But don’t forget! As the rules are written, players are absolutely allowed to intentionally tilt the machine - that is, as long as their INTENT is for their to be neither a personal benefit to themselves or other players. But they can TILT FOR PURE EVIL!
“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, under these rules, will receive a score of zero. Repeated offenses may result in ejection from the tournament.”
So, as long as your intent is is not to positively impact any player, and only to negatively impact players, you are good to go! I feel like the radical ball lock-eject tilt could be argued to be of a pure intent to negatively impact another player.
“Nope TD, I wasn’t trying to benefit from that tilt, I just wanted to screw Josh over.”
If you’re in a match with someone, I would argue that anything negatively impacting your opponent is the same as something positively impacting you.
The better statement would be:
“I was just testing the limit for the tilt. I felt totally fine sacrificing my bonus on that ball to see if I could find that line of how much I’m able to nudge”
Would you straight up gangsta lie to the TD’s face about why you tilted . . . or would you simply not tilt out because it was against the rules is the real question
Gotta put in the IFPA budget a lie detector test to bring to tournaments. Get players hooked up Meet the Parents style.
It’s possible for players to not know what the right thing is . . .
Organizing body makes the rules → TD’s enforce and help educate the players on these rules → Players are trusted to answer any questions honestly that may come up as to how they played the game (not knowing if that conduct was ‘right or wrong’).
How about a compromise rule where TDs will never penalize for any tilt unless the offending player discusses or in some way advertises to other players that some benefit was gained from said tilt.
Josh, I appreciate the excellent explanations you have given (I never thanked you for the Dracula Mist / Avatar Link explanation and how that is clearly different). I think I understand that given the postulate that 1.) This Rule Exists, it is entirely possible to have this be the norm and rule things accordingly (and letting a lot of the rule enforcement lie on the player’s themselves to not lie to your face, etc.).
With this said, I am still not convinced that pinball is better with this rule than without. I think instead of working from the postulate being true and working around it, we should ask the questions of why the rule exists and whether or not it is a useful rule to have.
I personally think the jumping through hoops to try and enforce it was a good enough argument against the rule, but clearly I was wrong as it seems you have all of the bases covered on that front. So I will try and steer the conversation again towards why this rule is necessary and once again throw in my vote to remove it.
I agree, if only on the basis that it seems to really fly in the face of the mantra “we don’t want to have to judge intent”. It’s easy to judge when someone “runs back to a machine to tilt out”, and I think nearly impossible to judge in any other situation.
Is the idea here to ask players after they tilt if they were doing it intentionally? How often? Or, deputizing other players to police tilts and bring it to a TD’s attention? WHERE DOES THE MADNESS END JOSH?!!1
I wonder if IFPA has ever considered a tiered set of rules. A level rules would be mandatory or your event doesn’t get sanctioned (no points). B level rules would be allowed to be removed/ modified depending on your situation. Completely up to the TD to make the change. Change has to be communicated clearly before the start of event.
Does this happen in any other sport? ‘House’ rules?
Absolutely. At this point I’m mostly trolling, but there are certainly situations like a lazarus/death save issue, where I’ve absolutely asked the player - “Did the ball bounce back into play on its own, or did you influence it in any way?”
I fully expect them to answer honestly, because I do truly believe like golf we play a “gentleman’s game”.
