Talk Fantasy Football

Whatever happens with this, I seriously hope before the NAF takes any steps to accommodate these changes that all NTOs and RTOs are actively canvassed and can expect equal or proportional input into any decisions made. Any and all privelidges extended to the Spanish community by way of self defining rulesets within the NAF must also be extended to other, less vocal minority communities.

Absolutely.

The changes approved by the NAF doesn't seem very traumatic. Most of them habe been well received by the community and can be very enjoyable. Even the mandatory changes to the team roosters as the 'hooligan or the orc for Chaos Pact whatever-name-it-has-now are minor changes, but settles a dangerous precedent. Many coaches don't think the new rules are bad or not funny, but they feel unbalanced and untested and the NAF has sanctioned them, and doesn't allow them to keep using the CRP as stable and tested manual.

Lets analyze the Whats and Whys behind every point:

1) The rulebooks changes should have planned duration. The rules affecting tournaments can’t vary on a four month basis, or depending on an unclear release planning.

GW is going to keep releasing new rules for Blood Bowl, and that is good as that keeps the game alive and people coming, but not every tournament can adapt fast enough to rule set changes and the GW release dates are unknown.

NAF can't do anything about this, but it can give a scheduled period for changes to be applied in its tournaments. Besides, an scheduled update of the rules would offer the possibility to test them before going official and check if they are really unbalanced. The NAF could even set a group of testers for new rules.

2) The NAF should offer tournament organizers the option to choose between different sets of rules, not forbidding the use of a particular set of rules in favor to other. In addition to this, the two months notice should not apply if the tournament was already NAF sanctioned.

With this release plan, there is not going to be a stable rulebook for at least a couple of years. GW is a company that sells miniatures. Is known what happened to 40k and is reasonable to have fear of what they may do.

Allowing tournaments to stick to the CRP if they want, allows the NAF to give a certain amount of stability to them. The new rules will also be available, of course, but some flexibility should be given to the TO to organize their tourneys until the rules changes cease.

3) The NAF should offer an alternative and stable tournament version of the rules to be applied in its tournaments. This tournament rules should be translated to the main NAF members languages, since the rules releases are not translated anymore.

A free stable manual in their own homepage, translated and updated to be used as base for NAF sanctioned tournaments is probably impossible because of IP issues. But it raises a concern about the lack of translation of new releases, and the issue of not having all the NAF members to access them because the amateur translations are, well..., prosecuted.

The NAF have the power to canalize its members requests and reach to a compromise solution with GW about this particular issue.

4) The undersigning members do not comprehend the relationship between the NAF and rule testers and wish to know the level of synergy, if any, during the process of rule testing.

I don't really know if a MA 5 B&C Star Player for 130k for a Tier 1 team is unbalanced, but for me (and others) it seems so. From the outside, the changes have been approved fast and that raised some questions. Maybe the NAF officers have info about the testing process that the members doesn't and are under a NDA. We want to know, that's all.

5) The changes to the rules to be applied in NAF tournaments should be decided in a more transparent and democratic way. For instance, by using the NAF TO to pulse the NAF community in each country.

This is related with the previous one. Not all the members are happy with some of the changes and not every NAF community reacts in the same way. But a good way to know how they feel about the new rules is as simple as ask them. The idea behind this is to use the NAF TO as a consultative organ, allowing the NAF to know before including new rules, as the NAF forum is almost not used by some of the NAF communities.

What if GW releases the Kislevite Team in the next DZ as substitutes the Slann? Will the roster published by GW be endorsed by the NAF and the Slann deprecated? If that happens ?'m not sure of how the NAF or the rest of the worlwide community will feel about it but I'm pretty sure that the Spanish community (or at least some of the grognards) will rage against it, because as is has been pointed out, hate is our thing.


Sorry, this was written yesterday evening and I was really tired probably my English was decaying (Blood Bowl pun intended) as I wrote it.

viyullas wrote:Dear NAF, do you want to make a standarized rule set to be used at all sanctioned events? Juat make a minimun ruleset, agreed by most people and a set of optional rules that an event organizers can adopt or not when he announces his tournament.
If NAF introduces broken star players or non-tested rules in a MANDATORY NAF ruleset my next tournament just won't be NAF sanctioned.
That's it.
Of course I am just ONE Tournament Organizer.

