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Legal concessions and why they exist.


Igralius

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Dear ladys, gentlemen and others,

 

Like the title says this is about legal concessions, why they exist and my view on one of the rules stated in "The Orca Cola Championshiop Rulebook".

I hope it is ok for me to post this in the Quesion part of the Forum but i couldn't find a better place to put it.

 

Disclaimer: What I'm writing here is my oppinion and the beautifull thing about oppinions is that in most cases there is no right or wrong but rather just objective truthes. You are more then welcome to not share my oppinion or disagree with me on what i'll be writing. I hope i find the right tone to not upset/offen anyone.

 

Context for everyone that didn't notice what happened threw discord:

Yesterday I played my first match of The season 20 in T1A against Rama set and his Chaos Team. By turn 13/14 (not excectly sure which of the 2 anymore) 9/11 of my players had been cassed. There where no KO's so i was down to 2 players max period which both where loner skinks. At this point I legal conceded the match which i thought was within my "rights" (don't know a better word for it atm sorry) to at least denie another free 3spp for a chaoswarrior Touchdown to have some form of miniscule emotional victory. I did not give up the game nor did i even play for preservation of the Team. I went in with every last player i had untill there where close to none left to try to abide by the rules about giving up early/throwing a game.

After the game and some back and forth in the discord Pidpad (i think it was him if not my bad) pointed out to me that what i did was not ok/wrong/forbidden.

 

In "The Orca Cola Championshiop Rulebook" Part IV under C the following is stated:

 

Note: Please refer to Parts 1-A1, 1-B4 and 2-A1 to understand the intention of the following rules. Every match has two coaches that have set aside time to play, and every coach deserves to play their match to completion. Harsh penalties are enforced as a form of deterrence against uncompleted matches.
 
1. Legal concessions are exempt from this rule. A coach may legally concede by quitting the match when unable to field three players at the start of a drive.

So we got into it a little discussin over this rule because of the following. In my oppinion "when unable to field three players at the start of a drive" Is a conditioning sentence that has in no way or form anything to do with a point in time. It clearly sets a condition that is: " If you can't field 3 players" so if you only have 2 left the condition is met at any point in time. It was pointed out to me that my interpretation of this rule was wrong or that at least it is meant differently so that you can only concede a Match legaly when 1. you have 2 or less players and 2. It is the start of a drive.
Now let's take some examples to make it practical.
Let's say I'm ahead (doesnt matter by how much but for the sake of the argument let's say 1-0), It's the second half and my opponent is on offence. Unless he scores early and goes for the win the most likely outcome is a draw the way i see it since in most cases you won't be at the point of a possible legal concession by turn 8 or even early in the second half. So there is close to no case or rather no case the way i see it in which you would concede and give away a free win instead of taking the draw. So there is not realy an applicable way for the legal concession rule in this case.
This exact scenario happend to me last season again Naoufel70 and his nurgle. By Turn 12 i was down to a single skink. I could have legal conceded but i was up 1-0 and he decided that stalling 4 more turns was the way to go instead of going for the win against a single player.
 
Let's say it's a draw or or your opponent is ahead. Unless nuffle decided he wants you to quit bloodbowl getting to the range of a legal concede is mostly if not rather exclusivly something that happens in the second half. If this scenario happens and you think that your opponent has any idea how bloodbowl works it is safe to say in my oppinion that you will lose the game and there are no two ways about it unless your he decides to dunno passfarm or foul turn 16 or some other ludicrous actions that stop his score on turn 16. As example we can just take what i stated in the beginning of the Post about my last match.
 
Now i had some time to think about the whole ordeal and i honestly can't see the reasoning behind the rule the way it was explained to me.
In my oppinion Legal concessions are a way to escape a dicing and/or to punish people trying to do nothing but to remove the opponents Team so that they aren't gifted another 3 free TD spp on top of what copious amounts of spp they got for putting your Team threw the meatgrinder. It is meant to punish people for not paying attention or not minding the state of the game.
 
Now let's take this a step further and use the rule the way it was explained to me and apply it to my last game. If i now understand it correctly the right way to act would have been wait till your opponent scores (most likely late in the half) and after he got his touchdown which would seal the result i would be allowed to concede since now we are starting a new drive.
Picture this: It is turn 16, you have 2 (or less) players left and you are reciving the ball. You now have 3 Options. 1. Take your blocks if you have players left to throw blocks and then klick end Turn to end the game. 2. Just skip the Turn to end the game. 3. Take the legal concede to artificially wreck up the score board to give your opponent who just put your team threw the meatgrinder an advantage on the scoreboard increasing his chances on winning the division.
 
I don't know about you guys but i can't see a way where i would ever decide to go for Option 3 and i think/hope most people would agree with me on that.
 
