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[Powerman]

I honestly cannot think of any real world reason why someone would generally prefer otherwise, except that he is really good at memorizing stuff and can get some real advantage from that department.

BTW, I can answer this one; I enjoy playing without any counters. It's just one more skill to add on. I definitely worked on learning to remember what's left; it's a pretty nice feeling to be able to end the game by three-piling with a tied score and winning on turns, and knowing that that's a skill that I learned and acquired, a win possibility that I caught but my opponent didn't. It certainly wouldn't be as exciting to do that if I could just look at the point counter and see the score and be like "okay, well, I guess I end the game with a win now."

It's like playing with a simulator. If I can run a some sims at the beginning of the game and check the speed of a few available strategies, that takes some of the fun and skill out of picking a strategy. I mean, you can argue that that still leaves the skill remaining in, say, duchy-dancing, or in executing the strategy precisely - and it does, a simulator available wouldn't help that much. And of course there's lots and lots of boards where a sim doesn't help at all. But there's  some boards where it does, and there's no sense of accomplishment in that, so might as well keep that out, especially since it's not available in IRL dominion games.

So I prefer the rules as they are, with no point counters. It's not a big hurdle to jump through, it's not like it's locking people out of playing this game until they learn lots of memorization techniques, it's one more thing that you can learn to do to give you a slight advantage and feel good about when you get it to work.

I know this is besides the point, but how do you end the game and win on turns?  Can't you only lose or tie on turns when you end?

[timchen]

Personman, it's you who is ignoring me first. But ok, forget what theory had said, let me just be plain and ask a few question here:

(1) do you agree or not that since this tournament is qualification for the nationals where point counters are clearly not allowed, it is better to play with point counter disabled? (please for now suppose players won't cheat)

If you don't agree, I don't think there can be any more beneficial discussion. Suppose you agree:

(2) Now as you said there can be incentive for one player to cheat. But how does it help by using the PCE yourself?

I dunno your answer, but all I can see is that at most it can help you compete with cheaters. But that does not help the overall situation, as we dunno whether you are better at this memory department as well.

In short: I can understand and agree why you think the point counter should be allowed, but I have no way justifying your insistence on using it once your opponent disagrees and the tournament director directly tells you not to do so.

[methods of rationality]

Personman, to answer your question if note taking is illegal that definitely includes the chat box and your own blood - it is still notes! So I don't think its undefinable. (Well in a philosophical rigorous sense, it is but then again what isn't) Still waiting on the ruling from Donald about verbal point tracking though.

[Personman]

Also, Donald, as long as your posting here, I was actually asking a serious rules question before which has so far not been answered. Are you allowed to verbally count points while playing?

I can't wait to see what Donald says, but here are my thoughts:

On isotropic, yes, you are allowed to talk to yourself. I was talking about the game (and sometimes the score) into my microphone the whole time, and I had announced my intention to do commentary on the games as they happened before, and no one took any issue.

In an in-person tournament, I think most people would interpret talking about the score as helping your opponents, and thus would not say anything. However, there is potential for abuse via lying about the score out loud. In Magic, there are rules against knowingly misrepresenting the game state, but you can lie about anything else you want to get an advantage (and people do, and it's often considered an impressive play). Dominion could come up with similar rules, or it could just allow talking and lying in general. Trying to enforce silence seems like a pretty bad idea, since decisions need to be made for cards, and point totals could be indicated with hand gestures, etc. You could try to have a judge determine whether any player was doing something suspiciously like trying to communicate point totals, but that outlaws what I think is a pretty common thing: on the last turn, when you don't mind giving away information anymore, talking through your memory of the game to try to reconstruct who bought what and make sure you are safe to end it. I've done that in an actual paper Dominion tournament before (a private one) and everyone thought it was normal.