Grak and Crumbleberry, the My Dugout Teams/Stars, the Ref rules—None of these things are a part of the NAF ruleset. What exactly is the problem?

If you're worried about the Kislevites, I can almost guarantee you that your raging will be loudly echoed by most of the NAF members. Do you want the NAF to issue a pre-emptive "Down With Kislev! Long Live Slann!" statement? (I'll sign.)

The NAF as far as I can tell is dominated by players who are leery of change as well—that's why we still have the old Pile On rule, which was really, along with Arguing the Call, about the only change of significance to the main rules of the game that came with BB16.

I think Kafre's post summarizes quite well the problems addresed by the OP.

Wifflebat wrote:
The NAF as far as I can tell is dominated by players who are leery of change as well—that's why we still have the old Pile On rule, which was really, along with Arguing the Call, about the only change of significance to the main rules of the game that came with BB16.

1) The NAF is not "dominated" by anyone. It is an associaton of amateur players and tournament organizers. And as this is a hobby, it is only natural that we discuss how we want to organize such events, with more strict rules or with more freedom of choice.

2) Definitely those are not the only significant changes of the game. You have now 2 new positionals and 1 new skill that significantly affect the Tournament Scene, in the goblin roster. Goblins were already the best stunty team, and now they get a boost.
Among the new inducements is the 80K wizard. If you include inducements, you have to include all of them. 80K fot a scattered fireball that you can throw 2 times on a match? It can be game breaking both in offence and in defense! It is included in the "more random, more fun" philosophy, I get it, but... If I want to allow bloodweiser babes in my tournament I have also to admit this nonsense?

GW has stated that their intention is to alter rosters as they release them. The testers (Milo and JT-Y) have admitted they have very little power in the development of the rules. They more or less say if they like or not said rules, but they cannot propose any changes.
So you see, this initiative is more preventive than corrective, I think. Let people experiment if they want and their experiments count towards rankings, it's fine. Let them also keep playing stable and their games be recorded as well.

Manuel wrote:If you include inducements, you have to include all of them.

You are wrong on this point. You're able to pick and choose which inducements to allow in NAF events, there has been no recent change here.

Moraiwe is correct. You have always been able to say "Star Players, Bribes and Master Chef but nothing else" (for example). This has not changed. So you could just as easily say, "Only CRP inducements."

And also the new inducements referred to quote (In) Famous Coaching Staff are a new inducement, available for purchase during the Pre-match setup of league play (and exhibition matches)... so if one was going to be picky, they are excluded from tournament play

GW has stated that their intention is to alter rosters as they release them. The testers (Milo and JT-Y) have admitted they have very little power in the development of the rules. They more or less say if they like or not said rules, but they cannot propose any changes.
So you see, this initiative is more preventive than corrective, I think. Let people experiment if they want and their experiments count towards rankings, it's fine. Let them also keep playing stable and their games be recorded as well.

There are currently 10 of us in the playtest group. Only Milo and myself are daft enough to talk to publicly about it. Some of the group are people who deserve huge respect within the NAF and really care about it and tournament gaming, as do I.

The way it works is that the studio guys write stuff, show it to us and ask us to ''comment''. Comment in this instance is a polite way of saying rip it apart and make huge changes until everyone involved is happy. When it comes to new content, the studio writes it, but having a direct line to them the playtest group does get to share ideas. What we don't get to do is go in and tell GW what is going to happen and what changes are going to be made next.
I could point to several sections of DZ2 for example that we completely rewrote from the original, for balance, for theme, or for clarity and ease of use. And there are numerous other things the playtest group has had huge power to change, some you have seen, some you will see in the future.

