I hate to see this thread hijacked like so, but shouldn't everyone avoid Alabama?

I totaly disagree...

Hail Normalview.....

May your view be a normal as the great Normalview...

Greatest and most powerful (and charismatic!) of the orange gods who walk among us....

no trying to help out normalview

if iwas in postion that people see as in power

and i came off as having a additude problem
i want to know it easy to read somethimg and think someone is beening rude and they are not

it may hurt to that everyone think he is the ra

Call it my own opinion, but basing things on precedent in this game is bad because I essentially have flagging faith in game design. They're great ideas people, but I don't trust their grasp of the mechanics and how we as the playing populace will actually use the pieces they release. That's what I meant about you guys making GD lazy. They have license to wing it and let you guys clean up the mess.

I feel you dudes know how you think you know the game works, and make rulings based on how you've done it in the past, but with eroding confidence that the people actually making new stuff have a solid picture of what that exactly means, you can't use old rulings as the basis for new rulings because what came before and what you have now are NOT the same thing. Different designers obviously have different understandings of what the rules mean, so you're making calls based on precedent but the designers are using different design methodologies. That's what I'd want out of an employee RA, too. A guy in the office making sure the designers are up-to-date on how the game is being played. Were the system improved, there'd be no need for Oranges.

Maybe I'm way off base here, or maybe I have less faith in GD where I guess you guys still have it. I like what you guys do, but I have a idealistic vision of a better world where you're not required.

[Maybe I just need to give it time, though, because I do like the new rules and PAC layout.]

Note to self: red king is off the Christmas card list for not picking me.

We have a christmass card list???

Maybe you are a little off base.

I think they can, sure, and that maybe they do more than anyone might realize. I also think they shouldn't.

No. Assuming they are might not be wrong, and probably isn't. But it can potentially be dangerous because... what if they're not? And anyway, that falls under knowledge of the rules. If you present the same question to all the Oranges, and they all come to the same conclusion, then yeah, problem solved. They've done their job. The answer was there and it was I who was too dumb to see it. But if I present a question to them and you get two possible interpretations, it should stop there and go to the person that actually designed the thing. Because I trust [or should trust] the Oranges to know what they're talking about, and at no point should one have to convince the other of what is true.

Entirely possible. My point remains that with the game at the point it is and the resources WK has and could have, there should be less problematic wording in the game, and less issues with grey areas and unanswerable questions, as well as almost instant, non-debatable clarifications and corrections. They need to step it up. I think Oranges are a safety net they have that they are entirely too willing to use, too frequently.

Right here seems to be your problem. What if what meant the same before doessnt mean the same now? If thats what is keeping you up nights, breathe deep. We dont re-invent the launguage too often, and clarifications wont turn things around too much. I do know that the whole can/may thing shook up some people, but I doubt that will happen too often.

The Oranges do a great job. Without them, we would have very little cohesiveness between game venues, and everyone would leave everything open to their own interpretation.

I will give you that they do need to be better. Proofreading and game testing should be better.

I'm a huge proponent of intent. Intent is, or should be, everything. I want to respect GD's great ideas and play the game they want me to play the way they want me to play it, because that, to me, is the right way.

Ruling something on precedent rather than actually getting a clarification from GD undermines intent. Besides, all too often I feel clarifications come down based on how the Oranges read it, with less regard for what the intent may have been. There is too much emphasis at this point on the language of the game system, when the language is notoriously inconsistent. Ideally, a paid RA would get in there and make the language infallible, thereby allowing intent to clearly be communicated via commonly understood terms and usage. But we're still not there [sadly, after 10 years] and of the two avenues to go down, again, I think intent is far more important. Sadly, it's also the harder road, so "play it how it lays," slave-to-the-wording ends up being the course most taken, for better or worse.

Which, yeah, is funny, because my perfect end-game would be slavish to the language. But in that case, the language would be correct. I want a synthesis of these two avenues, which isn't currently the case.

One thing I think bears mentioning once again is that the Deputies don't decide anything, at least as far as novel rulings go. They only hand down the rulings from GD and, when it comes to things that do have clear precedent, draw analogues to those precedents. They're half judge, half teacher. They don't create the law. They only interpret it.

I think I can see where Uberman is coming from. Game design are the guys who come up with the crazy ideas. They could have been dealing with clix for a long time and have a good understanding or maybe they worked for hasbro making Warcraft or some such other game and don't know the rules real well. Since everything gets filtered to them by the RA and deputies they may not care as much to have a working knowledge of the rules. Whereas if they were getting direct questions about their work they might be a bit more careful to avoid confusion later on.

I think the system works somewhat well as it is. I think I agree that the RA or someone with a clear rules understanding should be paid to check the rules. If even so that it's not just a "hey we're the paid guys and you're just volunteers" type of thing happening. Someone held accountable for holding people accountable for the rules so to speak.

Whatever! I Just try to stay away from the rules forum unless I really can't figure it out. If you are in here a lot because you aren't figuring any of it out then I say reading is fundamental.

Exactly my feeling about this too

Perfect post.