You overlooked the qualifier: "if my 'come-from-behind' play doesn't pan out." I didn't say the player would be intentionally seeking another round, but that that would be an avenue they might keep in the back of their mind if they didn't finish the game the way they wanted when time was called.

Here's a good example for you. My game with thereisnotry during the Championships at GenCon. It was a mirror match on Teth, so a stand-off for the most part. We only played 4 rounds in the 1 hour time limit. Maybe 5, but I'm pretty sure it was only 4. However, by the end of that 4th round, both of TINT's Speeder and Han were dead, and my Han was dead. At that point, it was obvious who would win, as TINT only had Leia left who could do any damage to my Speeder without rolling crits. If we were to play the game to the full conclusion, I surely would have still won. So, neither of each reached the full match total, but the outcome of the game was quite obvious. Honestly, if the tables were turned opposite, and TINT had beat me that way, I would have surely conceded at that point, even if there were no time limit. It isn't worth playing out the rest of the game. With the 8-round minimum hard-and-fast rule, we would HAVE to play out the other 4 rounds, as I picked off small fodder and his commanders, effectively wasting the time of all the other players who are waiting around (unless someone conceded, but you at least see my point).

So yes, I feel like TINT and I were probably playing a tad slow. Neither of us complained about it though, and we were perfectly OK with how it ended, as honestly, the game likely should have played out similarly even if we'd been playing faster. But even with 4 rounds, we had played enough to show a fairly clear winner (I had killed all his main attacking pieces, while keeping my main piece). So there are certainly instances were only 4-5 rounds is acceptable in an hour. That's where the judges discretion is necessary, IMO.

The possibility exists to do that exact same thing now.

Meant to respond to this, but forgot.

There were SEVERAL polls about it. Polling is not allowed on the WOTC forums, but we did have a poll here on Gamers, there were two or three on Bloomilk at different times, and there was one amongst the DCI Rules Advisors Committee on the swmrac.org site. This would be in addition to the massive pages of discussion on the topic across all different sites. A large part of the issue of a poll though, as seen in several of the threads regarding GOWK, would've been the difference between DCI players and non-DCI "casual" players, or even between high-end competitive DCI players vs. people who play for fun, but still use DCI rules and reporting. The methodology used to arrive at the decision to ban GOWK is about the best available, IMO.



This is a great idea, but the problem is that t requires a change to the DCI software, which doesn't seem likely. Personally, I would love to see an option where a player's victory points are recorded, and then that is used to help with tie-breakers at the end of a tournament. The players who consistently completed games would have more victory points then those that played to time, and thus would get placed higher when there were ties between all of the, for instance, players with 5-2 records. There's some issues with that as well (players with weak SOS get lots more victory points, etc.), but it would encourage people to play the games to conclusion. Again though, the problem with that is that it would require a change to the DCI software, which is about as likely as Carrie Fisher winning the SWM Championship some year.

But realistically if no one has called a judge for slow play before 3 minutes left int he game they are not going to get a extra round. Period. Too late.

You overlooked the qualifier: "if my 'come-from-behind' play doesn't pan out." I didn't say the player would be intentionally seeking another round, but that that would be an avenue they might keep in the back of their mind if they didn't finish the game the way they wanted when time was called.

This is a great idea, but the problem is that t requires a change to the DCI software, which doesn't seem likely. Personally, I would love to see an option where a player's victory points are recorded, and then that is used to help with tie-breakers at the end of a tournament. The players who consistently completed games would have more victory points then those that played to time, and thus would get placed higher when there were ties between all of the, for instance, players with 5-2 records. There's some issues with that as well (players with weak SOS get lots more victory points, etc.), but it would encourage people to play the games to conclusion. Again though, the problem with that is that it would require a change to the DCI software, which is about as likely as Carrie Fisher winning the SWM Championship some year.

I think that it comes down to the fact that neither player was compelled to call a judge. The player with the points lead doesn't care about the speed of the other player if he is going slow. The player playing slow wants that "come-from-behind," last minute kill that hands him the game, so he certainly isn't calling a judge over.

I think that it comes down to the fact that neither player was compelled to call a judge. The player with the points lead doesn't care about the speed of the other player if he is going slow. The player playing slow wants that "come-from-behind," last minute kill that hands him the game, so he certainly isn't calling a judge over.

I question that idea. I believe just about every time I called the judge at Gencon the score was either tied or I was ahead. I called them every time I was in round 3 or less at the 30 minute mark.

A top level player knows that a slow game creates too much power for chance to affect the outcome. Good players can often recover from a few bad rolls, or loss of a piece early. But if you allow your opponent to get the game down to one or two rolls at the end, without time to recover, you have given the game away potentially.

This is my primary concern with it over the years. Slow play, hurts the better player on average. It's a strategy that lesser players will use (both knowingly and unknowingly) to even the playing field against a player they would have trouble beating otherwise. It removes some of the influence of skill, and replaces it with a stronger influence of luck.

If you are a top level player, not only do you want the lead in points, but you also want to be calling the judge early and update them on play speed for cases where the opponent creates an unfair game situation with the clock.

Then as a community we get to this point in the game that everyone is playing for just enough points to win versus wiping out their opponent which is much more satisfying.

We've talked about this over the years, and it has more problems. First, you reward the guy who had the weakest SoS. Second, you allow for manipulation of the scoring system by opponent's who simply won't let you get the full "win" for a variety of reasons. And third, you don't actually do anything about slow play. In this case, there is no real penalty. So the guy who does it, can still do it just fine. He might not win, but he is still going to affect the outcome, and will never learn to play faster.

We keep coming back to this. Playing for points is not the result of community development. WotC made playing for points matter, both through Gambit and through the widespread addition of the HSD concept.

I don't see how you can't play for points unless you are going to open up the time of a game to unlimited. Since tourneys are subjected to a certain length of time this is just not possible. So it seems to me the concept of playing for points for a win has to be accepted as the outcome of a match. Forcing people to play faster will not cause every match to be finished by squad kills.

We keep coming back to this. Playing for points is not the result of community development. WotC made playing for points matter, both through Gambit and through the widespread addition of the HSD concept.

There are no negative point losses in the game thus far. Why not assign a -5 point loss each round you do not score a point either through a kill or through a gambit gain. Allow the first round grace. No one has commented on that yet and I can only guess it is ignored or considered a bad idea From initially thinking it through it seems to me it would force players to act more in the game rather than sit back and do nothing. It seems a deterrent for some slow play methods.