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I have a question to the community.

When organising our last Infinity tournament, we tried having a prize for the person who accumulated the highest sportsmanship score. Unfortunately, it turned out that the results were skewed, because on a scale of 1 to 10, most people gave the other person a 8 at least.

If you organize a tournament, what types of prizes would you get ?

Best General
Best Painted Army
Best Sportsman

That it ? Or is this too old-fashioned?

Well for 40k I have done sportsmanship at times, I usually just have people name their favorite opponent, or rank their opponents in order of favorite to least favorite it forces more of a discrepancy in the outcome.

I really liked how your sportsmanship ranking score worked at connecticon last year breng. And that's not a bias because I won ;p. The ranking your opponents from favorite to least favorite seems like the best way to do it objectively.

We got two prizes:

Best General (best score)
Best Sportsmanship (highest sportsmanship score)

Best Sportsmanship usually is about 50% of the prize money for Best General. I round it to a nice-looking number

So a good way is to make a list. Their favorite opponent gets x amount then the second gets x amount and so on depending on how many games were played. So it would look like this:
Favorite: Johnny 5
2nd favorite : dave 4
3rd favorite: Allan 3

And so on.

 Empchild wrote:
So a good way is to make a list. Their favorite opponent gets x amount then the second gets x amount and so on depending on how many games were played. So it would look like this:
Favorite: Johnny 5
2nd favorite : dave 4
3rd favorite: Allan 3

And so on.

I feel like those names mean something...

I also like this method. At our tournaments locally we do a combo method. Every person gets a sports score: 0,2,4,6 then everyone votes for their favorite opponent as well. So you add up scores then add 10 for every favorite opponent vote.

Ninja'd by OWCNC!

 Alkasyn wrote:
I have a question to the community.

When organising our last Infinity tournament, we tried having a prize for the person who accumulated the highest sportsmanship score. Unfortunately, it turned out that the results were skewed, because on a scale of 1 to 10, most people gave the other person a 8 at least.

If you organize a tournament, what types of prizes would you get ?

Best General
Best Painted Army
Best Sportsman

That it ? Or is this too old-fashioned?

Naw, it's good. You could add, if enough players are present, Best Imperial (most points) and Best Xeno army (most points).

For Sportsmanship try one of these two:
For a 3 game rtt:
0 points - a seriously horrible game, the TO was called in. Cheating, fast dice, rude, fudgy Moves & measuring. Ban the guy.
2 points - no real egregious problems, but not a fun game. Yeah, you'll still play this guy, but maybe some disputes were not amicably resolved or there was *some* fudginess with dice calls or Movement
4 points - a decent game. Normal. A rule/LOS dispute, but nothing that made you fret. This is the score players should give out for most games.
6 points - Wow! That was fun! You made a new Bromance! Great game. Even losing, this was a game and opponent you'll remember!

It's a simpler system than 1 through 10, with a clear distinction between scores. And my FLGS has been using it for years.


For longer tourneys, I have seen this once:
Say it's a 5 game tourney. Each player can assign 5, 4, 3, 2, and then 1 point. Each number can only be assigned once. This would be done after the last game and then turned into the judge, so players can reflect back over their games. A separate score sheet should stay with you (the player) so you can note how games/sportsman went. Of course, anything egregious and awful should be brought up during *that* game.

So, I play Fran, Gary, Hank, Ivan and Jack. I give Fran a 4 (fun enough), Ivan the 5 (really cool dude, really sportsman-like!), Gary a 2 (okay game), Hank a 3 (it was alright) and Jack the 1. Jack was okay to play, but at the end of the tourney, I guess the other players were better sports.

How's that?

 Empchild wrote:
So a good way is to make a list. Their favorite opponent gets x amount then the second gets x amount and so on depending on how many games were played. So it would look like this:
Favorite: Johnny 5
2nd favorite : dave 4
3rd favorite: Allan 3

And so on.

