Secrets of Power
Policy Update
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Hello there!
Welcome to the Secrets of Power policy update lesson! Today we’re going to go over both the policy documents, covering what has changed, and what that means for the game!
Unlike the changes to the comprehensive rules and the changes to the policy documents for the last few sets, the changes to policy for Secrets of Power are widespread and fundamental. There’s a lot to get through, and frankly, we’re not going to go over everything in this lesson, because, well, practically everything has been changed.
What does it mean when I say “everything has been changed”?
Well, to start, there are now three policy documents instead of two, grouped together into a single Comprehensive Event Guide. Everything you need to know about how to run any event should be included in the CEG. The three documents within are the Tournament Regulations, which are nearly twice as long as they were before, the Competitive Policy Guide and the Relaxed Policy Guide.
Document Overivew
The Tournament Regulations expand upon what was in the previous version of the Tournament Regulations, as well as the first half of the Master Event Document, which is now a defunct document for Star Wars: Unlimited. It covers fundamentals, roles and responsibilities, materials, mechanics, play structure, communication, violations, and formats.
The Competitive Policy Guide (CPG) covers policy for... you guessed it - competitive events. It has updated and expanded sections for how to utilize and understand the document, including underlying philosophies, penalty definitions and how to apply fixes.
The Relaxed Policy Guide (RPG) covers policy for relaxed events. At this point, you may be asking what Relaxed events are - they’re a new tier of play, between casual and competitive. Casual events are those that don’t have any structure or support - kitchen table play, or even very loose weekly play at a game store. Relaxed is rebranded Casual from previous documents - weekly play with tournament structure, prereleases, and most store showdowns.
The RPG is a two-page document that covers infractions and remedies for pretty much everything that should come up - it’s meant to be a very efficient document, that expresses a general philosophy emphasizing education, social interaction and friendly competition.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the big differences, new sections, and areas of interest. This lesson won’t cover everything in detail, so I encourage you to read the documents and to review the appropriate lessons when they’re updated.
Tournament Regulations
Rather than going over every detail, I want to highlight a few significant changes in the Tournament Regulations.
First, in section 2.3, the tiers of play have expanded. Previously there were “Casual” and “Competitive” events. Now, there are four tiers - Casual is the least intense of them, focusing primarily on unstructured play. Relaxed is where the old “Casual” used to be - for most in-store play and side-events at larger tournaments. It also uses the Relaxed Policy Guide.
Competitive tier remains where it was, more or less, but now explicitly uses the Competitive Policy Guide. However, the top end of Competitive Tier has been changed to Master Tier, which is new.
Master Tier is very much the same as Competitive Tier, but with slightly higher expectations for players, which appear in the form of altered penalties and infractions at Master Tier events. Master Tier play only occurs on day two of Regional Championships and at the Galactic Championship itself, which is where the most competitive players meet and compete.
Appendix A covers which events are played at which tier, so you can quickly get establish a framework of event tiers.
In Section 3.1 we also have a pretty notable change in Participation Eligibility - previously, individuals in the role of event leader (including Tournament Organizers and Judges) were not allowed to play in any events in which they held that role. It’s been refined to say that they cannot play in Competitive or Master tier events that they hold the leader role for, so Judges can now participate in Weekly Play, Prereleases, and Store Showdowns that they’re judging. It is still recommended that if the player count is above twenty to thirty players, and you’re the only judge that you refrain from playing, due to potential significant disruptions.
In section 5.3, we have an update to determining the outcome of a match - players are allowed to choose to intentionally draw their match at any point during their match, so long as they do not go to great lengths to gain information to inform their decision, and can not make an agreement in conjunction with other matches. They are allowed to see the result of a match near them, and then choose to draw or concede, but they can not receive that information from a third party or let a neighboring match know what they plan to do.
Section 7.1 has an expansion to the types of information - in addition to Open, Hidden and the recently added Game Information, there is also Status Information. Status information is information that must both be verbally announced and physically tracked each time it changes - right now, this includes base damage totals, The Force, and the initiative.
Section 7 also sees the formal addition of sections on shortcuts, out-of-order sequencing, loops, and reversing decisions, which have been a part of education, but not previously been included in official documents.