So what are legal concessions for and when can you use them? The only way i see realy is by beeing pitchcleared so early in the second half that the opponent has enough time to score another TD. I think it's not to far fetched to say that a scenario where you are pitchcleared by turn lets say 12 or 13 with no KO's to speak of that can come back is rather rare.
 
So why am i writing all this and rambling on about the Topic?
These are the 3 Options I propose:
 
1. Change The rule for legal concedes to the standard rule that is implemented in Bloodbowl 2. You could talk about variations like "if fieldable people + KO's is < 3 you can concede at any point".
This would be an actual rulechange and not just a tweaking to make legal concessions viable/have a purpose.
 
2. Change the wording of the rule so people like me don't get confused. "A coach may legally concede by quitting the match when unable to field three players. He is only allowed to concede at the start of a drive" like this or some variation of what i proposed the phrasing is more on the point/unnegotiable and it might mitigate people from misinterpreting the rule.
 
3. If you are not willing to go with what i proposed under "1." why not get rid of legal concessions completly? There wouldn't be a chance for something like this to happen again and like i hopefully managed to point out the way the rule is implemented at the moment the chances are slim to none for a situatin to occur where it takes effect .
 
The way the rule is implemented at the moment in my oppinion promotes trying to reduce your opponents Team to nothingness. We already have a bash heavy meta in Bloodbowl 2. It doesn't matter if you look into CCL or the OCC you will find bashy 2k tv killteams at/around the top with, in alot of times, the sole purpose of killing your opponents team cause it seems to me like some people don't know how to win a game of Bloodbowl without beeing up some/alot of men. Blocking the possibility to legal concede at any point of the Match (as long as you meet the conditions) is another bonus given to already broken Kill teams which honestly are strong enough as is the way i see it.
 
I hope people don't take this the wrong way and if you decide to not change a thing i completly understand. I'm sorry for causing that much of a comotion since i guess i'm the first person to ever interpret the rule incorrectly and hope everyone reading this has a great day.
 
Best regards
 
Igralius
 
 

 

 

 

 

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I already changed my mind about the wording of our rules and wrote as much in our Discord server. I agree that the entry in our rules can be read ambiguously, although I would go so far as to say it's a liberal interpretation of the wording.

 

Our intended rules regarding legal (penalty-free) concessions are based on the tabletop rules. The way I read them, penalty-free concessions can only happen during setup, not during a drive.

 

From page 4 of CRP1:

 

Crucially, this entry is in the SETTING UP THE GAME section of the book, which describes the setup phase, and nothing else.

 

Quote

If you cannot set up 3 players on the Line of Scrimmage you must either concede the match (see page 15 (or page 29 if you are using the extra rules)), or carry on playing by placing as many players on the line of scrimmage as possible.

 

From page 29:

 

Quote

CONCEDING

A player that concedes before setting up for a kick-off where he could only field 2 or less players suffers no additional penalties. If one coach concedes the match for any other reason then the winner gains all of the loser’s winnings and MVP from this match. In addition, the loser automatically loses one Fan Factor and may not roll for a new one, and any players in the loser’s team that have 51 SPPs or more will leave the team on a D6 roll of 1- 3. Roll separately for each player with 51 or more SPPs to see if they leave.

 

In combination, the "before" in this entry refers to "before placing any players on the field during the setup phase," and not "at any point in time before the setup".

 

So that's the main reason we enforce that rule. We also strongly dislike concessions in the OCC as we think Blood Bowl is meant to be played, and therefore discourage them whenever and however we can.

 

But we always welcome our coaches' thoughts and criticisms. No one is upset because of that. But you did call your opponent a cunt, which is less than diplomatic and also quite clearly against our Code of Conduct.

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I understand what you mean but only taking parts of the rulebook is kinda disingenuous in my oppinion. Bloodbowl 2 is in fact not the Tabletop game but rather a variation of it with not many but a certain amount of changes. For example stadium enhancements. If you wanna argue with the rulebook and authenricety you need to take the step CCL took and turn them of or just except the fact you go by your own rules. Which is completly fine to do but it takes away the "we go by the books" argument for me.

 

Yes i called him a cunt and i'm sorry for that. Cunt is a sexist derogativ term that has no place in 2021. I should have used something like scumbag or incosidered jerk otherwise i'm standing by what i said. It is not a single action that got me mad but all the little things combined that got me more that just a little riled up.

 

Rama set was late for our game only a few minutes but still:

 

5. The scheduled time is for the kick-off of the match and all preparation should be completed in advance.

6. Do not make your opponent wait for you. Coaches have a life beyond Blood Bowl. Tardiness may result in unfavourable admin decisions and repeated incidents will lead to a warning. (For more information, see this entry).

