Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
"reasonable chance"?
[ quoted text not captured ]
All these numbers are completely arbitrary anyway, so it doesn't
really matter.
Saying that, a 30% chance of a VP is still pretty good. If I had a
30% chance of scoring with Scarlett Johansson I'd not be giving up til
I had exhausted every opportunity, and even then I'd probably not
stop... :P
-- J
On May 26, 6:49 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
> On May 26, 5:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> > community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> > reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
> > My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
> > "reasonable chance"?
>
> Doesn't matter, really, since the numerical odds cannot be calculated
> in game.
>
> You're left with things like "good", "bad", "reasonable", and
> "unreasonable".
>> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/b719...http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/3db9...
Which is why I think this whole "reasonable" clause should be taken
out and replaced with something stating something like players should
play to win, maximize victory points and stay alive for as long as
possible (which is a way of trying to achieve another 0.5VP and get
the opportunity to get more if something happens).
On May 26, 12:49 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
> On May 26, 5:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> > community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> > reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
> > My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
> > "reasonable chance"?
>
> Doesn't matter, really, since the numerical odds cannot be calculated
> in game.
Well, sometimes, they can.
Suppose you know your prey has nothing to deflect (or Investigate)
your bleed. But you need Conditioning + Daring the Dawn to oust her.
However, without that Conditioning + Daring, your predator will oust
you if you take the action (100% chance, since you're on 1 pool and he
has a bleeder who'll oust you).
Your deck contains only 1 copy of each of these cards.
Suppose your library contains 2 cards. The odds of ousting your prey
are close to 100%
Suppose your library contains 3 cards. The odds of ousting your prey
are close to 33%.
Suppose your library contains 4 cards. The odds of ousting your prey
are down to 17%.
5 cards, 10%.
10 cards, 2%.
Of course, this is an exageration. Things aren't that clear most of
the time.
On May 26, 5:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
Well,as when you sit down for a game of VTES, you have a 20% chance of
winning (i.e. it is a 5 player game, all things being equal you have a
1/5 chance of winning), that seems like a rather high bar. And just
some crap that someone is making up.
% chance is irrelevant. And coming up with a "percentage" chance is
just trying to game the system, as you can't determine a % chance
while in the middle of a game (or after the game either).
If you have a reasonable chance of improving your standing (which
includes surviving for .5VP or withdrawing for .5VP), you must attempt
to do so. If you don't, you don't.
And as noted *many* times, if you can meaningfully interact with the
table, you are, in all likelyhood, not in a lost position. As being
able to meaningfully interact with the table means that even if you
have no reasonable chance to oust your prey, you still have a
reasonabe chance of surviving (+.5VP) or figuring out a way to
withdraw (+.5VP).
-Peter
> Well, sometimes, they can.
> Suppose you know your prey has nothing to deflect (or Investigate)
> your bleed. But you need Conditioning + Daring the Dawn to oust her.
> However, without that Conditioning + Daring, your predator will oust
> you if you take the action (100% chance, since you're on 1 pool and he
> has a bleeder who'll oust you).
> Your deck contains only 1 copy of each of these cards.
>
> Suppose your library contains 2 cards. The odds of ousting your prey
> are close to 100%
> Suppose your library contains 3 cards. The odds of ousting your prey
> are close to 33%.
> Suppose your library contains 4 cards. The odds of ousting your prey
> are down to 17%.
> 5 cards, 10%.
> 10 cards, 2%.
>
> Of course, this is an exageration. Things aren't that clear most of
> the time.
There are always cards such as DI, DI2, Eagles Sight, Falcon's Eye,
Folderol, Ignis Fatuus, Life Boon (and there are plenty more). These
things cannot be calculated.
-- J
On May 26, 8:08 am, floppyzedolfin <floppyzedol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's where the "close to" part comes in :)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
But they are not "close to" it at all. You are basing your stats on a
closed environment, but as J outlines, there are many cards that can
affect play, which you have no way of knowoing who has them, if they
will use them and so on.
Also you are never sure that you are dead next turn. Some clash of the
titans combat might happen that will make it 20 mins before your
pred's turn, bringing you to time limit; your pred might realize
something and propose that you get a vp before dying, your pred might
get rushed/pentex/banished/ousted and so on and so on.
The point is, players have VERY limited knowledge of what is going to
happen and so for the rules to expect the player to make a jugdement
whether he/she's got a "reasonable" chance or not is ridiculous.
The rules shouldnt have to force players to try to stay alive as long
as possible, it should be common sense that doing so will increase
your chances of getting a better score. However, if people are going
to transfer out because they give up and don't want to play the game
to the end, then the rules should not make it easily justifiable...
[ quoted text not captured ]
I totally and completely agree, and that is why I - and quite a few
others it seems - have been advocating getting rid of the "reasonable"
from the rule.
If you have a chance, you have a chance, and you shouldn't be allowed
to selfoust.
I claim that you can always come up with scenarios that show that you
actually DO have a chance, no matter how small, to gain an extra VP.
When you selfoust and remove your last pool, your only scenario is
that someone else plays a Life Boon (or you play an Extremis Boon, but
that isnt relevant in this case).
On May 26, 9:25 am, "Nikolaj \"Lord of the Betrayers\" Wendt"
> When you selfoust and remove your last pool, your only scenario is
> that someone else plays a Life Boon (or you play an Extremis Boon, but
> that isnt relevant in this case).
Also, if you self-oust without the intention of someone playing one of
the cards mentioned then you are not trying to maximize points, you
are just self-ousting; and it cannot be justified that you had that
intent of being life booned, unless there has been talk of the card
(or you saw it somehow).
. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
Sounds like my friend Ron, who would throw the Risk board on the floor
if he lost two battles in a row.
I've not been following the self ousting debates but if it hasn't
already been mentioned... why not just let people self oust maybe
with a caveat of not allowing them to transfer the last pool or not be
ousted until some pool damage has been done by some non transfer
activity?
It seems that self ousting is always going to be a part of the game to
some degree in the same way that some players' actions can seem to be
game changing and not in their favor. Just as seating order, certain
types of decks next to each other, contesting... etc. some issues
might be slightly managed by the rules (like contesting). I guess you
could just be draconian about it and disqualify anyone that self
ousts. Perhaps with any rules you make getting an unmotivated player
to 'play to win'
John
[ quoted text not captured ]
Chance that you should explore the option of playing VTES with people
who are actually interested in playing VTES, rather than continuing to
plague the newsgroup with tales of woe regarding your players: 100%
John Eno
On May 26, 7:24 am, Ruben Feldman <frub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 26, 6:49 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
>
> > On May 26, 5:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > > Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> > > community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> > > reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
> > > My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
> > > "reasonable chance"?
>
> > Doesn't matter, really, since the numerical odds cannot be calculated
> > in game.
>
> > You're left with things like "good", "bad", "reasonable", and
> > "unreasonable".
>> >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/b719......>
> Which is why I think this whole "reasonable" clause should be taken
> out and replaced with something stating something like players should
> play to win, maximize victory points and stay alive for as long as
> possible (which is a way of trying to achieve another 0.5VP and get
> the opportunity to get more if something happens).
If you remove "reasonable", then you're left with no restriction at
all, since there are all sorts of ways that your seemingly-destructive
(and spite-serving or other unsportsmanlike-thing-serving behavior)
can get you more VPs.
Not reasonable ways, of course, but allowing unreasonable ways is
exactly the purpose and effect of removing "reasonable".
See the many threads covering this already.
[ quoted text not captured ]
He has definitely been bringing this up a lot recently :) But I think
its safe to assume that this is not a problem existing in his
playgroup alone (Check the various people bringing this up on the
newsgroup alone). Also, I don't believe it happens that often in
casual games (and if it does, it doesnt really matter that much) but
if you go to a bigger tournament it seems that there are always a few
people doing this. They are clearly there to play Vtes.
Again, and this is based on a loose overview alone and no solid
statistics, it seems that most of the people advocating a change to
the PTW in a manor like the one Ruben mentions again above, are from
outside of the US. (Not thereby saying that everyone outside of the US
wants to change it).
We have previously seen very big differences in how people play. the.
game. across the globe. Maybe that is simply also the case here?
Ector wrote:
> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
Your friend is an idiot.
As he is an idiot, I'd suggest either forcing him to play out
positions he considers 'lost', or when he says his position
is 'lost', give him your position and proceed to win with his.
Then tease him some more about being a quitting quitter,
buy him some more beer, and tell him to start playing.
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/
Please bid on my auctions! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html
Peter D Bakija wrote:
> Ector wrote:>> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in
>> our community. One of our players just told me that his measure of
>> "no reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.>
> Well,as when you sit down for a game of VTES, you have a 20% chance
> of winning (i.e. it is a 5 player game, all things being equal you
> have a 1/5 chance of winning),
[...]
You (and others) keep forgetting the fact that you can time out. So,
the chance is not 20% (1 in 5) but closer to 17% (1 in 6), and my own
research shows that it's even less than that. Just sayin'. ;)
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/da1575278a7f01c3[ quoted text not captured ]
On 26 Maj, 17:45, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
> Your friend is an idiot.
>
> As he is an idiot, I'd suggest either forcing him to play out
> positions he considers 'lost', or when he says his position
> is 'lost', give him your position and proceed to win with his.
>
> Then tease him some more about being a quitting quitter,
> buy him some more beer, and tell him to start playing.
Pretty much this :D
alex fnurp wrote:
> "Kevin M." wrote:>> Your friend is an idiot.
>>
>> As he is an idiot, I'd suggest either forcing him to play out
>> positions he considers 'lost', or when he says his position
>> is 'lost', give him your position and proceed to win with his.
>>
>> Then tease him some more about being a quitting quitter,
>> buy him some more beer, and tell him to start playing.>
> Pretty much this :D
You are my hero! :)
On May 26, 8:45 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
> Ector wrote:
> > Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> > community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> > reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
>
> Your friend is an idiot.
>
> As he is an idiot, I'd suggest either forcing him to play out
> positions he considers 'lost', or when he says his position
> is 'lost', give him your position and proceed to win with his.
>
> Then tease him some more about being a quitting quitter,
> buy him some more beer, and tell him to start playing.
I agree with Kevin that a good razzing is often the best medicine to a
whiner or a quitter. I do not agree that you should buy xem a beer,
that might only encourage xer.
Brandon
On May 26, 10:58 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote:
> On May 26, 7:24 am, Ruben Feldman <frub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Which is why I think this whole "reasonable" clause should be taken
> > out and replaced with something stating something like players should
> > play to win, maximize victory points and stay alive for as long as
> > possible (which is a way of trying to achieve another 0.5VP and get
> > the opportunity to get more if something happens).
>
> If you remove "reasonable", then you're left with no restriction at
> all, since there are all sorts of ways that your seemingly-destructive
> (and spite-serving or other unsportsmanlike-thing-serving behavior)
> can get you more VPs.
I dont mean just taking out the word reasonable, but replacing the
whole sentence by something similar to what i mention above. In that
case, I am not sure it would be easy to auto-destruct without
breaching the rules, since players would be forced to do their best to
stay alive as long as possible as well as optimizing VPs.
I realize that it's a bit redundant since staying alive for as long as
possible is essentially a way of optimizing VPS, but obviously some
players don't as there are some who self-oust...
On May 26, 12:27 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
> You (and others) keep forgetting the fact that you can time out. So,
> the chance is not 20% (1 in 5) but closer to 17% (1 in 6), and my own
> research shows that it's even less than that. Just sayin'. ;)
Ah, this is completely true. I'm gonna keep saying 20%, but know deep
down that it is actually about 17% due to games timing out once and a
while :-)
-Peter
On May 26, 11:19 am, "Nikolaj \"Lord of the Betrayers\" Wendt"
<nikolajwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But I think
> its safe to assume that this is not a problem existing in his
> playgroup alone (Check the various people bringing this up on the
> newsgroup alone).
I agree that this is a safe assumption. However, given Ector's
personal history of using the newsgroup as his personal venting space
for cards/rules which have caused him to lose a game, which MUST mean
that they are broken, it's time for him to just back away from this
one. Really. There aren't any new arguments for/against self-ousting,
and that paricular circle of argument has already been closed, with a
really thick marker.
> Also, I don't believe it happens that often in
> casual games (and if it does, it doesnt really matter that much) but
> if you go to a bigger tournament it seems that there are always a few
> people doing this. They are clearly there to play Vtes.
Yes. And they are not good players, or they are good players who are
playing badly when they self-oust. There's no use in trying to create
rules to prevent bad play, which is all that removing the option to
self-oust would be.
> We have previously seen very big differences in how people play. the.
> game. across the globe. Maybe that is simply also the case here?
If you like. I've seen people self-oust in tournaments. I've also seen
people play badly in any number of other ways, also in tournaments. I
don't see any need to create rules that prohibit bad play, in spite of
those experiences.
John Eno
[ quoted text not captured ]
Pool Sacking isn't always giving up.
Pool Sacking can sometimes be your best defense. (ie vs a combat deck
with mid-big caps).
Pool Sacking can get you to the Time Out and get you that 0.5VP
Pool Sacking can force the other players at the table's hands and make
them deal with your unruly predator.
-- J
Kevin M. wrote:
when he says his position
> is 'lost', give him your position and proceed to win with his.
>
I like this idea. Robert Goudie did it with his son, and then won.
best -
chris
J wrote:
> On May 26, 3:22 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote:>> Ruben Feldman wrote:>>> On May 26, 8:08 am, floppyzedolfin <floppyzedol...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> However, if people are going
>>> to transfer out because they give up and don't want to play the game
>>> to the end, then the rules should not make it easily justifiable...>> Is pool-sacking ok to you?
>>
>> If so, why should the prey get better treatment than the predator?
>>
>> best -
>>
>> chris>
> Pool Sacking isn't always giving up.
Yes, it is, at least my definition. You walk away, and leave something
representing how much pool you had left.
> Pool Sacking can sometimes be your best defense. (ie vs a combat deck
> with mid-big caps).
> Pool Sacking can get you to the Time Out and get you that 0.5VP
> Pool Sacking can force the other players at the table's hands and make
> them deal with your unruly predator.
So, it's ok to give your prey better treatment than your predator? Why?
best -
chris
> > Pool Sacking isn't always giving up.
>
> Yes, it is, at least my definition. You walk away, and leave something
> representing how much pool you had left.
you and i have different intrepretations then. if i pool sack, i watch
the game until i think it is reasonable to participate again. eg, my
pred is playing gangrel dog pack combat and i have only s:ce.
> So, it's ok to give your prey better treatment than your predator? Why?
it's not about pred/prey for mine, but the player doing the sel-oust/
pool sack. What is the reason for doing it? What do they hope to
achieve. I can also come back from a pool sack. I cannot come back
from a self-oust.
--J
J wrote:
>>> Pool Sacking isn't always giving up.>> Yes, it is, at least my definition. You walk away, and leave something
>> representing how much pool you had left.>
> you and i have different intrepretations then. if i pool sack, i watch
> the game until i think it is reasonable to participate again. eg, my
> pred is playing gangrel dog pack combat and i have only s:ce.
Ah, ok, that's not poolsacking to me. That's "taking a break". Or creating
a false sense of despair, so perhaps your "allies" x-table, or even your
prey take pity on you. Poolsacking is a type of quitting, but instead of
transferring out, you instead just leave your pool there on the table (or
more likely, another remaining player puts out an equivalent number of
their counters), but otherwise pick up all your stuff and walk away and
declare nb, nv, no actions. Usually only done if all your stuff is in
torpor or burnt.
>>> So, it's ok to give your prey better treatment than your predator? Why?>
> it's not about pred/prey for mine, but the player doing the sel-oust/
> pool sack. What is the reason for doing it? What do they hope to
> achieve. I can also come back from a pool sack.
By my definition, no you can't - you have physically left the table. By
your definition, yes you can. However, by either of our definitions, we
can still achieve 1/2 vp, or even 1VP (if someone x-table Ancilla's or
something).
But functionally, you are benefitting your prey by pool-sacking because
they now have a buffer zone. In some ways you are also benefitting your
predator, because they have a clear shot at your pool, but it benefits your
prey more than a self-oust does.
I cannot come back
> from a self-oust.
>
> --J
True. In my definition, you can't come back from a poolsack either.
I wonder what other people meant when they referred to "poolsacking".
best -
chris
> Ah, ok, that's not poolsacking to me. That's "taking a break".
No, I am poolsacking. It is the same effect, just that I'm not
getting up and talking a walk oustide. We call it here the "Tim
Defense". Because Tim didn't used to bring out minions when he had
combat as his predator. And as the combat decks generally ousted via
Fame/Tension, bleeds of 1 were going to take a long time to get him.
When his predator was dead or about to die, that's when he started
bringing out his minions.
> prey take pity on you. Poolsacking is a type of quitting, but instead of
> transferring out, you instead just leave your pool there on the table (or
> more likely, another remaining player puts out an equivalent number of
> their counters), but otherwise pick up all your stuff and walk away and
> declare nb, nv, no actions. Usually only done if all your stuff is in
> torpor or burnt.
Both are forms of poolsacking.
> By my definition, no you can't - you have physically left the table. By
> your definition, yes you can. However, by either of our definitions, we
> can still achieve 1/2 vp, or even 1VP (if someone x-table Ancilla's or
> something).
>
> But functionally, you are benefitting your prey by pool-sacking because
> they now have a buffer zone. In some ways you are also benefitting your
> predator, because they have a clear shot at your pool, but it benefits your
> prey more than a self-oust does.
When we do anything in this game, we will benefit some players and
cause detrimental effects to others. Poolsacking is just one of
those. You say that it benefits the prey, but not always. If your
predator is a vote deck and your prey is playing intercept, then
poolsacking is going to benefit your predator. He can start smashing
at his next prey without fear of being blocked except by ES/FE or his
predator. If he is playing multi-act rush, he can bin your predators
vamps and bleed. If he is playing weenie rush, he can start binning
with some and bleeding with the other. It can actually be a benefit
to your predator to only have 1 hostile deck next to him. If he is a
wall deck, he can happily sit there and tool up for the end game,
sniping away at your pool. There are lots of times having a
poolsacking prey can be advantageous.
-- J
J wrote:
>
> When we do anything in this game, we will benefit some players and
> cause detrimental effects to others.
Exactly. So, if you are in a lost position, you can chose to lose as you
like, right? Since no matter your choice, you will benefit one player and
cause detrimental effects to others. Why should the rules decide who you
*must* give benefit too? That's not retorical - why do you think the rules
should give the predator the benefit? (I'm assuming you are in the
no-self-ousting-should-be-allowed camp? If not, forgive me.)
best -
chris
On May 26, 11:03 pm, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Ah, ok, that's not poolsacking to me. That's "taking a break".
>
> No, I am poolsacking. It is the same effect, just that I'm not
> getting up and talking a walk oustide. We call it here the "Tim
> Defense". Because Tim didn't used to bring out minions when he had
> combat as his predator. And as the combat decks generally ousted via
> Fame/Tension, bleeds of 1 were going to take a long time to get him.
> When his predator was dead or about to die, that's when he started
> bringing out his minions.
This is not what we refer to as poolsacking in the states. There is a
difference between being in a lost position and deciding your few
remaining pool should stay on the table vs spending them and dying
immediately, call it what you will. One is a tactic to help you
gain(hopefully) 1/2 or more vps, the other is your plan for 0 vps(the
only reasonable outcome in the given situation).
Some more examples might help illustrate the difference between what
every other VTES player I have met calls "poolsacking" and what you
mean.
I bring out Arika. Peter's Koko Bum's Rushes Arika, grapples, glancing
blow, disarm, amaranth. The next Arika I bring out meets a similar
fate. Now I'm at 8 or less pool against 4 computer hacking potence
weenies with minions that cost 8 or more pool in my uncontrolled
region. At this point, my choice is limited to how quickly I would
like to die.
I have a Zillah's Valley in hand. Do I play it and transfer my
remaining 3 pool to my third Arika, getting me out of the game
quickly(self-ousting) or do I look Peter in the eye and say, "No
master, no minion, no influence, discard Zillah's Valley. Done. Do
your worst?" Either way I'm dead meat, but I might last another turn
if I don't use my pool.
In the same situation, say I learn my lesson after the first Arika is
burned. I say, "Peter, weenie potence-fu is so strong, I don't have a
chance. I'll just sit here until you bleed me out and then
congratulate you on a job well done." I'm being sarcastic of course,
because that's the way I tell someone off. My only real hope is that
something very bad happens to Peter, giving me a chance to do
something this game. By not spending my pool right now, I may have a
chance later.
