Forgetting mandatory effects

Xaddam wrote:

How is a forgotten "environmental" effect supposed to be handled? Examples include Leandro, Arika, contesting, Antediluvian Awakening, Tryphosa, Meddling of Semsith, Blood Awakening, Veil of Darkness, Smiling Jack, Anarch Revolt, Dragonbound, etc, etc. There are plenty.

Xaddam's question is very interesting indeed.
I and the mates of my playgroup often forget about cards like Veil of Darkness or other Gehenna cards, I don't know why. It is ridiculously often. Meddling of Semsith would be a catastrophe for us too .
I think the controller of the card should be responsible for the adherence of the effect. That means he should remind the other players. Of course the other players of the table needs to help with that. If everybody thinks of the effect of his cards nothing should go wrong. In our playgroup everybody's watching and that is the way it has to be.

But what to do in tournament play (opposed to casual)? Though I think it is the controllers' responsibility that his card is remembered I don't like him getting a caution or warning if somebody else is forgetting about it. Because the rest of the table was sloppy too. So I'd say nobody gets a warning or caution, the whole table has to take care of those cards.

If somebody repeatedly forgets about a card effect and you get the impression that he does it intentionally (aka cheating) you'd better call the judge. That could mean that a player could try to cheat and gets away with it for two or three times. But if all players at the table pay attention it wouldn't work out. Cheaters are bad for the game, but changing the rules in a way that playing isn't fun anymore is bad for all players. So I'm against punishing players for forgetting cards unless it is plain obvious it is by purpose.

So what do you think of the following: I put into play my Leandro and ask the other players to help me thinking of his effect in every methuselah's untap. With that I tell the others that they are responsible too. And normally it is in their best interest to enforce that disadvantage on their preys. The same goes with Veil of Darkness or other effects.

It depends on the impact.

In our playgroup we just fix the issue immediately when it appears. It is not the most accurate way but certainly the quickest for fluid gameplay.
Example 1: "oh, sorry I forgot to pay for Anarch Revolt, here's the pool."

But in the situations when it can't be handled that way we do a complete rollback to the phase where the error occurred because every phase, action and reaction may be completely different.
Example 2: "oh, sorry I forgot to pay for Anarch Revolt, here's the pool. But hmm, I will be ousted if I pay for it and that means I can not pay for the master card. We need to rollback so I can use Vessel differently.

Or a combination.
Example 3: "Damn, I have a vampire that has a mandatory hunt pending and I have already made another action. Is there anybody who would like to react to the hunt? No? Then I do it now. If you want to react, let's rollback."

As long as everybody agree that the impact is negligible then the game can continue but if there are any disagreements then rollback is necessary.

With that said, there are issues with the concept of rollback also. The Methuselah's performing rollback may gain insight in what cards they will draw. Perhaps a proper rollback should include a library shuffle.

Joscha wrote:

Because the rest of the table was sloppy too. So I'd say nobody gets a warning or caution, the whole table has to take care of those cards.

From the Judges' Guide, 200. Correction of Game State:

It is important that the player committing the infraction receive no benefit in the game for doing so.

This issue came up in my playgroup several months ago. In a casual game I was in, a a player who had Carver's Meat Packing and Storage in play forgot to remove the hostage counter on his prey's Famed minion by burning two blood before rescuing it in order to let Enkidu rush it. His turn was very involved including complicated block attempts and combats. During the turn, both the player and his prey (not me) made some identifiable errors.

When I realized the error with the hostage counter, the other players and another person not playing decided that the entire turn should be rewound to the Carver's controller's untap phase, which is when the hostage counter would have been burned. My solution would have been to adjust the blood totals on the player's very full vampires and move on. We went back, the player burned the hostage counter, played an entirely different master card, and redid his minion phase, with both his prey and he taking advantage of the fact that they knew what mistakes to avoid.

The general consensus in the room was that it is everyone's responsibility to remember universal effects, that everyone is responsible if such an error is made, and that since everyone is responsible, it is all right for everyone to gain an advantage. I argued against this.

In my opinion, which seems to be supported by the judges' guide, any player who makes a mistake should not gain a benefit from it. If indeed everyone made the mistake, then no one should get an advantage, at least in my feeble logic. That means that rollbacks should be very limited in general, because any extra information about unplayed cards gives anyone an advantage.

Pascal has suggested that the person controlling the effect will be responsible for remembering the effect (or at least, he said that is what they do in MtG and he didn't dimiss it outright), and I think that it would be great to do it this way because it is very clear. Having "everyone" be responsible to remember everything just means that no one is responsible.

I also don't think it would be horrible if people got a caution for making a "sloppy" mistake, followed by a warning on the second occurrence.

I'm with you in that point, nobody should gain an advantage by making a mistake. It is the problem of responsibility that makes me go "nobody should get a warning". Why should the owner of Carver's Meat Packing and Storage get a Warning if some other player forget about that card or that hostage counter? Shouldn't that player get the warning? But if you warn that player you demand of each player that he or she remembers every effect at the table, a very hard task if it's coming to vampire's specials or the pure number of played cards and its effects. Remember, two warnings mean Game Loss. I don't know if the game would be more fun if that threat is in the air.
Your example is really a worst case scenario. I think it is bad sportmansship to play the turn different just because of the forgotten hostage counter. In our playgroup we'd try to play the turn in the same way like before with the same mistakes. Honesty demands that.

chaitan wrote:

With that said, there are issues with the concept of rollback also. The Methuselah's performing rollback may gain insight in what cards they will draw. Perhaps a proper rollback should include a library shuffle.

I too believe that if we must rollback and wish to minimize responsablity, then a library shuffle would be necessary to make sure no one gains an advantage. That said, additional time would be added to complete the game and a penalty of some sort would then be justified.

Just my 2 cents...

Killjoy71 wrote:

chaitan wrote:

With that said, there are issues with the concept of rollback also. The Methuselah's performing rollback may gain insight in what cards they will draw. Perhaps a proper rollback should include a library shuffle.

I too believe that if we must rollback and wish to minimize responsablity, then a library shuffle would be necessary to make sure no one gains an advantage. That said, additional time would be added to complete the game and a penalty of some sort would then be justified.

Just my 2 cents...

I agree.

It's my oppinion that when one does a rolllback or replaces a card ea looks at it when one is not allowed that the card be put back, the bottom cards get seperated if one has heart of nitchetus and the deck reshuffled. It's part of the game that one dosent know wich the naxt card one draws and of the card in the library it is random. Just putting the card back and not shuffling is cheating!