The methods of appropriate behavior in any society are determined by group consciousness, not personal morals or ethics or any great ideals.

That is why certain actions like stealing cable TV, abortion, capital punishment, etc. can be so easily tolerated in one society and completely abhorred in another.

kDice as a society has proven that it is OK to violate game integrity in some circumstances, and not in others. This bothers me.

I would like to point out the interesting ways that people violate the integrity of each game, and common reactions to it.

1) Using some IP deception to sit two Colors at the same table.
Pretty much everyone agrees that "proxying" is bad, when one unique user is manipulating two Colors to help each other.

2) PGA.
It shouldnt matter to anyone if there are two unique users sitting at the table with a secret intention to help each other, or if there is one user proxying two colors with the secret intention to help each other. The end result for everyone else at the table is that they are competing as a single Color with a single turn each round against Two colors that are conspiring.

ARE YOU GUILTY OF PGA? Everyone likes to deny it publicly, but I have yet to meet a top player who doesnt admit to me that there are people they arent extremely reluctant to attack regardless of the game circumstances, or even try to help in most circumstances.

Often these allegiances vary over periods of time, or falter at times when there is a higher priority commitment sitting at the table.

Anyway, I guess the few people still playing are all happy with kdice?

I liked kDice a lot better when most people would be just as likely to cut their friend's throat as give them a favor.

I liked kDice a lot better when the table got mad at the jerk in 5th place who wouldnt flag and made everyone waste time hitting end turn.

Now we have a system where trading favors is the only acceptable behavior. People get mad and post nasty messages when you attack the lowest unflagged player.

People get mad when you kill them to gain higher position.

I am probably at fault as much as anyone in developing this uncompetitive social disaster. Back in the days when team play and PGAs was new, I took Ryan's advice and tried to punish the PGAs by forming teams to beat them.

We went so long without a competent moderator or reliable commissioner, everyone formed teams. Bad players who performed worse than TAPL were able to show consistent loyalty and become great monthly performers.

Consistent loyalty became the most important factor in deciding the actions of an individual game.

If you knew that murti or russian mike or mona or integral or leekstep or rnd were unlikely to attack you each game, then you would be stupid to attack them.

If you were in 4th place and could get second with a risky 6v5 attack against a frequent player, you would just accept 4th place knowing that next game when he was 4th and you were 2nd he wasnt going to ruin your game.

The top players became not the best players, just the players who were least likely to ever be killed.

I am probably just selfish because before there were loyal relationships, before the age of PGA I could win 22% of my games against independent players.

Ever since I exuberantly identified the major PGA teams in the summer of 2007, I can only win 20%+ of my games when I play real nice with a bunch of people (flagging for a lower position to a friend so he will do the same in return in a later game).

There are still a few people I am pretty reluctant to attack. I don't always go out of my way to help them connect, or release their big stack into a common enemy, or any of the million ways to subtly help an ally.

I am just sick of watching every game turn into a civilized flagging for 2nd-3rd-4th place points, not attacking anyone and pissing them off, ending with a crapshoot of who can win the most 8v8s to finish 5th and 6th.