It would probably be better if we fought according to brackets, ie. within 10 mastery of the game or modified watchful of each other.
Also, as far as I can tell, humming and Irrigo only hurt the actor, not the recipient.
In character, Ixc can do fine with irrigo, and wouldn’t subject his worse enemy to…
Anyway, I’m guessing the song and Irrigo ban is more in universe, correct?
Yes. Other menacing moves are allowed, as there is no in-universe explanation to ban them.
Perhaps this club could do with a charter, to clear up confusion?
How to list your current location:
A State of Some Confusion- A Guest Room
New Newgate Prison–Again!- Prison
A Slow Boat on a Silent River Passing a Dark Beach- Dead
Disgraced Exile in the Tomb-Colonies- The Tomb Colonies
The Mirror-Marches- Parabola
The Mind of a Long-Dead God- Storm
Polythreme Streets- That One Place Everybody Hates
Mutton Island
Hunter’s Keep
Corpsecage Island
Grunting Fen
Bullbone Island
Iron Republic Streets- Iron Republic
Heartscross House- Port Carnelian
The Court of the Wakeful Eye- Wakeful Court
Avid Horizon
I am fine with engaging with people higher than me. After all, it is about the joy of playing - and a freshman would be honored to play with the masters of the game.
I have removed the “worthy opponent rule” and replaced it with a different rule.
Funny idea, I’m in! How does one sign up for it?
And yeah, personally I would be less restrictive. Chess and activities are more useful at low levels:
Base Watchful 50+,
You can play with players that have +/- 30 Watchful (eg. 80 can go from 50 to 110. My 150 can go from 120 to 180), and +/- 3 Mastery of the Game.
Is there any way this can be implemented in-game? Maybe as a proposal for the devs…
While I’d love to join I currently have 7 Irrigo till TtH ^^;
But I think I do qualify for every other requirement~
Edit: I think you should add the sign-up google doc to the main page :)
However leaving it open to edit might have some negative consequences if one decides to negatively influence the document.
edited by Honeyaddict on 12/26/2018
[quote=Honeyaddict]While I’d love to join I currently have 7 Irrigo till TtH ^^;
But I think I do qualify for every other requirement~
Edit: I think you should add the sign-up google doc to the main page :)
However leaving it open to edit might have some negative consequences if one decides to negatively influence the document.
edited by Honeyaddict on 12/26/2018[/quote]
You can have Irrigo and join. However, using Irrigo to fuel your moves is not allowed.
I also have the link up on the first page of the thread.
edited by Sir Wensleydale of Hardwick on 12/26/2018
[quote=Netos Korlan]Funny idea, I’m in! How does one sign up for it?
And yeah, personally I would be less restrictive. Chess and activities are more useful at low levels:
Base Watchful 50+,
You can play with players that have +/- 30 Watchful (eg. 80 can go from 50 to 110. My 150 can go from 120 to 180), and +/- 3 Mastery of the Game.
Is there any way this can be implemented in-game? Maybe as a proposal for the devs…[/quote]
Maybe. That would certainly help to enforce the rules. Writing a proposal would be… difficult, though.
Also, thanks for checking this out!
With a few recent developments with this club, I suppose now is fitting for some more thoughts:
I. Worthy opponents
I propose that there should exist no "worthy opponent" rule given the existing structure of the club. The removal of the Mastery rule is a step in the right direction. While it is ideal in a fair match for individuals to play opponents of an equivalent skill level, this is challenging to achieve in practice given ideal play. The tendency of these matches is to favor the defender, because the defender has two opportunities to view the opponent’s equipment versus the attacker’s one. Thus, with both sides playing to maximize the probability of winning, the match is not precisely a battle of two equally matched minds, but rather a weighted dice roll of "higher Watchful versus high Watchful" or "higher Persuasive versus lower Persuasive".
