Tournament Scoring

direwolf wrote:

I am of two minds on this: yes, it is unsportsman-like to throw a game. But if the game is part of a larger tournament, then the goal is to win the tournament.

...in a sportsmanlike manner. That is clearly, obviously known to be true.

direwolf wrote:

If you can lose the game and still win the tournament, then that is a problem with the organization of the tournament.

No, because at all times, if one acts unsportsmanlike, one deserves the appropriate punishment, and it does not indicate anything wrong with the tournament in any way.

Having said that, I do tend to agree that the current GW/VP/TP-structure is not completely satisfactory, and I've been advocating the complete abolishment of the 'Withdraw' rule for years as anti-PTW.Kuta often comes up with wacky, untenable rules changes, but they most often lead to interesting discussions, so I am all for hearing what he has to say and even trying some of his ideas out from time to time.

Wedge wrote:

V.P.s and T.P.s are only awarded to the game winner.

Scoring will be pretty monotonous and in BIG tournaments checking out the qualified players will be difficult as you'll need to draw lots to see who will be the lower quarter of the qualified players from all the people who have 0 points...

Not good.

Kevin, I don't think you meant casual games, rather any tournament may see increased aggression. Any change in meta would be from player perception, not a shift in the rules, we are still required to play to win now.

Lonkka, That is one of the reasons I included the other option. To be honest, I don't see the deals Reyda and Souli where talking about anymore. It could be because, no deal is binding, and my play group feels it is bad form to take a death before dishonor attitude when playing "Vampires". Or those of us who are skilled at deal making don't it is worth the trouble. Or the % of players who aren't aware of game state is low or high, whatever. All deals should be short term ones, anything else you should not accept.

Wedge wrote:

Kevin, I don't think you meant casual games, rather any tournament may see increased aggression. Any change in meta would be from player perception, not a shift in the rules, we are still required to play to win now.

No, I meant casual games. There is a difference between the rules saying that one is forced to Play To Win and the rules saying that if you do not win you get a big fat goose egg. That zero, in and of itself, especially for players who aren't that good, is going to make the meta shift towards high(er)-risk high(er)-reward decks simply because players won't wish to obtain goose egg after goose egg after goose egg. Even during a non-tournament session, that's pretty brutal.

KevinM wrote:

Having said that, I do tend to agree that the current GW/VP/TP-structure is not completely satisfactory, and I've been advocating the complete abolishment of the 'Withdraw' rule for years as anti-PTW.

What Withdrawing were forbidden in the heads-up game but still possible if there were 3 or more Methuselahs playing? That could go a long way toward eliminating table splitting deals, while still allowing people who can "legitimately" withdraw to do so.

KevinM wrote:

Kuta often comes up with wacky, untenable rules changes, but they most often lead to interesting discussions, so I am all for hearing what he has to say and even trying some of his ideas out from time to time.

Unusual and untried does not necessarily equal wacky and untenable. And it is the nature of progress that the new becomes the old and the old fades to history.

Ankha wrote:

But if you still want to be incentive, why not double VPs if you have the GW?

Sure, this could also be a possibility. It certainly encourages the winning Methuselah to be as ruthless as possible in the end game, or at the very least they have to think very carefully about making deals and keeping them.

The trick of course is getting a sufficient experimental sample size to try out these different ideas before officially requiring any changes. I'd like to see an official set of tournament rules for all events, with an "optional" set of scoring rules for smaller (perhaps < 40 players) non-Continental championships. If the organizer wants to try 'em out, then go for it and see how things change. If not, then that's fine too.