F.A.Q.
1.) Format:
Format is basic BPS with some twists.
Speeches last 7 minutes; the first and last minutes are protected.
After 7:15 speakers will be shouted down.
Speaking order is the usual BPS order.
Languages can be chosen and switched freely, all official languages may be used.
1a.) Iron (Wo)Man teams:
In teams that either consist of only one speaker, or where only one speaker is present, this speaker will be the first and second speaker for that team.
1b.) POIs:
You may POI any speaker at any time, even your own teammate during their speech as long as he or she is not currently in his or her protected first or last minute.
1c.) TAUNT:
Each speaker can POI one of the other teams during his or her speech. This is referred to as “Taunt”. This can only be done once during their own speech.
That means they can choose a specific person belonging to any team sitting on the benches and pose a question or throw a short statement at them. The targeted person has to stand up and respond with a short statement that may not exceed 15 seconds in length. You can taunt your teammate if you are at a loss of words and need help desperately.
To use TAUNT the speaker has to use the formal introduction of either:
Saying: “And here i say to you NAME” plus pointing at the person you are taunting.
or:
“And here i ask you NAME” plus pointing at the person you are taunting.
Both then eventually followed by the actual POI.
1d.) Time keeping:
Since there are no adjudicators in each round, the teammate of the person speaking keeps time and gives the usual official time signs after minute 1, 6 , 7 and 7:15.
If the speaker is iron(wo)manning he appoints a person to keep time, that has already spoken in the debate before him.
If the speaker is iron(wo)manning and is at the same time OG he may appoint only CG team members as time keepers.
1e.) Adjudication:
After each round, every team ranks the other teams and speakers in their round according to the following procedure:
- First: Take a blank sheet of paper and write down room number of your debate, your teamname and your position in the debate somewhere at the top.
- Second: You decide upon team ranking, choosing a place from 1 to 3 for the other three teams in your round. ‘1’ meaning best team, ‘3’ meaning worst team. You write down the teams and their rank vertical order. For each team you also write down the speakers names directly beneath the team name.
- Third: For each of the other 3 teams you decide which of the two speakers of that team was the better and you put an ‘X’ in front of the name of the stronger speaker and an ‘O’ in front of the name of the weaker speaker. For iron (wo)man teams you skip this step and instead you just note “iron man” after the name of the speaker.
- Last: Give your rank sheet to one of the CAs.
Example:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: “My Team” / Position: “CG” / Room: “123a”
Rank 1: “BestTeam”
X Karl 0 Klaus
Rank 2: “MediocreTeam”
Olaf (iron man)
Rank 3: “BadTeam”
X Bert 0 Hubert
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1f.) Force Choke
A team that is still in possession of a “Force Choke” card, may choose to play this card and suppress the current speaker for 1 minute. During this time the person choking may hold a short counter speech which pretty much functions like an extended POI.
- You may Force Choke speakers on your side of the house, however you may NOT Force Choke your own teammate. (For the sake of preventing social unrest). Logic being, that if we consider the ‘Sith’ to be a separate team from the ‘imperial army’, even though they were on the same side, Vader choked the imperial general, but never the Emperor.
- You may only use Force Choke after minute 1 of the current speech and BEFORE minute 5 (different from normal POI with a time window until the 6th minute)
- To formally signal that you are going to use Force Choke, you simply stand up, point to the speaker and say: “Force Choke!”.
- Each speaker can only be Force Choked once during his speech, if the speaker already has been hit by it from someone else, you cannot Force Choke him again during his speech.
- If two or more people in your round are trying to Force Choke the same Speaker at about the same time, the one who was first wins and the other ones are cancelled.
- If two speakers in your round are trying to Force Choke simultaneously, the one who points at the other Force Choke User and says “Double Choke!” first wins. You can Double Choke your teammate.
- If three or more speakers in your round stand up simultaneously, time is stopped and a dice is consulted to determine who wins. Logic being, that it is not possible to Triple or Quad Choke with only 2 Arms.
