Intentional grounding in where the other team get’s an penalty for something the team with the ball did?
Like saying that you can give the team calling for an fair catch an tripping penalty by doing something like standing to there back and takeing an soccer dive? or not even that just trying to make more likely for them to foul you?
This is pretty much the same as curling. There are time keepers, observers, and umpires. The umpires resolve disputes if the teams cannot self officiate. The rules general state that non-offending team get’s to decide. Umpires are responsible for declaring the clock should be stopped in a timeout for example.
Umpires now also measure rocks if players cannot agree. This you to be done by the teams themselves, but they changed it a few years ago. There is also technology for things like hog line violations. But when the technology failed at the Olympics this year, they fell back on honour system.
As you say, the base violation is separate from any additional player conduct concerns. For the original question of this thread: 1) Did the violator interfere with another player, resulting in loss of turn (or however exactly that rule is written for the specific event)? Yes, so apply the prescribed remedy and penalty for that violation. 2) Did the violator do so in a way that was malicious, or otherwise warrants a more severe penalty? This is where a “was it intentional?” question can come into play. The situation described here sounds accidental, so I wouldn’t expect any further penalties to be assessed… whereas if someone just walks over and intentionally shakes the hell out of another player’s game in progress, I’m considering ejecting that player from the tournament.
Think of it in the context of another common error: playing out of turn. If I walk up to a game in progress, start playing, and then realize it was someone else’s turn, in most rulesets, I’m DQ’ed. Doesn’t matter if I did that intentionally or not. It’s reasonable to treat interference calls with the same objectivity.
(Of course, if the ruleset in force does not call for a player DQ for committing interference, then none of this matters anyway. 
But I’m just talking through the thought experiment based on the OP description of “Normally, player A would get a compensation ball and B would be DQd for interference.”)
Even then are cases in where with an out of trun where player 1 can tell player 2 you are up in error or even in an way to get player 2 intentionally DQed by saying that player 2 is up when they are really not.
I say we do need to deal with offsetting penalties set ups. Or in an case in where 2 more players both do an penalties then that should not just go to DQ but at the very least have an system for appeals / downgrades.
The last thing that you want is for people to win by rule sharking.
Now by the rule book what where does it say when an players turn is over??
And does the next player have the right to be able to view the game in play?? (can’t be told to sit down / stand to far back?)
Is the trun over when an player says you are up to the next player?
Is the trun soft over in that case?? (NO DQ)
What if they walk away and the game looks like the next player is up? (some games just show the skill shot stuff and not the player scores)
Something odd happens with the game?
The game does it trun order in an odd way?
The game has an ball save that does not show ball save (some games after locking balls) (others like road show have some mid ball ones)
The Game has an odd fault and jumps players?
more to add to had
Now going back to the 1st case
Should an player in an foul for there space being cut down mid ball do someone on an other game makeing an move?? and DQ seems extreme to not only the fouling player but to the other players on the same game (why give them an free pass??) also unfair to the player makeing the move they get comp ball + maybe to the other players in that game the player makeing the move get’s an comp ball?
Do we need an lesser DQ? You lose your score but get to play an full new game? for some cases?
Long story short, tighten your tilts when hosting competitive play.
Good luck on a whitestar.
In locations with games close together, like in the pic above, non-skid feet under the legs is probably more important. The grippy ones makes slide saves extremely difficult, no matter what the tilt settings are. Death saves are easier than slide saves.
This is exactly it . . . you are coming to the conclusion that it “sounds accidental” based on ‘something’.
The most direct way of determining whether it was “actually accidental” is to simply ask the source, so that’s what we do.
What if you witness everything as a TD or another player? What if the consensus is that it was intentional, but the player says it was accidental? Believe the player no matter what?
I don’t follow, is there something weird about tight tilts on Whitestar games?
I’ve owned 4, replaced all the parts, and confirmed with other TDs that whitestar tilts are wildly inconsistent for registering properly. Hear the clickty clack of the bob fifty times on a move and get no warnings. Do it again, and boom, tilt.
In this case there was no real reason to ask, everyone knew it was accidental. The biggest issue was deciding how to deal with the fact the games could no longer be played simultaneously, at least one had to be slid back. GZ tilter offered to slide his game back after his opponent played their ball and did so, play carried on.
Editing to add, part of the problem was the floor was slightly grippy, so you’d build up some force before the feet broke free and the game suddenly slides a few inches. The players weren’t being overly aggressive.
As a TD I can make an easy ruling on the event that happened, but often times I still wouldn’t be able to know if the player was intentionally aware of the situation and taking advantage of that situation.
Take my example at INDISC on Frankenstein. I had a beneficial malfunction in which I cradled up in multiball immediately so as to not take advantage of a beneficial malfunction.
Had I instead played on, if a TD was watching me I would have expected them to ask me to cradle up the moment they realized I wasn’t doing that on my own accord.
The “WHY” I didn’t trap up is not something I believe that a TD can answer even if they are watching every moment.
Reason #1) I wasn’t sure of the game rules of Frankenstein and didn’t think what was occurring was anything other than ‘normal play’.
Reason #2) I knew what was occurring was a beneficial malfunction but saw other players doing it all weekend so assumed it was ‘the same for everyone’ and was simply a ‘play on’ situation.
Reason #3) I knew what was occurring was a beneficial malfunction, and I figured the best way to me to get a top qualifying score was to take advantage of this unfair opportunity that just presented itself, hoping that nobody noticed.
I don’t understand how a TD could possibly decide which Reason was the correct one without asking the player.
Not sure about T3 but Gz and other modern Sterns have a tilt override option when the coin door is open. So if keys are available just open the coin door and move the game back to its normal position without risking a tilt.
T3 is to old for that unless coin door ball saver on also turns that on.
and in cases like that what if the TD does not know or even has an case in where they think that the game had an malfunction when it did not and the player is saying that is how the game should work.
I did not see what happened but so I can say if the game is working or not but that can happen with people who don’t say know how 200+ differnt games should play.
I agree that subjective rulings occasionally need to be made. The trick is minimizing the frequency and compartmentalizing the impact of any subjective ruling. Common/semi-common offenses should be handled objectively.
Probably the most common player violation is playing out of turn. I believe that the PAPA/IFPA rules for this offense state outright that the violator gets a zero, the victim gets a choice of remedy. There is no “intentional” or “accidental” language here. Why not? In practice, the effect of this violation is very similar to interference in another player’s game – in fact, one could probably craft a single rule that covers both situations. If one of these violations can be handled entirely objectively, so can the other.
I guess my question is, can a TD rule on intent without asking the player what their intent was?
I believe the paragraph on accidental interference is to cover situations that involve non-players in that match, but that’s some old K-Mart verbiage there for sure. I believe the intent verbiage is to throw out anybody (player or non-player) that did something to interfere with the game maliciously.
For playing out of turn, there is verbiage regarding intent:
“Any player who plays out of turn deliberately in order to employ this rule will be disqualified.”
Disqualified in this case is Red Card, not just a zero for the game. For example, if we learn that Player 3 has something huge lit for their ball 3, and Player 4 intentionally plays their ball 3 to cause Player 3 to have to finish their game on a fresh game, thus losing that status they achieved for whatever huge mode they had planned . . . this would trigger that part of the paragraph.
You can do whatever you want as the TD. In my example, if you wanted to simply declare that Reason #3 was the issue, and that I knowingly was taking advantage of a beneficial malfunction, have a blast.
I’d be pretty pissed off, because I would know for a fact that wasn’t what actually happened.