Tournament ruling- the intentional tilt.

There are just 3 locations in the whole of the UK which have enough machines on site to be able to host anything like a meaningful tournament.
The only way larger tournaments are possible are through private owners donating and bringing their own machines to venues, or hosting at their homes.

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Iā€™m arriving a week late in this conversation. FYI, Iā€™m on board with just kill the 'DQ if intentionally tilt" rule, not just for EB, but in all cases. Secondly, letā€™s standardize the plunge EB rule. Here are my thoughts in one place after reading 180+ messages.

  1. Reason for people wanting to tilt an EB that triggered this discussion: donā€™t accidentally start the mode or multiball youā€™ve worked all game to get to. This is totally legitimate. The purpose of plunging EBs is not to screw anyone. Itā€™s simply to manage tourney situations where turning them off is not practical nor possible. And for those of you say donā€™t use those locations, then HA, not going to happen; @CFFLegs summarizes why not quite well.

  2. Another reason Iā€™ve seen people want to tilt EB: test the tilt mechanism on a ball that doesnā€™t count, or on a machine with no end-of-ball bonus (e.g. NBA FB). Is knowing how sensitive tilt is an ā€˜advantageā€™? Who wants to enforce if that was done intentionally? If you tilt, you tilt regardless of intent. If you get an EB, then your choice to test the tilt, or earn end-of-ball bonus points. Thatā€™s your reward for earning the EB.

  3. For something like Radical, just use a game-specific rule. There are many machines that have game-specific rules. Either play as single-player game, or for that machine, player has choice of collecting End-of-ball bonus, vs making other person earn an extra lock. Donā€™t make a general rule to handle a specific situation that only happens on a few machines.

  4. For something like TAF, itā€™s a very small award, i.e. GREED letter? Why have a penalty of a DQ for such a minor gain? Again, let it be playerā€™s choice for bonus vs that letter. So let it happen. Is it possible to tilt late enough to get both the bonus, but then still the letter? If yes, then let the player try to time it and suffer the consequences if they donā€™t time it right.

  5. ā€œIntentionalā€ vs ā€œUnintentionalā€ is nearly impossible rule to implement. 95% of the time, TD is not watching. When TD is watching, itā€™s still a judgement call. Letā€™s get rid of ā€˜intentionalā€™ rules wherever possible, and especially when weā€™re talking about such a huge penalty for such a minor infraction. Dealing with any DQ where judgement comes into play situation is so much more problematic than just having a rule that doesnā€™t require any judgement at all.

  6. There are already rules regarding unsportsmanlike conduct and TD can apply those rules ranging from warning to DQ. Suppose a player is tilting at the end of every ball just to get the tilt bob moving for other player. Then someone complains. TD gives a warning to that player, and may actually watch. If they do it again DQd. But for the other 99.9% of the cases, TD doesnā€™t need to be involved. Let the machine speak, tilt is a tilt and whatever happens on that machine happens.

  7. Although PAPA/IFPA combined rule set doesnā€™t cover plunging EBs, probably the majority of tourneys, especially the non-majors, need to do this. Itā€™s been extremely helpful even in local events to get everyone to follow the same rules, so that when, say, someone from Seattle goes to play in Portland or Calif, players already understand general tourney rules. So PAPA and IFPA can help all the local tourneys that create the player base to feed into the major PAPA and IFPA tourneys. So by helping local tourneys with this rule, you help them grow that player base.

  8. Assuming you do agree to add a plunge EB rule, letā€™s also address the inconsistency in what is allowed or not allowed. Some variations Iā€™ve seen in different tourneys: can you flip to change lanes before plunging? If auto plunger (e.g. gun, STTNG with Battlemode or DH) can you choose the gun skill shot and take one gun shot? can you tilt? Are you allowed one-flip? What do you do if the game gives infinite ball saver? Letā€™s make a plunge-EB rule that is enforceable and non-ambiguous.

Iā€™m not a fan of the ā€œplay any 3 ballsā€, because sometimes a player with choice prefers to go first. Playing your EB in favor of ball 3 changes the order. Just plunge the ball, but allow a player to choose tilting vs. end-of-ball points as their reward for earning the EB.

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Good comments, @dbs. But for me personally, the most important one is this:

I think too many rulesets try to overcomplicate things. (I wonā€™t even exclude the FSPA rules that I oversee from this criticism.) Let the machine itself be the judge, jury, and executioner, unless thereā€™s a clear and unambiguous indication that itā€™s broken.

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ā€¦ edit below ā€¦

So we can get rid of the rule?

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@PAPA_Doug

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Always the rule I live by.

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Wait what

This thread has been great for inspiration :laughing:

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haha I hope thatā€™s a real one!

If weā€™re going down that road, how about a ā€œYou Are Overruledā€ card: use it any time during game play to Violate a single tournament rule, e.g. playing an extra ball, continuing to play a stuck multiball, tilting through to the next player, etc.

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Iā€™m way ahead of you Bob :smiling_imp:

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So the rule can go?

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No, as Josh stated above the rule is staying.

Is there any sort of willingness to state the intent behind the rule? The ā€œbecause we said soā€ nature of responses so far have been very off-putting.

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The intent of the rule is to penalise any player who deliberately tilts or slam tilts a machine in order to derive some benefit to his or her own play, or the play of others.

Thatā€™s about as ā€œbecause we say soā€ as it gets

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Itā€™s not. Iā€™m not sure what youā€™re asking for here. The intent is stated in the rule. Perhaps clarify what you expect in an answer. I honestly donā€™t know what an acceptable answer is here.

Perhaps the question goes back to ā€œso tilting out your EB on MET to avoid starting CIT is still not allowed?ā€

Sounds like it is not allowed if after you do that you admit to doing it on purpose.