Is the option of turning the games on tournament mode available or do they have to be played as they sit? Because I'd say Who Dunnit is the best option when in tournament mode, but when on stock settings it's the worst option.

Who Dunnit is stayed away from because there's gambling of points, which I guess can be turned off but then you might have a worthless shot on the PF....don't rememner ever trying mine in T-mode.

Whirlwind for sure...classic tourney game. You can leave the center post rubber on,or take it off, or take the post out alltogther.
Wh20 is good, but times can be very long.
I think RBION can be SUPER brutal in tourney, but Lawlor layout close to Whirwind, eventhough they don't play anything alike.

Tournament mode Who Dunnit alternates roulette between wins and losses (starting with a loss). The amount bet can still cause big swings for better or worse.

I hate in Frankenstein that the skillshot is easy for the first 3 seconds then it becomes random. It's not any big swing in points but benefits players who can step up the game right after their opponent and don't have to wait for a tilt bob to calm down.

I just hate Frankenstein
But then again games like Frank & Corvette sometimes are good choices because people on average have played them a lot less than a lot of the titles listed. Another reason RBION is a good choice.

Multiballllllllll. Basement multiball! The Roof! Penthouse Multiball! Bet all your points on an enormous roulette spin or two and luck your way into the high score table with some double digit billions score of nonsense!

Well then maybe the classics are a good idea then.
I say go with FT & TAF

You got 2 new Sterns in there, counter balance it with these.

I would also avoid Who Dunnit. Too random and the betting is a bit unfair.

Whirlwind is a perfect game to use. I used to own one and it is extremely brutal, but fair. It will definitely keep the tournament moving quickly.

Also, I would go with white water as the second game. Fun, tough game with good objectives.

You want to provide fun games, but you also dont want the tournament going 12+ hours.

Betting is not unfair in tournament mode. It goes loss, win, loss, win and continues this way. A little randomness but overall pretty fair. They've used it in major tournaments. Since its not a lot of experienced players, time shouldn't be the major deciding factor here. It needs to be fun. Is whirlwind fun to the random pinball player who isn't very good? I'd argue it sometimes isn't depending on set up. Want to stay away from the games being so hard and need to focus on fun. I'd argue whodunnit is one of the more fun games for the casual crowd.

JM, Mr. High Score Big Baller.

Everyone calling Who Dunnit a luck-fest should check out the PPO and Pinburgh broadcasts. The game was used in finals in both of those and worked out terrificly.

I'd shy away from using TAF, because new players will be unhappy with how brutal it is, and experienced players will be unhappy with how boring of a game it is.

Ripley's and Who Dunnit certainly make for the most interesting play of the bunch, the other games are mostly one-trick ponies, however Ripley's and Who Dunnit have plenty of different things to do. Only problem with Ripley's that make me eh about it are the stupidly high value of the skillshot and the Asia mode.

Not that it matters to us mere humans but didn't Cayle exploit some rare bug to disable the target bank which led to Elevator Madness mayhem? That's not going to happen here but I don't know about "terrific".

Then I'd say TAF & FH for their straightforward rules and cool toys.

You're biggest problem here is you have no EM's included. They will always balance the play field. Then again, they all should be EM's. LOL

Per player or over all in the game?

Start penthouses party and then hammer the middle.

Per player. The set order of the roulette provides a risk reward of a player to give up some points by playing the first one and taking a loss, but setting themselves up for the opportunity to take a big reward from the second.

Penthouse party is a timed mode, and does that intentionally. It's certainly lucrative but is in no way an exploit or a bug.

No ball save on FH and WW.
WHO dunnit was pulled from Pinburgh finals, I thought because it was playing so long, but maybe the 3bank.
I vote Ripleys and Corvette, just cause they aren't in tourneys that often, and pretty fun.

WW home rom has ball save

The WhoDunnit bug is repeatable and severe. It's on the IFPA banned list for events we run directly, but YMMV.

