New Handicap Suggestion

[Milo]

Let me lay some background for this change. Note that this is all considered to have a heavy layer of "In My Opinion" on top of it, since I know some people may disagree.

The Handicapping game mechanic is in the rules to provide underdogs with a chance to defeat a favored opponent. Handicap should reduce the odds of a favored team win, but not dramatically so -- I think, in most circumstances, the better team should still win handily.

They also provide underdog teams a chance to minimize damage to their team from the favored opponent. This makes underdogs playing up someone more appealing, or at least less frightening.

The current system has a table of handicap results, and the underdog receives a varying number of rolls on this table, based on the team rating differential (TRD). Unfortunately, there's a wide range of potency on the table. The low end features rolls like Palmed Coin and That Babe's Got Talent, whereas the high end has some real doozies like Virus and Assassination.

The biggest problem in the current system that I see is that a team with a small number of rolls may get a much more potent total effect than a team with a large number, and vice versa. A game between two TR250-ish opponents can be completely broken if a 10pt. handicap results in a Virus, and no amount of extra Cheerleaders, weather result picks, or palmed coins is going to save a TR100 team from a TR200 team.

Furthermore, the current system doesn't accurately handicap teams in terms of number of rolls. For instance, a TRD of 49 produces the same number of handicap rolls as a TRD of 26, yet is almost twice as large a gap.

Now here's my suggestion for fixing this:

Step one: dissolve the handicap TRD table. Fixed breakpoints for handicap rolls are gone. Instead, simply calculate the TRD.

Step two: break the results on the handicap table out into three (or more) separate charts, based on severity. I'll try to attach my initial suggestions in a reply to this message.

Step three: assign each of the tables a Handicap point value. (My initial suggestion is tables for 10, 25, and 50 points.)

Step four: allow the underdog coach to SPEND their points of TRD (or Handicap points) for rolls on whichever table they want.

What does this accomplish? Well, first of all, a minor TR difference -- say, 10-15 points -- will only get one roll on the most minor table. The underdog might get a couple points of FF, or some other minor beneficial effect. Of course, at that handicap level, the teams are pretty close, so the underdog shouldn't need anything major.

In the middle levels, say, 35-45 points, there's a better accounting for handicap. At 35 points, an underdog will get a roll on the 10 point table and a roll on the 25 point table, or could opt for three rolls on the 10 point table instead. That means a 35 point handicap will hurt you more than a 25 point handicap, as it should.

At higher levels, in the 50-100 bracket, you no longer have to worry about rolling lousy on the handicap table. Roll a result on the 50 point table, and you KNOW it will hit your opponent hard. To be fair, it still may not even up the game, but it will provide a more reliable method of bringing some doubt to the conclusion.

I've phrased the charts I'll attach as D26 rolls -- in other words, you roll a D6 for the tens column: any rolls of 1-3 are counted as 10, any rolls of 4-6 are counted as 20, and then a second D6 is rolled for the ones column. They could equally be presented as a standard D12 roll, but I was trying to stick with the dice that come in the box set. I *do* intend to revise many of the results on these tables, and that may entail adding or removing some from the total, so don't consider it a finished product.

This is a quick and dirty first draft to give people an idea of how the proposed changes to the Handicap system would work. One interesting note is that virtually all the "Good Karma" results are positive for your team, as opposed to being negative for the opposing team. Once you get into the other tables, though, they trend towards being hurting the favored opponent instead of helping the underdog.

[Milo]

Okay, the site won't let me post HTML tables, so I'll just link to it instead:

Second Draft of the Proposed Tables

[Grumbledook]

milo how about just linking to a proper html page as the tables post is unreadable

i like how you are thinking though

[Zombie]

Why not take it a step further? Make one big table with the TRD required for each event given on the left, and the events put in order of least TRD to most TRD. One even could be worth 7 points, another 46 points, etc. No rolls required, you just spend however you want!

[martynq]

I can see the tables without any problem (but perhaps it has been dealt with by now).

The basic idea behind the system seems very good.

I'm not entirely certain about the particular splitting up of the tables... and I thought some of the rolls were going to be removed?

Martyn

[Milo]

Zombie -- that's a decent idea, but:

1) it's hard enough to organize them into roughly equivalent groups. I shudder to think how you'd assign each one of them a relative point cost.

and

2) I think some degree of randomness is still a good thing. I just want to make the ranges of possible results a little less wild.

