Hey guys ! My local meta is giving a try to using a chess clock in our games. I personnaly like the time constraint factor to keep game fair and avoid over-analyzing conundrums, but I don't feel like the chess clock is an appropriate tool to implement it. Main concern I have with it is dealing with ARO, as I think using active player time is too easy to abuse, and reactive player time turns it into an unappealing clock battle. So I had the idea to make an appropriate ruleset with those considerations in mind, and to build a clock using Arduino to make it work ! I have my cart ready on the Arduino website but it's a bit on the "I don't want to waste this much money" side of pricey, so I figured I would stop by here and get some feedbacks first ! The core ideas are : To allocate duration to turns instead of games, so that unused time is lost instead of staying in a bank - Slower players are incentivised to quicken their decision making to make use of their full order pool - Faster players aren't rewarded for playing faster as the time not spent is lost To offer limited timer stopping for ARO resolving - Stopping timer for ARO prevents either player of wasting each others time - Limiting stopping time prevents either player to abuse the break system by gaining thinking time for their turn To avoid adding things to track to players - Clock should track them for you The clock would be a 2 button system if only programmable through USB with a computer, or 4 button if programmable on the go Main buttons : 2 big buttons on the top of the clock, one for ARO timer breaking, one for ending turns Additionnal buttons : 2 little buttons on the face to set turns and break durations, main buttons used to confirm and cancel in setting mode. End of turn clock rule - Active player's turn ends when the clock reaches zero. - When active player turns ends, any unresolved action is resolved, and any further undeclared short orders are considered to be an idle short order. - If the end of active player's turn happens during the declaration or resolution of an order, reactive player is still allowed to declare any legal ARO as if the order was to not interrupted using the "ARO break clock rules". ARM/BTS rolls are still performed by the active player. Guts rolls are still performed but cannot benefit from any skill, special rule or command token expenditure. - Players can press the "End of turn" button of the clock anytime during their active turn. Doing so will result in the end of their active turn. - Only active players are allowed to press the "End of turn" button of the clock without pressing the "ARO break" button of the clock at the same time. - When a player's active turn ends, his opponent's active turn begins. ARO break clock rules - Only reactive players are allowed to use the "ARO break" button of the clock without pressing the "End of turn" button of the clock at the same time. - Any time it is legal for a player to declare an ARO, he may press the "ARO break" button of the clock. Doing so starts an ARO declaration phase. - Active player's turn's timer is paused during an ARO break. - In case of ARO break button abuse or missuse, players can press the "End of turn" button of the clock during an ARO break. Doing so will end ARO break and resume active player's turn's timer. ARO declaration phase - An ARO declaration phase is part of an ARO break. - ARO declaration phase ends when the clock reaches zero. - ARO declared outside of the ARO declaration phase are changed to an idle short order. - Players may press the "ARO break" button of the clock during the ARO declaration phase once for each ARO they declare. Doing so will increase the duration of the next ARO resolution phase one increment per press and end the ARO declaration phase two seconds after the last button press. - When an ARO declaration phase ends, an ARO resolution phase begins. ARO resolution phase - An ARO resolution phase is part of an ARO break. - ARO resolution phase ends when the clock reaches zero. - When ARO resolution phase ends, any declared but unresolved action is resolved. - If the end of an ARO resolution phase happens before or during the declaration or resolution of an order, active player's orders are not changed to an idle, but are rather subject to the "End of turn clock rule". ARM/BTS rolls are still performed by the reactive player. Guts rolls are still performed but cannot benefit from any skills, special rule or command token expenditure. - ARO resolution phase ends when the clock reaches zero - Players can press the "ARO break" button of the clock during the ARO resolution phase. Doing so will result in the end of the ARO resolution phase. - When an ARO resolution phase ends, the ARO break ends and the active player's turn's timer resumes. Arbitration break clock rule - Players can anytime press both the "End of turn" and "ARO break" buttons of the clock at the same time for 3 seconds or more to pause the clock for an undefined duration. Doing so pauses any clock running. - This break is intended to be used for arbitration questions only. Turns duration would be, in turn order including deployment, reserve deployment and list sharing, in minutes, 10-5-15-15-10, ARO declaration phase 20s and