Advice for starting a Blood Bowl league

[WeeManBiggins]

A comish's worst nightmare, people not making the evenings. I always have a print out of the fixtures each coach is scheduled to play and on which night/date. We play every other week so if they can't make a fixture they can reschedule to the off-week to catch up. Unless the reason is valid (I've had people say they forgot.....) it's a forfeit if the match doesn't get played in those two weeks. It's the only way to get finished in time no matter how much I hate giving forfeits (I would rather have the match played).

A good suggestion to keep people interested is to run a separate league for fun. I'm adding a College League (C.League) which is in an open format, anyone can join when they like and can have a maximum of three teams per coach. It's going to be run during the season so if anyone has a free week etc... they can still play Blood Bowl against a random coach in the C.League. You get 15 for a win, 5 for a Tie and 0 for a loss. At the end of the season points are then divided by games played resulting in a number between 0 and 15. Whoever is 1st wins the league. It works well because you can play as much or as little as you like. I will most likely leave the team admin to the coaches to save myself more work to do for the website.

Could solve your problem.

[neverworking]

The league has been going very well so far and everybody is getting into the spirit of it and putting cool little write-ups on their matches etc. The only issue we're hitting at the minute is trying to keep the scheduling working. We're finding we have certain guys turn up every week and others quite rarely and without scheduling matches ahead of time we're worried that the more regular guys will stop turning up (as they will end up turning up repeatedly in the hope that the guy they need to play turns up that week). We're running it by everyone to see what the coaches think and I hope the majority are into the idea because otherwise I can see us having trouble down the line when four guys all need to play one guy who doesn't show up very often.

I would suggest part of membership requirements include sharing some direct contact information and making both parties responsible for confirming the other's availability. For many reasons people will not be able to show up, people will understand a lot better if they don't find out after they went to the trouble of packing up their team and heading to the venue. If someone repeatedly can't show up and can't find the time to courteously warn their opponent and reschedule its time for you to tell them that this isn't the league for them at this time. Its better to have a smaller league in the short run than one with regular no-shows; in the long run you'll have a bigger league because your coaches are reliable and courteous.

[mrb3]

I read about the common scheduling problem and at the KSGL, we use a system that doesn't run into this issue. There is no schedule as coaches are responsible to book their own games whenever they desire. They can also play whoever they want, as long as it's not more than two games in a row against a single opponent. Sounds strange and unfair ? Keep reading !

A season runs about 5 months + 2 weeks tournament + 2 weeks to organise the next season. All coaches can play as many games as they want but need at least 6 games played to be qualified. Of all the qualified teams at the end of the season, the 4 best teams are allowed to the tournament. In season, usually, coaches make good use of League Challenges (house rule: the game must be played within 5 weeks. All communications to arrange the game must go through the commissioner).

Since not a single coach will have played the same opponents and the same number of games in a season, here is how we manage the standings. (See http://www.ksgl.ca if you want to take a look at what some standings look like). We use a (very) simplified method inspired by the international chess standings system. In short and very logically, a player that beats a stronger one gets a bigger increase in the standings than if it had beaten a weak one. Where we differentiate from the international chess system is that a loss is always penalized the same way, wether the opponent was weak or strong (this allows more action in the standings and makes the top coaches less invincible).

Here are some general remarks about this system.
• Game winnings are usually interesting and allows exchanges of positions.
• Ties are few and manageable.
• A team far ahead is never invincible and is an interesting challenge to play since a win against it will reward with very high gains.
• A team at the bottom has always a (fair) chance to get back in the competition (as long as they win). It prevents coaches that experience a very bad start from dropping (losing interest) since there is always a chance they can come back in the standings with a few good wins or even a single great win.
• A weak team always beating the same other weaker teams isn't ranked better than a good team accepting risky challenges.

Here are the workings in more details...

***

BROKEN JAWS LEAGUE

QUALIFICATION AND TOURNAMENTS
Six games played are necessary for a team to be qualified. At the end of the season, the top four qualified teams are allowed to the tournament. The first position faces the fourth. The second position faces the third. The two winners meet for the cup.

STANDINGS BASED ON A TEAM'S JOURNEY
The basic idea is that a victory against a tough opponent is more rewarding than a victory against a weaker one. At the Broken Jaws League, do not hesitate to risk some of your teeth because it's sometimes the most rewarding thing to do.

THE (PTS) DETERMINE THE RANKING OF A TEAM
At the beginning of a new season, the teams' (Pts) are reset to 50. Though these can vary between 1 and 99, they usually tend to be between 30 and 70. The closer the (Pts) to an extreme, the more difficult it is to get to it.

