Ultimately, it’s your call as the TD of the event. Though be aware that the IFPAPA rules are not aligned with your thought in this instance. Section I.9 Player Errors
In any multiplayer match on any machine, it is the equal responsibility of ALL players involved in the match to ensure that the correct number of players are started. If a game is started with the incorrect number of players, anything that occurs within that game is considered void, with no penalty to any player. At no time may players be added to the game once player 1 has plunged their ball into play. At no time may player 1 finish their game as a single-player. The game must be restarted from scratch, with the correct number of players started.
I’ll just note that I don’t think this one is just a matter of knowing Spanish/not knowing Spanish either. When I was a pretty inexperienced player, I had someone do this one time (possibly by accident) during a tournament match. I felt disadvantaged by it and a little miffed because I didn’t know the game very well, whereas my opponent was someone very familiar with the game. It would therefore be a greater setback for me to not be able to understand the in-game instructions than it would for my opponent, assuming neither of us understood Spanish. (Pretty sure I would have lost anyway.)
OK, What about a case where it’s a two player EM. The correct # of players were started for players 3/4, but after ball one, the game failed to advance to player two. We probably should have sought a ruling, but we didn’t and re-started the game. The game worked normally after that and we finished the game. THEN one of the first two players complained to the TD and asked for a ruling. TD’s, how would you have handled this? I’m very interested because I’m fairly certain the wrong ruling was made, and in the end it benefited me.
IMO players don’t generally get to wait and see the outcome of the game before they decide if they want a ruling. I would rule the match valid in your example.
I agree with @YeOldPinPlayer. Way too late at that point to complain about the ruling. In fact, IMHO it’s NFL rules: as soon as the next play (or in this case, ball) starts, the review and appeals window is closed.
The practical reason in this particular situation is that it’s unfair for other participants to wait and see how the final scores wind up before deciding if they want them changed. And in the 4P match/2P machine scenario, the two “idle” players are indeed participants and should be paying attention at the time of the malfunction. If they weren’t, tough luck.
While I agree that the players should ask for a ruling at the time of the incident, and not after they see the result. I also think that as a TD, if the result of the game is invalid, you can’t simply say “oh well, you should have told me after ball 1”. It impacts all players in the tournament and the were not available or watching to ask for a ruling. If it was raiswd before the round finished, I think you need to address it. Restarting the game was wrong, and probably needs a DQ for whoever did it (even if the intent was good).
Thank you for the replies. The ACTUAL ruling that was made was this. Player 3 was DQ’d, unless all 4 players could agree to play another full 4 player game on a different machine. With much hemming and hawing we agreed to play another game on a different machine. I went from 3rd place on the original game to 1st place on the replacement game. I was glad for the result, but it sure didn’t feel right.
I don’t TD much but this sounds like an especially odd ruling, “DQ unless…” Was the basis for the DQ that P3 was responsible for illegally restarting the machine/game? Why would the other players become the jury in any case?
Very odd indeed. Player 3 was going to be DQ’d for restarting his game. Even though I, as player 4, was the player to actually push the credit button to start over after we discussed it.
I think bottom line is:
A: We should have sought a ruling as soon as we saw the malfunction.
B: The TD should never allow the group to make the decision.
I’m also strongly opposed to rulings that allow players to decide things among themselves. It puts pressure on players to agree with things they shouldn’t. The TD should always have to be the “bad guy.”
This isn’t a simple case here. I agree with the idea that you can’t decide after, but the decision to restart the game when it wouldnt advance to player 2 seems like one that wouldn’t have been made by a TD.
One year at Pinburgh someone played out of order in my group on ball one. I was P3 and saw P2 tilt so I was waiting and talking with someone and P4 walked up and played. The TD left it up to us to decide as a group if we would switch players 3 and 4. If anyone objected P4 would be DQ. Someone objected. I think the rules wouldn’t allow that now. Thankfully.
Yeah. Not sure when that was but the decision to allow switching is incorrect. Any of those “hey so you all want to agree to X” decisions shouldn’t happen.
I know this is an old message but I only recently signed up here.
I agree that this is wasn’t a joke. I am starting a new league here in Houston and because some schmuck (who happens to also be a TD in that league, no less!) did this once when I was playing the existing weekly league, I actually have it in my rulebook that this is interference on the player responsible for starting the game, unless all players agree to play using the same foreign language, whatever it may be (Spanish, French, Swahili, Arabic, Klingon, etc).
Since 90%+ of games do not have player selectable languages and usually use only English, this isn’t an issue that will arise often, but should not be ignored when it does.
What about Godzilla? Where it is per player? And maybe auto picked if an switch is flaky.
May also need an rule to cover for things like GOT where there is per player choice. So people can’t find an way to rule shark it.
If it’s per player then that rule wouldn’t apply. But most of the (older Stern?) games where language can be picked, it’s first player picks for everyone.