Situation 1 offers you a chance to poolsack, that is not spend my pool
in the face of defeat. Situation 2, I'm strategically not bringing
guys out, call it what you will.
Is it clear now what the difference is?
Brandon
On May 26, 11:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our> community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.> My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
> "reasonable chance"?
If any possible combination of cards you may draw can lead to a vp
supposing the worst possible draw you prey might have, than it is a
reasonable chance. I'd say 0,001% is a reasonable chance. 0% would
equal no reasonable chance.
On May 27, 12:58 pm, Martin Tibor Major <major.martin.ti...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> If any possible combination of cards you may draw can lead to a vp
> supposing the worst possible draw you prey might have, than it is a
> reasonable chance.
It is certainly not reasonable to assume that all the decks will be
constructed and ordered exactly to suit you.
On Thu, 27 May 2010 09:58:53 -0700 (PDT), Martin Tibor Major
<major.mar...@gmail.com> wrote:
[ quoted text not captured ]
No, what you are describing is the difference between "no chance at all"
and "at least a mathematical chance". Even though you may feel that it
is reasonable for a person to keep on playing given at least a small
mathematical chance, don't confuse that to mean that 0.001% is a
reasonable chance (it is not really).
Unless you're the kind of person who religiously buys lottery tickets... :)
--
Regards,
Daneel
On May 26, 5:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
Just so we are clear here--the problem you are having with people self
ousting is not that there aren't rules preventing it. Or that you need
to change the withdrawing rules. Or that judges are saddled with too
weighty a decision.
The problem you are seeing is that someone or someones in your play
environment is/are cheating (i.e. not playing to win). Which is
covered by rules we already have.
-Peter
Ruben Feldman <fru...@gmail.com> wrote:
>The point is, players have VERY limited knowledge of what is going to
>happen and so for the rules to expect the player to make a jugdement
>whether he/she's got a "reasonable" chance or not is ridiculous.
But we happily let players do this all the time - and players would be
very unhappy if you didn't let them do this.
I look at the table I'm playing. I think "Can I sweep?" Based on my
understanding of my deck, my interactions with the other decks, and any
previous knowledge I have (perhaps I saw one in an earlier round), I
make a judgment.
I then turn to player B and say "Hi, B. How about you and I get some
VPs in the following manner?"
B looks at the table and thinks "Hmm, I'm in a bad place. It would be
an astronomically unlikely event for me to get a game win. I might not
even survive without this deal, so I'll go with this."
B has made a judgment that playing for some event is very unlikely. B
has decided that the most rational course of action is to play for some
VPs with a deal with me.
I have made a similar decision. It would be better for me to sweep, but
this option seems to be more useful to me - I think I can much more
easily get a Game Win this way, so I take this option.
The judge comes along and says "Yes, this is a legal deal" or "No, this
is a poor deal" (or whatever else the judge wants to say, based on the
situation). How did the judge decide this? Based on what's reasonable.
Players make decisions about what's reasonable *all the time*. It's
often how they decide to do anything. Okay, yes, Arika could do X, Y
and Z and have the perfect turn and oust me, but I'll go out on a limb
and say that that won't happen, and try something more risky. I'm going
to trust that you'll honour this deal we've just made, though I know you
can backstab if you want.
If players and judges can cope with assessing reasonable behaviour in
practically every other area of the game, why are they incapable here?
--
James Coupe
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR.
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING.
13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
> Is it clear now what the difference is?
don't get smarmy with me.
Both are poolsacking. I am "sacking" my pool. I am not transferring
it and not spending it on masters or other cards. Whatever the reason
for me doing it, I am still doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING.
Regardless, you can still come back from Poolsacking. Someone could
call a couple parity shifts, giving you pool in your example whilst
Peter gets into a tussle with his predator. You might time out and
get your 0.5 VP because Peter doesn't draw into any computer hacks.
Is it clear now what the conformity is?
-- J
[ quoted text not captured ]
That there's some fanciful way that a person might get out of a bad
hypothetical situation with an even further fetched hypothetical
situation?
There's a lot of information that's missing in a hypothetical because
it is not real. Short of listing every minion in play, their blood/
life/counters, other cards in play(and to which minion/methuselah they
belong), cards in uncontrolled regions, crypts, libraries, and hands,
much of which you won't know at a game, I try to list the relevant
information. Having(presumably) taken zero actions in the above
situation and not having any information about Parity Shift pool
flying around(none have been played, no offer is forthcoming), one can
*reasonably* assume that they are just plain screwed.
I try to play like a reasonable player, so I offer reasonable
examples. The semantics are only important to the extent that people
know what other people are talking about. I'm reasonably sure you
understand what I am talking about, that I've made my point and that
there's no reason to go into other wacky definitions of pool
sacking(destroying a swimming pool, bagging a swimming pool, bags that
contain pool equipment or pieces for billiards,etc.), let alone the
obvious, albiet wrong, definition of pool sacking as destroying or
eliminating your pool.
Brandon
J wrote:
>> Is it clear now what the difference is?>
> don't get smarmy with me.
I don't think Brandon is being smarmy. I believe we are having a
completely different definition of poolsacking.
> Both are poolsacking. I am "sacking" my pool. I am not transferring
> it and not spending it on masters or other cards. Whatever the reason
> for me doing it, I am still doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING.
>
> Regardless, you can still come back from Poolsacking.
Not by the common definition used here on the West Coast of the US - the
only place I have played tournament VTES.
Someone could
> call a couple parity shifts, giving you pool in your example whilst
> Peter gets into a tussle with his predator. You might time out and
> get your 0.5 VP because Peter doesn't draw into any computer hacks.
>
Sure, but you have still given up the game because you have no reasonable
chance at VP. You might somehow luck into some VP, but when you left the
table after poolsacking, you have given up. You just didn't transfer out.
I think it's educational and important to the discussion about x-fering out
(or mandating pool-sacking) to be sure that all parties are in agreement
about the definitions of terms...
best -
chris
On May 27, 3:29 pm, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Is it clear now what the difference is?
>
> don't get smarmy with me.
> Both are poolsacking. I am "sacking" my pool. I am not transferring
> it and not spending it on masters or other cards. Whatever the reason
> for me doing it, I am still doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING.
You are going way too off with a semantical clarification. When people
here refer to poolsacking it is different from your definition, why is
that so hard for you to understand? If we are drinking together and I
decide to just keep going because I'm having fun but you decide to
stop because you need to drive somewhere and don't want to kill
anybody, I'd call it 'having a few drinks together'. You might want to
clarify and state " Well, I had a few drinks and was being responsible
(drinking responsibly) he was getting shitfaced". I could then say
that "we were doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING". Anybody who 'has a few
drinks' with me can expect this outcome, but if you don't know me you
might think that I just want to have a few drinks (drinking
responsibly). When in Rome...
On May 27, 7:16 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote:
> J wrote:
> >> Is it clear now what the difference is?
>
> > don't get smarmy with me.
>
> I don't think Brandon is being smarmy. I believe we are having a
> completely different definition of poolsacking.
The latter is certainly true, as the parties expressed.
But the statement above "Is it clear now" certainly came off (to this
reader) in bad tone: as if the one definition had a higher claim to
"truth" or somesuch.
> > Both are poolsacking. I am "sacking" my pool. I am not transferring
> > it and not spending it on masters or other cards. Whatever the reason
> > for me doing it, I am still doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING.
>
> > Regardless, you can still come back from Poolsacking.
>
> Not by the common definition used here on the West Coast of the US - the
> only place I have played tournament VTES.
Poolsacking is commonly used to mean "perma-pass until such time as
game state prospects improve" here (and at other venues I've judged).
FWIW (which isn't much)
> You are going way too off with a semantical clarification. When people
> here refer to poolsacking it is different from your definition, why is
> that so hard for you to understand?
I'm not the one arguing a semantic clarification.
If my pool is left untouched by me (either through spending or
transfers), then my pool is sacked. It doesn't matter how I got there
or where I'm going from that point on. You yanks are the ones arguing
that they are different. They are the same. Exactly the same. My
pool has been sacked. It's now up to my predator to blast through it
or through his hands up in frustration and it is up to my prey to
decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing and the rest of the table
to shake their heads in dismay or to smirk knowingly.
Once I am sitting there on my pool, doing nothing, for whatever reason
- it is now sacked.
And that's the truth of it.
-- J
[ quoted text not captured ]
Interesting.... Are you saying you equate sitting inactive as the
predator of a nasty wall deck to being near death and unable to do
anything? Would it be equally bad for the player to oust themselves?
What if you are a wall deck with smiling jack and don't need to do
anything(except block)? Any of those cases put your predator in the
position of ousting you or not. The important thing from my
perspective and that of many others who have written is "what can I do
to get vps?" If the answer is "virtually nothing," then I think you
are free to play as you want(and die quickly almost no matter what).
Brandon
On May 28, 12:21 pm, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
[ quoted text not captured ]> Brandon- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
What happens though, as you have alluded to, if your best course of
action is to do exactly nothing?
With the Smiling Jack Wall Deck as your predator, I would suggest that
your best course of action is to do precisely nothing.
If there are no courses of action or inaction that will result in your
gaining at least 0.5VP more, then you may do anything. However, while
you still have pool, you can take the course of action of encouraging
other players to attack your predator and either allow you to survive
to the end, or allow you to take action against your prey... so there
is at least one action you can always take while you still have 1+
pool. So, therefore, there is no lost position until you have removed
your last pool because you can always try talk the table up until the
point you lose your last pool.
Kushiel wrote:
> On May 26, 11:19 am, "Nikolaj \"Lord of the Betrayers\" Wendt"
> <nikolajwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > But I think
> > its safe to assume that this is not a problem existing in his
> > playgroup alone (Check the various people bringing this up on the
> > newsgroup alone).
>
> I agree that this is a safe assumption. However, given Ector's
> personal history of using the newsgroup as his personal venting space
> for cards/rules which have caused him to lose a game, which MUST mean
> that they are broken, it's time for him to just back away from this
> one. Really. There aren't any new arguments for/against self-ousting,
> and that paricular circle of argument has already been closed, with a
> really thick marker.
You were mistaken at least twice:
1). I've never argued here just for losing a game. Never. Every time I
was sure that the game should be better another way. Yes, sometimes I
was wrong, but I cannot see a reason of telling tales about my
"personal history".
2). You cannot be sure that there aren't new arguments. And this is
going to be "closed" only when the rules finally get changed. After
that, you would pretend that you were always for the change :)
> > Also, I don't believe it happens that often in
> > casual games (and if it does, it doesnt really matter that much) but
> > if you go to a bigger tournament it seems that there are always a few
> > people doing this. They are clearly there to play Vtes.
>
> Yes. And they are not good players, or they are good players who are
> playing badly when they self-oust. There's no use in trying to create
> rules to prevent bad play, which is all that removing the option to
> self-oust would be.
Rules are always meant to make intentional "bad play" as difficult as
possible.
> > We have previously seen very big differences in how people play. the.
> > game. across the globe. Maybe that is simply also the case here?
>
> If you like. I've seen people self-oust in tournaments. I've also seen
> people play badly in any number of other ways, also in tournaments. I
> don't see any need to create rules that prohibit bad play, in spite of
> those experiences.
>
Rules are always meant to make intentional "bad play" as difficult as
possible. Preferably impossible.
On May 28, 9:04 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Rules are always meant to make intentional "bad play" as difficult as
> possible. Preferably impossible.
Well, not really. Rules don't exist to make bad play illegal. They
exist to make illegal play illegal. You can make rules to prevent bad
play.
How do you make rules that keep people from playing bad decks? You are
going to institute a rule that says "You may not build decks that rely
on Werewolf Packs" or "You may not make decks that rely on decking
your prey to oust them". Or "You may not make decks that have no way
to deal with a S+B predator"? Really? You think rules exist to make
these things as difficult as possible.
How do you make rules that keep people from making bad decisions? You
are going to have a rule that says "When a combat deck that is likely
going to kick your ass bleeds you for 1, you may not block them"?
Rules do not exist to prevent bad play. What exists to prevent bad
play are the victory conditions of the game. Bad play keeps you from
winning. Winning is something that, presumably, everyone is trying to
do. Thus, if you want to win, bad play is a bad idea.
The tournament rules that insist that you Play to Win is giving us all
a blanket starting point--it is assumed that, if you are playing in a
tournament, that your main incentive is to try and win. It is silly
that such a rule is necessary, but at the very least it gives us a
baseline to work from.
-Peter
On May 27, 5:27 pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
[ quoted text not captured ]
I agree but i don't see how this is relevant. I am not saying to
prevent players from making judgment on what is reasonable to get out
of a table, but just saying that they should not be allowed to self-
oust if they dont think they have a reasonable chance at getting
better than what they have.
Doing a deal between yourself and player B may or may not increase
your/his chances of getting more VPs. Self-ousting automatically
reduces them however. A very clear difference here...
On May 28, 9:04 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> You were mistaken at least twice:
I've been mistaken many, many more times than that.
> 1). I've never argued here just for losing a game. Never. Every time I
> was sure that the game should be better another way. Yes, sometimes I
> was wrong, but I cannot see a reason of telling tales about my
> "personal history".
If that's the case, you should stop using personal anecdotes to
illustrate your issues with cards and rules, because doing so always
makes it seem as though you feel that the game needs to be changed
because the game is somehow frustrating your attempts to win.
> 2). You cannot be sure that there aren't new arguments.
If you don't feel like doing the research to check, believe me: the
newsgroup has been around this particular mulberry bush many, many
times. Not once in all of those orbits did the conversation move away
from the circular arguments you recently dusted off.
> And this is
> going to be "closed" only when the rules finally get changed.
[eyeroll]
> After
> that, you would pretend that you were always for the change :)
Nope. I used to think that self-ousting should be illegal, until it
was made clear to me that it's nothing more than bad play, and no more
disruptive to the game than any other example of bad play. Since bad
play is it's own punishment, and since it's ridiculous to try to
legislate against bad play, self-ousting should remain legal.
> Rules are always meant to make intentional "bad play" as difficult as
> possible.
Bullshit. Rules provide a framework by which players are able to
choose to play well or badly. Otherwise, there's no game involved at
all.
John Eno
On May 28, 10:30 am, Ruben Feldman <frub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Doing a deal between yourself and player B may or may not increase
> your/his chances of getting more VPs. Self-ousting automatically
> reduces them however. A very clear difference here...
Consider the following situation: Player A is playing a vote deck.
His prey, B, is near death, and A is trying to call the last vote that
will put him over. C, A's grandprey, has consistently shown plenty of
rush, intercept, and the combat to completely shut A down, so it's
incredibly unlikely that A will get more than B's VP. D is currently
A's predator, having ousted E, and is also an intercept-y deck. A is
a little ways from being ousted naturally, but could easily spend
xerself down and self-oust pretty quickly - Zillah's, Info Highway,
etc. With an influx of pool from A, D will more likely last till time
against C, if not oust C entirely.
So A proposes a deal: D doesn't block the ousting vote, in exchange
for A (who is then in a no-more-vp's situation) self-ousting as
quickly as possible so that D gets that boost of pool in time to stave
off C and go for at least 2.5, possibly 4 VP.
Totally a legal, PTW deal. Totally not possible if the rules
arbitrarily say A is not allowed to favor D by self-ousting rather
than C by not self-ousting.
Why should the game's rules favor one over the other?
(This is just an extreme version. The situation could be far less
clear-cut, but it's not the job of the rules to be the kingmaker and
favor one position over another.)
- D.J.
[ quoted text not captured ]
Well, here A is making a deal to optimize VPs, which superceeds trying
to stay alive, and he is allowed to keep his deal as long as there are
three players in the game.
In the current rules, if you make a deal like this (but say you were
able to take the win after the your partner has delivered his promise)
you are allowed to transfer out even though there is the PTW rule.
This is the same situation, so no issues here.
[ quoted text not captured ]> Well, here A is making a deal to optimize VPs, which superceeds trying> to stay alive, and he is allowed to keep his deal as long as there are
> three players in the game.
Not if (as many have proposed) the game rules prohibit transferring
out.
- D.J.
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>Kushiel wrote:>> If you like. I've seen people self-oust in tournaments. I've also seen
>> people play badly in any number of other ways, also in tournaments. I
>> don't see any need to create rules that prohibit bad play, in spite of
>> those experiences.
>>>Rules are always meant to make intentional "bad play" as difficult as
>possible. Preferably impossible.
No, this is not the intention of the rules, nor has it ever been, nor
have there been any rulings supporting this, ever.
Players who lack skill will play badly (except by pure luck). The
tournament rules do not prevent players who are bad at the game from
playing badly. The tournament rules cannot prevent players from doing
so.
The judge is emphatically *not* empowered to intervene and stop a player
from making a bad move just because the player is playing badly. The
player doesn't burn a card that would stop them dying? The player
doesn't diablerize a vampire that would make them significantly more
likely to win? If it's just the player lacking ability, the judge
doesn't intervene.
How does the judge decide? Judgment.
Similarly, in Magic tournaments, the judge doesn't stop a player doing
something stupid when a better option would be obvious to a more skilful
player.
[ quoted text not captured ]
Ruben Feldman <fru...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On May 27, 5:27�pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:>> RubenFeldman <frub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >The point is, players have VERY limited knowledge of what is going to
>> >happen and so for the rules to expect the player to make a jugdement
>> >whether he/she's got a "reasonable" chance or not is ridiculous.
>>>> If players and judges can cope with assessing reasonable behaviour in
>> practically every other area of the game, why are they incapable here?>>I agree but i don't see how this is relevant. I am not saying to
>prevent players from making judgment on what is reasonable to get out
>of a table,
Erm, that's exactly what you said - see above. That it's ridiculous for
a player to make a judgment on what is reasonable, because of imperfect
knowledge. Which is exactly like every other decision they make in the
rest of the game.
>but just saying that they should not be allowed to self-
>oust if they dont think they have a reasonable chance at getting
>better than what they have.
>Doing a deal between yourself and player B may or may not increase
>your/his chances of getting more VPs. Self-ousting automatically
>reduces them however. A very clear difference here...
No different at all when you're claiming that it's ridiculous for
players to make decisions about what's reasonable with imperfect
knowledge - it's exactly the same. And that's what you claimed.
If you want to argue that players shouldn't be able to self-oust, you
need to pick a better argument than "players have imperfect knowledge so
can't possibly decide what's reasonable", or the whole game falls down.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On 28 Maj, 20:41, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
[ quoted text not captured ]
It doesnt matter how improbable a chain of events are that would lead
up to you getting a vp or half a vp something is. It´s always infinite
times more likely to happen than something that has 0% chance of
happening which is exactly the percentile chance of you getting a vp
or half a vp when you self-oust.
/cheers Tomas
[ quoted text not captured ]
Unless you get life booned by surprise and receive 100 pool from your
predator.
And then he decides to no longer play to win, so he plays Blood Trade
to burn the boon, allowing you to get the 5 VP sweep.
So it's not exactly a 0% chance, right? No matter how improbable?
On May 27, 9:01 pm, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote:
> On Thu, 27 May 2010 09:58:53 -0700 (PDT), Martin Tibor Major
>> <major.martin.ti...@gmail.com> wrote:> > On May 26, 11:40 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> >> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> >> community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> >> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
> >> My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
> >> "reasonable chance"?
>
> > If any possible combination of cards you may draw can lead to a vp
> > supposing the worst possible draw you prey might have, than it is a
> > reasonable chance. I'd say 0,001% is a reasonable chance. 0% would
> > equal no reasonable chance.
>
> No, what you are describing is the difference between "no chance at all"
> and "at least a mathematical chance". Even though you may feel that it
> is reasonable for a person to keep on playing given at least a small
> mathematical chance, don't confuse that to mean that 0.001% is a
> reasonable chance (it is not really).
>
> Unless you're the kind of person who religiously buys lottery tickets... :)
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Daneel
1. I've seen somebody win a tournament sitting with a ~75 card deck
with almost no combat defence between 2 tupdog deck, who didn't
contest. He spent like 1 hour and 50 minutes in torpor and some of his
vampires where graverobbed. He waited and cycled his hand and in the
last turn he had he managed to win the finals. How much chance would
you guys have given him 1-2 turns earlier when he had only torporized
vampires (on low blood) and also was low on pool?
