[The Elder Scrolls - Unofficial Patch 1.42] Black Drake

[Mergor]

I'd very much like you to define "spirit of the rules" for me Ventos, and also do it in a way that is in line with the exploits both teams have been making

[Captainnorway]

If anyone has anything else to add, i’ll be waiting until tomorrow to make a final statement…

[Ventos Mustel]

I'd very much like you to define "spirit of the rules" for me Ventos, and also do it in a way that is in line with the exploits both teams have been making

The only difference between this and the scenario described by the ubiquitous 'no besieging to deny retreat' rule is that it generally takes more than one unit to execute. And sure, it happens sometimes that friendly units just happen to be positioned in such a way that it affects retreat paths without that being the primary purpose of them being there, but this is very obviously not that case. There is no room for argument that this was a deliberate maneuver and could not have occurred except as such.

And it seems clear to me that you knew this was going to be ruled an exploit, but figured you could slip it in anyway by arguing that should only officially be counted as one after you've already gotten your use out of it.

As for you bringing up save scumming for missions in consecutive allied turns, that is both completely unrelated to this exploit, and entirely un-policeable without resorting to the admin measures I proposed in the hotseat discord, since by virtue of it being a save-scum exploit any result that comes from it could easily just be luck.

[Jadli]

@Isenbard indeed

@jimmy Well, ok. But do you mean it wasnt brought up because nobody reported you? Or someone brought it up, and admin said its fine? Those are two very different things. Either way, discord rules/admins often may differ from TWC (especially outside of the Hub), so really depends. Its generally considered an exploit around here as far as I know (and I dont allow this in my hotseats... and I wrote the rules of this HS btw)... and our admin thinks the same.

Anyway, sorry, but the whole claim of "one turn notice" for this is a joke, right? You definitely must have known this move would be controversial and that there would be discussion about it (or definitely Mergor would, if not you). And what are players supposed to do, when they are thinking of doing such a move? First check with an admin, whether this move is allowed. (as admins ask players in like every hotseat out there, which I believe you agree with) Which is what we did in regards to the land blockades.

But of course you guys didnt do that, instead you did the move without asking so that now you can use the argument that you already spend X hours on it, so you shouldnt be forced to replay and could whine about retroactive ruling? Sorry, nope. Thats not how it works. Its not retroactive, its now. You guys should know better

Also, comparing this to the previous ruling about land blockades of ports is very misplaced, isnt? As its very different situation. In the port issue, nobody actually used this move in their turns, we just thought about whether its allowed or not, so we asked admin/players (which is how it should work). And he implemented it, active one turn later, it wasnt affecting anyone or anything. Here, the disputed move was already done, heavily affecting one side, so the required solution is very much different. Either way, this is not really adding a new rule.

I have said it before and I say it again: I would want a full discussion about past happenings and grievences regarding rule breaks in this hotseat. Those calls of mine were always ignored and shrugged off. If we are going this way and applying a blanket ban on exploits whether they are in or out the ruleset, that cannot be avoided anymore, especially that the hotseat is dotted with different rulings regarding things that are missing. Last turn, a ruling was applied a turn after, now its suddenly applied right away even tho in both cases something is missing from the ruleset. That makes this ruling arbitrary, inconsistent and one which that generates drama. This turn, we made a move that simply was not banned like a lot of others moves each team does each turn and were ridicolouled for it. Why are you surprised the HS is so drama-y?

And generating missions was just an example, I am sure there are plenty of other things each side abuses. If a blanket ban stays, then we have to gather ALL exploits, add it to the ruleset, and either penalise them right away (full replay for the previous x turns where the usage of these mattered) or only penalise them next turn.

And to be honest, yes, Isenbard is right. This devolved into a game where we take every advantage possible. But if Jadli dares say that its only the fault of me, I have nothing more to say. So if you really want to "play clean" than we better do a whole rule revision before continuing this hotseat.

Past grievances: its not in our power to change the past?

Land bloackdes: Again, the two recent rulings are not really comparable.

