Level Two - Lesson 12
Competitive Policy Guide - Infractions & Penalties
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Hello there!
Welcome back to the level two lessons for the Star Wars™: Unlimited Judge Program!
As always, I’m your host Jonah, and this lesson will cover the philosophy of infractions and penalties in the Competitive Policy Guide. Again, we’re not going to be talking about specific infractions, which cause players to receive penalties, but continuing to keep a broad and foundational look at how we identify infractions, issue penalties, and consider remedies.
As always with policy, this is an area that is continually being refined, and will grow and evolve as play also continues to evolve. This does make it a bit of a challenge to both learn and teach, so this is likely a lesson that will similarly evolve over time.
Philosophy of Infractions
Before we start to dive into the meat of the document, I want to take a moment to define four terms - infraction, error, penalty, and remedy.
An infraction is the broadest of these terms - it is a defined error, which comes with associated penalties and guidance on appropriate remedies.
Error is the most straightforward - this is something that has gone wrong, whether it be rules or policy.
A penalty, as we explore below, is the most punitive part of judging - this is the enforcement and disincentive for poor behavior. All infractions have a defined penalty, while some have defined upgrade and downgrade paths. A player doesn’t “deserve” a penalty - rather, they commit an error or infraction which has an associated penalty. Our goal isn’t to assign as many penalties as possible, but rather, keep games on track, and penalties are a tool that help us do so.
Finally, remedies are how we address the discontinuity brought up from player errors - it’s how we try to fix the game state to bring it as close to ideal as possible.
So what is ideal? Well, the CPG takes a couple of pages to cover the principles behind the construction of infractions and what outcomes we want from matches. The four principles are a positive experience for all participants, ensuring understanding, having natural games, and trust in the community.
While you should follow the procedures written in the CPG, if you feel like an infraction doesn’t meet these principles, it may be a sign that either your identification and application of the infraction, penalty and remedy were incorrect, or it may be a sign that policy has a hole. As I’ve said many times in these videos and will continue to say, policy is an area that is continually being refined and can continue to evolve. While feeling like the principles aren’t met isn’t a reason on its own to deviate from policy, it can be the grounds for starting a conversation with other judges about what’s appropriate for the specific scenario.
If you’re interested in Head Judging events, I strongly encourage you to read section 2.2 of the CPG that covers these principles in more detail, as they’ll help inform your decision making process.
In short, it’s important that players walk away from playing Star Wars: Unlimited wanting to come back and play more - that’s the positive experience. This can include positive interactions with their opponent or staff but also trust and comfort in knowing that their game played out naturally and fairly, which is influenced by judge rulings.
Understanding is also key - players who don’t understand and aren’t educated on why they’ve received an infraction are more likely to commit the error again (out of ignorance) and potentially be frustrated, because they don’t know how to avoid penalties.
Natural Games is another critical element. If a judge’s presence is disruptive to a match, such that the players feel the game would have been more subjectively fair if the judge hadn’t been involved, that has a negative impact on the entire judge program; however, for many scenarios, no fix will be perfect, and the game will be somewhat disrupted. It’s your responsibility to help minimize the total disruption and to help ensure that the player who committed the error is not incentivized to commit further errors by mitigating any real advantage gained, as well as any significant potential advantage gained.
Finally, we come to acting in good faith with the community - many infractions require repetition to escalate to a penalty that has measurable consequences. This is because we generally believe that the players in our game are honest and want to play fair games, and that errors are the consequence of lapses of attention, not malice or forethought.
These elements inform both the remedy and the penalty - so let’s move on to explore a bit more about penalties.
Overview of Penalties
Penalties come in a variety of formats - they’re the most punitive elements of our arsenal, and it’s important to be aware of the impact that they can have on players. For Judges, we know that a warning isn’t a condemnation of a player, and that it’s not a big deal, but for a player, it feels much more significant.
As the penalties we issue get sterner, players feel more and more judged for their actions. It can be important to explain to a player who is upset that they got a game loss that it’s not because you think they’re a bad or malicious player, but because the integrity of the game has been compromised.
Escalating Penalties
Almost all infractions come with penalty a penalty that can escalate from a Warning to something more severe, including Games Losses or Match Losses. This process of escalation is fundamental to Star Wars: Unlimited policy.
