thoughts on Play by intent

Well I mean gotcha in a way I cant use a laser to check LoF and stuff like that, because in my naive delusional noobishness. I thought it being open info meant check at any time with lasers mirrors whatever (id even move terrain if it was easy to fix) not only if its during an order and has to have silhoutte involved unless its targetless??

I also thought the etiquette blurb was important but silly me I guess...

 

I think the assumption behind this (common) statement is the single most divisive issue in the whole debate, and one that - in my opinion at least, doesn't even arise in a straightforward reading of the text.

None of the 'by the book' players have disputed that the Etiquette section says LoF is open information, and that it should be freely shared. Where we keep getting separated is that 'play by intent'-ers go on to imply "obviously and unequivocally therefore, the opponent must provide pinpoint accurate information about any point on the tabletop" and (some, though not all) go on to suggest a back-and-forth discussion could take place regarding fractional positions for a potential move to slice the pie in a multiple ARO situation.

What we lack is an explanation of how 'play by intent'-ers get from "LoF is open information" to "the open information is precise enough to allow players to move with such accuracy that any legal and theoretically possible position may be stated and then obtained simply by agreement between the players; models may be positioned notionally with respect to that desired position."

The distance between the first argument and the second is absolutely vast, I can personally see no logical reason in English for the second to follow the first, and yet no-one has yet explained how it could be credibly navigated.

 

Theortical LOF for the purpose of percise movement isn't where I fall.

I fall in the LOF is available from a friendly/enemy model to anywhere on the table.

Of course, after fully watching this video, we are at a further level of skill for percision movment and declaration which seems to be adding a skill in that has been removed from a large portion of modern games.

This looks like WM/H MKI/II where spatial awareness and geometry/trig separated players.

And of course if this is truly meant as the way to play then the 2015 BOLS article and the author is owed an apology from the community at large.

 

That video is rather eye-opening. My only problem with that way of playing is the fact that models have dynamic poses, scenery gets bumped, etc. Sure, you can use a silly marker, but in the end you have to place your model, right? No one's going to allow you to play in a tournament with only markers. What if you can't place your model where you intended, not because it's not valid, but because of the models/scenery themselves prohibit it? Coming out of HD in ARO, then, also presents some problems. It seems to me that getting rid of "true LoF" from N2 was an effort to move away from situations like this.

I think @Wolf and co. have summarized the differences in the argument a bit better than @Andre82, perhaps they should be combined.

I want to be clear that I am not particularly invested in a specific "style" of play, and would simply like to play the way it was designed, whichever way that ends up being. However, if the video is correct (I have no reason to think it's not, considering how recent it is), I think we would need to have a lengthy discussion on what to do about the situations I described above.

 

Even in the video posted he moved the sihoutte marker a bit before settling on a final position in cover. If he is allowed to do that then he could easily check the LoF (and he did in the video) before the ARO or second half of the order is declared. The model was also not placed where the sihoutte was placed when he declared his intent to move so he did not acutally move where he said he intended to go. I'm being nit picky about this simply because if I follow the example in the video I will still be able to place a sihoutte and check LoF with it before deciding on a final position. That is one thing the video does not address at all, changing my mind mid declaration as when I get down to the table and look at where I want to go it may be more complicated than it first looked. If I cannot do that then it will slow the game down a ton as I have to put my face into the table much more than before.

The blurb also does not match their discription of only checking LoF after the models are in final position either. Basically it is pointless text if that is the case and should be removed from the book. If you can determine if your LoF can disrupt my Order before declaration then we must have some way of determining that since I haven't declared anything yet and no model is placed.

I'm not asking my opponent if I am in cover or not or to move my marker, I am asking if they have LoF (and if I am allowed to move the marker as implied I can still figure out LoF on my own). LoF is much more important than cover if it means I cannot be shot at in the first place. I thought the point of the blurb was to avoid the hundred times asking "can you see me now" as I creep the sil back from an edge.

 

Are these the articles you're referring to, and are they also the articles that @deep-green-x said had to be formally retracted (or was that something else).

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/12/infinity-intent-vs-playing-the-result-the-dirt.html
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/12/infinity-moving-forward-with-the-result-the-dirt.html

 

Nicely said @Sabin76, that was and still is my position.

I figure that once we know what the game creators intend, we have a more or less fixed position to work from, and as @A Mão Esquerda has said several times, from there it's not difficult to agree rules together to play the game for convenience.

If we can reliably know what is really intended in the rulebook, we eliminate the sorts of religious argument that always seems to happen in complex games where one interpretation is preferred over another.

Players actually become free to play their casual games however they choose together, but the agreement now has to be upfront - without coercion, and entirely transparent with respect to the now-properly known ruleset.

No-one can bully anyone anymore because they believe one thing or another - can I get an 'Amen'?

 

Amen! Haha, this is basically what we all want. To be on the same printed page.

