Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Use of Prize-swap Penalty (UPDATED - not in POP Penalty Guidelines)

mysterioustrainer said:
I have read the penalty guidelines and I think they are well designed for the Pokemon TCG. Mainly because they are focused towards what can be still said the "target audience" for the game which is young children.
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Next thing you know, POP will remove prize structure for the 15+ group. Unfortunatly the majority of penalties I assign at any given tournament are not in that "target audience". In fact, there are only around four at the West Palm Beach Gym Challenge this weekend. The Guidelines are crap and the majority of the document's penalties are weak (see page five, Game-Play error, third paragraph). Any this crap about casual and competitive? Crazy. The last time I checked a judge's role in a sanctioned tournament was to enforce the rules and remind players how to play the game correctly as if they were actually in a major event like Worlds. Assigning the weak casual penalty will not make the player or players aware of the potential problem their actions might cause at an premiere event.

I'm not saying that we need to be rule-mongers, sucking out all of the fun of tournaments, but there needs to be strong penalties to reinforce the rules of the game. Warnings do NOT cut it and game/match losses are too severe in some situations. We need the prize penalty and prize swap, in addition to specific Game Error penalties. The whole document is way too simplistic and it does not add anything that we have not been doing since the DCI.


And on a related note... They seriously need to hire a couple of PTOs to fill the roles that certain employees have left blank. I'm sure Magmar from PokeSchool could easily fill the role of the procrastinating web master for the POP website. Of course it might not be this unknown web masters fault, organization within the company is bad. For anyone who has witnessed the mess that is the PTO mailing list, along with the twenty something documents that could easily be compressed into one huge document and the legal action taken against Jon for adding a store phone number, I would think anyone would be bleeding from their eyes. That or if they manage to check their pocketbook, I'm sure my eyes would be bleeding then. Can't wait for Steve to move to League, I'm sure with his track record we'll have awesome promos next year. :X
-Phil
 
Strong rules don't take the fun away, they create clearity(don't know the word).
This penalty thing is the so called soft healingmaster creating stinking scarfes.


If you work with kids you have to be clear and simple and not create the if and when invironment.
Example: if you discard a supporter your turns ends. Meaby hard the first time, but you will never do it again.
If you attach a boost on a wobbuffet (without the wynaut) it goes to you discard pile, you will never do that again.

I remember the issue about playing trainercards which you can't complete to get rid of them, so what.
You do what you have to do and even if you can't its played and goes to your discard (or in case of a supporter you can't play another one). So Simple to understand for kids.

Reversing things is making this game more complicated than it should be.
 
GLPhil said:
We need the prize penalty and prize swap, in addition to specific Game Error penalties.
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Agreed. That way we can put some "bite" into a warning penalty.

Question. Should we be allowed to do the same for a caution penalty? That is, can we give a caution, and apply a prize penalty too? I'd think not, but what do the rest of you think?
 
I think not.
While I agree that we need a penalty in between Warning and Game Loss, I don't see combining a Caution with a penalty that is going to put the player at a disadvantage.

I see where PUI is coming from on this guideline and generally I agree with it. I'm very hesitant about handinig out penalties, especially with younger or new players. To jump to game altering penalties too quickly is bad for the game.

Blatant misplays or unrewindable situations? Sure. But what do we want to accomplish? Drive the less experienced players away? Or create a welcoming enviorment?
Yes, we need penalties, but I read a lot of Judges posts where penalties are much harsher and more quickly gotten to that I think they should be.
 
Pokepop, my point exactly. A warning has no "bite" in cases like minor cheating and blatant misplays. Whether you think there should be an inbetween penalty OR "corrective" penalties for warnings, the end result is the same.

(Plus, I hope you noticed that I too am opposed to tacking anything additional on to a caution penalty.)

There will always be harsher judges. About 2 years ago, one particular location in Littleton CO was THE premier place to hold Pokemon tournaments in this State. Now, due to bad judges and lack of consistant good judges, players don't go there anymore to play Pokemon. The Littleton CC had 22 players, only 2 of which were locals (who dropped after 1 round).

Personally, I'll like to see provisions for players to rebut bad judging. For example, if a judge is known to give lots of warnings (and above) to players, yet those warnings are never reported to POP, then those judges should be notified and told of their responsibilities. Additionally, it would be nice to allow players to anonymously rate their head judges online somehow. If there's a trend for players not to like certain judges, those "red flags" can be acted upon by POP.
 
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SteveP said:
Personally, I'll like to see provisions for players to rebut bad judging. For example, if a judge is known to give lots of warnings (and above) to players, yet those warnings are never reported to POP, then those judges should be notified and told of their responsibilities. Additionally, it would be nice to allow players to anonymously rate their head judges online somehow. If there's a trend for players not to like certain judges, those "red flags" can be acted upon by POP.
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Hmm, I wouldn't suggest a rating system IMO, it would become more of a popularity rank. I do think that POP should establish a Tournament Appeal section on their site, similar to http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/appeals so that bad judges are reported.
-Phil
 
GymLeaderPhil said:
Hmm, I wouldn't suggest a rating system IMO, it would become more of a popularity rank. I do think that POP should establish a Tournament Appeal section on their site, similar to http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dci/appeals so that bad judges are reported.
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Actually, I think judges SHOULD be a bit concerned about their popularity. In most cases, good judges (know and follow the rules) will become popular and bad judges will become unpopular. PTOs naturally will want a good head judge, but if no one likes that judge because they're too brash or too harsh, then PTOs should know about that too. We want more judges who attract players and less judges who repel players.


I DO like the idea of a tournament appeal system!
 
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Not only should they have a rating system to find out who bad judges are but to reward the good judges like a Jared. They should give them a little extra for running an excellent tourny.
 
AXE said:
Not only should they have a rating system to find out who bad judges are but to reward the good judges like a Jared. They should give them a little extra for running an excellent tourny.
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If you log into your "My Pokemon" account and view your events, you'll see that there's a "Leave Feedback" link for each event you've participated in.

This allows you to let us know how a particular tournament went, in your opinion, and allows us to then follow up on reports of really good (or bad) judges or TOs.

We really, really encourage everyone to use it.

Prof. Dav
 
im not seeing anything like that under My Events it jus shows Leagues and Tournaments Sanctioned
 
AXE said:
im not seeing anything like that under My Events it jus shows Leagues and Tournaments Sanctioned
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Sorry about that, it's at your "My Stats" page. Click the link to "My Stats" and scroll down to your event history. There, you'll see the 'Leave Feedback' link next to each event you haven't submitted for yet.

Thanks!

Prof. Dav
 
I just stumbled onto it today, cool beans. We didn't have anything like this before.

Positive, Neutral, and Negative choices, as well as a comment field for event organization, the tournament organizer, and the venue. Good job POP.
-Phil
 
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