Brandon, as I said, they should be blocked off from any actions once they manually flag and hit the away tag.

If they are lagged out, they should get an away tag, but thats a different situation, and should be dealt with differently. The game can discern whether the player manually flagged, or if the game tagged em from inactivity....

Maelwys, the problem is, you want to advance your strategy because you thing, "oh this play is gone, he wont attack me". And this is simply wrong. Maybe he comes back, maybe not. You should just play like he would be there, and you dont have to complain.

Fuzzy is as right as Maelwys, but talking about different things:
NOW the flag can be / is used as explained by fuzzy. Its only function is ending the game. Who takes it as a statement like "I won't do anything anymore" hasn't played enough games. The away tag can be caused by lagging out, or leaving - usually after 2 or 3 round you know which cause it is and know how to react.
BUT: Maelwys is right, why not have a possibility to definitly get out of the game, recognizable for everyone? If I start my first turn with 3 dice on two terrs on opposite sides of the board - why can't I have a button that kicks me out, gets me my point loss and signalize all the other players, that I won't gain dice anymore and won't be able to act. That way I can go to another table without annoying anyone... I don't think this is a MUST BE idea, but I can understand ppl supporting it. So Maelwys wasn't completely wrong here.

I agree. An absolute surrender function would be awesome. Surrendering as it is now is kind of a PITA when you're screwed in early game and want to go play another game.

The sit-out button works well enough unless you sit back in. Anything else would unbalance the game?

The sit out button works for the one sitting out, but for the other players it doesn't (you can never be sure). It might change the game for a while, cause there will be lots of ppl using the button - until they realize, that keep playing pays out in the long run. So I don't think it would harm the balance, but as I said: there's not a real neccessity (however it's spelled) for such a button.

Maybe we should just ask ryan to remove the away button, nobody will go on away, nobody will benefit on a table where he isnt currently playing, and nobody loses a game because of an away!

I like people to play, even not on away, if you think the game is over, and you dont want to play anymore, then raise the flag and get out, but people can think you're there and kill you!

Everybody happy!

I have never used the away button, i only think of it as slowing a game down for everybody!

One thing more, if the away button doesnt exist, than people will try 2 play and some people will find out that you even can fight you're way up from a losing position, what actually satisfies most of all in this game!

Playing a hard game and winning, thats what make you a good player, a good start and an easy win: even a 8year old can do that!

So lets all grow up and actually PLAY! (its not a hard thing to do)