Thread: Remove one unrevealed Order Marker at random?
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Old January 21st, 2021, 01:29 PM
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Re: Remove one unrevealed Order Marker at random?
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Originally Posted by Brewster View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by lefton4ya View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brewster View Post
...Random means random.
or does it....
@Brewster I 100% agree with all your logic, except that the word "random" used in boardgames (including but far from limited to Heroscape) is so customarily means your various views of what arbitrary could mean (chance, strategy, intuition, inkling, whim, divine revelation, etc.) that the word random when used in the context of the power in question has literally changed definition. If I say I am gay, most people's minds goes to thinking one thing, even if I am using it in the
1890's meaning of what gay meant 1890's meaning of what gay meant
, the word has literally changed meaning in 100 years. Therefore I argue random has literally changed meaning to the degree that the word gay has that random no longer means the same thing when used in a math/science textbook as it does in a rulebook. As to prove use as this way in Heroscape, I have played Heroscape tournaments and everyone I played with when random was used such as Mind Flayer Mastermind, it was the owner's decision whether they should be shuffled first or I just "randomly" took one - shuffling order markers or rolling a die was not required. I have even seen this backed up by tournament directors. If you want more proof, see @vegietarian18 quote where he is all but pointing to a Heroscape designer (without naming names) as also playing this way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vegietarian18 View Post
So I can say with 99% certainty that I've seen a heroscape celebrity play (not with Mindflayer, with Spiders Entangling Web) it the non-random way, trying to predict where his opponent had put the OMs on the card. Personally I think that's valid, I've always seen it as a small difference between online and in person play that you can't do that sort of OM sniping online. If it were truly supposed to be random, it would say something about rolling a die to determine which one was removed.
See also the example of designer Craig Van Ness using the "Spirit of the Rule" overruling the "Letter of the Rule" - and he had the same spirit when actually coming up with words for rules/powers for the game. Watch what happens at 6:40 and on in this video. I try to play by the same spirit the designers did.

BTW, I could go all day in this topic
I'm not going to get into a discussion of dialectic philosophy, but I will say simply that language is cognitive tool used to unify concepts in your mind. When you use a word, you mean something, and what you mean is not subject to change over time. It is poor use of language to be unclear about which concept you are trying to convey. It leads to confusions, which is not a good thing! Notice how convention of using the word "gay" to mean 'happy' went out as the convention to use it to mean 'homosexual' went in. It would be confusing to try and maintain them both, and we now laugh at the idea of using it to mean happy, because that is no longer the convention. It's funny because it's a poor use of language now. Because it causes confusion. So for this reason I say that when I use the word 'random', I mean something specific, and I refuse to dilute my mind by saying "well, random can mean lots of things..." in that case the word is useless, and do whatever you darn well please.

You've proven that it's convention to have no objective standard where the rules are concerned, even by game designers. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but this is not good for tournament play. It will and does lead to bad beats scenarios, and times where someone deserves to succeed but failed anyway. Slowly but surely people drop off because of this. The health of a game depends on clear rules among other things. I highly, highly recommend some sort of -exact- ruling on things like this be put forward.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Maybe my example of "gay" wasn't the best example, but the idea is that a word can mean two different things to different people, based on their culture and experiences. In addition people may decide how to interpret a rule differently. You are right in that there is not (as of yet) any codified way - Gencon uses a completely different interpretation than Online games - that is because the tournament directors decided on an interpretation. But note that specifically the word random has the same issues in other games as well. However I think a TD deciding on an interpretation is a strength of Heroscape - fun and friendliness is prioritized over formality. Now if you are coming from the CCG/CMG realm such as Magic the Gathering or Warhammer where formality is prioritized over fun and friendliness, I can see where you are coming from, as they prefer all tournaments to have the same exact rulings. The ultimate answer is Heroscape is philosophy diametrically opposed to those types of games in that it embraces differences in groups. However anyone who has been to a Heroscape tournament as well as a Magic tournament will tell you that most HS players put fun and friendliness first and therefore most of them appreciate HS tournaments more than CCG/CMG, even (especially) BECAUSE each game/TD may be run differently. I have seen some HS tournament goers not like the "TD prerogative", but they are few and far between.
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