A tournament I went to did something like this and later, the gentlemen who used to run said tournament provided the math as to why this system sucks. We're talking in depth calculations using simulations through MATLAB kind of detail. These ranking systems are always either gamed or wrong (or both). And the issue arises if you enjoyed your time with Sir John, Lord Dave, and Duke Allen equally, which guy are you going to throw under the bus?

Basing the "best sport" out of a pool of large players and only three games is mathematically impossible, which then just makes it a poop show. I'd say make it Best Painted, Best General, Best Overall and then use what prize pool would be for best sport into a raffle even that everyone is in. Sportsmanship scores should be "did you bathe?" and "did you show up on time?" It's much harder to judge poor or good sport when there's things like legitimate rules disputes, based on poor wording in the rulebook, that then can reflect poorly on either player. It creates a "let is slide" mentality on rules in a competitive setting, which is no bueno. Use the standard checkbox approach for sportsmanship as a tie breaker for best overall, IMO.

That's why I always do check box plus opponent ranking. Just because you get a low favorite opponent vote does not make you a bad sport. The let it slide thing is also a myth, if your are a jerk about how you bring it up sure, but otherwise people are not upset by it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also check box used in best overall is largely meaningless.

Breng77 wrote:
That's why I always do check box plus opponent ranking. Just because you get a low favorite opponent vote does not make you a bad sport. The let it slide thing is also a myth, if your are a jerk about how you bring it up sure, but otherwise people are not upset by it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also check box used in best overall is largely meaningless.

I don't think it's a myth. I know I've felt it in very sportsmanship weighted tournaments. Which then saw friends of the TOs winning the prizes, let alone prizes that fit their army perfectly...

Just make Sportsmanship a check box and don't give an award for it. As I said, only a few people will play against "the best sport" overall, so it seems kinda meaningless as a prize. You're better off doing a raffle.

At that same token only a few people will play against the best general is that similarly meaningless? Sure bad TOs exist, that is not a sportsmanship award problem, it's a TO problem, as a TO I could similarly tailor missions for my friends, or pick them for best painted....again that is also in tournaments where sports weight heavily on who wins the tournament rather than a separate prize. It is why I always have separate awards as well as a best overall. Sports is just as meaningful as generalship in most events. The problem being apparently that you play jink an area that is corrupt for some reason. 2 years running at my gt best sports has gone to people I'd never met.

Breng77 wrote:
At that same token only a few people will play against the best general is that similarly meaningless? Sure bad TOs exist, that is not a sportsmanship award problem, it's a TO problem, as a TO I could similarly tailor missions for my friends, or pick them for best painted....again that is also in tournaments where sports weight heavily on who wins the tournament rather than a separate prize. It is why I always have separate awards as well as a best overall. Sports is just as meaningful as generalship in most events. The problem being apparently that you play jink an area that is corrupt for some reason. 2 years running at my gt best sports has gone to people I'd never met.

The difference is that best general has actual stats/evidence that isn't based purely on conjecture. I mean you can try to make a grading scale for sportsmanship but honestly will come down to the opinion of the opponent at the end. Best general has things like number of wins, tiebreakers, etc.

I mean if you have a tournament with 8 people, after three rounds there will only be one guy left undefeated. Pretty obvious to everyone who wins best general at that point. Whoever wins best sportsman will have only played 3 out of the 7 other players. The 4 that didn't play him just kinda have to take everyone at their word since they likely didn't have time to watch others games.

I mean I have seen sportsmanship awards done at larger events (several hundred people) and smaller events (maybe 6-7), and to be completely honest I never really walk away with a good idea why the guy who won best sportsman won. Also I have seen situations where people who won sportsmanship kinda gamed the system, either going around and campaigning asking people to vote for them often their friends, or a small local tournament where over half of players where from the same gaming club, with ti-shirts and everything, and one of them won after his teammates all gave him high scores. However best general it is usually rather obvious.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
... Also I have seen situations where people who won sportsmanship kinda gamed the system, either going around and campaigning asking people to vote for them often their friends, or a small local tournament where over half of players where from the same gaming club, with ti-shirts and everything, and one of them won after his teammates all gave him high scores. ... .