- After the Force Choke is finished (1 minute has past or the Force Choke user sits down), the card is ripped apart and destroyed. This is considered to be a fixed part of the effect.
1g.) PrePrepPhase (important):
After pairings and the motion are given out, all teams that are paired together gather first in groups and begin with the PrePrepPhase. During that Phase certain things are done and decided in a particular order:
- First: Each team chooses whether it wants to use it’s “Force Persuasion” card, if it still has one in it’s possession.
- Second: IF it is a non linear motion, after all “Force Persuasions” cards are played. The OG makes all decisions about the motion and then reads the final motion to the other teams.
- Third: Each team chooses whether it wants to use it’s “Force Ghost Inspiration” card, if it still has one in it’s possession.
- Last: After all this steps are resolved, Preparation Time starts.
Force Persuasion and Force Ghost Inspiration are explained in 2.) Cards in thorough detail.
1h.) Preparation Time:
Preparation Time is 15 minutes, all teams are advised to keep track of that time. The CAs will try to watch time closely and make sure that the rounds do start on time in different rooms. However help of the teams is necessary to be able to ensure time keeping and general schedule in the end.
1i.) Debate Start:
Before the debate starts, all teams make sure that everyone is there and teamnames plus speaker names should be exchanged for the rating after the debate. After that it should be checked, who still has the ability to Force Choke during the round, so that no confusion or discussion comes up while the debate is running. This can be done easily by showing available cards.
1j.) Nonlinear Motions and multiple choice motions
This tournament will feature nonlinear motions of the first order and multiple choice motions.
Basically these kind of motions need you to make 1 or more decisions to arrive at the final wording. This will be marked during the showing of the motion and probably be outlined with ‘a.)’, ‘b.)’ etc. A nonlinear motion may branch more than once in which case you make decisions until you reach the end without any further branches.
Example:
A motion might read “Imagine a universe where ..bla bla bla...and thus THW a.) kill the alien b.) tranquilize the alien and experiment with it’s body c.) torture the alien until he tells us all his secrets.
In this case the OG of a particular room chooses one and this will be debated in the end.
Nonlinear motions differ from multiple choice motions (choosing out of a pool of different motions) mostly due to the fact, that they share some common predefined setting and set of conditions while multiple choice motions are often about total different settings and questions.
1k.) Pairings
There will be no power pairing. We generally do not want teams to be able to guess or number crunch their points or the points of other teams. Because the teams rank each other themselves, they could easily be tempted to manipulate and use the ranking procedure in a more strategic way than in an honest judging way. That is not what we want and intended with our ruleset. We hope the teams refrain from such behavior and use the ranking as it was intended: as an expression of their true liking or disliking of the speeches that other teams presented during the debate.
2.) Cards
Each team gets 3 cards at the beginning of the tournament, these cards are:
Force Choke
Force Persuasion
Force Ghost Inspiration
- In general cards can be played during the tournament at specific times as stated on the card and in the rules F.A.Q., which you can also check for more detail. The card needs to be physically in your possession at the time you wish to play it.
- In general we don’t care why a card is in your possession, as long as it is one of the original cards given out and not a fake. Cards may not be stolen or taken by force, but if you traded your Force Choke in for food or other favors, we don’t care. The free market will determine the price of this unique resource.
- After use each card is destroyed and can thus only be used once in the tournament
- You must have the cards with you physically and destroy it as part of its effect to be able to use the card.
2a.) Force Persuasion
Force Persuasion is a card that can be played in the PrePrepPhase of any round during the tournament. For this, the priority starts with OG, then progresses to OO then to CG and lastly to CO. This means, OG makes all it’s choices first, then OO, then CG and lastly CO.
Force Persuasion allows you to switch the position of your team with any other team in that round OR to lock your current position, so you cannot be targeted by further switches yourself. So OG can choose to switch positions with CO, thus CO effectively becoming OG and OG now effectively being CO. A few rules apply however:
- First: Priority is established in the beginning before any cards are played, this order stands and doesn’t change due to position switches that are announced via playing the cards.
