Yo.

First - thanks almost more than I can say to one of my favourite people in the world - Darth Jim. He and other awesomes at SHNN last week (Jason, Les and Lou) opened the show by talking about the awfulness that befell my family this last week which was that my house was broken into and a bunch of stuff was stolen, including all my wife's jewellery, my two guitars (bah!) and my two Rancors. (No other minis, just the Rancors...) To have them talk about it and to be sending their care via the airwaves meant so much to me and justifies to me why I feel like SWM is more a family to me than a game. Kudos to everyone in this community for making it feel like that and kudos to Jim and co. for wanting to so specifically look after one of your own. FYI: we're doing well down here - the break-in scarcely affected my daughters (perhaps too young to really understand) and my wife and I have had so much support from friends and family, we're pulling through okay.

(Jim also mentioned buying my album and, although I feel like this is shameless self-promotion (which usually I am all for), here is that link. You don't HAVE to buy it! You can happily listen to it on the site. The best album is the Wolf, Warrior, Boy but the more easy listening one is Acoustic Graffiti. I should have another one up there soon. Anyhoo... http://therocklords.bandcamp.com/ Enjoy!)

The SHNN beforehand was talking lots about GenCon and some things around that, and I was thinking while I was doing the lawns and listening so this is the results of those thoughts (now a week old and scrawled on a piece of paper... so forgive me if it doesn't make any sense).

Playoffs: 3pt wins? What if you had 3pt wins and 2pt wins in the playoffs? So, the Top 8 starts up 1v8, 2v7 etc. and then the highest seeds that win with 3pts get to choose their 2pt opponents! That would certainly give the incentive for trying to get a 3pt win in a playoff. You're not really penalising folk too much because if they win with a 2pt, they still get through, but you are rewarding 3pt play... do I really want to be having to face someone who has chosen to face me? I think not... I better win this fast.

Splitting Casual/Competitive There seems to be a lot of talk about how certain events at GenCon only really get the casual players and same for the competitive. It also seemed that there was some issues with having to organise both and that the often required different thought processes. Could they be split? Still be under the same umbrella, of course, but have two separate organisers that focus on making things work for each area?

Less is More? Also seemed that there was maybe too many competitions, from what people were saying. Might it be more effective to have less competitions so that they could be made better? If we have less players all up, we could focus on getting fewer events working far more awesomer...

Less Players? One thing I have found in my experience as a Youth Worker is that people love to be invited! Do we invite people? I mean, officially? Could the SWMGPA send out invites to GenCon? An email mailout? Make it personal - maybe? Let's make the people still playing the game feel important!

Kids are People Too! Sounds like there are more and more kids playing the game. Could we have a kids only event? You gotta be under 15 to play! How cool is that? (We have two under-12s that have played tournaments here!)

or... how about you run a special kids tournament where they get to play against a Hall of Famer (everyone wants to play a Hall of Famer!) in a competition called "You kill it, you keep it!" and you load up the HoF with as many cheap, useless Arcona Smuggler-type pieces as you can and any piece the kid kills, he keeps. Kid walks away, win or lose, with pieces and having played one of the greats of the game. Can't beat that.

The International Laptop Have a laptop set up with Vassal so you could play against someone overseas and queue up a bunch of international folk (Canada, UK, Europe, Oz, NZ...) to be on a certain times in case anyone wants to play against the world...

...as I said, I came up with these two weeks ago while mowing the lawns... apologies.

*grin*

Sorry to hear about the brake-in.

Very sorry to hear about the break-in as well. I heard it via SHNN later as well - but that really stinks (especially the guitars!!!)

Onto the good stuff - I REALLY like some of these ideas. Especially -



As far as less is more - I think that is already going to happen. We've already talked about perhaps somehow combining the sith trial and the jedi challenge (sacrilege!) But without a doubt - we need to concentrate our events next year.

Kids are people too - agreed, but we gotta get their parents to bring them first. Having more kid focused things can encourage that. Maybe even a parent/child team tournament? Lots of father/son combos out there that play (and would love to see mother/son, father/daughter or mother/daughters).

The 3pt wins in the playoffs would need to be fleshed out more - but my initial reaction is that I like it!

Invites to GenCon is interesting. Going a step further - perhaps at Regionals, for 2nd-4th place we could buy their ticket to the champs (not the full GenCon badge), and it would only be bought after they get their own badge. More motivation to go to GenCon.

We have to get more people to GO to GenCon. Plan it out - take the time - make the commitment. It's totally worth it in every way.

Love, love LOVE - kids fighting Hall of Famers and keeping the figs. I would donate figures for this cause. It's super simple and instant gratification.

Indianapolis, Indiana.

Typically, late July/Early August.

Is there a reason why you can't have a longer time limit for the finals? I always thought the time limit was just there to make sure you can get all the games in. In Swiss, everyone plays the next round at the same time so you need to cut off any games that don't finish. In the playoffs, I wouldn't think that is as much of an issue. Seems like most of the playoff games were independently scheduled anyway. Why not play it out to 200 points?

In reading the play reports, I wasn't bothered by the idea of "2 point wins". In many 2 point wins, it's clear who had the upper hand it was just a matter of time running out. But one of the finals games was called due to time when there wasn't really any engagement at all, and that is bothersome: Calling the game before it's 'over'. That sort of win is the one where it seems like more time would have solved the problem. There's already a rule built in where if there is a true standoff, the game ends after X rounds with no attack, save, etc. (I forget the details, but it's in there.)

If there are really slow players that would make it into a 4 hour game absent a time limit, then you could get a chess timer and if a player takes more than an hour of 'think time', you could grant victory points for each minute a person goes over that.

I guess that has never happened - an actual stalemate with no kills at all. But if there was one, wouldn't it end kind of suddenly at the end of the 4th round or so round where there were no saves, attacks, etc. (Sorry I forget the details on that.) At that point, with a 0-0 score, wouldn't the winner be whoever is closest to the center, regardless of gambit?

Bahahaha! That rules. It kinda hurts to laugh but that is really funny.

I was thinking about how funny it would be if they caught the thief (thieves) because of the Rancors. I mean seriously, that's just not something anyone encounters very often.

That being said I was in a friends tattoo shop and one of the artists there had a SWM AT-AT on display as decoration. Just totally random.

I wasn't referring to lockout victories (which is exactly how Bill beat Weeks in the next game), I was talking about a non-engagement "victories" (if you can even call them that).

It's one thing if your opponent demonstrates that he can keep unlocking-attacking-locking every round without you being able to respond (which is where you'd then concede the match and move on). It's something else entirely if you kill a piece and then sit back in gambit and wait for the time to run out. The first scenario is a result of actual engagement and attacking...the second is what I think we need to avoid. It might be "legal" right now, but it sure isn't sportsmanlike, nor is it the way the game is meant to be played.

Right. In the game in question (Skybuck vs OR Echanis), neither squad was in gambit for more than a round, if I remember correctly. Neither was engaging the other. It could be that it was one of those difficult matchups (like the Naboo/Rebel matchup this year), where the first person to (over) extend will lose. But the problem still remains: It is currently legal and/or accepted to win (especially in the playoffs, where 3pt wins don't matter) by employing a non-engagement strategy for the majority of the game. IMO this needs to change before next year's regional season.


Whether the it's the first 50 minutes or the last 50 minutes of a game, non-engagement is still a problem. If you just sit back and do nothing after making a single kill in the second round, that's a problem too.