Re: ME-PBM Late Joiners

From: bonar@math.rutgers.edu (Doug Bonar)

Date: Wed, 05 Jul 1995 00:00:00 +0000

In article <3td3bq$kue@newsbf02.news.aol.com> tomtg@aol.com (TomTG) writes:

> >>>  David- Did you ever join this late as a neutral?  I thought so.
>
>
> >I don't know what you "thought," but I've never played ME-PBM at all,
> >and I'm not likely to do so.
>
> >                                        David desJardins
>
> Then you really don't know what you are talking about.....

But his point (which has been deleted) was well made and
applies to MEPBM as well as to most any other game.

Just because you don't like a strategy does not mean it
is an unfair way to play the game.  It certainly doesn't mean that
it is not playing the game.

If you don't like people being able to be neutral for
most of the game and then join and win, perhaps you should do
something about it.  It isn't like you didn't know that that strategy
existed.  It just seems that you don't personally like it, so
you think it shouldn't be allowed.

One problem that all games have to a greater or lesser
extent is that they are games and they are played by rules.  The
rules define what is possible which might not match exactly with
what your conception of what is possible based on the subject
matter of the game.  Thus you might think that (in MEPBM) that a
neutral couldn't wait out the war and then win by joining the dark
forces, because Sauron would personally crush the neutral after
his side swept up the good forces.  That might be your opinion, but
the game's rules don't support it. You might add extra rules on
your own play of the game (forcing yourself to behave in certain
ways to fit more with your opinion of the scenerio), but unless they
are agreed apon before hand, you have no right to expect other
players of the game to be bound by restrictions you place on
yourself.

Conversely, if you find that owning all the 'red'
tokens on the board in some game gives you a greater thrill than
actually winning by the game's rules, then you are free to play
(within the rules) in such a way as to get all the red tokens.  Of
course, the others are free to be annoyed by your ignoring the
'purpose' of the game (the rules for winning) and not play with you
in the future.

Doug

References

Re: ME-PBM Late Joiners
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 03 Jul 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: ME-PBM Late Joiners
tomtg@aol.com (TomTG)
Wed, 05 Jul 1995 00:00:00 +0000