Cactus Game Design Message Boards

In the case of searching, there is no way to tell if your opponent was fortunate and really did draw all of their dominants right away, or if they got SoG/NJ right away because of Zaccheus and Consider the Lilies.

Is there a new Zaccheus coming out?  Because I am curious how Zaccheus can search for SoG or NJ? The only other option for using Zaccheus as an example (that I can figure) is that you are referencing how someone can search, not show, and still cheat.

Quote from: soul seeker on January 19, 2012, 01:56:50 PM

Quote from: Professoralstad on January 19, 2012, 01:01:16 PM

In the case of searching, there is no way to tell if your opponent was fortunate and really did draw all of their dominants right away, or if they got SoG/NJ right away because of Zaccheus and Consider the Lilies.

Is there a new Zaccheus coming out?  Because I am curious how Zaccheus can search for SoG or NJ? The only other option for using Zaccheus as an example (that I can figure) is that you are referencing how someone can search, not show, and still cheat.

I think that was his point.  You can prove if your opponent is cheating with Lost Souls, but can't prove that he's cheating with searches, unless there's a reveal rule.

Precisely.

You can suspect your opponent is cheating with Lost Souls.  You can't prove it until you see the cards.

I believe the point was that even with seeing the cards, only the LS cheating can be proven explicitly, whereas the search cannot due to the randomness of drawing.

There is no reason to require a reveal when you can search your deck for literally any card. On the contrary there is a significant strategic disadvantage to having to reveal such a card. If you're campaigning for revealing "any card" you may as well add that every card drawn must be revealed, also any card looked at. At that point, you may as well just play with decks face-up instead of face-down, and artifact piles, too.

My opinion is that cards should be kept hidden unless there is a reason to reveal them, such as there is with searches that look for a specific card/type of card (in that it is to prevent cheating and to clarify mistakes).

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I don't think the rule is very complicated, and I think there are plenty of legitimate reasons it should remain the way it is, although I certainly see the other side of the coin as well.

I agree with this.  I just don't think that "cheaters will always cheat" is one of those legitimate reasons.

I look at it more as me taking away the temptation (and opportunity) to cheat. I was not a "cheater" in my high school classes as a student, but when the opportunity was made abundantly easy, I did indeed cheat on a Chemistry test.

Of course, I also felt extremely guilty afterward and told my teacher the next day that I had cheated, but that's not the point. 

Situation: Taking a test filling out the periodic table. You are told to do it from memory. There is a poster of the periodic table hanging right up front of the class.

Is it fair to have that sort of availability for the students to use, even though it would be cheating? Would it not be better to remove the opportunity for easy cheating?

I guess so.  So I take it from this analogy that you want me to add you to the list of people who are in favor of revealing every single card that you might add to your hand.  That would surely remove the opportunity to "forget" to place a Lost Soul in play.

Quote from: Minister Polarius on January 19, 2012, 08:59:54 PM

Situation: Taking a test filling out the periodic table. You are told to do it from memory. There is a poster of the periodic table hanging right up front of the class.

Is it fair to have that sort of availability for the students to use, even though it would be cheating? Would it not be better to remove the opportunity for easy cheating?

I guess so.  So I take it from this analogy that you want me to add you to the list of people who are in favor of revealing every single card that you might add to your hand.  That would surely remove the opportunity to "forget" to place a Lost Soul in play.

I feel like that is some over exaggeration there.  Its easy and doesn't break gameflow to make people reveal the cards they search for to stop cheating.  To reveal every card a person drew is overkill, and is simply not practical.

Quote from: Minister Polarius on January 19, 2012, 08:59:54 PM

Situation: Taking a test filling out the periodic table. You are told to do it from memory. There is a poster of the periodic table hanging right up front of the class.

Is it fair to have that sort of availability for the students to use, even though it would be cheating? Would it not be better to remove the opportunity for easy cheating?

I guess so.  So I take it from this analogy that you want me to add you to the list of people who are in favor of revealing every single card that you might add to your hand.  That would surely remove the opportunity to "forget" to place a Lost Soul in play.

Hidding souls is not an issue because A) its easy to discover and B) if you did you just lost. So go right ahead and hide souls in your hand because when I look at it with Damsel not only to I get to draw but its gg for me. As for the searches there is really no good way to catch someone milling doms with consider the lilies. So the two situations are not a good comparison.

Expecting students not to look at a full periodical table poster hung in full view is unreasonable. Expecting students not to have a piece of paper with the same printed on it hidden under their watch is reasonable. I support the status quo: reveal specific cards searched for, don't reveal cards gotten by Search or False Peace.