2. I can remember a final I was playing with an old school ventrue
lawfirm. I head only 1 Jazz Wentworth left and less than 5 pool. I was
stuck between an Omaya deck and a Tzimice wall deck. Both had 6+
minions. My cross table body played a Euro Brujah deck and had the
vote lock. He had a deal with the Omaya deck, which meant that he
would vote against if I try to oust Omaya. In my last possible turn I
played a ventrue headquarters, called an anarchist uprising with
daring the dawn and used my dreams of the sphinx to draw cards. There
were 2 or 3 bewitching orations left in my deck. If I draw one
everybody would have died from the uprising except me. I didn't draw
it, but I was damn close (3 more cards to cycle to draw it). I think
it was a reasonable chance and it's always worth trying.
3. Since 2004 (I started playing v:tes right before the EC Heidelberg)
I've seen many games which were won by the "weakest" player. Many
decks can manage to stand up from nothing. I think it's also a kind of
philosophy you either follow or not, but I would say never give up!
[ quoted text not captured ]
You should note that I've meant *intentional* bad play - i.e. when a
player *knows* that he's going to play badly and lower his chances of
getting GW or VPs. There is no way of preventing unintentional bad
play, of course.
If you agree that self-ousting is a bad play (and it really is, since
it decreases the chances to zero), then it should be prohibited as
it's an intentional bad play.
Kushiel wrote:
> On May 28, 9:04 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > You were mistaken at least twice:
>
> I've been mistaken many, many more times than that.
>
> > 1). I've never argued here just for losing a game. Never. Every time I
> > was sure that the game should be better another way. Yes, sometimes I
> > was wrong, but I cannot see a reason of telling tales about my
> > "personal history".
>
> If that's the case, you should stop using personal anecdotes to
> illustrate your issues with cards and rules, because doing so always
> makes it seem as though you feel that the game needs to be changed
> because the game is somehow frustrating your attempts to win.
Why should I stop providing the real life examples that you call
"personal anecdotes" for unknown reason?
> > 2). You cannot be sure that there aren't new arguments.
>
> If you don't feel like doing the research to check, believe me: the
> newsgroup has been around this particular mulberry bush many, many
> times. Not once in all of those orbits did the conversation move away
> from the circular arguments you recently dusted off.
The same was told about PTO discussion. But I believe that I managed
to find some new arguments :)
> > And this is
> > going to be "closed" only when the rules finally get changed.
>
> [eyeroll]
>
> > After
> > that, you would pretend that you were always for the change :)
>
> Nope. I used to think that self-ousting should be illegal, until it
> was made clear to me that it's nothing more than bad play, and no more
> disruptive to the game than any other example of bad play. Since bad
> play is it's own punishment, and since it's ridiculous to try to
> legislate against bad play, self-ousting should remain legal.
Intentional bad play (when a player *knows* that it's a bad play) is
very different from the unintentional bad play (when he mistakingly
thinks that his play is good). The prior is clear PTW violation (at
least such behavior clearly contradicts with a spirit of PTW, even
though it's somehow legal).
And, unfortunately, such "bad play" affects not only the "bad player",
but the entire game.
> > Rules are always meant to make intentional "bad play" as difficult as
> > possible.
>
> Bullshit. Rules provide a framework by which players are able to
> choose to play well or badly. Otherwise, there's no game involved at
> all.
>
> John Eno
Ha! You didn't think hard enough.
*Intentional* bad play is a PTW violation, nothing else. Every self-
ousting player knows that he's throwing away all the chances he had.
[ quoted text not captured ]> So it's not exactly a 0% chance, right? No matter how improbable?- Dölj citerad text -
>
> - Visa citerad text -
Well if you get life booned you havent self ousted, but on a more
serious note: it wouldnt be bad play of that methuselah to play Blood
Trade but rather illegal in the case that he decides not to PTW since
you have to PTW. There is no "To PTW or not to PTW that is the
question" its not a question, its a rule.
/cheers Tomas
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>You should note that I've meant *intentional* bad play - i.e. when a
>player *knows* that he's going to play badly and lower his chances of
>getting GW or VPs. There is no way of preventing unintentional bad
>play, of course.
It is exceptionally difficult to prevent "bad play" in this way. Strong
players are aware of their table image, and often seek to manage their
table image. (Sometimes they don't need to or don't care to, of
course.)
This can involve making 'bad' choices - not seeking the obvious path to
short-term gains, in order to avoid the whole table turning on you.
This can very often look like poor play - and the game might unfold to
show that it is poor play in that situation. However, it's a perfectly
reasonable thing for a player to be doing in a multi-player game. Their
image is something that the game's structure makes important - be it
through making deals, playing aggressively, backstabbing, or whatever
else.
The rules do not seek to prevent players from taking such things into
account, and taking reasonable steps to help themselves in this way.
In much the same way, the rules do not prevent a player from playing
extremely aggressively because they don't like deal making - even when
taking the deal would provide them with a significantly stronger chance
at getting a GW or more VPs.
[ quoted text not captured ]
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>Why should I stop providing the real life examples that you call
>"personal anecdotes" for unknown reason?
History suggests that you are incapable of presenting personal anecdotes
without presenting yourself as saying "I got owned by this deck. I
DEMAND A RULES CHANGE NOW." This may or may not be the impression you
intend to convey, but it is often the impression you *do* convey.
See also: standing up to 4 combat decks with a Malkavian deck with no
combat defence in it; Madness Network + Rotschreck where burning the
Madness Network was too hard; Bowl of Convergence.
[ quoted text not captured ]
[ quoted text not captured ]
let's assume there is a very slight chance, one in a billion, that
UFOs have suddenly abducted the judge and all spectators, so there is
no one around to disqualify the predator for illegal play
it's infinitely better than 0% so you should always take the course of
action that might work if an space alien invasion is involved.
[ quoted text not captured ]> action that might work if an space alien invasion is involved.- Dölj citerad text ->
> - Visa citerad text -
- If you want to be silly go right ahead.
Not transferring out will more likely result in a vp than trying to
transfer out and hoping for a space alien intervention or a crosstable
life boon.
What would you say is the course of action that would give you a
lesser chance of getting a vp than have space aliens abduct everyone
around you except your opponent(s) since you are trying to compare
this with a zero percentile chance of getting a vp?
On May 31, 3:11 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> You should note that I've meant *intentional* bad play - i.e. when a
> player *knows* that he's going to play badly and lower his chances of
> getting GW or VPs. There is no way of preventing unintentional bad
> play, of course.
Well, you didn't say "intentional bad play", so I just went with what
was there.
> If you agree that self-ousting is a bad play (and it really is, since
> it decreases the chances to zero), then it should be prohibited as
> it's an intentional bad play.
Self ousting is only bad play when it is done in such a way that the
rules already prevent. Self ousting from a truly lost position isn't
intentional bad play.
-Peter
Peter D Bakija wrote:
> On May 31, 3:11 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > You should note that I've meant *intentional* bad play - i.e. when a
> > player *knows* that he's going to play badly and lower his chances of
> > getting GW or VPs. There is no way of preventing unintentional bad
> > play, of course.
>
> Well, you didn't say "intentional bad play", so I just went with what
> was there.
You may be confused. My first post about the bad play (May 28) clearly
states "intentional".
> > If you agree that self-ousting is a bad play (and it really is, since
> > it decreases the chances to zero), then it should be prohibited as
> > it's an intentional bad play.
>
> Self ousting is only bad play when it is done in such a way that the
> rules already prevent. Self ousting from a truly lost position isn't
> intentional bad play.
>
> -Peter
A position is *truly* lost only when a player is ousted.
Otherwise, a player may think that position is lost, and the judge may
also think so, but actually this wouldn't be true. See some examples
in this thread.
Ruben Feldman wrote:
> Which is why I think this whole "reasonable" clause should be taken
> out and replaced with something stating something like players should
> play to win, maximize victory points and stay alive for as long as
> possible (which is a way of trying to achieve another 0.5VP and get
> the opportunity to get more if something happens).
A change to the rules is not needed. What is needed is a
combination of education and attitude adjustment to facilitate thought
on how one can go about winning a game of VTES rather than thought on
what one should do when they're losing.
Furthermore, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with a
way of masking one's deliberate attempts to sabotage one's own game,
no matter what changes to the rules you make.
- Ben Peal
On Jun 1, 4:36 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> You may be confused. My first post about the bad play (May 28) clearly
> states "intentional".
Huh. So you did.
> A position is *truly* lost only when a player is ousted.
> Otherwise, a player may think that position is lost, and the judge may
> also think so, but actually this wouldn't be true. See some examples
> in this thread.
Except that isn't how the rules see things. The rules accept that you
can be:
A) Not ousted yet.
B) In a truly lost position.
At which point, self ousting is not intentionally bad play.
-Peter
[ quoted text not captured ]
For every rule in the game there exists a way to break it and many of
those ways are easy to mask. We still follow those rules and trust
that others do so as well, even when there is very little chance of
getting caught cheating. I really don't see the capability of
violating a given rule as a reason against having that rule in an
environment like this.
On May 31, 3:24 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Why should I stop providing the real life examples that you call
> "personal anecdotes" for unknown reason?
James answered this. See also: Your playgroup is not the only
playgroup in the world. Rather than starting threads proclaiming the
brokennes of X, why not consult the collective wisdom of the playgroup
and ask what other people think?
> Intentional bad play (when a player *knows* that it's a bad play) is
> very different from the unintentional bad play (when he mistakingly
> thinks that his play is good). The prior is clear PTW violation (at
> least such behavior clearly contradicts with a spirit of PTW, even
> though it's somehow legal).
Again: If the people you play with are deliberately playing poorly,
this is a problem that no amount of rules tweaks can fix. Find people
who actually want to play the game as written.
> And, unfortunately, such "bad play" affects not only the "bad player",
> but the entire game.
That's true of all bad play in all multiplayer games. If you've got a
solution to that issue, game designers the world over would love to
hear from you.
> Ha! You didn't think hard enough.
I didn't need to think at all, since this has been gone over so many
times.
> *Intentional* bad play is a PTW violation, nothing else. Every self-
> ousting player knows that he's throwing away all the chances he had.
Nope. A player can only self-oust if he didn't have any chance to
throw away. If he had a chance, he couldn't self-oust. Aren't circular
arguments fun?
John Eno
suoli wrote:
> For every rule in the game there exists a way to break it and many of
> those ways are easy to mask. We still follow those rules and trust
> that others do so as well, even when there is very little chance of
> getting caught cheating. I really don't see the capability of
> violating a given rule as a reason against having that rule in an
> environment like this.
I don't see how saying "you must maximize your VPs" or "you must
stay alive for as long as possible" is any different than the existing
"reasonable" clause, as they're all subjective statements.
- Ben Peal
> > *Intentional* bad play is a PTW violation, nothing else. Every self-
> > ousting player knows that he's throwing away all the chances he had.
>
> Nope. A player can only self-oust if he didn't have any chance to
> throw away. If he had a chance, he couldn't self-oust. Aren't circular
> arguments fun?
As I see it, you are also missing another point of this. If we was to
rule govern against "*Intentional* bad play" who should decide what is
bad play.
Even on this issue we do not agree, I belive that Self ousting, as
long as the rules are as they are, is a part of the game. I have
selfousted myself, not plenty of times, but a few. Was this bad play,
maybe, maybe not. Is it bad play for a grand prey or predator of mine
to cripple me so much I cannot win the game, and by doing so I might
as well self oust, Maybe maybe not.
I would advocate, that its just as much the rest of the tables "bad
plays" that puts me in a situation where I have no chance of winning
that is bad play, then me actully self ousting.
Maybe thats just me, and becouse I havent understood the game. But the
game, as it stands right now, is actully quite fine. And there is no
rule issue that needs fixing here, what needs to be fixing is that
people gets to know whats the boundaries of the games, and then plays
accordingly to that. So no one puts a player in a situation where he
can selfoust, unless you actully want the player out of the game, but
by doing so, you might just have done that.
/Jesper Bøje
On Jun 1, 6:12 pm, Jesper Bøje <j...@jyhad.dk> wrote:
(I'm assuming you're replying to me, since you quoted my post, even
though it seems like you might actually be directing your comments at
Ector.)
> As I see it, you are also missing another point of this. If we was to
> rule govern against "*Intentional* bad play" who should decide what is
> bad play.
That's actually another way of stating my point: that it's undesirable
to try to legislate against bad play. Doing so leads to slippery slope
situations, like what you're saying here.
> Even on this issue we do not agree, I belive that Self ousting, as
> long as the rules are as they are, is a part of the game. I have
> selfousted myself, not plenty of times, but a few. Was this bad play,
> maybe, maybe not. Is it bad play for a grand prey or predator of mine
> to cripple me so much I cannot win the game, and by doing so I might
> as well self oust, Maybe maybe not.
I agree that self-ousting is part of the game, and isn't problematic,
and should be kept in the game. Discussions of whether or not it's a
bad choice to make during a game, in the unlikely event that it
becomes a legal choice to make during a game, are really outside the
scope of this discussion.
> Maybe thats just me, and becouse I havent understood the game. But the
> game, as it stands right now, is actully quite fine. And there is no
> rule issue that needs fixing here, what needs to be fixing is that
> people gets to know whats the boundaries of the games, and then plays
> accordingly to that. So no one puts a player in a situation where he
> can selfoust, unless you actully want the player out of the game, but
> by doing so, you might just have done that.
Agreed.
John Eno
[ quoted text not captured ]
When I respond to one argument that doesn't mean I'm taking a stance
against your position or some other argument you might have. Anyway.
"You must stay alive for as long as possible" means that you must try
to stay alive for as long as you can. "You must play to win or get as
many victory points as possible as long as you have a reasonable
chance to do so" means that you don't have to try to stay alive once
you don't have a reasonable chance to get victory points. I think it's
fair to assume that there are situations where you don't have a
reasonable chance to get VP's but can choose to either self oust or
survive a bit longer.
suoli wrote:
> When I respond to one argument that doesn't mean I'm taking a stance
> against your position or some other argument you might have. Anyway.
*shrug* You can talk all you want about how you want to change the
rule this way or that. It doesn't change the effectiveness of
enforcement. If people really want to oust themselves, there isn't
much of anything you can do to stop them. You just have to accept
that multiplayer games and multiplayer tournaments aren't perfect.
> "You must stay alive for as long as possible" means that you must try
> to stay alive for as long as you can.
How do you determine that? Suppose I think I can survive 2 more
turns and play accordingly, but someone else on the table thinks I can
survive 4 more turns? Who is right? Suppose I think I can survive 6
more turns and play accordingly, but it turns out I'm horribly wrong?
Should I be penalized for screwing up? It really is subjective, and
the "reasonably" clause is fine.
> "You must play to win or get as many victory points as possible as
> long as you have a reasonable chance to do so" means that you
> don't have to try to stay alive once you don't have a reasonable
> chance to get victory points. I think it's fair to assume that there are
> situations where you don't have a reasonable chance to get VP's
> but can choose to either self oust or survive a bit longer.
This gets back to "thinking about how you're going to win" versus
"thinking about how you're going to lose". It also gets back to
"thinking about not putting your opponents in situations where they
start thinking about how they're going to lose". Yes, self-ousting
sucks. Yes, king-making sucks. Remember that when you're playing,
and try not to put your opponents into situations where they're
considering self-ousting or king-making. You don't need a rule to
cover it.
- Ben Peal
On 3 kesä, 02:16, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > When I respond to one argument that doesn't mean I'm taking a stance
> > against your position or some other argument you might have. Anyway.
>
> *shrug* You can talk all you want about how you want to change the
> rule this way or that. It doesn't change the effectiveness of
> enforcement. If people really want to oust themselves, there isn't
> much of anything you can do to stop them. You just have to accept
> that multiplayer games and multiplayer tournaments aren't perfect.
But do people want to go against rules, even when they can? I think
most of us don't. Enforcement shouldn't be an issue.
> > "You must stay alive for as long as possible" means that you must try
> > to stay alive for as long as you can.
>
> How do you determine that? Suppose I think I can survive 2 more
> turns and play accordingly, but someone else on the table thinks I can
> survive 4 more turns? Who is right? Suppose I think I can survive 6
> more turns and play accordingly, but it turns out I'm horribly wrong?
> Should I be penalized for screwing up? It really is subjective, and
> the "reasonably" clause is fine.
It doesn't matter whether you actually succeed or not. If you're
skills aren't sufficient it might not be possible for you to survive
past a certain point. What matters is that you honestly try your best,
just like with the PTW-rule.
> > "You must play to win or get as many victory points as possible as
> > long as you have a reasonable chance to do so" means that you
> > don't have to try to stay alive once you don't have a reasonable
> > chance to get victory points. I think it's fair to assume that there are
> > situations where you don't have a reasonable chance to get VP's
> > but can choose to either self oust or survive a bit longer.
>
> This gets back to "thinking about how you're going to win" versus
> "thinking about how you're going to lose". It also gets back to
> "thinking about not putting your opponents in situations where they
> start thinking about how they're going to lose". Yes, self-ousting
> sucks. Yes, king-making sucks. Remember that when you're playing,
> and try not to put your opponents into situations where they're
> considering self-ousting or king-making. You don't need a rule to
> cover it.
>
> - Ben Peal
I don't have any interest in discussing whether self ousting is
actually good for the game or not. I was pointing out the factual, non-
subjective difference between a "get as many vp's as you can and when
you can't reasonably get any self oust if you feel like it" rule vs. a
"survive for as long as possible" rule. One allows you to self oust
under certain circumstances, the other doesn't.
suoli wrote:
> Ben Peal wrote:
> > *shrug* You can talk all you want about how you want to change the
> > rule this way or that. It doesn't change the effectiveness of
> > enforcement. If people really want to oust themselves, there isn't
> > much of anything you can do to stop them. You just have to accept
> > that multiplayer games and multiplayer tournaments aren't perfect.
>
> But do people want to go against rules, even when they can? I think
> most of us don't. Enforcement shouldn't be an issue.
Enforcement of rules _is_ an issue. If you can't enforce a rule,
then that rule effectively doesn't exist.
Yes, in most cases, people don't cheat or play in an unsportsmanlike
manner. However, if someone trashes someone else's game, the
victimized player might be inclined to be spiteful, however
unsportsmanlike. We've clearly seen that.
> I don't have any interest in discussing whether self ousting is
> actually good for the game or not.
Then why do you want a rule prohibiting it?
- Ben Peal
suoli wrote:
> I don't have any interest in discussing whether self ousting is
> actually good for the game or not. I was pointing out the factual, non-
> subjective difference between a "get as many vp's as you can and when
> you can't reasonably get any self oust if you feel like it" rule vs. a
> "survive for as long as possible" rule. One allows you to self oust
> under certain circumstances, the other doesn't.
Here's a scenario for you:
It's the third round of a tournament. A player has 0 GW, 0VP. In
that third round, it becomes clear to everyone at the table that this
player has no shot whatsoever of getting a VP. What's to stop this
player from packing up his things and leaving?
If you had your way, this player would be required to stay there and
attempt to survive for as long as he can. As a judge, you'd be
powerless to stop the guy from walking out. What are you going to do,
threaten to never let him play in one of your tournaments again?
- Ben Peal
> > *shrug* You can talk all you want about how you want to change the
> > rule this way or that. It doesn't change the effectiveness of
> > enforcement. If people really want to oust themselves, there isn't
> > much of anything you can do to stop them. You just have to accept
> > that multiplayer games and multiplayer tournaments aren't perfect.
>
> But do people want to go against rules, even when they can? I think
> most of us don't. Enforcement shouldn't be an issue.
As a teacher, any rule not enforced does not exist and will be broken
as a matter of course. I'm sure it would happen with VTES players as
much as it does with school students.
>
> > > "You must stay alive for as long as possible" means that you must try
> > > to stay alive for as long as you can.
>
> > How do you determine that? Suppose I think I can survive 2 more
> > turns and play accordingly, but someone else on the table thinks I can
> > survive 4 more turns? Who is right? Suppose I think I can survive 6
> > more turns and play accordingly, but it turns out I'm horribly wrong?
> > Should I be penalized for screwing up? It really is subjective, and
> > the "reasonably" clause is fine.
Actually, it seems simple to say "You must attempt to take any action,
including inaction, to remain in the game and at the same time work
towards gaining more VPs, including the 0.5VPs if the game times out.
You cannot use this rule to break any unsportsmanlike conduct or
obstructively slow down the rate of play." Or something to that
effect.
