Writing in not laws - yay or nay? Forum

[AOT]

Can't decide on best practice for this.

On the one hand, writing them all in takes time, and most questions that use them can be worked out during the game.

On the other hand it can make the game much faster, and lead to inferences I wouldn't think about otherwise.

Does anybody have a good rule of thumb as to when to bother with not laws and when not to?

[ladenmysogony]

edit: misinterpretation

[flash21]

actually , his question is neither.

Id write them in

[CardozoLaw09]

If you just started LG I would continue to write them in until they become second nature. Eventually you'll get to a point where you don't have to write them in while not affecting your ability to make game-changing inferences.

[ladenmysogony]

Can someone provide an example of a this? I'm actually really confused thinking about this.

[flash21]

laden -- a not law is this (its a term from powerscore)

Say, if P must be ahead of S, or in other words P - S

and there is 5 slots on a basic game, like so: __ ___ ___ ___ __ ,

then, a not law would look like an "S" with a slash under the first slot, indicating that S cannot go there, and P with a slash through it at the fifth slot because P cannot go there (since its ahead of S). Basic idea

[ladenmysogony]

laden -- a not law is this (its a term from powerscore)

Say, if P must be ahead of S, or in other words P - S

and there is 5 slots on a basic game, like so: __ ___ ___ ___ __ ,

then, a not law would look like an "S" with a slash under the first slot, indicating that S cannot go there, and P with a slash through it at the fifth slot because P cannot go there (since its ahead of S). Basic idea

Ohhh I understand that, yes. Thanks. I never write those in personally because it's intuitive. I thought OP meant a rule like "P can not go in 4", where I would write I slash through P in my rule list/under 4.

[PDX4343]

laden -- a not law is this (its a term from powerscore)

Say, if P must be ahead of S, or in other words P - S

and there is 5 slots on a basic game, like so: __ ___ ___ ___ __ ,

then, a not law would look like an "S" with a slash under the first slot, indicating that S cannot go there, and P with a slash through it at the fifth slot because P cannot go there (since its ahead of S). Basic idea

This is what you want to be doing. It shouldn't take you too long to do, and it's worth it for the chance that u will discover more rules / restrictions.

[flash21]

laden -- a not law is this (its a term from powerscore)

Say, if P must be ahead of S, or in other words P - S

and there is 5 slots on a basic game, like so: __ ___ ___ ___ __ ,

then, a not law would look like an "S" with a slash under the first slot, indicating that S cannot go there, and P with a slash through it at the fifth slot because P cannot go there (since its ahead of S). Basic idea

This is what you want to be doing. It shouldn't take you too long to do, and it's worth it for the chance that u will discover more rules / restrictions.

agreed. I also thinks its very key for when you end up making multiple game boards, especially grouping games.

[Jeffort]

Yes, do it, it's very important and helpful. If you don't then you'll have to rely on either short term memory of them or keep re-figuring them out over and over working questions working the rules and applying them to questions/ACs with the inefficient brute force approach.

Many key deductions on many games that make the questions easy to answer quickly are formed by the accumulation of not laws for a particular position in a sequence or a particular group that reduce the possibilities for a sequence position, group or particular element down to only two.

For instance, in a sequencing game with five total variables the rules could generate several not laws for a particular variable or particular position that knocks out three possibilities. The key inference would be noticing that since there are only a total of 5 positions and 5 variables, once you rule out three possibilities, it leaves you with only two, and that can then be represented with a dual option (F/G for example) and also be used to break out two game boards/scenarios that every possibility the game allows for must fit into.

Looking for elements or positions that are reduced down to only two possibilities by accumulation of basic deductions/not laws is super important and super powerful to efficiently 'crack' many games and be able to fly through the questions really fast. But if you didn't notice the cumulative effect of all the various simple deductions/not laws or whatever and recognize the most limiting factor of the game those deductions added up to establish, the game is going to appear way more open ended than it is and you'll have to do a lot more question by question brute force work because you failed to recognize a key major possibility limiting deduction that everything else in the game revolves around, such as where a block can go or where a grouping pair or whatever can go.

Small easy/simple deductions frequently add up to big game breaker deductions, but if you don't write them out and then evaluate the big picture with them all right in front of you, it's easy to overlook/not figure out the key deduction(s) they cumulatively establish that, once you have it and focus on it, makes the questions quick and easy to solve.

In short, small simple basic deductions, when put together in the full big picture context of the game board frequently generate the key big deductions that can be used to solve most of the questions with very little brute force trial and error writing out hypotheticals to try ACs work.

[AOT]

Thanks for your responses everyone!

I'm retaking, so am quite familiar with games. They are intuitive, but as a number of commentators have said, not writing them in leaves me open to more errors as I rely on short term memory and snap decisions under time pressure.