LSJ: Unsportsmanlike conduct

In a post below in response to a player asking about ousting themselves with a Hostile Takeover, you stated: It would be hard to find a case where this was in the Methuselah's interest, however, so a case for unsportsmanlike conduct could probably be made. When does a play in a tournament have to be in your best interest. I thought unsportsmanlike conduct would be things like yelling, cursing, talking rudely, throwing tantrums. If the case above is unsportsmanlike. Does that mean a person could not lie, I won't bleed you next round, oh wait I changed my mind. Or if I show mercy on my prey for a round, because I just feel sorry, that would certainly not be in my best interest. What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. If I want to go out in a blaze of glory and take a vampire from my prey with me, it will certainly not endear anyone to me, however it should be my right. Vtes is a political game, and therefore these little intrigues are part of it. The punishment for unsportmanlike conduct should be reserved for serverly disruptive behavior. If you go down this path, you will have people complaining to judges about plays that are not illegal, but hurt their little feelings. Kindred, "Nothings Trivial" the Crow

> What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. If I want to go Nah... Now George 'Dubya' Bush, that's a dangerous president. He's just entering office and he has already declared he will attack the Iraqis again, without provocation.

Walter Denny wrote: > > In a post below in response to a player asking about ousting themselves with > a Hostile Takeover, you stated: > > It would be hard to find a case where this was in the Methuselah's > interest, however, so a case for unsportsmanlike conduct could > probably be made. In a Methuselah's interest for a tournament judge has to be defined as advancing their chances of winning the tournament overall. Ousting oneself, in many cases can be seen as unsportsmanlike, since you are no longer trying to get a VP. And it becomes more dicey when your predator is someone you know personally, and others at the table you don't know. To roll over for someone else's gain is considered unsportsmanlike (i.e. two folks from the same playgroup agreeing before hand that if one is the prey of the other, he will make it easy for his buddy to take him out, to help ensure one of them getting to the final). There are instances when ousting yourself is actually the best play. Say you have enough VP to get into the final, but you don't have much combat defense. Your prey is a combat monster, and would crush you in the final. Your predator is a Fortitude voter, and you think he can spank your prey and prevent him from getting to the final, thus helping your cause of getting more VP in the final. In addition, sometimes your only threat is to oust yourself. The other day I had a grand predator who randomly came and Bum's Rushed my vamp, even though he was nowhere near ousting his prey (my predator). I threatened him that if he followed through with that, I would influence myself out of the game. He did, and I did. I had to at that point, because I had made a threat, and I had to show I was serious - for future metagame considerations. So when LSJ says unsportspersonlike, I think he means in regards to collusion. I think there is plenty of room in V:TES, even at the tournament level, for foolish yet satisfying spiteful moves. > > When does a play in a tournament have to be in your best interest. I > thought unsportsmanlike conduct would be things like yelling, cursing, > talking rudely, throwing tantrums. If the case above is unsportsmanlike. > Does that mean a person could not lie, I won't bleed you next round, oh wait > I changed my mind. Or if I show mercy on my prey for a round, because I > just feel sorry, that would certainly not be in my best interest. > > What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. If I want to go > out in a blaze of glory and take a vampire from my prey with me, it will > certainly not endear anyone to me, however it should be my right. Vtes is a > political game, and therefore these little intrigues are part of it. > > The punishment for unsportmanlike conduct should be reserved for serverly > disruptive behavior. If you go down this path, you will have people > complaining to judges about plays that are not illegal, but hurt their > little feelings. Trust me, people do this already. As a judge, you just learn to know what is serious and what isn't, and make judgements accordingly. Chris -- chris <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site in development) ultimate disc - V:TES - hockey v:ekn prince of torrance, ca

[ quoted text not captured ] They have provoked us for the last 8 years, knowing that the current regime is so cowardly that nothing would be done about it. If Gore had been elected, Hussein would have 4 more years to stockpile biological weapons.

Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: > "wes" <gh...@mnsi.net> wrote: > >> What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. > >George 'Dubya' Bush, [...] > If Gore had been elected, [...] Take it to talk.politics, please. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/

[ quoted text not captured ] Collusion is certainly part of it. But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions (with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. Playing in a game where not everyone is playing to win is not fun (at least for the people playing to win). > > When does a play in a tournament have to be in your best interest. Always. Or at least - in your perceived best interests (since none of the players has perfect knowledge of the other players' hands, decks, and intentions). > > I thought unsportsmanlike conduct would be things like yelling, > > cursing, talking rudely, throwing tantrums. If the case above is This is also unsportsmanlike. As is playing with marked cards, etc. > > unsportsmanlike. > > Does that mean a person could not lie, I won't bleed you next round, > > oh wait I changed my mind. Or if I show mercy on my prey for a > > round, because I just feel sorry, that would certainly not be in my > > best interest. You can lie about your intentions, sure. Deals are not binding, so you are free to break them, if you feel that breaking a deal is in your best interest. Mercy on your prey for no reason is clearly not in your interest. Your object when you sit down is to oust your prey - why the sudden wave of mercy when you've finally achieved that goal? > > What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. If I > > want to go out in a blaze of glory and take a vampire from my prey > > with me, it will certainly not endear anyone to me, however it > > should be my right. > > Vtes is a political game, and therefore these little intrigues are > > part of it. Going out in a blaze of glory is not "intrigue". If your position is alreay lost, then you are welcome to play out your hand in any manner you see fit (blaze of glory, wall, etc.) - but rare is the case where your position is unsalvagable *and* your can disrupt the table. If you're not in a lost position, but throw it in anyhow because you feel like going out in a blaze of glory (and disrupting the game), that is not your right. That is unsportsmanlike. > > The punishment for unsportmanlike conduct should be reserved for > > serverly disruptive behavior. If you go down this path, you will Disrupting the table dynamic *is* severely disruptive. Throwing a game (losing on purpose) is disruptive. > > have people complaining to judges about plays that are not illegal, > > but hurt their little feelings. > > Trust me, people do this already. As a judge, you just learn to know > what is serious and what isn't, and make judgements accordingly. And we aren't talking about "their little feelings" - we're talking about mature gamers who expect to play with *mature* gamers. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <94c3gj$fg0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > Collusion is certainly part of it. > But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the > victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions > (with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of > the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > Playing in a game where not everyone is playing to win is not > fun (at least for the people playing to win). > So the judge has to figure out what is a) unsportsmanlike, random action as opposed to b) a plan so devious the judge doesn't understand it? c) a tactical error due to a table misread? Cross-table rush is part of what makes combat decks hard to play, IMHO. And it is a key part of the combat deck's strategy-otherwise, the lone combat deck will never have a chance to sweep the table. > Mercy on your prey for no reason is clearly not in your > interest. Your object when you sit down is to oust your > prey - why the sudden wave of mercy when you've finally > achieved that goal? > Just playing devil's advocate- waiting up for a turn on ousting your prey (for whatever spoken reasons) may well be done to disrupt some of the rhythm of the rest of the table, or to lead others to underestimate your ruthlessness later. Once again, a very difficult thing for a judge to know.. How do you distinguish between 'no reason' and an 'inscrutable reason'? Me, people already know I an idiot player, so I don't have to work to lower their expectations. My brief moments of inspired play are devestating, since people are never prepared for them. Kevin [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 13:23:32 GMT, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >Collusion is certainly part of it. >But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal >predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the >victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions >(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of >the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. Even if you are playing malkavian? >Playing in a game where not everyone is playing to win is not >fun (at least for the people playing to win). > >> > When does a play in a tournament have to be in your best interest. > >Always. Or at least - in your perceived best interests (since none >of the players has perfect knowledge of the other players' hands, >decks, and intentions). I agree with this, and in our playgroup selfousting is disallowed. > >> > I thought unsportsmanlike conduct would be things like yelling, >> > cursing, talking rudely, throwing tantrums. If the case above is > >This is also unsportsmanlike. >As is playing with marked cards, etc. Drawing too many, holding a large hand. etc.etc.etc > >You can lie about your intentions, sure. Deals are not binding, so >you are free to break them, if you feel that breaking a deal is in >your best interest. >Mercy on your prey for no reason is clearly not in your >interest. Your object when you sit down is to oust your >prey - why the sudden wave of mercy when you've finally >achieved that goal? > >> > What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. If I >> > want to go out in a blaze of glory and take a vampire from my prey >> > with me, it will certainly not endear anyone to me, however it >> > should be my right. >> > Vtes is a political game, and therefore these little intrigues are >> > part of it. > >Going out in a blaze of glory is not "intrigue". >If your position is alreay lost, then you are welcome to play >out your hand in any manner you see fit (blaze of glory, >wall, etc.) - but rare is the case where your position is >unsalvagable *and* your can disrupt the table. > >If you're not in a lost position, but throw it in anyhow because >you feel like going out in a blaze of glory (and disrupting the >game), that is not your right. That is unsportsmanlike. This i do disagree with. There are many times where taking another methuselah down, with the downside of you dropping out of the current round with him, is certainly a legal play. Doing so to the same player continuously however...

LSJ wrote: > > Chris Shorb <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote: > > So when LSJ says unsportspersonlike, I think he means in regards to > > collusion. I think there is plenty of room in V:TES, even at the > > tournament level, for foolish yet satisfying spiteful moves. > > Collusion is certainly part of it. > But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the > victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions > (with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of > the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > Playing in a game where not everyone is playing to win is not > fun (at least for the people playing to win). Hmmmm. I have a small problem with this interpretation though. On more than one occasion, I've run across people who's ability to make reasonable strategic decisions are so incredibly *BAD* as to essentially do exactly what you described. Often, if you talk to them (and I know one such person fairly well), in their mind what they're doing is completely logical and is not out of any personal animosity or anything like that. They just reason - IMHO - very badly. I don't see how you can really make a distinction. There's no perceptible difference between some of their actions and what you described. Bad strategy is not unsportsmanlike conduct, however unintentionally disruptive it might seem to the other players. I suppose if you ran into someone who simply wasn't playing to win and said so, or else was playing randomly enough that you'd be forced to draw that conclusion even if they didn't say so, then maybe *that* could be considered unsportsmanlike conduct. If that's basically what you mean, then let's describe the phenomenon correctly. The problem is not "random play", per se. The problem is not playing in one's own interests, just as in the collusion examples. I'm concerned that if you describe the problematic play as "random play", it might inspire overzealous judges to cross the line and penalize play that was just badly thought out. Fred

Dorian <bond...@home.com> writes: > If Gore had been elected, Hussein would have 4 more years to stockpile > biological weapons. Clearly, the Antediluvians didn't anticipate ballot problems, and so this didn't happen. Were Iraq to have even larger resources, Gehenna (which happens in 4 years time, BTW) would have been that much more spectacular. Ah well, I guess we'll just have to settle for thermonuclear war. How about a game of tic-tac-toe? -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "A bit of urine here and there, perhaps. It adds charm and character." - Marck Carroll, ucam.chat

In article <YS8a6.903$2E1....@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, Walter Denny <Walter...@hotmail.com> wrote: >When does a play in a tournament have to be in your best interest. I >thought unsportsmanlike conduct would be things like yelling, cursing, >talking rudely, throwing tantrums. If the case above is unsportsmanlike. >Does that mean a person could not lie, I won't bleed you next round, oh wait >I changed my mind. Or if I show mercy on my prey for a round, because I >just feel sorry, that would certainly not be in my best interest. Reneging on a deal isn't unsportsmanlike conduct if breaking the deal improves your position. Showing mercy for a turn or two for no good reason is certainly poor play and may be unsportsmanlike if there is a pattern in who you choose to be the recipient(s) of your slackness. >What I am getting at is this becomes a dangerous president. Hey, we just got rid of one of those today. I think you mean 'precedent,' though. And I disagree, for what that's worth. >If I want to go >out in a blaze of glory and take a vampire from my prey with me, it will >certainly not endear anyone to me, however it should be my right. Vtes is a >political game, and therefore these little intrigues are part of it. Nope. With the current text on Life boon, there is no way ousting yourself is ever to your benefit in the context of a single game. The only reasons to oust yourself in such a manner are (a) to serve the interests of a partner you're colluding with or (b) spite. Both are unsportsmanlike behavior. >The punishment for unsportmanlike conduct should be reserved for serverly >disruptive behavior. If you go down this path, you will have people >complaining to judges about plays that are not illegal, but hurt their >little feelings. I disagree. The line of unsportsmanlike behavior is pretty clear -- plays that do not benefit the player's position, either short-term (the current game) or long-term (across a series of games in a tournament). The case mentioned earlier in the thread (ousting oneself to avoid giving a powerful grandpredator a sweep, to improve one's own chances of making the finals), makes sense from the tournament standpoint and is not unsportsmanlike. The same play from a player whose tournament ranking is hopelessly low and will not make the final no matter what would definitely be unsportsmanlike. Letting up on a prey for no reason (such as a deal or pressing threat elsewhere) would get a warning at the very least, were I judging, and might well be unsportsmanlike if it continued. If nothing else, it's pretty insulting to the prey. gomi -- PART II: WHAT DOSE DIRECT X 8.00 HAEV THAT TEH OTHARS DIDANT NOT INCLUDE? many things, stuped!!! but they dont work -Jeff K.

fre...@netcom.com wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > Collusion is certainly part of it. > > But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > > predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. > > Hmmmm. I have a small problem with this interpretation though. On > more than one occasion, I've run across people who's ability to make > reasonable strategic decisions are so incredibly *BAD* as to > essentially do exactly what you described. > Often, if you talk to them (and I know one such person fairly well), > in their mind what they're doing is completely logical and is not out > of any personal animosity or anything like that. They just reason - > IMHO - very badly. That's why I said "perceived" best interest. > I don't see how you can really make a distinction. > There's no perceptible difference between some of their actions and > what you described. That's what there's a judge for. > I'm concerned that if you describe the problematic play as "random > play", it might inspire overzealous judges to cross the line and > penalize play that was just badly thought out. That would be unfortunate. I think most people who have gotten the hang of the game well enough to consider organizing and running a tournament know the difference between "random play" and "poor logic", though. [ quoted text not captured ]

Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > >But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > >predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the > >victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions > >(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of > >the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > > Even if you are playing malkavian? Yes. Your deck archetype (or the presence of a particular minion or set of minions in it or under your control) do not grant you a license to break the tournament rules. BTW, Methuselahs are not clanned, so "you" are never a Malkavian, no matter how many Malkavians you are manipulating. > [...] > This i do disagree with. There are many times where taking another > methuselah down, with the downside of you dropping out of the current > round with him, is certainly a legal play. Doing so to the same player > continuously however... It is not legal by the tournament rules if it is unsportsmanlike, by definition. If you gain something by it (like ousting yourself at the same time as your prey), then fine. If you're sacrificing a non-losing position for no reason other than to "go out in a blaze of glory", well, you're being unsportsmanlike. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <94d4qj$8sj$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: > > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > >But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > > >predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the > > >victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions > > >(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of > > >the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > > > > Even if you are playing malkavian? > > Yes. Your deck archetype (or the presence of a particular minion > or set of minions in it or under your control) do not grant you > a license to break the tournament rules. > > BTW, Methuselahs are not clanned, so "you" are never a Malkavian, > no matter how many Malkavians you are manipulating. so would upstreaming to the point of rushing a caitiff when your predator already has 4 bloodless vamps in torpor be considered unsportsmanlike? Skippy !Malk [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <94cslv$c58$1...@nntp1.ba.best.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] not if you're using your prey to weaken your grandprey a little more before you oust him. that can still be construed as insulting. skippy [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Not especially. Just stupid. There is a fine line between unsportsmanlike and dumb, and while at first glance it seems difficult to distinguish, it's not actually THAT hard. Since nobody knows any other player's hand, you need to ask yourself "Is there a possible benefit to them from this action?" A deck that went backwards and Rushed Smudge might have no bleed cards in hand, and wanted to cycle a whole bunch of cards on a vampire that couldn't possibly hit back. Perhaps the deck is low on pool, and wants to be certain that its predator is no more than a speed bump and can't even bleed for 1 (which Caitiff do well). Perhaps it wanted to make its prey think it was an upstreamer so its prey would tap out. As you can see, depending on table position and hand contents, there are any number of reasons to go upstream; they just may not be apparent at the time. And in this instance, the upstreamer is taking an action that does, in fact, produce an immediate benefit to himself; his predator has one less vampire to bleed him with. Unsportsmanlike? No. Dumb strategic decision? Probably - there were surely better things for him to do, but players are allowed to be dumb. I can only see two situations where ousting yourself would ever be beneficial; LSJ mentioned one, where you call a vote such as Anarchist Uprising, oust yourself, AND oust your prey as well, gaining a VP. This is fine, since you gain a tangible benefit; a VP, and if you're using this tactic, you obviously don't think you can get more than 1 ANYWAY (and probably can't, if an Anarchist Uprising would oust you). The other would be where your victim needed VPs to make the finals, you were already IN the finals, and your victim's deck would hose you in the finals. This is a real stretch, though, and requires some pretty accurate knowledge of the VP situation in the last preliminary round... as well as some strong initial two rounds. Realistically, very few players EVER enter the last prelim round being "assured" of the finals; and even then it's worth more to gain a bunch of VPs and get your choice of seating. So ousting yourself ends up never actually being a benefit unless you also oust your prey at the same time. It DOES get pretty clear-cut. -- Derek "I reduce that bleed by one." -- M. Bell, 4x in a @#$*ing row

