Talk Fantasy Football

Anyone have a good and interesting free agent/draft system in place in their leagues? I've always been keen to give it a try but it's never really been tenable until recently.

I've always thought this sort of thing would be fun, but never really considered it possible because of all the different races involved in BB.

So no, no practical experience. I'll go away now.

We do a Crush every year (take a look at http://www.tbbf.org/articles.asp for more info), but there are never really enough free agents to fo around becuase of the number of races involved as Munkey mentioned. Some people always get left out in the end.

We have a free agent draft system in our leagues, but it is comprised entirely of teams that have disbanded. Whenever a team goes away, they can place their players on the FA draft. At the end of a tournament, eligible teams can claim these players if they have the roster position open and the money at hand. If two teams claim the same guy, they roll off for him.

We have a large league with 11 current members, and each coach is allowed 3 teams. Only one competes in major league, scheduled tournaments, and the rest are unscheduled minor league matches. We've just finished our 4th tournament, and have 121 players in free agency. They retire permenantly if they are on the list for over a year.

The system makes for an interesting dynamic. Obviously, a team that wins a tournament has a real edge in drafting free agents. Frequently disbanded races have a lot of free agents - Dark Elves have lost 3 full teams, but some races still don't have a FA available. Nobody has disbanded an Orc team yet.

That's a nice idea, I might suggest that to my gaming group as we all tend to have more than one team, some of which get disbanded.

What price do you charge for the players, just basic list price or a premium for skills gained?

Oh yeah, the price would be important, wouldn't it?

We charge baseprice + 2,000 for each Star Player Point.

I've got some ideas about this that I worked on with Chet Zeshonski. He and I are both planning a draft at the end of our current seasons. I've got some free agent rules that I plan to implement on my website soon. Here's the gist:

DRAFT

The commissioner rolls up a predetermined number of rookie templates. Each template details what makes that player unique and special beyond the normal rookie player stats. Basically, you roll a d6: 1-3 - 1 Star Player Roll; 4-5 - 2 Star Player Rolls; 6 - 3 Star Player Rolls. Star Player Rolls are made normally, but only the result is noted -- no skill is selected. Then, roll another d6: on a 1, the player starts with a niggling injury. So, a typical draft might come out like:

Player #1: +1 AG, trait
Player #2: trait, skill, skill
Player #3: +1 ST, niggling injury
Player #4: skill
Player #5: +1 MA, skill
Player #6: trait

Each of these players are given a "signing bonus" equal to:

20k for each skill
30k for each trait/stat increase
-20k for a niggling injury

Hence, the above players would be priced at:

#1: 60k
#2: 70k
#3: 10k
#4: 20k
#5: 50k
#6: 30k

When you draft, you draft the rights to the rookie "template". When you decide to actually sign the player (any time during the season -- you hold onto the rights until then), you add the cost of the signing bonus to the cost of the rookie player, modify the rookies stats according to the template, and select any skills or traits (trait rolls could also be "any skill".)

This allows coaches to trade rights, etc., without having to worry about races or positions. It also allows some flexibility -- if I'm a dwarf team, maybe I draft #1 and make him a runner: 6 3 4 9 Sure Hands, Strong Arm, Thick Skull is a great rookie Dwarf Runner, destined to be a star. On the other hand, you could pick up a ST4 Troll Slayer for only the cost of the player +10k -- admittedly, he'll miss one out of every six games, but maybe it's worth that gamble.

Naturally, teams should be ranked in reverse order for the draft. I'd recommend new teams first, in reverse order of their final season standings with previous teams, and then any continuing teams in reverse order of their final season standings. As a rough guestimate, I suggest one rookie in the draft for every team, but the best teams won't get anything particularly special, whereas the teams that need a boost the most will have a chance to pick up some nice rookies for the next season.

FREE AGENTS

Some of this may not be possible for commissioners to use unless they have a website that automates a lot of stuff, like I do. Here's what I plan to implement for my league:

There are two ways for a player to become a free agent. Any player who's freebooted for a game (any rookie player, that is) automatically becomes a free agent after the game. They are added to the free agent pool automatically and repriced to have a Contract Rate of the player's starting cost plus a 5k cost increase for every 5 SPPs they've earned.