>
> It doesn't matter whether you actually succeed or not. If you're
> skills aren't sufficient it might not be possible for you to survive
> past a certain point. What matters is that you honestly try your best,
> just like with the PTW-rule.
Yes, and "bailing out because I don't feel that I can win" I would
suggest is not trying your best. It's quitting.
> > > "You must play to win or get as many victory points as possible as
> > > long as you have a reasonable chance to do so" means that you
> > > don't have to try to stay alive once you don't have a reasonable
> > > chance to get victory points. I think it's fair to assume that there are
> > > situations where you don't have a reasonable chance to get VP's
> > > but can choose to either self oust or survive a bit longer.
But you do not have any chance to get a VP if you're not in the game.
Survival, and survival to the end of the game, gets you 0.5VP. If
going for that goal requires you to actively choose "inaction", then
you are attempting to get more VPs.
From Ben Peal...
>
> > This gets back to "thinking about how you're going to win" versus
> > "thinking about how you're going to lose". It also gets back to
> > "thinking about not putting your opponents in situations where they
> > start thinking about how they're going to lose". Yes, self-ousting
> > sucks. Yes, king-making sucks. Remember that when you're playing,
> > and try not to put your opponents into situations where they're
> > considering self-ousting or king-making. You don't need a rule to
> > cover it.
I agree that playing in that way is not only "smart play" but also
"considerate play". If people aren't feeling like they need to play
King-Maker then they're going to enjoy the game more. However, I also
think that there should be something to basically prohibit "quitting"
from Tournaments. It's a Tournament; you came to compete and compete
hard...so do it!
On Jun 2, 11:06 pm, Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > "You must stay alive for as long as possible" means that you must try
> > > > to stay alive for as long as you can.
>
> > > How do you determine that? Suppose I think I can survive 2 more
> > > turns and play accordingly, but someone else on the table thinks I can
> > > survive 4 more turns? Who is right? Suppose I think I can survive 6
> > > more turns and play accordingly, but it turns out I'm horribly wrong?
> > > Should I be penalized for screwing up? It really is subjective, and
> > > the "reasonably" clause is fine.
>
> Actually, it seems simple to say "You must attempt to take any action,
> including inaction, to remain in the game and at the same time work
> towards gaining more VPs, including the 0.5VPs if the game times out.
> You cannot use this rule to break any unsportsmanlike conduct or
> obstructively slow down the rate of play." Or something to that
> effect.
And if two actions/inactions have about the same chance of
accomplishing the above, which choice is the player forced to make?
If the answer is: the player chooses, then the rule is the one already
in force.
On 3 kesä, 03:59, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > Ben Peal wrote:
> > > *shrug* You can talk all you want about how you want to change the
> > > rule this way or that. It doesn't change the effectiveness of
> > > enforcement. If people really want to oust themselves, there isn't
> > > much of anything you can do to stop them. You just have to accept
> > > that multiplayer games and multiplayer tournaments aren't perfect.
>
> > But do people want to go against rules, even when they can? I think
> > most of us don't. Enforcement shouldn't be an issue.
>
> Enforcement of rules _is_ an issue. If you can't enforce a rule,
> then that rule effectively doesn't exist.
I disagree with that. It might be true when it comes to real world
legislation but most VTES-players aren't actively looking for ways to
cheat. Let's say I use Arms Dealers ability and search for Unmasking
instead of a weapon. I don't have to reveal the card to other players
when I look for it and if I have already have a weapon in my hand a
judge will have hard time proving that it wasn't the card I fetched.
This would clearly be against the rules.
> Yes, in most cases, people don't cheat or play in an unsportsmanlike
> manner. However, if someone trashes someone else's game, the
> victimized player might be inclined to be spiteful, however
> unsportsmanlike. We've clearly seen that.
>
> > I don't have any interest in discussing whether self ousting is
> > actually good for the game or not.
>
> Then why do you want a rule prohibiting it?
>
> - Ben Peal
Why ask that when I've just said that I'm not interested in discussing
my opinion on whether self ousting is good for the game or not?
[ quoted text not captured ]
Why are you saying this to me? I've made it very clear that I'm not
interested in joining the general debate outside discussing a select
few of your arguments.
suoli wrote:
> Ben Peal wrote:> > suoli wrote:
> > > But do people want to go against rules, even when they can? I think
> > > most of us don't. Enforcement shouldn't be an issue.
>
> > Enforcement of rules _is_ an issue. If you can't enforce a rule,
> > then that rule effectively doesn't exist.
>
> I disagree with that. It might be true when it comes to real world
> legislation but most VTES-players aren't actively looking for ways to
> cheat.
As a V:TES judge, I have caught someone cheating. As a V:TES judge,
I've had to make rulings on unsportsmanlike play. To the credit of
V:TES players, these situations are thankfully very rare (I've only
ever caught one person cheating), but they do happen.
> Let's say I use Arms Dealers ability and search for Unmasking
> instead of a weapon. I don't have to reveal the card to other players
> when I look for it and if I have already have a weapon in my hand a
> judge will have hard time proving that it wasn't the card I fetched.
> This would clearly be against the rules.
That's a flaw in the design of Arms Dealer. You could change the
text of Arms Dealer ("reveal the card") to eliminate enforcement
issues. Changing the "reasonable self-oust" rule to "must max VPs/
stay alive" won't eliminate enforcement issues.
- Ben Peal
suoli <suolir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 3 kesä, 03:59, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:>> suoli wrote:
>> > Ben Peal wrote:
>> > > *shrug* You can talk all you want about how you want to change the
>> > > rule this way or that. It doesn't change the effectiveness of
>> > > enforcement. If people really want to oust themselves, there isn't
>> > > much of anything you can do to stop them. You just have to accept
>> > > that multiplayer games and multiplayer tournaments aren't perfect.
>>
>> > But do people want to go against rules, even when they can? I think
>> > most of us don't. Enforcement shouldn't be an issue.
>>
>> Enforcement of rules _is_ an issue. If you can't enforce a rule,
>> then that rule effectively doesn't exist.>
>I disagree with that. It might be true when it comes to real world
>legislation but most VTES-players aren't actively looking for ways to
>cheat.
In general, this is true.
However, it is worth bearing in mind that those arguing for rules
changes in this area are often positing that their players are a
seething mass of cheaters and that the forces of Order and Justice must
be deployed in order to subjugate the players and the chaos they create.
(Also, that Pope Scott Johnson doesn't uses deck lists is the sign of
the end of the world.)
So, if you're changing the rules to meet such concerns, enforcability is
a key issue. Adding an unenforceable rule will simply push the
conversation out for a couple of months until the players asking for
change come back and say "Our players are threatening rebellion again.
The forces of cheating chaos have been unleashed. I AM THE LAW. You
must tell us how we can enforce this rule. Please teach us to be
psychic. YOU WILL COMPLY." LSJ will reveal that, sadly, he can't imbue
other people with telepathy. But the hoards of cheating players will
still exist, and we must stop these hoards from their cheating. And so
we'll go back to discussing how judges make judgment calls and decide
what's reasonable.
Simplest option? Don't add an unenforceable rule. Everyone who can
cope with reasonable play and reasonable decisions carries on exactly
the same.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On 3 kesä, 23:25, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:> > Let's say I use Arms Dealers ability and search for Unmasking
> > instead of a weapon. I don't have to reveal the card to other players
> > when I look for it and if I have already have a weapon in my hand a
> > judge will have hard time proving that it wasn't the card I fetched.
> > This would clearly be against the rules.
>
> That's a flaw in the design of Arms Dealer. You could change the
> text of Arms Dealer ("reveal the card") to eliminate enforcement
> issues. Changing the "reasonable self-oust" rule to "must max VPs/
> stay alive" won't eliminate enforcement issues.
>
> - Ben Peal
It's just the example that I first came up with. There's a million
other ways to cheat without anybody noticing and there's always going
to be. Here's another example. I know there's a tournament coming up
at a certain time and location. I rent an apartment with a view to the
tournament venue and tell my accomplice to sit there with a powerful
telescope and a transmitter. From there he will peak at other player's
hands and communicate their contents to me in Morse code via a small
receiver located in the sole of my shoe. I am flagrantly cheating and
there's no way for the average judge to find out about it. Rules are
unenforced and all hell is loose. The point being, we absolutely have
to accept that almost every rule is unenforceable if the cheater is
determined enough, and sometimes he doesn't even have to be all that
determined.
On 4 kesä, 00:10, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
> In general, this is true.
>
> However, it is worth bearing in mind that those arguing for rules
> changes in this area are often positing that their players are a
> seething mass of cheaters and that the forces of Order and Justice must
> be deployed in order to subjugate the players and the chaos they create.
> (Also, that Pope Scott Johnson doesn't uses deck lists is the sign of
> the end of the world.)
I think the common argument from Self Ousters is more like "it's a
part of the game, deal with it in-game" and less like "you can't prove
anything".
[ quoted text not captured ]
Actually, I think I remember seeing an argument earlier being closer
to:
"Why should I sit out and play a game to the end when I feel I'm going
to lose?"
Answer (I'd hope to see, but seems like it won't be): "Not doing so is
basically unsportsmanlike. You started, you should play until you are
removed from the game."
Closing that loophole that says:
"I can justify getting angry, packing my stuff up and going to get
coffee/food/read the paper/talk with buddies... by saying that my
position in the game was truly lost, so I ousted myself". It just
seems to be a way people can justify not playing out a game, being
unsportsmanlike, exacting some revenge via king-making and anything
similar.
Juggernaut1981 wrote:
> Actually, I think I remember seeing an argument earlier being closer
> to:
>
> "Why should I sit out and play a game to the end when I feel I'm going
> to lose?"
>
> Answer (I'd hope to see, but seems like it won't be): "Not doing so is
> basically unsportsmanlike. You started, you should play until you are
> removed from the game."
Ultimately, it ends up being, "I have no chance of winning this game
and no chance of gaining any additional VP or half-VP, so it makes no
difference to me how I lose, so can I please leave?"
One is then left with the question of whether it's more
sportsmanlike for that player to sit there for the remainder of the
game, or for the rest of the players at the table to say, "Yeah, we
understand, man. There's no point in you staying. Go get a beer."
(I personally choose the latter.)
- Ben Peal
suoli wrote:
> It's just the example that I first came up with. There's a million
> other ways to cheat without anybody noticing and there's always going
> to be. Here's another example. I know there's a tournament coming up
> at a certain time and location. I rent an apartment with a view to the
> tournament venue and tell my accomplice to sit there with a powerful
> telescope and a transmitter. From there he will peak at other player's
> hands and communicate their contents to me in Morse code via a small
> receiver located in the sole of my shoe. I am flagrantly cheating and
> there's no way for the average judge to find out about it. Rules are
> unenforced and all hell is loose.
I think that any "reasonable" person would consider going to such
lengths to cheat as being extraordinary.
In the one case of cheating I did encounter as a judge, a player
spent blood off of a vampire to pay for a card, palmed the counter in
his hand, then a turn later dropped the counter into his pool.
> The point being, we absolutely have to accept that almost every rule is
> unenforceable if the cheater is determined enough, and sometimes he
> doesn't even have to be all that determined.
In the case of self-ousting, one doesn't even have to be looking to
cheat. Going back to the example of the person who has 0 GW and 0 VP
in the third round of a tournament, and whose present situation is
untenable, what method of enforcement other than peer pressure do you
have to force that player to sit there instead of packing up his or
her things and going home? You can't warn or disqualify the player
because that's irrelevant. You can't deny the player prizes because
there are none to gain. I suppose you could threaten them with not
allowing them back for future events, but that seems excessively
harsh. I really don't think such a scenario would be rare, and if the
rule were to be changed from the "reasonable" clause to "you must stay
in the game", we'd have at least as many, if not more, complaints on
the newsgroup about the rule due to the inability to enforce it.
- Ben Peal
On Thu, 3 Jun 2010 21:39:40 -0700 (PDT), Ben Peal <ben...@gmail.com>
wrote:
[ quoted text not captured ]
And as LSJ has consistently stated, in that position, who should you
favour, your predator or your prey. Because if you're in a no-chance
situation, you favour your prey (he has no pred while you live), and
if you self-oust, your predator. Removing self oust, means you will
always favour your prey.
Morgan Vening
- Not saying anything that hasn't been said already.
Ben Peal wrote:
> Ruben Feldman wrote:
> > Which is why I think this whole "reasonable" clause should be taken
> > out and replaced with something stating something like players should
> > play to win, maximize victory points and stay alive for as long as
> > possible (which is a way of trying to achieve another 0.5VP and get
> > the opportunity to get more if something happens).
>
> A change to the rules is not needed. What is needed is a
> combination of education and attitude adjustment to facilitate thought
> on how one can go about winning a game of VTES rather than thought on
> what one should do when they're losing.
Looks like you don't see why the change is needed.
The current rules provide bad players and newbs a "psychologic
compensation" for the loss. The judge himself (nothing less!) confirms
that they were "treated badly" and have a "right for revenge". That's
why some players are actively seeking for being declared in "lost
position". Yes this is extremely stupid, but in the terms of
psychology this is often the only "gain" the bad players could get.
While you're completely right about education, it's extremely
difficult to teach people to behave against their psychology. They
will rarely win, so they are generally treated as a "potential VPs",
and this hurts.
Let me bring a simple analogy. If a farmer wants to prevent his cows
from wandering, he uses a fence. While the enraged bull can break the
fence, this rarely happens since the cows' psychology doesn't make
breaking the fence attractive enough for them. Good rules are the good
fences: they maintain the order peacefully. Bad rules (as the current
rulings are) are the fences with red banners, they enrage the stock
and actually inspire breaking them.
> Furthermore, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with a
> way of masking one's deliberate attempts to sabotage one's own game,
> no matter what changes to the rules you make.
>
>
> - Ben Peal
But the rules still should discourage "sabotaging one's own game" as
strongly as possible, not inspire it, as the current rules do.
Actually, what do the players get from the "lost position" rulings? A
few extra minutes to rest before the next game? A way to take revenge
for the players they don't like? Compare this to the things the game
really loses that were already explained in details. For me, it's
obvious that removing the rulings should make the game better.
Ector wrote:
> Looks like you don't see why the change is needed.
I understand why you want the change, and I empathize with it. I
just don't think it will improve anything, nor do I even think such a
rule is enforceable.
> The current rules provide bad players and newbs a "psychologic
> compensation" for the loss. The judge himself (nothing less!) confirms
> that they were "treated badly" and have a "right for revenge". That's
> why some players are actively seeking for being declared in "lost
> position". Yes this is extremely stupid, but in the terms of
> psychology this is often the only "gain" the bad players could get.
I think you're correct in identifying one type of "psychology" that
results in self-ousting. However, that very behavior is what helps
make the rules change you want not work. They're going to want to be
spiteful anyway. Creating a rule that says "you must try to last as
long as you can" won't change the fact that they don't want to be in
the game anymore. Furthermore, the rule you want is too difficult to
enforce.
> Actually, what do the players get from the "lost position" rulings? A
> few extra minutes to rest before the next game? A way to take revenge
> for the players they don't like?
How about the ability to leave the tournament and go home?
Repeating the example I've already given, suppose you have a player
with 0 GW and 0 VP in round 3 of a tournament, and in round 3 that
player's situation is untenable. What is to stop that player from
packing up their things and leaving?
Furthermore, what would a player gain by being forced to stay in the
game? Oh, right, nothing apart from having to sit there longer and be
frustrated longer.
Yeah, self-ousting sucks. King-making sucks. If you don't want it
to happen to you, don't put other players in positions where they can
do that to you - because they will.
- Ben Peal
> One is then left with the question of whether it's more
> sportsmanlike for that player to sit there for the remainder of the
> game, or for the rest of the players at the table to say, "Yeah, we
> understand, man. There's no point in you staying. Go get a beer."
>
Personally I think its far more sportsmanlike to wait to get the offer
from the other players at the table.
Kushiel wrote:
> On May 31, 3:24 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > Why should I stop providing the real life examples that you call
> > "personal anecdotes" for unknown reason?
>
> James answered this. See also: Your playgroup is not the only
> playgroup in the world. Rather than starting threads proclaiming the
> brokennes of X, why not consult the collective wisdom of the playgroup
> and ask what other people think?
I've never claimed that my playgroup is the only playgroup in the
world. But it still is a real playgroup that is as good as yours.
When people are discussing whether the rules are good or bad, and how
to make them better, the fact that rules are producing negative
results even in the single playgroup is a serious argument. Good rules
are good for all the good people.
> > Intentional bad play (when a player *knows* that it's a bad play) is
> > very different from the unintentional bad play (when he mistakingly
> > thinks that his play is good). The prior is clear PTW violation (at
> > least such behavior clearly contradicts with a spirit of PTW, even
> > though it's somehow legal).
>
> Again: If the people you play with are deliberately playing poorly,
> this is a problem that no amount of rules tweaks can fix. Find people
> who actually want to play the game as written.
This is as stupid as if you'd say "If some people are thieves, this is
a problem no laws can fix. Find some honest people and avoid contacts
with all others" :)
The old Roman proverb says: "Ensure that honesty is rewarded better
than thievery, and the thievery would disappear". Good rules and
policies discourage playing not to win, bad rules (like we have now)
*encourage* it.
> > And, unfortunately, such "bad play" affects not only the "bad player",
> > but the entire game.
>
> That's true of all bad play in all multiplayer games. If you've got a
> solution to that issue, game designers the world over would love to
> hear from you.
>
> > Ha! You didn't think hard enough.
>
> I didn't need to think at all, since this has been gone over so many
> times.
You'd better think. This is beneficial :)
> > *Intentional* bad play is a PTW violation, nothing else. Every self-
> > ousting player knows that he's throwing away all the chances he had.
>
> Nope. A player can only self-oust if he didn't have any chance to
> throw away. If he had a chance, he couldn't self-oust. Aren't circular
> arguments fun?
>
> John Eno
"No reasonable chance" isn't the same as "no chance". The only
situation when a player has NO chance is when he's ousted. There are
dozens of examples when players
All arguments about "judgement" are really futile. No player and no
judge can evaluate the real chances. The current rules just provide
the way to leave play or revenge, nothing else. Problems they generate
greatly outweight the benefits.
On Jun 4, 4:33 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> But the rules still should discourage "sabotaging one's own game" as
> strongly as possible, not inspire it, as the current rules do.
How do the rules encourage "sabotaging one's own game"? The rules
encourage in all ways "trying to win". There is nothing that
"inspires" sabotaging one's own game. As doing so doesn't gain you
anything. As it makes you lose.
All the game can do is assume that, at the most basic level, everyone
playing the game has the same motivation, which is to try and win.
> Actually, what do the players get from the "lost position" rulings?
They get the ability to leave a game that they are clearly losing and
have no realistic hope of doing ok in. Which seems like a reasonable
thing to allow. Sports do that all the time.
-Peter
On 4 kesä, 07:58, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > It's just the example that I first came up with. There's a million
> > other ways to cheat without anybody noticing and there's always going
> > to be. Here's another example. I know there's a tournament coming up
> > at a certain time and location. I rent an apartment with a view to the
> > tournament venue and tell my accomplice to sit there with a powerful
> > telescope and a transmitter. From there he will peak at other player's
> > hands and communicate their contents to me in Morse code via a small
> > receiver located in the sole of my shoe. I am flagrantly cheating and
> > there's no way for the average judge to find out about it. Rules are
> > unenforced and all hell is loose.
>
> I think that any "reasonable" person would consider going to such
> lengths to cheat as being extraordinary.
It's an example. Instead of getting hung up on this specific scenario
I encourage you to consider the deeper idea that the example is being
used to illustrate.
> In the one case of cheating I did encounter as a judge, a player
> spent blood off of a vampire to pay for a card, palmed the counter in
> his hand, then a turn later dropped the counter into his pool.
>
> > The point being, we absolutely have to accept that almost every rule is
> > unenforceable if the cheater is determined enough, and sometimes he
> > doesn't even have to be all that determined.
>
> In the case of self-ousting, one doesn't even have to be looking to
> cheat. Going back to the example of the person who has 0 GW and 0 VP
> in the third round of a tournament, and whose present situation is
> untenable, what method of enforcement other than peer pressure do you
> have to force that player to sit there instead of packing up his or
> her things and going home?
The same methods that we use to keep players sitting there when they
aren't in a lost position. I could buy the argument that it would be
nice for players in a lost position and no way to interact with the
table to have a way to leave the table, though.
