Life In 19x19

So much discussion yet no one has even bothered to argue that the superko rules are not bad game design.

Cassandra wrote:

CDavis7M wrote:I explicitly said that good game design does not require the player to remember anything beyond the last turn (eg placing a stone to capture a stone).

As Robert already explained in great details, cycles are system-immanent elements of the game of Go.
The basic ko-rule prohibits cycles of the length of 2. Which have the same properties as cycles of a length of 6, 10, ...

The GAME of Go does not have "cycles." There are NO game-pieces used to track cycles in Go. The game of Go itself does not care about cycles. The basic Ko rule does not depend on "cycles." It ONLY depends on the last play. Perpetual cycles are a description of something that can happen during game-play (a tactical consideration), but cycles are NOT a part of the game (a rules consideration).
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Cassandra wrote:It seems to me that you have such great problems with cycles of a length of 6, just because these are so rare in "normal" games. You will easily realise that a cycle of ko-capture, pass, pass, ko-capture, pass, pass, which simulates the forbidden 2-move cycle in a single ko-shape, has this length of 6! And just because e.g. Japanese rule set creators apparently did not see any justification for prohibiting these (explicitly).

You are also misunderstand board game design. First, it is questionable whether "pass" is even a "mechanic" of the board game because there is no activity within the game itself (no game-pieces are being worked on). Passing is simply an agreement to stop playing and begin scoring.
Second, please attempt to recognize that the alleged "2nd ko capture" is NOT a 2nd ko capture at all because the game is over. The alleged "2nd ko capture" is actually the 1st Ko capture in hypothetical play to determine status has begun. This does not violate the rules.
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Cassandra wrote: However, as cycles of a length of 2, 6, 10, ... have the same properties, it would not do any harm to the game (design), if some rule set creator disabled this ENTIRE class of cycles. Just because it needed a conclusive justification, why they prohibited ONLY ONE element of this class.

Again, you are misunderstanding game design. What you call a cycle of lenth 2 is not actually a cycle. The standard Ko rule only depends on the last play of the game (playing a stone to capture a stone). If the designer of Go intended for longer "cycles" to be prohibited, then they would have introduced tokens or some game-piece for tracking token.
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Cassandra wrote: Regarding a cycle, there is nothing difficult to remember, especially in the case of enforced ones. Probably the one or the other player will need more than only one pass to realise, but even the very most unexperienced player will -- sooner or later.
Every Go player who has a bit experience, is able to correctly remember Jôseki, so no Go player at all will have any difficulties in remembering a repeated sequence of 6 moves that just appeared before seconds!

You and Robert have the same misunderstanding of game design. Again, there is a difference between complex rules that have no basis in the game-pieces or game-state (bad game design) and complex strategy/tactics (good game design). Are you denying this?
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Situations where multiple potential kos exist on the board can be determined by the game state without additional game-pieces. The players can look at a board and count the number of possible kos. So while a rule dealing with triple-kos is unnecessary, it is not necessarily bad game design to have a rule on an identifiable game state.

But for other cycles (like the many examples in this forum), there is no way to identify from the game state whether the cycle has happened or not. Having a rule that is not based on the game-pieces or game-state is bad game design. It does not matter whether players that can remember joseki could also remember the game-state. Just like "cycles," "joseki" is not even a part of the game of Go, it is merely a description of a game-play circumstance.

RobertJasiek wrote:You fail to explain how to play, or design good rules for, all other kos.

...I explained in the original post.

CDavis7M wrote:The fact that Go does not have tokens/markers to track when stones were captured shows how incongruent super ko rules are.

If a game wanted to track cycles, then it would have included game-pieces to track the cycle.
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RobertJasiek wrote:2) You call complex rules bad design and superko bad design. You fail to explain why, IYO, superko was bad design. Superko is a simple rule with the possibility of complex life and death, which you call good design. For superko application to long sequences and for life and death with long sequences, more than the last turn needs to be recalled. Nevertheless, you call the former bad design and the latter good design. Your opinion is inconsistent.

