J(20) 21.ii.1998

Call for Judgement

Owen Massey has written:

Another interpretation is that "the Actions of the Puppet will be decided by its Master until further play becomes possible"; the Speaker is the Master of Death, and the Speaker is not normally allowed to make a Judgement, so this too is undesirable.

Looking over the rules, I see that:

327(0) Any Judge selected shall be a randomly selected Voter. The Voter thus selected may not be the player most recently selected as Judge for that statement, nor the player who invoked judgement.

Thinks: But the reason why the Speaker is not normally allowed to make a Judgement is because he normally isn't a Voter, though here the Puppet is a Voter. So, I'll call for Judgement on the following statements:

• Puppets are allowed to be Judges when their Master is not a Voter.
• Puppets are not allowed to be Judges when their Master is not a Voter.

Judgement

The Judge selected was Helen Broadie.

Puppets are allowed to be Judges when their Master is not a Voter.

Justification

By rule 473(1), Puppets are allowed to do anything they have Instructions for, so if they have Instructions for being a Judge there is no conflict.

If they do not have Instructions for a situation then they may take no action unless this would make further play impossible, in which case their Actions must be decided by their Master. This is the only instance in which a decision can be made by a human for a Puppet.

For a Puppet to take no action on a Judgement would not make further play impossible, as after four days they would be deemed to have defaulted, and a new Judge would be chosen. Therefore their Actions in this situation cannot be decided by their Master. So, in fact, whether or not their Master is a Voter is irrelevant and puppets are always allowed to be Judges.

The Speaker footnoted:

This means that Death could have judged Colin Batchelor's CfJ on Puppets and Suspended Animation.