Subject: Clarke and Tam Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 20:20:55 PDT From: "Ben Colvin" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hmm... The Competition of Magic and Ethics, Rules, and Cheating... They both ask the question what exactly is cheating? The answer to this question is simple: anything which violates the floor rules. Oh, well, it's that simple is it? Nope. That answer creates another question. If something is unethical, but technically legal, is it still fair play, regardless of how much of an asshole thing to do it was? The answer to this question, too, is obvious. Anything that doesn't violate the rules isn't cheating, no matter what, for the large, convoluted rules book which our friends WotC put out from time to time is the Catechism of Magic for all practical uses and purposes. This answer creates two questions, for it has two parts. The first is what is unethical? And the second is should the rules be expanded to specifically include all instances of unethical play? This first question is sort of a gray area which I shall approach further down, but the second is simple enough to answer: yes, the rules should be expanded, and the reason for this is (hopefully) painfully obvious. I shall explain. To continue the Catechism analogy touched upon above, those of you familiar with the Catechism of the Catholic Church will know that the main style practiced to convey the beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church is to state one main belief, and then to expand that belief and thoroughly explain it in DEEP detail. The magic rules book attempts this in all areas of Magic. But as of yet, not much attention has been paid to cheating, it his high time for the spotlight of the rules department to be turned on this. Whew, okay, well again, this answer, albeit longwinded and probably inconprehensible, spawns another one: should unethical play be treated exactly as cheating, despite the hightened probability for inaccurate placement of guilt? Well, this gets hard to answer without a clear definition of "unethical play", and now would be a good time to discuss this definition. What is unethical play? Well, that depends on your definition of Cheating. If you define cheating as, say, taking a free ancestral while your opponent ties his shoe, then unethical would be, say, noticing your opponent buried her Cerulean then also noticing that she didn't know that it had protection from green, but this situation wouldn't be cheating because it was your "opponent's" creature that got buried, and she should have known that it had protection from green, so you are completely guilt-free. But wait, what if you were intelligent enough to pass 4th grade on atleast the 3rd try, and you had a DIFFERENT definition of cheating in mind, one where, to GUARRANTEE fair play, ANY play error is considered to be cheating? Well, now, we have a difference of opinions here, there's gonna be a rumble. Let's see, who will win... well, since Magic is a game based not on physical strength, but on mental strength, my guess, which may be inaccurate, for it is JUST a guess, a shot in the dark really, is that the team with out any 4th grade drop outs on it would probably win by the VERY SMALLEST of margins. Of course, for me 4th grade was a long time ago, so maybe 4th graders have gotten smarter over the years, I dunno. Ben Colvin Team *BIG TONE* wallywebb@hotmail.com "I hear the little birdies, they're going 'CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP!'" -Anthony "Big Tone" Finan ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com