Timeouting as increasing trend

Lönkka wrote:

Tournaments are slow already so adding time to especially preliminary rounds is a no-go. Besides a longer game changes the meta.

In past we've sometimes used, IIRC, 2,5 hour time limit (or was it unlimited?) for the finals.

Last couple of tournaments we've played 2:15 for preliminaries and 2:30 for final. It somehow goes better than just 2 hours.

Squidalot wrote:

or a card limit but both the first tournament WOTC rules had both time and card limits in place and it seems like a reasonable assumption that those guys were close enough to Ricky G to make some none arbitrary rules.

Except that Richard Garfield has explicitly said that, after him, the WotC product guys made changes that:

a) he didn't want, and
b) he fought (in some cases - specifically, the free-for-all bleeding introduced by the weird-ass changes on the meaning of actions).

www.vtesinla.org/articleGarfieldInterview.asp

That wrote:

Goudie: Speaking of "only attacking your neighbor", I imagine you were still close enough to the game to see changes made via rulings or errata that went against your original vision. I mean, its understandable that few people will actually truly recognize all of the subtleties of your design choices but how do you, on a personal level, deal with negative changes to your games that occur after you have moved on to other projects?

Garfield: I remember that in particular and I was in there fighting the changes! Typically though I let the people responsible for the product make the changes they think they need to make with my advice remaining advice, and not becoming commandments. This way they learn firsthand, and those lessons are always more powerful, and seldom is a mistake so bad it can't be undone later. Also, their attention is fully on the product and the players, so there is every chance they are making a sensible decision even though I don't appreciate it at first!

So it's not a reasonable assumption that the guys at WotC were close to him.

Not really sounds like they were close but just that he was a 'consultant'.

Anyway as he sometimes forgets which game he designed when (has been known to state Netrunner in articles referring to VTES) anyway a more useful quote given what we're talking about is:

Goudie: After looking at the finished product, is there anything you wish you did differently with Jyhad?

Garfield: I have no specific changes, though if I could travel in time and redo the game I would think about ways to shorten it. I don't regret its length, because I believe the best information of the day indicated it was fine, and also because its players didn't mind much (in a lot of ways if you like a game then the longer the better!) I would definitely see if the epic quality of play could be maintained if it were shortened. If it couldn't - and it may not be - then I would leave it the same length. Other than that, mostly I would just make new cards. I have had a lot of practice since Jyhad in figuring out how to get a lot of variety out of a game system.

Which I hope indicates he thought it shouldn't take all day to play

Ankha wrote:

Preventing players from having access to the time is also an option (though harder to enforce).

Babylon 5 tried this - hidden clocks and/or hidden round lengths. The reports I hear are that it was pretty dumb.

In many cases, a player doesn't need to know precisely that there are 4 minutes 30 seconds left or 8 minutes 45 seconds because they'll continue to play for a timeout anyway - and presumably aim for the higher value!

It could have some positive benefits for the specific type of behaviour found in mutual withdrawal deals ("Quick, we have three minutes left, everyone discard a card each turn"), but that's mostly been addressed by things like the change to VPs for withdrawal.


Also, on a practical level, random length rounds (such as 2 hours +/- 10 minutes, or whatever) has some knock-on effects for practical arrangements. Your round might end at 2 o' clock, or it might end at 2.20. The guy who's been ousted wants to know what time he needs to be back from the sandwich store.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Babylon 5 tried this - hidden clocks and/or hidden round lengths. The reports I hear are that it was pretty dumb.

Heh heh. Babylon 5, which was a very entertaining game with a lot of good things to recommend it until the wheels fell off with the last expansion which made the game really stupid, tried implementing some of the most insane tournament procedures you could possibly imagine like the hidden clocks with soccer timing (i.e. the game was 2 hours, +/- some random amount of time that no one but the judge knew what it was) and the "as soon as your game is over, you need to put a bag over your head and be escorted from the room" measures to attempt to prevent scouting of other decks (which is only being slightly exaggerated). Hilarious.