Situations/Clarification

From Polarity

Revision as of 18:44, 16 January 2006

I originally posted most of this on the polaritygame.com fourm.

These rules clear up most questions people kept asking about. I have found these rules to play very well. The tower power rule below also makes the game faster and (I think) more exciting.

These rules DO change the game a little. The major changes are a new difinition of fault, and a slightly different way of ending the game. The turn structure is more rigorously defined here aswell.

(The game is started exactly as in the printed rules)

New Definition of Fault

A fault is created when:

• A standing piece falls down (this is called a conversion)
• Two or more pieces already on the board come together and touch (this creates a potential tower)
• A piece in the play area is moved out of bounds.

The main difference between this definition and the printed rules is that the active piece alone cannot cause a fault. For example, say a player fumbles while trying to play a standing piece and the active piece ends up touching a tower or another foundation. Now if nothing changed on the gameboard, this is not yet a fault. The active player must (using 2 hands if necessary) retrieve the active piece and play it as a leaner. If in this process he causes a fault (involving pieces ALREADY on the board) it is resolved normally.

This definition of fault fixes of a lot of the fuzzy rules and still allows the skillful version of creating an impossible capture.

The Turn

The turn has 3 parts.

• (A) Capture any potential towers (one group at a time)
• (B) Lay a standing piece.
• (C) Take any out of bound pieces back in to your hand.

These are all the actions for the active player’s turn. However, he/she is still the active player, and therefore responsible for any faults, until his/her opponent begins his turn by either declaring it verbally or moving over the play area.

The parts of the turn will be discussed in the order they are generally played.

(B) In this part of the turn the active player MUST do ONE of the following: lay a standing piece or create a fault. If a fault is created, figure out what to do with the active piece and then move to part (C).

Resolving the Active Piece after a fault:

• If the active piece is still in your hand - Put it back in your stack.
• If other pieces have snapped up to the active piece in to your hand, and you are STILL holding on to them - put them all back in your stack.
• If the active piece has fallen and is touching other pieces - It remains on the board as a potential tower to be captured by your opponent on his turn.
• If the piece has fallen and is not touching other pieces – you must pick it up and put it back in your stack. (Note: This applies to leaning pieces as well. You cannot play a leaning piece AND cause a fault. For example: if a fault is created and the active piece is still leaning after.. it must be put back in your hand)

(C) This is the last part of the turn and is played only if the active player caused pieces to move out of bounds. The active player must take each out of bounds piece and put them in to their stack. If a fault is caused it is resolved normally. Potential towers are left for your opponent and the piece being grabbed is considered the active piece. If during this part of the turn, more pieces are caused to go out of bounds, they must be taken as well. Out of bounds for a foundation or tower means that the piece is entirely outside the circle and no part of it is touching the blue line. A standing piece is out of bounds if the part that contacts the mat is outside the blue circle. This means that sometimes you will have to take standing pieces off their foundation if they roll out of bounds.

(The active player is finished now and his/her opponent may begin his/her turn at will)

(A) If at the beginning of your turn there are pieces on the board that are touching, these are potential towers and you get the chance to capture them. To do this you must pick up the touching pieces and turn them in to a tower. You can place the tower anywhere on the board. Each group of touching pieces is resolved seperatly and become seperate towers. If you cause a fault while doing this, the active piece (in this case the tower) is resolved as above and you immediately go to part (C) of your turn. There is an additional fault that can occur during a tower capture if you cause touching pieces of a potential tower to separate. This fault is resolved normally remembering that EVERY piece of the potential tower is considered an active piece.

In this way, play goes on until a player can not play on the (B) part of their turn because they either have no pieces left or no foundations or towers of their color on the board. (see ending the game below)

Exceptions and other rules

• Dropped active piece after a fault:: Say a player causes a fault ( on the board ) and then fumbles (or intentionally drops) the active piece so that it falls and is touching a tower creating an impossible capture. According to the rules above, this is legal because the fault was created on the board and the active piece is part of a potential tower. Therefore I offer this additional rule: If the active piece is the ONLY piece touching a foundation or tower, the inactive player can choose if he wants to leave it as a capture for himself later or if the active player must take the active piece back in to their stack.

Note: there must still be a fault on the board to start this, or the active player simply takes back the piece and continues trying to place it standing.

• Inversion conversion: You cannot convert your opponents standing pieces to foundations of your color. When a fault of this kind happens, you resolve the active piece (usually by putting it back in your stack) and go to part C if there are any out of bounds pieces. You’re opponent then gets to ‘capture’ this piece during the A part of his/her turn, just as if capturing a tower of height 1. They can place this piece anywhere on the board.

Optional Rules and Variations

The Tower Power Game: This variation makes the game faster. The change here is that all touching pieces become towers, and never go back to the stack. When resolving the active piece, if pieces have been sucked up in to your hand, these must be handed to your opponent and he/she can place them as a tower in the A part of his/her turn. Likewise if a you cause a fault while capturing a tower, these pieces must be handed to your opponent. With these rules the only time you put a piece back in to your stack is if you cause a fault and the active piece is alone in your hand, or if pieces go out of bounds.

- This rule can help fix some of the problems with people intentionaly sucking up opposing foundation pieces.

- This could be used as a rule where the inactive player gets to decide if he wants the active player to hand over the pieces in his hand or if the pieces should go back to their stack

Mobile Foundations: The real question here is how far can a foundation move before it becomes a fault. If a value is set, say one disc diameter, then it could be a legal play to nudge foundations a bit before laying a standing disc. This needs more looking in to.

Ending the Game

The game ends in one of 3 ways:

• A player reaches the B phase of his/her turn and has no pieces left - The game goes to score. This differs from the game rules because your opponent still gets to play even after you are out of discs. This is important in case one last fault could make a difference. Also this is based on the idea that if each player played a standing piece on their turn and never faulted, the game would end in a tie.

• The red piece is touched - The game ends immediately, the active player loses.

• A player reaches the B phase of his/her turn and has no foundations or towers of their color. The game ends and goes to score. - I don't think the player without foundations should lose outright (As I have seen proposed on forums). If the game is settled by score, it makes stealing opponents foundations even more undesirable. It might even be possible to make that a more acceptable move and see what strategies develop.