Wow. Just wow. This is supreme douchery. Campaigning? Seriously? "Vote for me dude, I am desperate for approval and some prize credit!"

I hope *you* made sure that guy got chipmunked.

- - - - - - - - - -

Last year and 2012, I was awarded Sportsman often enough at my FLGS for the TO to name the award after me for 2014 as an in-joke. "The Casey H. Best Sportsman Award goes to ..." I'm happy to see it go to other players.

Not just at the FLGS, but at a charity RTT, too. And that wasn't a 'scored' decision. At awards time the TO there simply asked the whole group, who gets it? A number of guys pointed at me. Probably because I drew the ringer for round one, who was quite the novice, inexperienced player. I said we should have fun and gave him advice throughout our game to not mess up too badly. I coached my opponent so well, he defeated me. We ran out of time and I didn't get the Wraithknight over to an objective (Big Guns Never Tire, where Heavies scored in 6e).


The TO, my opponent, and several others and me all had a good laugh at that. That was MidnightMadness in Temecula, Calif. ... Last Autumn was it? October?

(and yes, I realized I'm bragging a bit here).

- - - - - - - - -
I don't campaign. I holler and growl at disappointing dice (often mine). I cuss (paring it down lately as we have a younger player attending). Round 2 is often after two beers at the Pub across the street.

So, why do I get it a lot? I hope, it has been for reasons like these:

- Moving infantry 5 .75 inches sometimes.
- Letting opponents count hits on blasts and check the measure on charge distances (both players should if crucial)
- When an opponent has gone to shooting, shot a couple units, and forgot to Move a unit, crucially. I say, "Go ahead, man." With a smile.
- when opponent says, "Oops, I forgot to issue a Challenge for a Maelstrom point! Man, this combat is almost resolved." I might say, "Oh, right. Go ahead and issue it, you woulda scored that easy point anyway. You just got caught up in the moment." With a smile.
- when I screw up, "Oh, man, I just realized that I don't have AP2 guns (or some other crushing rule/mechanic) in that unit. They should not have killed your dudes on objective three. So, huh. How do you wanna fix this?" I offer to put his entire unit back on the table, award the point he woulda got, *and* maybe even move my unit back a ways .....
- dice mess ups. I did this yesterday. I forgot that my WaveSerpent should have been Snapping (despite the marker on it). I rolled a bunch of hits and wounds. My opponent asks, "Didn't that one jink?" I paused, realized my screw up, couldn't remember how many sixes I might have rolled. This was the second time I'd so. I simply washed all the hits/wounds away and moved on to another unit.
- A fudgy measure, wobbly model, LOS kinda thing. I often (not *every* time) allow it to go to my opponents' favor. Sometimes I know it should go my way, but it isn't worth the apprehension.

*These* are reasons for giving a high vote for Sportsmanship. I state this as an authority on the matter, having won often enough.

There, I have spoken! ... err, typed.

Breng77 wrote:
Well for 40k I have done sportsmanship at times, I usually just have people name their favorite opponent, or rank their opponents in order of favorite to least favorite it forces more of a discrepancy in the outcome.

Yeah forced gradient is my preference. You rank your opponents at the end of the day and just weight the points like 4 3 2 1 or whatever. It's not done after the game so there's less ability to be passive aggressive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheKbob wrote:

 Empchild wrote:
So a good way is to make a list. Their favorite opponent gets x amount then the second gets x amount and so on depending on how many games were played. So it would look like this:
Favorite: Johnny 5
2nd favorite : dave 4
3rd favorite: Allan 3

And so on.

A tournament I went to did something like this and later, the gentlemen who used to run said tournament provided the math as to why this system sucks. We're talking in depth calculations using simulations through MATLAB kind of detail. These ranking systems are always either gamed or wrong (or both). And the issue arises if you enjoyed your time with Sir John, Lord Dave, and Duke Allen equally, which guy are you going to throw under the bus?