My position is not inconsistent, you just don't understand game design. Superko rules are bad because the current game-state and last play cannot be used to identify all situations that are supposed to be covered by the super-ko rule. I have already explained this. And I have already explained that is a principle of good game design that the victory conditions should be identifiable by the game-state.
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RobertJasiek wrote:

which demands an artificial victory condition

No. Superko does not contain any victory condition. Like the basic ko rule, superko has a condition restricting repetition.

The superko rule is EFFECTIVELY a victory condition because there are no game-pieces to track whether it has happened. If the superko rule simply required the board-state to be reset (hopefully without mental bookkepping) instead of causing a player to lose, then it would not be an artifical victory condition, by definition.
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RobertJasiek wrote:Regardless of personal preference, again please clarify: how to have rules that always describe the game (not only in basic kos) and avoid tracking for superko positions?

It's so simple and I have already explained it several times. If a game wants to have a rule that requires tracking the game-state over time, then it will include game-pieces or a notepad to track the game-state. For example, tokens labeled with the turn-number could be placed on the board whenever a stone is removed from the board. Go does not include such tokens and so cycles are not a part of the game of Go.
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RobertJasiek wrote:I do not know what you mean by "perpetual cycle".

Did you never consider that a player might choose to end the cycle? A perpetual cycle is one that neither player would choose to end. Presumably because the game is too close.

gennan wrote:One of my biggest issues with superko is that passes don't lift ko bans (at least I think that is the case in common superko variants). That is too restrictive IMO, because it messes up cases where there is no long cycle problem that needs fixing.
For example:

Superko is indeed bad rules design but not for this reason. This example situation does not fall under any principles of good board game design that I can think of. Instead, this example situation appears to be a mistake by white rather than a problem with the rules. What principle of game design would it violate? A principle that white should win because they made a group with 2 eyes and black did not, even though white made the mistake of not actually capturing a eyeless black group before the game ended? Many games allow for a single tactical misstep to cause a loss. This is similar to the tactical mistake of failing a capturing race by reducing your own liberties.

Tactical considerations should not be governed by the rules.

jmeinh wrote:Perhaps the biggest problem would concern the cases of "sending-2-returning-1" under area rules (except for someone who does not see this as a problem at all, but only as a rather minor change in the character of the game).
However, to build an extra rule for these cases I would consider as bad rules design.

I agree that it would be bad rule design because a series of individually legal plays should not become illegal based on something that is not identifiable within the game itself.

Instead, the victory/scoring rules should be designed to handle the situation.

CDavis7M wrote:The GAME of Go does not have "cycles." There are NO game-pieces used to track cycles in Go. The game of Go itself does not care about cycles. The basic Ko rule does not depend on "cycles." It ONLY depends on the last play. Perpetual cycles are a description of something that can happen during game-play (a tactical consideration), but cycles are NOT a part of the game (a rules consideration).

If I remember correct, Robert already pointed out that you cannot have BOTH:
You insist so very much on "ideal" rules for the game of Go only depending on the current board position and the very last move that created it. This implies that your memory has ONLY ONE cell to be filled. This implies that you will be UNABLE to realise "perpetual" cycles. If your opponent has the same size of his memory, you both will play your game forever, but without realising the reason for it. This implies that you will be unable to stop your game.

E.g. Article 12 of J89 will be completely useless for you.
BTW: Apparently, J89's authors assumed that your game memory consists of more than only one cell for the very last move. On top of that, as Robert already pointed out, "REPETITION of the same board position" is nothing else but the "RESULT of a CYCLE".

You are also misunderstand board game design. First, it is questionable whether "pass" is even a "mechanic" of the board game because there is no activity within the game itself (no game-pieces are being worked on). Passing is simply an agreement to stop playing and begin scoring.

E.g. Article 2 of J89 states that the players CAN alternatively play one move at a time. This implies that placing a stone on the board is a RIGHT, but NOT a commitment.