With that in mind, a "worthy opponent" rule would, in the interest of fairness, try to limit a given player to characters with similar base stats relative to one another. This somewhat defeats the point, as most current members of the club appear to be in the 200+ (inclusive) range for each stat. This would reduce the amount of possible players for those of lower stats (which is unideal - the game rewards the losing side with more Sudden Insights, which tend to be more valuable to players who have not reached the stat cap).
Furthermore, because the club publicly lists the base and modified stats of each member, one can consult the figures in determining if one wants to send or accept a match. This enables a degree of self-regulation that I believe would be easier to enforce and more practically effective than a "worthy opponent" rule.
II. Tournament Structure
The Grandmaster Club hasn’t had its first tournament yet, but the restriction stating that the number of participants must be a power of 2 leads me to believe that you’re focusing on a bracket-style elimination tournament. This is fine - all tournament structures have their advantages and disadvantage. I’m just inclined to believe that there are other structures that might work better.
One of the key advantages of an ellimination tourney is its efficiency and narrative strength. The stakes consistently rise exponentially over time and the tournament swells to a climax and resolution. The structure of the elimination tournament resembles that of a story - we have an expository period to learn about the participants and their personal narratives; this is accompanied by rising action, punctuated with twists and turns before the tournament accelerates into the semifinal and final confrontations before the sudden cathartic release of tension as a victor is declared and celebrated. There’s a reason why the final phase of highly-exposed athletic tournaments (the FIFA World Cup, for instance) use this - it draws viewers in with an overarching narrative, one that builds to absurd heights by the climax - at which point they are prime material for advertisers.
The problem is that we don’t really need that. There’s no need for that narrative strucutre, especially because it creates such great inequality. Players eliminated early only have a chance to play one match. By definition, this is half of the players. This is why double elimination tournaments are often used in "house" elimination tourneys; all players will play the same number of matches. Double elimination tournaments lose the other advantage of efficiency, though, and they create results that might be better achieved through other means.
And while some chess tournaments (notably Candidates) use single-elimination, that tends to come after a previous series of qualifications that mitigate some of the downsides of the format.
III. On Distracting the Opponent
First, I’d like to make the case that the use of "distracting" or irrigo-related moves be permitted. They are still fundamentally Watchful and Persuasive challenges, and they add an element of unpredictability to the game. I personally find that unpredictability more fun; others’ mileage may vary. Regardless, if we are to be consistent with the implementation of the "distraction" rule (currently just represented by the humming rule), it would be advisable to also ban the moves tied to "Scandal" and "Boatman’s Opponent":
If humming is prohibited, this explicit psychological warfare should also be prohibited.
IV. A Few Conveniences
It may be more convenient to, instead of listing one’s location in the spreadsheet, to merely have a boolean statement of whether or not one is accepting matches at the moment. For zee travel, Menace zones, or other such engagements, one would only have to change it from a "Y" to a "N". You could also change it if you’re not interested in accepting chess matches but are not traveling. Besides, you can see the location of another player just by looking at the header of their profile, for the most part. This would be more robust and user-friendly.
I’d also recommend adding a rule against cancelling a game after it’s begun without proper reason. If a player has not responded in a long time, that’d be a valid reason to cancel. Losing the first match is not a valid reason to cancel. Practically speaking, this shouldn’t be very common, but it’s good to have.
[end]
To Sir Wensleydale of Hardwick:
You are welcome!
Curiosity, what is your base Watchful? I don’t really care to raise stats to their caps
More on topic, to Azothi:
Good proposals. I would allow all moves, Irrigo &co as well, since they make things more unpredictable.
However, I have a question regarding the method:
And besides,
Leaving in half of the players would make the tournament perfectly balanced.
As all things should be.
(Gift of jewels to the first that spots the referenceXD)
edited by Netos Korlan on 12/27/2018
So, any other ideas as to how the tournament should work, if not by elimination?
The first idea I have is: Wins/Losses ranking in a span of time (eg. 1 week), in range ± 30 Watchful.