On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 14:54:23 GMT, Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: >On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 13:23:32 GMT, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > >>Collusion is certainly part of it. >>But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal >>predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the >>victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions >>(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of >>the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > >Even if you are playing malkavian? Malkavians aren't random; they're insane. There's a large difference. And besides, this is a card game, not the RPG. >>If you're not in a lost position, but throw it in anyhow because >>you feel like going out in a blaze of glory (and disrupting the >>game), that is not your right. That is unsportsmanlike. > >This i do disagree with. There are many times where taking another >methuselah down, with the downside of you dropping out of the current >round with him, is certainly a legal play. Doing so to the same player >continuously however... Any play that's permitted by the cards is legal. However, it can also be unsportsmanlike. The only conceivable single-game benefit to "taking another methuselah down with you" is if you also get a VP by that same action. The only benefit EXTERNAL to the game is if removing that methuselah will somehow improve your chances in a future game; which pretty much limits it to during the third round, and if you are already guaranteed the finals yourself. Feel free to list the "many times" you were thinking of when you made that statement. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > >This i do disagree with. There are many times where taking another > >methuselah down, with the downside of you dropping out of the current > >round with him, is certainly a legal play. Doing so to the same player > >continuously however... > > Any play that's permitted by the cards is legal. However, it can also > be unsportsmanlike. > > The only conceivable single-game benefit to "taking another methuselah > down with you" is if you also get a VP by that same action. The only > benefit EXTERNAL to the game is if removing that methuselah will > somehow improve your chances in a future game; which pretty much > limits it to during the third round, and if you are already guaranteed > the finals yourself. I don't know. There are times that people do things that are so nasty to you and leave you in a position where the only way to get them back for it is to take an arguably viable position and go smash your own head hoping to smash theirs first - or at least to start the crack that you can hope one of your other opponents can finish off. Tournament or not; one-game-benefit or not; the need and desire to pursue this is highly theoretical and philosophical. And frankly, I'm not very comfortable with this talk about dumping your position being considered "unsportsmanlike conduct". It sounds a great deal to me like someone's forcing a particular position in the eternal, unresolvable question of "metagaming" down my throat - unless I've misunderstood some of the guidelines. By "metagaming", I'm referring to the original definition of the term; not the more CCG-oriented definition related to deck archetype advantage. For the uninitiated, the question is about whether it's ethical to wreck vengeance upon an opponent in a multi-player game who you feel has been overly hostile towards your position in the course of his play and sacrifice what remains of your position in the process. In a nutshell, the issue is about whether you should be playing always to win the immediate game in progress or if it's OK to sacrifice it in the interests of creating a "reputation" with other players which may be beneficial to you in later games. This question has been the subject of much debate on Usenet and elsewhere. Fred

<...> > > I can only see two situations where ousting yourself would ever be > beneficial; LSJ mentioned one, where you call a vote such as Anarchist > Uprising, oust yourself, AND oust your prey as well, gaining a VP. > This is fine, since you gain a tangible benefit; a VP, and if you're > using this tactic, you obviously don't think you can get more than 1 > ANYWAY (and probably can't, if an Anarchist Uprising would oust you). > The other would be where your victim needed VPs to make the finals, > you were already IN the finals, and your victim's deck would hose you > in the finals. This is a real stretch, though, and requires some > pretty accurate knowledge of the VP situation in the last preliminary > round... as well as some strong initial two rounds. There's a third: if you have played a Life Boon on your predator and the time is about to run out. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6Fsa6.235188$MA1.7...@afrodite.telenet-ops.be>, "jeroen rombouts" <jeroen....@pandora.be> wrote: > <...> > > > > I can only see two situations where ousting yourself would ever be > > beneficial; LSJ mentioned one, where you call a vote such as > > Anarchist Uprising, oust yourself, AND oust your prey as well, > > gaining a VP. This is fine, since you gain a tangible benefit; a > > VP, and if you're using this tactic, you obviously don't think you > > can get more than 1 ANYWAY (and probably can't, if an Anarchist > > Uprising would oust you). > > The other would be where your victim needed VPs to make the finals, > > you were already IN the finals, and your victim's deck would hose > > you in the finals. This is a real stretch, though, and requires > > some pretty accurate knowledge of the VP situation in the last > > preliminary round... as well as some strong initial two rounds. > > There's a third: if you have played a Life Boon on your predator > and the time is about to run out. No, this is not a third. You do not gain a victory point for Life Boon if you are not in the game. You cannot self oust with a Life Boon to get a victory point. See the RTR of May 1, 2000: http://lasombra.tripod.com/RTR5-100.htm "Life Boon doesn't provide a VP if you are ousted. Since (as a master card) it is burned when you are ousted, this makes some sense, but it is still errata to change the "even if you are ousted by then" to "unless you are ousted by then". Note: this means that you cannot get a VP for your own ousting - you will be ousted (and Life Boon's effect will terminate) before you can collect." and it is also prohibited by Sabbat War card text: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/Cardlist_L.html#Life_Boon_ Life Boon [Jyhad, V:TES, SW] Cardtype: Master Master: out-of-turn. Give pool to a Methuselah with no pool to keep <him or> her in the game; put this card in play. During each of his or her untap phases, you can collect 1 pool from that Methuselah. The first victory point (and ante) that the Methuselah wins is given to you (unless you are ousted by then). This Life Boon is then burned. Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://lasombra.tripod.com http://legbiter.tripod.com http://vekn_clans.tripod.com [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 20:10:47 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >Feel free to list the "many times" you were thinking of when you made >that statement. > There is a methuselah across the table that needs a single VP to make the finals, or even to earn a spot in the finals higher than you, and therefore have a seating arrangement advantage over you, and you know you have no defence for him. Your bluff was called and you need the others to know that you dont bluff, certainly a longterm advantage is being gained. You cut a deal and the table situation changed drastically after the deal was made. Sometimes your word is worth more than the current game. There are plenty of reasons that a decision needs to be made in a game that appears completely foolish, and downright idiotic, but it still needs doing, despite the disadvantage it puts you in in the current game. Jyhad is not about a single game, and unlike M:TG you are playing against multiple opponents, and politics take on a role.

On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:52:05 GMT, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: >> LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> >But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal >> >predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the >> >victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions >> >(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of >> >the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. >> >> Even if you are playing malkavian? > >Yes. Your deck archetype (or the presence of a particular minion >or set of minions in it or under your control) do not grant you >a license to break the tournament rules. > >BTW, Methuselahs are not clanned, so "you" are never a Malkavian, >no matter how many Malkavians you are manipulating. > No but insanity can be percieved in many ways. Is using a Die4 to determine what you should guess in a malkavian prank unsportsmanlike? It sure is random, and yet has won me more games than any other single play i have ever made. Yet if I did this in your tournament, i would be guilty of random play, and therefore sanctioned. A burst of random unpredictable play can really throw off your opponents.

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 06:55:46 GMT, Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: >On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 20:10:47 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> >wrote: > >>Feel free to list the "many times" you were thinking of when you made >>that statement. > >There is a methuselah across the table that needs a single VP to make >the finals, or even to earn a spot in the finals higher than you, and >therefore have a seating arrangement advantage over you, and you know >you have no defence for him. Mentioned already as one of the TWO possible actual benefits. >Your bluff was called and you need the others to know that you dont >bluff, certainly a longterm advantage is being gained. Except you gain NO advantage, actually. Ousting yourself in order to "get" someone is not going to put anyone in fear of you, except in how they think of you as "that guy who plays like an idiot, better get rid of him fast or he's liable to do something dumb." You think this is an advantage? Better think again... it makes you a pretty good 'dumping ground' for leftover KRC points, skill-card diablerie, location theft/Arsonage, and the like. Maybe you can intimidate the weak-willed this way ("I'll take you with me even though i oust myself!"), but rest assured, good players will simply shrug you off. As LSJ stated, this is a game played by those who prefer to play with OTHER reasonably mature players. Ousting yourself for revenge or spite... ain't. nuff said. >You cut a deal and the table situation changed drastically after the >deal was made. Sometimes your word is worth more than the current >game. I've argued this situation from both sides in the past; the example used was a person who, with the swing votes, votes in favor of an Anarchist Uprising that would oust himself, because he made a deal that he would support all votes called by player X. This falls under "players being dumb" to me; agreeing to support all votes is a stupid deal to make. Actually keeping the deal when it will oust you is even dumber; I don't personally know anyone who'll hold breaking a deal under THOSE circumstances against you. Keeping the deal? Not unsportsmanlike, no, but certainly stupid. And you certainly gain no benefit from it; people will just shake their heads at you and wonder. (Actually, you gain a DISADVANTAGE from it; people will know to make broad, sweeping deals with you since you won't actually back out of them and can be tricked into ousting yourself.) >There are plenty of reasons that a decision needs to be made in a game >that appears completely foolish, and downright idiotic, but it still >needs doing, despite the disadvantage it puts you in in the current >game. So far you've only listed three, and two of them didn't "need" doing. Please quit using words like "plenty" when you mean "one" or "two". And feel free to try to produce more than the two reasons we've already listed. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 07:00:05 GMT, Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: >On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:52:05 GMT, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > >>Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: >>> LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >>> >But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal >>> >predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the >>> >victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions >>> >(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of >>> >the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. >>> >>> Even if you are playing malkavian? >> >>Yes. Your deck archetype (or the presence of a particular minion >>or set of minions in it or under your control) do not grant you >>a license to break the tournament rules. >> >>BTW, Methuselahs are not clanned, so "you" are never a Malkavian, >>no matter how many Malkavians you are manipulating. > >No but insanity can be percieved in many ways. Insanity always makes sense to the insane person. It is never random. If you get bozonic in a tournament, the first thing I'll do is ask "Why are you doing that?" If you answer "i dunno, for the hell of it", or "i'm being a malkavian and my vampires hate Ventrue, even cross-table!", I'll haul a judge over immediately to smack you down. If you can come up with relatively logical reasons to do what you're doing, then most judges will let you get by. If your prey is at 3 pool, has one tapped minion, and you have 3 vampires, it is NOT unsportsmanlike to Rush backwards 3 times instead of attempting to bleed and give the reason "Well, I just want to be sure he can't hurt me." However, if you give the reason "Oh, I figured I'd hurt this guy enough, and now I needed to hurt some other people to be fair", you're liable to get slapped around. >Is using a Die4 to determine what you should guess in a malkavian >prank unsportsmanlike? It sure is random, and yet has won me more >games than any other single play i have ever made. Yet if I did this >in your tournament, i would be guilty of random play, and therefore >sanctioned. A burst of random unpredictable play can really throw off >your opponents. Don't mis-state the situation. Using a D4 to guess the number from a Malkavian Prank is random, yes, but it can also provide you a significant benefit in that you have a guaranteed 25% chance of being right, as opposed to guessing, where you could have much LESS of a chance. We are objecting to actions that provide you NO benefit at all, such as the Hostile Takeover with 1 pool situation mentioned, or Rushing cross-table just because a player said something bad about your momma. A burst of random, unpredictable play doesn't throw off good opponents, by the way; it simply makes them shrug their shoulders and say "OK, whatever", and continue ousting you. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:54:58 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: >I don't know. There are times that people do things that are so nasty >to you and leave you in a position where the only way to get them back >for it is to take an arguably viable position and go smash your own head >hoping to smash theirs first - or at least to start the crack that you >can hope one of your other opponents can finish off. Tournament or not; in other words, tossing your own chances of winning out the window in order to "get back" at them? Just have to be clear on this. >one-game-benefit or not; the need and desire to pursue this is highly >theoretical and philosophical. And frankly, I'm not very comfortable >with this talk about dumping your position being considered "unsportsmanlike >conduct". It sounds a great deal to me like someone's forcing a particular >position in the eternal, unresolvable question of "metagaming" down my >throat - unless I've misunderstood some of the guidelines. Well, personally, I get very annoyed when my grand-prey takes a couple actions, gets his vamps blocked and killed, and then transfers himself out because he's pissed and wants to "sic" his predator on his prey. I get very, VERY annoyed when this happens and I actually had a chance to oust my prey. It generally ruins the game for me; I now have six more pool to wade through, all the strategy I've been building is largely worthless, and I didn't even have a chance to stop it from happening, even if I had a Direct Intervention and Eagle's Sight in HAND. And all because of what? Spite. That's not "fun", for me. I don't see much difference between someone transferring themselves out and deliberately taking an action that will oust themselves for no benefit. In fact, the one *is* the other. >By "metagaming", I'm referring to the original definition of the term; >not the more CCG-oriented definition related to deck archetype advantage. For >the uninitiated, the question is about whether it's ethical to wreck vengeance >upon an opponent in a multi-player game who you feel has been overly hostile >towards your position in the course of his play and sacrifice what remains of >your position in the process. In a nutshell, the issue is about whether you >should be playing always to win the immediate game in progress or if it's OK >to sacrifice it in the interests of creating a "reputation" with other players >which may be beneficial to you in later games. This question has been the >subject of much debate on Usenet and elsewhere. There are only two kinds of people who don't always play to win in the pool world... hustlers and fish. Fish are basically self-portable ATMs. You start playing with them, withdraw whatever money you feel like making that night, and move on. Hustlers lose in an attempt to mislead you about their skill, to make you think that they're worse players than they really are... in order to win big later. There are plenty of fish in V:TES. There are fish in everything, and it's never good to penalize the fish. The nature of V:TES is such that successfully misleading someone about your skill level gains you no appreciable benefit; you can't negotiate a next-game advantage based on your own suckitude as a player, you can only negotiate based on your position in the next game. It's good to mislead people about your DECK's capabilities, but I have difficulty envisioning a tournament in which this would be an effective strategem across multiple games. For example, you have a Rush deck. You might choose to represent your Rush deck in round 1 as a bruise-and-bleed deck that simply isn't getting its bleed cards, and bleed for 1 a lot, in an effort to get people to hold onto their Deflections and ditch their combat defense. And then in the next two rounds you could play it as a Rush deck and take advantage of that reputation. That sounds pretty cute and all, but it doesn't work. The random nature of seating means that for round 2, you probably won't sit at the same table with anyone whom you created that "reputation" for, and you could accidentally be seated right behind the Obedience/Fortitude monster who will IGNORE your reputation. Bad idea. Now I realize that we just had a tourney report where people didn't know that the eventual winner was actually a ToGP deck, but the ToGP deck didn't deliberately play to lose to create that impression, either; people just missed out on the fact that it had been playing ToGP a whole bunch previously. Anyway. All that theoretical rambling aside, I think that any single game among strong players is sufficiently unstable that it's a bad idea to permit self-immolation (which REALLY destablizes things). [ quoted text not captured ]

Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: > Is using a Die4 to determine what you should guess in a malkavian > prank unsportsmanlike? It sure is random, and yet has won me more > games than any other single play i have ever made. Yet if I did this > in your tournament, i would be guilty of random play, and therefore > sanctioned. A burst of random unpredictable play can really throw off > your opponents. "Random" in this thread is referring to meritless play - an action that has no benefit for the actor. Akin to "random acts of violence". Since there's a reason to hold 1 in a prank (just as there is to hold 2, likewise 3, and similarly 4), doing so is not "without cause" - even if you use a random number generator to decide between several non-meritless options. BTW, the expected gain of random guessing by both parties is 0.625 for the prankster and 1.25 for the other player. If the prankster always guesses 4 when he knows the player randomly decided to guess between 1 and 4, the rates switch to 1 for the prankster and 0.5 for the player. The moral is: don't let the prankster know you're guessing randomly. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <t58l6t4sb4ece90t5...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Except you gain NO advantage, actually. Ousting yourself in order to > "get" someone is not going to put anyone in fear of you, except in how > they think of you as "that guy who plays like an idiot, better get rid > of him fast or he's liable to do something dumb." > Imagine (and I have played in ) a 4 player game. My grandpredator is a vote deck, and I am a combat deck. Con-ag is called. I say 'if I get that extra point of damage, I'm going to send a vamp of yours to torpor.' I get the point of damage. Am I better off sucking up the vote damage, or backing up my threat for deterrence value, in this game or others? Same situation, the vote is disputed territory. "If you take my KRCG, I will destroy you". My KRCG goes, greatly reducing my strategy (whatever it was). Walk away from the threat, so your playgroup knows they can ignore them, or do some follow through? Or is the vote deck being random by taking locations from his grand-prey? For that matter, who should the vote deck be targeting? It sounds like their might be only one 'correct, sportsmanlike' answer, and I would like to know what that answer is.. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 01:54:58 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> > wrote: > > >I don't know. There are times that people do things that are so nasty > >to you and leave you in a position where the only way to get them back > >for it is to take an arguably viable position and go smash your own head > >hoping to smash theirs first - or at least to start the crack that you > >can hope one of your other opponents can finish off. Tournament or not; > > in other words, tossing your own chances of winning out the window in > order to "get back" at them? Just have to be clear on this. Yep. That's what I mean. > >one-game-benefit or not; the need and desire to pursue this is highly > >theoretical and philosophical. And frankly, I'm not very comfortable > >with this talk about dumping your position being considered "unsportsmanlike > >conduct". It sounds a great deal to me like someone's forcing a particular > >position in the eternal, unresolvable question of "metagaming" down my > >throat - unless I've misunderstood some of the guidelines. > > Well, personally, I get very annoyed when my grand-prey takes a couple > actions, gets his vamps blocked and killed, and then transfers himself > out because he's pissed and wants to "sic" his predator on his prey. > I get very, VERY annoyed when this happens and I actually had a chance > to oust my prey. > > It generally ruins the game for me; I now have six more pool to wade > through, all the strategy I've been building is largely worthless, and > I didn't even have a chance to stop it from happening, even if I had a > Direct Intervention and Eagle's Sight in HAND. And all because of > what? Spite. That's not "fun", for me. That's often a problem with multiplayer games. Spite aimed at a one person can bring collateral damage against a third, blameless person. Of course, we already knew that sitting in the wrong position at the wrong time, for instance with the intercept combat deck as your prey and a stealth bleeder as your predator, is far worse than this. Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating pointless tantrums at the first sign an opponent isn't ready and willing to help you sweep the table (i.e., is actually behaving like an opponent). I've seen lots of vengeful play in V:tES and other multiplayer games for which the provocation was insufficient and the reaction entirely unjustified - in short, just bad play even on a metagaming level. In fact, I've probably seen a hell of a lot more bad play such as the example you describe than I see good play. But that's not the point. The point is that the latitude to pursue this ought to be in the hands of the individual player, without the threat of the judge coming over and tossing him or otherwise sanctioning his (IMHO) legitimate play. > I don't see much difference between someone transferring themselves > out and deliberately taking an action that will oust themselves for no > benefit. In fact, the one *is* the other. The difference is that there's a point behind the action. Agree with it or not, they *are* different actions. > >By "metagaming", I'm referring to the original definition of the term; > >not the more CCG-oriented definition related to deck archetype advantage. For > >the uninitiated, the question is about whether it's ethical to wreck vengeance > >upon an opponent in a multi-player game who you feel has been overly hostile > >towards your position in the course of his play and sacrifice what remains of > >your position in the process. In a nutshell, the issue is about whether you > >should be playing always to win the immediate game in progress or if it's OK > >to sacrifice it in the interests of creating a "reputation" with other players > >which may be beneficial to you in later games. This question has been the > >subject of much debate on Usenet and elsewhere. > > There are only two kinds of people who don't always play to win in the > pool world... hustlers and fish. (Elided. I didn't see any point to the whole discussions of "hustlers and fish", nor does it relate to anything in my experience.) > Anyway. All that theoretical rambling aside, I think that any single > game among strong players is sufficiently unstable that it's a bad > idea to permit self-immolation (which REALLY destablizes things). The point of what I was talking about is not self-immolation. I think self- ousting just to give one's predator 6 blood and a VP is pretty poor vengeance if that's all you're doing. I'm talking about cross-table rushes, cross-table bleeds, aiming votes at players you wouldn't normally attack because you perceive they've been overly hostile towards you, that kind of stuff. This reduces your chances of winning, perhaps fatally. For instance, the discussion of the limited number of rushes a rush combat deck has at its disposal which makes a cross-table rush a significant sacrifice. The problem is, there's no solid line between this and a situation where you're effectively ousting yourself. If I rush across table instead of at my predator's superbleeder with few pool left, that can be viewed as borderline unsportmanlike play by some of the definitions I'm hearing. That's not right. Fred

kp...@my-deja.com wrote: > > Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Except you gain NO advantage, actually. Ousting yourself in > > order to "get" someone is not going to put anyone in fear of > > you, except in how they think of you as "that guy who plays > > like an idiot, better get rid of him fast or he's liable to > > do something dumb." > > Imagine (and I have played in ) a 4 player game. My grandpredator > is a vote deck, and I am a combat deck. Con-ag is called. I say 'if I > get that extra point of damage, I'm going to send a vamp of yours to > torpor.' I get the point of damage. > > Am I better off sucking up the vote damage, or backing up my > threat for deterrence value, in this game or others? I don't think that this is unsportsmanlike; it's as if you made a "deal", and you're following through with your part of the bargain. Messing up one of that guy's vampires _is_ in your own best interest, because it will probably keep you from taking more vote damage. It is a viable use of your resources. > Same situation, the vote is disputed territory. "If you take my > KRCG, I will destroy you". My KRCG goes, greatly reducing my > strategy (whatever it was). Walk away from the threat, so your > playgroup knows they can ignore them, or do some follow > through? Or is the vote deck being random by taking locations > from his grand-prey? Remember, things that happen in a playgroup have more long-range consequences than in tournaments. That being said, this situation (IMO) depends on what kind of deck you have, and how easy it would be to "destroy" your grand-prey. Ousting that person is almost never justified, since you gain nothing from it. Making that person take some "damage" (cross-table bleed, collateral damage from a vote, rushed vampire, etc.) seems reasonable, but it again depends on the situation. If they're stealing something that's going to keep them alive (a powerbase, maybe?), then you might not want to do anything in response, since them being alive is usually in your best interest. > For that matter, who should the vote deck be targeting? It sounds > like their might be only one 'correct, sportsmanlike' answer, and I > would like to know what that answer is.. Votes are tricky, since you may need someone else's help to get them passed. Getting the vote passed is in your interest (for various reasons), but you may need to target someone you wouldn't ordinarily in order to get support. I've often seen a Disputed Territory give a location to someone other than the voting Methuselah; you take it from your prey, say, and give it to the guy with all the titled vampires. This works because now your prey doesn't have it (good for you), and the vote passes because the guy with votes wants the location. Specific example: I'm playing a Ventrue vote deck, as is my predator. His predator is playing a !Tremere combat deck. My predator has out Elysium: Palace of Versailles, which gives him vote lock. I call a Disputed Territory, but without the !Tremere deck's Priscus votes, it won't pass. So I decide to give it to the !Tremere player; that doesn't help me as much as giving it to me would have, but the vote wouldn't have passed with those terms. That's 100% sportsmanlike. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu "You seem to think you know it all Let me tell you something, you can't win." -- Pat McGee Band

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 16:06:09 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> It generally ruins the game for me; I now have six more pool to wade >> through, all the strategy I've been building is largely worthless, and >> I didn't even have a chance to stop it from happening, even if I had a >> Direct Intervention and Eagle's Sight in HAND. And all because of >> what? Spite. That's not "fun", for me. > >That's often a problem with multiplayer games. Spite aimed at a one person >can bring collateral damage against a third, blameless person. Of course, >we already knew that sitting in the wrong position at the wrong time, for >instance with the intercept combat deck as your prey and a stealth bleeder >as your predator, is far worse than this. Actually, no, it is NOT. If I just happen to be in the wrong place, then bad luck for me; shit happens. It's quite possible to survive in that seating position; be a bleed-bounce deck (not too uncommon) and explain really fast that the stealth-bleeder is going to sweep if the intercept deck doesn't kill a few minions of his. My explanation could fail; oh well. I should be ready for a stealth/bleed deck ANYWAY. But having to put up with random bullshit just because someone was pissy? That's FAR worse, to me. I came to play the game, not watch someone deliberately wreak havoc on the game and mess up everyone's strategy at his personal whim. >actually behaving like an opponent). I've seen lots of vengeful play in >V:tES and other multiplayer games for which the provocation was insufficient >and the reaction entirely unjustified - in short, just bad play even on a >metagaming level. In fact, I've probably seen a hell of a lot more bad >play such as the example you describe than I see good play. But that's not >the point. The point is that the latitude to pursue this ought to be in the >hands of the individual player, without the threat of the judge coming over >and tossing him or otherwise sanctioning his (IMHO) legitimate play. Bad play is one thing, and taking vengeance for breaking a deal is one thing, and putting yourself in a bad position is one thing. But there are people declaring that they should be permitted to play Hostile Takeover on someone's vamp even though playing the CARD would oust them. I think that's a load of bullshit, myself. The game is hard enough without J. Random Magicplayer deciding "hey, fuck you, you didn't support my vote to oust and that would've kept me alive, so i'm gonna screw your vampire on the way out!" >> I don't see much difference between someone transferring themselves >> out and deliberately taking an action that will oust themselves for no >> benefit. In fact, the one *is* the other. > >The difference is that there's a point behind the action. Agree with it or >not, they *are* different actions. No, really, they aren't. If I transfer myself out, I take an action (transfers) that will oust myself for no benefit, and I screw my grand-predator over. If I play Hostile Takeover when I have one pool, I oust myself for no benefit and screw whoever I Hostile over. I do not see the "different actions" you refer to here. >> >your position in the process. In a nutshell, the issue is about whether you >> >should be playing always to win the immediate game in progress or if it's OK >> >to sacrifice it in the interests of creating a "reputation" with other players >> >which may be beneficial to you in later games. This question has been the >> >subject of much debate on Usenet and elsewhere. >> >> There are only two kinds of people who don't always play to win in the >> pool world... hustlers and fish. > >(Elided. I didn't see any point to the whole discussions of "hustlers and >fish", nor does it relate to anything in my experience.) It was intended to address your paragraph above, about whether you should always be playing to win the immediate game, or if it's OK to sacrifice it to create a "reputation". It was ALSO intended to demonstrate that it's not useful to attempt to create a reputation, because you can't guarantee that the people you create the reputation with will be at your table in the future. >> Anyway. All that theoretical rambling aside, I think that any single >> game among strong players is sufficiently unstable that it's a bad >> idea to permit self-immolation (which REALLY destablizes things). > >The point of what I was talking about is not self-immolation. I think self- However, that's the point under discussion, since that was what started this whole thing; people declaring that it wasn't unsportsmanlike to play Hostile Takeover on someone's vamp even though playing it would oust you. >ousting just to give one's predator 6 blood and a VP is pretty poor vengeance >if that's all you're doing. I'm talking about cross-table rushes, cross-table >bleeds, aiming votes at players you wouldn't normally attack because you >perceive they've been overly hostile towards you, that kind of stuff. This >reduces your chances of winning, perhaps fatally. For instance, the discussion This all falls under "bad play". In most of these instances, you can find a short-term benefit which would, in the actor's mind, justify the action. The long-term effect might be to guarantee that you wouldn't win, but again, this is just bad play, and you can't penalize bad play. Even this situation is just bad play: a predator has a single minion with a Pulse and plenty of pool to survive, and you have a single minion and 3 pool left. Your deck has shown no Wakes, and you decide to Rush your grand-predator for throwing some extra vote damage your way last turn. You are almost certainly guaranteeing your own oust, but only YOU know for sure whether you have a Wake in hand or not; you could be attempting a bluff. It's a stupid bluff, granted, but people are allowed to be stupid. You could have been trying to draw INTO the Wake, for all people know. You could've been holding onto it forever for just this sort of surprise. And your predator might well believe it. There are all kinds of PERCEIVED benefits in this situation; but in practice, it's usually just bad play. >of the limited number of rushes a rush combat deck has at its disposal which makes >a cross-table rush a significant sacrifice. The problem is, there's no solid line >between this and a situation where you're effectively ousting yourself. If I rush >across table instead of at my predator's superbleeder with few pool left, that can >be viewed as borderline unsportmanlike play by some of the definitions I'm hearing. >That's not right. It IS borderline if you KNOW that you'll be ousted on your turn. If you expect to possibly have some defense later, that's different, or if you're attempting to draw into the defense. Or if you're hoping that someone ousts your predator in the meantime. But frankly, if you go cross-table in that situation without any kind of realistic expectation of not being ousted, I won't think very much of you; I don't like playing with people who don't play to win, because it usually fucks up the game for everyone and makes it much less than fun. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 15:36:33 GMT, kp...@my-deja.com wrote: >In article <t58l6t4sb4ece90t5...@4ax.com>, > Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> Except you gain NO advantage, actually. Ousting yourself in >order to >> "get" someone is not going to put anyone in fear of you, except in >how >> they think of you as "that guy who plays like an idiot, better get rid >> of him fast or he's liable to do something dumb." >> >Imagine (and I have played in ) a 4 player game. My grandpredator >is a vote deck, and I am a combat deck. Con-ag is called. I say 'if I >get that extra point of damage, I'm going to send a vamp of yours to >torpor.' I get the point of damage. > >Am I better off sucking up the vote damage, or backing up my >threat for deterrence value, in this game or others? (shrug) Your threat is not one which, if followed through on, would significantly reduce your position or cause you to be ousted. Most Rush decks can afford to spend a Rush in this fashion with no difficulty, especially in a 4-player game where there are fewer total vampires on the table. And backing up your threat has a SIGNIFICANT deterrent value in this game... a concrete benefit to yourself, so I don't see a problem here. >Same situation, the vote is disputed territory. "If you take my >KRCG, I will destroy you". My KRCG goes, greatly reducing my >strategy (whatever it was). Walk away from the threat, so your >playgroup knows they can ignore them, or do some follow >through? Or is the vote deck being random by taking locations >from his grand-prey? A threat like "I will destroy you" needs to be clarified. Will you spend your entire game attempting to kill his vampires and oust him, while ignoring your prey? Then it's unsportsmanlike; you are no longer attempting to win, you're going off the deep end as revenge. Just killing one vampire falls under the other paragraph above. The difference, as always, is how you affect your OWN situation in the process, and whether you are still attempting to create benefit for yourself. The idea of "so your playgroup knows they can ignore your threats" is sort of amusing to me, frankly; assessing a Methuselah's position based on factors external to the game is generally a rapid path to defeat, so I can't even conceive of thinking "ah, I can just ignore his threats, he won't do anything anyway". >For that matter, who should the vote deck be targeting? It sounds >like their might be only one 'correct, sportsmanlike' answer, and I >would like to know what that answer is.. The answer, as for all questions like this, is highly situational. I stole my grandprey's Market Square (Assamite +1 intercept location) last week with a vote, when I could've ousted my prey that turn instead. Without knowing the situation, it looks like bad play. But since I was a vote deck, I couldn't handle +1 intercept. I wanted to take the opportunity to steal the location while it couldn't be used against me, even though I couldn't ever make use of the location myself. And I was able to oust my prey the FOLLOWING turn, and then was in a much better position against my prey, who could now intercept my votes... but was forced to do so without his free intercept location. In your case, KRCG benefits almost any deck it's in; it gives +1 intercept to any vampire, and sometimes that's exactly what you need. I can't see any situation where it would be "unsportsmanlike" to do this, off the top of my head; I could see a LOT of situations where it'd be a dumb play, but the fact that KRCG is an immediate benefit can color a lot of people's perceptions of the long term. Again, you have to look and see if the person making the bad play is at least getting SOME perceived benefit out of it; a free KRCG is certainly that. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> Is using a Die4 to determine what you should guess in a malkavian >> prank unsportsmanlike? It sure is random, and yet has won me more >> games than any other single play i have ever made. Yet if I did this >> in your tournament, i would be guilty of random play, and therefore >> sanctioned. A burst of random unpredictable play can really throw off >> your opponents. > >"Random" in this thread is referring to meritless play - an action >that has no benefit for the actor. Akin to "random acts of violence". > >Since there's a reason to hold 1 in a prank (just as there is to >hold 2, likewise 3, and similarly 4), doing so is not "without >cause" - even if you use a random number generator to decide between >several non-meritless options. > >BTW, the expected gain of random guessing by both parties is >0.625 for the prankster and 1.25 for the other player. If the >prankster always guesses 4 when he knows the player randomly decided >to guess between 1 and 4, the rates switch to 1 for the prankster >and 0.5 for the player. The moral is: don't let the prankster >know you're guessing randomly. Just curious, but are you allowed to bring or use die in a Jyhad game? It seems innocuous enough, but might it be construed as bringing in outside materials (sort of like using notescards and referential materials)? Halcyan 2

