Talk Fantasy Football

[Please note: This post refers to a set of alternate league rules (house rules) designed to be used in conjunction with the PBBL system currently in development. They are not intended to be suggestions for PBBL - quite the reverse! This is a parallel idea, aimed at experienced coaches. It was recommended to me that it would be best to post this here in the House Rules forum: however, I wouldn't want to confuse coaches who are only familiar with the present LRB official rules. I'm sure that if this threatens to happen, the thread can/will be moved to the Playtest Vault forum (although there it might muddy the waters of PBBL discussion proper. )]

<i>Are you a jaded Blood Bowl coach?</i>

If so, then these <b>Alternate Blood Bowl league rules</b> may be for you:

http://www.friedgold.co.uk/altbbligp.htm

I'm not, for the record, feeling jaded at the moment. For one thing, PBBL seems set to reinvigour Blood Bowl in a number of ways, and seems to hold many new possibilities.

However, at the start of last year I had become somewhat bored with the pattern a new table-top Blood Bowl league always seemed to follow: as an experienced coach, when you start a new team you know what skills you mean to pick, what order you will make purchases in, and so on. On the pitch, every match can be entertaining and different - especially if you have fun opponents to play against - but off it, team development can become repetitive and predictable.

Now, I'm well aware of all the usual remedies for this problem: learn to run an entirely different kind of team; run a team in an unconventional style; run an underpowered team; organise a Stunty, or other unusual, league. These and more are all good options, and I have tried most of them: with the same skeleton of league rules, the same problems tend to resurface. Even with PBBL's many new skill choices - and doubtless many new optimum strategies to be discovered - in time these issues will arise again.

These may well not be a concern for some, but they led me to design a heavily-modified set of Blood Bowl league rules: a rule set which attempts to take some of the mayhem and unpredictability which you get on the pitch, and bring it to the process of team development. These don't directly affect the familiar on-pitch rules, but offer a radical alternative in the areas of player recruitment and player and team development.

(Veteran Blood Bowl coaches will note that some of the ideas below draw a lot from the second edition Blood Bowl league rules. This is entirely acknowledged on my part: but while the stuff in second edition was the inspiration for some of my rules, they have come along way from those beginnings.)

Let me note one thing: <i>the idea of this set of rules is not in any way to compete with, or act as a critique on, the official LRB rules</i> (or the PBBL rules, for that matter). The objective of both those rules-sets is to establish a level playing-field for on-going leagues, and I think they succeed in doing this as well as is possible for a dice-based game. My rules are designed as an alternative for experienced (and somewhat jaded) Blood Bowl coaches, who would appreciate more variety and unpredictability in the development of their team, as well as perhaps a little of the flavour of real-world sport. The objective of my rules is not fairness at all: in fact every coach using them should frequently if not constantly feel brutally <i>un</i>fairly treated - while understanding that this feeling is all part of the 'fun' of it all.

These rules have been successfully run over the course of one testing league, but certainly still need a lot more work: they should be considered to be 'in beta' for the time being. <i>Sample at your own risk!</i> They have recently been re-written to be compatible with the latest PBBL/Vault rules (and only those rules at present - and, boy, did the removal of Traits and Ageing simplify the design!).

I'll summarise some of the distinctive points of this system below. Please take a look at these before you attempt to wade through the full rules linked above:

