the matter. From what you say, Succubus Club has been taken off the banned list too and so there is a precedent. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:CAC9F036FE2D863A.A98410ED...@lp.airnews.net... > for a slice of the cake instead. I recall a long thread on rgtcm in > which Ryan Dancey said that FRPG would never run a serious big Heh. I'm calling this name-droppping just to stir up bad memories. :) Xian

On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 23:29:43 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >On Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:44:37 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: > >>The matter will not be 'soon forgotten' if any significant prizes ever >>show up. As it stands now, I can shrug off not getting some extra >>boosters of Sabbat War from a tournament, and so can most players; if >>I couldn't, I wouldn't play the wack decks I do. But even for a prize >>as low (comparatively) as $1,000? I would want to be CERTAIN that as >>little as possible was left to a judge's subjective opinions, to >>reduce any ruffled-feather potential. > >We're entering the realms of fantasy here. But supposing that there There was a time when saying this about Magic, or indeed about any CCG, would have been declared "the realms of fantasy". It is hardly implausible. >were ever a VTES tournament with a prize purse this large, the Monocle >would be the least of your problems. Your real problem would be >dealing with the inevitable collusion and bribery. See >rec.gambling.poker for details of what to expect. I am familiar with r.g.p, actually, and with the situations that can occur in this sort of tournament... people going all-in on a bad hand to either win or ensure their friend did, etc. Did you know that it's just as easy to do that in an individual, one-on-one, bracket-style format? It used to happen all the time in pool tournaments, except there are so damn many ways to side bet on any given thing (and pool players WILL side bet on anything... they will flip a coin for their bankroll) that people gave it up; you never knew whether or not someone was betting that you WOULD throw it, or worse, whether BOTH of you were trying to throw it, so your best bet ended up being, oddly enough, just to play straight-up and try to win. >You get these problems as it is with Magic but VTES would be more Exactly. And there's no side betting to equalize things in Magic. >vulnerable because it is a multi-player game and its format already >encourages players to split tables. Once you have a large fungible >prize then you're no longer playing for VPs or to win - you're playing >for a slice of the cake instead. I recall a long thread on rgtcm in >which Ryan Dancey said that FRPG would never run a serious big >tournament using a multi-player format because collusion would be rife >and suspicion would poison the atmosphere. He had a point. This says something about the gamers, as opposed to something about the format. Those who are too scared to attempt to win on their own will never, in fact, win on their own... they may make small gains, but they CAN be tipped over. >An additional problem is that the VEKN rules are one-size-fits-all. >It seems that many players will only consider playing the game using >the VEKN tournament rules. Banning the Monocle from all levels of >play because of an occasional big money tournament is making the tail If you want to use the Monocle in your local group, fine. If I visit your group, I'll lightly bitch if you play the Monocle, but it is YOUR group, after all. If you visit OUR group, we'll probably let the Monocle in, but attempting to recite anything off a card, or any excessively broken or "trying-to-break-the-card" tricks, will get you politely reminded that it was banned for a reason and to try to come up with something less dorky. The Monocle is banned for good reason. But "banned" DOES, in fact, mean only tournaments, and we all know that it's only banned because of people being extra-dorky. Most people are unwilling to be extra-dorky just to beat their friends... so we give people the benefit of the doubt 'til they're extra-dorky. No such benefit is appropriate in a tournament. [Madness of the Bard will get much shorter shrift. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire table took nothing but actions to burn it once it was played. I know that PERSONALLY, I wouldn't bother speaking anymore, I'd merely tap each of my vampires in turn and point at the Madness card until the action remained unblocked and it went away.] [ quoted text not captured ]

a...@csi.com wrote: > From what you say, > Succubus Club has been taken off the banned list too and so there is a > precedent. Succubus Club has never been on the DCI's Banned List nor on the V:EKN banned list. However, a precedent does exist in Rotschreck, which was banned by the DCI (and dropped in the unlimited base set), but later dropped from the banned list by the DCI. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/

>All of a sudden I am reminded of an old episode/book (I don't remember which >though) of Star Trek where Spock is sentenced to death, and is allowed to >make one statement. If the statement is true, he will have his head cut >off. If the statement is false, he will be hanged. What does Spock >say????? > >"I will be hanged" Well, if I was in charge, I would have cut his head off AND hung him! (Either simultaneously or sequentially, either way). So since he is hanged, the statement is true (so he gets his head cut off) and don't forget he gets hanged just for the fun of it (i.e. no relation to the validity of the statement since it's true). Take that Spock! Halcyan 2

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:7B4B566F26AA3D32.EA1B36DA...@lp.airnews.net... [lots of stuff snipped] > Monocle would not cause any difficulty once players understand that > silly abuse will not be permitted. I would not hesitate to play with the > card myself but I've yet to acquire a copy. > > Andrew Give me your address and I will send you a copy. :) Kevin J. Mergen, Prince of Madison, WI (remove NOSPAM for direct reply) "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