The second way a player can become a free agent is to be released by their original team. If a player outlives his usefulness or is in need of replacement due to injury, salary concerns, etc., a team can release him to free agency instead of retiring him as an assistant coach. When they release him, they can set the players contract rate. A player's contract rate cannot be set less than half his starting cost, nor more than twice his starting cost. The player then goes into the free agent pool along with the freebooted players.

Any team who could normally employ a player of a given race/position can hire a player from the free agent pool instead of hiring a rookie. They pay the contract rate, then add the player to their roster as normal.

One different between freebooters and released players is that part of the contract rate of a released player goes back to the team who released him. The team who released him receives 75% of the contract rate when another team buys out the free agent's contract.

These rules allow teams to do two things:

1) They can pick up a freebooter ("scab") for important games, and if he distinguishes himself during the game, they can pick him back up permanently. Of course, doing it this way means they spend 150% of his total cost to get him -- 50% for the freebooter fee, another 100% to hire him permanently. Of course, it also means that an alert coach who keeps a little money in his treasury can sometimes pick up a rookie player freebooted by someone else who already has a couple of SPPs, at very little extra cost.

2) They allow a team to release a veteran player and get something back in return for it. If a player is hurting you by contributing too much TR (and hence, handicap), or if he has a couple of niggling injuries and is no longer reliable enough for your level of play, you can put him on the free agent list. If some other team subsequently picks him up (a veteran at a decent price could be huge for a lower rated team, even with 1 or 2 niggling injuries), you get a lump sum payment that you can use to pick up another rookie to replace him.

Of course, if you price him too high, no one will ever hire him. If you price him too low, you won't get much back from your investment. Properly done, there could be a whole art to pricing players enticingly enough to make him worthwhile to other teams, but still high enough to justify releasing him in the first place.

And, of course, if you buy him back onto your team, you pay full price, but only get 75% of it back -- leaving you 25% in the hole. That's the cost you pay to ensure teams don't use it as a short-term player escrow.

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So, those are my ideas. Some are a little labor intensive -- keeping track of freebooted players would be a nightmare for a pen-and-paper commissioner -- but they shouldn't be too hard to implement for most online leagues.

Milo

I forgot to mention something tangenatlly related to the subject. If anyone in our league reaches Legend status, they get the option to permenantly retire and become a star player.

SKummy -- I plan to do the same for anyone who receives the Hall of Fame award at the end of the season.

Milo: It isn't something we've had to do yet, but do you know offhand the pricing guidelines for star players?

Just a question milo, do you allow those rookie players to earn skill just like others players ?

I like your system, it seems nice

neverdodge -- Yes, I do. The teams who wind up with them are generally the teams that need help the most, so I don't think it's going to wind up being too abusive. That said, though, they haven't been truly tested yet -- that's still to come.

Skummy -- You should take a look at Chet's Mythical Pricing Guide. It's not foolproof, but it does get you a pretty good figure for most stars.

Milo

Cool idea Milo, that solves all the race problems in a draft system quite nicely. Are you using it in your league?

Sounds good. Might use that draft system - it's quite sensible.

I've got a rough FA system I'm looking at using, based on the OLBBL system.

- Any player can be released if they have between 16 and 100 SPPs
- Minimum cost must be base cost + 20K per skill, +30K per skill, +40 per stat, -20K per niggle, -30K per stat loss.
- List is maintained on a website, coaches can make bids there. If a bid stays unchallenged for 4 days the player is sold.
- You can't rebuy to your team, once released, he's gone.

Our league is currently starting up a 2 tiered open league system as well as our scheduled fixtures. The FA interplay between the "Champions League" and the "Conference" could be quite interesting.

It would be even better with the introduction of a Draft. That would give the Conference teams a chance to pick up some real talent. Maybe even sell them on to the big boys for a bit of extra wonga.

Cheers for the advice lads.

Anthony -- we're not using it yet, because we're still in the first season. I do plan to have a draft after the tournament, though, before the next season.

Milo