I disagree wholeheartedly
This tournament has a couple issues you might be forgetting:
1. We don't have time to contemplate point systems;
2. Organizing with a point system might be a total mess for whoever admininstrates; and,
3. This is not a participation tournament - this is a tournament for WINNING.
As a player, sure you might FEEL better getting in 2nd place in a game instead of 4th place...but in a tournament setting THERE SHOULD BE NO DIFFERENCE. This isn't a "simulate game night" tournament, this is a "find the best 4p Dominion player" tournament, and a point system gets in the way of that while also making it complicated to organize.
*insert old-timey "in my day we didn't get trophies for losing" anecdote*
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I think a lot of you are misinterpreting what a point system will do. It WON'T let you play in your self-interest - it will make you metagame. You'll be playing the point system, and not Dominion. You'll be "playing for the draw", instead of simply trying to win the damn game. When bracket time comes around, that's not going to work, and we should not be rewarding it at the expense of simplification.
"Playing for 2nd" means nothing when first place is the only thing that's going to get you a trip to Nationals. Why should we have people good at "playing for 2nd" get the best shot at the prize?
Yeah. I think we definitely disagree. I'm happy with whatever Theory decides. Until he does, my two cents on your comments:
1. We don't have time to contemplate point systems
-> Agreed. Not a lot of time. But something like 3-2-1-0 doesn't take a ton of time. And I don't think it makes a ton of difference on what the system is. Theory can just make an executive decision.
2. Organizing with a point system might be a total mess for whoever admininstrates; and,
-> Might be, but I don't think it has to be. The players in a group can self-report. Even into a shared Google Spreadsheet.
3.
This is not a participation tournament - this is a tournament for WINNING.-> I guess the question is "what does winning mean". My feeling is (and I might be very wrong) is that you feel the player who wins a particular game is the "winner". I think my general philosophy is the player who performs well in a series of games is the "winner".
It goes back to, which of these two players is the "winner" in a series of four-player games:
1st, 1st, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th
1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd
If no criteria were set out at the start I would vote for the second guy (sounds like you would vote for the first guy).
If the question was: Which of these two players is most likely to win the "9th game", I would bet on my guy every time.
If there was defined criteria beforehand - i.e., only first place matters. Then the first guy may indeed be the best player - playing to the criteria.
But playing so 'first place only matters' leads to some weird incentives - things like opening Treasure Map consistently, or, as fourth player playing just to spoil your competition (since you have better odds of that then you do of winning)
Ideally I like an incentive system that encourages players to just play the best they can.
Dominion has so much chance involved already, that encouraging players to increase that variance doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
(And I would hate to be neck and neck for a 1-2 finish with someone and have it decided on the whim of the 3rd/4th place player. Or be in the position as 3/4th place to be kingmaker in the game - feels lot like "where does the Robber go" that Donald talks about all the time)
Ed