If someone tilts through to a player who has not played yet (like on ball one), should it still be a DQ?
It should be, or else I could have a really shitty ball and give the machine an extra good shake while it drains without any reprecussion.
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Yes. Curious to hear if there was a situation that brings this question up.
I’d say yes because not all players in a multiplayer game get a free tilt through.
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My answer would be yes, and this is how it was ruled at Pinburgh. Same if a player plays out of turn on ball 1 – one could argue the players should just switch places, but not only could this be gamed, it’s out of character to change a rule based on where during the game a player error occurs.
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We just had this happen today at NW. I was player 4 on LOTR and player 3 tilted through my ball 1. DQ for him, I played my full game after players 1 and 2 finished.
Yup. It was ruled correctly but I’m wondering if there’s any benefit in discussion changing or amending the rule. For example, I know recently it was added that if you tilt through or plunge an already DQ’d player’s ball that there was no penalty. Applying this additionally to someone who hasn’t played yet isn’t that far of a stretch.
Only reason against it I see is that in the former situation, no games are impacted. In the latter, it forces one player to play a game by themselves, also indirectly affecting the non-DQ’d players
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I’d say its a pretty big stretch, and a big problem. There are good reasons the rule is the way it is imo.
Say your player 1, ball 1, you leave some balls in the lock on a “lock stealing” game, you’re draining, so you tilt through on purpose so the other player can’t get your free locks, because, well, there is no penalty.
And another: If this was NOT a DQ it would change the player order significantly. We place a premium on being able to chose your order of play - Say you pick to go last, but all of a sudden player 1 tilts through on ball 1, and now player 2 will suddenly be playing the last ball of the game?
We already have unavoidable situations where this can happen (malfunctions), lets not add situations that are player controllable without any consequences. All sorts of room for purposefully affecting which players play in what order, benefit from game state holdover etc…
-cAyle
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Why didn’t you just play 2 balls and add-a-ball afterwards? Plus, I thought Stern made tilt thru impossible?
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I agree with you 100%, but just wanted to point out this would still be illegal under the hypothetical rule since tilting to gain benefit is illegal. So there should still be a penalty. Although it is one of those unenforceable “player intent” rules.
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Stern Electronics games don’t tilt through; Stern Pinball games do, though it’s pretty hard to consume all the warnings of the next player in general (depending on settings).
This just caused me to wonder about something, though.
Right now, there is no penalty (at least for the first time) for consuming warnings of the next player up. This sucks for the next player, obviously, but now with our (JJP) games defaulting to per-game warnings, this is a pretty major situation. The following 2 things could happen:
- Some or all of a player’s warnings FOR A WHOLE GAME are consumed without them using them up.
- It becomes MUCH easier to incur a tilt-through penalty if the following player has already used up their warnings for the game, compared to before.
Now, this could be an excuse for TDs to get rid of per-game warnings, and whatever, that’s up to them I guess. But at some point this is going to come up and should probably be thought about before anything else major happens.
I guess personally, for me, any warning consumption should be grounds for DQ presuming it happened before the next player put even a feather touch on it.
Maybe, also, I’ll add an adjustment for delay between tilted balls.
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Per the rules, iirc, it would be bobs choice to do as you describe or do what he did.
Most players I’ve seen would choose to do what bob did so as to have a continuous game with progress on their 3rd ball.
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We really don’t have to worry about this until JJP games are actually used in tournaments … /rimshot 
Can you put in an adjustment to manually add tilt warnings for a given player?
I can’t imagine us modifying the tilt through warning verbiage based on warnings per game games versus warnings per ball games. Fix it in software yo!
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IMO it’s a pretty big difference. One instance is tilting through an active player, the other difference is tilting through a voided position (where in the rules it’s pretty clearly handled that anything happening in voided positions is voided activity - accidentally playing their ball, etc).
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I cannot see anything that allows this choice. Can someone give a citation?
This actually changed fairly recently.
IFPA tournament rules used to say that major malfunctions provided the affected player with a choice - play an extra ball after the current game or replay the entire game. This was removed about a year ago, now the rules explicitly say add an extra ball.
At the end of the day it’s the TD’s discretion though, if the player was given the option then it’s valid.
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In cases like mine, the fairest way is to let the person play a whole game from scratch, which is what the player would have done without the tilt through. As cAyle points out, playing 2 balls and then a new game ball 1 after is a (potentially huge) disadvantage re game progress. Think about your Keep locks or Souls counts on LOTR.
That is what we came to after discussing with Ray and Eden. Good discussions to argue points as obviously the affected player was pretty disappointed. Not much bad feeling on my side as the game (LOTR) was notorious to be VERY SENSITIVE the whole week end and the player shook it pretty hard.
As I tilted my WCS94 bonus which would have put me on a tie breaker for final 4… If you shake a machine be ready for consequences
I think it is debatable if this is fairest. It certainly is fairest from machine rules standpoint (on many LOTR getting an extra ball 1 might mean an easier second keep). However, it is potentially a huge psychology advantage(or disadvantage) and a situational advantage.
But if it generally accepted that a major malfunction with zero points (and zero balls played) should be handled differently, then it should be written in the rules. What if it is player 2? Start full new game since all players have no score? What if it is player 3? Do 3 and 4 play a new game, just 3? The goal is to have the same ruling be made consistently in this situation. As written today that is compensation ball.
I forget… does LOTR allow you to add a 4th ball in settings, mid-game, without resetting the current match in progress?