On Ships and Tournaments

[Mark Skarr]

Secondly, and really more importantly to me, for whatever reason the e23 cards are not tournament legal. I have no idea why this decision was made, but it was and that is the primary reason I own none of the e23 card packs.

* DERR! *

Really? That sucks. Not that I plan on playing in any tourneys, but that seems to be shooting oneself in the foot. That's a fast way of turning tourney players off instead of sucking them in.

I pretty much own only the e23 ship packs (I picked up Booster 7 before I found the ADB section on e23). I have access to a color copier and a laminator at work, and I work a graves/swings shift.

[storeylf]

Really? That sucks. Not that I plan on playing in any tourneys, but that seems to be shooting oneself in the foot. That's a fast way of turning tourney players off instead of sucking them in.

I pretty much own only the e23 ship packs (I picked up Booster 7 before I found the ADB section on e23). I have access to a color copier and a laminator at work, and I work a graves/swings shift.

Don't take Paul that literally.

What he means is that ships that are not available via the physical products are not valid for the origins tourney. Ships in the e23 products that are available in the border/attack/boosters as well are legal for that tourney. In reality there are not many ships on e23 (outside middle years) that are not legal at origins. Non origins tourneys can of course use whatever cards they want, the currently ongoing online tourney for example allows the Frax who are ony available via e23.

[The_Rock]

Well, yes, of course anyone running their own tournament can use whatever they like, can change the rules to anything they want, etc. etc. The point is in a sanctioned tournament under the official rules cards that appear in a for pay product in which you get nothing but ship cards are not legal unless, of course, they are merely redundant with laminated cards in another, non-electronic product.

I would have thought it entirely obvious I was referring to the official tournament rules and not to some tournament someone decided to run that was not run using the ADB tournament rules.

I mean, if its some unofficial tournament, the card could have "Never for use in any tournament under any circumstances" printed on it and the person running the tournament could still allow its use.

[storeylf]

Well, yes, of course anyone running their own tournament can use whatever they like, can change the rules to anything they want, etc. etc. The point is in a sanctioned tournament under the official rules cards that appear in a for pay product in which you get nothing but ship cards are not legal unless, of course, they are merely redundant with laminated cards in another, non-electronic product.

I would have thought it entirely obvious I was referring to the official tournament rules and not to some tournament someone decided to run that was not run using the ADB tournament rules.

I mean, if its some unofficial tournament, the card could have "Never for use in any tournament under any circumstances" printed on it and the person running the tournament could still allow its use.

It may be abvious to you and those who have been around for a while , but as the poster above seemed concerned that he had only purchased e23 products I wasn't sure whether it was obvious to everyone. Undertsanding what you are meaning does require some understanding of the tourney scene which new players or those not really into tourneys may not be aware of.

Equally given that there are online tourneys going on (that you are playing in as well), that you can read about on this forum, neither is it in anyway obvious that you were only on about the origins tourney rules simply from your post.

New people coming into the game may not be aware of half the stuff that you are.

The point is in a sanctioned tournament under the official rules

I have no idea what a 'sanctioned' tourney is by the way. The way you worded that makes it appear something more than just the 'official' rules (what does that even mean really? each tourney has its own 'official' rules) . Again you may be seeing things as obvious becuase you have been playing SFB tourneys for decades. Is the online tourney 'sanctioned'? how would I know what is or is not a sanctioned tourney? Would I have a reason to care if a tourney was sanctioned?

I'm only aware of 2 'tournaments' (others may exist of course), the tournament at origins, which is face to face as far as I know and played once a year at origins (which would appear to make it a fairly exclusive affair). The other(s) being the online ones that can be played by anyone who is online (probably anyone reading your post), and are organised largely on these forums. The online tourney may be seen by people like me as the only tourney to be worth bothering about, as its the one that most people can readily participate in and the one that can be readily read about due to coming to this forum. So again your obviousness is not that nessarily that obvious.

[The_Rock]

Lee,
The online tournament starts by using the official rules and then makes some exceptions. They allowed the Frax this time, but not e23 generally. If the official rules allowed e23 then the online tournament would also have allowed e23.

The tournament at Origins also uses only the official rules, though there even they take a slight departure (or did the last time I was there) by not allowing the LDR. I am not sure if that is still the case, but it was in 2008.

Your post got me thinking on the use of the word "sanctioned" for fed com tournaments. I actually am not sure it has any meaning. I was probably importing meaning from SFB tournament formats. There sanctioning has an effect (ADB supports it and gives out "Ace" badges/pins). For Fed Com, I don't think ADB has yet formed any sanctioning rules, so I think you are right that Origins is it.