> You can't warn or disqualify the player
> because that's irrelevant. You can't deny the player prizes because
> there are none to gain. I suppose you could threaten them with not
> allowing them back for future events, but that seems excessively
> harsh. I really don't think such a scenario would be rare, and if the
> rule were to be changed from the "reasonable" clause to "you must stay
> in the game", we'd have at least as many, if not more, complaints on
> the newsgroup about the rule due to the inability to enforce it.
>
> - Ben Peal
When someone is in a lost position during friendly games and wants to
go join another game we just set aside counters to represent his pool,
let him gather his cards and thank him for playing. I've seen
suggestions that when one player has to leave during a tournament game
a judge could continue playing on his behalf.
On Jun 4, 8:05 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> The old Roman proverb says: "Ensure that honesty is rewarded better
> than thievery, and the thievery would disappear". Good rules and
> policies discourage playing not to win, bad rules (like we have now)
> *encourage* it.
As playing not to win is a violation of the rules, and such violations
are punishable with appropriate sanctions, the current rules
discourage playing not to win.
On 4 kesä, 12:34, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ector wrote:
> > The current rules provide bad players and newbs a "psychologic
> > compensation" for the loss. The judge himself (nothing less!) confirms
> > that they were "treated badly" and have a "right for revenge". That's
> > why some players are actively seeking for being declared in "lost
> > position". Yes this is extremely stupid, but in the terms of
> > psychology this is often the only "gain" the bad players could get.
>
> I think you're correct in identifying one type of "psychology" that
> results in self-ousting. However, that very behavior is what helps
> make the rules change you want not work. They're going to want to be
> spiteful anyway. Creating a rule that says "you must try to last as
> long as you can" won't change the fact that they don't want to be in
> the game anymore. Furthermore, the rule you want is too difficult to
> enforce.
The fact that spiteful self-ousters are using the intended mechanisms
of the game to get out instead of just picking up his things and
saying "screw you guys" is a sign that they would rather maintain an
appearance of legitimacy about their actions. Now, supposing self-
ousting was illegal, it might be hard to objectively prove that
someone is trying to self-oust but it's usually obvious to everyone on
the table and would pretty much carry the same air of dignity as
saying "screw you guys".
On Jun 4, 8:05 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Good rules and
> policies discourage playing not to win, bad rules (like we have now)
> *encourage* it.
How do the current rules, which say "you must play to win" encourage
not playing to win?
How does, when all other things have gone out the window, and your
demise is imminent, you not being prevented from ousting yourself,
when you were in all reasonable situations going to get ousted soon
anyway, encourage not playing to win? What do you gain from self
ousting other than:
A) Losing (which we have to assume is anti-encouragement to doing so).
and
B) Getting to get out of a game that you no longer have any chance to
interact with meaningfully.
Sometimes, you get to get a little bit of spite joy. This encourages
you toy Play to Lose?
-Peter
[ quoted text not captured ]
Why? Some of them will want you to leave (it improves your position), some
will want you to stay. And sometimes, they won't verbalize it. Why not
make the decision by the player xerself? [a situation where using the
gender neutral yet quantity non-neutral "themselves" would have been
confusing, and "themself" strange]
best -
chris
suoli wrote:
> Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think that any "reasonable" person would consider going to such
> > lengths to cheat as being extraordinary.
>
> It's an example. Instead of getting hung up on this specific scenario
> I encourage you to consider the deeper idea that the example is being
> used to illustrate.
The burden is on you, not me, to find an example that better
illustrates your point.
> > In the case of self-ousting, one doesn't even have to be looking to
> > cheat. Going back to the example of the person who has 0 GW and 0 VP
> > in the third round of a tournament, and whose present situation is
> > untenable, what method of enforcement other than peer pressure do you
> > have to force that player to sit there instead of packing up his or
> > her things and going home?
>
> The same methods that we use to keep players sitting there when they
> aren't in a lost position.
Such as?
> > You can't warn or disqualify the player
> > because that's irrelevant. You can't deny the player prizes because
> > there are none to gain. I suppose you could threaten them with not
> > allowing them back for future events, but that seems excessively
> > harsh. I really don't think such a scenario would be rare, and if the
> > rule were to be changed from the "reasonable" clause to "you must stay
> > in the game", we'd have at least as many, if not more, complaints on
> > the newsgroup about the rule due to the inability to enforce it.
>> When someone is in a lost position during friendly games and wants to
> go join another game we just set aside counters to represent his pool,
> let him gather his cards and thank him for playing. I've seen
> suggestions that when one player has to leave during a tournament game
> a judge could continue playing on his behalf.
They're all supposed to be friendly games, right? :) But yeah,
"pool-sacking" in friendly games is common, as it's a polite way of
handling it.
As for having a judge continue playing for a player who has to leave
a tournament, that only works if the player leaves their deck behind,
and if there aren't multiple people making the same request. It's
certainly the most graceful option for that scenario.
- Ben Peal
On Jun 4, 8:05 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> This is as stupid as if you'd say "If some people are thieves, this is
> a problem no laws can fix. Find some honest people and avoid contacts
> with all others" :)
Only if you assume that you can't avoid playing VtES altogether. Its
a game. You play it for fun. Don't play it with people who make it
not fun for you.
> The old Roman proverb says: "Ensure that honesty is rewarded better
> than thievery, and the thievery would disappear". Good rules and
> policies discourage playing not to win, bad rules (like we have now)
> *encourage* it.
Um, no they don't. Playing to win can help you, you know, win. If
you're playing in a tournament setting, there are prizes to
incentivize this. Otherwise you are stuck playing for the esteem of
your peers.
Playing to not-win offers no incentive or reward of any kind.
-Steve
On 4 kesä, 19:52, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I think that any "reasonable" person would consider going to such
> > > lengths to cheat as being extraordinary.
>
> > It's an example. Instead of getting hung up on this specific scenario
> > I encourage you to consider the deeper idea that the example is being
> > used to illustrate.
>
> The burden is on you, not me, to find an example that better
> illustrates your point.
It's an example, not a proof. Furthermore, this isn't a trial. The
burden of doing your best to understand what is being said is on you.
If you aren't willing to do that much I am reluctant to continue.
[ quoted text not captured ]
you personally think good sportsmanship includes a winning player
telling a losing player, "hey, you're losing, why don't you just quit
the game?"
wow.
suoli wrote:
> Ben Peal wrote:
> > The burden is on you, not me, to find an example that better
> > illustrates your point.
>
> It's an example, not a proof. Furthermore, this isn't a trial. The
> burden of doing your best to understand what is being said is on you.
> If you aren't willing to do that much I am reluctant to continue.
As far as I can tell, you're trying to tell me that we shouldn't
worry about the enforcement of rules when coming up with new ones
because if people want to cheat, they'll cheat those rules. The fact
of the matter is that new rules have come out regularly in the form of
cards, and when designing and playtesting those cards, effort has been
made to ensure that the rules on the cards prevent cheating to a
"reasonable" degree and to ensure the accurate representation of the
game state. Take for instance, your example of Arms Dealer. When
making new cards with similar abilities, would you rather that the
rules of those cards be written in the manner of Arms Dealer, or in
the manner of having the player reveal the card? Despite the great
behavior of V:TES players that we've encountered, we would clearly
prefer the latter. Why should we then abandon that standard when
making other rules? In the case of the proposed "you must stay in the
game" rule, I believe that it would take an "unreasonable" amount of
effort on the part of the judge to enforce such a rule, either in the
case of a player trying to cheat that rule or my oft-repeated example
of a player simply wanting to go home during round 3. As such, I
don't think it is beneficial to create such a rule, and in the "round
3" case, it would end up creating more problems than it would hope to
solve.
- Ben Peal
On 4 kesä, 22:56, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > Ben Peal wrote:
> > > The burden is on you, not me, to find an example that better
> > > illustrates your point.
>
> > It's an example, not a proof. Furthermore, this isn't a trial. The
> > burden of doing your best to understand what is being said is on you.
> > If you aren't willing to do that much I am reluctant to continue.
>
> As far as I can tell, you're trying to tell me that we shouldn't
> worry about the enforcement of rules when coming up with new ones
> because if people want to cheat, they'll cheat those rules. The fact
> of the matter is that new rules have come out regularly in the form of
> cards, and when designing and playtesting those cards, effort has been
> made to ensure that the rules on the cards prevent cheating to a
> "reasonable" degree and to ensure the accurate representation of the
> game state.
Shalmath's research-area ability, a new effect, has the same format as
Arms Dealer. I'm not a playtester myself but this suggests that at
least in one recent case the tiny effort of including "and reveal that
card to all players" to the text was not made. Could be a case of
negligence rather than a precedent, of course.
> Take for instance, your example of Arms Dealer. When
> making new cards with similar abilities, would you rather that the
> rules of those cards be written in the manner of Arms Dealer, or in
> the manner of having the player reveal the card? Despite the great
> behavior of V:TES players that we've encountered, we would clearly
> prefer the latter. Why should we then abandon that standard when
> making other rules?
Because having an imperfect rule is sometimes preferable to not having
any rule, especially when that rule wouldn't do any harm. I would
prefer to live in a perfect world but I'm content with living in an
imperfect world if the only other option is not living.
> In the case of the proposed "you must stay in the
> game" rule, I believe that it would take an "unreasonable" amount of
> effort on the part of the judge to enforce such a rule, either in the
> case of a player trying to cheat that rule
See my previous response relating to the psychology of self-ousting.
> or my oft-repeated example
> of a player simply wanting to go home during round 3. As such, I
> don't think it is beneficial to create such a rule, and in the "round
> 3" case, it would end up creating more problems than it would hope to
> solve.
>
> - Ben Peal
Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge that
he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse for
leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish and
rude to every other player involved. If something unexpected comes up
and he absolutely has to leave while in a lost position it's entirely
reasonable to leave a pool sack in his place.
suoli wrote:
> Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge
> that he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse
> for leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish
> and rude to every other player involved.
How about: "I got 0vp in two rounds and I'd like to drop."
Under your proposed system, what do you as a judge do then?
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/
Please bid on my auctions! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html
On 7 kesä, 02:23, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge
> > that he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse
> > for leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish
> > and rude to every other player involved.
>
> How about: "I got 0vp in two rounds and I'd like to drop."
>
> Under your proposed system, what do you as a judge do then?
>
> Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
> "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
> you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
> "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier> Please visit VTESville daily!http://vtesville.myminicity.com/> Please bid on my auctions!http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html
What? How is this related to self-ousting? What exactly *is* this
system that I've supposedly proposed?
I've been to tournaments where people have snuck out or arrived late
in the middle of tournaments. The judge made changes to table
arrangements and the tournaments continued. I guess he was kind of
peeved by some players sneaking off so now he hands out promos at the
beginning of the last non-final round.
suoli wrote:
> "Kevin M." wrote:>> suoli wrote:>>> Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge
>>> that he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse
>>> for leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain
>>> selfish and rude to every other player involved.>>
>> How about: "I got 0vp in two rounds and I'd like to drop."
>>
>> Under your proposed system, what do you as a judge do then?>> What? How is this related to self-ousting?
It is related because in each scenario, a player is leaving.
> What exactly *is* this system that I've supposedly proposed?
You seem to have proposed a system where players are forced to sit
in their seats and play out their game. As a judge and organizer,
I naturally thought of this very common scenario.
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/[ quoted text not captured ]
On 7 kesä, 02:44, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
>
> You seem to have proposed a system where players are forced to sit
> in their seats and play out their game.
I refer you to my previous comments regarding players who want to get
out of a lost position and pool sacking.
suoli wrote:
> "Kevin M." wrote:>> You seem to have proposed a system where players are forced
>> to sit in their seats and play out their game.>
> I refer you to my previous comments regarding players who want
> to get out of a lost position and pool sacking.
So you're inconsistent? Ok.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On 7 kesä, 02:51, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > "Kevin M." wrote:
> >> You seem to have proposed a system where players are forced
> >> to sit in their seats and play out their game.
>
> > I refer you to my previous comments regarding players who want
> > to get out of a lost position and pool sacking.
>
> So you're inconsistent? Ok.
>
> Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
> "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
> you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
> "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier> Please visit VTESville daily!http://vtesville.myminicity.com/> Please bid on my auctions!http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html
If this is your idea of a conversation I'm just going to stay out of
it.
suoli wrote:
> Ben Peal wrote:
> > As far as I can tell, you're trying to tell me that we shouldn't
> > worry about the enforcement of rules when coming up with new ones
> > because if people want to cheat, they'll cheat those rules. The fact
> > of the matter is that new rules have come out regularly in the form of
> > cards, and when designing and playtesting those cards, effort has been
> > made to ensure that the rules on the cards prevent cheating to a
> > "reasonable" degree and to ensure the accurate representation of the
> > game state.
>
> Shalmath's research-area ability, a new effect, has the same format as
> Arms Dealer. I'm not a playtester myself but this suggests that at
> least in one recent case the tiny effort of including "and reveal that
> card to all players" to the text was not made. Could be a case of
> negligence rather than a precedent, of course.
Might also be a case of not having enough room in the text box.
> > Take for instance, your example of Arms Dealer. When
> > making new cards with similar abilities, would you rather that the
> > rules of those cards be written in the manner of Arms Dealer, or in
> > the manner of having the player reveal the card? Despite the great
> > behavior of V:TES players that we've encountered, we would clearly
> > prefer the latter. Why should we then abandon that standard when
> > making other rules?
>
> Because having an imperfect rule is sometimes preferable to not having
> any rule, especially when that rule wouldn't do any harm. I would
> prefer to live in a perfect world but I'm content with living in an
> imperfect world if the only other option is not living.
V:TES is a multiplayer game, so it's already imperfect with respect
to tournament play. The present "reasonable" clause with respect to
self-ousting helps address that. It isn't perfect, but no rule can be
perfect in that situation. It also doesn't require an "unreasonable"
amount of effort on the part of the judge to enforce it. The proposed
"must stay in the game rule" would definitely require an
"unreasonable" amount of effort on the part of the judge to enforce
it.
> > In the case of the proposed "you must stay in the
> > game" rule, I believe that it would take an "unreasonable" amount of
> > effort on the part of the judge to enforce such a rule, either in the
> > case of a player trying to cheat that rule
>
> See my previous response relating to the psychology of self-ousting.
Your response regarding the psychology of self-ousting has nothing
to do with the ability to catch cheaters when they cheat.
> > or my oft-repeated example
> > of a player simply wanting to go home during round 3. As such, I
> > don't think it is beneficial to create such a rule, and in the "round
> > 3" case, it would end up creating more problems than it would hope to
> > solve.
>> Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge that
> he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse for
> leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish and
> rude to every other player involved. If something unexpected comes up
> and he absolutely has to leave while in a lost position it's entirely
> reasonable to leave a pool sack in his place.
Wait. I'm confused. Why tell me this when you said, "Why ask that
when I've just said that I'm not interested in discussing
my opinion on whether self ousting is good for the game or not?"
To be honest, I'm tired of arguing about how we're arguing. I'm
willing to accept that we've both made "reasonable" efforts to
convince each other of our positions, and that it would take an
"unreasonable" effort for either of us to try to succeed.
- Ben Peal
On 7 kesä, 03:34, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> suoli wrote:
> > Ben Peal wrote:
> > > In the case of the proposed "you must stay in the
> > > game" rule, I believe that it would take an "unreasonable" amount of
> > > effort on the part of the judge to enforce such a rule, either in the
> > > case of a player trying to cheat that rule
>
> > See my previous response relating to the psychology of self-ousting.
>
> Your response regarding the psychology of self-ousting has nothing
> to do with the ability to catch cheaters when they cheat.
I posited that when someone is purposefully trying to oust himself it
will almost always be really, really obvious to everybody watching
even when it's difficult or impossible to prove. Guess you could say
it's easy to catch but hard to prosecute. This doesn't matter if the
shame of being caught is enough of a deterrent.
> > > or my oft-repeated example
> > > of a player simply wanting to go home during round 3. As such, I
> > > don't think it is beneficial to create such a rule, and in the "round
> > > 3" case, it would end up creating more problems than it would hope to
> > > solve.
>
> > Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge that
> > he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse for
> > leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish and
> > rude to every other player involved. If something unexpected comes up
> > and he absolutely has to leave while in a lost position it's entirely
> > reasonable to leave a pool sack in his place.
>
> Wait. I'm confused. Why tell me this when you said, "Why ask that
> when I've just said that I'm not interested in discussing
> my opinion on whether self ousting is good for the game or not?"
Because you brought it up and I wanted to respond, even though I said
I wouldn't be interested. I'm wild and dangerous like that.
> To be honest, I'm tired of arguing about how we're arguing. I'm
> willing to accept that we've both made "reasonable" efforts to
> convince each other of our positions, and that it would take an
> "unreasonable" effort for either of us to try to succeed.
>
> - Ben Peal
Thank you for your time. If everybody on this newsgroup was as
reasonable and civil as you these threads would be a lot shorter.
suoli wrote:
> "Kevin M." wrote:>> suoli wrote:>>> "Kevin M." wrote:>>>> You seem to have proposed a system where players are forced
>>>> to sit in their seats and play out their game.>>>
>>> I refer you to my previous comments regarding players who want
>>> to get out of a lost position and pool sacking.>>
>> So you're inconsistent? Ok.>> If this is your idea of a conversation I'm just going to stay out
> of it.
You previously said:
"Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge
that he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse
for leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish
and rude to every other player involved. If something unexpected
comes up and he absolutely has to leave while in a lost position it's
entirely reasonable to leave a pool sack in his place."
And you still haven't answered my specific question about a player who
plays 2 rounds of a 3-round tournament and wants to drop, unless your
referential remark was to indicate when you said, "The judge made
changes to table arrangements and the tournaments continued." Which
looks to me to be inconsistent with your rule wanting people to be
forced against their will to stay in a game.
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/[ quoted text not captured ]
Kevin M. <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote:
>You previously said:
>"Honestly, if a player signs up in a tournament with the knowledge
> that he might have to play 3 rounds he should have a better excuse
> for leaving early than "I want to go home". That's just plain selfish
> and rude to every other player involved. If something unexpected
> comes up and he absolutely has to leave while in a lost position it's
> entirely reasonable to leave a pool sack in his place."
>
>And you still haven't answered my specific question about a player who
>plays 2 rounds of a 3-round tournament and wants to drop, unless your
>referential remark was to indicate when you said, "The judge made
>changes to table arrangements and the tournaments continued." Which
>looks to me to be inconsistent with your rule wanting people to be
>forced against their will to stay in a game.
I think the point is that:
- self-ousting apparently causes issues for some people
- pool-sacking and re-adjusting a table in the middle of a game, or
whatever else, causes bother in the middle of a busy game
- therefore, self-ousting is something "we" care about more.
By contrast:
- dropping at the end of a round causes a minute or two of mayhem as you
re-adjust one or more tables
- after that, things work out fine
- therefore, it's not as big a problem.
Yes, it would be nice if we could make sure that all players played all
rounds, but shit happens. However, the first scenario is - for some
players - considered much more problematic than the second. Therefore,
not addressing the second scenario is annoying, but it's better to "fix"
the first problem and leave the second alone than to leave both alone.
Yes, that can lead to a inconsistent result, policy-wise. However, if
you think the first is a problem worth fixing, it's a pragmatic step.
Something gets better, something else doesn't get worse.
--
James Coupe
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR.
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING.
13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
On Jun 6, 5:02 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
> I think the point is that:
>
> - self-ousting apparently causes issues for some people
> - pool-sacking and re-adjusting a table in the middle of a game, or
> whatever else, causes bother in the middle of a busy game
> - therefore, self-ousting is something "we" care about more.
>
> By contrast:
>
> - dropping at the end of a round causes a minute or two of mayhem as you
> re-adjust one or more tables
> - after that, things work out fine
> - therefore, it's not as big a problem.
>
> Yes, it would be nice if we could make sure that all players played all
> rounds, but shit happens. However, the first scenario is - for some
> players - considered much more problematic than the second. Therefore,
> not addressing the second scenario is annoying, but it's better to "fix"
> the first problem and leave the second alone than to leave both alone.
Withholding participation prizes (i.e., "every player gets a booster"
or whatever) until the end of all preliminary rounds can help
alleviate the second problem somewhat.
I also stress at the beginning of tournaments that I run (esp. at
cons) to each player that participation in all preliminary rounds is
what the players are signing up for and is expected of courteous
players.
