That's just it, though. Outside of that third situation I mentioned, our rulings are official. If we end up being completely wrong on something, Norm can always step in and fix things, but if he doesn't everyone can (and should) accept our rulings as the final word.

A very good question and the four of us have discussed this already. There will be some behind the scenes discussion that you all may not be privvy to, but essentially if we are not sure and/or don't agree will make that very clear that this is just our opinion and the matter will be forwarded to the RA.


Basically the whole point of this is to take a lot of the grunt work out the rulings. Rather than have a player run to nbperp everytime that the want an "official" answer, we three can supply that answer. And if it turns out to be something that we aren't sure about, then we can get Norm invovled.

Think of us as District Court judges and Norm and GD are the Supreme Court

Congratulations to Norm's three stoo--- brand new deputies!

Excellent choices, all!

They will roll off to decide who gets to make it official.

I'd be up for the gig, after all Reaper is already in my name. Only problem is I've gotta start spending a lot more time in the rules forum answering questions to earn it. Usually by the time I see a thread, one of the other three have already answered it better than I could anyway. Congrats guys!

What it basically does is give the official stamp to things which are 100% clear from the rules.

For example:

We have - "Joker Makes the Rules: Emperor Joker can use Outwit. When Emperor Joker uses Outwit, he can use it normally or choose to counter all powers of a target character within 4 squares."

The ruling on this one is that it counters ALL powers on the dial, showing or not.

Say that a figure was released with - "Squirrel Girl Makes the Rules: Squirrel Girl can use Outwit. When Squirrel Girl uses Outwit, she can use it normally or choose to counter all attack powers of a target character within 4 squares."

The only differences are the name and the addition of "attack" to specify the type of power being countered.

If someone questioned whether SG counters all of the attack powers, even those not showing, then one of us can answer definitively, based on precedent, that it would indeed counter them all. Such an answer would be considered to be as official as if it came directly from Norm.

If that is the case then we don't really have an RA and we are at the mercy of a very talented but I am sure busy group of people to make rulings on rules questions. If they don't have time to post their responses and are giving them to Norm for posting, then they certainly don't have time to patrol these boards and provide this information...

I have also found in talking to game designers that they really don't play the games that they make, they are too busy designing! As such, the RA is supposed to be out there playing and judging, evaluating what the questions are and coming up with the ruling which obviously isn't the process...

The term limits had more to do with the fact that a RA was also a Level 5 Envoy position than anything; L5's were limited to 2 year terms.

Frankly, I would like to see the RA position divorced from that mentatlity as quickly as possible. Consistency is a wonderful ally to rules arbitration.

If someone is doing a good job, there's no need for dismissal or "forced retirement" IMHO.

This has already been addressed. Suffice to say, I disagree with your analysis that a "lot" of rulings were "counterintuitive" or "cumbersome".

I fail to see what this has to do with anything, or how it relates to the thread topic.

Precedent and practice do not support this line of reasoning IMHO. All four of these guys are on top of things far more often than not. In fact, I cannot recall a situation in recent memory where a rules question went un-clarified or unanswered by at least one of the four.

Congrats guys! You 3 have more than earned this! ( take that how you will depending on if you think this is a reward or a burden )

I look foreward to the 1st time you can shut down a pointless rules argument thread *cough*StrongestofalltheRockTrolls*cough* by stating how things work.





And of course following your ruling with an

I am the LAW!

To prevent dissenting opinions.



Tarnish

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< New Avatar just for the new blood

You all better start role claiming now. Who's your Moe, Larry, or Curly? Or is Norm Moe, and one of you gets stuck with Shemp?

But... but... I wanted to be Lou Diamond Phillips




Oh well, Larry Fine is pretty cool, too

As long as nobody has to be Curly-Joe. That would be grounds for quitting.

Tarnish

Since Quebbster is not on-line right now, it looks like he might get stuck with Shemp

I think that it probably should be added that, afaik, this is not necessarily retroactive.

If you dig up an old thread where one of use put in our $.02, and we didn't necessarily say "this is my opinion" whatever was said is not necessarily now some official ruling.


Otherwise, you're apt to have an "official" ruling that Pounce does always work with object. (Which it should, but that's just my opinion. )

The wife and I have got a puppy on the way named Shemp (and it's a girl).


(We bought a dog to show, but it was flawed, so the breeder is sending a replacement when one is born. I jokingly started refering to it as our Shemp puppy. The Mrs. actually liked it?!?!? Go figure.)

In the last few weeks I've spent a fair amount of time on this forum as well as a couple of others. Here more than anywhere else there seems to be an attitude from some people that unless I come to a post and say something, there is no "ruling". Ulik is a great example. I didn't "make a ruling" on that. All I did was read what the powers in effect did and explain some long standing facts. Not a thing more than any of the other people (notably, these guys) did. But because it wasn't me saying so, lots of people felt it was ok to keep going round and round.

Well, now these guys are being recognized for the fact that they are right all the time. If you see a post from one of them, you can rely on it being correct. Will there still be "I won't believe this till Norm says so"? Yeah, probably. But for one thing, it will likely be lessened now. For another, not only do I trust each of these 3 guys to let me know if something they post is not clear to them, but for every one of them posting, there is 2 other deputies that will likely see it too. So issues will likely get elevated.

It's so cute how people think I'm somehow the sole person responsible for things. Then and now, I am not the only voice that discusses these things. I weigh in, sure, but there are actual WK employees that are "on the hook" for decisions that get made. If the WK forums were still up and around, it would be easy to search for old threads on issues for what my opinion was on an unclear ruling and how it turned out in the end. Not to start this hornet's nest up again, but I am pretty sure that my ruling on Fly-By was not consistent with how it ended up.

No one has discussed an official site as of yet. I think in the short term, the focus is on getting the Heroclix engine running to speed.

As for the "mandate" that prevented the RA from posting elsewhere, you need to remember what happened back then. Bear in mind, at the time, I was a level 2 judge. I helped out at cons, but I was not the RA (nor was I involved in any way with this decision, so this story is my perspective of what happened). There was some rules question that was being discussed and the RA was either waiting to hear from WK or something - but those of us discussing things on the WK forum did not know how this issue was supposed be resolved. Not only was that ruling posted on HCR, not only was the ruling not posted to WK forums, but in another discussion, a judge was "corrected" by the RA because he hadn't read the post on the "unofficial" site.

When I was first invited to be RA, I was specifically told that I would not make rulings on any board but WK's. I agreed to that and played by those rules (I was actually quite active here before that). After a while, I pushed the envelope and got permission to post here, provided I didn't make new rulings.

The truth is, I don't feel that I really ever "make rulings". I give my opinion when there is not a clear black/white and then I come back with answers when I get them. I expect nothing different now from me or from my deputies.

I do think this is a show of respect to the individuals who have put in a lot of time and effort. I do not think it establishes any kind of official view of what happens here on the realms specifically.

Things that require an official communication would probably go through my Normal Distribution column (with updates to the Player's Guide).

You know that, now everyone will - that is the point from my perspective, anyway.

On the contrary. All we ever have are our opinions. The fact is that my opinion and the deputies' opinions are recognized as being "educated" opinions. I don't mean that as a slight to everyone else, but at least with the 3 deputies, you have to acknowledge that 999 times out of 1000 they know what they're talking about.