Not quite game design, but people design - Yes!

I like game design a fair amount - when you design games, you also have to get in the head of the people you're designing the game for. How do you handle player conflicts? What parts can lead to player disagreements, even on what was just going on?

This morning I woke up to a memory of a past organized play experience, and spent the next hour writing down the words. Hope you enjoy!

Regionalism, or How Canadians Learned to Love Jimmer

I was a level 3 Judge in the Magic program for about 3 and a half years, at the start of the certification era. That time saw the evolvement from the ‘old hands’ method of judging from authority to a more modern ‘the rules you play with at home, are the rules you should have everywhere’. During that period, I operated as the standing head judge at the Wizards of the Coast Game Center, sharing the duty with Matt Hyra in the first part. The tournament area stayed open about 360 days of the year – lots of tournaments, and there a good mix of tournament judging staff.

The highest level of events that level 3 judges ran were Pro Tour Qualifiers (PTQs). You want on the Pro Tour, for whatever reason? Win a PTQ, get a slot in the next PT. It brought out competitors from everywhere. In Seattle, you would often get players from Oregon and British Columbia coming in, as well as random traveling Magic players coming through.

Over several years, you got to know the regular Pro Tour players, even if you didn’t go yourself. I didn’t know how many tour points they had, or much money they had won. But you could tell – there were rivalries amongst competitive players, tricks of the trade they all knew, and you could see them hanging out with each other between rounds catching up on things. To be honest, there was an unwritten rule in the Magic community that the PT was like doing time in prison. You come out of prison, having been schooled in all of the dirty tricks of the old hands. Loops of logic, how-to methods on working over your opponents and judges – a veritable bag of tricks.

It worked pretty well for expert players. At a time where the highest judges relied on their absolute authority to deal with players, someone only had to con one person in the end. Two, if you count the opponent. Not all judges were known for their rules knowledge, or judgement skills…getting someone with both wasn’t always in the cards. Being an experienced player who had been around the block, you tried to find an angle. If the judge is weak on game rules, you find ambiguities there. If the judge feels inadequate in mental games, use some logical fallacies. But always argue your point, hopefully in a way that shuts down your opponent’s argument, settling the question in the judge’s mind.

There isn’t a way to be a perfect judge, but there are some qualities I thought I was good at. I spent a lot of time reading rules questions every week. On the floor, I was willing to be wrong – listening to other people talk when you know you’re absolutely right was pretty uninteresting. As people would drop out of the tournament, finding out how they perceived the event flow was a lesson in humility sometimes. It was also heartening, listening to them talk about their good experiences as well.

Oh, the flattery. You’re judging events every day of work. There are regulars, who make you feel like a regular on Cheers. That they were a regular on Cheers. They confide in you about their problems and victories – who doesn’t want to be friendly? The danger for judges is that it can lead to favoritism, be it beneficial or punitive. Get in bad with a judge, maybe next time they won’t even listen to you…lose your next judging call. Were you on the Pro Tour? Hope the judge isn’t biased against strongly competitive players.

So you had to watch out for the honest flattery and the dishonest parts, and keep your head clear of people you liked and disliked. If you can imagine, it shapes your habits after several years. A portion of my brain was always running analysis of motives (theirs and mine) during every interaction…emotionless as the rest of my personality kept going, hiding the internal processes from casual view. Robot Jimmer, running subprocesses, even when not working!

This story starts and ends fairly quickly. It was a PTQ, one day at the tournament center. Players call for a judge, but quickly ask for the head judge. (This is somewhat bad style – let the original judge gain some experience, and if you aren’t comfortable with it, ask to appeal to the head judge.) As it was, both players were known to each other, having played on the PT. Rivals, but not heated rivals. They had been arguing over a grayish area – neither one had been specific on what they had been doing as actions, and both of them had reasonable arguments on why they were right.

So I arrive to the table with the players arguing, each player convinced they were right and the other player was trying to get some kind of tricky edge on their opponent. They’re both a little pissed emotionally at this point – I’d like to think they were both decent people outside of the match…my subprocessor was running, so it didn’t matter too much. You quiet the spectators, if any. You listen to both sides fairly, stopping the opponent from interrupting. You listen to rebuttals. You ask non-leading questions of each participant. You check for any external factors. In the end, the match has to continue – hopefully with both players being satisfied with the ruling, but not required.

A & B are rivals. A is from Canada. B is mostly local to Seattle tournaments. Both have played in multiple events at the Game Center – stubborn, but top-quality players. It takes about 5 minutes to learn the details of the problem, sifting through the extra casual and non-casual manipulations of conversation. I come up with a fair answer – nothing will satisfy both players…they each want the ruling to be 100% in their favor. Neither one gets what they want, but my standard thing is “We’ve had enough discussion, and your match needs to continue.” If they want to continue trying to score points, either to change your mind or sway you for the next time – I let them go for about half a minute, and then tell the player to look me up after the match.

This usually lets them feel good that the judge doesn’t have any hard feelings about it, and that maybe next time the judge will make a ruling in their favor. I wonder how much this is like raising a kid some days – saying not now, but later…only to have the child forget about it, but having been pacified at the time. It’s not limited to children, obviously. Fully functioning adults could decide later that they’re fine, it’s not a big deal now they’ve had time to process the data.

Anyhow, both A & B continue the argument with each other and myself. It’s bad style again, but they perceive that this game could knock themselves or the other out of the event – don’t pass quietly into the night. I allow for a little bit of venting, but put my foot down again. Arguments can distract other players and after awhile it can become uselesss noise. They continue to argue. I lead off with “You both need to get back to the match and quiet down, this is final.” Both players begin opening their mouth to continue, looking at me. B closes his mouth abruptly. He’s either more perceptive than A, or knows my judging habits better. A closes his mouth, and then restarts the argument.

Player A gets a quick warning of unsportsmanlike conduct, and the next words out of my mouth will be game loss if necessary. It’s a jolt of adrenaline for the judge and the player – the judge has gone from a passive observer to an active role in the game. The player hopefully realizes their danger and reins in their responses. A was cognizant of what was going on, and quickly said it’s not necessary.

In thoughts, going back to the desk, I had to consider what went on. Relying on your instincts is a trap sometimes, where you can be swayed by hidden currents. Relying on logic opens you up to traps of fallacies. Did B have an advantage because he knew he had crossed the line because he knew my tells better? How did judges handle A up in Canada – I can’t know. I enjoyed the Canadian players. Heck, Canadians are pretty enjoyable to hang out with. How much of this confusion stems from differences in culture?

Not only did we have some light differences in culture, there’s always the question of regional favoritism. Is the judge ruling in favor of the US player, over Canada? Is the opponent a personal friend of the judge? A regular? Unfair!

In the end, I was satisfied with my response. A & B both had the same chances to avoid penalties. There was a flurry of Canadians coming up between rounds, trying to find out what was going on, and checking for judge bias. After hearing the story, some thought I had made a mistake by being so nice up to that point – A must’ve been surprised that I could go from pleasant to strict so quickly! Apparently some judges were so strict with A from his antics up north, that they called him on such things immediately.

Wrapping up the story, A did come up several times during the event to chat. As mentioned earlier, I do think he was a decent guy. While we still disagreed on the ruling, there didn’t appear to be any long-term trust issues. And while I spent a lot of time that day, discussing judging with Canadians, I think it was the day they learned to trust me to be fair…which is pretty rewarding, when you think about it. Thanks, guys!