Board Game Arena

Here is a new spin on the etiquette of skipping someone who is out of time.

My Memoir 44 opponent (turn-based play) was out of time long before I was. He was taking so long over moves that he was roughly 45 hours over the limit. I was patient and played on. Eventually I ran out of time too, and was about 4 hours over. I am guessing that the system does not let you skip a player's turn if you yourself are out of time. So I thought, 'OK, he can't skip my turn, and we both just carry on and play it through to the finish.' But then my opponent (who was losing badly by this point) played a time joker which resulted in him being back in credit on time. He then immediately skipped my turn and I lost the game. I consider this to be poor etiquette on my opponent's part, and a misuse of the time joker system. Am I wrong to do so?

I feel that my opponent's tactic will push me into skipping other opponents' turns in future, as soon as they go over the time limit, and that seems a shame. I would rather be patient, but not at the risk of this kind of underhand behaviour.

Yeah, it's not good behaviour. But I would also expect that to be a minority case. If you want to skip people as soon as they go over time, then feel free, you're within your rights to do so. On the other hand, players who have real reasons for maybe running a bit late may appreciate you giving them that extra patience, but it's up to you.

As to this opponent, red thumb them. If it's a tactic they pull regularly (although probably not something you can do more than about 4 times per year), hopefully others will red thumb too.

That might be. But I'm not sure you can't expel someone else if you yourself are overtime.

On the other hand, I've been criticized for expelling someone who was overtime while I had used a time joker (before getting into the red). My take was that I used the joker when I knew I might not be able to play in time, while they just ran out of time and expected me to "be nice". Well, no, everyone can use time jokers, if you choose not to, you're open to expulsion whenever someone else feels like it.

I've also been criticized for expelling someone who was in red, while I (who had never gone into red), had used, overall, more time than them. I'm sorry, but I had made my moves in the allowed time, and they had not.

My point being, it may not be nice, but it's not "cheating", just applying the rules (with arbitrary strictness).

lwrpy wrote: ↑31 August 2023, 09:23 I feel that my opponent's tactic will push me into skipping other opponents' turns in future, as soon as they go over the time limit, and that seems a shame. I would rather be patient, but not at the risk of this kind of underhand behaviour.

You don't need to do so, just skip them when you are about to run out yourself so you don't risk to be skipped for being nice. As long as you are in time you shouldn't worry.

Anyways, shameful behaviour from your opponent, I red thumbed him, thanks for posting.

lwrpy wrote: ↑31 August 2023, 09:23 I consider this to be poor etiquette on my opponent's part, and a misuse of the time joker system. Am I wrong to do so?

I feel that my opponent's tactic will push me into skipping other opponents' turns in future, as soon as they go over the time limit ...

Well it obviously isn't why the system exists the way it does, but honestly why didn't you skip the opponent - you were in a position where you had won the game under the rules you had agreed to play under and you refused to claim the victory, now you are complaining that the opponent ended up in a winning position?

RobertBr wrote: ↑01 September 2023, 14:44 Well it obviously isn't why the system exists the way it does, but honestly why didn't you skip the opponent - you were in a position where you had won the game under the rules you had agreed to play under and you refused to claim the victory, now you are complaining that the opponent ended up in a winning position?

You can't be serious, this argument could make sense if, after being nice to his opponent and waiting for him, OP lost the game on the board and then complained.

ExaltedAngel wrote: ↑01 September 2023, 19:47 You can't be serious, this argument could make sense if, after being nice to his opponent and waiting for him, OP lost the game on the board and then complained.

You can't be serious. The game had two victory conditions, A and B. The player had the opportunity to win by condition A and refused to do so. The opponent was under no obligation to return the favour. The holiday joker might be considered a bug exploit; this may be a serious problem in multi-player games; but at a fundamental level the OP is complaining their opponent in a competitive game was making their own decisions.

This is obviously my opinion, but I don't personally count games where I had to boot my opponent because they disappeared as a win (admittedly, I also don't boot people as soon as they go over time, which leaves me open to this same "decisions" by my opponent). I understand the point that it is within the "rules" to do so, but (in my opinion), it isn't in the spirit of enjoying a good game.

RobertBr wrote: ↑02 September 2023, 09:24 The holiday joker might be considered a bug exploit

You just proved my point. Opponent exploited a bug to rob a win out of an opponent who was nice to him, this is not only a shameful behaviour, but shouldn't be allowed at all.

The way I see it, the site developers see going over time as bad behavior, in the first place. So the other players can choose to punish that bad behavior, or take mercy on them and wait. But if you allow yourself to also fall into the trap of going over time, then you have also engaged in that same bad behavior, so the other players can choose to punish you as well.

I see how it doesn't seem fair, for sure, that the first offending player can use a time joker and then punish other offending players. Maybe it's just a lesson that there are no honest thieves. So don't resort to bad behavior because you think you can get away with it because someone else did it first. The snake will always bite back.

One more quote to encourage you to not run out of time- “Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They’re only powerful when you got your back turned.” ― Eminem

Not sure how much I like that Eminem quote, actually. I mean, sometimes we gotta trust people. Or we'll go crazy. Or at least we won't be as productive as we could be.

Question- is it easy to see if a player has time jokers left? I guess that would be a factor to look at to measure your risk.