Ethical dilemma: Can your team mate ghost play for you? (just 1 turn?)

[coolname]

Sometimes, it is hard to keep up with the MajorCommand 24-hr grind. You might be away from an internet connection for more than a day and run the risk of missing a turn.

One of solutions is to share your account info with someone, so he/she can take your turns in your absence (I believe this practice is officially condoned. Is that correct?). The alternative, "turn holidays" is not feasible.

Now, imagine a team game, you know you'll probably miss your next turn. Is it then morally right/within the game to share your details with your team mate(s) and have one of them/your team mate play your turn? And if not; not even when you have given specific instructions in the team chatter?

[side note on the MajCom grind; I more often than not see way to many [VIEW] buttons than [TURN], i.e. anxiously waiting for my turn to come up. So basically the inverse problem; I wanna play, I wanna play]

 

[Badorties]

This is called account sitting, and is condoned. i see no problem of it it within a team game, provided, it doesn't go on for too long, 3+ turns, which would begin to tip the scales of fairness.

 

[coolname]

Thanks Badorties for the offical standpoint.

I´m curious to know what players think about it. Is it fair?

(I agree with Badorties, account sitting by a team player within a team game should be allowed)

 

[ORBOTRON]

I'm ok with it, in moderation

 

[Chilly]

Thanks Badorties for the offical standpoint.

I´m curious to know what players think about it. Is it fair?

(I agree with Badorties, account sitting by a team player within a team game should be allowed)

I actually disagree with both Bado and Coolname. In the team game setting, one of the critical skills is communicating and coordinating with your teammate. Some teams (but not many) come close to perfection in this. If one player is making all the moves, I think this puts the other team at a disadvantage as the likelihood of errors due to communication and coordination drop to (near) zero. One might as well just be playing a 1v1.

In the non-team setting, I also think account sitting should not be allowed, especially once the site goes live. Say your active users jumps up to 10,000 (pray for the servers) and games start seriously being segregated by user ability. If I am a solid 1300 pt player, in a game with five other players of similar level and I decide to take a week long vacation to Fiji, it is not really fair if I get either of you to sit and watch my account when you are now both 5000+ pt players. Hyperbole employed to make a point.

I agree with Orbo, that this is all okay in moderation, but the problem is that once you move away from a small, intimate community operating with altruistic (with the exception of ZSP :tongue motivations, moderation frequently goes out the window.

From a practical point of view, I'm not sure how you 'police' this. Perhaps that is the point, that you don't want to. I saw one of the Facebook risk clones implode because of a small number of folks obsessed with the scoreboard rankings and because the owner of the app went AWOL. It's a lot of work to maintain a level playing field when you introduce the element that are willing to explore the boundaries of every rule and good intention.

I certainly will go along with whatever the beneficent owners/developers of this site decide to do, but that's just my $0.02.

Cheers! Love this place.

 

[samular]

If you don't mind, I think I'll be calling up Craig Moffit, winner of the 2010 World Boardgame Championship in Risk, to just play a couple of my turns.

 

[zspBANNED]

I agree with Orbo, that this is all okay in moderation, but the problem is that once you move away from a small, intimate community operating with altruistic (with the exception of ZSP :tongue motivations, moderation frequently goes out the window.

Hahaha, I'm caring....sometimes...!

But to refute your point a bit (yes, I disagree, in a loving manner of course). I get what you're saying, and partly agree. I agree that if I get Inca or AAFitz to take all of my turns and don't take them for weeks, there's a problem. B/c then I did not earn those points, and the players who joined any games I created thinking they actually had a chance at beating me (yeah I know, crazy right?) now get shafted b/c they have to play one of the top two players in majcom. This is hypothetical of course, b/c I know Fitz and Inca are awful people and would never take a turn for anyone