Clarification of rules: Well, perfect. If you have some moves/exploits on your mind that you are not sure whether they are allowed or not, post them, so that admin can clarify what he considers it allowed or not and we can add it to the rules. Thats literally how things should work in a HS, whats so surprising about this? (good thing to consider is also to stop exploiting whatever the game lets you)

Gathering and penalizing all "rule breaks" from the entire HS: How does this even make sense? Its like the the weirdest thing I have heard in a long time. Sure, lets investigate every turn in the last 5 years.... Why not just restart the HS then, with a new ruleset? (ah, we already got BD 2, nevermind). In those 5 years, we have had 4 admins (or more), some of them very likely would have had different ideas on some rules/moves...

'no besieging to deny retreat'

Oh yea, and this important rule instance I forgot to mention

If anyone has anything else to add, i’ll be waiting until tomorrow to make a final statement…

I hope you dont drop your admin position as the previous admins did

[Mergor]

I have asked you to define "spirit of the rules" for me Ventos, because as far am I aware, the current definition of that, which is accepted across basically all communities (as its added to every HS), is tied to me right now.

"In this mindset, if the move does something eerily similar that the rule that can be connected to it tries to prevent in theory, then the admin has the right to not allow the move."

As a side note, I wrote these, and made it acceptable across hotseats because of drama that generated when admins ruled or had no choice but to rule arbitrarily.

Back to "spirit of the rules." The key word here is "tries to prevent." In the spirit of the rules interpretation, the surronding rule tries to prevent situations where an army could be scattered. I have argued with captainnorway about this rule, he said that he considered influcing retreat paths included in this rule. Which is fine as a subjective interpretation, but apperantly this is heavily contested objectively, nor does it have to anything with what the rule tries to prevent, the reason for its existence.

As for the "no besieging to deny retreat" that rule tries to prevent a situation in which an army that could run inside a settlement is denied from doing so, because the settlement is besieged. Similar to the ban on the YoYo bug. As we have clearly demonstrated, the army did not have room inside anyhow and the same thing would have happened if the army runs to it "naturally."

Using either of these rules to ban any influence on retreat paths is a stretch and has nothing to do with "the spirit of the rules". The spirit of the rules mindset exists to prevent usage of loopholes in rules, not to extend existing rules arbitrarily to new instances. The influence of retreat paths to this magnitude has not been considered before and its not even part of the Universal Exploit List. So you are wrong that we knew this was going to be an exploit, we honestly believed that since this rule did not exist, it was just clever. Hence why we did not ask the admin about it.

EDIT: I am not opposed, even supportive of adding this rule to the Universal Exploit List, and using that List for this HS. But only from next turn due to issues I said already.

[Jadli]

"A heavily contested objectively": Sure, the only person I have seen to contest this heavily is you.

There are no rules accepted (or you could say enforced) accross all, nor most communities. Every admin can pick any rules he/she wants when starting a HS (even in the Hub or on TWC). Players/admins from different communities have different ideas. Furthermore, this HS was started 5 years ago (there was the anniversary yesterday btw. What a way to celebrate it ), when discord didnt even exist. With an admin, who isnt around anymore and a ruleset made at that time (and compiled by me).

Therefore, that something isnt included in a list of exploits that was made (by you, while you assumedly didnt know about this move) years after this HS was started has a little relevance to arguments about rules in this HS. Obviously, neither is your universla list effective in this hotseat, as its not in the OP.

And anyway, admin's decision is always final (especially so, in situations like this). He does not have to follow or obey any ruleset or community agreement.

EDIT: I am not opposed, even supportive of adding this rule to the Universal Exploit List, and using that List for this HS. But only from next turn due to issues I said already.

Perfect, so you just said you agree its an exploit . I assume there is no need to continue this dispute then, and you replay. Because, why would you use an exploit in your turn, right? (again, whether it is or isnt in the Universal list has a little meaning for this HS, as its not effective in this hotseat. Therefore, its also irrelevant whether you add it to that list now or a turn later. We can add the list, sure. But its completely separate from this issue right now.)

[Ventos Mustel]

It didn't have room inside the fort all the way at the other end of Skyrim. It absolutely had room inside Falkreath, or the fort north of Falkreath, or in Morthal, all of which it was deliberately prevented from retreating to.