ARO resolution increments of 15s. This would of course require play testing and is highly arguable. Practically, here's how it would go. Players arrive at their table, shake their hands (or not until Covid is contained), do the intiative roll and get their stuff ready. This is a shared casual untimed period to account for arbitration delays that happened last round, or so that people can buy a drink, use the restroom at will, smoke, etc.TOs can make use of this time to configure clocks to proper settings for the next tournament round. Due to the nature of the time restrainment, wether the tournament rounds are synchronised or not is up to the TO team. Player A (lost init roll, had to decide turn order, decided to go first, has to deploy first) presses the "End of turn" button to start the first deployment phase. When he is done and presses the "End of turn" button again, or when the clock reaches zero, player B's deployment turn starts. When B is done with his deployment or when the clock reaches zero, next game turn begins, alternating between A and B and ending either at the end of the clock or if the active player presses the "End of turn button". Starting from the first game turn, players can start using the "ARO break" button. A declares an order that makes an ARO legal to declare for B. B presses the "ARO break" button. A's turn's timer pauses, the game enters in ARO declaration phase. B has then 20 seconds to identify and declare every legal ARO available to him, and press the "ARO break" button once for each. Once he started pressing to declare AROs and add time to the ARO resolution phase, he cannot stop, he must do successive presses within 2 seconds of the previous one. If he forgets to declare any ARO, depending on social conventions applicable, he can either not declare them at all, or try to resolve them on the ARO resolution time he has, but he can not add time to the ARO resolution phase while it has started. ARO resolution time covers LoF and legality checks, order declaration for both players and any roll applicable to any order resolution. Or more simply - Anytime clock ends, stop everything you're doing. Any pending or unresolved action is null. - Only active player can play during active turn (except for regular guts, ARM and BTS rolls) - When you want and can declare an ARO, press the ARO break button. You'll then have 20 second to declare any n number of legal ARO available to you and press the ARO break button once for each ARO you declare, or n time. You'll then have 15n seconds to resolve any action declared this way. - You can usually skip to the next active turn in queue anytime using the "End of turn" button So, what do you think ?
I think the important thing is to have as little to track as possible. We haven't tried timing it here, we simply make stupid and rash decisions to speed it up.
Ahah yeah, agree. I just though it would be interesting to formalize it and have a defined and balanced system for competitive play.
It would be interesting, but I hate anything resembling bureaucracy. Possibly to an irrational degree, if that's possible. I benefit from having a very small and considerate group, however.
Well, as a french dude having to interact with the french administration on a yearly basis, I am not really fond of bureaucracy either. As a fun fact, it is to the point of me getting fined quite often for delays in my tax payment, how about that for irrationnal hatering. However fairness doesn't come easy, and ideally the rule system should disapear behind intuitive mechanics and thoughtfully designed tools. That's what I'm working towards with this. Extensive word ruling only exists for arbitration purpose, as well as those that enjoy extensive and objective understanding.
I'm a bit uncomfortable with some of these rules, and I'm going to highlight a few places and explain why. The problem with this is that different armies are going to take a different amount of time in each turn. Deploying against Hassassins is usually about half of my total playtime -- once my minis are down, playing against Hassassins is actually very straightforward, but not getting screwed over by a Fiday before the game even begins takes a lot of effort. The same for the difference between high order count and low order count lists. 18 orders of ISS is going to have about half of its models left at the end of turn 3 in an even game, but a more elite 12 order IA list might expect to still have 8-9 models left at the end of turn 3 in an even game. My first turn of JSA always takes an inordinately long amount of time because I have to Rube Goldberg my way out of my DZ, but in Spiral I can usually tell you about how much I expect to use each triad/model in my list before the game even begins and when. The asymmetric balance of armies also leads to asymmetric demands for time at different parts of the game. I would recommend avoiding retroactive changes, especially if time runs out in the middle of a move after a model has already been placed. Just say any further undeclared short skills are idles, resolve the current order, and end the turn. It's not like this will even take that long, even if both players do this every round. It's just rolling dice and doing math.
