There has been some interest in the reasons why I left the campaign. I thought it was obvious but apparently it is not and therefore I have written this post.
BASIC PRINCIPLE
Whenever a player tries to exercise his rights according to the rules and someone objects to that, the one objecting must present a reason, else it is a waste of bandwidth. Indeed, in every aspect of life this rule hold true that to object you need a reason.
OLD RULE
In this game we have so far had an unlimited right to edit provinces between nations between sessions. No limitations are in the rules, nor do I remember any limitations being used.
WHAT HAPPENED
Scotland tried to exercise this right when they asked for two Indian provinces to be edited to me.
OBJECTION
Norrefeldt then wrote in post 361 of the diplomatic thread
Norrefeldt said:
I object against having provinces not under the owners control (rebels, foreign occupation) should be edited. In this case Hyderabad.
You will note how he here fails to give any reason. What he says is merely that provinces with certain characteristics should not be allowed to be edited. I.e. he qualifies his argument, narrowing down the target. A similar effect would have been created if he had e.g. written that “green provinces” should not be allowed to be edited. The reader is left in the dark regarding why he wants it to be like he proposes. What are the benefits of his proposal? What bad things can we avoid if we do what he says?
Since he so apparently failed to observe this basic rule for objections, I did not care to answer.
SILENCE
Then nothing happened for quite some days. I kept my eyes open all the time to see if anything did happen. Then Cobjor brought up the matter when he in post 379 wrote
UP TO THE SURFACE
cobjor said:
Aladar, what about edits concerning provinces not under the owners control?
To which Norrefeldt responded in post 380
Norrefeldt said:
I'd also like this clarified.
If there are no restrictions on this, the right course for the TO last session would have been to transfer all enemy occupied provinces to neutral states, thereby lowering the warscore.
As can be seen Norrefeldt here gives a reason for his suggestion. That if all provinces could be transferred that could then be abused in the way he describes. This is a correct observation and I am quite sure we all agree that we do not want anything like that to happen.
Now our GM Aladar responds and shows he has not seen Norrefeldt’s objection at all and wonders what this is all about. He is then informed by Norrefeldt in post 382.
Norrefeldt said:
Is it allowed to transfer provinces to other players by edit, even if they are currently not controlled by the nation giving them away? (Rebels or foreign occupation.)
So what does our GM now do? Does he ask all parts in the debate (and anyone else for that matter) to give his views on the matter? No, he just posts a “No” in response to post 382. There is no reason given for his sentence. Just a “no”.
I must admit that I did not think any GM would ever do like this. Did Aladar not understand that his decision would have impact on the game?
ON THE DUTY OF A GM
It is imperative that a GM who is about to make a decision that benefits/harms players
1. first informs himself about the facts and views on the matter, and
2. then makes his ruling in which he not only gives his ruling but also explains why he made the ruling. It is vital that you as a judge make sure you try to assist the parties concerned by your ruling in their process of reconciliation with the ruling. To do this you motivate your ruling as good as you can and as the circumstances allow. This is a basic principle of acting as judge.
In both of these regards Aladar failed.
An hour later or so I caught sight of what had evolved (these last few posts had been done in a few hours).
I ENTER THE DEBATE
I immediately posted, post 386, where I wrote
Daniel A said:
What is this?
There are no such limits in the rules. Frankly I did not think I needed to argue about this.
In this case Scotland owns two provinces in India, one of which is reb controlled, and wants to transfer both of them to Portugal.
This is not a case of having ones provinces controlled by an enemy and thus a sneaky way to lower the war score. What stops me and Scotland to sign a document transferring ownership of those provinces? Nothing. It does not harm the game anything, there is nothing in the rules that says it is not allowed and is entirely realistic.
As can be seen I, in contrast to all other participants in the debate so far, focus on the reasons. I point out that the only reason presented, the one about giving away provinces to a friend during a war, is not applicable in this case.
I thought that now all will understand and we will be able to end this irritating incident.
Now our GM responds
Aladar said:
You are free to let Hyderabad revolt away and take it then. Transfering a revolting provinses is in my view not allowed.
I.e. he does not spend one millimetre on the question why we should do this, what the benefits for the game would be, what a potential exploit could be.
Nothing gets better by reading this post by Bob who comments on Aladar’s post.
Dr Bob said:
Good call
I now became quite specific and wrote
Daniel A said:
Why? I see no reason for that decision. As I explicitly stated. And you did not give any now.
Note that we do not transfer controlship, only ownership.
Norre gave a reason, but that reason is not applicable for this situation, when it is not controlled by another nation but by rebs and the nation is at peace.
The fact is that no applicable reason at all has been put forward.
The fact is that I have clearly pointed at this being so.
The fact is that the true reason for the motion put forward seems to be none other than to harm us. Had there been a real honorable reason present in the mind of those approving of the suggestion, then I am quite sure it would have been presented.
I take for granted that the decision will be changed.
ON "REASONS"
For the benefit of the reader I will now expand a little on the subject of “reasons”.
Take for instance the rule about forbidding using pirates to interfere with landing/loading. In reality a fleet of say 100 war ships would not have been attacked by say two pirate ships, and even if it was it would be a minor nuisance, not one that meant the whole loading might have to start from fresh again. It is simply a flaw in the game, it does not reflect reality and thus we all consider it an exploit, an exploit of a flaw in the construction of the game, a flaw of unreality . And we all live happy afterwards because we would hate to e.g. lose a leader because of this.