- Second: A switch that would put any team back in the very original position that the team started the round with, before any cards where played, is illegal and thus cannot be announced.
- Thirdly: Obviously targeting a team, that just locked it’s own position is illegal and cannot be announced.
Example:
After the Teams gather, the PrePrepPhase starts and OG is asked first, whether they want to use Force Persuasion. OG chooses to use the Card to change places with CG. After that the original OO is asked and they decide to use the card to lock their own position. Then priority progresses to CG, which currently would be OG in that round. They can’t target CG (original OG) because this would put the team back in the original position and they can’t target OO since OO just locked their position. Thus they choose to switch places with CO. Lastly priority goes to CO. CO is currently OG but all choices for a switch would be illegal for them. OO locked their position and a switch with either CG (former OG) or CO (original CG) would put CO itself back in the original starting position or the target team back in the original position.
This example shows, that even though you decline to switch you maybe hit by others as a result during the process. Sometimes you will not have a possibility to react to that change anymore. In this case if OO didn’t lock position it could have been targeted by both closing teams without any chance to react anymore. This is why this card can also be used defensively to lock your own position. However CO in the end, couldn’t escape fate anymore since all choices would have been illegal. This is tough luck, however since there are 4 rounds and every team has only 1 card and positions will always be set with regard to original position, not with the one you actually ended up with, you will end up in another round eventually where you can also screw another team without it having the luxury to respond. In our example CO is the only team that has a card left and can possibly wreck havoc in the positioning of another round without much resistance. So even though some teams might have a certain advantage in some rounds, this advantage is quite unsystematic throughout the tournament and thus we don’t really care.
Even if you are in possession of more than one Force Persuasion card you may only play one per round.
2b.) Force Ghost Inspiration
Force Ghost Inspiration is used after positions and the motion is finalized and can be played by any team before the Preparation Time starts. To consult your Force Ghost, meet the CAs, hand over your card and you as a result your team will receive a unique hint sheet, which may or may not help you in your debate, depending upon if you were to come up with the hint itself anyway or not.
Even if you are in possession of more than one Force Ghost Inspiration card you may only play one per round.
2c.) Force Choke
See 1f.)
3.) Newbie Goodies
3a.) Newbie Boost (TM)
As a newbie you get a free hint sheet for every round, specialized for the position you ended up with. To receive the hint sheet consult the CA team after PrePrepTime.
3b.) Debating as a Newbie Break
In this tournament the first 3 teams break into the final, the forth placed is given out to the best Newbie Team. If no Newbie Teams register, the 4th spot is given out simply to the 4th best team.
If a Newbie Team breaks regularly among the first 3 spots, the team isn’t considered anymore in the process of selecting a Team eligible for the “Debating as a Newbie Break”.
4.) General Rules
4a.) I know it when i see it
Everything that comes up and isn’t covered in detail in the FAQ is decided on the fly via the CAs. Their judgment call counts.
5.) Other Questions (this will be updated if questions roll in that haven’t been considered)
5a.) Electronic Devices
Electronic what ? We don’t care if you set up your unix server farm for preparation. Use whatever you want.
5b.) Skype conferences:
As one of the CAs has defended his diploma thesis using a skype conference, we know that today's technology can and should break boundaries normally imposed upon us.
So if someone sets you up with technical devices powerful enough, so that you can take part in the debate without being physically there, that is fine with us.
Necessary Conditions:
- You need to be able to give a speech that can be heard.
- You need to be able to react to interactions that come up, basically POIs etc.
- You need to convince the CAs that you will be able to fulfill the other two criteria by
presenting a persuasive plan
Consequences:
- You cannot use cards (because they require physical actions and possession) unless you have a physically present teampartner
- You cannot taunt (requires physical pointing with arm) unless you have a physically present teampartner
5c.) CA advantage
Isn’t it unfair for the CAs to participate in the tournament, since they know all the motions ?
Well not really, we know all the motions, but we do not break anyway, as CAs are not eligible to break. We are in it for the fun and for evaluating if what we think could be fun is fun in the end.