[Personman]

Personman, it's you who is ignoring me first. But ok, forget what theory had said, let me just be plain and ask a few question here:

(1) do you agree or not that since this tournament is qualification for the nationals where point counters are clearly not allowed, it is better to play with point counter disabled? (please for now suppose players won't cheat)

If you don't agree, I don't think there can be any more beneficial discussion. Suppose you agree:

(2) Now as you said there can be incentive for one player to cheat. But how does it help by using the PCE yourself?

I dunno your answer, but all I can see is that at most it can help you compete with cheaters. But that does not help the overall situation, as we dunno whether you are better at this memory department as well.

In short: I can understand and agree why you think the point counter should be allowed, but I have no way justifying your insistence on using it once your opponent disagrees and the tournament director directly tells you not to do so.

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

[Powerman]

Personman, it's you who is ignoring me first. But ok, forget what theory had said, let me just be plain and ask a few question here:

(1) do you agree or not that since this tournament is qualification for the nationals where point counters are clearly not allowed, it is better to play with point counter disabled? (please for now suppose players won't cheat)

If you don't agree, I don't think there can be any more beneficial discussion. Suppose you agree:

(2) Now as you said there can be incentive for one player to cheat. But how does it help by using the PCE yourself?

I dunno your answer, but all I can see is that at most it can help you compete with cheaters. But that does not help the overall situation, as we dunno whether you are better at this memory department as well.

In short: I can understand and agree why you think the point counter should be allowed, but I have no way justifying your insistence on using it once your opponent disagrees and the tournament director directly tells you not to do so.

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

Its totally ridiculous to have a qualifier for an event simulate the event in any way shape or form?  Alright.  Next time, Theory can pick the winner based on who he likes the best

[methods of rationality]

Also, Donald, as long as your posting here, I was actually asking a serious rules question before which has so far not been answered. Are you allowed to verbally count points while playing?

I can't wait to see what Donald says, but here are my thoughts:

On isotropic, yes, you are allowed to talk to yourself. I was talking about the game (and sometimes the score) into my microphone the whole time, and I had announced my intention to do commentary on the games as they happened before, and no one took any issue.

In an in-person tournament, I think most people would interpret talking about the score as helping your opponents, and thus would not say anything. However, there is potential for abuse via lying about the score out loud. In Magic, there are rules against knowingly misrepresenting the game state, but you can lie about anything else you want to get an advantage (and people do, and it's often considered an impressive play). Dominion could come up with similar rules, or it could just allow talking and lying in general. Trying to enforce silence seems like a pretty bad idea, since decisions need to be made for cards, and point totals could be indicated with hand gestures, etc. You could try to have a judge determine whether any player was doing something suspiciously like trying to communicate point totals, but that outlaws what I think is a pretty common thing: on the last turn, when you don't mind giving away information anymore, talking through your memory of the game to try to reconstruct who bought what and make sure you are safe to end it. I've done that in an actual paper Dominion tournament before (a private one) and everyone thought it was normal.

Helping your opponents, in anything but a 2 player game, does not have to be allowed.

[blueblimp]

Also, Donald, as long as your posting here, I was actually asking a serious rules question before which has so far not been answered. Are you allowed to verbally count points while playing?

IANDXV, but this seems clearly okay online. You aren't using an external aid, and besides there's not much difference between saying something and imagining saying it.

IRL, the only problem I see is that it could annoy your opponent, in which case you obviously shouldn't do it, but because of general good sportsmanship and not because it violates the rules of the game.

[timchen]

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

I did read, just not sure this is exactly what you meant. But it still sounds too crazy for me, so just let me reconfirm:
so you think it is actually better to play paper-scissors-stone to qualify for the nationals, because it is fairer?

[michaeljb]

In Magic, there are rules against knowingly misrepresenting the game state, but you can lie about anything else you want to get an advantage (and people do, and it's often considered an impressive play).

Sort of off-topic now, but this bit interested me--what is there that you can lie about that doesn't have to do with the game state that can actually get you an advantage? I'm curious about this.