A "pass" is nothing more than a waiver of this right. The waiver of this right does not carry another message than "You may exercise your right." (I do not mind, as I am so large ahead.)

Combining this right of waiving a move with a non-verbal message "I want to end this game" is kind of a BAD rules design that you misprize so much.
This combination might be Japanese tradition, but it would be more clear-cut to have an explicit verbal statement, instead. This way, it would be prevented to assign TWO meanings to ONLY ONE action.

I updated the original post. And I'll add a fourth principle. To consolidate my position, I will present some fundamental principles of board game design. So far it seems that no one has tried to dispute these principles. If you think about it you will realize that all games follow these principles. But if you would like to dispute the principles then please at least try to provide examples of good board games that violate these principles. I have tried to do this myself, but I cannot even find bad board games that violate these principles.

Principle 1: A board game should not require the players to perform mental bookkeeping of anything in the game besides the last play (e.g., placing a stone to capture a stone in Go, a player playing a card and resolving its effects in Uno, spinning and taking cherries in Hi-Ho-Cherry-O).

Principle 2: The score or victory-conditions should be determinable by the game-state. Even better if the score/victory directly corresponds to the plays game in the game.

Principle 3: The rules and game-pieces of a game should be simple while the strategy and tactics provided by the game should be complex.

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Does anyone believe that the super-ko rules do not violate these principles?

Does anyone believe that Go should should include additional game-pieces for tracking the current turn and placing a token having the turn number of the board when a stone is captured?

If not, then how is Go without rules requiring cycles to be tracked not the best designed version of the game?

Cassandra wrote:If I remember correct, Robert already pointed out that you cannot have BOTH:
You insist so very much on "ideal" rules for the game of Go only depending on the current board position and the very last move that created it. This implies that your memory has ONLY ONE cell to be filled. This implies that you will be UNABLE to realise "perpetual" cycles. If your opponent has the same size of his memory, you both will play your game forever, but without realising the reason for it. This implies that you will be unable to stop your game.

No... again, you are just misunderstanding game design. It's not that the players cannot identify when a cycle has happened, it's that the rules should not require the players to do so. And why bother pretending that the players would continue to play forever. That is just silly and divorced from reality (like a lot of posts around here). In reality, the players will tire of playing the same position and they would move on to other things, in the game or outside of the game.
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Cassandra wrote:On top of that, as Robert already pointed out, "REPETITION of the same board position" is nothing else but the "RESULT of a CYCLE".

Better to not discredit yourself by referencing Roberto. But if you insist, at least recognize that identification of a 2-play cycle does not rely on understanding or defining cycles. Only knowledge the last play is required. Knowledge of the last play is required in ALL board games. Cycles are not a part of Go.
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Cassandra wrote:Combining this right of waiving a move with a non-verbal message "I want to end this game" is kind of a BAD rules design that you misprize so much.

Again, you just don't understand game design. Equating a pass with "I want to end this game" has nothing to do with how well the game is designed. The intent of the pass does not make the design decision good or bad. Allowing passes in a game is neither good nor bad, though having fewer rules (ie no possibility of a pass) would be preferred.

By the way, maybe I should mention that it's OK to like a bad design decision. It's totally OK! Many people enjoy games with bad design. Some people love playing Monopoly and that's OK. Some people enjoy fully certified and genuinely guaranteed combinatorial number defining and that's OK.

Though, even bad games like Monopoly do not suffer from the same bad rule design as the super ko rules...

I just didn't know that some people didn't recognize super ko rules as being bad rule design. And I didn't know why people would want to force a game that doesn't care about cycles to have rules defining every cycle. I guess some people just like changing things to be something that they are not.

Now I know.

Cassandra wrote:E.g. Article 2 of J89 states that the players CAN alternatively play one move at a time. This implies that placing a stone on the board is a RIGHT, but NOT a commitment.
A "pass" is nothing more than a waiver of this right. The waiver of this right does not carry another message than "You may exercise your right." (I do not mind, as I am so large ahead.)

