Talk Fantasy Football

I love Speedbowl.

I play fast, the league I used to play with plays fast.

It suited us and the tourney idea was widely accepted


One of the questions that was raised around the birth of Speedbowl was using chess clocks with a 32 minute timer for overall play rather than 2 minute turns?

We play tested that idea and as expected it leads to banking of time when one suffers a turnover on the first action or the only action is to walk in a TD, for example.
This wasn't what I was looking for in this idea so I stuck with 2 minute turns.


However an idea struck last night after being told about a league match in my group taking 3 evenings to play*!

28 minute Death Clock.
16 turns at 2 minutes would be 32 minutes, but to create a little added tension I think 28 minutes works
Don't run the clock during kick off setup.

When your Death Clock hits zero you lose. Not just your turn, the whole match. If you are currently ahead in TD's your opponent is awarded enough TD's to win by 1. If you are already losing it's not an issue.

Sounds mental. Sounds like it could be abused. Could be fun.

Thoughts?





*(Yes 3. They played the first half 2 weeks ago and after 2 and half hours with the shop closing they were forced to play the second half another night. That was last night and another 2 and half hours go by and they are 1-1 at full time. This is a semi-final so we need a win/loss result. They are going to play the third half next week. Bloody annoying for everyone. Not the topic of discussion here.)

I stand by for Landrover to sign up.

Big fan of this idea, but I think that 28 may still be too much. 15 minutes and you have a real challenge

I like it

hmmmm an idea just leapt into my head.....

Run a Death Clock tourney in the evening of a bigger tourney....

EG at NAFC 2019 we could get together Friday and Saturday evenings, play two matches of Death Clock a night - BANG 4 game tourney! Get 12 coaches and we can even award a NAF shield!

Inspired thinking, I like it!

I've tried playing Death Clock games before. Get's mental very quickly. It was brilliant.

lunchmoney wrote:EG at NAFC 2019 we could get together Friday and Saturday evenings, play two matches of Death Clock a night - BANG 4 game tourney! Get 12 coaches and we can even award a NAF shield!

Plus, expanding on this EG, the venue is already hired, no need to pay out anything..... Free tourney.....
It would mean traveling Friday night rather than Saturday morning like I normally do, but this is biting me....

I also like this idea...

lunchmoney wrote: We play tested that idea and as expected it leads to banking of time

Time banking adds an element of strategical skill tho! It's a good thing!

lunchmoney wrote: When your Death Clock hits zero you lose. Not just your turn, the whole match. If you are currently ahead in TD's your opponent is awarded enough TD's to win by 1.

The bolded part should never happen to an aware coach as you can pass your turn back almost instantly without moving.


I wasn't a fan of speedbowl partially due to almost every opponent having a slightly different interpretation of what the buzzer meant for the dice they were in the middle of rolling, but also because hard 2 min turns over-emphasise trap skills like DT and negate most of the game's intrinsic beauty. Each piece landing on the exact right square sounds a note and the positional web they weave as a team creates a symphony. I guess, at heart, I'm a BB-aesthete.

That said I'd definitely play Death Clock as the skill-cap is increased from regular speedbowl and, while most positions will be ugly, time banking allows beauty to arise from the darkness.

Dionysian wrote:I wasn't a fan of speedbowl partially due to almost every opponent having a slightly different interpretation of what the buzzer meant for the dice they were in the middle of rolling,

Yes, I know.... Bloody annoying as I thought I had explained it quite clearly: buzzer sounds, stop what you are doing, resolve a dice that is rolling, do not start anything new, stop, stop, stop.

Dionysian wrote: Time banking adds an element of strategical skill tho! It's a good thing!

I agree, but not what the original Speedbowl was about.

Dionysian wrote:

lunchmoney wrote: When your Death Clock hits zero you lose. Not just your turn, the whole match. If you are currently ahead in TD's your opponent is awarded enough TD's to win by 1.

The bolded part should never happen to an aware coach as you can pass your turn back almost instantly without moving.

Do you mean the coach whose timer has reached zero shouldn't instantly lose but the other coach should play out the game and still try to win?

Dionysian wrote:That said I'd definitely play Death Clock as the skill-cap is increased from regular speedbowl and, while most positions will be ugly, time banking allows beauty to arise from the darkness.

It's a different style of play and with everything different it attracts different coaches

lunchmoney wrote: Do you mean the coach whose timer has reached zero shouldn't instantly lose but the other coach should play out the game and still try to win?

No, simply that an aware coach will never have their timer actually reach zero while in the lead. If they're in danger of timing out, they'll simply hit the clock and pass the turn back to their opponent without moving anything.

Someone will likely screw this up though, and it'll be hilarious. Zero-ing out while in the lead would be such an unforced epic fail that it's probably deserving of a special tourney award in addition to the loss.

Dionysian wrote: No, simply that an aware coach will never have their timer actually reach zero while in the lead. If they're in danger of timing out, they'll simply hit the clock and pass the turn back to their opponent without moving anything.

Ah, gotcha. That's makes sense to me now.

Dionysian wrote: Someone will likely screw this up though, and it'll be hilarious. Zero-ing out while in the lead would be such an unforced epic fail that it's probably deserving of a special tourney award in addition to the loss.

Yes, it would be very funny

I love this idea.

What about instead give extra TD just give the win but leave the score.

I mean, Amazons are winning by 3-0 to Dwarf but the clock go to zero. Looks weird award the Dwarfs with 4 touchdowns. And that can change lot in case of tie break in the table. Leave the result but give the victory and the points of victory to the Dwarfs.

dreamscreator wrote: What about instead give extra TD just give the win but leave the score.

I mean, Amazons are winning by 3-0 to Dwarf but the clock go to zero. Looks weird award the Dwarfs with 4 touchdowns. And that can change lot in case of tie break in the table. Leave the result but give the victory and the points of victory to the Dwarfs.

I think Score might melt.
Plus it wouldn't work for NAF results/rankings as the win is calculated by the score line.

As far as the tiebreak goes it would have to be SoS only. Leave TDs and CASs out of the equation.

I have a doubt with this system.

What happen when the opponent needs to move or roll during your turn. Do the clock be stopped, count in your time, count in your opponent time?

Example: I roll push, my opponent has side step and he needs to choose where to move. Or intercept a pass.