(FWIW I've played Magic IRL like twice, and a bit on the digital version on PSN; so there's plenty I don't know about it)

[ftl]

@Powerman and winning on turns - lol yes I'm an idiot for that comment. I actually did have an IRL win by one point game this weekend, and an IRL game where my opponent lost on turns after ending the game, but when posting the comment I thought it would be more dramatic to merge those into one, and of course skipped the fact that that's not actually possible. I feel dumb now. Sorry.

[Ozle]

In Magic, there are rules against knowingly misrepresenting the game state, but you can lie about anything else you want to get an advantage (and people do, and it's often considered an impressive play).

Sort of off-topic now, but this bit interested me--what is there that you can lie about that doesn't have to do with the game state that can actually get you an advantage? I'm curious about this.

(FWIW I've played Magic IRL like twice, and a bit on the digital version on PSN; so there's plenty I don't know about it)

I told someone I was a hot girl in real life and he let me win!*

(*May not actually be a true story)

[samath]

This thread does have the potential to be insightful for anyone willing to read all the way through it. But yeah, now that I have, there are so many things to say...

I think I've had enough of the theory-bashing. Theory was under a lot of time pressure to get this tournament to happen, and also clearly hoped that the general friendly play of people on isotropic would prevail, rather than having to sit down and think through a foolproof ruleset. And as we're discovering, foolproof rulesets are hard to come up with. Enforceability is a big issue, but as Personman has discovered (re: collusion), it's rather tough to actually have in an online tournament. Still, theory tried to enforce it by encouraging people to record the finals and reserving the right to DQ afterwards from those videos. And so in the end, even if it was only half an hour before the finals, theory arrived at at least a pretty decent ruling.

One thing I'm still a little confused about is why WW decided to ultimately withdraw, after theory's final ruling. I can offer some possibilities:
1) He was unhappy that theory was changing the rules. First, it's at least a little ambiguous that spreadsheets are disallowed in the rules. If you have to dig up a post by Donald X on the forum to get the official ruling that's further than most players will go. It's certainly more ambiguous than "identical starting hands" for those who want to argue that theory arbitrarily ruling "okay, so in the finals you guys don't get identical starting hands" would be unfair. So a clarification was certainly in order. Second, the rules never said, "Any changes to the rules must be approved by all players"; that clause is pretty clear about only applying to use or not of the official point counter. But most importantly, we all know how little time theory had to plan this tournament out, and as such, should cut him some slack with clarifying or redefining rules.
2) He expected Personman to cheat and use the PCE anyways. I think this is very unfair to both what Personman's words explicitly said and to WW's own arguments themselves. Personman was not actually planning on cheating; he was just giving the usual unenforceability argument he's repeated several times in this thread. And what do you know, in the real match he didn't cheat at all. I don't see a reason to suspect he would have with WW playing.
3) He objected to playing a game with someone who used Personman's style of reasoning, whether you want to call it relativist, or consequentialist, or what have you. Well, all I can say is that that would be like not playing with atheists. It doesn't actually affect the game and seems a bit non-sequitur. He'd certainly have the right to do that, like anyone has the right to be racist in who they live near, but I'd at least be disappointed if that was his final reason.
4) He didn't think through everything as clearly as he can now (happens to all of us) and would have re-entered had he had more time to think it through.
5) He was away from the computer for the half hour between theory's ruling and the start of the match.
I don't really have evidence against 4 or 5, except for the lack of WW complaining about the timing or apologizing and saying he would have re-entered on second thought.

Of course, WW doesn't have to respond to this if he wants to keep his reasons private. But he's entered the conversation so far, so if he's willing, I'm curious what he has to say to this.

[eHalcyon]

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

I did read, just not sure this is exactly what you meant. But it still sounds too crazy for me, so just let me reconfirm:
so you think it is actually better to play paper-scissors-stone to qualify for the nationals, because it is fairer?

(Aside: whoa, I've always called it Rock-Paper-Scissors... is this a regional dialect thing?  The wiki article has both orderings... weird...)

[greatexpectations]

Also, Donald, as long as your posting here, I was actually asking a serious rules question before which has so far not been answered. Are you allowed to verbally count points while playing?

