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Questions of Etiquette


Mycellanious

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Hi guys! I created this thread for people (mostly me) to post questions about awkward situations in Malifaux to ask what people think about them and pool collective solutions.

Here are two I've been thinking about recently to get things started:

1. Fast Play: what do you guys do when your opponent plays super fast, not just in the sense that you are being rushed, but when they try to skip your opportunities to do things. For example, Scamper / Butterfly Jump. What do you do when your opponent goes,

"Ok, first attack. Ok 2nd attack,"     

  "Wait, I didnt get to Butterfly Jump"         

"Well you missed your chance I already flipped the card."

A similar thing can happen with resources, like Soulstones, or Focus, or even Tokens,

"Ok, I'm gonna attack you" Opponent flips card 

"Wait, I'm deciding whether I want to use focus"   

"Oh sure, decide after you've seen my card"

To try and prevent this I usually tell people who have their hand on their deck that I need time to decide whether I'm going to spend that resource, "I'm going to attack but I want some time to decide whether to spend Focus." I still don't know what to do about the Scamper thing, other than just insist that I should be able to do it.

 

2. Open Ended Questions: How do you guys feel about questions phrased like, "Is there any way you can do X?" To me, it feels like, "Just tell me what you are going to do next so I can do something about it." For example,"

"Is there any way you can reach and flip that Turf War marker this turn?"

"Yes"

"How? Its an open information game you have to tell me"

"Well I'm going to use this model to push this other model, who's going to attack  my other model at range with a trigger to place into base contact with him, then Interact"

"Ok cool, now that I know that I'm going to move a model over here so that if you place here you will be engaged with it and can't Interact"

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If people are that fast and know the game that well, they should be asking for reactions to their declarations:

"I'm going to attack with X with Y, any penalties?"

"That action's done, any reactions?"

If you're going to try to speed through the game cause you're a know it all pratt, then don't half ass it and know all your opponents stuff too!

One thing I always do is after I declare I'm gonna do something that involves any kind of resistance at all, I put my hand on my deck and look at my opponent expectantly, this way I can wait for them to tell me if it's Terrifying, Concealed, Manipulative, Serene, Focusing, spending Soul Stones, or some other thing that will change my or their flip, then we flip TOGETHER!!!!!!   .... as god intended.

 

I'm all about open ended questions because the nature of the question is also telling, which gives more information to me also.

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4 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

1. Fast Play: what do you guys do when your opponent plays super fast, not just in the sense that you are being rushed, but when they try to skip your opportunities to do things. For example, Scamper / Butterfly Jump. What do you do when your opponent goes,

"Ok, first attack. Ok 2nd attack,"     

  "Wait, I didnt get to Butterfly Jump"         

"Well you missed your chance I already flipped the card."

In that situation, the next words uttered would be something like "This game is over if that's how you're going to try to play.  You forgot to resolve one or more effects triggered by the first attack, so you committed an error by even declaring the second attack yet."

Because what has actually happened is that the "fast player" is claiming that they can just skip steps like the "Step 6" step when they want to.  And "Well you missed your chance I already flipped the card" is completely irrelevant.

That's the same style of error that would be cited if the player forgot to resolve one of their own effects.  It is more likely to cause offense, though.

The issue here isn't so much a matter of proper or improper etiquette as it is one of the two players negotiating compatible signaling.  If that can't be achieved, the players can't actually play together.

 

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4 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

Ok, first attack. Ok 2nd attack,"     

  "Wait, I didnt get to Butterfly Jump"         

"Well you missed your chance I already flipped the card."

This is just bad manners. Ask him to give you the oportunity of play your reactions/conditions. If he insinst in this behaviour then just end the game (or call a TO in a torunament setting).

4 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

. Open Ended Questions: How do you guys feel about questions phrased like, "Is there any way you can do X?" To me, it feels like, "Just tell me what you are going to do next so I can do something about it." For example,"

"Is there any way you can reach and flip that Turf War marker this turn?"

"Yes"

"How? Its an open information game you have to tell me"

"Well I'm going to use this model to push this other model, who's going to attack  my other model at range with a trigger to place into base contact with him, then Interact"

"Ok cool, now that I know that I'm going to move a model over here so that if you place here you will be engaged with it and can't Interact"

This depends entirely on the players; this conversation in a casual game where both players are learning their crews is perfectly fine; in a more cutthroat enviroment that's probably a too open question, he could ask which models have a push or which models may interact engaged but not ask you to reveal your entire game plan. But again, this is up to the players; if you have trouble with this just discuss it at the start of the game with the oponent.

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i think in a case of quick play in a torderment if the game play could be revered prior to the flip for things like butterfly jump then go ahead (shuffle the card flipped back in to the deck, and give the opponent reminder to allow both players finish any effects prior to moving on. if this continuned i'd call over the TO 

 

in term of information depends on the game, tourderments i'd give them as little as possible without hiding information, if a friendly game i might go though it with them

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1. It's not a "fast play", it's a dirty cheating with timing. Print the "Detailed timing" page and slap the opponent's deck with it. :)

2. Well, your plan IS NOT an open information. You can just describe actions in general - like, "this model can push, that model can place itself with a trigger" - with TNs, ranges and other things. It's up to your opponent to think how to use that information.