1.) Format:
Format is basic BPS with some twists.
Speeches last 7 minutes; the first and last minutes are protected.
After 7:15 speakers will be shouted down.
Speaking order is the usual BPS order.
Languages can be chosen and switched freely, all official languages may be used.
1a.) Iron (Wo)Man teams:
In teams that either consist of only one speaker, or where only one speaker is present, this speaker will be the first and second speaker for that team.
1b.) POIs:
You may POI any speaker at any time, even your own teammate during their speech as long as he or she is not currently in his or her protected first or last minute.
1c.) TAUNT:
Each speaker can POI one of the other teams during his or her speech. This is referred to as “Taunt”. This can only be done once during their own speech.
That means they can choose a specific person belonging to any team sitting on the benches and pose a question or throw a short statement at them. The targeted person has to stand up and respond with a short statement that may not exceed 15 seconds in length. You can taunt your teammate if you are at a loss of words and need help desperately.
To use TAUNT the speaker has to use the formal introduction of either:
Saying: “And here i say to you NAME” plus pointing at the person you are taunting.
or:
“And here i ask you NAME” plus pointing at the person you are taunting.
Both then eventually followed by the actual POI.
1d.) Time keeping:
Since there are no adjudicators in each round, the teammate of the person speaking keeps time and gives the usual official time signs after minute 1, 6 , 7 and 7:15.
If the speaker is iron(wo)manning he appoints a person to keep time, that has already spoken in the debate before him.
If the speaker is iron(wo)manning and is at the same time OG he may appoint only CG team members as time keepers.
1e.) Adjudication:
After each round, every team ranks the other teams and speakers in their round according to the following procedure:
- First: Take a blank sheet of paper and write down room number of your debate, your teamname and your position in the debate somewhere at the top.
- Second: You decide upon team ranking, choosing a place from 1 to 3 for the other three teams in your round. ‘1’ meaning best team, ‘3’ meaning worst team. You write down the teams and their rank vertical order. For each team you also write down the speakers names directly beneath the team name.
- Third: For each of the other 3 teams you decide which of the two speakers of that team was the better and you put an ‘X’ in front of the name of the stronger speaker and an ‘O’ in front of the name of the weaker speaker. For iron (wo)man teams you skip this step and instead you just note “iron man” after the name of the speaker.
- Last: Give your rank sheet to one of the CAs.
Example:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: “My Team” / Position: “CG” / Room: “123a”
Rank 1: “BestTeam”
X Karl 0 Klaus
Rank 2: “MediocreTeam”
Olaf (iron man)
Rank 3: “BadTeam”
X Bert 0 Hubert
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1f.) Force Choke
A team that is still in possession of a “Force Choke” card, may choose to play this card and suppress the current speaker for 1 minute. During this time the person choking may hold a short counter speech which pretty much functions like an extended POI.
- You may Force Choke speakers on your side of the house, however you may NOT Force Choke your own teammate. (For the sake of preventing social unrest). Logic being, that if we consider the ‘Sith’ to be a separate team from the ‘imperial army’, even though they were on the same side, Vader choked the imperial general, but never the Emperor.
- You may only use Force Choke after minute 1 of the current speech and BEFORE minute 5 (different from normal POI with a time window until the 6th minute)
- To formally signal that you are going to use Force Choke, you simply stand up, point to the speaker and say: “Force Choke!”.
- Each speaker can only be Force Choked once during his speech, if the speaker already has been hit by it from someone else, you cannot Force Choke him again during his speech.
- If two or more people in your round are trying to Force Choke the same Speaker at about the same time, the one who was first wins and the other ones are cancelled.
- If two speakers in your round are trying to Force Choke simultaneously, the one who points at the other Force Choke User and says “Double Choke!” first wins. You can Double Choke your teammate.
- If three or more speakers in your round stand up simultaneously, time is stopped and a dice is consulted to determine who wins. Logic being, that it is not possible to Triple or Quad Choke with only 2 Arms.