P.S. : Someone should notify the developers, if we want this properly implemented
Thanos is the reference because I like jewels; I’ll address the other points when I have a bit more free time.
The reason I prohibit humming but not scandalous distraction or taunting is because with humming, you can’t think properly. Scandalous distraction happens on your own move, and taunting could be easily seen through.
While I was thinking elimination, I never explicitly stated that. … I’ll start a tourney soon, and it will be double elimination.
Out first tournament will begin on the 15th of January. It requires 16 players, and it has some unusual rules.
edited by Sir Wensleydale of Hardwick on 12/27/2018
[quote=Netos Korlan]- If not by elimination, how should the tournament work? maybe a Wins/Losses ranking? The restriction +/- 30 Watchful would make sense.[/quote]There are established alternative tournament structures. Round-robin is effective at gauging the "best" out of a tournament because it matches every player against another. Swiss system is more efficient - it’s the system being used right now at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships for determining a winner out of 200+ players in 15/21 rounds - but it’s difficult to implement in Fallen London due to the impreciseness of "Mastery" as opposed to ELO rating.
Double-elimination is an alternative (and, it seems, the one that’s being used), which addresses some of the fairness issues at the cost of efficiency. There’s still an unequal distribution of games, and it still continually grows unwieldy as tournament size increases (the size of this club, however, is small enough that it’s not an issue). Nevertheless, there are still roughly equivalent structures that allow everyone to play the same amount (not an important consideration in professional tournaments but what I believe to be one of the most important considerations here). Furthermore, the double elimination bracket suffers from the same Fallen London efficiency problem where players can’t play through the tournament at their own pace; they’re forced to wait for others to resolve their own matches before continuing, which is an issue because of rules against zee travel or other such distractions.
[quote=Sir Wensleydale of Hardwick][color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]The reason I prohibit humming but not scandalous distraction or taunting is because with humming, you can’t think properly. Scandalous distraction happens on your own move, and taunting could be easily seen through.[/color][/quote]The effect of humming, scandalous distraction, and taunting is all to distract your opponent into blundering. If anything, humming is the least malicious of the three - your character justifies their action by noting if they’re going to be distracted by the song, then so should you. The others are outright malicious efforts to gain an advantage over your opponent.
Scandalous distraction happens on your own move, but that’s hardly the point. The goal is to make the opponent’s mind start wandering to the scandalous story - made all the easier by focusing it on one of their own acquaintances - and thereby distract them throughout the game.
Taunting is not something that’s "seen through". The text never makes any claim as to whether your character is lying or not. They very well could have tried that combination of knights and bishops against the Boatman and lost in the end. What taunting does is try to make the opponent doubt themselves - make them doubt their calculations, wondering if there’s something that they missed.
For some people, with scandalous distraction or taunting, "you can’t think properly". They cut at certain mental pressure points, keeping you from focusing on the end goal of the game. For some people, humming can be relaxing - it can clear the head, and all the better if the opponent is distracted by their own song. I’m playing the contrarian here, of course, because I don’t think any of these moves should be banned, but I’m not seeing the reasoning in selectively banning either.
[quote=Sir Wensleydale of Hardwick]While I was thinking elimination, I never explicitly stated that[/quote]Your rule in the "Tournaments" section about requiring a number of participants equal to a power of 2 made it most likely an elimination tournament. It tends to be easier to voice grievances before something is set in stone than after.
[quote=Sir Wensleydale of Hardwick]Out first tournament will begin on the 15th of January. It requires 16 players, and it has some unusual rules.[/quote]Interested in seeing the unusual rules, though unless there’s a particular need for 16, would it not be easier to do 8? There are only 7 people in the club, right now, so that would require a growth of 9 members in the next two and a half weeks just to run. Advertising the tournament could bring in more people, but it seems safer to tentatively plan for 8 and be willing to expand to 16 (or even 32) depending on the influx of people, especially since there’s no guarantee that being in the club means you’ll participate in the tournament.