• there are three types of players: Rookies; Pros; and Stars
• new players are always Rookies: a Rookie who reaches 6 SPPs will become either a Pro or (if he is lucky) a Star
• Pros will make up the bulk of most teams: they can only ever acquire three advances (always normal skills) and are basically dull but dependable
• a player who becomes a Star will gain a number of advances immediately (and can go on to gain up to seven), which will include a higher proportion of stat increases and double skills than usual, but sometimes will also include random skills which the coach cannot select exactly to taste
• Stars also possess Quirks. Quirks are character traits rather than abilities. A few of them are good; more are bad; some are a mixed blessing; and there are one or two which could give a coach nightmares. However skilled a Star may be, if he has too many bad Quirks, he can be more trouble than the rest of the team can carry
• in addition, the more Stars a team has, the more Random Events it will attract before each game. Again, some events are good, but more are bad. A nasty combination of events and Star Quirks can be disastrous for a team (in the short term)
• new players are bought at auction as Rookies. New Rookies have a Star Potential modifier, which affects their chances of becoming a Star later in their career. Rookies with higher Star Potential will naturally attract higher bids
• Stars who are unhappy and/or mismanaged, or who a coach wants to retire, may leave a team, becoming Free Agents or Freebooters, available for permanent or temporary hire by other teams in the league
• players and staff may be traded between teams in a league (though the League Commissioner must monitor all transfers). Special rules apply when a Star changes teams: Fan Factor and other Stars' attitude can be affected

And that's about it: the major stuff anyway.

Anyway, all feedback on these rules is welcomed: I'm not in a regular table-top league at the moment so I'm in no position to continue testing them myself for the time being. Please feel free to post replies here; to PM me; to contact me via the e-mail address listed in the rules file; or to badger me about them in fumbbl irc if I'm not looking for a game there.

All opinions are more than welcome: although I should say in advance that I am well aware that these rules would not by any means be to every coach's taste. They were designed to provide an alternative flavour for those coaches who take to them: other coaches would want to spit that same flavour out!

I applaud this effort. You probably don't know me, my views will certainly not be representative of the majority of TBB members so pls don't take them as such in any way.

One generic negative issue that I feel the need to raise - having an auction/free agent type ruleset is not something I think works within the boundaries of the existing BB team selection rules because it is unlikely that a sufficiently large number of coaches will be participating to allow for competition in demand for players.

I actually tried the core-race concept and found that it didn't balance properly - that little league found that its massively beneficial to have a team that includes cheap players and taking expensive Lino teams is a weak strategy.

Love the introduction of contracts, having an effective player decay process seems to be vital for the longevity of a league IMO. The quirks stuff is interesting, adding in sth like this appeals to me a lot.

Inter-Match Events seem like fun but I don't think that they work as there is a necessarily restricted number of them and their krayzeeness wears off fairly quickly. I think they're more trouble than they're worth and I'm the sort of person that thinks more wild stuff needs to be added.

I went down a fairly similar path to you in creating my own perpetual BB league and am extremely happy with the outcome. Have a look through my BB link in my sig to see if anything I've done might be good for you.

MadLordAnarchy wrote:One generic negative issue that I feel the need to raise - having an auction/free agent type ruleset is not something I think works within the boundaries of the existing BB team selection rules because it is unlikely that a sufficiently large number of coaches will be participating to allow for competition in demand for players.

Yes, this is certainly a problem we came across in testing, and one for which I agree there is no perfect solution in standard Blood Bowl. I would encourage anyone who just likes a few of the rules in this set (such as the Quirks), to use as few or as many of them as they please.

As for the Random Events: their primary purpose is not so much for flavour, but to balance out the power of Stars. Most of the random events have negative effects, and you get one for each Star on your team. In the long run, this will make a Star-heavy team impractically expensive: but in a more varied and unpredictable way than the effects of Spiralling Expenses. The flavour the events supply is a nice secondary effect: and I am always looking for more good ideas to expand the table.

I read through the whole thing. Wow.

I was surprised, though. It didn't seem to be as debilitating as you kept making it out to be. Maybe if I played with the rules for a while I would have a different opinion.

Corlus wrote:I was surprised, though. It didn't seem to be as debilitating as you kept making it out to be. Maybe if I played with the rules for a while I would have a different opinion.

Debilitating with respect to what?

You mean that they're not actually as 'unfair' to all as I suggest in the post? No, probably not: that's just my way of selling them. But, in the short term, it's true that one coach can find himself quickly blessed with an amazing Star, while another waits and waits ... and waits: and then just rolls up a completely pitiful one.