I am fine with saying the score out loud or using Ars Memorativa or what have you. When you write on yourself, you're using yourself as a notebook; it's a weird thing that only comes up to try to get around the rules. If you say the score out loud to help you remember, that's normal.

source

I am cool with people playing Dominion by whatever variants they want, provided that all players have agreed to them, including using an automatic score tracker.

source

Rules tell you what you can do, not what you can't do. You can't do things that rules don't let you, inside the game. Outside the game, whatever. If a rulebook mentions that you can't do something, that's just to answer common questions from foolish people; if you aren't told you can, you can't, that is what it means to be rules.

It should be clear that rules work this way, because games are just utterly messed up otherwise. People can produce ridiculous questions all day. Can you put a card from your hand on your deck for next turn whenever you want? Hey maybe the rulebook covers that, I am not checking. It for sure does not answer every ridiculous question of this nature because there is no end to them.

If you accept that rules say what you can do, rather than what you can't - and why would you, this is the internet - then the question becomes, is taking notes like eating or is it actually relevant. And of course it's relevant. The game has a memory component, and of course there are games that are nothing but memory, to make it clear that memory can be an element of a game.

Also, while we're here, in Dominion, you may not take notes. I am making this clear for anyone who somehow does not get it. You can't. You didn't know before, so that wasn't cheating, but if you do now, it's cheating. I would get into the idea of variants but let's keep this simple.

source

[Ozle]

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

I did read, just not sure this is exactly what you meant. But it still sounds too crazy for me, so just let me reconfirm:
so you think it is actually better to play paper-scissors-stone to qualify for the nationals, because it is fairer?

(Aside: whoa, I've always called it Rock-Paper-Scissors... is this a regional dialect thing?  The wiki article has both orderings... weird...)

Woah, I agree!

can you stop the round and round arguments now and debate this, because it has just Rock(-paper-scissors)'ed my world!

Could be worse, it could be Rock Paper Scissors Laser Spock!

[zxcvbn2]

It's always been Rock-Paper-Scissors for me. And, FWIW, I'm from Michigan, so if that's a regional thing where I'm from we call it that. Also, we call carbonated beverages pop, not soda where I'm from.

[Powerman]

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

I did read, just not sure this is exactly what you meant. But it still sounds too crazy for me, so just let me reconfirm:
so you think it is actually better to play paper-scissors-stone to qualify for the nationals, because it is fairer?

(Aside: whoa, I've always called it Rock-Paper-Scissors... is this a regional dialect thing?  The wiki article has both orderings... weird...)

Woah, I agree!

can you stop the round and round arguments now and debate this, because it has just Rock(-paper-scissors)'ed my world!

Could be worse, it could be Rock Paper Scissors Laser Spock!

Lizard* 

[Ozle]

It's always been Rock-Paper-Scissors for me. And, FWIW, I'm from Michigan, so if that's a regional thing where I'm from we call it that. Also, we call carbonated beverages pop, not soda where I'm from.

UK here.
And we call carbonated beverages....well I dont know really, probably just 'Soft Drinks'

[Ozle]

Please read the thread. Please. I've been over this so very many times. It's in the email thread that WW posted; it's in this thread more than once. No, I do not think that an online qualifier should strive for similarity to nationals in any way shape or form, and I think it's totally ridiculous to think otherwise. I am far too tired of this to type out why for the fourth or fifth time.

I did read, just not sure this is exactly what you meant. But it still sounds too crazy for me, so just let me reconfirm:
so you think it is actually better to play paper-scissors-stone to qualify for the nationals, because it is fairer?

(Aside: whoa, I've always called it Rock-Paper-Scissors... is this a regional dialect thing?  The wiki article has both orderings... weird...)

Woah, I agree!

can you stop the round and round arguments now and debate this, because it has just Rock(-paper-scissors)'ed my world!

Could be worse, it could be Rock Paper Scissors Laser Spock!