Section 8 is a new section, which covers definitions of various tournament violations in more detail than they’re covered elsewhere. This includes extensive exploration of bribery, collusion, wagering, illegally determining results, sporting conduct, outside assistance, and timeliness. These are supplementary to the definitions and policies included in the CPG and RPG.
Section 9, which covers formats, has more formal details for limited procedures - expect these to be updated with the information and knowledge gained from the competitive tier limited events run during the Legends of the Force competitive season.
Section 10.1.1 introduces the idea of prize restructuring agreements. These are TO facilitated, and not initiated by players. If a TO does not offer a prize restructure, prizes remain as advertised.
The appendices also contain a lot of new and updated information regarding tournament details and should be frequently referred to when setting up an event.
Competitive Policy Guide
The Competitive Policy Guide is the evolution of the part two of the Master Event Document - the former Floor Rules. The Competitive Event Guide, like the Tournament Regulations, is significantly longer than the previous policy for tournaments.
The document begins with several pages outlining the underlying philosophy, the definitions of penalties, and how to apply penalties and remedies, explaining the process for some fixes that are used in multiple infractions.
A significant change to note is the removal of penalty points. Penalties now escalate separately, so that repeated similar behavior has more severe consequences, but unrelated infractions do not escalate abruptly.
The library of penalties has also increased significantly - some have been added to create more specific fixes for more precise scenarios, and others have been added to cover areas that were not previously covered. Penalties are broken down into gameplay disruptions, event disruptions, and unsporting conduct.
Generally speaking, gameplay disruptions escalate to a game loss when a player commits a third infraction of the same type, and event disruptions escalate on the second.
Updated Gameplay Disruptions include: Inaccurate Mandatory Ability, Illegal Gameplay, and Mutual Responsibility Error. Furthermore, Card Manipulation Errors have been split into Open Card Manipulation Errors and Hidden Card Manipulation Errors.
New Gameplay Disruptions are Mulligan Errors and Incorrect Randomization.
Updated Event Disruptions include Tardiness, Marked Cards, and Slow Play. Furthermore, Deck Error and Decklist Error have been split from one infraction to two, to more accurately resolve the different issues that arise from those errors.
New Event Disruptions are Outside Assistance, Communication Policy Error, Limited Procedure Disruption, and Insufficient Randomization.
Unsporting Conduct is now its own category of infraction, as opposed to being one infraction with a variety of remedies and penalties. The Unsporting Conduct infractions are Inappropriate Behavior, Harassment, Illegally Determining a Result, Bribery, Collusion & Gambling, Cheating, Stalling, Aggressive Behavior, and Vandalism & Theft. The penalty for most Unsporting Conduct infractions is disqualification.
Relaxed Policy Guide
That brings us to our final document. The Relaxed Policy Guide is a two-page document for less intense events, but it’s packed tightly with guidance and philosophy. The primary goal of the RPG is to set judges and tournament organizers up for success, and allow them enough freedom to ensure that players at their events have a positive experience. While there is guidance for remedying player errors, it is significantly less precise than the CPG, and intentionally so.
It is broken down into five sections - the first and largest covers the ideas behind Star Wars: Unlimited Organized Play at the local level and should be all you need to read to understand the purpose of these events and how to run them.
Common Disruptions outlines gameplay errors and the general remedy for them. Notable Issues outlines more significant disruptions and focuses on the remedy education. Finally, Unacceptable Behaviors details a list of behaviors that are not appropriate for Star Wars: Unlimited events, at any level - infractions which can result in disqualification.
To note, there generally aren’t penalties issued - warnings don’t exist, and game losses or match losses (for issues other than tardiness) are exceptionally rare. If a player isn’t doing something that requires them to be removed from the event, educate them and help grow your community.
The final section in the RPG is a short list of resources, many of which you’ll be familiar with if you’re watching this lesson. However, they are still valuable, and this puts them in a place where it’s easy for you to share them with your local tournament organizer.
And that’s it (with a big asterisk of “we didn’t actually go into the details of anything, really”)! Thanks so much for joining us, and I encourage you to take the Secrets of Power mastery quiz after you’ve looked at the rules updates. This quiz is not required, but it’s a good way to make sure you’re up to date with the new rules and mechanics! You can find more details about mastery quizzes on nexus.cascadegames.com/exams/mastery
Until next time, good luck and have fun!