I agree with this in terms of fairness, and think it’s an appropriate solution — but I don’t feel that the IFPAPA rules specifically provide for this ruling. I went back and reread as well. Could you point me to the sentences that capture this interpretation? I would prefer to make this ruling.
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I guess character selection on Stern Star Wars also falls into the ‘major feature denied’ category then? I’ve been calling that one wrong, it’s happened a couple times in our league. Also been denied choice of awards at start of ball from time to time, I’m inclined to call that a minor malfunction- play on but it’s kind of important too. If your strategy is go for TIE fighter multi-ball those free fifteen TIE fighters available to certain characters is kind of a big deal.
If this was a one-player qualifying, I could see giving a fresh game. But if you’re in a multi-player situation and one player has already completed a ball, then I call ‘play on’ every time.
As a player here’s a tip: Pull out the plunger before the ball is launched. This can prevent the accidental triggering of the shooter lane switch even when the barrel spring is screwed up.
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Or immediately hit the left flipper after pressing start. Haha.
That only helps on a one player game for which it’s already been stated that the game would be restarted in that instance. In this case I was player 2 and player 1 stood at the game until their bonus finished (which they have every right to do). The second the bonus is done the next ball goes into the plunger lane. I’d have no time to get in-front of the game to do this.
FWIW, we don’t lock-in until valid playfield (unless you use button, which you should do 100% of the time), so it would take very specific and unlikely-to-be-flaky switches going bad to have this issue.
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I assume this comes from the Minor Malfunction description which include “…without providing any player a significant advantage over others.”
Significant advantage is open to TD discretion. My understanding is that pinburgh TDs agreed upon some specific conventions for consistency outside of the written IFPA / PAPA unified rules (which are maybe not as unified now due to this)
OK. I could see that interpretation. But evaluating the solution (the affected player gets to play a single-player game after the conclusion of the other three players) against the same criterion, I’d argue that there’s even greater advantage given to the player who now gets to play her/his own single-player game with full knowledge of the other three players’ scores – on GOT, in particular.
One unorthodox solution to this pickle: compensate the affected player with the single-player game, but require them to leave the area and not see/hear the outcome of the other three players’ games. This way, the affected player doesn’t get the significant disadvantage of being robbed of their House choice, while not getting the significant advantage of full knowledge of opponents’ scores.
Thoughts?
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It’s one thing to remove the advantage, but your solution gives the player an extra disadvantage.
Isn’t removing an advantage logically the same thing as providing a disadvantage? That’s the point. Or am I missing what you’re trying to say?
Trying to put myself in the position of the affected player: I would rather get my preferred House (vs the default Stark) while playing out a single-player game with no knowledge of opponents’ scores vs having to compete as House Stark with the usual ball-by-ball knowledge of 1-3 players’ status.
Part of normal gameplay is being able to react to your opponents during the game – reading their feeds, anticipating the strategy and score you’ll need, etc. The affected player misses out on all this.
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You’re not wrong Steve, but what solution do you propose? Assume Player X has lost their house choice in a four player match. Now what, and why that solution?
I honestly would say play on. The other houses may be preferred, but I don’t see the overwhelming advantage in any of them. It’s highly dependent on the type of player and their game knowledge. Unless the game forced you into Lannister (zero advantage imo), I say play on. Then try to fix. If it happens again, pull the game.
My strong preference is not to use a GoT that has the potential to introduce this problem.
If this isn’t possible, I would put a sign on the backglass that says that any player who gets an auto-selected house has the option to play a new 1P game at the conclusion of the game. (No isolation booth, etc.)
This is true. Yes, the affected player would miss out on that. For GOT, I’d argue that there aren’t many notable feeds to observe – unless the TD has installed the extra rubber on the R orbit wall like IFPA Nationals / Pinmasters did this year.
This is exactly the significant advantage that is afforded to the affected player by being able to play an after-the-fact single-player game.
Agreed. No ideal solution here. I think either of our approaches is reasonable, as long as it’s applied consistently of course.
The best way to handle it is to fix or rule out any GoT with this problem, IMO.
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This will never happen, but maybe stern could put out a software update where the game defaults to Martel as the first house in the selection list instead of Stark. Is anyone going to complain they are stuck playing Martel?
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Potentially, this is all GOT, as any modern pinball machine is susceptible to having a shooter lane switch issue. In the case from yesterday, I’d never seen this particular GOT register a false release of the shooter switch. And it didn’t do it again on multiple rounds.
Hmmmm, the more I think about it, if the ball kicked into the shooter lane bounces in a weird way, it could land on the shooter switch, and bounce upward (airball, or roll up the shooter lane), and trigger the house selection. (On GOT, your house is selected as soon as you partially plunge the ball, regardless of whether it fully left the shooter lane or not.)
That’s a great solution! And simple – just need to convince Stern to do a quick patch. 
Have you played in a pinball tournament? Trust me, people will complain. Haha
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