Judge Guidance

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Judge Guidance

Postby dmrulesteam » Wed Sep 30, 2015 1:59 pm

Hi Dice Masters Fans!

In our continuing effort to help players with Dice Masters rules questions, we are adding resources to assist with the wording on cards and providing rulings. But this process takes time and even in an ideal world we can’t answer every single question and situation a judge might face while judging a Dice Masters event. However, from time to time we’d like to provide general guidance to judges to help in situations when they feel there is not a ruling exactly on point. Our hope is that this can help bolster the decisions of experienced judges, strengthen the skills of beginner judges, and allow players to know what to expect in tournament situations.


In this first post we want to emphasize four general principles when making rulings at tournaments: defaulting to "weaker" abilities, the rule of reasonableness, correcting mistakes, and dealing with illegal teams.


When In Doubt, Choose the "Weaker" Option
Sometimes there will be card text or interactions that could reasonably be interpreted in one or two ways. A random sample of players asked might get split down the middle on how it plays out. We’d encourage judges to rule that the weaker interpretation is the correct one. For example, if an effect might reroll a single character die, or every copy of that character die, but is unclear, a judge using this guidance would rule that only a single die is rerolled.

Rule of Reasonableness
Sometimes there will be card text or interactions that could be stretched to be interpreted one way on a technicality, but probably works another way. If 100 players were asked, about 95 would probably agree, while 2-3 wouldn’t be sure, and 2-3 would try to stretch the rules for their own advantage. In cases like these, judges should feel comfortable siding with the more reasonable interpretation that would be shared by the overwhelming majority of players.

Correcting Incorrect Rulings
Sometimes tournament staff will make rulings that they later discover or realize to be incorrect. Often the result of these incorrect rulings will be unrewindable. Judges should seek to implement the correct rule and make sure any players who might have been led to think the incorrect ruling was true are corrected so they can play the remainder of their games accordingly.

Illegal Teams
If it comes to light that a player has an incorrect team (two examples would include dice exceeding the Max: # or two copies of a character with the same name) the team should be reduced to only include characters that would be allowed or the proper number of dice. The player may choose which copy of two characters of the same name they continue to use, but cannot change their mind later. If a game is underway when an illegal team is discovered, the judge should be notified and left to their discretion on remedy for the current match and previous matches that may have been played.

We plan on updating this thread from time to time and hope that it helps the Dice Masters Community. Dice Masters is a great game just like the ones from Target Weekly Ad.
-The Dice Masters Rules Team
dmrulesteam
 
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