Ruling question - Batman 66

By the time you ask the TD over to clarify hopefully it’s already moved and it’s a non-issue :stuck_out_tongue:

All right, reading this thread has given me something to think about.

So, if you don’t know already, I’m vehemently against the “Dirty Pool Exception.” But now I think I have an argument on my side.

If you invoke the Dirty Pool Exception, THEN it should be incumbent on you to release that ball at some point during the multiball. If you don’t then you need to tilt when you drain out of multiball, otherwise you get dinged for illegally inducing a ball search to your favor (because you get the ball back).

:smiley:

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I agree. It was fun to take the contrarian position, to see if it would work.
It didn’t. :slight_smile:

Follow-up question:

I wasn’t aware that BM66 had no interlock prior to this happening.

If the same thing happened on a BDK with no coin door ball save and the interlock enabled, the player would be obliged to drain out of multiball to force a ball search, correct? Either that or we’d call a tech over to open the coin door and drain it for them.

Since we are talking stuck balls in tourney . I was in monger on Ironman when ball got stuck on monger. Trapped up both balls with third ball in middle of monger. Called TD over knowing I was going to lose both balls when coin door opens. My dilemma is that we waited for ball search which raised monger then lost it going right down the middle, oh well that sucks. This tourney did have a key to get into machine which the better ruling would have been to open up the machine have dropped balls go bye bye and then put stuck ball on flipper instead of waiting on ball search to have it go right down the middle. It did not cost me a strike in game but it could have by having all balls drain .

Hope I explained it ok .

Had I been TD, I would’ve told you to play on since you had two balls live and one stuck. But I know that’s not how some would do it.

But yeah the solution to dump the two on the flipper and get the stuck one on a trap works too.

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Maybe I didn’t follow something, but you don’t have an argument in that post…? It sounds like you wrote what you think the rules should be without any supporting arguments.

Why is not multiball with one ball stuck allowed to be continued until the player is down to two balls? Seems wrong that you should drain (for example) 3 balls because 1 is stuck.

It’s allowed if you declare that it’s allowed for events that you run! Event directors are always welcome to use whatever rules they deem appropriate for their event.

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I don’t run events. I’m just curious about the reasoning behind this rule. Is it because a player might “not notice” that they are down to one ball (+ the stuck one) if they have some mega mb opportunity lit?

I can’t speak for the authors of the PAPA/IFPA ruleset which is commonly cited for this rule… but I believe the general philosophy amongst those who support this rule is that by having a ball stuck during multiball, you essentially have a “free” ball saver: you can play with the remaining balls until you drain them all out, then have the stuck ball freed by a TD and keep going. There is a related complaint that if a multiball software rule is active (jackpots lit, playfield X, whatever it is for the game) but only one ball is “live” that the player will then effortlessly shoot every lit shot with the ball in play, collecting rewards that are intended to be more difficult due to the management of multiple balls.

I am against 1-ball multiballs, that’s why my suggestion was to allow playing up to the point where only one ball is live. I see what you’re saying about draining all other balls and having an official over once you only have the stuck ball, that’s a valid point although this can happen regardless of this rule if nobody is paying attention. Still seems wrong that you would have to drain out of let’s say RtU because 1 ball of 4 got stuck.

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I believe that Phurbas are not okay under this rule, because doing this manuever destroys a mech in the game? Can someone confirm I am not making this up? Also - Dirty Pool exception is specific to AFM and does not apply to any other game even if that game has a similar mech (spiderman’s sandman). I wish there was a way to induce a ball search with flippers raised.

For IFPAPA staff you’ll never have to worry about this because our interlocks are disabled. The rules that we use are written with that in mind. As Joe said, ask the TD ahead of time about how they will handle the situation before the tournament starts and feel free to go ‘off book’ for it.

Dirty Pool language got updated to generalise to any situation where the software has a rule for that situation. So spiderman is still stuck, but jackpot is not.

In multiball, some games offer the opportunity to stick a ball in an area that can only be freed if the player uses another ball to free it. Examples include getting a ball stuck behind a visor on games including Attack From Mars, Jackbot and Spiderman. The ruling in this situation is based on whether the game has software written into it to specifically address the mode or situation. On Attack from Mars and Jack*Bot, the Dirty Pool rule is specifically written for that situation. In these cases the ball behind the visor would NOT be considered stuck and players would continue to play on. On Spiderman however, since there is no game rule written for that situation, this would be considered a stuck ball and the player should attempt to trap the other ball(s) in play and request assistance. No attempts should be made by the player to continue shooting shots around the playfield trying to free the stuck ball if that ball is deemed to be stuck under this rule.

This is a legal move since direct player action will release the ball.

With that said, due to the potential damage to the mechs that it can cause, we recommend TD’s explicitly list on the backglass that it’s an illegal move for their specific event (at their own discretion).

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Potential damage… talking about the risk of breaking the Phurba weldments, or something else?

If Phurba assists / traps were made illegal I’d have a really hard time breaking the habit. That’s just become an involuntary move every time I shoot a ramp.

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