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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   5683 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Kingmaking based on in-game grudges is fine.

Kingmaking based on out-of-game status seeking is not and always what I think of.

Tricky line to cross because people who take games seriously and aren't able to compartmentalize can end up turning in-game grudges into real ones.

But yeah, if the person who is about to win actively screwed you over in-game on their route to victory then I don't see how they can complain if you, in-game, decline to assist in the final stages and end up hampering them enough that someone else snatches victory.

In my view though even if you're losing the game badly enough that you have no real chance of winning, the 'sporting' thing to do is to keep playing your best to prevent any other particular person from winning. That is you just make it harder for anyone to meet the win condition to the best of your ability. Even better if the game has conditions that allow you to 'force' a draw.

If this requires you to hold out in some position that basically just blocks the game from advancing very quickly, so be it.

Of course that can run into the different constraint, when it starts getting late and people are getting tired and cranky and just want to finish up and if you're the guy dragging things out they may just want you to pick a winner and get it over with.

This is my position too - kingmaking based on factors that are external to the game itself is definitely crossing a line, but there seems to be a substantial amount of people I see who are clearly just very opposed to any form of kingmaking. I happen to think this set of restrictions is not implementable in practice.

I definitely agree with this. I've played games with couples who refuse to attack each other, and it is pretty much the most annoying thing ever.

When I run into those positions I like to play my own metagame based on engineering the circumstances to 'force' the to attack each other.

Problem is some people are just so forgiving that one will sacrifice their position and not even be angry at the other for it.

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