How does value work in this league? If you roll up a star and he gets loads of skills does his value ramp up at the PBBL rate?

There are some great stuff in there though mate although I wonder if you will ever play any games in the midst of rolling about 319 d6's

I would actually like to give this a go at some point and when life calms down and I have some more time I may try and set up a small(ish) league just to see how the player creation and progression actually works in practice.

Fair play on all the hard work though

mattski wrote:How does value work in this league? If you roll up a star and he gets loads of skills does his value ramp up at the PBBL rate?

Team Value is calculated in the same way as standard PBBL. So, a Star with +ST, +AG, two double skills and three normal skills will add (50,000 + 40,000 + 2*30,000 + 3*20,000) 210,000 to Team Value (in addition to the base value of the player's position). This is true regardless of whether he is some uber-wonderkid with 7 advances at just 6 SPPs, or a genuine Legend who's needed the full 201 SPPs to get to the maximum 7 rolls. Quirks (good or bad) don't affect TV.


While it's true that Stars can be hugely complicated in this system, one of the things I like most about it is that it can actually make the on-pitch game simpler. I for one am notoriously bad at keeping track of ST+ players (for example) especially ones which are in no other way special. I also find that the standard game becomes difficult to cope with at high TRs when every player has two or three skills and many have even more. Under these rules, Pros (who make up 80-90% of players in the league) only get normal skills, and only a maximum of three of them: so as far as the truly unusual stuff is concerned, you only need to keep track of the (few in number) Stars - who will generally be represented by the most recognisable models.

Warning: shameless bump approaching!
(fumbbl forum readers may also notice some duplication of material ...)

<b>Cool things that can happen under this system:</b>

- Big Guys (Stars only) can lose their negative Racial Characteristics!
- a Star can get his own personal Player re-roll (he can even get more than one!)
- a Star can acquire his own Personal Apothecary!
- players can change position (gaining skills and stat ups in the process!)
- except for unique Secret Weapon Stars, it would be entirely possible (much better odds than the standard rules) to develop a normal player (Star) to the level of a published Star Player's stat line and skills. Yes, it is well within the bounds of possibility to get your very own Griff Oberwald or Varag, or even (since negative traits can be lost, see above) Morg or Ripper!

For those concerned about balance, I should also note that for each of these exciting possibilities, it is <i>more</i> likely to suffer their reverse:

- any Star can <i>gain</i> the equivalent of negative Racial Characteristics - your Ogre can become as dumb as a Troll
- a Star might refuse to be treated by any kind of apothecary
- players can demand to change to a worse position: 'Boss,' begins the Star Blitzer. 'I've been thinking about the next step forward in my game, and I really think that Lineman is my natural position ...'
- while you might develop a Star with the stats of Griff Oberwald, he is also likely to be an overpaid primadonna, who: hates playing in the rain; doesn't play at his best if the crowd's too small; is destroying his talent with his weirdroot habit; is hated by opposing fans who always aim their rocks at him; and is constantly being tapped up by rival clubs.

Still planning on giving these rules a go as soon as I have more time but I do have a question though pac. Have the new skills and inducement rules altered how you feel about mixed teams?

Because I think these rules are really close to simulating the real (well, at the uber-extreme end of real) feel of sports but for my own personal taste I would prefer to go the whole hog and try to have core races but allow unlimited numbers of 'foreign' players with the obvious negative factors (i.e. Orc playing for a Halfling team would be disillusioned pretty much straight away).

Ah, when I have more time...

mattski wrote:Still planning on giving these rules a go as soon as I have more time but I do have a question though pac. Have the new skills and inducement rules altered how you feel about mixed teams?

