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notprop wrote:In the situation where two opponents have agreed pre-game to draw, do they actually bother to play the game?

This is reprehensible behaviour in my opinion and as I say should be censured in all games.

Although I can understand the goals behind such an agreement, I'm actually a little shocked that this would be allowed to go on in a tournament setting where presumably prizes are available.

Don't take this wrong. I am eager to hear your opinion, but why? If you allow players to 'play' to a draw, why not allow an intentional draw?

I have actually agreed to a draw before. We had 4 players at fantasy ard boyz. I massacred the first two round and even if the person behind me massacred me it would not have mattered as I still would of won and the other 2 couldnt catch him and the mission was stupid. So we agreed to draw it or if they preferred line up across from each other and go through 6 turns of random effects everyturn lol.

I consider it equivalent to the players agreeing to one getting a win and the other taking a loss- usually friends or someone who has no chance giving the other person max points.

Agreeing to a draw is the same. You're not playing the game in good faith, you're working with your opponent to engineer an outcome.

You can see how in an event where friends, clubmates, and the like have the chance to be paired up in later rounds, that this could be very detrimental.

People love to use sports analogies about warhammer tournaments, and while I think they're not very analogous... you can imagine what agreeing to an outcome in sports would be considered. I.e., the Black Sox...

Perhaps a better analogy is the World Series of Poker. Several players agree, verbally, not to put each other out, and play in such a way as to follow through on it. Doesn't sound legal to me.

However, that in no way means a player can't intentionally let another weaker player stick around for more hands by not putting them all in... maybe they want insulation from the person next to them that they're worried about, or are hoping to use them as bait... I'm no good poker player so I can't say for sure. But you can see how different that is than conspiring together to bring about a certain outcome for both.

RiTides wrote:Agreeing to a draw is the same. You're not playing the game in good faith, you're working with your opponent to engineer an outcome.

Even if everyone agrees that orchestrating a draw is a bad thing, how do you enforce it?

Do you force the players to play out the game? What's to stop players A and B playing poorly to otherwise create a draw?

Ultimately, there's very little you can do to enforce this 'problem' and prevent it from happening, unless you do what was suggested above and award more points for a loss than for a draw. But that system could potentially punish players who simply draw out of circumstance. And it creates an incentive for players to play sub-optimally: for example if I can charge a unit of Orks sitting on an objective, I either wipe out the orks (and win the round), get stuck in (draw), or get wiped out (lose). If my odds of getting stuck in combat (draw) outweigh the risk of wiping them out or getting wiped out, then it's to my advantage to play to lose (not charge). But if a draw is better than a loss, I'm going to charge those Orks every time.

I by no means agree with this, but if you KNOW two players have agreed to draw for the purpose of effecting standings, then give each play a loss.

I have seen in several tournaments where if the final two drew, then they got 1st and 2nd, but if one won, then the other fell out of the prize.

biccat wrote:Do you force the players to play out the game? What's to stop players A and B playing poorly to otherwise create a draw?

Yes, you can make them play out the game.

And if you hear them agreeing to a draw ahead of time, you can disqualify them...

Just because you can't enforce every case doesn't mean that you can't make it a rule and do your best to enact an environment that does not encourage that kind of poor sportsmanship in tournaments.

Again, just to be clear- I have no problem with a person playing for a draw. It's both players agreeing to it and not doing things in their own best interest because of said agreement that I think is unfair (as do most here, it seems). If I'm at the top table with a great chance at placing in the top 3 with just a draw, I may well play for one- but I'm not going to agree with my opponent about it ahead of time. That's the key difference- playing the game in good faith. And you enforce it like you do any other cheating- if you've outlawed it in the rules, and it occurs, you punish the players accordingly when caught.

Just because someone does it and doesn't get caught doesn't make it OK if the rules of the event have specifically stated otherwise. If the rules allow it, then of course it's fair game... but I haven't seen any rules packets specifically allowing it, either. Are there some?