In article <d59m6tcdma5dtpl9r...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > A threat like "I will destroy you" needs to be clarified. Will you > spend your entire game attempting to kill his vampires and oust him, > while ignoring your prey? Then it's unsportsmanlike; you are no > longer attempting to win, you're going off the deep end as revenge. > And if I misplay, overestimating how many resources I can expend making good my threat instead of attacking others, then I am unsportsmanlike? Not a bad player? > The idea of "so your playgroup knows they can ignore your threats" is > sort of amusing to me, frankly; assessing a Methuselah's position > based on factors external to the game is generally a rapid path to > defeat, so I can't even conceive of thinking "ah, I can just ignore > his threats, he won't do anything anyway". > If I never attacked anyone after I said I would, even in a single game, people would start ignoring everything I said, wouldn't they? Or is table talk of that sort a 'factor external to the game'? Reputation matters-Most tournament environments include some strangers, but they also include people you have played with before. > The answer, as for all questions like this, is highly situational. > > I stole my grandprey's Market Square (Assamite +1 intercept location) > last week with a vote, when I could've ousted my prey that turn > instead. Without knowing the situation, it looks like bad play. But > since I was a vote deck, I couldn't handle +1 intercept. I wanted to > take the opportunity to steal the location while it couldn't be used > against me, even though I couldn't ever make use of the location > myself. And I was able to oust my prey the FOLLOWING turn, and then > was in a much better position against my prey, who could now intercept > my votes... but was forced to do so without his free intercept > location. > So wait, it is OK to hold off on ousting your prey when you have a good reason. Can we call you to check if the reason we are using is good? LSJ, whose opinion do we need before we hold off on attacking our prey? Yours? Do you have a pager? The whole point is that drawing the line between 'bad play' and 'play so bad that someone thinks it is unsportsmanlike' is a very fuzzy issue. Sometimes, attacking your grandprey instead of your prey is good; sometimes it is not. The person who has to make the decisions is the player, not the judge (or other players). Otherwise, why play? Why not just mail in your deck to the judge, and have the tournaments all run by 'certified sportsmen' judges. Yeah, when I play, I want to win. I want to win now, and again and again and again. To do that, I sometimes need to look at other issues then the immediate victory piont situation. Ideally, I always get all the points. If I can't get them, I play to maximize my points over time, not just in the current game. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 22:01:19 GMT, kp...@my-deja.com wrote: >In article <d59m6tcdma5dtpl9r...@4ax.com>, > Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> A threat like "I will destroy you" needs to be clarified. Will you >> spend your entire game attempting to kill his vampires and oust >him, >> while ignoring your prey? Then it's unsportsmanlike; you are no >> longer attempting to win, you're going off the deep end as >revenge. > >And if I misplay, overestimating how many resources I can expend >making good my threat instead of attacking others, then I am >unsportsmanlike? Not a bad player? Frankly, yes. Even making the attempt to completely destroy him is going off the deep end, in my opinion; you should be spending those resources attempting to win, instead of going crazy trying to oust someone cross-table just because you got a point or two of damage from a vote. Deal with it; move on. Sometimes bad things will happen to you, too. If you can oust someone cross-table, you can also oust your prey. Play the game, don't conduct a personal vendetta during it just because someone did something that didn't help you win. >> The idea of "so your playgroup knows they can ignore your >threats" is >> sort of amusing to me, frankly; assessing a Methuselah's >position >> based on factors external to the game is generally a rapid path to >> defeat, so I can't even conceive of thinking "ah, I can just ignore >> his threats, he won't do anything anyway". >> >If I never attacked anyone after I said I would, even in a single >game, people would start ignoring everything I said, wouldn't they? If you make stupid threats, people will start ignoring you anyway. If you make threats like "i'll destroy you" in response to such minor things as a point or two of vote damage, I'll ignore you and do it anyway. If you actually TRY to carry out your threat, I'll probably quit playing with you, because obviously you've gone far off the deep end and have left rational-land behind. If you make REALISTIC threats ("i'll kill one vampire"), you should have no difficulty carrying them out and being believed WITHOUT being marked a lunatic, right? >Or is table talk of that sort a 'factor external to the game'? Past actions in previous games ARE external, as far as I'm concerned. I could rely on your not having carried out your threat last game, but that would be pretty stupid of me, now wouldn't it? Or I could be cowed by your actually HAVING carried it out last game,.. but if the threat won't help your position in this game, I'll be inclined to ignore it anyway, since I prefer to assume everyone is playing to win. >Reputation matters-Most tournament environments include some >strangers, but they also include people you have played with >before. Reputation doesn't matter as much as you think it does. People still make deals with Rob Treasure even though he's stated outright that he'll break them as he sees fit; probably because they can still get something out of it, they just have to watch him over their shoulder. I can't remember when a player's reputation for anything OTHER than keeping deals has EVER been considered in a tournament; and by keeping deals I DON'T mean "making threats and following through." So maybe last round, you went cross-table and ousted someone who gave you a point of damage, and got yourself ousted as a result. I'll still give you the point of damage if it seems appropriate, because I refuse to give in to gamer-tantrums. If you want to oust yourself in a pointless vendetta against me for that single point, fine, go for it; the only reputation you'll gain is "someone who you don't want to play with because they're an idiot." You certainly won't intimidate me into altering my play style. >> was in a much better position against my prey, who could now >intercept >> my votes... but was forced to do so without his free intercept >> location. >> >So wait, it is OK to hold off on ousting your prey when you have a >good reason. Can we call you to check if the reason we are using >is good? LSJ, whose opinion do we need before we hold off on >attacking our prey? Yours? Do you have a pager? I'm starting to get tired of everyone attempting to nit-pick arguments that should damn well be plain common sense. Were none of you raised by human beings? Do you have no concept of polite society? Do you need EVERYTHING spelled out for you? Jesus. Wake UP, man. Let me put it this way. Don't act like an immature child, or like a Magic brat, and you won't get slapped with an unsportsmanlike penalty. How do you like THEM cookies? And you know what? I bet it ends up being REAL easy to determine when someone is just being a dork, as opposed to when someone is just making some strategic moves. Ousting yourself with Hostile Takeover is being a dork. Transferring yourself out is being a dork. Rolling a d4 before every action and Rushing the corresponding Methuselah's vampire is being a dork. Rushing all of your grandpredator's vampires because he called an Anarchist Uprising and ousted both you AND his prey in the last game is being a dork. Playing a deck that calls one Kindred Restructure per turn and rearranges the entire table repeatedly is being a dork, too, even if you DID figure out a way to make it worthwhile. Can you see where holding off on ousting your prey for a turn or two is significantly different than the above five things? Can you see where going cross-table to kill one vampire as a threat is different, as well? If you can't, then keep looking until you can. Sheesh. >The whole point is that drawing the line between 'bad play' and >'play so bad that someone thinks it is unsportsmanlike' is a very >fuzzy issue. Sometimes, attacking your grandprey instead of your >prey is good; sometimes it is not. The person who has to make >the decisions is the player, not the judge (or other players). >Otherwise, why play? Why not just mail in your deck to the judge, >and have the tournaments all run by 'certified sportsmen' judges. It isn't even REMOTELY fuzzy. It's damned easy to tell when someone is actually trying to win, and when they're just being a dork. Again, this is not something that needs to be spelled out; it is OB-VI-OUS. >Yeah, when I play, I want to win. I want to win now, and again and >again and again. To do that, I sometimes need to look at other >issues then the immediate victory piont situation. Ideally, I always >get all the points. If I can't get them, I play to maximize my points >over time, not just in the current game. How exactly do you manage to maximize your points "over time"? By building a reputation as a loose cannon, so that people are constantly afraid you'll go off your tree and oust them? Boy, that really wants to make me play in YOUR group. I bet that's about as much fun as a Borax gargle. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 16:06:09 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> > wrote: > > >Derek Ray wrote: > >> > >> It generally ruins the game for me; I now have six more pool to wade > >> through, all the strategy I've been building is largely worthless, and > >> I didn't even have a chance to stop it from happening, even if I had a > >> Direct Intervention and Eagle's Sight in HAND. And all because of > >> what? Spite. That's not "fun", for me. > > > >That's often a problem with multiplayer games. Spite aimed at a one person > >can bring collateral damage against a third, blameless person. Of course, > >we already knew that sitting in the wrong position at the wrong time, for > >instance with the intercept combat deck as your prey and a stealth bleeder > >as your predator, is far worse than this. > > Actually, no, it is NOT. If I just happen to be in the wrong place, > then bad luck for me; shit happens. It's quite possible to survive in > that seating position; be a bleed-bounce deck (not too uncommon) and > explain really fast that the stealth-bleeder is going to sweep if the > intercept deck doesn't kill a few minions of his. My explanation > could fail; oh well. I should be ready for a stealth/bleed deck > ANYWAY. It is, sorry. While most decks should have some recourse to respond to stealth/bleed, the point of a CCG is to allow some latitude about how much to prepare for any particular deck. If you prepare sufficiently well for stealth/bleed that having one as your predator isn't a disadvantage, then you're leaving other major windows wide open. Having a brutal rush combat deck as your predator or prey is also pretty ugly. Granted, what exactly kind of deck is the worst disadvantage have as your predator or as your prey may vary depending on your deck choice, but this makes no difference whatsoever to my point. Having your grandprey self-oust seldom compares unless it happens at a particularly poor time. > But having to put up with random bullshit just because someone was > pissy? That's FAR worse, to me. I came to play the game, not watch > someone deliberately wreak havoc on the game and mess up everyone's > strategy at his personal whim. I would say that's true of everyone. But don't let the fact that such play is annoyingly bad and fairly useless cause you to overestimate how much effect it has on the game. Your prey is essentially playing with 36 pool instead of 30 and gets a free victory point. Of the two, I dislike the victory point more than the pool. But it can often be survived. Getting stuck between the wrong two decks is almost always fatal. > >actually behaving like an opponent). I've seen lots of vengeful play in > >V:tES and other multiplayer games for which the provocation was insufficient > >and the reaction entirely unjustified - in short, just bad play even on a > >metagaming level. In fact, I've probably seen a hell of a lot more bad > >play such as the example you describe than I see good play. But that's not > >the point. The point is that the latitude to pursue this ought to be in the > >hands of the individual player, without the threat of the judge coming over > >and tossing him or otherwise sanctioning his (IMHO) legitimate play. > > Bad play is one thing, and taking vengeance for breaking a deal is one > thing, and putting yourself in a bad position is one thing. But there > are people declaring that they should be permitted to play Hostile > Takeover on someone's vamp even though playing the CARD would oust > them. I think that's a load of bullshit, myself. The game is hard > enough without J. Random Magicplayer deciding "hey, fuck you, you > didn't support my vote to oust and that would've kept me alive, so i'm > gonna screw your vampire on the way out!" And you're entitled to your opinion that such play is bullshit. But it's still arguable, it's still a matter of gaming philosophy, and it shouldn't be cause tournament penalty. The fact of the matter is, threats are useless if there's no chance they'll ever be carried out. And it's not up to you to decide how much another person has been hurt by your play or a third person's play or what they ought and ought not to do about it. > >> I don't see much difference between someone transferring themselves > >> out and deliberately taking an action that will oust themselves for no > >> benefit. In fact, the one *is* the other. > > > >The difference is that there's a point behind the action. Agree with it or > >not, they *are* different actions. > > No, really, they aren't. If I transfer myself out, I take an action > (transfers) that will oust myself for no benefit, and I screw my > grand-predator over. If I play Hostile Takeover when I have one pool, > I oust myself for no benefit and screw whoever I Hostile over. There is clearly a potential benefit; it simply isn't a benefit that will be realized in the immediate game. This was my original point. The question of whether players should or should not be playing for the benefit of future games does not belong being codified into tournament rules. > >> There are only two kinds of people who don't always play to win in the > >> pool world... hustlers and fish. > > > >(Elided. I didn't see any point to the whole discussions of "hustlers and > >fish", nor does it relate to anything in my experience.) > > It was intended to address your paragraph above, about whether you > should always be playing to win the immediate game, or if it's OK to > sacrifice it to create a "reputation". It was ALSO intended to > demonstrate that it's not useful to attempt to create a reputation, > because you can't guarantee that the people you create the reputation > with will be at your table in the future. That latter does not prove the former. You do not have to play with the same players to have a reputation so long as players talk to each other. Nor is a necessary condition that your reputation must be guaranteed in order for it to considered a benefit. Just the chance that it will serve you later can be considered a benefit. > >> Anyway. All that theoretical rambling aside, I think that any single > >> game among strong players is sufficiently unstable that it's a bad > >> idea to permit self-immolation (which REALLY destablizes things). > > > >The point of what I was talking about is not self-immolation. I think self- > > However, that's the point under discussion, since that was what > started this whole thing; Perhaps. But self-immolation, unfortunately, is indistinguishable for other forms of reputation-building that are more likely to have merit. As I point out before, you can't draw a qualitative line anywhere. > >of the limited number of rushes a rush combat deck has at its disposal which makes > >a cross-table rush a significant sacrifice. The problem is, there's no solid line > >between this and a situation where you're effectively ousting yourself. If I rush > >across table instead of at my predator's superbleeder with few pool left, that can > >be viewed as borderline unsportmanlike play by some of the definitions I'm hearing. > >That's not right. > > It IS borderline if you KNOW that you'll be ousted on your turn. If > you expect to possibly have some defense later, that's different, or > if you're attempting to draw into the defense. Or if you're hoping > that someone ousts your predator in the meantime. > > But frankly, if you go cross-table in that situation without any kind > of realistic expectation of not being ousted, I won't think very much > of you; I don't like playing with people who don't play to win, > because it usually fucks up the game for everyone and makes it much > less than fun. I'm sorry you feel that way. Not surprised, however. This exact debate has often inflamed similar passions because it exposes philosophy differences between the two groups of players that aren't otherwise apparent. This is why I think the VEKN should steer clear of trying to resolve it by ruling metagaming as "bad sportsmanship" and thus "illegal". Fred

"Derek Ray" <lor...@yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message news: 6eom6t8su0gk39rbn...@4ax.com... > On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 22:01:19 GMT, kp...@my-deja.com wrote: (snip snip) > I'm starting to get tired of everyone attempting to nit-pick arguments > that should damn well be plain common sense. Were none of you raised > by human beings? Do you have no concept of polite society? Do you > need EVERYTHING spelled out for you? Jesus. Wake UP, man. now the Derek Ray I love so much is speaking !! =) reyda (snip) > Ousting yourself with Hostile Takeover is being a dork. > > Transferring yourself out is being a dork. > > Rolling a d4 before every action and Rushing the corresponding > Methuselah's vampire is being a dork. > > Rushing all of your grandpredator's vampires because he called an > Anarchist Uprising and ousted both you AND his prey in the last game > is being a dork. (snip) remember this, guys !! =) > -- Derek > > "I reduce that bleed by one." -- M. Bell, 4x in a @#$*ing row marry me ! reyda =)

In article <6eom6t8su0gk39rbn...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Ahhh...you said what I've been wanting to say. I can unclench my jaw, now. *POP* Nicely done. Couldn't agree more. mdf -- Address provided is a spam trap. To reply, please remove all doubt. ----------------------- "If God thought that nudity was OK, we would have been born naked." -----Anthony E. Smart