 

He paused the game without saying anything/giving me a reason. I asked multiple times in ingame chat but got no response. I let the pause run for several minutes gettting no answer. I know things can come up and stuff can happen so you have to leave the pc on short notice. Even after he came back and i asked again i still got no response. Again more time wasted without giving a reason. I can provide screenshots as proof of the chat if you want (dunno if you can see the pause on the screenshots/replay)

 

Both of those are clearly against the code of conduct aswell are they not?

 

The fact that someone plays chaos/nurgle at high tv would be enough for me to not like you but trying nothing but to kill your opponents team is a scummy thing to do in my oppinion if the game is literally decided. I know people might disagree with me on that but that is the beautifull thing about oppinions. And i know he will justify his behavour to himself that is what everyone does to live with oneself but if your reasoning is: "you can get a quicksnap and oneturn me" while there are 3 players left max you clearly don't understand the basics of bloodbowl. Just all mans the LOS with your 11 players and the quicksnapp ain't doing anything but what do i know.

 

 

 

 

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My argument isn't that we're trying to recreate CRP1 in BB2. I'm showing you where the rule comes from. When we set up the OCC in BB2, we had to decide what rules we wanted and then look at which ones were possible and realistic to implement in the BB2 client -- it wasn't an arbitrary process, but it was based on how we wanted the league to run. For example, stadium upgrades are mentioned in our ruleset because we elected to play with them, but the bank rule isn't mentioned because we didn't have a choice.

 

The reason we have the more restrictive rule on penalty-free concessions is that we want to to keep concessions to an absolute minimum. It is our opinion that Cyanide implemented it incorrectly, and we considered it something worth enforcing.

 

As for the rest, any breaches you witness of the rules should be reported to your Tier admins, and will then yield warnings or notes as appropriate. Coaches should indeed refrain from some of the behaviour you describe. But to be clear, those are violations are not of the Code of Conduct, but of the OCC Rulebook, and while they are not insignificant, they are not nearly the same level of seriousness.

 

I've explained our position, and while we'll take what you've said about concessions into consideration, I don't see it changing in the future as this is a discussion we've had many times before among the greens.

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This.  This has been done in the OCC before. So I believe you should roll for 2 sauras and 2 skinks. Personally I think you should be thrown out for your language.

 

CONCEDING

A player that concedes before setting up for a kick-off where he could only field 2 or less players suffers no additional penalties. If one coach concedes the match for any other reason then the winner gains all of the loser’s winnings and MVP from this match. In addition, the loser automatically loses one Fan Factor and may not roll for a new one, and any players in the loser’s team that have 51 SPPs or more will leave the team on a D6 roll of 1- 3. Roll separately for each player with 51 or more SPPs to see if they leave.

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Just a point on language.

 

A coach may legally concede by quitting the match when unable to field three players at the start of a drive.

 

I appreciate that not everyone is a native speaker and that may well cause misunderstanding, but there is absolutely no ambiguity in this statement at all. Adding the last 6 words in bold may encourage people to read to the end of the sentence, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still a clear and unambiguous statement.

 

This is purely about the comment on the language of the rule, not whether the rule itself should be in its current format.

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1 hour ago, Rymdkejsaren said:

I've explained our position, and while we'll take what you've said about concessions into consideration, I don't see it changing in the future as this is a discussion we've had many times before among the greens.

@Bevani'm terrebly sorry but i can honestly not say if you completly agree or disagree with me but if i had to guess i would say you agree? Maybe you're right about the native speaker thing here at least for me.

 

I never said you have to change anything and i tried to make that as clear as possible. This is your league and your decision. Merely made suggestions and asked for a rephrasing that does not change the rules but emphasizes the intended meaning.

 

To be frank with you i wanted to quit OCC at the end of last season which i even mentioned in the decisions threat but let myself be convinced otherwise bye someone (not blaming anyone it was my decision in the end). If you decide to apply the 51spp rule @Breschdleng@Borke over a missunderstanding/interpretation please inform me before doing anything to the Team itself. I'm down to 8 players (1 mng so 7 atm). So half of my remaining players would have a chance to be deleted. If you decide it is the right thing to do so be it. I can honestly barely bring myself to play this season as it is with all the kill teams and me basically playing a stunty Team with 4 loners and no way to change that in the comming at least 10 games or so cause i can't be bothere to roll anything but a 1 on winnings. That would most likely result in me quitting this season and the OCC in general at the risk of taking a ban even if every single one of the players makes theire roll and stays in the Team. It just is mentaly exhausting to know you'll have to spend round about 2 hours every week playing a game with basically fast goblins without secret weapons against killteam after killteam knowing full well that unless you have the best dice in existence and/or your opponent completly shits the bed there is just nothing you'll ever be able to do.