- After the Force Choke is finished (1 minute has past or the Force Choke user sits down), the card is ripped apart and destroyed. This is considered to be a fixed part of the effect.
1g.) PrePrepPhase (important):
After pairings and the motion are given out, all teams that are paired together gather first in groups and begin with the PrePrepPhase. During that Phase certain things are done and decided in a particular order:
- First: Each team chooses whether it wants to use it’s “Force Persuasion” card, if it still has one in it’s possession.
- Second: IF it is a non linear motion, after all “Force Persuasions” cards are played. The OG makes all decisions about the motion and then reads the final motion to the other teams.
- Third: Each team chooses whether it wants to use it’s “Force Ghost Inspiration” card, if it still has one in it’s possession.
- Last: After all this steps are resolved, Preparation Time starts.
Force Persuasion and Force Ghost Inspiration are explained in 2.) Cards in thorough detail.
1h.) Preparation Time:
Preparation Time is 15 minutes, all teams are advised to keep track of that time. The CAs will try to watch time closely and make sure that the rounds do start on time in different rooms. However help of the teams is necessary to be able to ensure time keeping and general schedule in the end.
1i.) Debate Start:
Before the debate starts, all teams make sure that everyone is there and teamnames plus speaker names should be exchanged for the rating after the debate. After that it should be checked, who still has the ability to Force Choke during the round, so that no confusion or discussion comes up while the debate is running. This can be done easily by showing available cards.
1j.) Nonlinear Motions and multiple choice motions
This tournament will feature nonlinear motions of the first order and multiple choice motions.
Basically these kind of motions need you to make 1 or more decisions to arrive at the final wording. This will be marked during the showing of the motion and probably be outlined with ‘a.)’, ‘b.)’ etc. A nonlinear motion may branch more than once in which case you make decisions until you reach the end without any further branches.
Example:
A motion might read “Imagine a universe where ..bla bla bla...and thus THW a.) kill the alien b.) tranquilize the alien and experiment with it’s body c.) torture the alien until he tells us all his secrets.
In this case the OG of a particular room chooses one and this will be debated in the end.
Nonlinear motions differ from multiple choice motions (choosing out of a pool of different motions) mostly due to the fact, that they share some common predefined setting and set of conditions while multiple choice motions are often about total different settings and questions.
1k.) Pairings
There will be no power pairing. We generally do not want teams to be able to guess or number crunch their points or the points of other teams. Because the teams rank each other themselves, they could easily be tempted to manipulate and use the ranking procedure in a more strategic way than in an honest judging way. That is not what we want and intended with our ruleset. We hope the teams refrain from such behavior and use the ranking as it was intended: as an expression of their true liking or disliking of the speeches that other teams presented during the debate.
2.) Cards
Each team gets 3 cards at the beginning of the tournament, these cards are:
Force Choke
Force Persuasion
Force Ghost Inspiration
- In general cards can be played during the tournament at specific times as stated on the card and in the rules F.A.Q., which you can also check for more detail. The card needs to be physically in your possession at the time you wish to play it.
- In general we don’t care why a card is in your possession, as long as it is one of the original cards given out and not a fake. Cards may not be stolen or taken by force, but if you traded your Force Choke in for food or other favors, we don’t care. The free market will determine the price of this unique resource.
- After use each card is destroyed and can thus only be used once in the tournament
- You must have the cards with you physically and destroy it as part of its effect to be able to use the card.
2a.) Force Persuasion
Force Persuasion is a card that can be played in the PrePrepPhase of any round during the tournament. For this, the priority starts with OG, then progresses to OO then to CG and lastly to CO. This means, OG makes all it’s choices first, then OO, then CG and lastly CO.
Force Persuasion allows you to switch the position of your team with any other team in that round OR to lock your current position, so you cannot be targeted by further switches yourself. So OG can choose to switch positions with CO, thus CO effectively becoming OG and OG now effectively being CO. A few rules apply however:
- First: Priority is established in the beginning before any cards are played, this order stands and doesn’t change due to position switches that are announced via playing the cards.
