PP Judge Document

As a forum attachment: http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?177332-Privateer-Press-tournament-policies

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8ZXkeGw8GbOaWhQQVdrcFU4djQ/edit

Lets start with the good things about that document. It is mostly pretty good. It's what I would expect from a document that is- you can't sort these things out between yourselves so you've called a judge over this is what we are going to rule. Things like what judges will rewind and what they will not. How they will handle illegal charges (declaring a charge that will not bring your target into melee range with infinite movement and ignoring all other models and terrain), not declaring a weapon, proxy bases (you put down a proxy base and that is where you are going) etc. It's harsh in a lot of areas, for example if you deploy any amount of extra models then a judge will rule the game a loss, however that is only if a judge is called over. If you notice for example you have deployed a full unit when you only payed for a min and your opponent agrees to just let you take off the extra models then the judges will stand by that as well.

And the bad thing.

Indirect or abstract questions about models or model capabilities should be answered by showing the inquiring player all stat cards of the army...

Example:

“What’s the threat range on that warjack?”

“Here are the stat cards for my army. I have a variety of abilities that could affect your models, and mine, as well as basic power attacks that make this question difficult to answer. I don’t want to tell you 12 inches but then remember that I could power attack push it and get 13.”

I hate this. At the least the example should involve the player helping their opponent to understand their army. If I ask if you have any continuous effects in your army I'd want you to at least point out the models with continuous effects and I can ask to see their cards if I want. Same if I ask if you have any AOEs or any of the other indirect questions. If you hand me all the cards in your army you can go fuck yourself. I got embroiled in lets call them two discussions about this in separate forums, I got two different types of answers: 1. No one is actually going to do that, it's just the base line minimum. 2. I am going to do exactly that because it's the best thing to do.

I'm left with a few thoughts about this.

1. Any time you write guidelines, especially guidelines your judges are going to abide by people are going to follow the directions. The judge document endorses poor sportsmanship and will result in some players doing exactly what the document tells them to do and no more.
2. This is a social game and there are social penalties for acting like a jackass, I can only hope these will stop people from following the guidelines to the letter.
3. It would have been incredibly easy to write the example interaction so that the player involved wasn't acting like a jackass. All you would have needed to say was that handing over your cards is the absolute minimum but that you should help your opponent sort through your army to find the answer to their question.