THE (%) REPRESENTS A TEAM'S STRENGTH
The (%) of a team is not reset at the beginning of a new season and follows the team throughout it's evolution. It can vary between 1 and 25% but usually tend to be between 4 and 16%. The higher a team's (%), the tougher it is to defeat it. Therefore, it represents the gain obtained by the opponent if they win against it. Similarly, the tougher the team is, the higher the expectations. Therefore, the (%) also represents the team's loss when it is defeated.

Example:
Team A / 55 Pts / 11%
Team B / 45 Pts / 7%

In the example above, in a game between Team A (favorite) and Team B. Team A would see his (Pts) increase by 7% in a win, but fall 11% in a loss. For it's part, Team B would see his (Pts) increase by 11% in a victory, but fall 7% in a loss.

CALCULATING A GAIN IN A WIN
The gain is the loser's (%) multiplied by the difference between (100Pts) and the winner's (Pts) *

In the above example...
Team A would win 3 Pt ((7%) x (100Pts – 55Pts) = 3,1)
Team B would win 6 Pts ((11%) x (100Pts – 45Pts) = 6,0)

CALCULATING A LOSS IN A DEFEAT
The loss in the loser's (%) multiplied by his (Pts).*

In the above example...
Team A would lose 6 Pts ((11%) x (55Pts) = 6,0)
Team B would lose 3 Pt ((7%) x (45Pts) = 3,1)

A DRAW ISN'T A DRAW
A draw generates a loss for the favorite and a gain for the other team. Only, the gain and loss is halved.*

In the above example...
Team A would lose 3 Pts ((11%) x (55Pts) / (2) = 3,0)
Team B would win 3 Pts ((11%) x (100Pts – 45Pts) / (2) = 3,0)

___
* The gain / loss is rounded to the first decimal and is at least 1. In very extreme and unlikely cases (Pts) can only vary between 1 and 99.

___

(%) CALCULATION
Oh, I see you're still here! You can very well stop reading because what follows is not necessary to know... except for the guy who has to update the standings. But if you're curious, here's the formula for determining the (%) of a team.

(%) = (((New %) + (Old %)) / 2) + (Increase)

In the formula...
(New %) = ((Pts) x (Win %) / 4)

More explanations...
(Pts) represents a team's journey. The more it'll have overcome tough opponents, the higher they will be.

(Win %) is calculated using the team's roster (win = 1), (draw = 0,5) and (loss = 0). It is the sum of these elements divided by the number of games.

(/ 4) gives a reasonable (%) in terms of gaming.

(Old %) normalizes the (%) evolution curve of a team making it less sensitive to extreme variations and allows the retention of a success over a longer period of time.

(Increase) helps immediately represent a win. The tougher the opponent vanquished, the higher the increase:
+0.5 for a win against and inferior team (Pts) and (%)
+1 for a draw against a superior team (Pts) or (%)
+2 for a win against a superior team (Pts) or (%)
+3 for a win against a top team (Pts) and (%)

Minimum (%) per (Pts) levels.
When the (%) result is lower than what is allowed by the level, it is adjusted to the minimum required.

• 76 pts + = 12%
• 75 to 71 pts = 11%
• 70 to 66 pts = 10%
• 65 to 61 pts = 9%
• 60 to 56 pts = 8%
• 55 to 51 pts = 7%
• 50 to 46 pts = 6%
• 45 to 41 pts = 5%
• 40 to 36 pts = 4%
• 35 to 31 pts = 3%
• 30 to 26 pts = 2%
• 25 pts – = 1%

[mzukerman]

In the LIBBL we have scrimmages. These are official games that you can play to jump start a team. If your opponent doesn't show, you can play a scrimmage. It encourages people to come to the game day regardless of whether or not their opponent was there. It's worked very well for us.

[mrb3]

Here is how we deal with tournaments...

Rules to arrange a tournament game

(On a forum) all opponents are required to provide "availabilities" within a time frame. Availabilities must be provided by both coaches on a single fixed day. A valid availability is either a weekday evening or weekend (7:00 PM to 9:00 PM) or an afternoon weekend (1:00 PM to 3:00 PM). If no availabilities match between the two coaches, the one who offered the least must give way to another coach (in a case of a tie, the lowest ranked team must give way).

Note that it is possible for two coaches to reach an agreement to play a game outside of these availabilities, only these offers will not be taken into account if a ruling is necessary.

When a team gives way, then it becomes the responsibility of the commissioner to provide the availabilities from the highest to the lowest ranked team to find an alternate opponent. If no other coach is available, the team without opponent passes to next round (or wins the Cup).