That is a really good point I didn't effectively examined. I'll seriously consider changing that depending on further feedbacks. I'd like to point out however that Interplanetario applies this time of time distribution, in the form of 20-20-20-10, which is what inspired me to go this route. Furthermore, this is actually a matter of fairness vs equity, and I'm not sure on which side of a debate I am. That makes sense, I changed that.
20-20-20-10 is perfectly okay as guidelines, and you can have judges shout reminders of roughly where players should be and when during the game, but no one will know how to allot their time better than the player who the time belongs to.
Considering the whole idea of building a custom clock alongside the ruleset, the clock itself could signal any given time spent by each player. It could also be argued that for players of about the same level of ability, different match-ups may require different amounts of time. I.e. playing a high order count list (more time spent to move units around) against LI Hassassins (more carefull placement required to limit Fiday's actions) might require more time to demonstrate the same level of capability then for the Hassassin opponent. I mean, playing with a clock hinders by design equity for the sake of equality and time pressured decision making. But you might be right in that timing turns hinders it a bit too much, while also being detrimental to balance so I'll definetly think it through.
For what it's worth I've found the ARO mechanic to have no significant impact on our use of chess clocks locally.
@Eclipse the German community uses chess clocks with success for almost every event and for quite a few years now. We got just the following rules. Correct me, if I am wrong @Sergej Faehrlich: - 1h per player including deployment - clock is switched per player turn (no turn limit) - exception: clock is switched if a player takes waaaay to long for a decision - clock is being stopped if there are rules questions towards the judge - if your time expires your turn ends and then you are only allowed to take ARM/BTS rolls (no ARO)
I like the concept overall. But as @meikyoushisui points out. I don't think assigning turn limits brings more benefits than it does disadvantages.
Each player deserves to play the same amount of time, @HarlequinOfDeath have a very logical and extended way to use it, because it helps the organitzation to control the tempo of the event
I dont use clocks in our environment. That said, I imagine a chess clock would be easy for a players turn. Most aros do not take any significant time to decide. If they wish for time to decide, just hit it to their time and inform them as such. Your solution is extremely complicated. Making it not intuitive to use. And the goal is to let the player control how they wish to use their time and make sure the time is even. I dont believe that the proposed solution does either of these goals justice either.
The problem I see with not regulating ARO is abuse. I agree that it's simpler to have the good 'ol flip switch chess clock, that you'd flip if your opponent is taking too much time for his ARO and leave it be if he does not. I just don't like the use of subjective metrics ("wayyyyy too long") in a ruleset, to me it's either "ARO are dealt with on the active player time" and that is a "please abuse the system" call or "ARO are dealt with on the reactive player turn" and that is clock war. Please try to visualise the system proposed here, it's just "press the clock once to declare ARO, then once again for each ARO declared", and basically a chess clock otherwise. I feel like it's quite simple when explained that way. Yeah, the post about the German clock was actually what drove us to use clocks in the first place ! I agree that each player deserves to play the same amount of time, therefor the need of a timed ARO system to me. I'd be more than happy to discuss with german TOs to gain insights from them I'm pretty sure it does not indeed. I just like rationnal game design. Plus, maybe someday you'll have a bothersome dude at a tournament and would've been glad to have a system that would've adressed his behavior in the first place. Or maybe it's not worth the hassle of an heavier system before then but you'll glad to find one after then. Thank you everyone for all the feedback ! I'll update the OP later on