What we do not have is complete autonomy. That is not how playtesting works although it may be the way some here have been lead to think it works from things said in the past, and I have been absolutely crystal clear in telling people with regards to some questions that we cannot do those things. We the playtesters have been asked to go back and change the rulebook to suit personal preferences. Can't do it. Or to change DZ1 to suit one persons league. Can't do it. Or to come on here and tell people what we've been shown and ask for your opinions on it. Really can't do that, signed an NDA and everything. So when I say don't ask us for stuff like that, what I'm really saying is don't put myself, Milo, or anyone, in a position where we have to say 'no', because no one likes that.

On a personal level, I do wish some people here would RTFM. As the two posts above this state, Inducements have always been TO's discretion. Adding new ones doesn't change that.
It really is frustrating when so many of the arguments I see stem from people not having ever actually read the CRP in full, or confusing tournament conventions we've adopted with actual written rules.

Grak and Crumbleberry, the My Dugout Teams/Stars, the Ref rules—None of these things are a part of the NAF ruleset. What exactly is the problem?

None of these things are 'normal', for want of a better word. G&C are not on general release so the rules aren't available to everyone. Likewise the app stuff, which honestly is experimental and really just a bit of fun for newcomers or people with the app. We've recently reviewed that stuff, one day in the future it might become canon, but for now it isn't.

I myself have advised both Nate and Mike to simply ignore that stuff and leave it out of tournament play. GW agrees. Until the rules for stuff like that are finalised and readily available to everyone, I'm happy for it to be left out. That being the case I don't think it has much import on a discussion like this.

edit: The ref rules I think are best considered optional and as such the NAF can choose to ignore them. Likewise stuff in WD. Personally I'd like to see TO's given free rein to include them should they wish, but it's a minor thing, TO's have huge freedom to create all manner of craziness in their rulespacks as it is without using Refs or WD content to muddy the waters.

Baxx wrote:Why must things be mandatory?

It's a game, people play the way they want to...

Some standardization is mandatory to make the rankings meaningful. I care that the rankings have some meaning YMMV.

Thank you Kafre es Ispurio for the explanations. I will address your statements without quoting all of them. First CRP is still the base ruleset for NAF with only 7 additional notes related to all the new releases.
https://www.thenaf.net/wp-content/uploa ... e-v1-3.pdf
One of them is only acknowledgement of name changes and another is just to state that all inducements are optional.

Overall I see the OP issues as concerns that should be discussed, but not problems that need to be addressed.

1. NAF does have a schedule for rules changes. NAF releases changes with a transition period. It is based on GW releases which is out of their control. There are good and bad sides to tying NAF schedule to GW. I think I would prefer them unlinked, but I can see both sides.

2. NAF does need to have some basic standards with TOs allowed to make changes within that. That is what it does already. I'm not sure what change is being requested. I do agree that any already approved tournament should not be forced to change their rules after new rules being released, but in my experience they don't anyway. Maybe they can make the transition period longer, but I think just grandfathering in already sanctioned tournaments would be enough.

3. The NAF can't do what is requested for the stated IP issues. NAF could petition GW to hurry their translations. I don't think NAF has much influence at GW and I don't want them to waste the little they might have asking for this. (But, the rules are already in my language so my vote may not count much on that last part.) GW will translate as they think it will make them money regardless of NAF requests.

4. Read JT-Y's post. Just reading these forums, I knew the NAF has no public official relationship with GW much less playtest. Since, all inducements are optional by NAF rules, I don't see the immediate problem. In general, if you want more transparency, pay attention the info that is out there. If you feel GW is putting things out without enough playtest and NAF is rubber stamping, that is a little more complicated. I'm optimistic because the playtesting has gotten better! NAF rejected G&C! I am not worried about a automatic approval of bad ideas, and I think there will be fewer bad ideas. NAF should be aware that there is a concern. I think they are.

5. I'm sure if you ask how the decisions were made and why, you would get an answer. Maybe they should take a more formal route to GW releases like they did to Khorne/Brett adoption. I don't think we need an all member vote for every decision though. If there is someone who feels strongly about this, volunteer to organize a survey of RTOs when there is a new release. If you (anyone) can collect data in an unbiased manner I'm sure the NAF officials would be thankful for the help.

NAF is a volunteer organization. If you want it to expend more effort, volunteer to put in effort. Becoming president is extreme, organizing a survey isn't.