I fully acknowledge in the tournament packet that we're forcing the gradient and tell players not to feel bad about it. There's no good system because there's no solid metric for sportsmanship. We do it this way, not because it's a good metric, but because it's less passive aggressive than a 1-5 or 1-10 scale post game and the hope is it will encourage players to speak up more about rules issues without worrying it may affect their score.

It's the same reason to get attendees to vote on their fav army or top 3 favourite armies instead of rating another person's army on an arbitrary scale post game, which is again often another way to be passive aggressive and lower opponents scores over spite.

 Brothererekose wrote:
Wow. Just wow. This is supreme douchery. Campaigning? Seriously? "Vote for me dude, I am desperate for approval and some prize credit!"

It was a CCG tournament years ago, that individual and a least one other where out campaigning, the guy I had played won. Honestly I did vote for him, mainly because there was 300 or so people there, I wasn't thinking about it too much at the time and when he asked I was kinda like "sure whatever I will vote for you". Sportsmanship in that CCG (it was Legend of the Five Rings) also counted towards the meta game, so he didn't just only get a prize but points for his faction towards the meta game. Afterwards I thought about it more and that event did leave me with a bad taste in my mouth towards sportsmanship scores.

Hey! Thanks for all the different opinions. We have tried doing it once, and it ended up a broken system.

We are playing Infinity, so we cannot award different award to players playing different armies.

I'll present your suggestions to my organizing committee , see what we come up with

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
At that same token only a few people will play against the best general is that similarly meaningless? Sure bad TOs exist, that is not a sportsmanship award problem, it's a TO problem, as a TO I could similarly tailor missions for my friends, or pick them for best painted....again that is also in tournaments where sports weight heavily on who wins the tournament rather than a separate prize. It is why I always have separate awards as well as a best overall. Sports is just as meaningful as generalship in most events. The problem being apparently that you play jink an area that is corrupt for some reason. 2 years running at my gt best sports has gone to people I'd never met.

The difference is that best general has actual stats/evidence that isn't based purely on conjecture. I mean you can try to make a grading scale for sportsmanship but honestly will come down to the opinion of the opponent at the end. Best general has things like number of wins, tiebreakers, etc.

I mean if you have a tournament with 8 people, after three rounds there will only be one guy left undefeated. Pretty obvious to everyone who wins best general at that point. Whoever wins best sportsman will have only played 3 out of the 7 other players. The 4 that didn't play him just kinda have to take everyone at their word since they likely didn't have time to watch others games.

I mean I have seen sportsmanship awards done at larger events (several hundred people) and smaller events (maybe 6-7), and to be completely honest I never really walk away with a good idea why the guy who won best sportsman won. Also I have seen situations where people who won sportsmanship kinda gamed the system, either going around and campaigning asking people to vote for them often their friends, or a small local tournament where over half of players where from the same gaming club, with ti-shirts and everything, and one of them won after his teammates all gave him high scores. However best general it is usually rather obvious.

Assuming you have enough games for a single undefeated player sure, and even then if I go 2-1 and never play the undefeated guy how do we know I wouldn't beat him. But more importantly say I have 32 players and 3 rounds. Now I have 4 players who are all undefeated. Still obvious who the best General is? Or now that we are on battle points, or other tie breakers is it just as unclear because maybe that guy just got easier matchups. In the gradient system, it would be tough to game, unless your opponents are ally your buddies, if you play other people and you're a jerk...you won't win. Will it definitively determine the absolute best sportsman. No it won't. Neither will battle points determine definitively the best general, or appearance always determine the best painter due to opinion. Not saying you must do sports, but it can be scored in every bit as valid a method as generalship unless you have a single undefeated player (and value win loss, some larger events do battle points and a guy who loses is best general....not very definitive there is it?)

Breng77 wrote:

Assuming you have enough games for a single undefeated player sure, and even then if I go 2-1 and never play the undefeated guy how do we know I wouldn't beat him. But more importantly say I have 32 players and 3 rounds. Now I have 4 players who are all undefeated. Still obvious who the best General is? Or now that we are on battle points, or other tie breakers is it just as unclear because maybe that guy just got easier matchups. In the gradient system, it would be tough to game, unless your opponents are ally your buddies, if you play other people and you're a jerk...you won't win. Will it definitively determine the absolute best sportsman. No it won't. Neither will battle points determine definitively the best general, or appearance always determine the best painter due to opinion. Not saying you must do sports, but it can be scored in every bit as valid a method as generalship unless you have a single undefeated player (and value win loss, some larger events do battle points and a guy who loses is best general....not very definitive there is it?)