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1. They should be asking if you have any modifiers, etc. They can't breeze past a decision of yours.

They can also pick up a card to signal intent without flipping it. They shouldn't actually flip it until you pick up your card to signal you're ready. If you try to change your mind after a flip, then they can complain. But if they don't give you a chance, tough cookies for them.

In return, you should make those decisions quickly (you're supposed to be able to finish a game in 2.5 hours).

2. I just tell them, regardless of setting. Malifaux is an open information game, and the game slows down immensely if they have to ask "can this model move this model? What about this one?"

Of course, when people do this, I just lean into my natural bluffing playstyle and volunteer extra information (yes, I can reach that turf war marker, or place a scheme marker there, or reach your leader for assassinate).

3. Malifaux really doesn't work well with rules lawyers or gotchas. People have to actively try to be good people to play with.

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In answer to the first point, you would be in the right to still do your butterfly jump (and such like). Your opponent can't just skip through decision steps, although as said, there is the cavate that you should try to not spend too long on these choices.

On the second point it gets a little more complex. In most games, I'd happily say that yes it was possible to reach it. in friendly games I might go through how to do it before I did it, but in a tournament I would be a little less forthcoming with the information. If I truly thought my opponent was trying to gain unfairly by it, then I might go as far as to answer yes, and then tell them a way I could do it, allow them to try and stop that, and then do it the way I intended anyway.

I have had a situation where my opponent asked how far I could move my crew, and I explained all the abilities I had, but all he wanted was a maximum, which I didn't know. (It was a first edition Rasputina crew with Snowstorm that had the ability to move modes into base contact with snowstorm who could them push them on again, so it wasn't a straight forward calculation, and had different answers depending on if you wanted to know how far I moved the whole crew, or how far I could move the Ice golem).

An open information game does not mean that you have to tell them how to use that information. Sometimes, in the interest of speed you might want to tell them some extra things, but you should not have to tell them all your plans. If they refuse to play until you tell them, or spend a long length of time trying to work out how, then call the T.O. over.

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Great points above. Especially if you get the sense your opponent is trying to be unfair, no need to be forthcoming.

For me personally, I don't want my opponent to ever be punished for lack of knowledge for my models. But I do want them to be punished for lack of experience.

For example, I don't want a game to end where an opponent goes "I thought about blocking that turf war marker but didn't realise Archie can move so far."

I do want a game to end where my opponent goes "damn, I did not realise Archie is that hard to kill when you're protecting him."

One is a fact you can learn with enough time with the stat card. The other is something you can only learn through brutal experience.

If my opponent has paused to think about what can reach the turf war marker, I think I want them to have adequate info (within reason).

If they ask what models can reach, I might say "Reva can move 14 and interact, lampads 10 and interact, shieldbearers can boost things, and want me to check for anything else?"

I often forget things in the moment anyway, so for me personally I have to include a caveat that I may have forgotten something anyway.

Vague questions get vague answers though is a good heuristic.

Also, there's no reason to measure for your opponent. Tell them the distances and they can spend time measuring if they want. You can't actually know if you can reach a marker til you measure anyway. All you can give is the numbers (unless you already measured, in which case you already signalled what you're up to).

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Yeah, “What can your crew do?” questions are tricky because they assume a few things:

1.  The player may not actually know.  I’ve taken new crews to try out without figuring everything out before.

2.  Not everyone likes thinking of things as “threat area”.

3.  There’s a difference between “How far could I get with amazing luck” and “How far would be easy to get?” and both make assumptions.  

Making assumptions causes arguments.  If you’re asking about etiquette, that’s probably the biggest point to make.

 

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Seems like I am the minority on the Q2. I have no issue on answer that "open info" question in all games, both causal and tournament. My theory is, if I am winning by incomprehension of my opponent, then I am not actually winning.

No one has prefect knowledge and memory to every single model in the game(at least none in my meta). I believe that providing all info my opponent need, including interactions and shenanigans between my models, is the best way to bring most fair and competitive game to both me and opponent.

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1 hour ago, Rufess said:

Seems like I am the minority on the Q2. I have no issue on answer that "open info" question in all games, both causal and tournament. My theory is, if I am winning by incomprehension of my opponent, then I am not actually winning.

No one has prefect knowledge and memory to every single model in the game(at least none in my meta). I believe that providing all info my opponent need, including interactions and shenanigans between my models, is the best way to bring most fair and competitive game to both me and opponent.

I agree I wouldn't want to win by incomprehension, but if my method to win involves multiple parts, such as Luring Archie  into place so he can then charge, and bowling over on his 3 attacks before leaping away so that I can then by your side a Crooligan into place so it can then walk and interact, it feels a lot like the question can become -" do you have a game winning set of plays that I can easily disrupt?" Which isn't what I think was intended as open information.  Here I'd mention lures, leap, the bowling away trigger (and probably also Flurry) and the by your side ability, but not explain the combination that I would need to use to get to the marker.

