Running a Tournament...

[Zethal]

I think we just have to agree to disagree.

Its not a matter of agreeing with me; its a matter of game theory which is far more relevant in, well...games then it is in economics. As in this instance each player (well good player) is omniscience of the rules and in a 1v1 competitive scenario cooperation and super-rationality are largely irrelevant.

I am just speaking from experience. I have personally ran 4 Malifaux tournaments myself and played in 4 more and they have all used this approach. They all seemed to have went well and for the most part people were happy with how they went. They also used this approach at Gencon as well.

As am I; well that and study. Many war game tournaments run based on a system such as this, that doesn't make them necessarily bad or unfun it just makes them relatively worse then a tournament with a ranking system that better understands game theory and people.

Of course I'm not going to stop you from running tournies they way you want to, but the OP asked for guidance on running a tourny and thats what I'm giving.

With all due respect back to you, How many Malifaux tourney have you ran? How many have you played in? I am not being jerky I am just wondering. Because by your logic above if I have zero authority to speak for one method I have not used then someone who has not tried either has zero authority to speak to either. Malifaux plays a lot different then a lot of other games(especially 40K which you keep referencing). Especially competitively.

This still irrelevant despite it being a decent straw man. And that you are trying to appeal to authority (and a false one) is also rather...flawed. Authority doesn't matter if the authority is wrong, attack the ideas and practicality not the person. You have some emotional reason to stick with your ranking system which is fine. Just know that there are better ones out there. That generally create better effects and add more fun.

The system you are arguing for perpetuates the rock-papper-scissors problem that is often inherent to most competitive war games. Your system allows individuals to make lists built around getting VPs rather then winning, built around destroying 1/2-2/3s of the opponents rather then being able to fight all opponents near equally. It's been kept around in local and national tournaments for a lot of reasons but that doesn't make it good.

[nilus]

Edit: Nevermind decided not to argue the point further.

Edited September 13, 2010 by nilus

[RisingPhoenix]

By, the way, this just popped up on a 40k blog recently:

...Some tourneys feature objectives that both players can score (which I think is really a bad thing) - so instead of playing for a clearcut winner the two conservative gamers split the objectives and both take 75% of the total battlepoints for that mission. They are both still in a position to win the tourney whilst neither was actually playing to win that round. Like I said I've seen other players on opposite tables pull this kind of chicanery and it really steams me. This is the main reason why I am an advocate for W/L missions with no battlepoints. The system needs to be tightened up.

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/09/first.html (if you can ignore the infantile posturing at that blog, there's some good thoughts)

These concerns are not imaginary, and do not come from a total divorce from the real world.

[Martin]

Personally I like the idea that who ever wins a tournament actually has flawless win record and thats that. further more to do the pairing as best in the bracket (of win loose ratios) matching up against the worst in the bracket based on VPs. so if someone did some baby seal clubbing in the first match he would have lots of VPs where as someone facing a really good opponent would be at the bottom of the bracket and they would face off for the second match and we would see who really was the best. of course this require there to be more matches depending on how many players have joined e.g.

4 games = 16 players

5 games = 32 players

6 games = 64 players

and never allow a draw (this is how NOVA, a 40k tournament was run recently and i really liked the format from a theory point of view as i was just to far away to join)

if this would not be possible time wise, and e.g. there can be only 3 games I would say go by W/L to start with and tiebreaker being VPs.. and secondary tiebreaker being main strategy VPs, though starts to be a headache for TO to keep track of it all.. but you do want a clear winner at the end of the day...

[mangustheix]

Well, I am not very experienced in this stuff, but I am running a tournament in November. I can only do a 1 day tournie, and most people are pretty new, so we are only going to have 3 games. Unfortunately loads of people have decided to come and we now have 20 people. I am doing wins as a victory indicator, followed by draws, followed by VP. This way if I have 2 or more people at the end with 3 wins then VP will be the tie break. I would rather it was a straight dukeout between them but I think the game's system means that if you have more VPs you are a worthy winner