Play to win

drnlmza wrote:

If the problem is that PTW is hard to judge (and it can be), that needs to be addressed.

Yes, that's my main concern with the current PTW rules, and Ankha's mod imho would improve the situation. As a tournament judge, trying to decide if someone's position is actually hopeless or if they are just giving up (or wanting to spite someone, or act as kingmaker, or whatever) is really difficult. And annoying.

This tweak would force people to stay in the game. If their position is actually hopeless, they'll be ousted very very soon. If not, then they should keep playing and see what happens.

drnlmza wrote:

Removing that option doesn't make PTW violations any easier to judge.

Disagree, based on personal experience but as tournament judge and as player. See above.

drnlmza wrote:

If the problem we're trying to solve is people self-ousting becuase of colliusion or out of game considerations, the rules cannot fix that.

Yes and no. I mean sure, the player in question can easily figure out way to get him/herself ousted in short fashion -- but at least then some other player needs to do something to help that along. It may mean only one extra turn, but lots of times that extra turn is critically important.

Take a situation where all of your minions are in torpor (rush predator or prey). In this situation, a player might currently just self-oust. But with this tweak, they'd need to at least try and bring out another minion. If they don't have the pool to do that, hey, "pay one to see one" -- if they are very low on pool, they'll get ousted next turn most likely and there is little difference here... but at least their predator will have to do some ousting work.

But maybe they do have the pool to bring out another minion, even though it seems hopeles. And maybe things change radically in the game (someone calls Anarchist Uprising / Banishment / ?, and that rush enemy is suddenly gone). Maybe someone gives you pool. Maybe you get lucky with your hand and the other guy doesn't. Play the game. I've seen a lot of "totally hopeless" situations change into 0.5VP (at the very least).

What I'm trying to say is: if the situation is actually totally hopeless, the player will get ousted very soon anyway. If not, then that player has a chance for at least 0.5VP and should go for it. Allowing self-oust as an option lets people give up, sometimes with ulterior motives. That's bad for the game, and an absolute bitch to judge.

No, we cannot 100% stop illegal play (collusion, etc etc). But we can and imho should make these easier to rule on by a judge. Because the current situation is still messy, and removing the "ok, I will directly kill myself" option from the game would help things. As I said, that at least requires (ousting) actions from other players.

As an example, at last weekend's EC one guy at one of the tables said to another "you are not letting me play my game, I will just self-oust". This was in a situation where his actions were getting blocked all the time, but he was in zero danger of being ousted or anywhere near it. And that sort of thing is regrettably all too common, in my experience (mostly at the EC, very rarely run into that bullshit in local tournaments).

Some people are self-ousting (or threatening to) when "they don't have a game" (in their view), in situations where they actually have a very decent chance for that 0.5VP by at least hanging on. They do it in situations where the game is not fun for them and they are in a bad spot. And while I sympathize (a small bit) with that, that's the game and petulantly ruining it for others because things are not going your way should not be a valid option (at least in tournament games).

And yeah, if he had actually followed up on that, I would have called for a judge. Which would have involved an annoyed judge listening to the player try to explain why his situation was hopeless (it wasn't), wasting everyone's time. He didn't, which is good.

But it would be much, much clearer if self-oust was not an option in the first place. No bullshit like the above, less judge workload.

Yes, collusion or being annoyed and self-ousting are bad side effects of the mechanic. But it's sometimes the only solution to punish unfair deals, your prey killing you, rush crosstables, and those kind of situations.
When my prey is flat out getting me out of the game or a wall and a combat deck team together to take an easy win, I'd like to have an answer to those situations. And in last resort I'd like to give my VP the way I want.

Lech wrote:

It was kingmaking that was made by bleeder who seemingly run out of options in that very moment, and was under impression he would be dead next turn (which might to be false, given game state). It's hard to judge if he would get any vp or not, it was not far from time out so perhaps he might, but he didn't even tried, so he played out of spite to deny his grandprey VP (and most likely GW).

Instead of whining in the forums you should have called the judge.

And if you did and the judge was Pascal or Vincent you’re probably wrong.

"For tournaments, playing to win means playing to get a Game Win if it is reasonably possible, and when a Game Win is not reasonably possible, then playing to get as many Victory Points as possible, and if no more Victory Point are possible, not being ousted." - Ankha

Actually it does makes sense. Vampire are fighting for dominance in the Jyhad and survivors therefore they won't give up. Never like those kingmaking situations...

Influencing 2 when you're at two pools is a much lighter kingmaking situation than people doing 5+ pool damage crosstable with ancilla empowerement without a second thought, rush crosstables or irresponsible bleed for 7 deflected etc ... If we ban self-ousting to limit kingmaking then we'll have to monitor a lot more kingmaking situations in a given game and I'm pretty sure it happens in a huge majority of VTES tables.