[ quoted text not captured ]
Looks like every player not playing to win openly declares that :)
Theoretically, each thief should be imprisoned, but I wonder, why
thievery do exist nevertheless? :)))
There are people who prefer thievery to the honest work, and the
reasons are mostly psychological: the thieves see themselves as
"smarter" than their victims, and they enjoy "freedom" from the
routine work. Similarly, there are people who prefer to harm somebody
and leave the game to hard struggling for 1 VP or even 0.5, and the
reasons are also psychological. Eric Berne's "Games People Play"
provides the detailed explanation of this.
And the current rules *inspire* such behaviour a lot, since inviting
the judge makes each attempt "spectacular", and his approval makes the
revenge "officially well-deserved".
Ben Peal wrote:
> Ector wrote:
> > Looks like you don't see why the change is needed.
>
> I understand why you want the change, and I empathize with it. I
> just don't think it will improve anything, nor do I even think such a
> rule is enforceable.
Actually, removing the "lost position" rulings will be enough. Any
players's activity that obviously bring him/her closer to a loss would
be considered a PTW violation.
> > The current rules provide bad players and newbs a "psychologic
> > compensation" for the loss. The judge himself (nothing less!) confirms
> > that they were "treated badly" and have a "right for revenge". That's
> > why some players are actively seeking for being declared in "lost
> > position". Yes this is extremely stupid, but in the terms of
> > psychology this is often the only "gain" the bad players could get.
>
> I think you're correct in identifying one type of "psychology" that
> results in self-ousting. However, that very behavior is what helps
> make the rules change you want not work. They're going to want to be
> spiteful anyway. Creating a rule that says "you must try to last as
> long as you can" won't change the fact that they don't want to be in
> the game anymore. Furthermore, the rule you want is too difficult to
> enforce.
Yes, they're going to be spiteful anyway, but all the table would
react negatively to such actions. Who's going to tolerate behavior
like "I cannot get more VPs, so I'm going to harm people I don't
like"?
Currently the table's opinion doesn't matter, since judge is assumed
to be the higher authority. When the judge authorized the "lost
position", player is *officially* free to do everything he wants.
> > Actually, what do the players get from the "lost position" rulings? A
> > few extra minutes to rest before the next game? A way to take revenge
> > for the players they don't like?
>
> How about the ability to leave the tournament and go home?
> Repeating the example I've already given, suppose you have a player
> with 0 GW and 0 VP in round 3 of a tournament, and in round 3 that
> player's situation is untenable. What is to stop that player from
> packing up their things and leaving?
A lot of people here told me that the position is really lost only if
the player can do nothing, and his ousting is very close. Thus, he
doesn't have to wait for a long time, and in most cases his predator
will oust him on his next turn. No much gain of time, especially if
you consider the time that judge will need to make his decision.
> Furthermore, what would a player gain by being forced to stay in the
> game? Oh, right, nothing apart from having to sit there longer and be
> frustrated longer.
He may gain nothing, but the other players (and the game) will gain a
lot. No more "sudden self-oustings" that nobody can prevent, no more
stupid "revenge", no more gifts to somebody's predator.
Why playing in a lost position should be frustrating? Yes, you cannot
win, but you can participate in table talk, for instance, which
becomes prohibited when you get ousted :)
> Yeah, self-ousting sucks. King-making sucks. If you don't want it
> to happen to you, don't put other players in positions where they can
> do that to you - because they will.
It's great to know you don't like such things as I do :)
But "don't put other players in positions..." is a very flawed
argument. My grandprey can get into a "lost position" without my help
- his predator and prey may be enough. Imagine you're playing a wall
deck and can block all actions of your prey, but you *cannot* prevent
self-ousting of your grandprey. Did you "put your grandprey into a
position"? Obviously not, but you're still screwed for no reason!
Actually, the thing that sucks is the "lost position" ruling itself :)
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>LSJ wrote:>> As playing not to win is a violation of the rules, and such violations
>> are punishable with appropriate sanctions, the current rules
>> discourage playing not to win.>Looks like every player not playing to win openly declares that :)
This is why we have judges who exercise judgment.
As you've repeatedly demonstrated:
- your players are cheaters who cheat
- your judges don't enforce the existing rules.
Before yelling for changes, please fix these problems.
>Theoretically, each thief should be imprisoned, but I wonder, why
>thievery do exist nevertheless? :)))
PLAYING V:TES IS NOT A CRIME.
It is not a court of law. The judge makes a judgment call. End of.
If your judges are too stupid, too lazy, too corrupt, or too incompetent
to punish players who break the play-to-win rules, get better judges.
The rules are there to be enforced. Enforce them.
> Similarly, there are people who prefer to harm somebody
>and leave the game to hard struggling for 1 VP or even 0.5, and the
>reasons are also psychological.
Then *enforce the rules* and eject them from games. Report them to
V:EKN. Stop supporting cheaters by whining incessantly that you can't
enforce the rules. The rules are there. Enforce them.
>And the current rules *inspire* such behaviour a lot,
Only if you don't enforce them. If a player is not playing to win, take
appropriate action - ranging from correcting the player to
disqualification, with follow-up reports to V:EKN.
> since inviting
>the judge makes each attempt "spectacular", and his approval makes the
>revenge "officially well-deserved".
Only if the judge isn't enforcing the rules.
If a judge looks at the table and sees that, in his view, a player has
played to engineer a situation where he can take "revenge" - rather
than, you know, win - the judge takes action to correct this.
Your players cheat. Your judges don't enforce the rules. There is no
amount of rules change that will fix this - because your judges *don't
enforce the rules*. You keep telling us that they don't, because
otherwise this wouldn't be a problem. 99% of the offending behaviour
can be wiped out if your judges enforce the existing rules - so just do
that.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Jun 9, 3:38 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> There are people who prefer thievery to the honest work, and the
> reasons are mostly psychological: the thieves see themselves as
> "smarter" than their victims, and they enjoy "freedom" from the
> routine work.
Oh, Ector.
VTES is not the labratory for you to work out all your issues with law
and order. It is a game that the vast majority of people who are
playing are playing on the up and up with the sole intention of trying
to win legally (well, and have a good time while doing that).
> Similarly, there are people who prefer to harm somebody
> and leave the game to hard struggling for 1 VP or even 0.5, and the
> reasons are also psychological.
And these people aren't following the rules. There are already rules
that exist to prevent this. You don't need new ones to keep people
from doing this. You just need to enforce the existing ones.
> And the current rules *inspire* such behaviour a lot, since inviting
> the judge makes each attempt "spectacular", and his approval makes the
> revenge "officially well-deserved".
I have no idea who you are playing VTES with, but none of my local
play group operates on this level. Or my extended play group. Or any
playgroup I have ever played in. Are you running VTES tournaments in
either an elementary school or a prison?
-Peter
On Jun 9, 4:08 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> But "don't put other players in positions..." is a very flawed
> argument. My grandprey can get into a "lost position" without my help
> - his predator and prey may be enough. Imagine you're playing a wall
> deck and can block all actions of your prey, but you *cannot* prevent
> self-ousting of your grandprey. Did you "put your grandprey into a
> position"? Obviously not, but you're still screwed for no reason!
How are you screwed?
Your prey has killed his prey,which is not great for you, but is far
from making you lose all by itself.
If you were afraid that was going to happen you shouldn't have played
a wall deck. The reason you have fallen behind a little in the race -
which you are taking to mean "screwed" because you love hyperbole or
something - is because you are playing a slow deck. So it is your
fault.
Once again, your argument seems to boil down to "everyone should be
required to play in such a way that I always win". While I can see
the benefit to you of going on such a rules change, it seems like it's
going to be quite difficult to convince anyone else to support it.
-Steve
[ quoted text not captured ]
This is one of the greatest bullshits I've ever read.
Wall decks are not bad, but they require the great skill and a bit of
luck. They are slow, but they allow the player to control the table. A
player winning with a wall deck is generally a very good player
indeed.
But even the best player can do nothing with self-ousting. Nobody can
predict when exactly a player is going to self-oust (some players
never self-oust, including myself), and whether the judge would allow
it. And if the self-oust really happens, the wall deck is really
screwed, because it was designed to control the standard game actions
that cover 99.99% of the game, but self-ousting is an exception.
When did I say "everyone should be required to play in such a way that
I always win"??? I've said that the game would be better without self-
ousting, and it really would. Not just for myself, but for everybody.
Even the fact that "slow" decks like walls and rushes would have
better chances alone is good for the game, since the more deck
diversity the game gets the more interesting it becomes.
------------------------------------------
2 James Coupe & Peter Bakija: you're right, judging is the main
problem here. I still insist that "lost position" rulings should be
removed, though, since it requires a judge of great skill and
responsibility, and such judge may be difficult to find.
On Jun 4, 4:39 pm, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> One is then left with the question of whether it's more
> sportsmanlike for that player to sit there for the remainder of the
> game, or for the rest of the players at the table to say, "Yeah, we
> understand, man. There's no point in you staying. Go get a beer."
I think you'll find the best thing is to sit there with a beer - that
one of the other players provided :-) I spent about an hour at the
Aussie LCQ first game taking a grand total of zero actions before
being finally ousted all *without* a beer; it was terrible, all I had
was water. I was eventually rescued by Julian (who wasn't even on my
table) who provided the required beer (well a VB so that is slightly
debatable but the thought was there) and then all was well.
But really as Ben said, if player is in a hopeless position then they
can do what they want so take that into account while you play.
Simon
On Jun 15, 5:25 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> 2 James Coupe & Peter Bakija: you're right, judging is the main
> problem here. I still insist that "lost position" rulings should be
> removed, though, since it requires a judge of great skill and
> responsibility, and such judge may be difficult to find.
See, but it doesn't, really. Being in a truly lost position is rare.
As, again, you are often in a situation where ousting your prey may
seem insurmountable, but either withdrawing or surviving till the end
of the game do not. So you have to try and either withdraw or survive
till the end of the game.
To be in a truly lost position, you generally are going to be in
imminent dange of being ousted with no way to prevent it (i.e. 1 pool,
no ready minions, say). Which doesn't happen that much.
If there is any question as to whether someone is in a truly lost
position? They probably aren't in a truly lost position. If someone
can meaningfully interact with the table (i.e. arbitrarily rush people
crosstable or something), they probably aren't in a truly lost
position.
The issue you are running into is not one of bad rules. You are
running into (presumably) an issue of people saying "I'm in a lost
position, even though I have these here 4 Warghouls and 10 pool!".
Which is people just cheating. And doesn't require a judge of great
skill and responsibility to determine that.
Here are the important guidelines:
A) If somneone can meaningfully interact with the table? Probably not
in a lost position.
B) If someone can attempt to withdraw or survive till the game times
out? Not in a lost position.
-Peter
Peter D Bakija wrote:
> Here are the important guidelines:
>
> A) If somneone can meaningfully interact with the table? Probably not
> in a lost position.
>
> B) If someone can attempt to withdraw or survive till the game times
> out? Not in a lost position.
>
Gawd. You make it sound so easy...
I think this entire loooooong discussion could have been avoided if people
just read those two guidelines.
best -
chris
On Jun 15, 5:25 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
<snip>
> But even the best player can do nothing with self-ousting. Nobody can
> predict when exactly a player is going to self-oust (some players
> never self-oust, including myself), and whether the judge would allow
> it. And if the self-oust really happens, the wall deck is really
> screwed, because it was designed to control the standard game actions
> that cover 99.99% of the game, but self-ousting is an exception.
Well, maybe your "very good player" should have thought about the
remaining .01%, if it is possible to be SO TOTALLY SCREWED when it
happens.
Oh, wait, they're NOT totally screwed. Which was my point. Which you
declined to refute because you'd rather cut and paste the "you can't
affect self-ousting" argument, which is technically true but entirely
beside the point.
> When did I say "everyone should be required to play in such a way that
> I always win"???
Every couple of months you start a thread here saying some rule should
be changed/card should be banned or whatever, and you present the
"evidence" that you lost a game the night before. It comes across as
whining because you lost.
> I've said that the game would be better without self-
> ousting, and it really would. Not just for myself, but for everybody.
No, it wouldn't. The ability to self-oust helps discourage people
from really egregious breaches of the fundamental predator-prey
relationship. If you make a deck that torporizes all the vampires on
the table, then people can self-oust to prevent you from profiting
from your anti-fun deck. That's a FEATURE not a bug.
> Even the fact that "slow" decks like walls and rushes would have
> better chances alone is good for the game, since the more deck
> diversity the game gets the more interesting it becomes.
Yeah, this is so far off the point that the light from the point takes
a million years to get there. Congratulations on your mastery of
Internet arguing technique #3. Or is it #4?
> ------------------------------------------
> 2 James Coupe & Peter Bakija: you're right, judging is the main
> problem here. I still insist that "lost position" rulings should be
> removed, though, since it requires a judge of great skill and
> responsibility, and such judge may be difficult to find.
If takes judges of at least average intelligence and minimum
competence at the game. You have made it clear that you have trouble
finding such people, which sucks for you, but is hardly endemic among
the player base.
-Steve
Peter D Bakija wrote:
> On Jun 15, 5:25 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > 2 James Coupe & Peter Bakija: you're right, judging is the main
> > problem here. I still insist that "lost position" rulings should be
> > removed, though, since it requires a judge of great skill and
> > responsibility, and such judge may be difficult to find.
>
> See, but it doesn't, really. Being in a truly lost position is rare.
> As, again, you are often in a situation where ousting your prey may
> seem insurmountable, but either withdrawing or surviving till the end
> of the game do not. So you have to try and either withdraw or survive
> till the end of the game.
>
> To be in a truly lost position, you generally are going to be in
> imminent dange of being ousted with no way to prevent it (i.e. 1 pool,
> no ready minions, say). Which doesn't happen that much.
>
> If there is any question as to whether someone is in a truly lost
> position? They probably aren't in a truly lost position. If someone
> can meaningfully interact with the table (i.e. arbitrarily rush people
> crosstable or something), they probably aren't in a truly lost
> position.
>
> The issue you are running into is not one of bad rules. You are
> running into (presumably) an issue of people saying "I'm in a lost
> position, even though I have these here 4 Warghouls and 10 pool!".
> Which is people just cheating. And doesn't require a judge of great
> skill and responsibility to determine that.
It would be wonderful if your words would become the rules, but they
aren't going to :(
Thus, "no reasonable chance of getting VPs" turns into "I don't see a
way of getting more VPs or at least keeping my 0.5". If the player
feels so and the judge feels the same, then self-ousting is confirmed.
Yes, even with 4 War Ghouls and 10 pool. If your predator has Palla
Grande and a horde of !Toreadors (at least 9), for instance, even 4
WGs and 10 pool aren't going to save you. The player will claim that
he's in the "lost position", since he's going to be ousted, and he
cannot prevent that. Would you argue as a judge?
> Here are the important guidelines:
>
> A) If somneone can meaningfully interact with the table? Probably not
> in a lost position.
Could you be more specific about "meaningfully interact"? If someone
can make an action, or block an action, or cast some votes?
swamplor wrote:
> On Jun 15, 5:25 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> <snip>
> > But even the best player can do nothing with self-ousting. Nobody can
> > predict when exactly a player is going to self-oust (some players
> > never self-oust, including myself), and whether the judge would allow
> > it. And if the self-oust really happens, the wall deck is really
> > screwed, because it was designed to control the standard game actions
> > that cover 99.99% of the game, but self-ousting is an exception.
>
> Well, maybe your "very good player" should have thought about the
> remaining .01%, if it is possible to be SO TOTALLY SCREWED when it
> happens.
> Oh, wait, they're NOT totally screwed. Which was my point. Which you
> declined to refute because you'd rather cut and paste the "you can't
> affect self-ousting" argument, which is technically true but entirely
> beside the point.
Even the best deck can do something, and cannot do something else.
Self-ousting of the grandprey is a situation that almost no deck can
counter, and this alone is very bad for the game. Please don't try to
argue that good players should predict when the other players are
going to self-oust: that's impossible.
> > When did I say "everyone should be required to play in such a way that
> > I always win"???
>
> Every couple of months you start a thread here saying some rule should
> be changed/card should be banned or whatever, and you present the
> "evidence" that you lost a game the night before. It comes across as
> whining because you lost.
Every couple of months? You seriuously exaggerate my abilities :)
When I see something ugly, something that should be changed, I'm
trying to get it changed. Simply, right?
> > I've said that the game would be better without self-
> > ousting, and it really would. Not just for myself, but for everybody.
>
> No, it wouldn't. The ability to self-oust helps discourage people
> from really egregious breaches of the fundamental predator-prey
> relationship. If you make a deck that torporizes all the vampires on
> the table, then people can self-oust to prevent you from profiting
> from your anti-fun deck. That's a FEATURE not a bug.
Come on. I'm a programmer myself, and the words "it's a feature, not a
bug" are used as a common *joke* in my company, nothing more. We've
never actually answered our users something like that, since if the
user feels that's a bug, that's a bug then.
Torporizing all vamps of your predator (that can lead to self-ousting)
may be your only way to survive, if you're playing a rush deck without
bounce, and it doesn't "breach the predator-prey relationship". That's
NORMAL. If somebody torporizes all vamps on the table, that's really
great! Why your "fun" is more important than skill and luck of a
brilliant player that managed to torporize all vampires?
The "anti-fun" concept is very silly as a whole. Somebody would say
that turbo-decks are "anti-fun" - let's fix the turbo-decks, right?
Others would say that Sensory Desprivation is "anti-fun", so let's ban
it? In my opinion, the deck that can really torporize the entire table
is extremely fun. Moreover, it's kinda heroic: imagine a soccer
forward who's able to outmaneuver the entire opposing team and score a
goal :)
> > Even the fact that "slow" decks like walls and rushes would have
> > better chances alone is good for the game, since the more deck
> > diversity the game gets the more interesting it becomes.
>
> Yeah, this is so far off the point that the light from the point takes
> a million years to get there. Congratulations on your mastery of
> Internet arguing technique #3. Or is it #4?
Actually, it IS the point, but you refuse to see it. The game becomes
better when different winning strategies are available, and self-
ousting seriously hampers the "control" strategies, including rush and
intercept.
> > ------------------------------------------
> > 2 James Coupe & Peter Bakija: you're right, judging is the main
> > problem here. I still insist that "lost position" rulings should be
> > removed, though, since it requires a judge of great skill and
> > responsibility, and such judge may be difficult to find.
>
> If takes judges of at least average intelligence and minimum
> competence at the game. You have made it clear that you have trouble
> finding such people, which sucks for you, but is hardly endemic among
> the player base.
As long as you consider the task easy, please provide your answer to
the situation with 4 War Ghouls and Palla Grande (see my previous
response to Peter).
On Jun 16, 7:06 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> It would be wonderful if your words would become the rules, but they
> aren't going to :(
No, no. My words *are* the rules. In the sense that what I am telling
you is what comes from the existing rules.
> Thus, "no reasonable chance of getting VPs" turns into "I don't see a
> way of getting more VPs or at least keeping my 0.5".
Can they reasonably interact with the table? Then thay have a
reasonable chance of surviving till the end of the game. Boom. Problem
solved.
The issue here is that you and presumably your play group are *way*
overthinking this. "Lost Position" is not about looking at the table,
projecting 10 turns into the future, and determining that you have
only a 12.5% chance of a VP, so you get to declare yourself in a
"Lost" position and do whatever the hell you want. Being in a "Lost
Position" means that, in all likelihood, you are ousted imminently.
And have no way to realistically prevent it. Yes, there is *always* an
outside chance that someone will Eagle's Sight the bleed of 1 that
burns your last pool or Life Boons you, but banking on this is
unreasonable, and even after you are saved by the Lifeboon, you are
still at 1 pool with no reasonable chance of survival.
This game requires that you try and win. If you can't try and win, the
game requires you to try and do as well as you can (which often is
just survive till the game times out or withdraw). If you have no
reasonable chance of doing any of this, you can die in whatever way
you see fit. But to have no reasonable chance of doing either of these
things, you have to be in a really bad situation. Which is easy to
determine.
> If the player
> feels so and the judge feels the same, then self-ousting is confirmed.
> Yes, even with 4 War Ghouls and 10 pool. If your predator has Palla
> Grande and a horde of !Toreadors (at least 9), for instance, even 4
> WGs and 10 pool aren't going to save you. The player will claim that
> he's in the "lost position", since he's going to be ousted, and he
> cannot prevent that. Would you argue as a judge?
That player can reasonably interact with the table. He is not in a
Lost Position.
> Could you be more specific about "meaningfully interact"? If someone
> can make an action, or block an action, or cast some votes?
