Thursday, October 16, 2014

Proposal: Decouple Position from Shirt

Self-killed. -Bucky

Adminned at 19 Oct 2014 18:58:43 UTC

Amend rule 2.3, "The Number of Players", by replacing "Shirt" with "Position".

Amend rule 2.4, "The Players' Equipment", to read:

Each Player wears a Shirt with a single number from zero to 99, the number being tracked in the GNDT field “Shirt” and defaulting to zero. If a Player is wearing a zero Shirt, they may change it at any time. No two Players may wear the same Shirt, unless they are wearing zero Shirts.

The Coach may also wear a Shirt with a number that is either zero, or 100 plus a number a Player might have; the Coach may change their Shirt at any time.

Remove the first paragraph of rule 2.11, "Offside".

Amend rule 2.1, "The Field of Play", to read:

Players may have Positions on the Field. By default a Player has no Position. If a Player has no Position, they may change their Position at any time.

The Coach may also have a Position, which they may change at any time.

Some Positions are Sided. Sided Positions are ordered relative to each other and are associated with a Side. Sided Players (Players having a Sided Position) are associated with their Position's Side.

The Sided Positions are, in order: Goalkeeper, Defense, Midfield, Offense. The backward order in this list is Goalward. The forward order in this list is Clearward.

Goalkeeper and Defense are associated with the Side Defensive. Midfield and Offense are associated with the Side Offensive.

Amend rule 2.10, "The Method of Scoring", by appending:

If the Ball is Out of Play and has not come into Play since a Shooting post has been closed, any Sided Player may trade Positions with any other Sided Player that has not Scored due to the most recent Shooting post.

Amend rule 2.2.1, "Kicking the Ball", by replacing:

If a Player Kicks the Ball to a Player with a lower Shirt number and a different Position

with:

If a Player Kicks the Ball Goalward

Set the Positions of all Players and the Coach to be the positions they had before this Proposal's enactment.

This would make Shirt merely a vanity attribute, and a place to track Man of the Match, for now.

Part of the motivation for this is that it would be easier to just look at the positions in the GNDT than to always recalculate them from the shirts.

The other part of the motivation is that it may be easier for future mechanics to interact with positions if they are decoupled from shirts. As a silly example, it becomes possible to say just “change all Players’ Positions to Defense”, which is a tricky endeavor under the current rules.

posted by Eritivus at 16 Oct 2014 16:35:41 UTC Comments (13)

Comments

Bucky:

16-10-2014 18:31:15 UTC

for

I don’t like the change from majority position switching to only letting the first player to kick the ball Out of Play after each score do it, but that’s fixable.

Eritivus:

16-10-2014 21:07:43 UTC

Not sure I follow. My intent was to leave the ‘punishment for losing’ mechanic unchanged.

By “majority position switching” do you mean the “The Number of Players” mechanic? I also intended to leave that in place.

Actually I intended the entire proposal to be a noop with regard to all current mechanics, except possibly the “Scoring post” to “Shooting post” fix. Did I screw up?

Bucky:

16-10-2014 21:51:42 UTC

The “Amend rule 2.10, “The Method of Scoring”, by appending:” bit.  It appears on further examination, though, that you’re just moving it from a different rule.

Sprucial:

16-10-2014 23:01:02 UTC

for

Teninten:

17-10-2014 15:12:00 UTC

for

ayesdeeef:

17-10-2014 15:34:16 UTC

I’m unclear on where this says that positions can be tracked in the GNDT, which I realize is what you intended according to your flavor text. The definition of “Kicking the Ball Goalward” should be more explicit. There could be CFJs over whether that means Offense passing to Defense, Midfield passing to Keeper, Offense passing to Keeper, whether all of these are considered “Goalward” passes. While the first point isn’t lethal, per the second point against

I’ll refrain from Vetoing because the Proposal does specify changes to the ruleset, it’s just that I’m pretty sure they could cause conflict.

I don’t know if you want to retry this, but I would replace “The backward order in this list… list is Clearward” with possibly a numbering system 1-4 for the position of the ball where any Kick that lower the position of the ball is considered goalward and vice versa. I would also specify only Kicks to be affected by this rule to avoid CFJs over that not being explicit. We can always expand the rule later to allow more mechanics of course.

Sprucial:

17-10-2014 21:03:53 UTC

imperial CoV

Eritivus:

18-10-2014 04:34:22 UTC

Hmm, yes. I semi-deliberately left out any mention of the GNDT, but in retrospect this was probably a mistake. I’ll be more explicit in the future.

The Clearward and Goalward stuff could definitely be improved. I’m not sure whether I agree that it’s ambiguous as is, but I’ll try again and make it more explicit.

I notice that you say “any Kick that lowers the position of the ball”, so this seems like a good opportunity to raise a question of interpretation that has been in the back of my mind for a while now:

Consider the current assist removal mechanism, for example: “If a Player Kicks the Ball to a Player with a lower Shirt number and a different Position…”. Does this mean that the Ball must actually be transferred to a Player with a lower Shirt number and a different Position? Or just that the Kicking Player must name such a Player when attempting the Kick? For example, if an Offense Player Kicks, naming another Offense Player, but rolls a 9, and the Ball randomly ends up at a Defense Player, does this clause trigger?

Eritivus:

18-10-2014 05:07:17 UTC

Actually, I’ll just self-kill now. If this is failed we can discuss that question elsewhere, or just propose to make an answer explicit in the rules.

against SK

Eritivus:

18-10-2014 05:46:52 UTC

Note: I meant “rolls an 8”, not “rolls a 9”, in the above comment.

ayesdeeef:

18-10-2014 14:56:47 UTC

When you say “Kicks to a Player with lower Shirt number” that would imply that the ball need not be transferred in this specific instance of the ruleset. A kicks to B triggering the “Kicked to” triggers wherever the ball goes just because of the terminology we happen to be using. If someone could explain this more clearly than I am that would be awesome. Therefore, in your example, the clause would not trigger, although I can see how this might trigger CFJs.

Alternatively, “Any Kick that lowers the position of the ball” would imply that position of the ball “actually needs to be lowered.” Think about that. For that to happen in the current ruleset, the ball would have to go somewhere that lowers its position rather than being “Kicked to” a lower position, which has a subtle yet crucial difference in meaning. When asking if the ball has been “Kicked to” a lower position, we must abandon our human logic and think only about the wording of that specific question.

Argh, somebody else explain!!! Perhaps more clearly and concisely :D

Eritivus:

18-10-2014 17:43:43 UTC

Ok, that was my reading as well. So “lowers the position of the ball” would be a substantive change. I’ll consider it for my second attempt at this.

ayesdeeef:

18-10-2014 22:38:50 UTC

Yes E, you do that.