The point is, for tournaments that start with the official rules, e23 is not allowed and the judge needs to make a decision from there to change them. So far, that decision has never been made, generally, but in one case (the most recent online tournament) the Frax were permitted.

So, for these products, if your interest is tournament play, buying the e23 packs - even though they cost money and do nothing other than provide ship cards - may be completely useless since tournament play, starting with the official rules, does not allow them (except to the extent they are redundant with already printed/laminated cards available in another product).

[storeylf]

I have to admit I'm still not quite sure what you mean by;

The tournament at Origins also uses only the official rules,

Or other references to official rules.

Do you mean it uses the basic FedCom rules - I assume not, obviously a Fed Com tourney uses Fed Com rules, and the basic fed com rules do not preclude any ship cards (obviously).

As I understand (maybe wrongly) there is a published product for tourney SFB that could be considered the official tourney rule set for SFB. But there is no such product for FedCom.

Do you mean there is an 'official' Tourney rule set that I am not aware of?

Or are you really meaning that you (or others) have unofficially classed the origins tournament rules as 'official' tournament rules. Certainly the threads about Origins does not title the rules as somehow Official tourney rules, but just as the 'tournament rules for origins' (2010 or whatever).

To me official rules for a tourney are simply what ever rules the organiser of a tourney says they are, so it is specific to each event. The entirety of the current online tourney rules are the official rules for that tourney in my mind, so the 'official' online tourney rules allow some of the e23 cards, and may even expand that selection for the next tournament.

Again it appears there is something obvious to you that isn't really that obvious to me, and hence probably isn't obvious to a number of other newer players.

[The_Rock]

These are the official Tournament rules for Fed Com:

http://www.starfleetgames.com/federatio ... php?t=2900

Those are the only rules for any tournament sanctioned by ADB. They also form the basis of the only other major series of Fed Com tournaments.

[storeylf]

Sorry, who says they are the official tournament rules for all fed com tourneys, they are simply described as the tournament rules for origins. Nothing more. Cleary you are privvy to info that others are not. Maybe its some tradition that origins rules are the 'official' rules, but again that would presumably stem from SFB history and elude me.

What fed com tourneys are sanctioned?

Indeed without the concept of sanctioned tourneys, is there really any such thing as 'official' tourny rules.


PS not that it is really relevant, all I was getting at is that what you are seeing as obvious and in no need of explanation is based on assumptions that others (new players especially) may not be jumping to.

[The_Rock]

Right now, only the Origins tournament is sanctioned. Unlike SFB, as mentioned above, ADB has not come out with a sanctioning system for tournaments they do not personally run.

As for "who says" that can only be ADB. They are right now the only official rules for all sanctioned Fed Com tournaments because, as mentioned just above and a few posts ago as well, Origins is the only sanctioned tournament. If/when ADB decides to sanction a format, it will be the one run at Origins. I can't prove that to you, though hopefully someone on here from ADB will come and confirm all this so that the e23 thread does not get further bogged down by a discussion of Fed Com official tournament rules. Until then if you want to believe that ADB will publish a sanctioning system that uses a set of official tournament rules and then will use something different in the one official tournament they run, feel free. I can't argue with that.

[Steve Cole]

Well, I actually hate PHP software (because it's so... functionless ... compared to discus) but that's another matter.

Sanction: SFB tournaments have "sanctions" in that we provide gift certificates, official recognition, and ace pins if certain rules are followed. Events which violate the rules (out of good nature or bad nature) don't get the benefits. It's not a "dictator demanding his way" thing but a way of making sure that every ace pin you see on somebody's shirt means exactly the same thing. Lots of people run unsanctioned events just because they want to try new things, and it's no problem.

We only allow published laminated cards at Origins because that's all we have to bring to the convention. It's just not practical for us to create (by expensive processes and hand labor) multiple sets of every ship from communique, e23, or captain's log just in case people want to use them (it would cost about $500 to do that, not to mention days of employee time). I personally don't have a problem with the idea that Mike Filsinger (who runs the event) might allow you to have your own cards made (but he might not want that as he'd have to hand check everything against a master reference set to make sure somebody did not try to "slip in a ringer" and bring a ship that he modified or made up; that could be a lot of extra trouble for Mike F who has a lot of work to do and doens't want people waiting in line for an hour while he checks box-by-box the ship card somebody else brought). While a little awkward, I wouldn't have a real problem with the idea that you email me before Origins and i'll print out five B&W non-laminated paper copies of the ship you want and you can use those in the event, marking on them and throwing them away each time. That may not be relevant because there may not be another Origins tournament given the way GAMA screwed up Origins, but that's another subject.

As for other events, on-line or otherwise, you can use whatever the judge running the event agrees to, and that has always been that way.