Meaninfully interact. He can affect the outcome of the table.
-Peter
On Jun 16, 7:30 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Come on. I'm a programmer myself, and the words "it's a feature, not a
> bug" are used as a common *joke* in my company, nothing more. We've
> never actually answered our users something like that, since if the
> user feels that's a bug, that's a bug then.
Being able to self oust from a truly lost position makes the game work
better. Plain and simple. It is, in fact, a feature rather than a bug.
If I am a brutal killer deck, and I demolish all my prey's minions and
destroy all hope of him doing anything at all effective, and he self
ousts (presumably to get out of a bad game quicker), all he is doing
is speeding up the inevitable and rewarding his predator for, ya know,
ousting him. This is not a problem for anyone.
If I am a brutal killer deck, and I demolish all my predator's minions
and destroy all hope of him doing anything at all effective, and he
self ousts (presumably to get out of a bad game quicker), he is both
speeding up the inevitable *and* punishing me for circumventing the
standard predator/prey dynamic which the the main engine that makes
the game go. Which is completely fine. As it provides disincentive to
do things like destroy all of your predator's vampires, which the game
needs. Yes. Sometimes your only chance to do well in a game is to
destroy all of your predators vampires. So you do that. But the cost
for doing this is that you probably aren't getting the VP for that
player, either 'cause your grand predator kills him or he self ousts.
Which is *completely* reasonable. And something that everyone needs to
understand--if you back oust your predator? He is going to be back
ousted.
The game *needs* built in incentive to keep people from just
backousting their predator every game. And it has it. And it works
fine.
-Peter
Peter D Bakija wrote:
> On Jun 16, 7:30 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > Come on. I'm a programmer myself, and the words "it's a feature, not a
> > bug" are used as a common *joke* in my company, nothing more. We've
> > never actually answered our users something like that, since if the
> > user feels that's a bug, that's a bug then.
>
> Being able to self oust from a truly lost position makes the game work
> better. Plain and simple. It is, in fact, a feature rather than a bug.
>
> If I am a brutal killer deck, and I demolish all my prey's minions and
> destroy all hope of him doing anything at all effective, and he self
> ousts (presumably to get out of a bad game quicker), all he is doing
> is speeding up the inevitable and rewarding his predator for, ya know,
> ousting him. This is not a problem for anyone.
>
> If I am a brutal killer deck, and I demolish all my predator's minions
> and destroy all hope of him doing anything at all effective, and he
> self ousts (presumably to get out of a bad game quicker), he is both
> speeding up the inevitable *and* punishing me for circumventing the
> standard predator/prey dynamic which the the main engine that makes
> the game go. Which is completely fine.
Sorry, Peter, but this represents completely childish and flawed
logic.
1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
against his predator, as he chooses. Torporizing all vampires still
counts as defense.
2). Rules should never encourage "punishing" players. Most VTES
players aren't kids.
> As it provides disincentive to
> do things like destroy all of your predator's vampires, which the game
> needs. Yes. Sometimes your only chance to do well in a game is to
> destroy all of your predators vampires. So you do that. But the cost
> for doing this is that you probably aren't getting the VP for that
> player, either 'cause your grand predator kills him or he self ousts.
> Which is *completely* reasonable. And something that everyone needs to
> understand--if you back oust your predator? He is going to be back
> ousted.
>
> The game *needs* built in incentive to keep people from just
> backousting their predator every game. And it has it. And it works
> fine.
>
> -Peter
The game does not need such "incentive", and it looks extremely
unnatural. Your predator is your enemy but simultaneously your defense
against your grandpredator. There is some sense in keeping your
predator alive, but there is absolutely no sense in allowing your
predator to harm you.
On Jun 16, 10:03 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Thanks a lot, Peter! I will try to spread the light of your vision here :)
Sure! I hope it helps.
And again, just to be clear here, I play a lot of VTES, and even in
casual play, I rarely see people self oust, and when I do, in
competitive play is is generally someone who is *really* toasted (i.e.
1 pool, no ready minions) and they really just want to speed up the
inevitable or reasonably spite their prey who effectively backousted
them. In casual play, people self oust a little more often than in
tournament play in my experience, but the vast majority of the time,
it is 'cause they are pretty much screwed anyway and want to speed the
game up and go get a drink.
I don't think I have *ever* seen someone at a tournament either self
oust or play like a lunatic 'cause they claim they are in a "lost
position" even though they have the ability to meaningfully interact
with the table--i.e. IME, I have never seen or dealt with someone
trying to use the "But I'm In a Lost Position!" rule as a
justification for playing stupid.
I have certainly seen people in tournament play self oust as the
result of just getting really mad and up and leaving the table. But
that is completely oustide the bounds of the PTW rules. That is just,
ya know, sometimes people get mad and leave.
-Peter
On Jun 16, 10:39 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Sorry, Peter, but this represents completely childish and flawed logic.
You are certainly welcome to think that. But I think you are
incorrect.
> 1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
> the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
> against his predator, as he chooses. Torporizing all vampires still
> counts as defense.
Sure. But it also gives someone two predators. Which isn't what the
game is designed for. What makes the game go is ousting your prey.
Yes. Sometimes you need to back oust your predator. So you do that.
And if it makes you win, it makes you win. But you need to realize
that backousting your predator is likely to result in your predator
getting ousted, either by your grandpredator or 'cause they oust
themselves to spite you and benefit your grand predator. That happens.
And is good for the game. As it encourages you not to back oust your
predator too often. Which is *good* for the game.
> 2). Rules should never encourage "punishing" players. Most VTES
> players aren't kids.
The rules encourage playing correctly--i.e. oust your prey. If you
decided that your best course of action is to go backwards, put your
predator in an untennable position, and get him ousted one way or the
other? Well, if that is your best course of action, it is your best
course of action. But don't get upset when he is ousted (one way or
the other) to someone's benefit who isn't you.
If you don't want your predator to get ousted? Don't put them in a
position to get ousted. If you need to put them in a position to get
ousted? Do that, and accept that someone else is getting that VP.
> The game does not need such "incentive", and it looks extremely
> unnatural. Your predator is your enemy but simultaneously your defense
> against your grandpredator. There is some sense in keeping your
> predator alive, but there is absolutely no sense in allowing your
> predator to harm you.
Sure. But that is irrelevant to the discussion. If you need to oust
your predator? Do that. But realize that someone else is probably
getting that VP. And act accordingly.
It is good that the game discourages going upstream. 'Cause the game
works when you have a predator and a prey, and not as well when you
have two predators. Yes. Sometimes this happens. And is necessary for
someone to try and do well. Great. Do what you need to do. But realize
that ousting your predator is going to hand someone who isn't you a VP
one way or the other.
-Peter
On Jun 4, 3:42 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote:
> On Jun 4, 8:05 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
> > Good rules and
> > policies discourage playing not to win, bad rules (like we have now)
> > *encourage* it.
>> How do the current rules, which say "you must play to win" encourage
> not playing to win?
They say "you must play to win, until you have no more reasonable
chance of winning, in which case you can do whatever you want".
That is the problem that me and m playgroup has with it (and I think
Ectors as well?).
If it did say "you must play to win NO MATTER WHAT <insert dramatic
drums>", then it wouldn't stop when you decide that you don't have a
chance. Don't remove your last pool, since that prevents you from
maximizing your VPs (see previous comment about disregarding Life
Boon).
No more need for discussions about whether you have a chance or not.
No more need for judges to make decisions based on seeing the snapshot
of the situation at the table now.
>
> How does, when all other things have gone out the window, and your
> demise is imminent, you not being prevented from ousting yourself,
> when you were in all reasonable situations going to get ousted soon
> anyway, encourage not playing to win? What do you gain from self
> ousting other than:
>
> A) Losing (which we have to assume is anti-encouragement to doing so).
>
> and
>
> B) Getting to get out of a game that you no longer have any chance to
> interact with meaningfully.
>
> Sometimes, you get to get a little bit of spite joy. This encourages
> you toy Play to Lose?
>
> -Peter
On Jun 16, 11:17 am, "Nikolaj \"Lord of the Betrayers\" Wendt"
<nikolajwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> They say "you must play to win, until you have no more reasonable
> chance of winning, in which case you can do whatever you want".
And being in that situation (i.e. being able to do whatever you want)
is very rare. The issue is not needing a new rule. It is actually
playing by the rules that already exist.
If you have no reasonable chance at winning, you still probably have a
reasonable chance of staying alive or maybe withdrawing, both of which
take precidence over "doing whatever you want". And if you have no
chance of winning, no chance of getting a VP by ousting someone, no
chance of staying alive, and no chance of withdrawing? Yeah, then you
can do whatever you want. But if you are in that situation, "whatever
you want" is an incredibly small pool of options (which generally
consists of A: sit there until you are dead or B: speed up your
inevitable death).
-Peter
On Jun 16, 10:39 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> 1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
> the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
> against his predator, as he chooses.
And you're back to "we should change the rules so I can win."
Yes, every player is allowed to choose how they are going to go about
defending themself. But some of those ways suck and won't work. And
some of them have additional consequences.
For example, if you torporize all of your predator's vampires then
yes, he can't kill you. But he also can't defend himself from his
predator. So he dies, and you get a new, less damaged predator. And
there's no reason why the rules should require this process to happen
in the most convenient way possible for you.
Yes, if you are playing a deck that can in whatever manner back-oust
your predator, then if your current predator is too strong for you you
can choose to trade for another one and hope your situation improves.
That's fine. You cannot, however, choose not to have a predator.
Because the game is about everyone having a predator.
-Steve
On Jun 16, 7:30 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Even the best deck can do something, and cannot do something else.
> Self-ousting of the grandprey is a situation that almost no deck can
> counter, and this alone is very bad for the game.
No, its good for the game.
The basic structure of the game assumes that everyone has a predator
and everyone has a prey. If one player is rendered unable to affect
the game state, but is technically still alive, that structure breaks
down. For example, a vote deck may wish to keep its crippled prey
alive in order to keep its wall-deck grandprey from being able to
block its votes. Allowing players to self-oust discourages other
players from attempting to engineer these situations. It helps
encourage "proper" play, which is good for the game.
<snip>
> > > When did I say "everyone should be required to play in such a way that
> > > I always win"???
<snip>
> When I see something ugly, something that should be changed, I'm
> trying to get it changed. Simply, right?
I realize that you have to say that in order to save face, but my
point stands: It comes across as whining because you lost.
> > > I've said that the game would be better without self-
> > > ousting, and it really would. Not just for myself, but for everybody.
And I've said self-ousting (the fact that it is permitted, not the
fact of it happening, necessarily) is good for the game.
Let's see which of us can restate our position the most times.
<snip>
> Torporizing all vamps of your predator (that can lead to self-ousting)
> may be your only way to survive, if you're playing a rush deck without
> bounce, and it doesn't "breach the predator-prey relationship". That's
> NORMAL.
If you are playing a rush deck with no other defense, then yes,
sometimes you have to torporize all your predators guys. Usually what
happens next is you get a new predator right quick. There's no reason
to change the rules to force your old predator to play speed bump for
as long as possible.
<snip>
> it? In my opinion, the deck that can really torporize the entire table
> is extremely fun. Moreover, it's kinda heroic: imagine a soccer
> forward who's able to outmaneuver the entire opposing team and score a
> goal :)
You have fallen into the common newbie trap of mistaking the combat
sub-system for the whole game. There is absolutely no reason to
reward torporizing vampires. Sure, you might find it to be in your
strategic interest, but the rules don't care. The rules tell you to
drop your prey's pool to zero. Encouraging people to waste time doing
things other than that is a bad idea.
<snip>
> Actually, it IS the point, but you refuse to see it. The game becomes
> better when different winning strategies are available, and self-
> ousting seriously hampers the "control" strategies, including rush and
> intercept.
Rush and intercept decks do just fine. They rarely sweep tables, but
they are good at being the last guy standing. Overpowering them would
not make more strategies available, it would make those two dominant.
<snip>
> As long as you consider the task easy, please provide your answer to
> the situation with 4 War Ghouls and Palla Grande (see my previous
> response to Peter).
Well, since the general rule is that players can play how they like
and there's nothing in the situation you describe to change that, I
would say he or she can play however he or she likes. Since you've
gifted the "doomed" player with 10 pool, self-ousting doesn't even
enter into it, so whatever.
-Steve
On Jun 16, 7:06 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> Thus, "no reasonable chance of getting VPs" turns into "I don't see a
> way of getting more VPs or at least keeping my 0.5". If the player
> feels so and the judge feels the same, then self-ousting is confirmed.
> Yes, even with 4 War Ghouls and 10 pool. If your predator has Palla
> Grande and a horde of !Toreadors (at least 9), for instance, even 4
> WGs and 10 pool aren't going to save you. The player will claim that
> he's in the "lost position", since he's going to be ousted, and he
> cannot prevent that. Would you argue as a judge?
OK, first off, you do realize that when we talk about self-ousting we
mean legitimately spending your last pool on something, right? Not
just walking away from the table. Because it might be hard for the
guy with 10 pool to oust himself.
But assuming he could, what difference does it make? Do you have a
house rule that anyone who self-ousts gets a free blow job? Because
otherwise, he's just dead.
Sure, he can spend his last turn killing guys with war ghouls. Which
is not different than any other of his turns, as he has the war
ghouls.
Does he use them to kill his prey's guys? Its hard to argue that
getting your prey is wrong.
Does he use them to kill his predator's guys? Probably. Again, this
seems natural.
Does he use them to kill someone else's guys? If so, the only
possible effect (assuming he then ousts himself) is to alter the final
distribution of VPs. And as long as he's doing that to spite the
person or people who got him into this bad situation and not to
randomly help his friend (collusion is ALREADY against the rules),
that's fine.
Again I say, if you put someone in a position where they can't win but
they can pick the winner, you don't get to whine if they don't pick
you.
-Steve
Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
>
>
>Peter D Bakija wrote:
>Sorry, Peter, but this represents completely childish and flawed
>logic.
>1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
>the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
>against his predator, as he chooses. Torporizing all vampires still
>counts as defense.
It counts as defence, much like doing something stupid but aggressive
against your prey counts as offence.
If you act in a fashion that puts a player into a lost position, that's
dumb. So try to avoid it.
It is not the purpose of the rules to make up for you doing dumb things,
rather than doing better things.
>2). Rules should never encourage "punishing" players. Most VTES
>players aren't kids.
Multi-player games aren't duel games. If someone breaks a cross-table
alliance, for example, it's perfectly reasonable that a player might
want to screw them over later, given the chance. That's an inherent
facet of multi-player games.
The reason the predator/prey dynamic exists is to pull away from that
slightly, so you always have an incentive to attack one player who other
players don't have a rule-based incentive to attack. But the rules also
very clearly don't want to annul the possibility of back-stabbing,
slapping, cross-table aggression, going upstream, or whatever else. You
won't get a VP by doing those things specifically - but they might mean
you can go on to get VPs.
It's a multi-player game. Garfield intentionally left in the social
dynamic as part of the game. If you want a game without a social
dynamic, that's entirely understandable - but that just means that V:TES
is not the right game for you.
>> The game *needs* built in incentive to keep people from just
>> backousting their predator every game. And it has it. And it works
>> fine.
>>>The game does not need such "incentive", and it looks extremely
>unnatural.
Garfield disagrees with you. He intentionally wanted incentives that
mean your interests do not exactly align with another player's
interests. When your incentives align with your grand-predator's
incentives, problems happen.
The whole predator-prey dynamic is intentionally unnatural. The game
could have been a free-for-all, last-man-standing game. An unnatural
model was chosen instead.
> Your predator is your enemy but simultaneously your defense
>against your grandpredator. There is some sense in keeping your
>predator alive, but there is absolutely no sense in allowing your
>predator to harm you.
There are plenty of reasons why allowing your predator to harm you can
be a perfectly ordinary thing to do - and a sensible thing to do.
However, most of them boil down to the fact that allowing your predator
to build up slightly can mean that he can fend off your grand-predator
more easily.
It is perfectly ordinary to see a well-played wall deck allow acts of
minor aggression and minor build-up. This works out particularly well
if the wall deck can bounce after declining blocks - which many wall
decks can, since they typically rely on Auspex. (Ahrimanes, not so
much.)
[ quoted text not captured ]
[ quoted text not captured ]
Goddammit Wampler, stop using logic - that never works!
Hyperbole and melodramatics - that tends to change people's minds. And
maybe bumper stickers with funny sayings.
best -
chris
> Looks like I've discovered the source of frequent self-oustings in our
> community. One of our players just told me that his measure of "no
> reasonable chance of getting VPs" is less than 30% chance.
> My rate is somewhat like 1% or even less. What's your rate of
> "reasonable chance"?
After a implementing the conditions and letting my supper computer
calculate for 3 weeks. It has come up with the 2 awnsers.
The first awsner is 42. I dont understand why this is the awser to the
question, so I made my other comuputer do calculations to figure out
what 42 means, but it is still running.
The other awsner I found was less then 3.14159265 %. There you have
it. If your chances are more than this, you have a more than
reasonable chance to win.
Gr,
Oortje
The pie is a lie!!!
Peter D Bakija wrote:
> On Jun 16, 10:39 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > Sorry, Peter, but this represents completely childish and flawed logic.
>
> You are certainly welcome to think that. But I think you are
> incorrect.
>
> > 1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
> > the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
> > against his predator, as he chooses. Torporizing all vampires still
> > counts as defense.
>
> Sure. But it also gives someone two predators. Which isn't what the
> game is designed for. What makes the game go is ousting your prey.
>
> Yes. Sometimes you need to back oust your predator. So you do that.
> And if it makes you win, it makes you win. But you need to realize
> that backousting your predator is likely to result in your predator
> getting ousted, either by your grandpredator or 'cause they oust
> themselves to spite you and benefit your grand predator. That happens.
> And is good for the game. As it encourages you not to back oust your
> predator too often. Which is *good* for the game.
1). Stopping your predator is NOT "back-ousting". Torporizing vampires
is very different from removing pool. Torporizing/disabling vampires
is normal, and there is absolutely no good in discouraging it. AFAIK
rush decks don't dominate the metagame :)
> > 2). Rules should never encourage "punishing" players. Most VTES
> > players aren't kids.
>
> The rules encourage playing correctly--i.e. oust your prey. If you
> decided that your best course of action is to go backwards, put your
> predator in an untennable position, and get him ousted one way or the
> other? Well, if that is your best course of action, it is your best
> course of action. But don't get upset when he is ousted (one way or
> the other) to someone's benefit who isn't you.
>
> If you don't want your predator to get ousted? Don't put them in a
> position to get ousted. If you need to put them in a position to get
> ousted? Do that, and accept that someone else is getting that VP.
The rules encourage both ousting your prey and defending from your
predator.
If your predator uses at least some of his vampires to avoid being
ousted, nobody's going to kill these vampires. But if he does nothing
to defend himself, and all his vampires are used for offense (like
most S&B decks do), why should the rush prey NOT torporize them?
> > The game does not need such "incentive", and it looks extremely
> > unnatural. Your predator is your enemy but simultaneously your defense
> > against your grandpredator. There is some sense in keeping your
> > predator alive, but there is absolutely no sense in allowing your
> > predator to harm you.
>
> Sure. But that is irrelevant to the discussion. If you need to oust
> your predator? Do that. But realize that someone else is probably
> getting that VP. And act accordingly.
>
> It is good that the game discourages going upstream. 'Cause the game
> works when you have a predator and a prey, and not as well when you
> have two predators. Yes. Sometimes this happens. And is necessary for
> someone to try and do well. Great. Do what you need to do. But realize
> that ousting your predator is going to hand someone who isn't you a VP
> one way or the other.
>
> -Peter
There is one thing that's relevant for the discussion. Why torporizing
predator's vampires should not provide you a few turns of safety
before your grandpredator ousts him? The reasons like "you always
should have a predator" aren't very logical.
Nikolaj Lord of the Betrayers Wendt wrote:
> On Jun 4, 3:42 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote:
> > On Jun 4, 8:05 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> >
> > > Good rules and
> > > policies discourage playing not to win, bad rules (like we have now)
> > > *encourage* it.
> >
> > How do the current rules, which say "you must play to win" encourage
> > not playing to win?
>
> They say "you must play to win, until you have no more reasonable
> chance of winning, in which case you can do whatever you want".
> That is the problem that me and m playgroup has with it (and I think
> Ectors as well?).