You are wrong about this. I read the Japanese Go Rules in Japanese on the Nihon Kiin website and an English translation. The "J89" rules absolutely do NOT allow a player to "waive their right" to play a stone until they end the game. The player cannot simply pass because "I do not mind, as I am so large ahead" as you suggest. Your misconception is a result of failure to understand how game rules work. It might also based on your failure to recognize the context of the rule. Context is important in reading -- a lot of reading comprehension is founded on context.

How game rules work:
--Rules provide a list of allowed actions that the players can take within the game.
--Actions do not have to be specifically prohibited by the rules. Instead, any action not allowed by the rules is prohibited.
--Therefore, any rule prohibiting a certain action is necessarily a condition on taking an action already allowed by the rules. (ヒント: context is important)

It really is that simple. The rules for every game follow these same principles. Even the children know that they cannot take fruit others in Boomgaard. So, going back to what you said:

Cassandra wrote:A "pass" is nothing more than a waiver of this right. The waiver of this right does not carry another message than "You may exercise your right." (I do not mind, as I am so large ahead.)

This is wrong because Article 2 of the Japanese Go Rules DO NOT ALLOW the player to waive their right. But before we begin, let's recognize the context. Article 2 of the Japanese Go Rules is titled "着手" (move or play). The rules in this section provide allowances for the players to play game-pieces (black stones and white stones) one after the other. Nothing in "着手" allows the players to pass their move. Of course not, passing a move is not a 着手. Even if you want to pretend that White can waive their right to play, Black is not allowed to play again unless White has played. The rules ONLY allow for Black and White to play one after the other.

The only sections of the Japanese Go Rules that allow the players to pass are Article 9 "終局" (end of game) and Article 7 "死活" (death and life) when describing the confirmation of life and death after the players have decided to end the game. The Japanese Rules ONLY allow the players to pass (during the game) when they want to end the game. Passes are also allowed during the end of game confirmation/acceptance.

CDavis7M wrote: You are also misunderstand board game design. First, it is questionable whether "pass" is even a "mechanic" of the board game because there is no activity within the game itself (no game-pieces are being worked on). Passing is simply an agreement to stop playing and begin scoring.

It's almost impossible to let this statement just fly by.
While it is true that formal passing rather than mutual agreement is a modern addition to the game. It is now definitely a "mechanic" of the game on several counts:

Passing is not an agreement to stop playing, since one player may pass while the second player plays on. If they are using Japanese/Korean rules, one may attempt to gain points by passing rather than reinforcing territory, banking on defending invasions with a smaller expenditure of stones than the invader invests.

If playing AGA rules, to facilitate territory counting as an exact equivalent of area scoring, a player must physically hand one of his stones as a prisoner to his opponent. If that isn't a "mechanic" of the game, what is? It only balances out if black passes first, and white also passes next. Otherwise, by territory count, black has given up a point. If white passes first he will give up two stones to black's single stone, to insure an equal number of moves by both players.

In Ikeda's Area III rules, rule 7 provides that passing first gains a point for white, irrespective of whether black's next move is a pass. Button Go is an alternate mechanic to achieve a similar result.

Also I take exception to your routinely making the blanket claim that other's misunderstand board game design. Other valid understandings may not equal yours. Your principles are not absolute, and an outstanding design can easily violate on of your principles.

CDavis7M wrote:Principle 1: A board game should not require the players to perform mental bookkeeping of anything in the game besides the last play (e.g., placing a stone to capture a stone in Go, a player playing a card and resolving its effects in Uno, spinning and taking cherries in Hi-Ho-Cherry-O).

Principle 2: The score or victory-conditions should be determinable by the game-state. Even better if the score/victory directly corresponds to the plays game in the game.

