Sorry CCC. I wrote General three times in the opening post and a couple times in the round thread; as leader of the team the General's only real job is making such strategic decisions and coordinating with Warmasters. Other teams asked in chat whether other players could submit and I told them no as well. Also, because Member Roles for the round weren't posted at the time, your team really didn't have a Lieutenant when you first posted.
We'll post a rule revision shortly taking out that middle line from the Lieutenant's role description to avoid any further confusion. I apologize for the inconvenience.
I would like to have this issue discussed among the Warmasters and not simply ruled upon by one Warmaster because at its core this is an issue about how the rules function and rulings are made and not just about this single incident.
As the rules were clearly stated at the time of the deadline there was no infraction on the part of our team. And whether you choose to alter those rules outside of the official rules thread (in chat) before the deadline or actually alter them in the rules thread after the deadline (as you now have) is irrelevant to this case. As the deadline expired the rules clearly stated a Lt. can act on behalf of any teammate who is unable to fulfill their role themself. The General's role is a very large and complex one and I think any good General ought to object to your simplification of their varied responsibilities. Generals also have real lives outside of war which can prevent them from coordinating various things with their own teams or with the warmasters. That is an important reason why the Lt. role has the "backup" clause and why generals bid high for and fight over strong Lts. The Lt. is the General whenever the General cannot be present for any reason.
on a side note
It was also clearly established that I was the Lt. of my team (at the very least... for this round). Both publicly (in a thread that was deleted virtually without notice, and as such I cannot produce evidence other than witness testimony) and also in our team forums, to which the warmasters have access:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,38985.msg484463.html#msg484463If you would like more corroboration it is also in our team chat
So on those grounds I would respectfully request that you enforce the rules as they were and allow us to discard the Earth Pendulum we bid instead of the Arsenic that was chosen at random.
Perhaps more importantly, if this were to happen again now that the rules are changed, I readily admit that I would have no objective ground to dispute to the decision. But because at the time of the ruling we had done nothing wrong, we are now being penalized for retroactive rule changes, which is a ridiculously dangerous precedent that Warmasters in the past have been very careful to avoid even on issues where the community consensus indicated a rule change was in order. Rules were observed as stated and then later changed after the round (if desperately needed) or between wars to prevent a similar occurance. That we need to seek clarification on issues where the rules are already clear makes little sense, and penalizing teams for not seeking such clarifications really changes the dynamic of war. If other teams had alerted you to ambiguities or loop-holes, why would you wait til after the deadline to address it in the rules and also penalize the teams that read and followed the rules as explicitly written? And if you want us to err on the side of caution (in an attempt to avoid hyper-legalism like this), then the least we can ask is that you also extend such caution and mercy to teams that break the rules you haven't even posted yet.
I also acknowledge my General admits to making a mistake (not posting the bid himself), and that he has not requested mercy. I likewise acknowledge he made a mistake, and that requesting mercy is pointless because I acted rightly to correct his mistake (well within the context and rules as they were defined at the time of the non-infraction) and I request that the err on the part of the judge in this case be corrected and justice be done.