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The obvious qualifier to my points below is that they only apply to tournament settings. If you're playing a casual game...have fun and play however you need to for you and your opponent to have a good time.

With that said...

1) I want to offer a counterpoint here to some of the thoughts about question one. Obviously the caveat is you should not be intentionally trying to prevent someone's ability to make decision. Apart from that though, the ability to play quickly and decisively should be a base requirement to play in a competitive Malifaux tournament. In the above example: the defending player needs to know without looking at their card that they have Butterfly Jump, so as soon as the damage is flipped and marked for attack one: they should be holding up a hand and saying 'Butterfly Jump' (or however you communicate with other humans). If in the course of a decent pace of play the defending player :forgets: in that moment that the model has Butterfly Jump and only remembers it after the attacking player promptly moves on to the next duel...it is not the attacking player's problem.

Finishing three rounds in 2 hours (or even 2.5 hours!) is not acceptable in a tournament setting: you should be comfortable enough with the game and your crew to play at a good clip. If you forget an ability during the course of that...you need to learn from it and play better next time.

 

2) I strongly disagree with some of the sentiments that I've heard on podcasts about this point (though I think the comments in the posts above are closer to my feelings). In a tournament setting, I would never answer a question like 'Is there any way for you to pick up this Scheme Marker before the end of the turn?'. I can't imagine why you would expect your opponent to answer that in a competitive game. If my opponent asks me 'Do you have any abilities that remove Scheme Markers outside of an Interact?': that totally falls under open information and I would answer. If it's something they could ascertain by spending twenty minutes reading all my cards, that's something I need to answer. If it's not: then I don't.

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So since this post has gotten a bit of attention (and it seems you are as bored as me) here's the next question:

What do you do when you want to cut decks, but your opponent does not?

You've extended your deck out, and said, "Wanna cut?"  but your opponent responds with, "Nah, lets not do that." Do you:

A) Insist we cut decks, and get hit with the dreaded, "What? You dont trust me?"

B) Concede and agree not to cut decks. 

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28 minutes ago, Nathan Caroland said:

C) Slap the deck out of their hand and play 52 card pick up!

Not this one ( we use 54 card decks😜😛).

I'm generally not bothered, so even when I do cut decks ( if the event has asked it, I'll do it) I generally just remove the top card to the bottom. 

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1 hour ago, Mycellanious said:

So since this post has gotten a bit of attention (and it seems you are as bored as me) here's the next question:

What do you do when you want to cut decks, but your opponent does not?

You've extended your deck out, and said, "Wanna cut?"  but your opponent responds with, "Nah, lets not do that." Do you:

A) Insist we cut decks, and get hit with the dreaded, "What? You dont trust me?"

B) Concede and agree not to cut decks. 

I feel like this awkward moment was the reason GG for a few years required the cutting of decks.  It's still a required step to offer the cut every time you shuffle, no matter what.

If your opponent pulls a power play like "Nah, let's not do that.", you are WELL within your rights to insist.   If they respond with "What? You don't trust me?" I think I'd come back with "How else can I make sure that all your garbage cards are on top?"

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With regards the decision tree on the first question, one thing I try to do when I'm the attacker in a situation, is wait for my opponent to flip first (essentially as an acknowledgement that they've got no other decisions remaining).

As attacker, I make sure that I've declared everything I intend to do (intent to focus/stone/power token whatever, what my current flip modifier is), and unless my opponent does something else that changes it, ("Yeah, I'm gonna stone on defense", "OK, I'll burn a stone too") or ("Serene Countenance, you're at negatives"), then I'm just waiting on a go/no-go from my opponent, which is satisfied by him flipping his defense.

Then I get to be disheartened when they flip a Severe, and I know I've missed before my cards have even been revealed. Because that's how my games go. :)

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28 minutes ago, Morgan Vening said:

unless my opponent does something else that changes it, ("Yeah, I'm gonna stone on defense", "OK, I'll burn a stone too") 

I agree with the intent, you just picked a bad example in that the attacker stones first. 

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1 hour ago, Morgan Vening said:

With regards the decision tree on the first question, one thing I try to do when I'm the attacker in a situation, is wait for my opponent to flip first (essentially as an acknowledgement that they've got no other decisions remaining).

As attacker, I make sure that I've declared everything I intend to do (intent to focus/stone/power token whatever, what my current flip modifier is), and unless my opponent does something else that changes it, ("Yeah, I'm gonna stone on defense", "OK, I'll burn a stone too") or ("Serene Countenance, you're at negatives"), then I'm just waiting on a go/no-go from my opponent, which is satisfied by him flipping his defense.

Then I get to be disheartened when they flip a Severe, and I know I've missed before my cards have even been revealed. Because that's how my games go. :)

Before I flip I almost always ask my opponent if they're ready. There can be a lot of decisions especially if the defending model can use soulstones

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