 

Please don't take this as a try to sway your decision in any way shape or form. I'm sorry that i didn't just quit at the end of last Season and may cause there to be an empty slot in T1A starting MD2. I'm terrebly sorry for causing you this inconvenience and giving you extra work.

 

Ans if the let's call it "other incident" will be enough independently of the whole legal/illegal concession to justify me getting banned then honestly so be it. I kinda think it would be rediciouless for a first time offence (or maybe i fucked up before and didn't get warned about my missbehaviour who knows. I'm not known to tread lightly i think) but it is your league, you can do with it whatever you want and i'm not going to tell you how to run it.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Bevan said:

Just a point on language.

 

A coach may legally concede by quitting the match when unable to field three players at the start of a drive.

 

I appreciate that not everyone is a native speaker and that may well cause misunderstanding, but there is absolutely no ambiguity in this statement at all. Adding the last 6 words in bold may encourage people to read to the end of the sentence, but that doesn't change the fact that it is still a clear and unambiguous statement.

 

This is purely about the comment on the language of the rule, not whether the rule itself should be in its current format.

 

The way I read it as being two possible options is this: the "when" can apply to two separate cases. The first is the clearest, and the one I intended: the "when" applies to when the concession may take place (at the start of a drive).

 

The second is that the "when" applies to the condition itself, as in when a coach is no longer able to field three players at the start of a drive, they may concede. So any time before said drive starts it's permissible to concede, providing it's 100% certain that there won't be enough players to field 3 or more when it does come. But as I said, it's a liberal interpretation of the wording. It should really have read "at the start of the next drive" for it to be interpreted like that with certainty.

 

I'm now on the fence.

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@Rymdkejsaren

 

I think that is going beyond liberal interpretation to positively laissez-faire :) I concede the point it is theoretically possible to read it the unintended way, but only with twisting of clear intent. Having said that, depending on someone's native language it may be entirely possible they see it in a way a native never would (unless the native was trying to be annoyingly picky :D ).

 

 

At the start of a drive, a coach may legally concede by quitting the match when unable to field three players .

 

Moving the words around and adding a comma removes that possibility.

 

It seems, though, that we have managed to prove that ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder - if people genuinely are reading it the wrong way, and not just 'rules lawyering', then it could do with a tweak no matter how perfectly good the sentence was to begin with :)

 

 

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On 3/24/2021 at 10:10 PM, Bevan said:

@Rymdkejsaren

 

I think that is going beyond liberal interpretation to positively laissez-faire :) I concede the point it is theoretically possible to read it the unintended way, but only with twisting of clear intent. Having said that, depending on someone's native language it may be entirely possible they see it in a way a native never would (unless the native was trying to be annoyingly picky :D ).

 

 

At the start of a drive, a coach may legally concede by quitting the match when unable to field three players .

 

Moving the words around and adding a comma removes that possibility.

 

It seems, though, that we have managed to prove that ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder - if people genuinely are reading it the wrong way, and not just 'rules lawyering', then it could do with a tweak no matter how perfectly good the sentence was to begin with :)

 

 

 

I see it now. That is a lot clearer and it's technically the same sentence. Anyway, we'll rephrase it in the rulebook since regardless of how correctly it's written, it's clear that people have interpreted it otherwise, for whatever reasons.

 

Anyway, I am closing this topic now as the question has been answered.

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Employing my Green privilege to answer something from the OP that I didn't see addressed previously.
 

On 3/25/2021 at 2:03 AM, Igralius said:

In my oppinion Legal concessions are a way to escape a dicing and/or to punish people trying to do nothing but to remove the opponents Team so that they aren't gifted another 3 free TD spp on top of what copious amounts of spp they got for putting your Team threw the meatgrinder. It is meant to punish people for not paying attention or not minding the state of the game.

 

The bold part is the only section of this paragraph that I agree with.

 

Removing players is a legitimate and completely normal strategy for both winning games and developing players. Pitch clearing is just removing players on good luck steroids. Nobody deserves to be punished for employing standard tactics in a board game and getting good luck. 

Denying your opponent the chance to score a certain TD by conceding is horrendous sportsmanship. That is why I believe conceding during a drive should be illegal, and why I support the OCC's implementation of the LRB6 rule in the BB2 game.

All coaches should have the maturity to both win and lose with grace. Empathy is usually thought about in terms of winning coaches being considerate of their opponent. However, it should also work the other way - losing coaches should be considerate of their opponent, and let them enjoy their win.

The attitude of punishing your opponent and denying them a TD is, in my opinion, completely contrary to the Code of Conduct and the behaviour we expect of coaches in the OCC.

 

We are here to play a silly fantasy game in an enjoyable league environment. Every OCC coach has a responsibility to play the game with an attitude that contributes to the enjoyable league environment.

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