not too long ago all tourney matches were in the main forum anyway. not sure why the shift ever took place....
i'd also like to address a couple of these rules for clarification as these seem to be the general rules the bz's will follow.
1. No posting limit (free form posting, instead)
not sure when or why this changed but it was limited not too long ago. imo it should be limited again. 5-7 posts would be plenty. also makes it easier on judges if they know they won't have to read a million posts and it ensures matches will end within a reasonable time frame. i think there should also be a time limit though. 7 days, 10 days, something like that. again, get the match up, get it done and get it judged. momentum is essential to these things--bz's but tourneys in particular.
2. No time manipulation.
i've always had a problem with this and recently was less then thrilled with the way it was interpreted by judges vs tourney host. imo this should be dealt with in exactly the same way matter manipulation is dealt with (which was the view the host had as i discussed it, only to find judges did not view it that way): that is to say time manip that does not affect an opponent directly should be allowed. ie--no aging, no time freeze, no going back in time to heal injuries (that would make someone unkillable), but other versions of time manip should be fine and would open up some possible new characters. if it's treated like matter manip there should be no problems.
3. No insta-kill tactics such as teleporting into solid objects. Even if an attack isn’t instantaneous, any attack that could, as a matter of its nature, not be defended against is considered this.
this is a tricky one imo. mindrape would technically fall into this category if you didn't happen to pick someone with natural or technological defenses. that means that people are forced to choose within a certain set of characters because if person (a) chooses a strong psi but person (b) does NOT choose someone who can defend from psi powers, person (b) can be insta-killed in an indefensible way. that is no different from blink porting someone into the ground because a person doesn't have a shield. what's the solution? not sure. i don't like neutering psi's, but i don't like being forced to pick from the ltd number of characters who can defend against powerful psi characters. i speak from personal experience on this point. do we open a set of matches that allow just psi's? continue to simply force people to risk taking a character that can be mindraped? not sure. maybe there is no solution, but i think a discussion about this should take place. in a couple tiers in particular if you get the strongest psi first, you almost can't be beaten. (not talking about smurph and cable here....)
3. Characters will not have knowledge of who they are fighting pre-fight. In battle, they will only be able to know things if the two characters already knew each other.
obviously this in untrue on a second or subsequent title defense, which is fine. it does allow challengers to tailor a pick, but heavy is the head and all that.....
4. Non-offensive matter manipulation is allowed.
i think this should be looked at again as well. no insta-kill, but if someone chooses ss in a high herald match, a major part of his powerset is matter manip. if someone chose say, iron man for some dumb reason, ss should be able to change his armor to tissue paper imo. if a character can use it, and has shown it in combat situations, then it should be allowed. it simply needs to be well supported. again i think it is at least something that should be revisited as it would open up new characters and new strategies.
5. No duplication.
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6. No power copying in any way.
i think this should be allowed as well. only a few characters can pull it off and in most cases it should be answerable. i'd be interested in hearing specific reasons this rule should be left intact.
7. Only experience carries from previous fights, and only information you could have reasonably discovered in the fight is learned.
seems mostly pointless.
8. No immortal characters. Characters should be able to be defeated by reasonably accessible means. Healing factors strong enough to blur the line with this are also banned.
this pertains to almost no one but i agree. out of curiosity who do some of you see falling into this category?
9. While battlefields will change, it is assumed that nobody can leave the whole of the battlefield by any means. This also means no BFR or self-BFR. If you fly too far, you hit an impenetrable wall.
this should also be changed because some characters naturally break this, like nightcrawler, cloak. it should be determined by time or intent. supes can't leave a bf to sun dip. it's been hinted that jonzz's phasing is a result of shifting his mass to a different dimension. self bfr? no way, obviously. again, this needs to be far less restricting than it has been imo. specific instances can be discussed as they arise but running from a bf for more than a second or 2 should clearly not be allowed.
[r]10. No reality warping.[/b]
why? we allow matter manip of environments, why not reality manip? and who really has the ability in a combat situation? seems pointless so long as, again, no manip to cause insta-death.
11. Rules may be changed if certain strategies become an obvious problem.
less stringency on rules will lead to less ambiguity and fewer situations where individual situations need to be dealt with. it will more importantly, make it easier on judges who are hellbent on enforcing every rule or wondering if this is allowed, or that is allowed. to this end, i think if judges are NOT certain if a rule has been broken, they should discuss it, in thread or among each other. it's very hard as a competitor to have one judge say yeah that's fine, and another say no that's illegal.
12. Matches last 14 days.
too long imo.
13. ( Prep) You will receive a 5 minute briefing about your opponent. You cannot gather gear that would not be considered standard gear.
too long imo. 10 secs would work.
i get the reason for most of these rules, (i've been around tourneys and bz more than pretty well anyone left on this forum...) but in the last tourney (and the one prior) and recently in the bz's, there has been FARRRRRRRRR too much confusion over rules, FARRRRRRR too many personal interpretations of rules by judges. i can tell you definitively things were much much better before they were so closely policed. if more things were allowed it would require less personal interpretation and judges could focus on WHO DEBATED THE BEST, which is where the focus should be.
i'd also like to ADD a rule--judging decisions should be in no more than 5 days from the conclusion of any match. if you can't get a vote in in 5 days--DON'T SIGN UP TO JUDGE! nothing, and i mean nothing kills matches like judges who don't vote. judging isn't always easy and it is immensely appreciated by competitors, (which is why i think we need to look at rules changes to make it EASIER to judge) but it NEEDS to be done in a reasonable time. obviously RL happens, but judges should know going in the EXPECTATION is to get the vote in as quickly as possible. it's essential. if only 3 judges can be found, that should be fine, though 5 is always preferable.
anyway, yeah. to sum up--rules should be loosened in several areas imo while maintaining the spirit and integrity of the matches. if a judge feels someone has broken the spirit of a rule, THAT should be the deciding factor in determining if something was or was not illegal. otherwise, focus on who debated the best.
weigh in, please.