What is the etiquette on this site for players running out of time?

[Papa Boris]

I got into BGA a few months ago and love this site. I can't get over how incredible it is that all of these board games can be played for such a low price in one place.

I don't want this to be a negative post, so I hope there's a way to get my question across without sounding like I'm complaining.

I recently played a 3-player game against two players (let's call them A and B) who were much better at the game than I am but seemingly not used to playing with a short time control (I had set the time to Fast). As a result, both went into red during the game. Player A dropped below 0 first and stayed there for pretty much the whole second half of the game, but because they made sure to make their moves within 20 seconds of each other, I wasn't able to expel them. Player B dropped below 0 near the end, and while they weren't in the red nearly as long as Player A, they weren't paying attention to the 20 second thing and I successfully skipped their turn.

After the game, Player A got really mad at me. They didn't say anything abusive, but I could tell they were very upset at me for deciding to expel them and accused me of doing it in order to win the game. To me, that entire framework of thinking is absurd. I grew up playing tournament chess, and before BGA all my online board gaming had been through dedicated apps like Through the Ages, Terraforming Mars, and Wingspan. In both those contexts, when your time runs out you just lose. That's it.

So I wonder if I'm experiencing a culture shock of sorts here on BGG. The idea that you have to CHOOSE to expel someone when they run out of time, wait 20 seconds, and choose to expel them again (all the while having to repeat the process from scratch if they make a move), is strange to me. That said, if I'm committing a cultural faux pas by automatically expelling players who run out of time, I'd like to know.

Can anyone help me understand the culture here? Is it bad etiquette to expel someone who dips into the red as long as they're still playing the game? Are the time controls meant to be understood more as a suggestion or a guideline than as a hard wall? Or is all fair in love and board games and my opponent was just a sore loser? I'd really welcome the thoughts of anyone who's been here longer than I have!

[FSKFSK]

I usually don't try to kick people if they just barely missed the time control and are still actively playing. I usually only kick people if they are afk or inactive for 2-3 minutes.

I played one game of Viticulture that was absolute torture. There were two opponents who always let their clock tick down to 0:05 or -0.05 whenever it was their turn. Since Viticulture gives you several turns per game year (with 1-2 minutes of added time control per move), they were able to drag out a game that normally takes 30 minutes into 1.5 hours.

I'm usually able to figure out what I"m going to do when my opponents are thinking.

[thoun]

For me, players have to respect the clock. It's here for a reason! But many players don't go to settings, and so don't say they don't want to play on fast mode.

Being interrupted and going slightly out of clock can happen sometimes. I also usually expell only if the player is at least one minute late to clock. But if it's for every move, then player is abusing the clock and you patience, so it become justified to expell him as soon as possible. Of course some players can get mad being expelled, not everyone is fair play, but that's the rule!

If you encounter him again and he is still playing too slow, and having bad talk, you can red thumb that player

[shrouded figure]

I'd say don't worry about such reactions. Player A doesn't have the right to complain. Everyone has the right to kick anyone who is out of time. Sure, players can choose to be nice and not kick, but NO ONE is entitled to this generosity, no one is entitled to waste others' time.

If they don't like the clock they can choose to play with no time limit. But they chose not to so it's on them.

[TANGO 13]

There is another post similar to yours: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... =3&t=23559 .

In my opinion a game should end when a player has run out of time. This would solve a lot of issues.

[hasi6562]

Bin auch dafür. Mich nervt das gehörig wenn ich z.b. die burgen von burgund spiele und einer Trödel bei jedem Zug. Es gibt laut BGA 3 Geschwindigkeiten einzustellen. Ich spiele immer die schnelle. Warum können langsame Spieler nicht eine langsame Geschwindigkeit wählen. Ich mach dann alles mögliche nebenbei und bin danach frustriert weil ein Spiel statt 20 min eine Stunde dauert und wie in meiner Info steht wenn geht kacke ich jeden das lernte ich am ersten tag auf BGA am eigenen Leib und es kriegt auch jeder einen roten daumen.die Zeiten zwischen den Zügen sind oft viel zu lang und es besteht kein Unterschied zu den anderen Einstellungen. Das zu ändern wäre schön. Ich habe keine Lust anspruchsvollere spiele zu spielen und Kartenspiele sowieso nicht da wird so offensichtlich betrogen und es passiert nichts in diese Richtung. Sonst passt alles.

Frohe Weihnachten euch allen ****

*Moderation Edit: please leave the political commentary off of BGA. We are just here to play some games.

[Silene]

...Respekt !!!...

Warum können Leute, die politische Kommentare machen wollen, dafür nicht eine politische Webseite wählen? Dies ist eine Spieleplattform.

[Silene]

And on topic: I think it would be a good thing, to make more different time-settings possible.

(a) let users choose freely the amount of time to add each turn (or even play with a fixed overall time if they want to)
(b) make it a checkbox-option to auto-lose when time is up (at least for 2p games). That would be better communication in advance.

If they don't like the clock they can choose to play with no time limit. But they chose not to so it's on them.

A lot lies between "no time limit" and "automatically lose on time". While it might suit YOU better if those players all played without time limit - it doesn't suit the majority of people who have a relaxed approach towards the clock.
I usually don't kick unless the other player is inactive and even then i often choose to go to turn-based instead. But still, when my opponnent is very slow, I want to be able to say "please respect the clock and play faster". I want to be able to kick players, when they turn inactive and I have a bad feeling about continuing turn-based for whatever reason. And also I'm sometimes a bit slow as well, so I want to know when I should really hurry up and when I played so slow that I should apologize (clock shows me that).

For all these things I need the clock, but I don't want to have an interesting game suddenly shut down without a proper result on the board just because someone was 1sec over time or they got interrupted and even gave me a "brb, doorbell rang".

I do agree, people should pay more attention on what time limit they are joining. I don't know why so often they don't check.

[voriki]

The etiquette would be to first make a note in chat. Check if they're still playing. Is it a name I am familiar with, then I wouldn't expel so fast. Before I expel, I check their profile(, a 5 second glance), what's their karma, is it a rare thing they're out of time, are they active players, etc... 5 seconds, doesn't really need more than that.

Good players get more time, bad players get expelled.

[Romain672]

2p is another story.

But 3+p, if you make the player who run out of time lose, that cause many problems on others aspects. (Outside of coop games ) The important point is if someone has a small emergency, and you are ok to wait, you want to finish the game until the end.
Like, you are playing your game of chess, and a stranger come at your table, and start to distract your opponent. So the opponent stop playing, and answer him (or at least is just distracted). Do you really want to end the game as soon as he run out of time?

The time is a really interresting topic, because it got his defaults (feel free to pm me for more infos), but finding a good formula for 2/3+ players, for when you play with friends (but still want elo on), and for many differents games is really hard.