Garions Rules Finished

[dines]

Well have mostly used the fireball when playing TT dark elves and even when playing chaos dwarves it can be a game changer against (other) bashy teams. I like that more than the lightning bolt, even though it's more random.

With traits your team development might be more varied when you roll doubles, but if you don't your team falls behind. Especially as you don't pay extra.

[garion]

Well have mostly used the fireball when playing TT dark elves and even when playing chaos dwarves it can be a game changer against (other) bashy teams. I like that more than the lightning bolt, even though it's more random.

With traits your team development might be more varied when you roll doubles, but if you don't your team falls behind. Especially as you don't pay extra.

I personally disagree with that, a team that gets more doubles has never been auto win or anything close to auto win in TT leagues, most run for say 10 - 30 games and the extra doubles really dont make that much difference. Even if I did think you were right which i personally don't, that would still be a price im willing to pay for more varied doubles usage. Stat increases are usually the thing that really make a difference in this sort of league play, an ag5 wardancer or st4 orc blitzer/ball carrier makes a far bigger difference than a few doubles. Which is why i kept the extra cost for stat increases the same. Even though I personally would rather there was no extra cost for them either. But I completely understand why other people would not like that which is why i kept the cost.

In perpetual leagues after enough games doubles will usually be fairly consistent between teams anyway so there is no reason to worry there.

[Rhyoth]

Garion, i understand you want to customize the rules to fit your tastes, and i'm perfectly fine with that.

Now, considering you made a lot of personnal and often controversial choices, don't you think it would be best to change the title of your ruleset for somthing less deceiving ?

[garion]

No.

If you do not understand why it is called what it is, you will never understand.

Also - there is nothing really deceptive about it. Anyone that knows anything knows we are sadly stuck with CRaP for ever now.

But anyway, I don't want to discuss the title, that is irrelevant when the thread is about the content.

[plasmoid]

Hi Rhyoth,
I'll happily fill in the blanks:
CRP 2nd ed is intended to mean a version of CRP that moves back towards 2nd edition BB.
But I don't think you're the first to read it like it's the 2nd edition of CRP.

Cheers
Martin

[Rhyoth]

The intent does not matter here, only the final result : this title is confusing (and Garion, there are a lot of TT coaches who aren't familiar with the online BB community)
plasmoid you made 7 important changes in NTTBB, but you still don't publish it as LRB7, right ?

So, garion, my only question is, why, out of the hundreds of possible titles, did you choose the only one that could be mistaken with an official update of the rules ?

Anyway, let's get back on track, and speak about the content :

Star Players :
Kick is a very valuable against slow opponnents, and Dolfar is still a very interesting option for any elven team, even for HE (a lot of rookie HE teams can use the MA more than the AV, not to mention three bonus skills). Sure, he may have a limited use (personnaly, i only consider him for a starting elf team), but he still has a very good cost/effectivenesss ratio ; so, if you want to make him more useful, fine, but you don't need to improve his cost/efficiency ratio, in other word, if you make him better, make him more expensive as well (Star Players are meant to be expensive, for both fluff and balance reasons).

While we'e at it, imho, you should rethink your changes to Htarkh and Count Luthor : there is a reason why those guys were nerfed ! Personnally, i don't like making both of them better than Morg'n'Thorg, but making them better and cheaper than him ... ?

Amazons :

Stand Firm is a strength skill yes, but it still makes the sort of plays that they apparently famous for possible, and the team is decribed as having a mix of strenght and other things, as quoted before. Without it they are far less likely to ever happen. Also after looking at many of the top Amazons teams on fumbbl and through playing them a lot back in lrb4) it became quite clear that Blitzers were used in two ways, 1 was the MB PO player, the others main function would be to tie players up, essentially working as Blockers not Blitzers. Stand Firm was a very common skill selection at the 4th and 5th skill for this player, and by removing block it stop them being blodge guard after one skill which is a nightmare for any low tv teams, but by the 4th or 5th skill they are back on track, so it doesnt hurt them long term.