Lizard* 

Well, thats one thing you got right and I agree with so far in this thread then! *grins*

(And I spent ages deciding what version of Laser/Lazer to use as well! )

[Personman]

In Magic, there are rules against knowingly misrepresenting the game state, but you can lie about anything else you want to get an advantage (and people do, and it's often considered an impressive play).

Sort of off-topic now, but this bit interested me--what is there that you can lie about that doesn't have to do with the game state that can actually get you an advantage? I'm curious about this.

(FWIW I've played Magic IRL like twice, and a bit on the digital version on PSN; so there's plenty I don't know about it)

I wasn't quite precise. You can't lie about the public game state.

You can lie about the contents of your deck. You can lie about how you sideboarded. You can lie about what you just drew, or what's in your hand - this is the most common one, as you can say something like "I have the [card that you know is in my deck that wins the game], scoop?" and if they do (to 'scoop' is to concede) then you win, even if you didn't have the card.

[methods of rationality]

After thinking about this a little more it appears to me that the reason Personman interpreted Theory's "you will not be disqualified" as "its legal" is because he Personman could not understand why he would not be disqualified if it was, in fact, illegal.
Personman, is this correct?
If so, than I would like to offer you another explanation as to why Theory would not disqualify you for the point counter which holds even if its illegal. When you said "and I know what I'd do in this situation: take meticulous notes on the game and slow the pace dramatically." he interpreted you to mean "I, Personman, will take meticulous notes on the game and slow the pace dramatically even if doing so is against the rules" He held, in acordance with Donald's rulling, that doing so is against the rules. Since he would rather you cheat without gaining an advantage (by making the point counter publicly available) than cheat with gaining an advantage (by taking meticulous notes by your self) he told you that either way you will not be disqualified.
Now even if you did not think of that explanation as to why Theory said what he said at the time, do you know see that it is probably what he meant and that what you did is in fact wrong? (note that the line "this is the ruling" immediately precedes the phrase "don't use the point counter")

[methods of rationality]

One thing I'm still a little confused about is why WW decided to ultimately withdraw, after theory's final ruling.

Because he held that even after Theory's ruling the spreadsheet was illegal and so didn't want to play with it available since he didn't want to cheat himself (I think)

[samath]

One thing I'm still a little confused about is why WW decided to ultimately withdraw, after theory's final ruling.

Because he held that even after Theory's ruling the spreadsheet was illegal and so didn't want to play with it available since he didn't want to cheat himself (I think)

...which basically amounts to saying that theory is not allowed to change the rules, because theory said that the spreadsheet was legal. That's option #1, and again, quite a strenuous demand on theory ("get the rules right the first time for a last-minute tournament with all unstated rules interpreted in one particular way, and no takebacks!").

[Personman]

After thinking about this a little more it appears to me that the reason Personman interpreted Theory's "you will not be disqualified" as "its legal" is because he Personman could not understand why he would not be disqualified if it was, in fact, illegal.
Personman, is this correct?
If so, than I would like to offer you another explanation as to why Theory would not disqualify you for the point counter which holds even if its illegal. When you said "and I know what I'd do in this situation: take meticulous notes on the game and slow the pace dramatically." he interpreted you to mean "I, Personman, will take meticulous notes on the game and slow the pace dramatically even if doing so is against the rules" He held, in acordance with Donald's rulling, that doing so is against the rules. Since he would rather you cheat without gaining an advantage (by making the point counter publicly available) than cheat with gaining an advantage (by taking meticulous notes by your self) he told you that either way you will not be disqualified.
Now even if you did not think of that explanation as to why Theory said what he said at the time, do you know see that it is probably what he meant and that what you did is in fact wrong? (note that the line "this is the ruling" immediately precedes the phrase "don't use the point counter")

This is kind of right, but it dances around the point. It's not that theory would rather I cheat one way than another, it's that theory chose to change the rules to make a certain action not cheating. Since he is the tournament organizer, I took all actions he declared non-DQable to be, by definition, not cheating. I really cannot figure out why I have to say this so many times.