I struggle to understand how every single miniature game I have ever played in the last 23 years still has these rules issues that can be easily cleaned up with one sentence or two or just a rewording. One spaceship game I love had a ton of grey areas in the rules (I was compiling an FAQ and hit 92 questions IIRC). One page of Errata and 2 pages of FAQ answers and I was left with maybe 3 questions so clearly it isn't a case of it taking too many words to have tight rules (common complaint I hear about clear rules being it takes an extra 50 pages or whatever). Why is it so hard to just commit to a stance on issues like this?

 

Yes those are the articles mentioned.

You have no idea the disruption to the community those articles caused it was bad. I remember the retraction appeared in the old forums but it was some time ago.

I belive the 2nd of those articles were the last that particular author wrote for BOLS on infinity but don't quote me on that.

Basically the take away from the while experience is "don't quote your personal opinion on a rule as official, even if you have it from someone within CB. Only published material is official"

 

Thank you, Brother!
Yes, I think that even in the most fiercely competitive situation, a victory is meaningless if you don't agree on the rules.

Well, I can maybe say something now that I'd wanted to say earlier about why CB are so tight-lipped about this topic. It's only my opinion again and certainly I'm no linguist, but think it may have a lot to do with the way Spanish and English work differently.

The venerable Dasaan from Lonely Artichoke has written some of the most intelligent and readable articles on the 'play by intent' debate, and one of the things he talks about is the difference between permissive rule sets and prohibitive rule sets (I recommend reading the articles).

So when I was getting David/Palanka to explain things to me, I noticed that he very rarely used prohibitive clauses the way a native English speaker would in the same situation, for example "You can do the action like this, but not like that; it has to be this".

I think there's a difference in the language and the culture that maybe Spanish people don't feel much need to say "Don't do <something>" nearly as much as English speakers, and it's enough for them to say "Do this <action>" without much further clarification.

So my feeling about the CB staff on the issue of why they're so tight-lipped on 'play by intent' is firstly that they just don't get it (maybe that historical omission of the Etiquette section) and secondly perhaps it's not their cultural style to be especially prohibitive.

 

I watched the video.
I assume that is Wolf in the video.
We should discuses it.

One of the arguments used for why you can't ask your opponent to verify your move is that "It would not be fair" I find this a poor argument as I think it is more fair then the alternative.
...also you might not have noticed this but you are inadvertently playing by intent in your video.... and that makes this priceless.

As a mater of fact you are playing with MORE intent then I would have allowed.
The fact you tactically bumped (it what we call fat fingering here) the cover possibly effecting the other guys ARO would not have been an issue if you where just playing intent proper is more evidence on why Intent is the better way to play.

 

Eh? What intent? Palanka states he's moving, is advised of LoF, places a silhouette in the intended position, and then sees if he makes it. Then AROs are declared. Same for the last one. And, once more, with feeling, intent outside of "my intent is to end up here, let's see if I made it" is not mentioned in the rules, and in the video, while Palanka says he hopes to catch his opponent out of cover, he notes that he failed, and takes his lumps.

 

Hehe Palanka's opponent is allowing Palanka to play with intent and I doubt Palanka even knows it.

However lets go over it.
If you will move the video to 3:35.
What is his intention?
The final position of the model is not the important part here but HOW he makes it to that position. His opponent autocorrected his movement for him without even forcing him to measure it out.... very nice of him
If his intention was to get cover then he needs to start out of LoF (lets assume that is a given) but then he will need to move to the crate staying out of lof tell he makes it to the crate and then slide up the crate. I am not sure he can make his final position in 4 inches but maybe.
However he never charts his movement path and when he moves his model... it is in a straight line.
If his movement was in a straight line then his opponent can shoot him without cover as he wil no doubt have LoF before hitting that corner.
If it is with intent then his opponent corrected his movement and the two of them have simply agreed on what that movement would look like without bothering to hash the exact path out.

 

Ok, so if I have extra movement would I have to actually guess my distance and say move out here 2 and a quarter inches then Im stuck there

 

No you wouldnt. This is just ridiculous.
Not the least because you would be entitled to ask LOF when placing you final position and adjust it accordingly anyway.

On a side note. Is slowburner around here by an new name? A lot would make sense then.....

 

So if you can't check LOF until resolution, would best practice be to declare AROs with every model on the table in case they got LOF during your opponent's activation and you didn't notice?

 

Its also worth noting, At best this video is akin to Tom Schadels "Introduction to infinity" videos.

Its the general how to play but the technicalities of the game are in the rule book.

Finally it also doesnt cover shooting at any point in your movement and other such tactics that are expressly allowed in the rules.

 

To put this in perspective, these vidoes are also created by a CB representative.



They are the beginind intro into the rules, not the rules themselves

 

You've changed your opinion and moved the goalposts so many times I can't take that in good faith. The blue box on p. 61 of the English rules clearly states that you can check LoF *before* declaring skills - and because targetless weapons exist, LoF must, by necessity, exist between models on the table and points on the table. So tossing a silhouette token out, asking your opponent if model X could see that silhouette token, then moving there, is all supported by the rules. Any other interpretation is a willful misinterpretation and would make the game borderline unplayable; how the hell would you target smoke grenades if that weren't the case?

 

Well I wouldnt have thought so either but now Im wondering