Personally, I've had bad experiences with mixed teams - (thinks back to 2nd edition opponents with Chaos Dwarf Blockers, Dark Elf Catchers and Throwers, Ogres, Chaos Human Blitzers ... ). I try to avoid them as much as possible. I don't really see that the PBBL rules have changed that much: a team with Dwarf LoS players and Elf ball-players (for example) would still be a horror as much as under any rules set.

In my own testing league, we've allowed 'allied' players (Stars only) to join other teams (using the allied list included in those rules somewhere (lifted from 4th edition, I think)). There was also RR loss for 'allied' players (I can't remember our exact house rule).

All that being said: I'm delighted if anyone wants to use my alternate league rules in any shape or form! If a more varied mixed team system works for you and the rest of your league, then go for it! As I've written them, the rules make no assumption about how a league will ensure competition for players: the Star system is the main part of the rules, and I daresay that can be meshed with any other house rules that a league has adopted.

Very briefly ('cos I have work to finish and stuff) what I was thinking was in the player creation when you roll a 6 and you can have a player from any team list then to create associated teams that you roll from.

For example. If you are a Pro Elf team and you roll a 6 then you would create a player from all of the other Elf teams but not a pro elf. Humans would create a Norse / Amazon player etc.

This would mean that hopefully teams would still retain the backbone of their core race but would allow some very interesting decisions to be made by teams. If a +2 wardancer arrived then think of the interest if the whole league could go for him!

I take your point about mass player movement flattens out racial differences which is bad but more dissent and more choices for a coach to have to makes is good.

I shall think more about this all (altogether now) when I have more time...

mattski wrote:For example. If you are a Pro Elf team and you roll a 6 then you would create a player from all of the other Elf teams but not a pro elf. Humans would create a Norse / Amazon player etc.

Interesting: I quite like this idea. It lets you get players from more different lists into the league even if you don't have <i>teams</i> from all those lists playing in the league.

If you don't mind, I may add this to my list of optional rules in the next edition of the rules - I'll credit you of course! Let me know how this works out for you either way.

Given that my people got very bored with single race teams a long time ago, I've tried out all sorts of multi-race options and the key problem was that having a base race was terrible for balance. I don't think that Allies or a random chance of a foreigner gets round that - though I do have the random chance option retained in my league but I gave it a small chance and an upkeep cost to maintain. As it was multi-race teams or bust for my group, I've found a system that worked but I've had to go a very long way from the original rules.

The Star system is something I like and tho I'm so housed that I'd have to change it to get it to fit, the concept is a solid one IMO.

Balance is an intersting question when dealing with a rule set like this. Pac makes it clear in his rules that they aren't fair and I like that honesty! If you choose to take on a goblin team and you are the only one then you are going to be hammered continually but so be it.

And I've also looked at your rules as well MadLordAnarchy some of which I really loved (the injury stuff especially) but it is interesting the lengths you have gone in order to have a really balanced league.

I suppose what I am looking for is a hybrid with a slight leaning towards the Pac end of the scale (if I can phrase it like that!). I like the idea of the stunty teams always being slightly poor but never so bad that they are simply cannon fodder for the rest of the league.

If we are working on the concept of a truly professional (albeit fantasy league) then I think a Star Orc Blitzer playing for a halfling team would be really amusing (when you throw in his bitter resentment for playing there).

I am convinced that there is a workable solution to making teams retain their racial 'feel' whilst allowing them to have the flavour and excitment of other races on them.

Even though I really should be doing other stuff how about this for a roll for mixed race teams:

Before the kick-off the coach who has any 'foreigners' in his team rolls a D6 (maybe D8 ). If he rolls less than the number of foreigns then he loses that many re-rolls. If he doesn't have enough re-rolls to cover the loss then his opponent gets what ever is left over.

i.e. coach has 4 foreign players and 2 re-rolls. He rolls a 3 and thus not only does he lose both his re-rolls but the other team gains one also.

I think if you went this route then it may not be a good idea to make foreign players have 'loner' as well. In this way the whole team is punished for a lack of cohesiveness that comes with having...'others' in a team.