Do you know if that bug is related to why WhoDunnit was removed from Pinburgh Finals? Because after using it through all the PPO and all the earlier finals rounds it seems strange that Doug would have a sudden change of heart on that (although after watching two 20 bil+ games he'd probably have had a change of heart on it for another reason).

There is a very specific way to get the bank to stay down. I believe Cayle posted saying it was tied to roof multiball. That's about all I want to know about since I like the game and don't want it to be ruined.

But for low level tournaments it would be totally okay, what was witnessed was amazing as two world class players dominated it and it happened to got into bug mode. It never happened at PPO, at least from what I saw. Last I knew Karl was messing around with different versions of code and found one that was moderately better.

For IFPA I totally get banning the game, but for your local monthly I wouldn't really take that into consideration.

It's absolutely related. It wasn't about Doug having a change of heart, it was about finally realizing it wasn't a mechanical issue. Even in the earlier Pinburgh rounds it was deemed a mechanical issue and play continued.

As they realized it wasn't actually something mechanical related to the up/down bank, and was a software related malfunction that could be exploited, that's when you saw the game wheeled off to the Dead List(tm).

Totally agree with Alex on this. If your local tavern has a Who Dunnit . . . or a Getaway . . . or a Terminator 2 . . . or a No Good Gofers . . . or a TOTAN . . . feel free to play on.

The games on are banned list are strictly for higher level tournaments where it's far more likely the exploits/issues can pop up.

I know for sure there's one where someone hits a jackpot and it plays the animation and such, but doesn't score a jackpot. I'm pretty sure there's also one that puts some at something like "255 targets to multiball", but I could be wrong about that one.

http://papa.org/2012/08/03/papa-14-finals/

Watch the video and read the comments down the page.

Arnold sucks at math, and scoring things that are hit.

My go-to game notes location: http://papa.org/learning-center/director-resources/directors/game-notes/

Terminator 2

Williams – 1991

Tournament Issues: Terminator 2 software contains bugs that can potentially be devastating to a competitive game. Known bugs include: 255 drop target hits to multiball, and a multiball bug that may occur when a ball is locked with zero seconds left on the timer causing a string of odd behavior from the game.

Setup Notes: Directors are encouraged to leave the center post in Terminator 2. Difficulty should be adjusted by widening outlanes and adjusting sling sensitivity.

Lock Stealing: No
Preferred Software Revision:
Reasonable Competition Game: No – Software Bugs

To the OP: I'd go with FH and Corvette to have some variety. You've already got two Sterns. And your two Sterns play completely different than RBION, I don't like Stern-aments.

If you're playing multi-player matches, there's also a scoring bug on WH2O where player 4 gets credit in their bonus for the accumulated performance of players 1-3.

The moment you've been waiting for, final match for the trophy, down 100 million, ball 3, 222 targets for multiball;
hit it.

Avoid Who Dunnit like the plague, long ball times and software has been known to be buggy! RBION is good but ball times tend to be longer so I would probably avoid it for that reason.

I would go with Funhouse and Corvette and then maybe either WW or WH2O

That's all in set up. While betwixt the flippers isn't bad, those outlines are evil as shit...and no ball saver (default).

Get ready with the rules right away...there's always going to be something funky that's gonna happen. Again, with a relaxed crew it shouldn't be too big a hassle but be ready anyway

What happens when someone is playing TWD and the and the next player is starting their ball and the flippers don't work...so all they can do is plunge the ball?

The complete PAPA rule set is an invaluable resource when running an event. They have pretty much every weird circumstance covered in one way or another. Familiarize yourself with it and keep a copy on hand so you can refer to specific sections when you need to make rulings on the spot.

http://papa.org/papa-tournaments/official-rules/complete-papa-ruleset/

And to answer your question, the game is not valid until the correct number of players are entered into the game. That game would be restarted from scratch and player 1's score on the voided game will be canceled.

I would follow the link provided. This has happened to me on 2 separate sterns recently...very strange