Now take another example - the Spanish bankruptcy events. FAL likes to forbid players to avoid them arguing that these events try to portrait the bankruptcy that in reality happened to Spain and you should not be able to avoid them merely by giving away those gold mines during the life time of the event. Other people believe it is a matter of skill to know about this event and adjust to it. They argue that the game is filled with unrealistic things and we cannot forbid all of them. These people believe the game become more fun if we allow all of these “smart” things, like avoiding the bankruptcy event. Well both sides have an argument here. Both have given their reasons. The former base it firmly on the “reality”-condition while the latter do not want to apply that condition too strict. Well, the reasons have been presented and we can all make up our own opinion and we can all respect our counterpart’s position, because it is rational. It is based upon a correct conclusion from a principle that can at least, by both sides, be characterised as reasonable.
BACK TO THE CURRENT PROBLEM
Now we go back to the current problem. As you can see I have tried to get to know the reason behind the suggestion and Aladar's approval of it. The only reason presented has been demonstrated as not applicable in this case.
So we have no principle to draw conclusions from.
Since I was extremly clear about the lack of reason in my last post (see above) I must admit that I felt quite certain I would get at least one now (from Aladar or Norrefeldt), or, even better, that Aladar admitted neither he could find any and thus he had changed his ruling.
Well, I was disappointed.
One of the next posts is this:
Norrefeldt said:
We get to an area where our rules doesn't apply, where exploits are possible. The GM decides one thing, to make the game move on. You can have another opinion, and that's fully valid, since we don't have the rule for it. In the end Aladar is the GM, he decides. Move on.
You will here notice that instead of trying to prove that it could be exploited to allow transfer of reb controlled provinces during peace, he mixes that case together with the war-case and calls it “an area” were exploits is possible. It seems I have been talking to a wall, he just refuses to take up my argument I made versus his exploit-argument and instead just iterates it.
It is like two children arguing
A: I say X
B: I say Y to that
A: well I say X again
B: hey, I argued Y to that
A: well I say X again
Ad nauseam.
Further more Norrefeldt ends by telling me to “move on”, as if he was the GM.
Any discussion ends either by one of the parties stopping or by someone with such authority to do so orders it to stop. In this case that one is Aladar. but he had not yet said “STOP”. Thus no one can tell anyone else to stop arguing his case. Especially not one that again and again refuses to inspect his counterpart’s argument in order to either agree or refute it.
Another one not understanding this is Cobjor who writes
cobjor said:
GM has spoken. Case closed.
I now began to think that Aladar perhaps made some kind of premature conclusion, deciding on the matter without understanding the facts. I therefore wrote a little later, post 396,
“… No doubt Aladar will shortly post that he made the decision assuming me and Scotland somehow exploited something, trying to gain an unfair advantage etc but that he has now understood that this was in fact not at all the case. …”
I now was entirely sure Aladar would consider the question thoroughly, collect any more views he thought he needed, and then make his final ruling being able to explain it satisfactorily. What I did get was:
ALADAR'S FINAL RULING
Aladar said:
I will however not change my ruling, as i see it as an exploit to transfer revolted provinses to other nations. Either deal with the rebels or loose the provinses the natural way.
You can see here there is no reason is given. He says it is an exploit. But of what? He leaves us in the dark. He cannot mean an exploit of the reality aspect, as in the pirate case, since there is nothing unrealistic for two rulers to sign a contract of transferring the ownership of a reb controlled province, the only difference compared to if it was not reb controlled would be that the price would be lower since the new owner had to take care of the rebs himself.
If someone wonders: me and Scotland had the agreement that I took care of the rebs in these two provinces. Portuguese armies had just crushed the rebs in the province to the south of Hyderabad (the other province in this province transfer deal between the two nations) and was on their way to start sieging/assaulting Hyderabad. The save is there for anyone to see.
THE DEBATE MUST END
As Aladar now said he “won’t change” his ruling this time was final. In contrast to the earlier case when he merely said “no” and when arguments still could be put forward. Thus the debate effectively had to end. Some of you will do well to observe this distinction as you failed to understand it at the time it happened.
LOOKING BACK AT MY EXPERIENCE OF RULINGS
I have played a good many games in my life. And many times have I been punished by rulings of the referee, or a “GM”, or the majority of friends (in case of playing board games at home for example where most arguments are decided democratically, at least in my circles). In some cases the reasons for my punishment has been good, in some doubtful and in some unjust.
But they have never been
non-existing. This is a first for me.
TO SUM IT UP
The failure of both co-players and the GM to observe proper procedure, i.e. to present reasons for objections, to make sure all parties are heard before a “punishing” ruling is made and to give a rational explanation for the ruling; to deviate from proper procedure to the actual gross extent; to refuse to answer questions made by your counterpart, questions of the utmost importance for the material analysis of the issue; all of this is for me unacceptable. I generally try to avoid playing games with people who behave like this. Thus I lost the love I had for the game and to leave it was an easy decision to make . In fact I believe it took only 5 seconds to make after having read Aladar’s final post.