On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:03:25 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: >It is, sorry. While most decks should have some recourse to respond to >stealth/bleed, the point of a CCG is to allow some latitude about how much >to prepare for any particular deck. If you prepare sufficiently well for >stealth/bleed that having one as your predator isn't a disadvantage, then >you're leaving other major windows wide open. Having a brutal rush combat >deck as your predator or prey is also pretty ugly. Granted, what exactly >kind of deck is the worst disadvantage have as your predator or as your >prey may vary depending on your deck choice, but this makes no difference >whatsoever to my point. Having your grandprey self-oust seldom compares >unless it happens at a particularly poor time. I think you're missing the point; it's MUCH less fun to have a grandprey self-oust and bolster your prey's steadily weakening position than it is to be caught between two decks that will end up totally hosing you. If you're in a bad seating position, it HAPPENS. You have to be able to deal with it and shrug it off, because it's impossible to avoid. But when your grandprey self-ousts out of spite? How this can be seen as 'fun' for anyone except your prey, I don't know. >> But having to put up with random bullshit just because someone was >> pissy? That's FAR worse, to me. I came to play the game, not watch >> someone deliberately wreak havoc on the game and mess up everyone's >> strategy at his personal whim. > >I would say that's true of everyone. But don't let the fact that such >play is annoyingly bad and fairly useless cause you to overestimate how >much effect it has on the game. Your prey is essentially playing with >36 pool instead of 30 and gets a free victory point. Of the two, I >dislike the victory point more than the pool. But it can often be >survived. Getting stuck between the wrong two decks is almost always >fatal. Really? I dislike the pool much more. 6 pool in the late stages of a close game can be an awful lot to work through, especially if you had just spent a bunch of resources to put yourself in position to oust. The VP is irrelevant if you aren't likely to get a chance to gain your OWN VP. >> them. I think that's a load of bullshit, myself. The game is hard >> enough without J. Random Magicplayer deciding "hey, fuck you, you >> didn't support my vote to oust and that would've kept me alive, so i'm >> gonna screw your vampire on the way out!" > >And you're entitled to your opinion that such play is bullshit. But it's >still arguable, it's still a matter of gaming philosophy, and it shouldn't This viewpoint scares me, to be frank. Are all gamers so concerned with having "mad power" that they are willing to screw their friends' game up just to prove a point? (Don't answer that; way too many of them are, I know. I was hoping V:TES would not go that way.) >> No, really, they aren't. If I transfer myself out, I take an action >> (transfers) that will oust myself for no benefit, and I screw my >> grand-predator over. If I play Hostile Takeover when I have one pool, >> I oust myself for no benefit and screw whoever I Hostile over. > >There is clearly a potential benefit; it simply isn't a benefit that will be Really? What benefit? To be tagged as a lunatic? I have NO idea how this is a benefit, myself. >> It was intended to address your paragraph above, about whether you >> should always be playing to win the immediate game, or if it's OK to >> sacrifice it to create a "reputation". It was ALSO intended to >> demonstrate that it's not useful to attempt to create a reputation, >> because you can't guarantee that the people you create the reputation >> with will be at your table in the future. > >That latter does not prove the former. You do not have to play with the >same players to have a reputation so long as players talk to each other. >Nor is a necessary condition that your reputation must be guaranteed in >order for it to considered a benefit. Just the chance that it will serve >you later can be considered a benefit. being labelled a loose cannon would be a disadvantage, in my opinion. You might be able to intimidate the weak-willed, but if you're forced to oust yourself often enough when people ignore your threats, you'll change your tune quickly enough after you keep getting big zeros by your VP score. Of course, making threats that didn't require you to oust yourself to carry out might prove more effective, as people might be likely to take you seriously. >> >The point of what I was talking about is not self-immolation. I think self- >> >> However, that's the point under discussion, since that was what >> started this whole thing; > >Perhaps. But self-immolation, unfortunately, is indistinguishable for >other forms of reputation-building that are more likely to have merit. >As I point out before, you can't draw a qualitative line anywhere. Sure I can. "Thou shalt take no actions which have no conceivable benefit to thyself whatsoever." Now we just need an actual definition of "benefit". "Something which is good for you" works for me. "Ousting yourself to kill someone else and scare the piss out of your playgroup" does not fall under "something which is good for you", frankly. >> But frankly, if you go cross-table in that situation without any kind >> of realistic expectation of not being ousted, I won't think very much >> of you; I don't like playing with people who don't play to win, >> because it usually fucks up the game for everyone and makes it much >> less than fun. > >I'm sorry you feel that way. Not surprised, however. This exact debate has >often inflamed similar passions because it exposes philosophy differences >between the two groups of players that aren't otherwise apparent. This is >why I think the VEKN should steer clear of trying to resolve it by ruling >metagaming as "bad sportsmanship" and thus "illegal". ...Which hands it directly to the group of players that believes they should be able to fuck up whom they want, when they want, no matter whose fun they ruin in the process. I don't see this as a good way to get new players, myself. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > On Sun, 21 Jan 2001 23:03:25 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> > wrote: > > >It is, sorry. While most decks should have some recourse to respond to > >stealth/bleed, the point of a CCG is to allow some latitude about how much > >to prepare for any particular deck. If you prepare sufficiently well for > >stealth/bleed that having one as your predator isn't a disadvantage, then > >you're leaving other major windows wide open. Having a brutal rush combat > >deck as your predator or prey is also pretty ugly. Granted, what exactly > >kind of deck is the worst disadvantage have as your predator or as your > >prey may vary depending on your deck choice, but this makes no difference > >whatsoever to my point. Having your grandprey self-oust seldom compares > >unless it happens at a particularly poor time. > > I think you're missing the point; it's MUCH less fun to have a > grandprey self-oust and bolster your prey's steadily weakening > position than it is to be caught between two decks that will end up > totally hosing you. If you're in a bad seating position, it HAPPENS. > You have to be able to deal with it and shrug it off, because it's > impossible to avoid. > > But when your grandprey self-ousts out of spite? How this can be seen > as 'fun' for anyone except your prey, I don't know. Hmmmm. Interesting point of view. Personally, I don't find either one of them to be particularly fun. Either way, it comes down to stuff happening to me that I couldn't control nor plan for. I suppose if you find it more aggravating that a person exists to blame, I can see your point of view but I personally don't find that that matters. > > >> But having to put up with random bullshit just because someone was > >> pissy? That's FAR worse, to me. I came to play the game, not watch > >> someone deliberately wreak havoc on the game and mess up everyone's > >> strategy at his personal whim. > > > >I would say that's true of everyone. But don't let the fact that such > >play is annoyingly bad and fairly useless cause you to overestimate how > >much effect it has on the game. Your prey is essentially playing with > >36 pool instead of 30 and gets a free victory point. Of the two, I > >dislike the victory point more than the pool. But it can often be > >survived. Getting stuck between the wrong two decks is almost always > >fatal. > > Really? I dislike the pool much more. 6 pool in the late stages of a > close game can be an awful lot to work through, especially if you had > just spent a bunch of resources to put yourself in position to oust. > The VP is irrelevant if you aren't likely to get a chance to gain your > OWN VP. I think what's happening here is that you're focusing on one particular time when it can happen that would be especially frustrating. Maybe it's just a difference in our experiences but times past when I see someone self-oust in spite and I'm a collateral damage victim, it's seldom ever at a critical juncture like that. Agreed, the 6 pool can be critical at _certain_ times. > >> them. I think that's a load of bullshit, myself. The game is hard > >> enough without J. Random Magicplayer deciding "hey, fuck you, you > >> didn't support my vote to oust and that would've kept me alive, so i'm > >> gonna screw your vampire on the way out!" > > > >And you're entitled to your opinion that such play is bullshit. But it's > >still arguable, it's still a matter of gaming philosophy, and it shouldn't > > This viewpoint scares me, to be frank. Are all gamers so concerned > with having "mad power" that they are willing to screw their friends' > game up just to prove a point? (Don't answer that; way too many of > them are, I know. I was hoping V:TES would not go that way.) Vindictive play is part and parcel to multiplayer games. Period. My issue with this "unsportsmanlike conduct" stuff isn't so much standing up for players' having a right to it as much as trying to outlaw it is damn near impossible. Trying to do so will only cause controversy. Someone in one tournament will inevitably get called for something much less spiteful than what someone else in another tournament has gotten away with lots of times. Players in one locale will play in another and get into disputes with each other and the judge about what is and isn't "unsportsmanlike conduct". And it's not like you can stop it, either. Once someone understands the rule, he just devises a sneakier way of accomplishing the same thing. > >> No, really, they aren't. If I transfer myself out, I take an action > >> (transfers) that will oust myself for no benefit, and I screw my > >> grand-predator over. If I play Hostile Takeover when I have one pool, > >> I oust myself for no benefit and screw whoever I Hostile over. > > > >There is clearly a potential benefit; it simply isn't a benefit that will be > > Really? What benefit? To be tagged as a lunatic? I have NO idea how > this is a benefit, myself. Then you are being deliberately dense. If such a player makes it clear enough what he didn't like, and if it's a fairly reasonable grievance (one that most players can avoid without it curbing their power to win the game overtly), then it will have the effect of convincing player not to engage in it in the future. Or at least not as much. This is undoubtedly a benefit. > >> It was intended to address your paragraph above, about whether you > >> should always be playing to win the immediate game, or if it's OK to > >> sacrifice it to create a "reputation". It was ALSO intended to > >> demonstrate that it's not useful to attempt to create a reputation, > >> because you can't guarantee that the people you create the reputation > >> with will be at your table in the future. > > > >That latter does not prove the former. You do not have to play with the > >same players to have a reputation so long as players talk to each other. > >Nor is a necessary condition that your reputation must be guaranteed in > >order for it to considered a benefit. Just the chance that it will serve > >you later can be considered a benefit. > > being labelled a loose cannon would be a disadvantage, in my opinion. > You might be able to intimidate the weak-willed, but if you're forced > to oust yourself often enough when people ignore your threats, you'll > change your tune quickly enough after you keep getting big zeros by > your VP score. Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on the threats, it depends on the the behavior you're threatening against, it depends on the philosophy of the players being threatened or others who might hear about it and play against the guy in question in the future. > Of course, making threats that didn't require you to oust yourself to > carry out might prove more effective, as people might be likely to > take you seriously. Agreed. But I'm not arguing against this. Self-ousting and other threats such as you're talking about are all the same issue. There's no distinction you can draw that has anything but a meaninglessly fuzzy borderline between what you personally think is a "good" threat vs. what you think is a "bad" threat. > >> >The point of what I was talking about is not self-immolation. I think self- > >> > >> However, that's the point under discussion, since that was what > >> started this whole thing; > > > >Perhaps. But self-immolation, unfortunately, is indistinguishable for > >other forms of reputation-building that are more likely to have merit. > >As I point out before, you can't draw a qualitative line anywhere. > > Sure I can. "Thou shalt take no actions which have no conceivable > benefit to thyself whatsoever." > > Now we just need an actual definition of "benefit". "Something which > is good for you" works for me. Works for me, too. Since self-immolation has arguably has a future benefit, you now fail to catch even the silliest self-immolators. It may even POSSIBLY even ONCE affect ONE other future opponent to modify his future behavior in a way SLIGHTLY beneficial to the self-immolater. That's all you need. Benefit - however slight. Point, game, match. Your rule is worthless to do what you want it to do. > "Ousting yourself to kill someone else and scare the piss out of your > playgroup" does not fall under "something which is good for you", > frankly. And why not? You can't make this distinction. A benefit is a benefit is a benefit. PERIOD. You don't like it, give me a sane definition of benefit that isn't as bad as trying to judge Madness of the Bard. > > >> But frankly, if you go cross-table in that situation without any kind > >> of realistic expectation of not being ousted, I won't think very much > >> of you; I don't like playing with people who don't play to win, > >> because it usually fucks up the game for everyone and makes it much > >> less than fun. > > > >I'm sorry you feel that way. Not surprised, however. This exact debate has > >often inflamed similar passions because it exposes philosophy differences > >between the two groups of players that aren't otherwise apparent. This is > >why I think the VEKN should steer clear of trying to resolve it by ruling > >metagaming as "bad sportsmanship" and thus "illegal". > > ...Which hands it directly to the group of players that believes they > should be able to fuck up whom they want, when they want, no matter > whose fun they ruin in the process. I don't see this as a good way to > get new players, myself. Really, Derek, it's not that big a deal. I guess I don't see the tournament structure collapsing for lack of such a ruling. It's not like there's hordes of arbitrary players out there salivating at the chance to get into tournaments and oust themselves for no reason, or the slightest of provocations. What I'm a lot more afraid of is inconsistent judging around a controversial rule that needn't exist. When I hear of a guy who got tossed from a tournament, I want be able to confidently think he was bastard who deserved it. Not be afraid that he just happened to do the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the wrong judge, which is what I'm afraid I'll be hearing about some day as it is. Many MANY games I play involve people starting to forget their best interests and then begin to dick around with cross-table opponents just because they've gotten sufficiently pissed off. Sometimes it amounts to effective self-ousting even when it's not real obvious to the naked eye. Bit by bit, pissy play by pissy play until an entirely viable position is lost. It happened in a game I was in at Gencon, for crying out loud, with Scott judging no less. (Though Scott wasn't around and no one dreamed of calling him over to rule one it.) I'd defy ANYONE to tell me when it crosses the line and becomes "unsportsmanlike". Fred

