Tourney Style: Presence and Present-ability of a Judge

One of the major roles of a tourney judge is to simply be available to answer questions and arbitrate rules discussions. However, there is often a sense of reservation that players seem to have when deciding whether and when to grab a judge. I completely understand this mentality as oftentimes a judge may not be close at hand and you as the player have to decide whether your rules question is worth stopping the game and taking the time out to grab a judge.

Clearly access to tournament staff in this situation is crucial. The easiest response is to make sure there is enough staff on the floor that players have easy access to them. However, this does bring up several critical issues of protocol (read: present-ability) that tournament staff must be aware of in order to best support their players.

Visibility - judging staff should be clearly demarcated as such. Typically this means wearing some recognizable article of clothing (bright shirt, silly hat, trained monkey, etc.) that enables players to know who to approach. At the NOVA this year, we had the problem of the staff wearing black t-shirts (due to a situation outside of our control). BLACK T-SHIRTS!! Really... black is absolutely de rigeur for gamer geeks - I personally own at least twenty black t-shirts (various bands, other gaming events and so on). Black shirts for tournament staff guarantees a level of anonymity amongst any niche gamer crowd. Next year NOVA tourney judges will be rocking some brighter colors - perhaps a pleasant plum or a rosy red that should help players track us down.

Next Years NOVA Staff Outfit

Accessibility - more important even than visibility is how accessible tournament staff is during games. Gaming is a social hobby and many gamers are either too polite or too shy to actively disrupt a game by taking ten minutes to track down a judge. To that end, tourney judges have got to be constantly circulating throughout the crowd - letting people know they are there and are actively interested in dealing with rules issues. Many times someone would simply tap my arm to ask a quick question just because I happened to be walking by and I was able to quickly resolve the issue. This is exactly how it should be. I want players to feel comfortable enough that they can grab me for a brief confab rather than feeling like something unfair is happening in the game but not being comfortable enough to stop the whole thing for a clarification.

Ultimately, in a tournament of larger size (say 100+ people), judges are mostly forced into a more passive role of monitoring tournament play. However, by making an active effort to circulate amongst the game tables, to see and be seen by players, and by affecting an approachable demeanor, judges can help make even the biggest tournaments a fair and enjoyable experience - even for those players who are not fully comfortable with the rules or lack the fuller understanding of opposing armies that veteran players often have.