Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Am I behind the times here, or are there a bunch of new Redemption "Elders" suddenly? I noticed that Redoubter and Drrek both have green names now (Congrats, by the way!  ).

Well, you're playtesters aren't you? You may as well just be instated as full Elders at this point.

Congrats by the way.

How long do you have to be on the forums to be an elder?

ok

Figured that was you when I saw the change, thanks

Now I can go back to saying things without worrying about people thinking too much about that input!

Who made you guys elders in the first place?

Quote from: LukeChips on June 14, 2014, 04:48:31 PM

Who made you guys elders in the first place?

A mod, presumably.

Mod's don't have that sort of power. Admins do. While Roy grants titles, but it's not in his authority to grant Playtester or Elder status.  This came from Rob.

Quote from: Minion of Jesus on June 14, 2014, 06:34:09 PM

Quote from: LukeChips on June 14, 2014, 04:48:31 PM

Who made you guys elders in the first place?

A mod, presumably.

Mod's don't have that sort of power. Admins do. While Roy grants titles, but it's not in his authority to grant Playtester or Elder status.  This came from Rob.

Whoops. That is more or less what I meant.

For the record, I was kind of hoping that they were new Elders. Frankly I think that the current Elder system isn't working. We need Elders that actually post on the boards more than once a year. Redoubter in particular is very quick to answer any ruling questions, and he includes quotes both from the REG and from previous rulings. This requires a lot of work on his part, but he does it freely. I'm glad that he is now a Playtester, but clearly his strength is in making proper rulings, so that power should be given to him.

Albeit just my own opinion, I think that both the Playtester list and Elder list should include primarily those people who are active in the game and community. I do realize that some of the Elders have a minimal presence on the boards, but are still active in playgroups, which is fine. But the Elder system (I thought) was created to answer questions and make official rulings here on the Message Board, which has a more global exposure than making rulings at a local tournament.

Jordan, Justin, RDT, Underwood, and Gabe are all very active members. Tim is decently active. They just don't generally chime in on rulings unless they're controversial. I'm glad we have an Elder who can clearly explain the rules that are already fully fleshed out to the newcomers.  The Elder system is pretty solid at this point as long as it's followed.

That said, I've always been a fan of dividing the Elders into playtesters, card creators, contributors, and judges.

Define 'frequent' for me please.

Just because I don't post, doesn't mean I'm not here.

I think the biggest problem with the current Elder system is that it's almost impossible to get firm rulings with any kind of rapidity. For instance, the issue in this thread is one that came up a year ago, that didn't come to any formal conclusion because there was no consensus from the Elders on this side of the board of what the status quo was. Based on the fact that no announcement was ever made, I can only assume that no or little discussion was made on the other side of the boards. To me, that's a serious problem. There have been great strides made to tighten up the rules and give the game more consistency, but often, when rulings like this come up, inconsistencies are left in the game, sometimes for years. It's been two years since the last huge Split Altar thread (linked at the post that starts the argument) showed that ANB doesn't shuffle artifact piles, and the only Elder to post in the thread basically said the Elders were sick of hearing about ANB and Split Altar, and nothing has come from it since. As far as I know, ANB still does not shuffle artifact piles. Even in the best of circumstances, the turnaround rate for a problem being exposed to getting a ruling from the Elders is a couple months.

This is a problem that I think can be traced to leadership that is largely either inactive or simply apathetic. Some Elders are almost completely invisible on this side of the boards, and others are just inactive, period. If an Elder hasn't been active on the boards in 8 months, they are not qualified to make rulings at the National tournament. Other Elders were never qualified to make judgments on the intricacies of the game, while regular members who are have zero authority to do so. By creating a new group of people who have the authority to discuss rulings on thorny issues and are actually active, rulings will be more thoroughly discussed from every angle, and rulings on serious issues (like playing dominants in draw/upkeep phases, which really needs a firm decision before Nats) will come out much faster. Additionally, it will allow for better and more consistent rulings, especially at bigger tournaments, by having a list of people qualified AND up-to-date, and only those people. No more issues where a major ruling gets called incorrectly and causes someone to lose (like in 2012, when two separate Elders ruled that the FBTN Lost Soul negated the CBP Lost Soul, despite the fact that that had not been the case for over six months.

I would love to work with Redoubter to clean up the rules. I am almost always scanning the boards and I try to keep up with the game as much as I can, I'm also a bit of a rules lawyer who would sometimes rather judge tournaments than play in them.

The current elder system does sort of work, and it had improved from what we had prior to that, but I do agree that it would be good to split the system between Card Designer, Card Developer, Rule Overseer and Contributor (of course there would mostly likely be overlap, so someone could be a Designer and a Rule Overseer and basically any combination of the above)