- Second: A switch that would put any team back in the very original position that the team started the round with, before any cards where played, is illegal and thus cannot be announced.
- Thirdly: Obviously targeting a team, that just locked it’s own position is illegal and cannot be announced.
Example:
After the Teams gather, the PrePrepPhase starts and OG is asked first, whether they want to use Force Persuasion. OG chooses to use the Card to change places with CG. After that the original OO is asked and they decide to use the card to lock their own position. Then priority progresses to CG, which currently would be OG in that round. They can’t target CG (original OG) because this would put the team back in the original position and they can’t target OO since OO just locked their position. Thus they choose to switch places with CO. Lastly priority goes to CO. CO is currently OG but all choices for a switch would be illegal for them. OO locked their position and a switch with either CG (former OG) or CO (original CG) would put CO itself back in the original starting position or the target team back in the original position.
This example shows, that even though you decline to switch you maybe hit by others as a result during the process. Sometimes you will not have a possibility to react to that change anymore. In this case if OO didn’t lock position it could have been targeted by both closing teams without any chance to react anymore. This is why this card can also be used defensively to lock your own position. However CO in the end, couldn’t escape fate anymore since all choices would have been illegal. This is tough luck, however since there are 4 rounds and every team has only 1 card and positions will always be set with regard to original position, not with the one you actually ended up with, you will end up in another round eventually where you can also screw another team without it having the luxury to respond. In our example CO is the only team that has a card left and can possibly wreck havoc in the positioning of another round without much resistance. So even though some teams might have a certain advantage in some rounds, this advantage is quite unsystematic throughout the tournament and thus we don’t really care.
Even if you are in possession of more than one Force Persuasion card you may only play one per round.
2b.) Force Ghost Inspiration
Force Ghost Inspiration is used after positions and the motion is finalized and can be played by any team before the Preparation Time starts. To consult your Force Ghost, meet the CAs, hand over your card and you as a result your team will receive a unique hint sheet, which may or may not help you in your debate, depending upon if you were to come up with the hint itself anyway or not.
Even if you are in possession of more than one Force Ghost Inspiration card you may only play one per round.
2c.) Force Choke
See 1f.)
3.) Newbie Goodies
3a.) Newbie Boost (TM)
As a newbie you get a free hint sheet for every round, specialized for the position you ended up with. To receive the hint sheet consult the CA team after PrePrepTime.
3b.) Debating as a Newbie Break
In this tournament the first 3 teams break into the final, the forth placed is given out to the best Newbie Team. If no Newbie Teams register, the 4th spot is given out simply to the 4th best team.
If a Newbie Team breaks regularly among the first 3 spots, the team isn’t considered anymore in the process of selecting a Team eligible for the “Debating as a Newbie Break”.
4.) General Rules
4a.) I know it when i see it
Everything that comes up and isn’t covered in detail in the FAQ is decided on the fly via the CAs. Their judgment call counts.
5.) Other Questions (this will be updated if questions roll in that haven’t been considered)
5a.) Electronic Devices
Electronic what ? We don’t care if you set up your unix server farm for preparation. Use whatever you want.
5b.) Skype conferences:
As one of the CAs has defended his diploma thesis using a skype conference, we know that today's technology can and should break boundaries normally imposed upon us.
So if someone sets you up with technical devices powerful enough, so that you can take part in the debate without being physically there, that is fine with us.
Necessary Conditions:
- You need to be able to give a speech that can be heard.
- You need to be able to react to interactions that come up, basically POIs etc.
- You need to convince the CAs that you will be able to fulfill the other two criteria by
presenting a persuasive plan
Consequences:
- You cannot use cards (because they require physical actions and possession) unless you have a physically present teampartner
- You cannot taunt (requires physical pointing with arm) unless you have a physically present teampartner
5c.) CA advantage
Isn’t it unfair for the CAs to participate in the tournament, since they know all the motions ?
Well not really, we know all the motions, but we do not break anyway, as CAs are not eligible to break. We are in it for the fun and for evaluating if what we think could be fun is fun in the end.
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