Again, you're overfocused on a single quote (in which you still convenientelly ignored the word "gracefully"), but you're forgetting whole picture : Amazon are light & agile warrirors, and Stand Firm is a skill reserved to slow & heavy beings. You're too focused on giving 'zons a mechanical bonus, but you don't care where this bonus come from : that's a problem.
With the same logic, if you read a quote saying "Dwarves are hard to Knock Down", and since Dodge make it harder to Knock a player Down, then there is nothing wrong in giving Dodge to Dwarves as a starting skill.
(Sure, Amazons' coaches frequently give SF to their Blitzers : not because it suits their style, but simply because it's a very good skills for them. For me, it's a good reason to give zons either SS or Fend : to make Stand Firm less appealing as an improvement.)

Still, if you want to put your mind at ease, remember when a fluff quote mention "dodging", it does not necessary implies a dodge roll in term of game mechanism : avoiding being knocked down when blocked can also be refered as "dodging" in term of fluff. So, an amazons staying on her feet after several blocks can also be translated, fluffwise, as "gracefully dodging between oponents".

this (AV8 on Amazons Blocker/Blitzer) does not go against their fluff. Av8 is not an indicator of their armour alone, otherwise everyone would just stick plate mail on. It is a value given to a player that represents their natural toughness and ability to take knocks. Since the blitzers are descibed as 'powerful warriors' and i could provide you with a number of quotes if you really want, that lend them self to this, there is nothing out of place with it. It also makes their roster more interesting, as said before the 6337 across the board is just unimagiative, dull and it allows very little room for tactical use as a player type, in crp all their players basically run interfearance while one scores. Finally it is a slight help for the long term build.

Look at all lightly armored human players in the game : they're all AV 7, even Norses (and they are reputed to be tough, probably more than 'zons). Sure there are difference between individuals, but with the current scale, it's not enough to justify an AV change for amazons player: there is no reason (fluffwise) to make all amazons blitzers so much out of the norm, especially when all norses are AV 7 (of course, i'm talking about "human" Norse).

Of course, there are rare individuals, who are so much out of the norm, that they deserve an AV increase, but that's why, palyer can see their AV increase as an improvement (and i still don't understand why you removed this option : oops, that comment does not concern this rule sorry ).

As for breaking the statlines, it's more appropritate to improve MA or even AG first. If you want to improve their ST or AV, then do what was been done for Norse : introduce a new type of player.

Norse

Norse are not meant to be flexible in their approach to games, they are all about aggresive kamikaze tactics, which sometimes win them games and sometimes doesn't, Frenzy is what they are all about, why would they have throwers when they don't have catchers, because they are not meant to have these types of players or perform these types of plays it goes against everything you read.

Again, you're not fixing anything : norse are already all about bash, and they already suck at passing. So there is no real need to change the team. Now, if you were to remove the Thrower AND give something substantial* in return, then it could be a good change.
Curently, all you do with your ruling is penalising coaches who try to play Norse in a diffrerent but clearly sub-optimal way : weren't we talking before about how boring is the lack of diversity in the game ? Then why penalising coaches who try to bring a bit more diversity to the game ?

* something like making Runners 0-4, or giving Runners NoS, or creating a new positionnal with P skills ... just giving Runners P skill is a joke, considering their life expectancy and the number of skills they need to take.

the fact you say well why not give Elf Blitzers S then, is just a flippant comment. You know perfectly well why they don't.

Because Elves are, by nature, different ? and also because Elven team have a very different conception of the game ? Therefore, their Blitzers are different and evolve differently : i don't see why we can't apply the same logic to Runners.

But the basic function of the Runners is universal and as such should be reflected in their ability to make certain plays.

Only one thing need really to be universal about Runners : they need to run fast ! For everything else, the kind of play they perform may vary depending of their race/team (again, just like Blitzers).