Principle 3: The rules and game-pieces of a game should be simple while the strategy and tactics provided by the game should be complex.[/size]

I like these principles, and I agree that they seem like desirable properties for board games. But I also think they are not absolute, and that there may be other principles than these, and that some games might violate these but still be good games.

CDavis7M wrote:Does anyone believe that the super-ko rules do not violate these principles?

Certainly super-ko violates your "Principle 1". However, most (all?) of the alternatives to super-ko seem to violate your "Principle 3" (the super-ko rule is very simple, while the alternatives end up more complex).

I'd also point out that chess violates your "Principle 1" in several ways:

• Castling is only allowed if the king and rook involved have not previously moved
• The three-fold repetition and five-fold repetition rules allow for a draw based on the entire past history of board positions. Note that this is somewhat like super-ko in go.
• The seventy-five-move rule allows for a draw based on the characteristics of the past 75 moves

(I suppose you might also argue that chess violates "Principle 3" in the sense that the rules and game pieces are complicated.)

CDavis7M wrote:

Cassandra wrote:E.g. Article 2 of J89 states that the players CAN alternatively play one move at a time. This implies that placing a stone on the board is a RIGHT, but NOT a commitment.
A "pass" is nothing more than a waiver of this right. The waiver of this right does not carry another message than "You may exercise your right." (I do not mind, as I am so large ahead.)

You are wrong about this.

You simply do not understand that you must not pick out an example of bad rule design to support your discussion position on cycles.

hzamir wrote:Passing is not an agreement to stop playing, since one player may pass while the second player plays on. If they are using Japanese/Korean rules, one may attempt to gain points by passing rather than reinforcing territory, banking on defending invasions with a smaller expenditure of stones than the invader invests.

Well, you should know that you are wrong about the Japanese rules. The Japanese rules definitely DO NOT allow a player to "attempt to gain points by passing rather than reinforcing territory." The Japanese rules only allow for (A) both players to pass, thereby stopping the game or (B) play stones one after the other. The Japanese rules do not allow a player to play a stone after the other player has passed. The only exception is for kos in confirming life and death. So there is no possibility of gaining a point (dead stone) by passing.

hzamir wrote: If playing AGA rules, to facilitate territory counting as an exact equivalent of area scoring, a player must physically hand one of his stones as a prisoner to his opponent. If that isn't a "mechanic" of the game, what is?

Passing a captured stone when "passing" is a "game mechanic" because a game-piece is being worked on. This is especially important as it relates to scoring. Simply agreeing to end the game and move on to scoring is not a "game mechanic." Nothing is happening within the game. Passing may be allowed by a "rule", but not a "mechanic."

hzamir wrote: In Ikeda's Area III rules, rule 7 provides that passing first gains a point for white, irrespective of whether black's next move is a pass. Button Go is an alternate mechanic to achieve a similar result.

The score value is part of the game and so changing the score value is a "mechanic" within the game (for whatever its worth to you). I do not know whether Area III or Button Go (people seem fond of this one) include any game-piece to track the score for these mechanics. Maybe the mental bookkeeping is not burdensome if black is expected to pass and not passing would be an exceptional case that the players could not be expected to forget.

hzamir wrote: Also I take exception to your routinely making the blanket claim that other's misunderstand board game design. Other valid understandings may not equal yours. Your principles are not absolute, and an outstanding design can easily violate on of your principles.

Is my understanding of game design wrong? Did anyone present evidence otherwise? Did some people clearly never consider whether a rule was good game design or not?

And back up for a second. Where did I ever argue that these "principles" were mandates? I didn't. I called them "principles" not mandates. I have said that game design involves tradeoffs. This should be obvious as every rule adds some burden to the players. The principles I mentioned are fundamental principles of game design, not because I said so, but because this is how board games are designed. If you think that games are not designed with these goals then please try to find examples.

Of course there are many rules or game mechanics violate of these principles. I have already discussed the design tradeoffs for the basic Ko rule. Having a rule to identify a ko is a burden on the players, but it leads to such a depth of strategy and interesting gameplay that it is an amazing design decision.