Milo

[Milo]

I can see the tables without any problem (but perhaps it has been dealt with by now).

I was in the process of fixing it when Grumble made the comment. =)

The basic idea behind the system seems very good.

I'm not entirely certain about the particular splitting up of the tables... and I thought some of the rolls were going to be removed?

There will definitely be some reorganization of the tables and some general clean-up of the results. I'm interested any any specific changes you might have, so please feel free to tell me. I'm just hoping the basic idea will meet with approval, and I can get some feedback on where to go to improve the individual tables.

Like I said, the tables I posted are just quick and dirty reorganizations of the existing handicap results.

Milo

[Zombie]

Addendum to my post (that i just thought of in the shower).

If you think that would give too much power to the lower TR team's coach, just increase all the TRD associated with the events in order to compensate.

If you feel that it would not be random enough, then just change the rule to say that the coach has to pick the highest even available to him, then the highest one still available with the TRD left, and so on. That way, he has absolutely no control over it and the randomness is right back in. I'd rather have it without the randomness, but if that's what the majority wants, i could accept such a thing.

Either way, it makes for a handicap that's even more accurate than the one given by Milo's 3 tables.

[Zombie]

it's hard enough to organize them into roughly equivalent groups. I shudder to think how you'd assign each one of them a relative point cost.

That's not a problem, as the table could easily be adjusted after playtesting (all you have to do is change the TRD associated with each event).

[Milo]

Addendum to my post (that i just thought of in the shower).

If you think that would give too much power to the lower TR team's coach, just increase all the TRD associated with the events in order to compensate.

If you feel that it would not be random enough, then just change the rule to say that the coach has to pick the highest even available to him, then the highest one still available with the TRD left, and so on. That way, he has absolutely no control over it and the randomness is right back in. I'd rather have it without the randomness, but if that's what the majority wants, i could accept such a thing.

Either way, it makes for a handicap that's even more accurate than the one given by Milo's 3 tables.

Either way meaning letting them choose from all options or forcing them to choose the highest?

Aside from the random/not-random implementation, do you think a tiered scheme like this would be an improvement for the handicap system? Do you think the system, as I proposed it, is a step in the right direction?

[narkotic]

I think this is a huge step in the right direction. The solution to break the results in three different tables and let the weaker coach pick the ones he wants to roll for is simple, neat and eliminates the problem of crap result at TRD 100 and game winners at TRD 11!
I'm fully in favour for that. I think some randomness should stay, as else your coach could utilize the results too much by adjusting them to the oppononet (means he picks those which will hurt most, as it has been said, the better still should has higher odds for winning the match)

Good work!

One thing I would like to know is:
Will the handicap table as it is in LRB 2.0 be subject of discussion for the BBRC 2003? I think many people believe that it has to be changed somehow. Your solution makes the handicap more balanced/just without changing its notion or reason. Great.

[Milo]

Will the handicap table as it is in LRB 2.0 be subject of discussion for the BBRC 2003? I think many people believe that it has to be changed somehow. your solution makes it more balanced/just without changing its notion or reason.

It has been the subject of considerable debate in the last few weeks. Some change will probably occur, but it's too soon to tell exactly what. Many suggestions are much more revolutionary than this one.

Milo

[rwould]

I agree that more than one table is the way to go. However I think the tables should represent improvements to the lesser teams rather than hindering the good teams. This way it would encourage players to consider playing a better team, and represent the experience they get from doing this. Half the problem with the current table is too many of the increases just apply for that one game. In addition I don't feel that taking some RR's away from the highly skilled team does much at all. There is a fair chance they will have more RR's anyway, and need them less due to the players having more skill re-rolls.

Richard

[Zombie]

Either way meaning letting them choose from all options or forcing them to choose the highest?

Either way meaning with or without any of the two options that i've given.

Aside from the random/not-random implementation, do you think a tiered scheme like this would be an improvement for the handicap system? Do you think the system, as I proposed it, is a step in the right direction?

I think that it's a little better than the current system, but not as good as what i proposed. I feel that you might as well go all the way.

[Zombie]

I'm fully in favour for that. I think some randomness should stay, as else your coach could utilize the results too much by adjusting them to the oppononet (means he picks those which will hurt most, as it has been said, the better still should has higher odds for winning the match)

Either one of my two addendums solves this.