Running back on the other hand is a basic position in Amercian Football. While in amarican football they play along side QBs typically...

Be careful when comparing BB and American Football : they're very different sports, so comparing them is extremely tricky : for example, if Norse Runners were American Football players, they wouldn't simply be Running Back, they would be more like an hybrid Running Back/Tight End/Linebacker/Cornerback/Safety + occasionnal Wide Receiver (and do you really need to add QB to the list, knowing those guys are limited to 0-2 ?)

Half Backs also do throw the ball albeit rarely, but again that supports giving them the ability to take P skills ( ) and Dump Off plays are more common than straight passes for those player types, so this change adds verisimilitude and also makes the teams consistent.

Building a "dumpster" require more skills than a regular Thrower (or a "ball carrier with passing options" if you prefer) : so if you give P skills to Runners, you will see more of them turning into "regular thrower" than dumpsters : if you want to make them more oriented toward dump-off, you need to give those guys more than just P skills (for exemple, give them Nerves of Steel)

[Rhyoth]

Sorryfor the double post, i was short on time, so i couldn't bring that up :
Traits & TV :

As for traits, it is quite interesting how different environments view that really. when this was posted on fumbbl their was pretty much universal opproval of Traits returning from any coach that has a clue, with a few exceptions (...)

Really ?

Because of those Inducements & SE, "fun", "experimental" or "just-in-case" improvements tend to disappear, simply because they don't worth the TV increase, and put the team too much at a disadvantage.
 I agree, which is one of the main reasons I returned to TV gain system somewhere between LRB4 and CRP and withdrew the extra cost of doubles that you get in CRP. Instead of paying for skills like in CRP you pay for the number of skills a player has which is more in line with LRB4 though I didnt want to go the whole way back because LRB4 had some big problems around that area.

And i don't see how this change will make anything better : if paying 20 k for a suboptimal skill is already too much, then paying 30, 40 or 50 k is even worse ! (and it's even more worse if you are forced to choose a skill you don't want). Besides, i can see a couple of nasty side effects of such ruling :
1) imo, coaches already fire perfectly healthy players too often in CRP, i fear this rule will dramatically increase this tendency.
2) Imho, it hurts way too much teams like necro or skaven, who need (or are forced to have) an "asymetric development" if they want to play competitively at high TV

Also, the Inducement system is based on an accurate evaluation of teams' power. So, each time you make TV a bit less accurate, you open the door a bit wider for "hardcore" min/maxing...

So, comparing LRB4 and CRP data just can't prove anything here : you simply can't determine what is due to the Inducements system (or other changes), and what's specifically due to Traits. (Comparing 3rd ed and LRB4 data would probably be more accurate). Also, using the "way doubles are used" as an indicator is irrelevant here : since removing Traits globally improve the variety of skill selection, by increasing the variety of skill selection on normal rolls, but reducing it on double rolls.
It gives you more skill options yes, but it also means that people can just ignore the skills that are not considered tier 1. or just short of tier1. It can still be easily compared to LRB4 because LRB4 often forced you into taking skills you otherwise wouldn't because of lack of "tier 1" skills. I loved this and many others did too. At least it meant we saw skills like pass block taken more often, even if it was somewhat forced.

Why forcing coaches to take those skills, when you can make a rule that will make them take those skills of their own free will ? Besides, no matter how restrictive you make your Traits, GS and GA palyers will still have a lot of "tier 1" skills to choose from. Those who will pay the price will mainly be G-only, S-only and A-only players, and most of those guys don't need such a nerf.


About skill tiering (yes, i know, not the topic, so i'll try to make it quick) :

I am also glad that skills are inequally attractive. If all skills were of the same ability it would make everything more boring.

