So you get called over at Pinburgh because this situation happened in Session 8.
Players 2,3,4 say that he nudged it when the ball was below the flippers.
Player 1 says he DEFINITELY nudged it while the ball was still in play. It was his plan going into the ball that if the ball was in danger at all, he was going to execute this maneuver, etc. He even calls over Lefkoff & Associates to confirm the situation. Lefkoff & Associates pulls out a letter dated shortly before Session 8 starts that if the player in question is put on Avatar they will execute this nudge at the precise time that Player 1 says he executed the nudge.
Thereâs no video evidence of anything, just Players 2,3,4âs comments to you, and Player 1âs comments to you.
Avatar (and X-men) is easy to negate since you can use virtual lock settings for the captives. FYI if you have a Stern game from the early 2000s clean or use fine sandpaper on the tilt bob ring. You will be amazed how dirty and non conductive it becomes over time.
This sort of thing is why Pinburgh has four-player games and not two-player head to head play. I have three people who independently (and independently, because Iâve pulled them aside one at a time) corroborate the same story? They win. You could have written the same story about a death save, with P1 saying it didnât happen and three other people saying it did. The most recent time I had a 3-against-1 ruling at Pinburgh was when a player stepped up, plunged, tilted while plunging (!), then argued it was a tilt-through from the previous player.
If we canât rely on people to tell the truth about what is happening, the whole format is out the door.
The 2001 thing is fine, thatâs a Leo Daniels Death Slam right there.
Do you really think âno nudging after drain for player benefitâ isnât clear? You donât have to be hands off, and most of the stuff youâd be nudging for, like a captive ball hit, would be pretty obvious. Itâs hard for me to understand why this should be allowed when death saves arenât.
I think the bigger question for me is in absence of a camera or other direct observation, who is to say where the ball was? I mean, I may possibly agree with the concept behind what youâre talking about, but implementation-wise I donât really see how it can work in a way that can be ruled on in a consistent and fair manner. As a TD, I do not want to be the arbitrer of when a moment in time occurred that delineates a legal move from an illegal one. I have enough problems.
Yeah that is why I always believe the player who was actually there playing rather than anyone else. If that player wants to lie to my face? Well, then there we are. In your example, I would always rule against the plunging player anyways, because if the game had actually tilted through it would have been dead before they even got to the plunger, and if that was so, then why did they plunge? If they didnât notice and then plunged? Sorry buddy, thatâs on you. So I donât even need the other players in that one. And thatâs kind of my point, in almost any ruling we have, we donât actually need the word of the other players. Either the evidence is right there in the game, or its not. Ball stuck during multiball? Itâs right there. Malfunction? Right there. Tilt through? Right there. Three people arguing about whether or not the ball was out of bounds? Pass.
Game of Thrones has some fun logic. If you have balls locked just shove the game right as it enters the trough. As it counts the balls, as long as the one in trough isnât the last one that is recognized youâll get âChoose Your Houseâ instead of end of ball bonus
Iâve lost a league finals because of this move done against me on ball three when I had the lead. I didnât put up a fight or think he was in the wrong. The move is just bush league imo. Have some class and know when youâve lost
This is bush league in the same way that plunger cheese and one-ball multiball is bush league. And both of those have been declared invalid. This should be, too.
This is actually a very nuanced question - Centaur, IJ, TX Sector, Fathom and many other games have features built into the game that encourage us to move the machine on outlane drains (and maybe they even add rubber near the trough - why is that there?). I assume it is okay to move the machine as long as the ball can be saved by that feature, but if it passes that point we are not free to execute a death save or bang back. But the rule will have to account for all of these, because many are below an outlane switch.
Further, I donât equate a batman crane nudge or avatar push up with the BSD shove, because often the BSD shove is done with another ball in play. There is a BSD slide that brings a ball into play when the mist ball is locked on the left (when the mist feature wasnât even active), and this is how I see these moves. I know that Josh Sharpe is always talking about being able to enforce rules, and forcing scorekeepers to watch people play games is a bad idea, additionally - it seems like we might be making rules regarding intent here. What if someone makes a big move to save a ball, fails, but started their multiball? What if the save was successful and they started their multiball? In other words, did he make a forward nudge on a ball heading to the outlane to save it, or because he knew it was headed to the outlane and wanted to start a multiball? Did she slide the machine to pop the ball out of the left mist hole or to save the ball headed down the middle?
I donât know the answers to these questions, they seem tough.
Same situation except this time Zen nudges the game hard while in multiball to save one of his balls in play⌠There just happened to be a ball in Link with the Super lit at the time. Whoops!
(Oh the Link was also at 2X for the super cause that makes this more entertaining)
Shove for 12M or shove for a tilt. Player takes his chances. One of the best things about pinball, and one of the reasons Zenâs move was awesome and should have been allowed.
While the ballâs in play? Anything goes. That is right in line with nudging for Mist. If both balls have drained down the outlanes and then the player does that to win a match? No thanks. Thatâs my judge of whether it should be allowed â that would be garbage.
Nice. Thatâs in play, itâs clearly there to help bring the ball back â though the weird position allows for a left outlane save that few games can offer.
It looks like this all suffers from defining what it means for the ball to be out of play. I still feel pretty strongly that this shouldnât be allowable play, there are many games and circumstances where weird and bad things could happen.
