Talk Fantasy Football

Here's a (very much) working version of a draft-based BB League. I'd love any comments that people could give.

BLOOD BOWL DRAFT PROPOSAL


LEAGUE PREP

Each coach chooses an alignment for his team: Good, Neutral, or Evil. These alignments give access to the following player types:

GOOD: Humans, High Elves, Wood Elves, Halflings, Dwarfs, Amazons
NEUTRAL: Humans, Norse, Amazons, Dwarfs, Norse
EVIL: Humans, Norse, Beastmen, Orc, Skaven, Dark Elf, Goblin

Every team starts with an Apothecary.

Neutral Teams have access to 4 Team Rerolls, Good teams 3, Evil 2.

Every team has a 'salary cap' of 1,000,000 (or so) crowns. The
value of the players on the team cannot exceed this value. We can
decide on the salary cap of the League.

There will be no freebooted star player access in the League, nor Secret Weapon access.

Big Guys may be freebooted ONLY, paying half of their normal cost for one game of playing time. Only one Big Guy may be freebooted per game.

THE CRUSH

A starting pool of players will be generated, enough to fill the
rosters of each team to 16 players. This will include a cross-
section of LINEMEN BB rookies from all teams.

A portion of the players will have a skill (the cream of
the draft crop), a portion of the players will have one less stat
point in a random area (the dregs), and a portion will have both (mixed blessings). So, there might be a collection of dwarves (5 3 3 9).
But look! One has a movement increase and could be developed as a
Runner, while one has Dauntless, obviously a fledgling Troll Slayer.
Etc. Every + skill/stat increased the player's value by 10k. Each
inferior stat point subtracts 10k from the player's value.

Teams pick until their rosters are filled or they choose to withdraw, using a Fantasy Football 'snake-style' draft.

Teams may draft players not listed under their alignment. These players are automatically gain the trait SLAVE and may never use team rerolls when performing an action.

THE SEASON

Each team plays the others, per normal league format.

Players gain skills as normal. There is no aging. Instead, a
failed aging roll indicates the player has ‘hit the wall’ of his development. He takes the current skill as normal, but also gains the trait PEAKED. He may not gain skills ever again after the current skill roll.

Players can be cut at any time, and the team releasing them is no
longer responsible for their salary. The cut player may be signed by
any other team for his base salary so long as the team can afford it,
with the worst teams having first shot at the released player.

Players currently on rosters can be replaced with UNDRAFTED FREE AGENTS of the same position at any time. Undrafted Free Agents
are always of the -1 stat variety of player.

Season ends.

POSTSEASON

The values of all players are adjusted to reflect skill/stat
increases. For every skill or attribute point a player has gained,
his value increases 10k. The owing team can choose to keep him, if
they like, or release him into free agency. If the player is not re-
signed, any of the other players may enter into a bidding war for the
player, with the minimum starting bid being his base salary.

A small number of players are generated for a rookie draft.
Teams draft in order of suckage, again paying attention to their
salary caps.

New season begins.

--------

The disadvantages are mainly the increased complexity.

Advantages:

1. Every team will be REALLY unique.

2. Drafts are cool and fun, as is team devlopment.

3. People have greater freedom in building a team that they like -
want a high armor passing team? A grind-it-out running game? A
defensive team built on speed and penetration, with three dwarves to
put on the line? You decide.

4. Player development is hightened to the Nth degree. You can
literally take normal humans, elves, etc and turn them in Blitzers,
Wardancers, Throwers.

5. The playing field is both equal (the same) and more varied.

6. It mimics the draft/free agency aspect of the NFL, which many of
us are fans of.

7. It fixes ally rules, doesn't it?

Comments, please!

I really like the idea, but it may be too complex. Don't know. Sounds fun, tho.

What I am really worried about is how to keep track of the released players. If there are a lot of players, a javabowl etc could be easier, if the program keeps track of the released and signed players. Okay, it's another thing who would do the program

Yeah, complexity is obviously an issue.

I've revised the original proposal a bit to deal with a few issues that came up. Again, I'd love reponses from anyone and everyone.

I had been thinking of how to do something similar to this for a while and I really like your idea here.

The complexity may turn off some people but you can just backpedal a bit and say that they weren't your intended audience anyway.

I'm not sure about the Linemen only idea, however. I was thinking of throwing in a handful of 'ringers'/positional players into the pool, but that's a relatively small difference (it doesn't actually change the rules, just the particular pool of players you're using). The potential problem with that is that you could end up with a single Evil player (for example) who has essentially unlimited access to positional players while the 7 remaining Good and Neutral players have to outbid each other for those Wardancers and Norse Blitzers. The salary cap would help keep this in line but it would still be an issue.

All in all, I like it.

{ edit: also, Norse is listed twice in Neutral. Who else was supposed to be in there? Skinks? And what's the big guy access like? Any big guy for any team? May I suggest:

• Good: Ogre, Treeman
  Neutral: Ogre, Kroxigor
  Evil: Minotaur, Troll, Rat Ogre

}

Would Good-aligned races actually keep Slaves?

Good ideas, they kinda give a 2nd Edition feel to team creation, plus opens up the possibility of trades/cash transfers between teams. I wouldn't mind using those, but I'd generally restrict it to experienced players till everything got worked out. Maybe a second league, using these rules, in addition to the league I run already...

...or not...