On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 03:41:28 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> But when your grandprey self-ousts out of spite? How this can be seen >> as 'fun' for anyone except your prey, I don't know. > >Hmmmm. Interesting point of view. Personally, I don't find either one >of them to be particularly fun. Either way, it comes down to stuff >happening to me that I couldn't control nor plan for. I suppose if you >find it more aggravating that a person exists to blame, I can see your >point of view but I personally don't find that that matters. Well, I wouldn't say that being run over without getting to take an action is fun, either. But it -does- happen, especially if you happen to get stuck in front of a deck that just happens to be your complete hoser. Since it's impossible to defend against everything, it could always happen; so you pretty much have to just deal with it, if it does. You have an equal chance of sitting behind a deck that hasn't a prayer of dealing with you, too. But capricious (damn good word) play is just stupid. It's the "misery loves company" attitude; that if you can't have it your way and have fun, you're going to ruin someone else's and take them with you. I don't really know what makes people get off on that sort of thing, but it really pisses me off to see it. The concept of "future benefit via intimidation" pisses me off as well, because it looks like nothing more than a gamer trying to create his own little power trip. It's one thing to be known for playing Rush decks and to have it known that your normal response to cross-table collateral damage is to Rush and kill a vampire. It's another thing entirely to be known for demolishing your own position just to get revenge. >> Really? I dislike the pool much more. 6 pool in the late stages of a >> close game can be an awful lot to work through, especially if you had >> just spent a bunch of resources to put yourself in position to oust. >> The VP is irrelevant if you aren't likely to get a chance to gain your >> OWN VP. > >I think what's happening here is that you're focusing on one particular >time when it can happen that would be especially frustrating. Maybe it's >just a difference in our experiences but times past when I see someone >self-oust in spite and I'm a collateral damage victim, it's seldom ever >at a critical juncture like that. Agreed, the 6 pool can be critical at >_certain_ times. Perhaps I've just been involved in much closer games, myself. The only times I've seen it happen, it's generally screwed either the grand-predator who was hoping to get an oust himself, or the new prey who now has a strong predator with 6 extra pool on his ass one turn sooner. Even having to bleed for 2 pool can be 2 actions; not having to take those 2 actions is always an enormous help. >> This viewpoint scares me, to be frank. Are all gamers so concerned >> with having "mad power" that they are willing to screw their friends' >> game up just to prove a point? (Don't answer that; way too many of >> them are, I know. I was hoping V:TES would not go that way.) > >Vindictive play is part and parcel to multiplayer games. Period. My Doesn't have to be to THAT extreme, though. >issue with this "unsportsmanlike conduct" stuff isn't so much standing >up for players' having a right to it as much as trying to outlaw it is >damn near impossible. Trying to do so will only cause controversy. Someone >in one tournament will inevitably get called for something much less spiteful >than what someone else in another tournament has gotten away with lots of >times. Players in one locale will play in another and get into disputes with >each other and the judge about what is and isn't "unsportsmanlike conduct". Not if you line up a very basic yardstick against it, such as "no conceivable benefit." The "collusion" rules have been around for awhile and have an even tougher road to hoe, but I don't see anyone bitching about those... of course, I also haven't seen those used, either. >And it's not like you can stop it, either. Once someone understands the >rule, he just devises a sneakier way of accomplishing the same thing. I defy anyone to produce a "sneakier" way of transferring themselves out, or playing a card which will oust them when the cost is paid. Sure, you can tap out and transfer 4 of your 5 pool to a vampire in your uncontrolled region, and it would be stupid, and you are almost certainly just setting yourself up to get ousted. But without knowledge of the contents of your hand, nobody knows that you don't have a handful of Wake and Intercept, and you COULD be bluffing, especially if you'd been dropping Wakes all over the place. And I'd object to having judges come over and scrutinize ANYONE's hand to make that decision, if you're curious; I think that true "no benefit" actions tend to speak for themselves, without hand knowledge being necessary. >> Really? What benefit? To be tagged as a lunatic? I have NO idea how >> this is a benefit, myself. > >Then you are being deliberately dense. If such a player makes it clear enough >what he didn't like, and if it's a fairly reasonable grievance (one that most >players can avoid without it curbing their power to win the game overtly), then >it will have the effect of convincing player not to engage in it in the future. >Or at least not as much. This is undoubtedly a benefit. Are you noticing that my examples aren't including anything which might be a reasonable grievance? Something like a point or two of collateral vote damage HAS to go somewhere, and sometimes your location happens to be just what a deck across the table is missing. Say, a Hungry Coyote, and a cross-table deck is playing !Toreador vote. Someone who's willing to oust themselves getting revenge isn't going to convince any sane person of anything, except that maybe they shouldn't play with that person anymore. >> being labelled a loose cannon would be a disadvantage, in my opinion. >> You might be able to intimidate the weak-willed, but if you're forced >> to oust yourself often enough when people ignore your threats, you'll >> change your tune quickly enough after you keep getting big zeros by >> your VP score. > >Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on the threats, it depends on the the >behavior you're threatening against, it depends on the philosophy of the >players being threatened or others who might hear about it and play against >the guy in question in the future. And sanctioning that sort of thing (intimidation) just leads us further down the path to that Magic guy who so totally lost track of reality that when he lost, he kicked a chair across the room. We want people to see this as a fun GAME. I'm thinking at this point that there's a much simpler solution though. >> Of course, making threats that didn't require you to oust yourself to >> carry out might prove more effective, as people might be likely to >> take you seriously. > >Agreed. But I'm not arguing against this. Self-ousting and other threats >such as you're talking about are all the same issue. There's no distinction >you can draw that has anything but a meaninglessly fuzzy borderline between >what you personally think is a "good" threat vs. what you think is a "bad" >threat. Actually, I think we need to make it simpler; lock each game into its own self-contained world. If you don't gain a benefit in the current game, then don't be doing it in a tournament. I don't recall ever personally seeing the "control who's in the finals" situation, myself; I'm willing to concede that it may happen, but it's so rare that I see no reason any longer to make an exception just for that, especially confronting this type of mindset. This makes it even easier, since it inherently stops all the immediately suicidal "i'm taking you with me because you pissed me off" plays, which are the REAL problem anyway, and leaves plenty of room for dumb play (which can be a problem, but not something that's actually curable.) >> Sure I can. "Thou shalt take no actions which have no conceivable >> benefit to thyself whatsoever." >> >> Now we just need an actual definition of "benefit". "Something which >> is good for you" works for me. > >Works for me, too. > >Since self-immolation has arguably has a future benefit, you now fail to >catch even the silliest self-immolators. > >It may even POSSIBLY even ONCE affect ONE other future opponent to modify >his future behavior in a way SLIGHTLY beneficial to the self-immolater. >That's all you need. Benefit - however slight. Point, game, match. Your >rule is worthless to do what you want it to do. Only by the most ridiculous stretch of the definition do you EVER gain a future benefit from self-immolation. Look at your statement: "possibly, once, one other, slightly". Boy, that really made it worth blowing yourself up and pissing everyone off, didn't it? I'll stand by my "never", myself. However, if you're going to go that far into unreasonable-land, then we just lock it down to the current game, and that provides a MUCH more easily assessable situation. >> "Ousting yourself to kill someone else and scare the piss out of your >> playgroup" does not fall under "something which is good for you", >> frankly. > >And why not? You can't make this distinction. A benefit is a benefit is You don't want to keep your playgroup? >a benefit. PERIOD. You don't like it, give me a sane definition of benefit >that isn't as bad as trying to judge Madness of the Bard. (shrug) See above. It's not as difficult to judge as you make it seem, even if you PERMIT it to go outside the current game. >> ...Which hands it directly to the group of players that believes they >> should be able to fuck up whom they want, when they want, no matter >> whose fun they ruin in the process. I don't see this as a good way to >> get new players, myself. > >Really, Derek, it's not that big a deal. I guess I don't see the tournament >structure collapsing for lack of such a ruling. It's not like there's hordes >of arbitrary players out there salivating at the chance to get into tournaments >and oust themselves for no reason, or the slightest of provocations. I guess I'm still optimistic that we're going to somehow end UP with hordes of new players from somewhere; and if they're all gamers, then honestly, we're going to get a lot of bozos in the mix. Capricious (neat word!) play may be the norm in other multiplayer games, but someone being a bozo in this game can really trash it for the rest of the table. If something is in place to deal with extreme, obvious cases, then the non-extreme cases can be let slide with warnings, which will serve the same effect without actually having to toss people out. >What I'm a lot more afraid of is inconsistent judging around a controversial rule >that needn't exist. When I hear of a guy who got tossed from a tournament, I >want be able to confidently think he was bastard who deserved it. Not be afraid >that he just happened to do the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the >wrong judge, which is what I'm afraid I'll be hearing about some day as it is. There ain't much you can do about bad judging, other than go up the pike and get HIM beaten on, or at least denied prize support for any future tournaments he judges. It's already possible for it to happen; and surely it WILL happen someday, especially if we get big somehow. But there isn't much one can do about THAT, since anyone with the inclination can run his own tournament right now. And I see no reason to change THAT just because of prosperity. >Many MANY games I play involve people starting to forget their best interests >and then begin to dick around with cross-table opponents just because they've gotten >sufficiently pissed off. Sometimes it amounts to effective self-ousting even when Scary, that. Can't anyone keep their eye on the ball anymore? >it's not real obvious to the naked eye. Bit by bit, pissy play by pissy play until >an entirely viable position is lost. It happened in a game I was in at Gencon, >for crying out loud, with Scott judging no less. (Though Scott wasn't around and >no one dreamed of calling him over to rule one it.) I'd defy ANYONE to tell me >when it crosses the line and becomes "unsportsmanlike". I would've loved to have seen that game, myself... just for curiosity's sake. Even though they could've done BETTER by moving forward, I wonder how many of those actions were TOTALLY without perceived benefit? Because I bet everyone involved in the game still wanted to (and was trying to) win; they just wanted to get someone else WHILE they were winning. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 03:41:28 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> > wrote: > > >Derek Ray wrote: > >> This viewpoint scares me, to be frank. Are all gamers so concerned > >> with having "mad power" that they are willing to screw their friends' > >> game up just to prove a point? (Don't answer that; way too many of > >> them are, I know. I was hoping V:TES would not go that way.) > > > >Vindictive play is part and parcel to multiplayer games. Period. My > >issue with this "unsportsmanlike conduct" stuff isn't so much standing > >up for players' having a right to it as much as trying to outlaw it is > >damn near impossible. Trying to do so will only cause controversy. Someone > >in one tournament will inevitably get called for something much less spiteful > >than what someone else in another tournament has gotten away with lots of > >times. Players in one locale will play in another and get into disputes with > >each other and the judge about what is and isn't "unsportsmanlike conduct". > > Not if you line up a very basic yardstick against it, such as "no > conceivable benefit." But that doesn't do what you want, which is to prevent self-ousting. Self-ousting has a conceivable benefit, which is apparently our real dispute here. When you take the fact that self-ousting has a conceivable benefit and attempt to account for it in ruling on unsportsmanlike conduct, then we get the scenario I'm fearing above. > Someone who's willing to oust themselves getting revenge isn't going > to convince any sane person of anything, except that maybe they > shouldn't play with that person anymore. That's an opinion not fact. And it's far too broad to be accurate 100% of the time, which it would have to be to prove that "self-ousting has no conceivable benefit. > >> being labelled a loose cannon would be a disadvantage, in my opinion. > >> You might be able to intimidate the weak-willed, but if you're forced > >> to oust yourself often enough when people ignore your threats, you'll > >> change your tune quickly enough after you keep getting big zeros by > >> your VP score. > > > >Maybe. Maybe not. It all depends on the threats, it depends on the the > >behavior you're threatening against, it depends on the philosophy of the > >players being threatened or others who might hear about it and play against > >the guy in question in the future. > > And sanctioning that sort of thing (intimidation) just leads us > further down the path to that Magic guy who so totally lost track of > reality that when he lost, he kicked a chair across the room. I don't know how to respond to that. I mean, zillions of multiplayer games exist, many of them played in tournaments. I suppose occasionally somewhere there's a guy kicking a chair across the room and losing any sense of reasonable perspective on the game because there's no specific rule against it - other than the general "don't-act-like-a-jerk" sportsmanship rules (which the VEKN has as well). The problem is, you can't make rules telling people how to play their positions, which is essentially what this attempts to do. > >> Of course, making threats that didn't require you to oust yourself to > >> carry out might prove more effective, as people might be likely to > >> take you seriously. > > > >Agreed. But I'm not arguing against this. Self-ousting and other threats > >such as you're talking about are all the same issue. There's no distinction > >you can draw that has anything but a meaninglessly fuzzy borderline between > >what you personally think is a "good" threat vs. what you think is a "bad" > >threat. > > Actually, I think we need to make it simpler; lock each game into its > own self-contained world. ... > This makes it even easier, since it inherently stops all the > immediately suicidal "i'm taking you with me because you pissed me > off" plays, which are the REAL problem anyway, and leaves plenty of > room for dumb play (which can be a problem, but not something that's > actually curable.) This is the whole metagaming argument. Something like around half the gaming world (or more, IMHO) disagree with the concept of gaming this way. I think it's wrong and arrogant of an organization like VEKN to try to enforce a gaming philosophy. If you can make specific objective rules that tend to encourage the behavior you want, fine. But something as broad as "you must do everything for advantage IN THE CURRENT GAME" will start raising questions as to when little pissy plays such as doing cross-table rushes at insane times because you're irritated with your grandprey start to qualify. > >> Sure I can. "Thou shalt take no actions which have no conceivable > >> benefit to thyself whatsoever." > >> > >> Now we just need an actual definition of "benefit". "Something which > >> is good for you" works for me. > > > >Works for me, too. > > > >Since self-immolation has arguably has a future benefit, you now fail to > >catch even the silliest self-immolators. > > > >It may even POSSIBLY even ONCE affect ONE other future opponent to modify > >his future behavior in a way SLIGHTLY beneficial to the self-immolater. > >That's all you need. Benefit - however slight. Point, game, match. Your > >rule is worthless to do what you want it to do. > > Only by the most ridiculous stretch of the definition do you EVER gain > a future benefit from self-immolation. Yep, at least in some case, you're absolutely right. But the essence of gaming is making your own decisions about that. And if someone imagines that we have nothing to say about it. Any more than we have a right to say some particularly bad (in our opinion) deck is pointless and will only disrupt the tournament by giving free victory points to its predators and/or allowing its prey not to have to worry about pressure from upstream. Which it may well do. > >> "Ousting yourself to kill someone else and scare the piss out of your > >> playgroup" does not fall under "something which is good for you", > >> frankly. > > > >And why not? You can't make this distinction. A benefit is a benefit is > >a benefit. PERIOD. You don't like it, give me a sane definition of benefit > >that isn't as bad as trying to judge Madness of the Bard. > > (shrug) See above. It's not as difficult to judge as you make it > seem, even if you PERMIT it to go outside the current game. It's totally impossible to judge. I can tell the ends of the spectrum apart. I just can't draw a line in the middle because there's no objective rule to discern exactly where the good ends and the bad begins. > >> ...Which hands it directly to the group of players that believes they > >> should be able to fuck up whom they want, when they want, no matter > >> whose fun they ruin in the process. I don't see this as a good way to > >> get new players, myself. > > > >Really, Derek, it's not that big a deal. I guess I don't see the tournament > >structure collapsing for lack of such a ruling. It's not like there's hordes > >of arbitrary players out there salivating at the chance to get into tournaments > >and oust themselves for no reason, or the slightest of provocations. > > I guess I'm still optimistic that we're going to somehow end UP with > hordes of new players from somewhere; and if they're all gamers, then > honestly, we're going to get a lot of bozos in the mix. Capricious > (neat word!) play may be the norm in other multiplayer games, but > someone being a bozo in this game can really trash it for the rest of > the table. I play a lot of other multiplayer games (or at least I have in the past), and I guess I've come to feel like what you call "capricious play" happens all the time. It already happens in Jyhad, both on the self-ousting level and much more often on more minor levels where it's hard to distinguish from reasonable play, such as cross-table rushes: was it REALLY necessary to weaken your grand- predator or where you just pissed off that he threw the extra pool loss from his KRC at you instead of at his predator? If the latter, isn't it exactly the same "disruptive" stuff that you're complaining about? I think there's no question that getting annoyed with someone's play and Eagle's Sighting their actions, or cross-table bleeding them with Kindred Spirits, or calling Disputed Territory or their hunting ground to give it to their prey can "disrupt" an otherwise "sane" game. But you can't stop that without telling them how to play their position, which is impossible to codify. Neither can you attempt to tell people not to oust themselves without essentially doing the same thing. You can make a rule against doing the final action that will take away their last pool, I suppose. But if they want to throw themselves on the sword, they'll find a way to do it. And your whole cause will be frustrated. If you insist that it's worthwhile to prevent people from actually doing the self-ousting themselves (by, for instance, using their last pool to call Hostile Takeover or bidding with their last pool), there may be some merit to that. That way, at least the predator has to take an action to cause the ousting, which is something. But if so, at least make the rule hard and fast, leave it in the context of the game rules themselves, and keep concepts like "unsportsmanlike conduct" out of it. You can't stop it. So don't beat yourself over the head trying. > >What I'm a lot more afraid of is inconsistent judging around a controversial rule > >that needn't exist. When I hear of a guy who got tossed from a tournament, I > >want be able to confidently think he was bastard who deserved it. Not be afraid > >that he just happened to do the wrong thing at the wrong time in front of the > >wrong judge, which is what I'm afraid I'll be hearing about some day as it is. > > There ain't much you can do about bad judging, other than go up the > pike and get HIM beaten on, The trouble is, it's not "bad judging" that's going to cause this. It will be legitimate differences of opinion by good, intelligent judges as to what crosses the line. This will be because there's no "line" you can describe that's hard and fast for an intelligent person to know exactly where it is. > >Many MANY games I play involve people starting to forget their best interests > >and then begin to dick around with cross-table opponents just because they've gotten > >sufficiently pissed off. Sometimes it amounts to effective self-ousting even when > > Scary, that. Can't anyone keep their eye on the ball anymore? It happens all the time. I can't believe it never happens in the games you play in. > >it's not real obvious to the naked eye. Bit by bit, pissy play by pissy play until > >an entirely viable position is lost. It happened in a game I was in at Gencon, > >for crying out loud, with Scott judging no less. (Though Scott wasn't around and > >no one dreamed of calling him over to rule one it.) I'd defy ANYONE to tell me > >when it crosses the line and becomes "unsportsmanlike". > > I would've loved to have seen that game, myself... just for > curiosity's sake. Even though they could've done BETTER by moving > forward, I wonder how many of those actions were TOTALLY without > perceived benefit? Oh, I imagine they might come up with some argument or other. It was my predator and my grandprey (my predator's grandpredator) who started mostly calling votes damaging to one another. Each was just irritated that the other wasn't as cooperative as they would have liked and would retaliate by doing something to push the other one just a little too far. Then the whole cycle would repeat. I can not believe you haven't seen games like this. For that matter, in damn near every game I play, I usually see something that strikes me as more of an emotional than a sensible response to someone else's game play. Usually, we just laugh about about it and go on. Or at least, we don't really worry about it. Most everybody has their buttons. The better players usually know how to sublimate that stuff and use others' lack of discipline as an advantage. But it's all part of the game. Fred

In article <b8en6t4t7ctfgmfnu...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Not if you line up a very basic yardstick against it, such as "no > conceivable benefit." > And 'no concievable benefit Derek Ray doesn't regard as a benefit'. Very basic. Some of us believe reputation in future games is a benefit. Some of us have even maintained our playgroups while thinking this way. > I defy anyone to produce a "sneakier" way of transferring themselves > out, or playing a card which will oust them when the cost is paid. If this discussion were purely about transfering yourself out, then it would indeed be much more clear cut. But you have been arguing about the amount of resources that can be spent against anyone other than your prey, not just transfering yourself out. > Sure, you can tap out and transfer 4 of your 5 pool to a vampire in > your uncontrolled region, and it would be stupid, and you are almost > certainly just setting yourself up to get ousted. But without > knowledge of the contents of your hand, nobody knows that you don't > have a handful of Wake and Intercept, and you COULD be bluffing, > especially if you'd been dropping Wakes all over the place. And I'd > object to having judges come over and scrutinize ANYONE's hand to make > that decision, if you're curious; I think that true "no benefit" > actions tend to speak for themselves, without hand knowledge being > necessary. And this is EXACTLY what I have been saying. Play that looks stupid and self-defeating may have a method to its madness. And getting kicked out of a tournament because a judge doesn't see or agree with the method is bad. > I don't recall ever > personally seeing the "control who's in the finals" situation, myself; > I'm willing to concede that it may happen, but it's so rare that I see > no reason any longer to make an exception just for that, especially > confronting this type of mindset. > I have not only seen one, I played in it, Derek. > I would've loved to have seen that game, myself... just for > curiosity's sake. Even though they could've done BETTER by moving > forward, I wonder how many of those actions were TOTALLY without > perceived benefit? Because I bet everyone involved in the game still > wanted to (and was trying to) win; they just wanted to get someone > else WHILE they were winning. > I think we are actually agreeing more than not. I think a self-oust via transfers or paying for cards is usually crappy, although in some tournament situations it is useful*. I am uncomfortable with having a tournament judge come around and tell me a certain number of cross- table rushes are unsportsmanlike in his judgement, and I am bounced or warned for that conduct. He doesn't know my deck, he hasn't played the whole game at the table-he simply doesn't have all the facts I do, and so what if he did, and still disagreed with my strategy? My judgements on how to allocate my resources are just that-mine. Good, bad, whatever, they are how I play the game. If I actually think I can win by making my prey over-confident by substantially hurting my grand- prey, I am probably wrong and an idiot. But I may be right. And we won't know until the game is over. Is it any less stupid than a strategy of playing only with inner-circle members, and no blood gain? *If the self-oust tournament corner case bugs you, lobby for changes in how the tournaments are scored. I don't know what changes would fix it, but then, I don't mind the tournament self-out issue. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 18:01:04 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote some stuff which I gratuitously snipped to bits. OK, I had a long, complicated, drawn-out, painful response to this, but it ended up being fairly disjointed and not saying what I wanted, so I blew it all away and started from scratch. (To the flamers this message will undoubtedly generate: I'm going to ignore you TOTALLY, so don't expect a response or anything if all you're going to do is talk about my granny's combat boots.) No, we DON'T see very much openly vindictive play around here. We are pretty damn good at keeping the point of the game (which last I checked was "gain more VP than anyone else") in mind, and so while threats and counterthreats often get exchanged and followed through on, and collateral damage gets moved around a bit, we rarely lose track of the main focus. After all, when you oust someone you get 6 extra pool, and if you get around to the person who ticked you off, then you can REALLY go to town. It bothers me a bit that there are groups who DO lose that focus so easily. It very much bothers me that gamers, as a whole, appear to be just as insane and childish as they were 12 years ago (when i first started hitting conventions, etc). V:TES has been the exception; almost everyone I know actually has some perspective on reality and is fun to be around. I think it's the beer, myself. ;) What bugs me is the fanatical "do it my way or I'll trash your game" mentality that you say exists all over the place. These are people I have learned to AVOID, because they simply AREN'T FUN TO PLAY WITH. And a lot of times, I find that they also aren't that much fun to be around when you're NOT playing with them. Your examples of "benefit in future games" just illustrate that point even more; I can't IMAGINE why anyone would want to give themselves that sort of reputation, especially in their group. I'd certainly avoid playing with a person who suicidally launched attack after attack on me just because he happened to catch an extra point of damage or two from KRCs, or because I found his Hunting Ground to be necessary. Everyone (well, almost everyone) gets pissy when they're losing. It's a universal trait. And I certainly do, myself. But I also can keep my eye on the ball and make sure that I don't trash anyone else's game in the process... which often improves my pissiness, if things suddenly go WELL for me. Suiciding cross-table pretty much ensures that things aren't going to go well for you in that game. Anyway. The point is that it IS stoppable; it's just that gamers freak out when you mention ways of stopping it. Why, I don't KNOW, and while I have ideas, I don't care to speculate publicly, having already painted a large target on my forehead ONCE this message. I will note that the "Gaming Philosophy" you refer to appears to be "I get to do what I want, when I want, to who I want, no matter whose Cheerios I piss in." Is this a Good Thing(tm)? [ quoted text not captured ]

