First: I'm not 100% this is the right forum. Please inform me if it's wrong.

In our community, a new variety of Commander is gaining popularity and the shop is supporting this with a monthly event.
Your goal is to gather achievements. You can get +1 or +2 point if you succeed in such an achievement. There is a set of standard achievements (defeating opponent) and there is a set of random achievements. There are also negative points (-1 if you play sol ring in your first turn)

The first event learned that people focus very hard on the achievements. The feedback was that this is fun.
However, people also used less fair actions to prevent others from reaching achievements: conceding (to prevent them from beating you with a snake for example).

Now there is a discussion about how we can prevent this.

The goal is to find an objective “rule” to prevent a subjective action. People should be allowed to concede, but how to prevent people from conceding so the others don't get a point.

Current proposals:
- you can only concede during upkeep
- conceding gets -3 points (unless it's during your end phase).


I hope to get some insights from different judges to find a solution for this. I think this is an interesting exercise.

The problem with Objective rules is that no matter what you choose, it creates something which gamers can then game. I'm a fan of Subjective Rules for things like Commander achievements - Close Enough is Good Enough. If someone concedes to prevent Death By Snake, award the achievement anyway. In fact, it makes sense to award it anyway - the attacking snake is what caused the concession after all!

Plus, the more rules you add, the harder it becomes to remember them all. Keeping it simple will make games run smoother.

Hi,

I like Mark's idea: change all rules like the Snake rule with “if a player
dies or concede from a snake attack” or create a general rule saying “if a
player concede just before an action would award point to a player, that
player gets the points + 1 extra point for making a player concede”

Try not to make the achievement too convoluted :)

jeremie

I don't think I'd go as far as penalising people for conceding. Commander games are long enough as it is, so if someone wants to concede then go for it. Also sometimes people just want to / need to go home. Also also, losing can suck. Getting penalised for losing sucks more :(

Originally posted by Mark Mc Govern:

Close Enough is Good Enough

I'm all in favour of this “rule”.

Conceding or “scooping” up your cards out of spite should not stop an effect or outcome from taking place because you want to rain on somebody else's parade.

Originally posted by Eric Paré:

Mark Mc Govern
Close Enough is Good Enough

I'm all in favour of this “rule”.

Conceding or “scooping” up your cards out of spite should not stop an effect or outcome from taking place because you want to rain on somebody else's parade.

Ehhh. Scooping it up can be a real strategic decision. Properly timed, it's very feisable to swing the game from one to another player's favor–it's a big deal for ‘political’ EDH tables. I don't like penalizing things players are always allowed to do–it's just a part of the game.

Adding in more subjective sources of points can be another way to encourage friendly play–most creative deck/play, friendliest player, etc. Don't have big enough prizes to encourage abuse/collusion.

Originally posted by Chase Culpon:

Ehhh. Scooping it up can be a real strategic decision. Properly timed, it's very feisable to swing the game from one to another player's favor–it's a big deal for ‘political’ EDH tables.

I understand your point and I can imagine how useful this tactic can be in a “political” commander game. In this case it's about a casual commander get-together (as far as I understand the OP) with an achievement system. I don't believe strategic concessions in order to stop somebody else from gaining those achievements should be encouraged.

Edited Eric Paré (Jan. 8, 2016 01:09:26 PM)

I could see the concept of conceding the game also conceding the awards
that would have taken place had the current phase concluded. This seems to
be fairest to both sides. If I really don't want to be hit with “Death by
Snake”, I can avoid it by conceding before combat, but then that player is
free to send that snake somewhere else. Staying in the game just long
enough to force that player to send the snake at me and then conceding
should trigger the award.

I think that score -3 for conceding was the easy way to motivate people for not “strategical-drops” but not much funny or fair…

Do it like if snake kills +2… +3 if opponent concede game… (if i cast a snake after a doomday?? it´s enought to get the +1? not funny too…)

Maibe… something like “If snake kill +2; If snake on table or in the stack… +3 for opponent drop”???
this way was easy to avoid strategical-drops… but much rulez or archivements make much headaches or longer the rounds…

Another possibility is instituting a rule that conceding does not remove a player from the game until the end of the turn. That is, by conceding, a player is effectively treated as though they were “F-6ed,” in MTGO parlance, but they and their things still remain in the game until the turn ends. This is more relevant to stop people from conceding during their turn to stop someone from using flash cards or instants to do things, or to block combat triggers from happening. It is, however, also useful to limit concession abuse to block achievements.

Sent from my iPad

At one point in time I did achievements to spice up our commander games.
A problem arose when I tried to take that paradigm into a prized event (still commander mind you).

What happened was that one player created a soft lock, ‘farmed’ as many achievements as possible while the rest of the table did a lot of nothing, and only then ended the game. It created a very un-fun experience for everyone else at that table.

I don't run prized events for commander anymore, but the following system worked a lot better for my conspiracy draft;
1 ‘point’ for each player you eliminate from the game (this includes yourself).
Each player votes for another player that made the game the most fun. Each vote is +1 point.