>
> If it did say "you must play to win NO MATTER WHAT <insert dramatic
> drums>", then it wouldn't stop when you decide that you don't have a
> chance. Don't remove your last pool, since that prevents you from
> maximizing your VPs (see previous comment about disregarding Life
> Boon).
>
> No more need for discussions about whether you have a chance or not.
> No more need for judges to make decisions based on seeing the snapshot
> of the situation at the table now.
>
>
That's my opinion as well. The "self-ousting" really adds nothing to
the game besides the unneeded debates and difficulties.
swamplor wrote:
> On Jun 16, 10:39 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > 1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
> > the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
> > against his predator, as he chooses.
>
> And you're back to "we should change the rules so I can win."
No, YOU are back to this stupid accusation. Not me. And you're trying
to bring the discussion to the personal level. I've never had a game
where my predator self-ousted having no ready vampires, but this has
absolutely nothing common with the discussion.
> Yes, every player is allowed to choose how they are going to go about
> defending themself. But some of those ways suck and won't work. And
> some of them have additional consequences.
> For example, if you torporize all of your predator's vampires then
> yes, he can't kill you. But he also can't defend himself from his
> predator. So he dies, and you get a new, less damaged predator. And
> there's no reason why the rules should require this process to happen
> in the most convenient way possible for you.
> Yes, if you are playing a deck that can in whatever manner back-oust
> your predator, then if your current predator is too strong for you you
> can choose to trade for another one and hope your situation improves.
> That's fine. You cannot, however, choose not to have a predator.
> Because the game is about everyone having a predator.
>
> -Steve
What "back-ousting" are you talking about? Torporizing vampires is not
back-ousting. I'm not ousting my predator, I'm just stopping him.
If the predator is able to "defend himself", no rush deck will
torporize ALL his vampires. Such predator is good, as long as he's
unable to press you too hard.
But there are decks that cannot defend themselves - for instance, S&B.
Torporizing all vampires of such predator is logical and should not
bear any "punishment". Yes, such predator is going to be ousted, but
he should be ousted naturally, not via self-ousting. Why winning a few
turns of peace should be impossible?
swamplor wrote:
> On Jun 16, 7:30 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> > Even the best deck can do something, and cannot do something else.
> > Self-ousting of the grandprey is a situation that almost no deck can
> > counter, and this alone is very bad for the game.
>
> No, its good for the game.
> The basic structure of the game assumes that everyone has a predator
> and everyone has a prey. If one player is rendered unable to affect
> the game state, but is technically still alive, that structure breaks
> down. For example, a vote deck may wish to keep its crippled prey
> alive in order to keep its wall-deck grandprey from being able to
> block its votes. Allowing players to self-oust discourages other
> players from attempting to engineer these situations. It helps
> encourage "proper" play, which is good for the game.
The basic structure of the game assumes that every player is
struggling to avoid being ousted, and when somebody is allowed to self-
oust (for whatever reason), this structure breaks down. This is really
bad.
And "engineering the situations" where somebody is helpless could be a
viable playing strategy. Disabling such strategies makes the game more
dull and thereby is bad for the game.
> <snip>
> > > > When did I say "everyone should be required to play in such a way that
> > > > I always win"???
> <snip>
> > When I see something ugly, something that should be changed, I'm
> > trying to get it changed. Simply, right?
>
> I realize that you have to say that in order to save face, but my
> point stands: It comes across as whining because you lost.
And I realize that you repeat this hollow accusation for the third
time, so if somebody really needs to "save face", it's you :)
> > > > I've said that the game would be better without self-
> > > > ousting, and it really would. Not just for myself, but for everybody.
>
> And I've said self-ousting (the fact that it is permitted, not the
> fact of it happening, necessarily) is good for the game.
> Let's see which of us can restate our position the most times.
Come on. The difference is my arguments are far better than yours. You
didn't provide anything better than "that's the way it's working
now".
>
> > Torporizing all vamps of your predator (that can lead to self-ousting)
> > may be your only way to survive, if you're playing a rush deck without
> > bounce, and it doesn't "breach the predator-prey relationship". That's
> > NORMAL.
>
> If you are playing a rush deck with no other defense, then yes,
> sometimes you have to torporize all your predators guys. Usually what
> happens next is you get a new predator right quick. There's no reason
> to change the rules to force your old predator to play speed bump for
> as long as possible.
There is a reason to change the rules to avoid the unnatural self-
ousting and to increase the chances of control decks. There is no
reason to keep the rules besides the usual "it currently works".
>
> > it? In my opinion, the deck that can really torporize the entire table
> > is extremely fun. Moreover, it's kinda heroic: imagine a soccer
> > forward who's able to outmaneuver the entire opposing team and score a
> > goal :)
>
> You have fallen into the common newbie trap of mistaking the combat
> sub-system for the whole game. There is absolutely no reason to
> reward torporizing vampires. Sure, you might find it to be in your
> strategic interest, but the rules don't care. The rules tell you to
> drop your prey's pool to zero. Encouraging people to waste time doing
> things other than that is a bad idea.
I completely agree that in most situations nobody would torporize all
vampires on the table, but sometimes it may be the only way of getting
GW. If there are only 3 players left, and one of them torporized all
opposing vamps, he should get GW, but self-ousting can "steal" his
victory. This is bad for the game and will always remain bad until the
self-ousting will be prohibited.
>
> > Actually, it IS the point, but you refuse to see it. The game becomes
> > better when different winning strategies are available, and self-
> > ousting seriously hampers the "control" strategies, including rush and
> > intercept.
>
> Rush and intercept decks do just fine. They rarely sweep tables, but
> they are good at being the last guy standing. Overpowering them would
> not make more strategies available, it would make those two dominant.
>
I've found 7 rush decks from the last 50 in TWD, right, but 3 of them
are Nana Buruku decks, and one is Tupdog deck - both are winning via
the vampire abilities rather than via the multitude of rush-supporting
cards. Allowing the rush decks to get a few turns of safety by
stopping the predator isn't going to make them "overpowered".
>
> > As long as you consider the task easy, please provide your answer to
> > the situation with 4 War Ghouls and Palla Grande (see my previous
> > response to Peter).
>
> Well, since the general rule is that players can play how they like
> and there's nothing in the situation you describe to change that, I
> would say he or she can play however he or she likes. Since you've
> gifted the "doomed" player with 10 pool, self-ousting doesn't even
> enter into it, so whatever.
>
> -Steve
How interesting: you didn't answer to the "easy" question!
The question was: if you would judge the game, and the player with 4
War Ghouls would ask you to confirm that his position is lost, since
his predator would oust him on his next turn and he cannot prevent
that, would you agree or not?
James Coupe wrote:
> Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Peter D Bakija wrote:
> >Sorry, Peter, but this represents completely childish and flawed
> >logic.
> >1). Stopping your predator from attacking you is NOT "circumventing
> >the standard predator/prey dynamic" since every player should defend
> >against his predator, as he chooses. Torporizing all vampires still
> >counts as defense.
>
> It counts as defence, much like doing something stupid but aggressive
> against your prey counts as offence.
>
> If you act in a fashion that puts a player into a lost position, that's
> dumb. So try to avoid it.
>
> It is not the purpose of the rules to make up for you doing dumb things,
> rather than doing better things.
This could be true only if the "lost position" would be completely
defined. The position one player is treating as "lost" doesn't seem
"lost" to another player. This effectively brings your logic "don't
put a player into a lost position" to the absurd level, like "don't
press him too much". How much is "too much"?
>
> >2). Rules should never encourage "punishing" players. Most VTES
> >players aren't kids.
>
> Multi-player games aren't duel games. If someone breaks a cross-table
> alliance, for example, it's perfectly reasonable that a player might
> want to screw them over later, given the chance. That's an inherent
> facet of multi-player games.
>
> The reason the predator/prey dynamic exists is to pull away from that
> slightly, so you always have an incentive to attack one player who other
> players don't have a rule-based incentive to attack. But the rules also
> very clearly don't want to annul the possibility of back-stabbing,
> slapping, cross-table aggression, going upstream, or whatever else. You
> won't get a VP by doing those things specifically - but they might mean
> you can go on to get VPs.
>
> It's a multi-player game. Garfield intentionally left in the social
> dynamic as part of the game. If you want a game without a social
> dynamic, that's entirely understandable - but that just means that V:TES
> is not the right game for you.
>
Please don't tell me such basic things. Yes, VTES is a multi-player
game, but if "social dynamic" means "I can promote my friends and
punish people I don't like" then you aren't undertanding it right.
When I play VTES, I am just a player, and treat all other players just
as *players*, not friends, rivals or whatever. VTES is not The Sims 2
where you need a lot of friends to be promoted.
> >> The game *needs* built in incentive to keep people from just
> >> backousting their predator every game. And it has it. And it works
> >> fine.
> >>
> >The game does not need such "incentive", and it looks extremely
> >unnatural.
>
> Garfield disagrees with you. He intentionally wanted incentives that
> mean your interests do not exactly align with another player's
> interests. When your incentives align with your grand-predator's
> incentives, problems happen.
Let's leave Garfield alone. Players's interests regularly align with
another player's interests.
> The whole predator-prey dynamic is intentionally unnatural. The game> could have been a free-for-all, last-man-standing game. An unnatural
> model was chosen instead.
It may be unnatural, but there is a serious game logic here. At least
it prevents from turning the game into complete chaos. But nothing
states that a player should never play in a hopeless position.
> > Your predator is your enemy but simultaneously your defense
> >against your grandpredator. There is some sense in keeping your
> >predator alive, but there is absolutely no sense in allowing your
> >predator to harm you.
>
> There are plenty of reasons why allowing your predator to harm you can
> be a perfectly ordinary thing to do - and a sensible thing to do.
> However, most of them boil down to the fact that allowing your predator
> to build up slightly can mean that he can fend off your grand-predator
> more easily.
>
> It is perfectly ordinary to see a well-played wall deck allow acts of
> minor aggression and minor build-up. This works out particularly well
> if the wall deck can bounce after declining blocks - which many wall
> decks can, since they typically rely on Auspex. (Ahrimanes, not so
> much.)
>
> --
> James Coupe
> PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR.
> EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING.
> 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
I've never said that nobody should allow predator's aggression. But
sometimes the aggression represents a serious threat, and you cannot
allow that.
On 17 июн, 12:51, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> I completely agree that in most situations nobody would torporize all
> vampires on the table, but sometimes it may be the only way of getting
> GW. If there are only 3 players left, and one of them torporized all
> opposing vamps, he should get GW, but self-ousting can "steal" his
> victory.
Why he "should" get GW? Just because he torporized all minions?
Or because his deck by design (or circumstances) can not deal with any
pressure and can not oust
his prey sooner than he will be ousted and have the only way to act -
to torporize all minions?
Or is it the ability to torporize all minions should be rewarded?
Shouldn't the rules then said "if only you have minions then you get
GW"?
On Jun 17, 4:56 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> 1). Stopping your predator is NOT "back-ousting". Torporizing vampires
> is very different from removing pool. Torporizing/disabling vampires
> is normal, and there is absolutely no good in discouraging it. AFAIK
> rush decks don't dominate the metagame :)
Sure. But unless you are back ousting your predator and putting them
into a "truly lost" position, they can't oust themselves, now can
they?
If you put your predator into a truly lost position by completely
removing their ability to interact with the game? Then they can oust
themselves, and you have no one to blame but yourself. On the other
hand, if you are simply slowing your predator down and leaving them
damaged but capable of interacting with the game, they can't self oust
anyway.
Do you see the difference?
> The rules encourage both ousting your prey and defending from your
> predator.
> If your predator uses at least some of his vampires to avoid being
> ousted, nobody's going to kill these vampires. But if he does nothing
> to defend himself, and all his vampires are used for offense (like
> most S&B decks do), why should the rush prey NOT torporize them?
'Cause you don't want them to be ousted. This is a fine line you need
to balance. Which is why Rush decks are hard to win with. If you blast
them into nothingness, they are going to be ousted one way or the
other, 'because you are making sure they get ousted, one way or the
other.
That the rules indicate that they don't then need to patiently wait
for you to get around the table to oust them at your leisure provides
incentive for you not to blast them out of existence.
> There is one thing that's relevant for the discussion. Why torporizing
> predator's vampires should not provide you a few turns of safety
> before your grandpredator ousts him?
It will provide you with a few turns of safety. A person can only oust
themselves so quickly. And maybe they won't even do that.
> The reasons like "you always should have a predator" aren't very logical.
Sorry, but the game disagrees with you.
Clearly, you are trying to get the game to adjust itself so that you
can freely attempt to torporize everyone at the table and get a table
sweep. Sadly, the game structure discourages that. You are just going
to have to be happy with the 3VPs you are going to get.
-Peter
On Jun 17, 5:14 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> What "back-ousting" are you talking about? Torporizing vampires is not
> back-ousting. I'm not ousting my predator, I'm just stopping him.
Ok. You are getting caught up in specifics. "Back ousting" generally
means "Making it so your predator can't play the game, resutling in
him getting ousted." It does not generally mean "making your predator
lose his last pool".
If you are a rush deck and you blast your predator into a smoking hole
with no ready minions, he is just a pool sack waiting to get ousted.
This is called, in polite society, "Back ousting your predator" even
if you don't make them loose all their pool. They are getting ousted
primarily due to your actions (i.e. making them unable to play the
game).
If you are a pure rush deck, yes, sometimes you nedd to back oust your
predator. That is part of being a pure rush deck. But *also* part of
being a pure rush deck is the realization that when you back oust your
predator? He usually gets ousted. So just suck it up and deal and be
happy with the 3VPs you are gonna get
.
> If the predator is able to "defend himself", no rush deck will
> torporize ALL his vampires.
At which point he can meaningfully interact with the game and can't
self oust, and this whole discussion is moot.
> Why winning a few turns of peace should be impossible?
How is it impossible to win a few turns of peace? You torp all your
predator's minions. He still has pool. How is he getting ousted
instantly, even if he can arguably self oust? Playing a Secret Horde
for 14?
If you have bashed all of your predators vampires empty into torpor,
*and* they have an uncontrolled minion *and* they have 4 pool or less,
yeah, they die quickly. But that was going to happen anyway.
-Peter
On Jun 17, 6:48 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> This could be true only if the "lost position" would be completely defined.
It is.
You are in a truly "lost position" when you have no reasonable chance
to improve your position, victory point wise, be it through winning,
ousting someone, surviving till the game times out, or attempting to
withdraw.
It can't get more specific than that.
> The position one player is treating as "lost" doesn't seem
> "lost" to another player.
At which point it probably isn't a truly lost position.
> I've never said that nobody should allow predator's aggression. But
> sometimes the aggression represents a serious threat, and you cannot
> allow that.
And no one has ever said "you can't ever attack your predator" (so for
the love of G'Quan, please stop trying to prop up your argument on
"But sometimes you need to attack your predator!", 'cause not a single
person in this discussion disagrees with you on that level). You just
need to realize that doing so will often result in them getting ousted
and someone who isn't you getting their VP. That is all.
-Peter
On Jun 17, 4:56 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> 1). Stopping your predator is NOT "back-ousting".
And again, don't get caught up on semantics.
"Back ousting" as a term is generally used to mean "making your
predator get ousted". Which often is simply the result of you making
him unable to play (see: back rushing your predator into a smoking
crater). It is *not* generally used to specifically refer to "making
your predator lose pool until he is ousted" (although certainly
sometimes that happens due to votes or something like Kindred
Spirits).
If you are a rush deck and you put all your predators minions into
torpor? You are, in fact, "back ousting" him. As you are preventing
him from playing the game and getting him ousted.
> The rules encourage both ousting your prey and defending from your
> predator.
Yes, they do.
But if you defend yourself *too* much from your predator, he gets
ousted and you probably aren't getting that VP. Deal with it.
-Peter
On Jun 17, 5:51 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> The basic structure of the game assumes that every player is
> struggling to avoid being ousted, and when somebody is allowed to self-
> oust (for whatever reason), this structure breaks down.
Nope. It just speeds up the inevitable. If you are allowed to self
oust, you were getting ousted really soon anyway.
> And "engineering the situations" where somebody is helpless could be a
> viable playing strategy. Disabling such strategies makes the game more
> dull and thereby is bad for the game.
Yes, engineering a situation where someone is helpless can be a viable
playing strategy. Luckily, nothing in this discussion disables such a
strategy. If you want to torporize every minion at the table, go nuts.
You'll still win the game with 3VPs.
> There is a reason to change the rules to avoid the unnatural self-
> ousting and to increase the chances of control decks. There is no
> reason to keep the rules besides the usual "it currently works".
Well, that, and there is no reason to change it. And changing it would
be virtually impossible anyway. And that one can self oust when put
into a really bad situation by someone who isn't your predator
discourages people who aren't your predator from doing that is
actually helpful for making the game go.
> I completely agree that in most situations nobody would torporize all
> vampires on the table, but sometimes it may be the only way of getting
> GW. If there are only 3 players left, and one of them torporized all
> opposing vamps, he should get GW, but self-ousting can "steal" his
> victory. This is bad for the game and will always remain bad until the
> self-ousting will be prohibited.
The fault here is not self ousting. The fault here is that you were
unable to oust your first prey before you put everyone else into
torpor and the game collapsed into a 3 player game. Work on *that*
rather than trying to change the rules.
> I've found 7 rush decks from the last 50 in TWD, right, but 3 of them
> are Nana Buruku decks, and one is Tupdog deck - both are winning via
> the vampire abilities rather than via the multitude of rush-supporting
> cards. Allowing the rush decks to get a few turns of safety by
> stopping the predator isn't going to make them "overpowered".
Rush decks are already "allowed" to get a few turns of safety by
stopping their predator. They can't remove themselves from the game
instantly.
-Peter
On Jun 17, 5:14 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> What "back-ousting" are you talking about? Torporizing vampires is not
> back-ousting.
It is.
Ready minions are they way players interact with the game.
If you remove a player's ready minions, he cannot interact with the
game, either to harm you or to defend himself.
Ergo, in most situations torping all your predators guys is de facto
back ousting.
> I'm not ousting my predator, I'm just stopping him.
... from defending himself.
"I didn't kill him officer, I just stabbed him. He BLED to death..."
> If the predator is able to "defend himself", no rush deck will
> torporize ALL his vampires. Such predator is good, as long as he's
> unable to press you too hard.
> But there are decks that cannot defend themselves - for instance, S&B.
> Torporizing all vampires of such predator is logical and should not
> bear any "punishment". Yes, such predator is going to be ousted, but
> he should be ousted naturally, not via self-ousting. Why winning a few
> turns of peace should be impossible?
Yes, torping all of your Malk S&B predator's guys is a good idea.
But the logic "it's a good idea, therefor there should be no tradeoffs
involved" is ridiculous.
The reason torping all of your Malk S&B predator's guys is a good idea
is so you will get a new, less aggressive predator. If you do, the
malkavian is certainly within his rights to speed up his own demise so
your new predator will be stronger. For hate's sake, he spit's his
last breath at thee.
-Steve
On Jun 17, 5:51 am, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote:
> The basic structure of the game assumes that every player is
> struggling to avoid being ousted,
No, it assumes that everyone is struggling to get the GW. Being still
alive often helps you accumulate VPs and thus move to the game win,
but I've won more than one game where I got three VPs and was then
ousted.
> and when somebody is allowed to self-
> oust (for whatever reason), this structure breaks down. This is really
> bad.
> And "engineering the situations" where somebody is helpless could be a
> viable playing strategy. Disabling such strategies makes the game more
> dull and thereby is bad for the game.
Being able to take revenge on someone who put you in a bad spot could
be a viable playing strategy. One way to do that is to oust yourself
at a time that is most inconvenient for them. Disabling such
strategies makes the game more dull and there[for] is bad for the
game.
<snip stupid nonsense>
> And I realize that you repeat this hollow accusation for the third
> time, so if somebody really needs to "save face", it's you :)
So's your mom.
> > > > > I've said that the game would be better without self-
> > > > > ousting, and it really would. Not just for myself, but for everybody.
>
> > And I've said self-ousting (the fact that it is permitted, not the
> > fact of it happening, necessarily) is good for the game.
> > Let's see which of us can restate our position the most times.
>
> Come on. The difference is my arguments are far better than yours. You
> didn't provide anything better than "that's the way it's working
> now".
And since you want the change, the burden of proof is on you. You
seem to have already failed to convince anyone with the power to
change the rules to do so. So now we are just arguing in our spare
time, only the game already works the way I like it to, so I've
already won.
-Steve