"behind" Table?

[TDean]

Spurred by the "in the box, out of the box" topic, I thought about another omni-interpreted start position, STARTING BEHIND TABLE.

What the does behind mean? Looking at the attached image, does behind mean anywhere on the uprange side of the 180 mark (split the table in half), or does it mean in the shadow of the edges of the table represented as area "B"?

For this reason, I wish all table starts either specified foot/chair position (marks on ground) or hands on X's. Simply stating "start behind this round table" tells me that as long as I don't go IN FRONT of the table, I must still be behind it!

[XRe]

I always recommend using fault lines or a box where you want the shooter to start for table starts

[bgary]

That one is a poster-child for "badly written start positions"

In most cases, writing it so it either says "seated at table, back against chair, knees under table", or "behind table and between fault lines" solves a whole spectrum of problems... uh, I mean, potential interpretations.

Another approach is to have the chair in a specific/consistent/located-by-witness-marks place for every shooter.

B

Edited August 29, 2006 by bgary

[Flexmoney]

I think we beat this one around before?

Lefties Revenge?

Which was shoot at the FL. Open one year?

[Paul B]

Yes, I really like those table starts where my knees have to be under a table that is about shin high and my back against the back of a chair where my magazines catch the opening. I've learned to shoot them though, but carrying the chair through half the course does slow me down just a little.

[Jim Norman]

That one is a poster-child for "badly written start positions"

In most cases, writing it so it either says "seated at table, back against chair, knees under table", or "behind table and between fault lines" solves a whole spectrum of problems... uh, I mean, potential interpretations.

Another approach is to have the chair in a specific/consistent/located-by-witness-marks place for every shooter.

B

Agreed, except in the case where a designer wants to leave it deliberatly ambiguous.

Looking at the pictures provided, I would, given nothing but "Behind Table" to go on, start the shooters, all of them on the centerline of the table, behind the uprange edge of the table. But given the open nature of our rules, anywhere behind the uprange edge of the rectangular table or a line tangent to the uprange end of the round table, provided that in both cases the shooter was with in the lines defining the area shown as B.

(How's that for confusing the issue)

Seriously, I really would hate to see mandated starts, but we do need to have a decision as to what is the allowable pushing of the limits. Using the table start as an example, if any part of the table is uprange of any part of the shooter, assumming a standing behind the table start, then the shooter is not behind, but rather next to, over or under the table.

Jim

[RickB]

"Behind" from whose perspective? The definition of the word behind suggests that there is something between you and whatever is the point of reference; if I'm standing at the front of the bay, looking into the stage, and there's a table I'm suppose to start "behind", then I should be downrange of it.

[Crusher]

I have used "behind the table starts" but it is ALLWSAYS in conjunction with some other stipulation in the WSB. Somewhat limiting the variences of an all out freestyle start "behind the table".

As a stage designer you have to ask yourelf "why" is the table in the stage to begin with. If you can not logically justify it's existance in a stage it has no reason to be there especially as a prop for a start position.