I guess I really don't understand your analogy. Why is searching for the wrong card equivalent to looking at a periodic table on the wall, while not putting a lost soul in play is bringing in a hidden crib note? Printing a mini-crib sheet and hiding it under your watch is much more work than glancing at the wall. Moreover, you run a much higher chance of getting caught. Neither of those is the case in what we are discussing here.

I agree that full-blown-never-put-a-lost-soul-in-play cheating is beyond what any but the most hardened criminal would do. That said, however, withholding a single or even a couple of lost souls is no more difficult than searching for the wrong card. The risk of getting caught is similar. Finallythe rewards are also comparable...anyone who has played for any length of time has been involved in multiple games where the ultimate winner/loser was decided by nothing more than one player not drawing a lost soul for two or three turns.

I'm not sure I understand how displaying other ways to cheat is an argument against helping prevent certain ways to cheat.

It's not. I am only pointing out that if preventing cheating and trying to remove the temptation to cheat is of major concern to someone, then they have a much bigger kettle of fish to fry than the rule that searched cards must be revealed.

FTR, I am not in favor of changing the rule that has been in effect since I came to the boards, which has already been reiterated by an elder.

FTR, neither am I (and I have said so at least twice previously in this thread).

Why is this suddenly being debated?

Because STAMP suggested that it be done away with in the name of simplification, and rather than pointing out good reasons to keep it (like ProfessorAlstad did) people jumped immediately to the "Ohnoes, we must keep this rule because players will cheat otherwise." This strikes me as being overly cynical. The fact is that there are currently other ways to cheat that are just as easy and no one does those.

In the same way, hiding Lost Souls in your hand or Art Pile can be discovered by seeing or randomly hitting it from either, searching deck and realizing the number of souls don't add up, etc.

It can be discovered, but it never is.  Seriously, how many cards are there that let a player somehow look at another player's artifact pile? (I can think of three off-hand but I may be missing some.) Of those I have seen precisely one (Casting Lots, black) ever played by anyone not running a T2 combo deck. So yeah--the artifact pile can gotten to if someone plays a card that no one ever adds to their deck.

As far as searching the deck and counting LS goes--how do you plan to do that if I have Nazareth or Hezzy's Ring up? Both of these see a ton of play (because they are extremely useful even if you are not cheating).

Hidding souls is not an issue because A) its easy to discover and B) if you did you just lost. So go right ahead and hide souls in your hand because when I look at it with Damsel not only to I get to draw but its gg for me.

Putting aside the fact that I can hide souls in my artifact pile (which is probably what I would do if I were cheating), how many times did you look at my hand in the game we played last Saturday? Precisely zero. What were the chances you were you ever going to block Joseph or Benjamin with Damsel just to get a glimpse at my hand? Almost precisely zero. (And lastly--given that there were always LS available in our game what is the chance I *was* cheating this way? Zero, unless I was really bad at it.) So yeah--it is so easy to discover that players never take the steps to actually do so.

MJB is hitting the nail on the head.  The bottom line is that cheating will always happen.  Poker players of the 1800's continued to cheat even upon penalty of death.

Do I believe that the population of Redemption players cheat far less often than the general population?  YES.
Do I believe that cheating will never occur within the population of Redemption players?  NO.
Do I believe that cheating will never occur within the population of Redemption players IF rules are created to curb cheating?  NO.

Volumes of rules could be created to curb cheating and yet there will always be someone who will try to cheat the system.  The same can be said of mistakes.  Mistakes will always happen.

I'm just offering ways to simplify what is already a very complex game.


But if we're not really all that concerned with complexity then I propose we create some rules to keep MJB from putting lost souls in his art pile.  Because I know I would be very unhappy and my life would stink if I lost to MJB and found out he hid some souls in his art pile.

All this cheating talk reminds me of the test taking scene in "Spies like us" with Aykroyd and Chase. 

I teach my playgroup (mostly teens and my sons) to be cautious and call a judge to check the deck mid-game if they feel something funny is going on with lost souls.  Like Prof A, I know I will check their deck before they can mix all their cards together.  I check every time that I experience a lost soul drought no matter who it is.  I welcome the same scrutiny if I lost soul drought someone.  It is too easy to accidentally leave lost souls in another deck from a previous game or hide lost souls anywhere (including the floor).  If you're playing honest, then it shouldn't matter if your opponent wants to check you.  If you're not playing honest, then you have every right to be checked.

You guys may call it cynicism, but I view it being "wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove." 

I believe it.  Here's how I prioritize ruling threads:

1. Is it Biblical?
2. Is it simple?
3. Does it promote fun and fellowship?
.
.
.
99. Does it allow the current top players the ability to maintain the status quo?