Board Game Arena

tbhp wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 15:20 if you've lost interest in the game you can just make nonsense moves when it's your turn. That would be better than quitting.

Maybe for you a game going indefinitely with a player that has left the site or a game continuing with an opponent making random moves would be better but I'd rather the game just finished.

This translates to IRL too, if I had a game night and a player was so uninvested they just started making nonsense moves we'd probably call that game early rather than suffering through it

For what it's worth:

I play friendly mode sometimes because I'm trying to learn the rules and/or card interactions.

Thus, I found it annoying when my friendly mode game opponent quit with two turns left, because, I didn't even know whether my two-move sequence was valid or whether it would score what I thought it would.

I realize that person has every right to quit at that point; I just don't quite understand what was so crucial about ending the game in that manner when it was 2 moves away from ending anyway.

JimBut wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 19:01

tbhp wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 15:20 if you've lost interest in the game you can just make nonsense moves when it's your turn. That would be better than quitting.

Maybe for you a game going indefinitely with a player that has left the site or a game continuing with an opponent making random moves would be better but I'd rather the game just finished.

This translates to IRL too, if I had a game night and a player was so uninvested they just started making nonsense moves we'd probably call that game early rather than suffering through it

100%. Nonsense moves are a guaranteed red thumb from me. Nothing annoys me more. I would absolutely quit a friendly game if my opponent started doing this and red thumb. If it's a Friendly game, I'd be a lot less likely to to red thumb (although in the case of game almost being finished as FrankJones mentions, I may red thumb anyway, especially if they didn't explain why they quit).

nik592 wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 09:33 100%. Nonsense moves are a guaranteed red thumb from me. Nothing annoys me more. I would absolutely quit a friendly game if my opponent started doing this and red thumb. If it's a Friendly game, I'd be a lot less likely to to red thumb (although in the case of game almost being finished as FrankJones mentions, I may red thumb anyway, especially if they didn't explain why they quit).

On that, I guess nonsense moves could potentially be argued to fall under "antiplay" since the player is deliberately not even trying to win anymore. But I think the motivation matters, if someone is doing it because they lost interest in the game, this is more understandable and not malicious like if someone loses on purpose for the intents of kingmaking or something like that.

Personally, I'd prefer people to bring their best game, but if someone really lost interest I can accept that they'd want to throw the towel. As long as they show respect to the game and allow me to finish it normally, that's good with me.

tbhp wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 13:43 I don't know why every time this topic comes up, everyone starts hiding their head in the sand and feigns not understanding that the inconvenience of waiting for someone (which on this site just means having a table open) is not in the same ballpark of harm as seeing a game terminated without being able to do anything about it.

Everyone hiding their head in the sand. They've explained their reasons plenty of times. At this point it looks far more likely to be the other way around.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 16:13

tbhp wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 13:43 I don't know why every time this topic comes up, everyone starts hiding their head in the sand and feigns not understanding that the inconvenience of waiting for someone (which on this site just means having a table open) is not in the same ballpark of harm as seeing a game terminated without being able to do anything about it.

Everyone hiding their head in the sand. They've explained their reasons plenty of times. At this point it looks far more likely to be the other way around.

Hence the observation that they are "hung up on their own idiosyncratic understanding of practically everything."

Ceaseless wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 16:13

tbhp wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 13:43 I don't know why every time this topic comes up, everyone starts hiding their head in the sand and feigns not understanding that the inconvenience of waiting for someone (which on this site just means having a table open) is not in the same ballpark of harm as seeing a game terminated without being able to do anything about it.

Everyone hiding their head in the sand. They've explained their reasons plenty of times. At this point it looks far more likely to be the other way around.

People have reasons for lots of things. Doesn't mean those reasons come before every other reason though. Hence "hiding their head in the sand" because people may be uncomfortable with the thought that their behavior may be causing more harm than they'd like to admit.

Ceaseless wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 16:13

tbhp wrote: ↑02 September 2026, 13:43 I don't know why every time this topic comes up, everyone starts hiding their head in the sand and feigns not understanding that the inconvenience of waiting for someone (which on this site just means having a table open) is not in the same ballpark of harm as seeing a game terminated without being able to do anything about it.

Everyone hiding their head in the sand. They've explained their reasons plenty of times. At this point it looks far more likely to be the other way around.

How's the saying go? If you meet someone who disagrees with you you met someone you disagree with. If *everyone* disagrees with you consider that you might be wrong?

Something like that...

Cile wrote: ↑03 September 2026, 21:19 If *everyone* disagrees with you consider that you might be wrong?

Logically impossible if you're always right....

I think the point here is, there is a distinction between bad moves, indifferent moves, and moves that are clearly intended to sabotage.

As I noted, if one Spades player bids 7, and the partner bids 13, this is clear and blatant sabotage, because it 100% guarantees a loss of 200 points. There are only 13 tricks in a spades hand, so taking more than 13 is impossible, and thus bidding more than 13 cannot be justified, and any spades player would know this. Other than a misclick, there is no innocuous explanation for such an action, and if it keeps happening, it's obviously not a misclick.