I haven't seen a good game that violates the principles often. Even bad games do not require additional mental bookkeeping. But when a game does create a burden, it is done with the intention of improving gameplay (depth of strategy, complexity of tactics, or just plain fun of the game). These improves must at least offset the burden of the rule or else the rule/mechanic is a bad design decision.

Even putting aside the mental bookkeeping required by superko, preventing cycles actually limits game-play options, thereby reducing tactical considerations, thereby making the game worse. A player can no longer avoid a loss by creating a difficult to achieve perpetual cycle. And, aren't such cycles are rare and exciting. Don't people like bragging about their molasses? Infinite cycles are fun. It should be a wonder to achieve it, not something to be prevented. But some people have the goal to prevent a feature of the game from happening. Not only does superko take away exciting and complex gameplay (limiting gameplay possibilities), but all it does in return is provide the "gotcha!" of losing the game because you failed to remember that a play would recreate a board position. An artificial victory condition is not interesting by itself. It is already bad game design not even considering the cumbersome mental bookkeeping.

Cassandra wrote:

CDavis7M wrote:

Cassandra wrote:E.g. Article 2 of J89 states that the players CAN alternatively play one move at a time. This implies that placing a stone on the board is a RIGHT, but NOT a commitment.
A "pass" is nothing more than a waiver of this right. The waiver of this right does not carry another message than "You may exercise your right." (I do not mind, as I am so large ahead.)

You are wrong about this.

You simply do not understand that you must not pick out an example of bad rule design to support your discussion position on cycles.

That's not what I was doing. I was just pointing out that you misunderstand J89. Very weird that you would call me out without checking first.

And for being such a complainer maybe you should try to explain why you think Article 2 is bad rule design.

Also, Article 2 has nothing to do with cycles. And I was not using it to support my position.

EricBackus wrote:Certainly super-ko violates your "Principle 1". However, most (all?) of the alternatives to super-ko seem to violate your "Principle 3" (the super-ko rule is very simple, while the alternatives end up more complex).

Right?! Every attempt to avoid perpetual cycles ends up being overly cumbersome. Now, I know this might sound crazy. But it's almost as if the designers of Go deliberately intended for there to be the possibility of perpetual cycles.
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EricBackus wrote: I'd also point out that chess violates your "Principle 1" in several ways:

• Castling is only allowed if the king and rook involved have not previously moved
• The three-fold repetition and five-fold repetition rules allow for a draw based on the entire past history of board positions. Note that this is somewhat like super-ko in go.
• The seventy-five-move rule allows for a draw based on the characteristics of the past 75 moves

(I suppose you might also argue that chess violates "Principle 3" in the sense that the rules and game pieces are complicated.)

Sure. These are just principles of design. Most games follow them. However, many games, especially modern games, will violate the principles in an attempt to provide new and exciting (hopefully improved) game-play. Every design decision is a trade off. The question is whether the improvement to the game (depth of strategy, complexity of tactics, and fun) are outweighs the complexity of the rule/difficulty in implementing the mechanic.

Certainly the depth of strategy, complexity of tactics, and fun of the various chess pieces and their mechanics vastly outweigh the complexity of the rules. Overall, great board game design.

As for castling, it adds depth of strategy and excitement, but with the burden of additional mental bookkeeping. It is worth it? I don't know. Maybe it's a wash. At least it's not rule that causes a player to accidentally lose the game.

As a side note, I have noticed that when games (intentionally) require additional mental bookkeeping, it usually happens with a situation that is so important/exceptional (eg moving a king) that the players are expected to not be able to forget. Though most of the time, additional mental bookkeeping seems to be an unintentional mistake that was overlooked in design and would have been changed if noticed.

Chess may have a higher likelihood for repetition to occur compared to Go. Given the likelihood for chess, maybe checking for repetition is the best version of the game.

At least for Go, the game is better with the possibility of cycles.