[Mergor]

Ventos, that is beside the point. Influecing retreat path is a different beast from those rules you brought up, and when discussing whether something can be banned right away (because whether a rule covers this or not matters) it is something dinstinct.

Whether its an exploit or not Jadli my points are about something entirely different (and we made it believing its not an exploit due to our previous experiences). The question here is, can this be banned right away when the rules allow it, and in my opinion no rules extend to this. My argument is that no, at this point we cannot, because it was legal to do it when it was done. That is why I consider this would be decision arbitrary (for now captainnorway did not make a final decision by his own words).

Furthermore, your argument works against you Jadli. If you consider this ruleset uninfluenced by anything else but itself, and a ruleset, which clearly details exactly what it considers an exploit, then throwing "no exploits" at me does not work, because the ruleset does not considers this an exploit, as it is not named. Saying that the exploit list of mine has little relevance on the HS means that anything that was agreed to be an exploit after the rules of this hs were set in stone has similarly little relevance on the HS... "Its not in the OP" as you say.

The admin definitely has to follow its own hotseats ruleset tho, I hope you agree.

[General Dragon.]

I believe it is fair to say, the spirit of the rules have been "bended" several times on both sides be it regarding rules or regarding roleplay "definitions".

You definitely must have known this move would be controversial and that there would be discussion about it (or definitely Mergor would, if not you). And what are players supposed to do, when they are thinking of doing such a move? First check with an admin, whether this move is allowed. (as admins ask players in like every hotseat out there, which I believe you agree with) Which is what we did in regards to the land blockades.

Except with that one we had no admin before that was settled and you decided with your side, that the case should be no land unit can block ships, so don't say "we asked the admin" first. Captainnorway had to be brought in to settle it normally, instead of you acting like the "judge". And this isn't the first time either you nonchalantly decided on something to go this or that way, because you think it should be this or that. I believe you didn't ask the admin, if you are allowed to trade your huge city in the same turn to the orks, so that they can spawn the best ships in a totally other side of a large landmass via missions, if it's fair or not.

One of the main problem comes from Jadli, that we were too "lenient" instead of voicing our opinions always. Atleast from what I can reflect on me and mergor definitely remained silent on some of the antics you pulled on the sole reason, that we didn't want to create arguments everytime and went with, that if you think you can do that, then we can do the same in some similar fashion.
On the other hand everytime we did something, you thought is "far-fetched" you indeed raised your voice but always in a way, that implemented you and your side is always the right one, hence again, we deciding to not make a public tavern argument in this thread hence me and mergor always saying, we have our own "grudges" it is just we didn't make a full "drama" situation out of it. Some of the past arguments are literally were you and your side clearly adamant being the right one, so making the talks pretty much like we are talking to brickwalls.

Looking back, maybe we should have done it differently in some other way to resolve some of the past stuff earlier.

[Jadli]

Indeed, we had no admin before. Therefore, we couldnt have asked one about the interpretation of the port blockades rules

With the port trade, I actually asked Mergor first before doing the move, and he said he/you will not object it (which is how things should work btw, especially when you have a tired admin), cause he himself was thinking of using the same move.

For the rest, I see no point trying to stir some old (or newer) stuff up and derail the issue at hand, but you indeed seem to have many grudges that you are holding back...sounds pretty unhealthy.

Again, If you guys feel this way, not sure if the HS should be continued, as apparently, it will very likely only grow these grudges/wounds...

EDIT
Btw, to clarify with land blockades, as you are misinterprating that greatly. What happened was that I asked him about whether him/you would be against or for allowing, as I found there was surprisingly no precedent for it. He refused to tell me his/yours standing unless I tell him the exact place/move I think of using it, so that he could give his "objective opinion". So then captain was brought in.

EDIT 2
Yea, Ventos posted in the same time the same thing

Anyways, as you see, in both examples you wrote, I actually first contacted other relevant players (or at least tried to), before actually doing the move . Which you guys didnt in this retreat exploit case. The fault is only yours.