Rules Team Rulings - 22-APR-2013

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@DeathinaBottle: You aren't asking about process now. You want justifications. That isn't process.

I've been pretty consistent in requesting both. They're hardly incommensurable. That said, I think that justifications or explanations would be more useful for the reasons of posterity I mentioned above.

johannes wrote:

I also would appreciate if you would open new threads for such discussions. How is it helpful when on every news announcment which is releveant for all players there is pages and pages of bickering which is only relevant for a few.

Half of this conversation is bickering, but half is simple questioning. That's not "bickering." And it's relevant to everyone, given the universal applicability of rules decisions, even if it's only interesting to a few.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

There isn't much point in insisting on one aspect of the VEKN being highly transparent and open to extensive scrutiny without doing it to the rest. That however, is a decision for the IC, because they would then have to consider how much of the rest of their activities should be highly transparent especially considering the chance for Commercial in Confidence items to appear on agendas and in the minutes.

Right. Good point, Juggernaut1981. This gets back to the whole structure of the V:EKN and its role in the world of V:TES.

Once the V:EKN set morphed from something done by volunteers into something potentially done for profit, the entire organization became tainted by the need for such "Commercial in Confidence" secrecy measures.

Posts from as recently as 7 months ago had various people close to the project saying, "No, no one will ever get paid" or "There's no money involved" or "There's no way this could ever make a profit".

And not too long ago Johannes said, "Yeah, we gotta figure out salaries."

I *get* that printing new cards is a commercial enterprise. But what I don't get is that the V:EKN should be that commercial enterprise. In fact, it's not. But people here keep conflating the two because they are inextricably intertwined.

I dunno. If the V:EKN Chairman is an elected position, then I certainly would expect a bit more transparency to permeate the organization. But when the person at the top is leveraging the work of volunteers into something...else...that really doesn't sit well with me.

But hey, I'm not involved directly, so I don't have to worry about someone else capitalizing upon my altruism.

Jeff wrote:

But hey, I'm not involved directly, so I don't have to worry about someone else capitalizing upon my altruism.

Under the White Wolf regime, not a single volunteer at any level ever received any money. No play testers, no Princes, no one that ever ran a major event ever got paid for doing anything that they did. That's why they are "volunteers".

People that ran major events like the EC, or the NAC when it was moving around, received monies to pay for the event itself, but those volunteers never received any monies.

LSJ received money because he was an independent contractor for a decade, and was expected to be "working" for some number of hours per week.

When the NAC moved to its "permanent" home at Origins, since I was running Origins, and Oscar -- a WW employee -- wasn't attending anymore, White Wolf paid for my hotel room and my food, because I was acting as an independent contractor (like LSJ) for the duration of the convention, but I didn't receive a wage of any kind.

To suggest that a volunteer should worry about getting paid for their volunteerism suggests either a lack of education about the word "volunteer", or an interest in stirring up a hornet's nest for subversive reasons.

echiang wrote:

"I don't disagree with you Eric that it would be useful to have a page covering the banned cards with reasons."
Or do you deliberately cut pertinent text out to have random arguments with people?
As answered above: No, I do not deliberately cut out pertinent text.

1. Not disgreeing is not necessarily equivalent to agreeing.

2. Would be nice is different than should.

By Thor's ungainly hammer you're really are a complete and utter pain in the posterior Eric.

This really sums up why you're impossible to work with! You read every meaning you desire into every word rather than using any common sense or emotional acumen.

As you lived in the UK you should also be able to interpret the American/British differences in phrases such as

"Quite nice" British English = "This should be done" in American English
It'd obviously be easier to pick that up if I was speaking to you....

And for the record Hugh, *I* playtested Lilith's Blessing and complained to LSJ about how overpowered it was every single round of HttB playtest.

Good - but still materially the card wasn't tested or wasn't effectively tested which to all useful purposes are the same thing

I have this great quote from an unnamed playtest groups file:
"Liliths Blessing: should be unique to allow contest."

and also this from another:
"Lilith’s blessing – unique would be best perhaps? "

I personally don't think it would have helped but it shows how poor the playtesting or designing (sorry Scott!) must have been for 3 groups to say change (including you) with no change during testing- hence VEKN playtest is as transparent within a limited group as feasible without designers getting all touchy feely with playtesters.

@ 10 pages of dissention

If the purpose, really was to find out why, you could have read the original post more than once, while firing off a couple of brain cells.

I for example, have(had) deck that went from 2 pool too over 30 in two turns with the help of lilth's blessing. That is not to say that it still could not function, but not as well.

No matter how well you say it, it does not necessarily make it true.

Matt