For the vast majority of cases, players make innocent mistakes, and we’re able to correct them and move on. We don’t want to punish innocent players, and so we don’t issue a game loss or a more severe penalty - we just issue a warning, fix the game, and move on from there.
However, if the penalty for those infractions remains a warning and fixing the game, malicious actors don’t have any disincentive from trying to get away with it again and again. Consequently, there’s a system by which penalties are upgraded to sterner results.
All infractions (except Mutual Responsibility Errors) result in the player receiving a Warning, which can escalate to a Game Loss under specific circumstances. For Gameplay Disruptions, they escalate on the third infraction of the same type. For Event Disruptions, it’s on the second infraction of the same type. We’ll discuss the precise upgrade paths and philosophies of these penalties as we get to specific infractions in the upcoming lessons.
Tracking Penalties
There are also Tracking Penalties that never escalate. They usually are to make note of something outside of a player’s control that may have benefited them - for example, when one player commits an infraction, and their opponent doesn’t call attention to it immediately.
We don’t want to harshly penalize players for being less aware of their opponent’s action than their opponent themselves, but we do want to be aware of it, to see if it’s a habit of letting their opponent make mistakes that are advantageous for the player.
We also want to ensure that it is not reasonable for a player to intentionally commit errors with the hope of earning their opponent an infraction that results in a serious penalty.
If there are systems that can be gamed in such a way, some bad actors may take advantage of them. It is for that reason that we use tracking penalties.
Tracking penalties can be used somewhat liberally - because they don’t escalate, they are simply notes to your future self or to other judges on staff for that particular event.
Issuing Infractions and Penalties
When you’re issuing a penalty that doesn’t have a direct impact on the match - ie, just a warning, but not a game loss or match loss, you don’t need to mention the details of the escalation process. Before you issue your ruling however, you should verify if the player has received any other penalties during the event. I usually just ask if they’ve received any penalties, because that’s enough to let me know if I should look up their history or not. I’ve had many players tell that they’ve received a specific penalty and been wrong about that, but have not had a player misremember whether or not they’ve received any penalty.
As mentioned above, players can respond negatively to a warning, and getting into the technical details will only serve to unnerve the player and reduce the quality of their experience.
The language I tend to use is “you’re receiving a warning for a card manipulation error because drew three cards during regroup. This isn’t anything to worry about unless you make a habit of drawing three cards when you’re supposed to draw two.”
This clearly tells the player what their infraction was, so they can theoretically tell a judge if they’re asked if they’ve received any penalties previously in the event, the specific action at hand, and that it’s not something to worry about. If the situation is more tense, I leave out the more relaxed attitude, but do include that it isn’t anything to worry about unless the player develops a habit.
If the player is close to having their penalty escalate to a Game Loss, at that point I take a moment to pull the player aside and have a clear and precise conversation. I let them know in a bit more detail what their situation is, and inform them what they can do to avoid repeating their infractions, and steps they can take to play more precisely and clearly. My goal is to minimize the number of penalties and infractions issued through encouraging clean and accurate play, as that leads to natural games where players enjoy the experience. Taking some time to educate the player to prevent errors is very helpful.
Again, this provides the player the information they need to be able to play with an appropriate level of care, and lets them know what actions are the most relevant to their match. The language should be carefully crafted, because we are their allies and don’t want to issue game losses to players.
Game Loss
Game losses are issued in one of three circumstances: the game state is deeply compromised, a warning is being upgraded due to repeated infractions, or where the game itself hasn’t been directly impacted, but a game loss is required for enforcement and logistical reasons. This is most frequently the case of tardiness or a deck/decklist error.
Tardiness can have an immediate impact on tournament progression - a player arriving multiple minutes late to their match is likely to delay the tournament for all participants. Even though arriving late to a match is easy to do and simple to fix, it is important to strongly incentivize players to be at their table when the round begins, to minimize time extensions issued.
Deck and decklist problems fall into a somewhat similar category. Decklist errors only occur once during a tournament, and so there isn’t a route for them to escalate. Similarly, deck errors other than failure to desideboard also generally only occur once during a tournament for a given player, so they also don’t naturally escalate.
