Generally speaking, Blood Bowl is a fun, exciting game. Part of the excitement is that you never really know how most turns will turn out - even if you correctly guess exactly what your opponent is going to do, you can't fully predict the game situation. You know a pass is coming, will it succeed? Can your opponent pull off that one-turner? When you take that one die block on the ball carrier, so many things can happen ... maybe you take him down, the ball scatters well, you recover, score on defense, and win. Maybe your own player knocks himself over and breaks his jaw. Maybe nothing of real consequence happens.
But if you take that one die block, and your player falls over and kills himself, you can't really complain. Well, you can, people do, but that's Blood Bowl. Your opponent was good enough that the best you could get was a one die block, you know those are risky. Everyone who has played Blood Bowl for a while has been in that situation, on both sides. Sometimes you win 'em, sometimes you lose 'em. The game is about risk management and setting yourself up so that your players have a chance to succeed. Often taking that one die block on a ball carrier is the correct move. But just like real life, doing the correct move doesn't always succeed. If a game comes down to a one die block at the end, it's probably been an exciting game.
But sometimes games come down to things which nobody planned - Sweltering Heat leaving one team crippled. Or a pitch invasion destroying one team's defense (or offense!). There's no way to plan ahead for that kind of thing, it's pure luck. Does anyone honestly think that Blood Bowl games are improved when this happens?
Maybe there are people out there who love that. I don't. That doesn't mean that I hate randomness, so please stop telling me that I want to play Chess instead. I play Blood Bowl by choice. I don't mind losing a close game because my opponent passed a few dice rolls and I did not. (Okay I might whine at the time, but these things happen). I don't mind losing to a superior opponent - that's how I get better. But I really hate it when I lose to, say, half my defense getting stunned by a Pitch Invasion. Sure, it doesn't happen often. Sure, it's not entirely rational on my part that this should piss me off more than, say, quad skulls on turn 16 to free my ball carrier. Sure, I doubt that the rule will change any year soon.
But I don't think I'm alone in saying that a few completely random things (such as Pitch Invasion and Sweltering Heat) can be disproportionately game-affecting compared to other weather and kickoff results, that they can sometimes ruin an entire game, and that no amount of planning or skill can mitigate it. And that nerfing those two specific things would be a net improvement in the game. What if Sweltering Heat flat-out removed one random player on the field at the end of every drive? What if Pitch Invsaions were capped at 1 + FAME opposing players stunned? There's still randomness, you still have to worry rolling that kickoff event, but there's less potential for turning an otherwise exciting and competitive game into a one-sided yawner. Which is how I was using the term "game-breaking" earlier, and I think that's what Matt meant as well.
Anyway, enough whining about rules which aren't going to change anyway. Back to painting my new World Cup Necro team
Night all,
-- R