The only time I can see a self-ousting containing any benefit is within the local metagaming environment. You eventually develop a "reputation" among the people you play and see consistently. In a Tournament environment, however, the self-ousting for a "reputation" is just asking someone to tap on your forehead and ask if anyone is at home. The players at tournaments only care about who are the top rated people within the game (IMHO). Not who has a reputation of self- ousting. Besides self-ousting does nothing for individual player going out (unless they manage a withdrawal for their own VP). I have seen play go against people in tournaments, especially the top ranked individual at the tournament, to slow or possibly remove them from contention of being in the final. But this was only evident due to the strong position that individual held on the table and the gradual joining of forces (from different players) working to prevent a sweep. On the subject of developing reputations, however, the only ones I tend to look for are: 1 - Most dangerous players (meaning top ranked in the community and/or most knowledgeable on the game) as these players usually have the "field" experience to read tables extremely well. They also usually bring decks that can deal with a wide number of opposing strategies for a limited time period. 2 - Ones who will contest to the bitter end (usually from word of mouth. This will let me know if I need to avoid creating a situation or possibly make a situation where minion contestation is a good or bad strategy.) As for someone kick a chair across the floor because they lost a game (local or tournament), I have never seen it. I have seen people get upset because they have gotten their "face" stomped in all night because their decks failed to perform properly or they constantly faced the deck(s) that would stop them cold every time they sat down at the table. I personally believe that the difference between V:TES and M:TG is in the age group each game is designed to attract. V:TES is a more "mature" audience game because of the artwork on the cards and it's theme (gothic/vampires/World of Darkness), while M:TG is pretty much open to all age groups (much like Pokemon - which I consider a M:TG look alike but wrapped in a new package). The more mature players are able to deal with an all night defeat better as opposed to the other playgroup, (IMO) but this is just pure speculation. On the issue of suicidal players… I am unsure how anyone can make a set of rules that would effectively deal with a player creating a lone suicide pact, with themselves, to take themselves of the game while creating a "hardship" upon another player when they go. Hence this is the reason why I believe players shouldn't sit at a table with players they have already played against in a tournament setting (unless the number of players in the tournament actually precludes it.) Overall, I certainly hope the game hasn't reached the point where we have players traveling to tournaments just to create havoc. That's a lot of money just to create havoc in a card game. The only time I can see players possibly creating a disruption within the point system (however slight) is when they want to withdraw from the tournament for whatever reason. I personally don't agree with it, but at the same time I am unable to oppose it as it could be for an emergency (illness/family/work situations) that forces the situation. But there may be a way of creating an environment where performing a damaging or double oust (self included) to just keep someone who is a strong contender for entry to the finals from being a plausible reason. Do not provide information on who are the strong contenders for the final during the game. This gives no one a clear idea of who is in or not in the final. Thus, removing oneself while damaging someone else or removing them as well would not stand up as strongly. Michael Eichler Prince of Ramstein -- Worry comes from the belief you are powerless. (So get in there and kick some butt!) [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > > Chris Shorb <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote: > > Walter Denny wrote: > > > > > > In a post below in response to a player asking about ousting > > > themselves with a Hostile Takeover, you stated: > > > > > > It would be hard to find a case where this was in the Methuselah's > > > interest, however, so a case for unsportsmanlike conduct could > > > probably be made. > > > > In a Methuselah's interest for a tournament judge has to be defined as > > advancing their chances of winning the tournament overall. Ousting > > oneself, in many cases can be seen as unsportsmanlike, since you are > > no longer trying to get a VP. And it becomes more dicey when your > > predator is someone you know personally, and others at the table you > > don't know. > > To roll over for someone else's gain is considered unsportsmanlike > > (i.e. two folks from the same playgroup agreeing before hand that if > > one is the prey of the other, he will make it easy for his buddy to > > take him out, to help ensure one of them getting to the final). > > > > There are instances when ousting yourself is actually the best play. > > Say you have enough VP to get into the final, but you don't have much > > combat defense. Your prey is a combat monster, and would crush you in > > the final. Your predator is a Fortitude voter, and you think he can > > spank your prey and prevent him from getting to the final, thus > > helping your cause of getting more VP in the final. > > > > In addition, sometimes your only threat is to oust yourself. The > > other day I had a grand predator who randomly came and Bum's Rushed my > > vamp, even though he was nowhere near ousting his prey (my predator). > > I threatened him that if he followed through with that, I would > > influence myself out of the game. He did, and I did. I had to at > > that point, because I had made a threat, and I had to show I was > > serious - for future metagame considerations. > > > > So when LSJ says unsportspersonlike, I think he means in regards to > > collusion. I think there is plenty of room in V:TES, even at the > > tournament level, for foolish yet satisfying spiteful moves. > > Collusion is certainly part of it. > But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the > victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions > (with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of > the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > Playing in a game where not everyone is playing to win is not > fun (at least for the people playing to win). The question I pose then that the tournament setting disrupts the predator-prey relationship in that your goal in the qualifying rounds is not to kill your prey but to make it to the final. I can see a situation in the final qualifying round, where it would be in my best interest to attack someone across the table regardless of my prey if it would allow me to make it to the finals. Example: after two rounds things shape up that a few people have made the finals and most have no chance to make it. It is between me and the person across the table and I have one more VP. If I can get him removed without gaining a VP, I make it to the final. Is this Unsportsmanlike conduct? Franz

On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 10:08:34 -0500, Franz Foltz wrote: >The question I pose then that the tournament setting disrupts the >predator-prey relationship in that your goal in the qualifying rounds is >not to kill your prey but to make it to the final. Tom's experience was that the third round of a VEKN tournament is heavily dominated by such considerations. Checking the VEKN rules, 3.1.2. Preliminary Rounds Seating, I find them to be surprisingly crude. It's purely random so that you might meet the same group of players in every round. When I run such things, my principles are: * separate no-hopers from those who are still in contention. And keep those who have qualified for the final in a separate bracket too. This cuts out the risk of creating loose cannons who have little to play for and so can only be spoilers or king-makers. It also seperates out the weak players in the same way as a Swiss event - they then get to compete for a consolation prize in their own bracket. * arrange that players meet new opponents in every round. This minimises the risk of collusion and provides more variety. * separate players who ought to be kept apart, like relations, and match-make those who might especially enjoy each other's company, like eligible singles. These are ideals and you are constrained by the number of tables and the narrowing of the options as the event progresses. Still, it's much better to seed in some way than to have a purely random draw. Andrew

On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 18:40:23 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: >* separate no-hopers from those who are still in contention. And keep >those who have qualified for the final in a separate bracket too. >This cuts out the risk of creating loose cannons who have little to >play for and so can only be spoilers or king-makers. It also >seperates out the weak players in the same way as a Swiss event - they >then get to compete for a consolation prize in their own bracket. Immediate problem; in many tournaments, 5VP is enough to gain you a seat in the finals. And you can gain 5VP through sweeping the last round. Very rare is it that someone will be COMPLETELY without hope. And even MORE interestingly, it's rare that you can pick out more than one or two people who are "locked in" to the final. A zero-VP performance by yourself in the last round can leave you open to others gaining 2 or 3 and passing you up from just behind. >* arrange that players meet new opponents in every round. This >minimises the risk of collusion and provides more variety. I believe the Archon system currently does this, actually. Not sure. I don't organize tournaments. =) >* separate players who ought to be kept apart, like relations, and >match-make those who might especially enjoy each other's company, like >eligible singles. *snort* OK, sorry. Eligible singles. *giggle* I'm trying to recall the number of single, female V:TES players I've met. I don't know that I can come up with ONE off the top of my head. I'm disinclined to believe that there are NONE out there... but I doubt V:TES will ever be much of a matchmaker's forum. =) -- Derek "Oh, cool... TABLE ACTIONS!" -- M. Perlman

a...@csi.com wrote: > Tom's experience was that the third round of a VEKN tournament is > heavily dominated by such considerations. Checking the VEKN rules, > 3.1.2. Preliminary Rounds Seating, I find them to be surprisingly > crude. It's purely random so that you might meet the same group of > players in every round. When I run such things, my principles are: You've run a V:EKN tournament? > * separate no-hopers from those who are still in contention. And keep > those who have qualified for the final in a separate bracket too. > This cuts out the risk of creating loose cannons who have little to > play for and so can only be spoilers or king-makers. It also > seperates out the weak players in the same way as a Swiss event - they > then get to compete for a consolation prize in their own bracket. Very bad - rewarding poor play in early rounds. Not random, so not really an option in V:EKN tournaments, anyhow. > * arrange that players meet new opponents in every round. This > minimises the risk of collusion and provides more variety. This is good, and random. In fact, this (with some finer considerations) is the basis for the optimal seating charts I developed, which are now found in the Archon spreadsheet. I believe that this particular random system is the de facto standard in V:TES tournaments (at least until players start dropping in the middle of the tourney). > * separate players who ought to be kept apart, like relations, and > match-make those who might especially enjoy each other's company, like > eligible singles. :-) Not random, so this cannot be used in V:EKN tourneys. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <661E5CCA698BBB29.4ADB1BC7...@lp.airnews.net>, [ quoted text not captured ] Andrew's recent tournament running experience is mainly Shadowfist which is a winner take all game without the point scoring features of VTES. I'm guessing that tournament Scrabble might be a closer model to VTES - assuming that preliminary rounds record placings at each table rather than a single winner. I'm also guessing that VEKN tournament rules are about a 100 times more laid back and relaxed than tournament Scrabble. Tom [ quoted text not captured ]

>> * separate players who ought to be kept apart, like relations, >> and match-make those who might especially enjoy each other's >> company, like eligible singles. > > *snort* OK, sorry. Eligible singles. *giggle* I'm trying to > recall the number of single, female V:TES players I've met. I > don't know that I can come up with ONE off the top of my head. > I'm disinclined to believe that there are NONE out there... but > I doubt V:TES will ever be much of a matchmaker's forum. =) Now, now, Derek. There are certain VTES players who might not be looking for companionship from the ranks of the fairer sex. It is very possible they might look to their fellow gamers. *grin* But I have met a single female VTES players. She does exist...or rather, she did. She married another long time VTES player about a year or two ago. Either way, even after considering that most women are turned off by a competitive environment that centers around a game that depicts graphic violence and gore, Jyhad tournaments are not dating services. The last thing in the world I give a rat's ass about is the romantic life, or lack thereof, of some gamer dork. If you can't find a lover on your own, I sure as hell ain't gonna help you out. Regards, Noal -- "I was probably pretty young, when I realised that I had come from what you might call a family, a clan, a race, maybe even a species, of pure sons of bitches." --Faulkner, "The Mansion" [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 14:12:07 -0500, Derek Ray wrote: >Immediate problem; in many tournaments, 5VP is enough to gain you a >seat in the finals. And you can gain 5VP through sweeping the last >round. Very rare is it that someone will be COMPLETELY without hope. That's not a problem - it's good if everyone has a chance up to the end. But if you have a big field then it's possible that you'll have 5+ players with 6+ points after 2 rounds. It would only take about 100 players in an event for this to be normal. In this situation, anyone who hasn't scored after two rounds is out of it and it would be bad to put them in 3rd round games with players who still stand a chance. >*snort* OK, sorry. Eligible singles. *giggle* The Shadowfist scene is enlivened by the occasional nubile coquette and I'm naturally keen to keep them interested. Andrew

On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 19:14:26 GMT, LSJ wrote: >> separates out the weak players in the same way as a Swiss event - they >> then get to compete for a consolation prize in their own bracket. >Very bad - rewarding poor play in early rounds. On the contrary, it ensures that competitors have an incentive to play well at every stage of the event. There should be no-one just going through the motions to make up the numbers as can happen in round 3 of a VEKN event. >> * arrange that players meet new opponents in every round. This >> minimises the risk of collusion and provides more variety. > >This is good, and random. If you constrain the groupings to prevent repeat match-ups then this is not random. I took the VEKN rules to mean that the index cards were shuffled and dealt randomly into groups each time. Andrew

a...@csi.com wrote: > On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 19:14:26 GMT, LSJ wrote: > >> separates out the weak players in the same way as a Swiss event - they > >> then get to compete for a consolation prize in their own bracket. > > >Very bad - rewarding poor play in early rounds. > > On the contrary, it ensures that competitors have an incentive to play > well at every stage of the event. There should be no-one just going > through the motions to make up the numbers as can happen in round 3 of > a VEKN event. That is not contrary. You've just reworded that you're giving breaks to those who do not perform well in early rounds. > > >> * arrange that players meet new opponents in every round. This > >> minimises the risk of collusion and provides more variety. > > > >This is good, and random. > > If you constrain the groupings to prevent repeat match-ups then this > is not random. I took the VEKN rules to mean that the index cards > were shuffled and dealt randomly into groups each time. The V:EKN rules explicitly allow for preventing repeat match-ups. Using the optimal seating charts is a random method of grouping players, assuming you assign numbers randomly to players. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <84lr6tc8lmijspo2j...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > And even MORE interestingly, it's rare that you can pick out more than > one or two people who are "locked in" to the final. A zero-VP > performance by yourself in the last round can leave you open to others > gaining 2 or 3 and passing you up from just behind. > Actually, this seemed to happen at both the Portsmouth tournaments I attended in the UK (and where I first had a conversation regarding the potential benefits of a self-oust). In general, decks that performed well in the first two rounds will also perform well later, increasing their lead. Decks that did poorly in round one are likely to do poorly. (Yes, these are generalizations-but they tend to be true. The newbie with the 4 clan, 8 discipline deck who got zero vp in the first round isn't likely to get any later). If two decks that have been muddling through end up in the same round, they can easily be in a situation where they know they are one VP apart, and a self oust (in favor of someone either very ahead, or very behind) will deny the other a VP. Tom, Dick, Harry and Steve are in round three together. (3 tourny players currently have more than 7 vp, not including this table. All others have 1 or less) Tom has 8 Vp. Harry has 6.5. Dick has 0. Steve has 4. Harry would like to get all the VP he can. But if he can maintain RELATIVE position by just making sure that Steve gets less than 3 VP. In fact, if Harry somehow lets Tom or Dick sweep the table, he knows his relative position is safe-he will be in the finals. Yes, Harry would like to sweep, get up to 11.5 and have better seating. He would like to win the lottery and marry a starlet, too. When he looks at what he can do, it may very well include simply denying Steve the extra VP he needs. Is that clear enough? Yes, Harry should probably play hard and try to get VP. But if it looks like Steve is going to sweep, Harry might be well served by giving 6 blood and a VP to Tom or Dick. Even better would be to make a deal with Tom or Dick-"once Steve is out, I will let you oust me, or oust myself." But if Tom or Dick don't trust Harry (perhaps because he sees no value in maintaining a reputation for honesty) , Harry needs to do everything he can to hurt Steve's position, up to, and including, a self-oust. Steve is the real danger here, not Tom or Dick. Kevin [ quoted text not captured ]

Tom Kassel <tka...@my-deja.com> writes: > rather than a single winner. I'm also guessing that VEKN tournament > rules are about a 100 times more laid back and relaxed than tournament > Scrabble. Tournament Scrabble is one of the most vicious things in the known Universe. -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "A bit of urine here and there, perhaps. It adds charm and character." - Mark Carroll, ucam.chat "Did you have weasel lock?" - Derek Ray, rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