Furthermore, these errors can provide a significant advantage if committed intentionally, and are relatively difficult to catch, as they are based on generally private information. Players aren’t privy to their opponent’s deck or decklist, and consequently, it’s very hard for players to catch deck and decklist errors that their opponents commit, as opposed to gameplay errors, which are objective and happen directly in front of the player.
Because they don’t have a natural upgrade path and they are harder for players to identify, we have stronger baseline penalties for these errors than many other gameplay disruptions and tournament errors, starting with game losses.
This game loss is accounted for as part of the match result. If it is game one, players proceed to game two, with the player receiving the loss getting the choice of starting with the initiative.
If it is game two, and the player lost game one, the match is now over. If they won, they proceed to game three.
If a player is receiving a game loss before any game actions have been taken (likely due to a deck check or tardiness), players are not allowed to sideboard before game two.
If both players receive game losses simultaneously (again, often due to deck checks or tardiness), the game losses are offset, and players must still play their full best-of-three match, not a best-of-one.
Match Loss
Match losses are relatively rare, as they require that an entire match be disrupted to the point where it can’t be completed.
The most common case is a player's absence. Frequently, players will forget to drop from an event, and no-show for their next round pairings. When a player is absent from their match, they receive a match loss and are dropped from the event.
The other scenarios where Match Losses can apply fall under unsporting conduct.
First is Illegally Determining a Result, where a player, without knowing it’s against the rules, arbitrarily or randomly determines the outcome of their match.
The other, and more severe version, is when one player’s behavior makes it so that their opponent cannot be reasonably expected to play against them. This could be a player who is hostile and insulting to their opponent, but that doesn’t cross the line into Aggressive Behavior. Even if the player has unintentionally insulted their opponent, and they show remorse, their opponent may not be comfortable playing a match against the player receiving the infraction. Because the player’s actions have resulted in an unplayable match, a match loss may be warranted.
Disqualification
We finally get to the most significant penalty.
Disqualification should be reserved for only the most severe infractions.
Players should only be disqualified for cheating or for major forms of unsporting conduct, including crimes, such as theft and assault. Disqualifying a player is a significant action, and should be undertaken with the utmost seriousness.
Players who are disqualified from an event are removed from the tournament and are no longer allowed to participate in the tournament. This decision is the judge’s decision.
The Tournament Organizer, who is in charge of the venue, can choose to further eject the player from the venue and/or disallow the player from registering in other tournaments that weekend. This is the tournament organizer's decision. We will continue to have lessons on disqualification and best practices, but I want to hit on a few key details.
A player who is disqualified from a tournament is not eligible for any prizes they have not yet received, but is allowed to keep any prizes or product they have already been given.
A player who is disqualified from a tournament should be reported to FFG, along with their statement and the statements of the relevant parties. These should be emailed to Unlimited@FantasyFlightGames.com. Procedures and guidance can be found in the Disqualifications and Escalations elective.
A player can be disqualified after the fact, but should still be informed of their disqualification and be given the opportunity to submit a statement.
Significant Penalties
Any penalty other than a warning or tracking penalties should go through the Head Judge. Floor judges should absolutely never issue disqualifications, and should only issue game losses and match losses in cases of tardiness, which are exceptionally objectively measured penalties.
It’s important to remain consistent, and because of the severity of these penalties, we want to ensure that the player receives the full attention of the Head Judge, and so that the Head Judge is informed in case the player appeals or is upset. Having the Head Judge on hand means that they can immediately begin to de-escalate the situation and they don’t need to be brought up to speed.
Furthermore, Head Judges are frequently the most experienced judge on staff, and giving these situations the appropriate respect is important to maintaining a healthy relationship with players.
Next week we’ll be back discussing Gameplay Disruptions and diving into the first examples we have of infractions we’ll be issuing. It’s only a first look, but understanding Gameplay Disruptions and internalizing them is a key step to helping create a better player experience. If you’re watching this on YouTube, and you want more level two lessons in your feed, go ahead and subscribe. Join us after new lessons on twitch.tv/swu_judges for live broadcasts covering the content of these lessons as they are released, and join the Star Wars: Unlimited Judge Program Discord to join the community in discussion of this and much, much more.
As always, good luck, and have fun.