Yea but your key point could also apply to sportsmanship. For instance, for easy match ups what if someone goes up against opponents that are rather lenient on the scores they give out the their opponents while other there may be more stringent. If the guy who wins sportsmanship doesn't play the guys that are more stringent and gets high scores. Is he necessarily the best sportsman or did he just get lucky? Other formats I have seen is just have people vote for best sportsman, but if there are 32+ people there and you played 3 how are you supposed to make an informed decision at that point? Besides most of sports is purely subjective combined with a bit of a popularity contest, you will have people grading differently. You could try to create a very detailed rubric combined with a series of examples in order for players to understand and grade people more accurately, but that is the level of effort you generally won't see given these are just tournaments done for fun.

I never said it was better that generalship simply not much different in many cases. Yes an open vote is a bad idea, which is why I use players ranking opponent+ thumbs up thumbs down! sometimes + rubric. It gives you a more rounded view. Furthermore, it negates to some extent the different graders argument. Sure I could play 3 easier graders than you but if I am the favorite game of all 3 that still means I was "better than their other opponents". Similarly if you get worst opponent from your strict graders you were worse than their other opponents. Not saying it is perfect, nothing is. That does not mean we should take sports out entirely, Ime players then to be happier with it being recognized.

Breng77 wrote:
Well for 40k I have done sportsmanship at times, I usually just have people name their favorite opponent, or rank their opponents in order of favorite to least favorite it forces more of a discrepancy in the outcome.

I like this method. Rather than giving everyone a perfect 10, you pick the one guy/girl/spambot that you enjoyed playing the most.

Yup, the biggest hurdle is convincing people that you are not knocking opponents by ranking them lower.Instead of just favorite I like ranking all opponents 1-3(or whatever) in order of favorite. Then including a standard thumbs up thumbs down as well so that bad sportsman are dealt with if needed.

AI know many people dislike sportsmanship scores, but ultimately its a good thing for the hobby.

Part of the hobby/game is interacting with another person. If you can do that in a positive, or even neutral light its a good or okay thing for the tournament. If you do it in a negative light, some people may not wish to reattend the tournament event. Most people who are worried about sportsmanship tend to be TFGs or lack some level of social awareness towards the other people playing. Sportsmanship is usually a non factor if your not a TFG.

I say usually because sometimes TFGs mark someone down because they lost, or got called out on something. I had a TFG mark me down a 0 out of 5 at a tourney in pittsburgh, pa because I asked him to "please look up look up the land raiders weapons" because he claimed it had a twin linked multimelta, that fired two shots with rerolls. He went all red in the face unnecessarily and grumbled he was right. I asked him to "please just take a second to look it up, and we can move on" he looked it up, and said it was 2 shots with rerolls, which obviously was a lie. At that point I considered calling a judge over or to just let him roll. I just let him roll, he only hit 1 time out of 2 with rerolls and then rolled a 1 for penetration so I guess the dice gods paid him back. Regardless he did take it as a opportunity to ping my sportsmanship score to a 0 out of 5 because he was classy.

This is why its best to not have a scored sportsmanship score that adds into other scores, but have it somehow separate that can effect your overall standing if you get dinged too low or too much.

I personally life how the BAO handled it, where its a thumbs up thumbs down and if you get two thumbs downs your out.

In the past we stopped giving out awards for best general. It created too competitive of an enviroment for tournments at the FLGS. We never tried to create a cutthroat enviroment and just wanted to created some fun games and scenerios. So outside of a GT IMO i think that the prizes should be for sportmenship and painting. If you want to foster the ultra competitive enviroment then giving prizes for best general is what you want to do.