In article <2wu26p4...@kern.srcf.societies.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@srcf.ucam.org> wrote: > Tom Kassel <tka...@my-deja.com> writes: > > > rather than a single winner. I'm also guessing that VEKN tournament > > rules are about a 100 times more laid back and relaxed than tournament > > Scrabble. > > Tournament Scrabble is one of the most vicious things in the known > Universe. > That was my suspicion. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > > It very much bothers me that gamers, as a whole, appear to be just as > insane and childish as they were 12 years ago (when i first started > hitting conventions, etc). V:TES has been the exception; almost > everyone I know actually has some perspective on reality and is fun to > be around. I think it's the beer, myself. ;) Derek, in a way, this statement itself is somewhat childish. Or at least naive. People are how they are, including the fact that a number of them will tend to exhibit fairly predictable characteristics, some of them kind of tiring. Did you think just because *you* arrived on the scene 12 years ago that things were going to improve? I'm not sure where that comment is coming from. Yes, you're correct. V:tES is much better in this respect than most games. That may be due to the quality of the players. I suspect a good deal of it is due to something Steve Garfield was intending to do and did a pretty good job of when he created the game: reducing - but not eliminating - the tendency of players to "gang up" in multiplayer games. The same measures he took to avoid this practice are also very effective at making it difficult to spend too much time on vengeance. If it's your predator and prey, you're supposed to be opposing them with all of your means at hand anyway. If it's someone across the table, they're hard to get to and are often working towards same interests you're working towards so it's hard to hate them. None the less, all of the same human behaviors that exist in other games exist in Jyhad and I don't think it's the least bit surprising to see them pop up occasionally. That isn't even the question. The question is simply what you're going to do about it, if anything. > What bugs me is the fanatical "do it my way or I'll trash your game" > mentality that you say exists all over the place. These are people I > have learned to AVOID, because they simply AREN'T FUN TO PLAY WITH. > And a lot of times, I find that they also aren't that much fun to be > around when you're NOT playing with them. > > Your examples of "benefit in future games" just illustrate that point > even more; I can't IMAGINE why anyone would want to give themselves > that sort of reputation, especially in their group. I'd certainly > avoid playing with a person who suicidally launched attack after > attack on me just because he happened to catch an extra point of > damage or two from KRCs, or because I found his Hunting Ground to be > necessary. I agree for the most part. There's little that happens in a Jyhad game that's worth that kind of response. Jyhad is a game of tactics and play in the moment. And what strategy it has has mostly been laid out before the players ever met each other or knew their seating order. (I refer to deckbuilding, where most of the strategy takes place.) So attitudes like this tend to be rather reactive and reputations aren't that effective. As opposed to a game like Diplomacy where grand strategy tends to get laid out in the first few turns of the game and reputations are crucial (though often not as crucial as people may think). Many other multiplayer games are like Diplomacy. Don't look down on reputation-building altogether, though. Even in Jyhad. I've seen guys who are very good at it and actually gain by it, though I'll admit I haven't seen it as much in Jyhad. The guys who do it well manage to make you fear pissing them off without really doing a lot in real games. They also understand that in order to impress people to maintain a fearsome reputation, you must get the crowd on *your* side if and when you go after an opponent out of a sense of vengeance. You don't flip your finger at the whole group of opponents. You isolate one guy who did something really identifiably noxious and portray yourself for the masses as an outraged but noble avenger. That works. People remember that and they twice before doing something really slimy to you in the future. > Everyone (well, almost everyone) gets pissy when they're losing. It's > a universal trait. And I certainly do, myself. But I also can keep > my eye on the ball and make sure that I don't trash anyone else's game > in the process... which often improves my pissiness, if things > suddenly go WELL for me. Suiciding cross-table pretty much ensures > that things aren't going to go well for you in that game. Yep. Totally agree. > Anyway. The point is that it IS stoppable; it's just that gamers > freak out when you mention ways of stopping it. Why, I don't KNOW, > and while I have ideas, I don't care to speculate publicly, having > already painted a large target on my forehead ONCE this message. I > will note that the "Gaming Philosophy" you refer to appears to be "I > get to do what I want, when I want, to who I want, no matter whose > Cheerios I piss in." You're missing the point if that's what you think. The problem is that it's damn near impossible to absolutely *MAKE* players think only in terms of the immediate game in a multiplayer scenario. Not without either shooting the losers (so they'll never another game after the current one if they lose) or doing what you're proposing: basically telling them how they have to play their position. The latter is impossible in truth and naive to attempt. In a two-player game, your attitude towards your single opponent is fixed so there's never a question of varying motivations. You play until it's hopeless or over and then you stop and you're always doing the same thing. Adding a third player is eating the apple from the tree of knowledge in Eden: you now can ascribe "good" and "evil" to the work of your other players. "Good" is when one opponent helps you against the third opponent. "Evil" is when they attack you at a time they could be using the resources to attack the third. Manipulating your opponents to make the choices you want them to make is absolutely crucial in almost all multiplayer games. Less crucial in Jyhad, but still very important. So screw people if they want to wring some kind of good out of what they think is a hopeless position. If they can somehow find a way to manipulate opponents in the future in exchange for giving in an unpromising position right, I can see why it would be tempting to them to go for it. I agree with you and I think most mature players agree with you that screwing up the game and denying someone the fruits of his good play (especially when you're denying an innocent third party; as you say, their grandpredator who may be on the verge of ousting their predator) is a bad thing and is more important to avoid than vengeance is to carry out. But you'll never fix it through the rules. The only answer is to educate the players who engage in it or avoid them, as best you can. You can't do anything at all in tournaments. Hopefully, such players will find their non-tournament play so uncomfortable that they'll have either reformed or quit and won't bother playing in only tournaments. Fred

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Bad play is one thing, and taking vengeance for breaking a deal is one > thing, and putting yourself in a bad position is one thing. But there > are people declaring that they should be permitted to play Hostile > Takeover on someone's vamp even though playing the CARD would oust them. > I think that's a load of bullshit, myself. The game is hard enough > without J. Random Magicplayer deciding "hey, fuck you, you didn't support > my vote to oust and that would've kept me alive, so i'm gonna screw your > vampire on the way out!" If J. R. Magicplayer has been put in a losing position by that vote failing, and he will clearly be ousted without gaining any further VPs, then I'd say it's totally his choice as to in what manner he will be ousted. I would think he would try to inflict maximum damage on whoever put him in this losing position. Does he owe you, Mr. Crosstable, something? I wouldn't support someone who still has a tenable position doing this! --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu

On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 15:51:04 GMT, Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote: >Derek Ray wrote: >> >> It very much bothers me that gamers, as a whole, appear to be just as >> insane and childish as they were 12 years ago (when i first started >> hitting conventions, etc). V:TES has been the exception; almost >> everyone I know actually has some perspective on reality and is fun to >> be around. I think it's the beer, myself. ;) > >Derek, in a way, this statement itself is somewhat childish. Or at least >naive. People are how they are, including the fact that a number of them >will tend to exhibit fairly predictable characteristics, some of them >kind of tiring. Did you think just because *you* arrived on the scene >12 years ago that things were going to improve? I'm not sure where that >comment is coming from. No, actually, I was just hoping that either gaming would move more into the mainstream, and attract more sane people, or that perhaps more sane people would move OUT of the mainstream as being "normal" got more and more boring. Apparently neither is happening; a shame, but I can't dictate the world. The "12 years ago" part was more to forestall any of such gamers reading who might take offense to my words, leap up and shout "yeah, what do you know, buddy?" or other pointless flames. >Yes, you're correct. V:tES is much better in this respect than most games. >That may be due to the quality of the players. I suspect a good deal of it It is unquestionably due to the quality of the players. >is due to something Steve Garfield was intending to do and did a pretty >good job of when he created the game: reducing - but not eliminating - the >tendency of players to "gang up" in multiplayer games. The same measures >he took to avoid this practice are also very effective at making it difficult >to spend too much time on vengeance. If it's your predator and prey, you're >supposed to be opposing them with all of your means at hand anyway. If it's >someone across the table, they're hard to get to and are often working towards >same interests you're working towards so it's hard to hate them. Yes, but they aren't all THAT hard to get to... it's not difficult to gang up on a deck and shove it out, or go wack on someone with cross-table stuff. (You have NO idea how glad I am that (D) bleeding anyone is back out of the game. Well, maybe some idea. =) >None the less, all of the same human behaviors that exist in other games >exist in Jyhad and I don't think it's the least bit surprising to see them >pop up occasionally. That isn't even the question. The question is simply >what you're going to do about it, if anything. You can either attempt to deter the behavior, or you can stand and watch. >> already painted a large target on my forehead ONCE this message. I >> will note that the "Gaming Philosophy" you refer to appears to be "I >> get to do what I want, when I want, to who I want, no matter whose >> Cheerios I piss in." > >You're missing the point if that's what you think. The problem is You say this and then don't show me the point. What exactly IS this "Gaming Philosophy" that so many multiplayer gamers believe, if not "I get to do what I want when I want?" >I agree with you and I think most mature players agree with you that >screwing up the game and denying someone the fruits of his good play >(especially when you're denying an innocent third party; as you say, their >grandpredator who may be on the verge of ousting their predator) is a >bad thing and is more important to avoid than vengeance is to carry out. >But you'll never fix it through the rules. The only answer is to educate >the players who engage in it or avoid them, as best you can. You can't >do anything at all in tournaments. Hopefully, such players will find >their non-tournament play so uncomfortable that they'll have either >reformed or quit and won't bother playing in only tournaments. From what you've said, I have little hope of this, but I suppose that's just life in lamerland. Perhaps the inherent complexity of the game will deter the momos. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <fo6v6tc6pg4486uaa...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Yes, but they aren't all THAT hard to get to... it's not difficult to > gang up on a deck and shove it out, or go wack on someone with > cross-table stuff. (You have NO idea how glad I am that (D) bleeding > anyone is back out of the game. Well, maybe some idea. =) Aw, heck...what? I started and (nearly) ended with the original "Jyhad" cards, so I am unused to these amendments and tournament rulings. What exactly is the ruling about the Directed bleeds, please? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:51:54 -0800, mdf <mdf...@doubt.mbay.net> wrote: >In article <fo6v6tc6pg4486uaa...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray ><lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Yes, but they aren't all THAT hard to get to... it's not difficult to >> gang up on a deck and shove it out, or go wack on someone with >> cross-table stuff. (You have NO idea how glad I am that (D) bleeding >> anyone is back out of the game. Well, maybe some idea. =) > > Aw, heck...what? I started and (nearly) ended with the original >"Jyhad" cards, so I am unused to these amendments and tournament >rulings. What exactly is the ruling about the Directed bleeds, please? In the original Jyhad rules, bleeds could only be directed at your prey unless overridden by specific card text, such as that on Night Moves or Cat Burglary. At one point, a ruling was made by the Rules Team that the (D) symbol on cards meant that you could target anyone with the action, no matter what. This meant that now you could use cards like Govern the Unaligned to bleed someone cross-table. This ruling was reversed, thankfully, by a later Rules Team. The (D) symbol on cards is simply a reminder of whether the action is of type "directed", which can only be blocked by the minions of the Methuselah the action is directed at... or of type "undirected", which can be blocked by either your predator or your prey. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > >Derek Ray wrote: > >> already painted a large target on my forehead ONCE this message. I > >> will note that the "Gaming Philosophy" you refer to appears to be "I > >> get to do what I want, when I want, to who I want, no matter whose > >> Cheerios I piss in." > > > >You're missing the point if that's what you think. The problem is > > You say this and then don't show me the point. What exactly IS this > "Gaming Philosophy" that so many multiplayer gamers believe, if not "I > get to do what I want when I want?" I made my point. The gaming philosophy is simply that many (and I believe most) players do believe that it's OK to play for benefit in a later game while deciding what to do in the current game. You argue as if were decided that that's not OK; but many disagree. I wouldn't personally care except that any attempt to enforce immediate-game-only motivations is doomed to failure. I don't *always* agree with Noal's (I think it was Noal who likes to say it) maxim, "Do not command what you cannot enforce." But in this case, I believe it applies. > >I agree with you and I think most mature players agree with you that > >screwing up the game and denying someone the fruits of his good play > >(especially when you're denying an innocent third party; as you say, their > >grandpredator who may be on the verge of ousting their predator) is a > >bad thing and is more important to avoid than vengeance is to carry out. > >But you'll never fix it through the rules. The only answer is to educate > >the players who engage in it or avoid them, as best you can. You can't > >do anything at all in tournaments. Hopefully, such players will find > >their non-tournament play so uncomfortable that they'll have either > >reformed or quit and won't bother playing in only tournaments. > > From what you've said, I have little hope of this, but I suppose > that's just life in lamerland. Perhaps the inherent complexity of the > game will deter the momos. It's not the concept of metagaming itself I wish to educate people to avoid. Just the lame form of metagaming that concludes that self-ousting in a fit of frustration which (you've accurately pointed out) does nothing but irritate people, randomly frustrate good play, and makes things less fun for everyone else. In general, Jyhad is one of the poorer games for metagaming, in my experience. As for whether there's hope of educating people, I'm sure you can convert some people. I do think it depends on how you go about doing it. I like, "Building a reputation in Jyhad doesn't usually work well and you're ruining an otherwise friendly game for other players." rather than trying to talk them out of metagaming altogether. If you do the latter, you may convert people who don't play other multiplayer game but I bet you get into useless debates with others. (Like this one? :) ) Fred

"Dorian" <bond...@home.com> wrote in message news:MohqOqLYtYQrqW...@4ax.com... > On Sat, 20 Jan 2001 22:52:05 GMT, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > >Dorian <bond...@home.com> wrote: > >> LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > >> >But random actions (actions that serve only to disrupt the normal > >> >predator-prey relationship) are also part of it. You were the > >> >victim of a "random" cross-table rush. Such random disruptions > >> >(with no benefit to the acting player, which comes as part of > >> >the definition of "random") are, IMO, unsportsmanlike as well. > >> > >> Even if you are playing malkavian? > > > >Yes. Your deck archetype (or the presence of a particular minion > >or set of minions in it or under your control) do not grant you > >a license to break the tournament rules. > > > >BTW, Methuselahs are not clanned, so "you" are never a Malkavian, > >no matter how many Malkavians you are manipulating. > > > > No but insanity can be percieved in many ways. > > Is using a Die4 to determine what you should guess in a malkavian > prank unsportsmanlike? It sure is random, and yet has won me more > games than any other single play i have ever made. Yet if I did this > in your tournament, i would be guilty of random play, and therefore > sanctioned. A burst of random unpredictable play can really throw off > your opponents. I guess you don't oust very many of your preys, then, since the "single play" that has won me more games was the bleeding of my prey. Kevin J. Mergen, Prince of Madison, WI (remove NOSPAM for direct reply) "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War" "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

> > I don't see how you can really make a distinction. > > There's no perceptible difference between some of their actions and > > what you described. > > That's what there's a judge for. > > > I'm concerned that if you describe the problematic play as "random > > play", it might inspire overzealous judges to cross the line and > > penalize play that was just badly thought out. > > That would be unfortunate. > I think most people who have gotten the hang of the game well enough > to consider organizing and running a tournament know the difference > between "random play" and "poor logic", though. > > -- > LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) VTES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. > Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ == lsj is my prey, derek ray across the table, and andrew, though he can only play spoiler or king-maker in this, the third round, is my predator. as we're getting into turn 5 or so, i send nepata rushing derek's anneke, end combat. everyone looks at me like i'm from mars. duck hidden lurker/disarms the bee-yotch, and derek spouts irrefutable well-stated logic in frustration. my nosf embrace with obf eats her, dead, and gets voted away by andrew's primogen, lsj not needing to spend the edge. derek ray sobs that he wants a judge to make the bad man go away; the game just isn't fun for him anymore. my delilah easton with her bewitching oral skills, becomes the toreador justicar. the next turn i rush/screw 2 more of derek's vamps to torpor, exclaiming to LSJ, "let's just gang up on him!" laptops blazing, lsj eats away a huge section of derek's pool, leaving him hurt, with few options. living by his own standards of not being a "loose cannon," derek continues to concentrate only on andrew, his prey, though it was i who committed CROSSTABLERIE (banned in polite chaotic evil vampire society.) i call dramatic upheaval, switching with lsj, and vote or bleed derek out for his remaining 2-4 pool. at what point did i need to explain to the judge that i was hoping to draw the upheaval? that my offer to "gang up" was rhetoric, aimed directly at winning the game? that i hoped to secure votes by killing as many titles as i needed to for political dominance? i won't try to defend suicide from a tenable position in the tournament environment, but having to deal with a random event like that is simply part of the game. but after derek is ousted in the above example, andrew then feels that he has no real chance at a v.p. anymore, though he thought he had a chance before i moved and gained pool. is it not okay for him to try to beat my vampires either to exact vengeance for my tricky-dick-move, or just to cycle cards, or because he states he thinks he'll live longer beating me me back than attacking his prey (whether he really thinks that or not?) should i just call over a judge and accuse him of unportsmanly behavior? why didn't derek just cross-table rush my vamps as a pre-emptive strike against my non-titled peons possibly getting a title and switching seats to persecute him (and only him!) the judges would never allow any of this to happen, if they're all psyched up with not allowing legal behaviors by individual minions or methuselahs. these rulings should have possible specific guidelines against blatant suicide from a tenable (please define!) position, but other than that you are seeming like you're not only legislating morality (why do i play this game?) but messing with legitimate oblique strategies for attempting to deal with the possibilities of tournament play. == all the bullshit that's fit to think about -spinney '''' [ quoted text not captured ]

in addition to the previous: can a judge dictate exactly what my actions will be in my death throes as a methuselah? would you say madly rushing across the table to punish someone or keep a promise is any less a way to play "sportsmanlike" vampire:tes than sitting still to try to stay in the game one more turn in a probably-losing position? or better yet all-out rushing my hated prey, whether it means my death or not... at what point will the judge dictate that any of these is more legal or sportsmanlike than the others? let's just bring back, nay, make mandatory, that everyone play with madness of the bard. === speaking of: you know how someone came up with the idea that when the bard is out, you just say period after every sentence to make any 2 sentences rhyme. this is about that classy: keep a couple dramatic upheavals in any deck and say you're trying to draw them if a judge ever wants to know why you're crosstabling someone. how will a judge determine the validity of such a claim? do i have to have vote power, or does there have to be sufficient vote-power out among everyone but my target combined to possibly pass such a referendum? currently? what if i might have more votes soon? ====== pre-emptive strikes? it's been said in this discussion string that reputation is irrelevant to these arguments in a tournament scenario. that's completely wrong. by round 2 crosstabling can be ok by reputation alone. if i were at a tourney, and i, a third-rate player, squeezed out 2 vp in round 1, but then hit some guy who says that he's the lasombra (no offence) and that he swept his first-round table, is sitting as my grand-predator, with 3 other unknown-quantities/bloodbags in the other 3 seats: of course you watch what pops up, but already, you'd be stupid not to have some predisposition to try to keep your predator alive. unless it's "sportsmanlike" to want to be somebody's 2nd victory point on their way to a sweep. > > > > That's what there's a judge for. > > > > > I'm concerned that if you describe the problematic play as "random > > > play", it might inspire overzealous judges to cross the line and > > > penalize play that was just badly thought out. or even well-thought out.-spinney [ quoted text not captured ] == [ quoted text not captured ]