But AAFitz and I have played many team games with each other now, same with Orbotron (another douchebag who'd never help anyone out) and I, and we've gotten our strategies almost down to a perfected science where communication is no longer needed. As we first started playing with each other, we'd grunt a couple times in the game chat, but now they're barren of words, which is totally fine b/c we don't need to waste our time typing out what we both already know. So if I had a bonafide reason why I am not able to take my turns (and I have some team games that I'm currently playing in), like say, RedBridge who moved hundreds of miles to a new place, I wouldn't want my teammate to have to lose a bunch of points b/c of me not being able to take my turns. In an extreme case, say AAFitz and I had about 10 or 15 dubs games up, and I am not able to take my turns for a few days; as great as Fitz likes to think he is, even he will most likely not be able to pull out a win for our team. Shouldn't I be able to give him my password to account sit for me for a couple days so we both don't have to lose points? Like I said earlier, we both employ the same strategy and save for a couple random moves, would take almost the exact same turns.

But say I played a team game with you, Chilly (I'm pretty sure we've never played together). You and I would be discussing in game chat what we should do for our moves and come to some agreement. But say, you had to leave and let me (for some crazy reason) take your turns. Regardless of you taking your turns or me taking them, wouldn't we still be taking pretty similar turns anyway? It would be almost the same turn, just without the communication.

I do see your point, really, in extreme cases where some Risk God is taking a lowly kitchen patrol's turn and stealing the opponents' points from them while doing it. In most cases, I doubt this Risk God would even be taking someone's turn of such rank b/c most of the time, the Risk God will only be playing team games with players he/she trusts are legitimate/skilled players so as not to lose a boat load of points.

This is already a long enough post, I'd rather not bore you any longer haha.

:beers:




Ps - Inca, Fitz, orbo, I love you all sincerely. Really. I do. Well...kinda.

 

[Shepherd]

It's a question of what players find more distasteful: (1) allowing somebody else (team-mate or otherwise) to take an opponent's turn, or (2) waiting through missed turns and knowing that when you are away you have choice other than to miss as well.

There are disadvantages to 'game sitting' - the sitter doesn't know what you've been working toward, doesn't know that player three hits you hard every time to take Texas, isn't aware of the uneasy truce you have with your neighbor to the south, etc. So while it may sound nice to have Incandenza take my turns for a few days, it's really never in my best interests to let somebody else play my turns - with the possible (and in my opinion acceptable) exception of team games in which one player controls both players. But in the many games I've played both here and at other sites, I've never seen a game change dramatically because an opponent's turn was taken by an outsider.

However, I have seen games change because somebody missed one or more turns. In a tight game if a player misses a turn it can very easily disrupt the balance of power - imagine if American troops just didn't show up on D-Day. Oh, sorry Brits. Sometimes it works to your advantage, but even then it means a cheap win. I'd rather see a game continue organically than end prematurely because somebody went skiing for the weekend.

In general I've found that the best way to approach sitting is to announce what's going on. If I know I'm leaving for a few days, I'll post it in the game chatter. And if I'm sitting for somebody I like to leave a "shepherd playing for widowmakers" post - it's a courtesy post that gives the rest of the players the heads-up that there may be moves coming that might not make sense within the context of that particular game. But more importantly, by broadcasting one's intentions and actions it removes any suspicion of foul play.

I'd say that's really the trick: how to allow occasional account sitting without condoning abuse. While, as you say Chilly, we may not want to police account sitting, we will be policing multiple accounts, so we'll have to be very clear about the difference between the two.

 

[AAFitz]

Its absolutely necessary, and absolutely fine assuming it isnt blatantly abused. The downside is possible abuse vs the possible downside that an emergency ruins a game, or many games. Ruining the games is far worse, especially since even in the case of abuse, the only abuse really only means the turn is being taken, which in reality...means relatively little to the outcome...whereas missing a turn, usually will end the game right there.

Its a casual game, meant to be casual. Its silly to worry about such things in the end. Better to do what is better for the majority, and that is absolutely allowing sitting when needed.

 

[Badorties]

Yes, and if it something that gets abused, i suppose we can lock an account to one ip. But I can't recall any blatant abuse on this or any other site.

 

[AAFitz]

well, I could cite some examples of some serious abuse, but I dont think it would be as much an issue here...at least not yet.