Can you oust yourself by accidentally playing a card with a pool cost that would kill you?

This seems like a good place to start judging revisions. Im normally behind LSJ rulings because he made most of the rules, id assume he is most qualified to decide on such things. Maybe he could even chime in again on this premise. He did join in with the idea behind Beast and stakes.

Ankha wrote:

AaronC wrote:

I was actually in a game in the EC 2010 FCQ for which you were the judge where you made a player roll back a Parity Shift because you judged it was against PTW even though he would not have harmed himself in any way (it would have helped his prey a lot and maybe led to his grand-prey's oust).

Was there any suspicion of collusion?

No.

@ReverendRevolver: LSJ is no longer an authority for the game. VEKN is free to update guidelines and rulings as it sees fit. There's no going back, only going forward.

AaronC wrote:

Ankha wrote:

AaronC wrote:

I was actually in a game in the EC 2010 FCQ for which you were the judge where you made a player roll back a Parity Shift because you judged it was against PTW even though he would not have harmed himself in any way (it would have helped his prey a lot and maybe led to his grand-prey's oust).

Was there any suspicion of collusion?

No.

@ReverendRevolver: LSJ is no longer an authority for the game. VEKN is free to update guidelines and rulings as it sees fit. There's no going back, only going forward.

I agree, but the primary opposition to most common sense rulings that are invalid due to LSJ rulings are the hangers on to LSJ rulings being the definative backlog of rulings. Hes just a dude, not an infallable entity.

Pascal saying me disguising out a flamethrower when im at 4 pool is illegal by way of play to win violation makes perfect sense to me.

The rule should be such. But, there will be an invitable outcry, initially by folls who love the game and have vaguely real concerns, then (as freaking always) someone sayimg"vekn bad, me good, blah" and another 173 pages of forum before everyone gets over it and, even if they wont admit it, says Pascal is 176% right on making this decision.

Just trying to ease the process.

But, i agree with you, Aaron. And its Pascals right, or more accurately duty, to rule as he believes(and in this case, logic dictates) to be best.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

This seems like a good place to start judging revisions. Im normally behind LSJ rulings because he made most of the rules, id assume he is most qualified to decide on such things. Maybe he could even chime in again on this premise. He did join in with the idea behind Beast and stakes.

PTW is supposed to basically ensure people go to meet the GAME objective of winning. Once the game is won or lost by a player, they can play as they wish. Before then, they are meant to try win.

This is about judges and basically judges not interfering in the play-of-the-game. The judge is NOT there to protect people from their own bad decisions. The judges is there to protect the state of the game from players' self-interest going outside the rules of the game.

Again for the financial market analogies.

The Judge in VTES is there to prevent ENRON from occurring (not playing by the rules, illegal manipulation of game state, collusion, etc).

The Judge in VTES is NOT there to prevent the collapse of Arthur Andersen when everyone hears their major audit client was cooking the books and they did nothing. (Arthur Andersen went from one of the Big 5 Accounting firms to swallowed up worldwide within a month or so by the other Big 4 when the overwhelming majority of their clients left them. They were stupid and their clients punished them for their bad decisions.)

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

This is about judges and basically judges not interfering in the play-of-the-game. The judge is NOT there to protect people from their own bad decisions. The judges is there to protect the state of the game from players' self-interest going outside the rules of the game.

As I mentioned in my example, I have seen PTW used to protect a player from ANOTHER player's ostensibly bad decision. In this thread people are talking specifically about self-ousting, but PTW can also be used by the judge to interfere with all kinds of cross-table actions.

I feel that in VTES there is a reality that players use out-of-game considerations when making decisions. Some considerations I have seen are personal dislike, friendship, "roleplaying", and the reputation of another player's ability.

Also, people make suboptimal decisions because they don't know better, because they guess wrong about hidden information, because they forget known information, because they are influenced by a fellow persuasive player, or because some gambits in this game require suboptimal maneuvers.

Because it is so hard to judge people's intentions, I think that in general, judges shouldn't have to try. A move either violates a PTW, sportsmanship, or cheating rule, or it doesn't. However, admissions should be more important. If someone admits to not playing to win or to unsportsmanlike motivations, they should get nailed by the judge. Otherwise, there should be a presumption of correctly motivated play.

That's why I like Pascal's guideline, because it is so cut-and-dried. I think that it should include a statement about using a player's statement that he is not playing to win as evidence that he is not playing to win.

AaronC wrote:

As I mentioned in my example, I have seen PTW used to protect a player from ANOTHER player's ostensibly bad decision. In this thread people are talking specifically about self-ousting, but PTW can also be used by the judge to interfere with all kinds of cross-table actions.

Then for starters, I'd say the judge is too interventionist UNLESS there was a call for a judge. They should just back off. IF there was a call for a judge on the matter, then the PTW rule is about the Methuselah making the decisions. If they end up crippling someone else out of the game but are still PTW on their own actions, then it stands. PTW is not a 'table state' decision but a decision made in the best interests of the deciding Methuselah at the time it was decided.

PTW can't protect you from OTHERS' stupidity. That's what Table-Talk is for. PTW can be used to force another person to explain their stupidity to a Judge who can then declare it to be "Illegal Stupidity" and breaching PTW but it should not be used to protect a 3rd party from the stupidity of the Methuselah under the PTW challenge.

PTW is a self-interest test NOT a table-state test.

That is:

1) If another player is making a bad decision that will ruin your chances of a win, it would be against PTW for YOU not to argue your ass off about why it's a bad decision. It is not for the judge to stop that action UNLESS it violates the PTW of the player taking the action. (e.g. Domain Challenge might oust someone cross table or may even cripple players who might then be ousted later, but if it doesn't break the PTW of the player playing it, then it should stand)

2) Player A feels that their only chance for success is to rush a minion of Player D, obliterate that minion and thereby effectively oust D so that C can be E's predator. If that logic holds from Player As perspective, then it is PTW regardless of how it may completely ruin Player Ds game. A is acting in the self-interest of A, therefore it is PTW.

3) It is also PTW to let a player make a bad decision, like your prey. If your prey makes a bad decision and you say nothing, you are acting in PTW. If they play illegally it is the responsibility of the group to change the game state since the rules have been violated. In the example I gave earlier in the thread, not blocking your prey taking a Patronage while on 1 pool represents a VP, 6 pool and no cost to yourself... insisting against that would almost make me tell you that you are breaking PTW UNLESS the action was illegal and not just stupid.