Faster Blood Bowl?

christer · Post by **christer** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:14 pm

Here's an idea I just thought of that would most certainly make the game quicker...

Play without rerolls. No TRR's, no pro, no leader, no dodge. No nothing.. One failed roll and it's a turnover

This would probably make fighting teams slightly better, but on the other hand.. that 3+ to pick up the ball would be scary..

Lets see.. To make up for fighting teams being upped, perhaps make skills like pass and catch give bonuses to the skill roll instead? (I'm making this up as I write..

)

Also, this would probably not be good in the long run, but I know I'd register for a league like this. Just an idea for a "between seasons" kind of league..

What do you think?

-- Christer

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:17 pm

Initial reaction is that such a format would heavily favour teams with a good spread of starting skills. It'd pretty much hammer Elf teams for example.

christer · Post by **christer** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:24 pm

It'd pretty much hammer Elf teams for example

I'm not so certain. In my experience, elf teams are more or less useless for the first 5 or so games under the current rules.. They can't really afford the rerolls anyway, so I believe they'd get a slight upswing from this..

But yes, you're right. Teams with skills would have an advantage.. But don't they have that advantage under regular rules as well? The ability to reroll things without spending TRR's is worth alot during the first few games.

-- Christer

High & Mighty · Post by **High & Mighty** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:32 pm

I think elves wouldn't be that severely hampered at the start. AG4 is essentially a skill for every elf over AG3 competitors which means less overall need for rerolls. And comparatively, an elf steam starts with alot less rerolls than an Undead team, or even an orc team usually. And as is always pointed out, elves tend to pick up the skills a little more frequently than others because off racking up TDs.

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:36 pm

I guess what I was getting at is that AG3 with Sure Hands has a better chance of picking the ball up than a straight AG4.
If you take away the re-roll safety net, Elves will fail 1 in 6 things that involve rolling a D6. TRR allow to to a certain extent to nullify the most calamatous of them.

I can see your thinking though, human pub games play incredibly fast due to lack of skills AND rerolls. It's a lot of fun for the very reason that the turnover rate is so high(you can't rely on anybody to do anything)!
It's more of a lottery than regular BB though, and certainly less tactical.

ScottTBBF · Post by **ScottTBBF** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:44 pm

I occasionally play with a timer to enforce the 4-minute rule against truly slow-playing opponents.

We've tried a couple 3-minute games and it speeds the game up quite a bit; I betcha could also play 2-minute turns, which would be fast and frantic...

christer · Post by **christer** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 3:57 pm

It's more of a lottery than regular BB though, and certainly less tactical.

Perhaps. But as I said, it would be more of a break from the regular game.. Not a real competitor. In addition to that, it would be fun if weaker coaches actually had a chance to win a tournament once in a while. Also, you'd probably improve your positional game using these rules. I'd place my bets on strong tactical players in a league like this.

AG3 with Sure Hands has a better chance of picking the ball up than a straight AG4

Yes. a 3+ pickup with a reroll will succeed 8 times out of 9 ( or about 89% ). Assuming you make reroll skills give a bonus to the dieroll instead, you'd end up in a 2+ pickup ( 5/6 or ~83% ), which is fairly close.

-- Christer

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 4:23 pm

Interesting. Hey Christer: Have you seen Guff's Blitz Bowl variant? It's a slimmed down version with less players designed to play faster:
viewtopic.php?t=56&highlight=blitz+bowl

christer · Post by **christer** » Mon Jun 17, 2002 4:41 pm

Have you seen Guff's Blitz Bowl variant?

Yes, I've looked at it kinda briefly. Would be fun to play, but I'd get rid of the 2-minute time limit on turns (I don't like time limits). Also, it appears the rules need to be modified for 2k1 rules. Or maybe someone's already done this?

But other than those minor points, I'm willing to give it a shot

-- Christer

krybosis · Post by **krybosis** » Tue Jun 18, 2002 8:57 pm

I once played a game of Blood Bowl with my friend, then suddenly he remembered that he should leave in 10 minutes and we both had about 5 turns we should play. We played those 5 turns in 7 minutes! so one turn for one player was under 1 minute

martynq · Post by **martynq** » Wed Jun 19, 2002 10:07 am

ScottTBBF wrote:We've tried a couple 3-minute games and it speeds the game up quite a bit; I betcha could also play 2-minute turns, which would be fast and frantic...

Yep, 2-minute turns are fast and frantic. The league I used to play in used to play 2-minute turns, and then finally moved to 3-minute turns because some of us begged for longer turns. In 2-minute turns you can't be nearly as careful as in longer versions. You have to do the important stuff first, rather than the safe stuff first.

Martyn