Personnally, what i find boring is to see all teams always spamming the same skills over and over again : at least skill tiering gives coach a good reason to experiment new skills (i mean before the 5th or 6th skill) or new paths of development of their own free will. Even with this rule, skills aren't equals, and we don't need to make them perfectly equals : we just need to reward coaches for trying alternative development of their own free will.

when in my rules you begrudgingly take Pass block because you cant see any other skills you would like, then find it has won you a game, that is a great moment, and one that happened in lrb4 but never happens now.

Trust me, the feeling is muuuuuch better if you chose Pass Block of your own free will.

I wouldn't want to see skills tiered by cost. I think it would actually be detrimental to the game, I think it would be horrible for new comers to the game, that they basically get told from the start, these skills are not as good as these ones. I loved learning about the game and with each rule set learning which skills were great and which skill combos were good. I would hate to be patronised and told take these ones, and these ones arent worth much, so you should mostly avoid them

The problem is, with the current rules, rookies are much more penalised than before when they try "experimental" builds. Besides, i don't see anything wrong in telling them which are the best skills in the game : first because it's the truth (and most of them will ask anyway**), and also because the best skills may not be always the best choices anymore.

**and i hate being forced to always answer " there a lot of option, but you'd better off with .." either Block, Dodge, Guard or Mighty Blow

To conclude, i'd say you could do far worse than giving rookies a better overview at the skills : for example, you could force them to choose between skills they don't want, force them to wait for double to have the right to test half of the skills, force them (if they want a competitive team) to constantly fire an rehire players until they get good enough improvement rolls ... just so that GS palyers can have more choices when they roll a double .

[plasmoid]

As an aside, I've seen this claimed by quite a few FUMBBL coaches:

Because of those Inducements & SE, "fun", "experimental" or "just-in-case" improvements tend to disappear, simply because they don't worth the TV increase, and put the team too much at a disadvantage.

I fail to see how a system (LRB4 and earlier) where the TV cost for your 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th skill were incredibly high was in any way condusive to making 'fun' skill picks. For every fun skill you paid a massive fine down the line.
Block, Dodge, Side Step, Jump Up for 10TV, or Block, Dodge, Pass Block, Side Step, Jump Up for 15TV (wasn't 5th skill at 76 SPPs(?))

Ah well.
Cheers
Martin

[Rhyoth]

As an aside, I've seen this claimed by quite a few FUMBBL coaches:

Because of those Inducements & SE, "fun", "experimental" or "just-in-case" improvements tend to disappear, simply because they don't worth the TV increase, and put the team too much at a disadvantage.

I fail to see how a system (LRB4 and earlier) where the TV cost for your 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th skill were incredibly high was in any way condusive to making 'fun' skill picks. For every fun skill you paid a massive fine down the line.
Block, Dodge, Side Step, Jump Up for 10TV, or Block, Dodge, Pass Block, Side Step, Jump Up for 15TV (wasn't 5th skill at 76 SPPs(?))

Ah well.
Cheers
Martin

From what i remember, the handicap table in Lrb 4 was not half as scary as the current Inducements, so watching your TV (and/or your ratio "TV/efficiency") was not as important as it is now.

Also, when i mention "experimental" skill-pick, i don't necessary imply late skill pick : personnally, i've seen a lot of testing with early skill picks as well.

[garion]

I fail to see how a system (LRB4 and earlier) where the TV cost for your 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th skill were incredibly high was in any way condusive to making 'fun' skill picks. For every fun skill you paid a massive fine down the line.
Block, Dodge, Side Step, Jump Up for 10TV, or Block, Dodge, Pass Block, Side Step, Jump Up for 15TV (wasn't 5th skill at 76 SPPs(?))

The point of skill increase for skill stacking is not to make skill selection more diverse. It is to make team building focused around even skill distribution rather than 4 stars the rest crubs which is now the most common type of team building.

From what i remember, the handicap table in Lrb 4 was not half as scary as the current Inducements, so watching your TV (and/or your ratio "TV/efficiency") was not as important as it is now.

Thats not quite true. It is true that TV efficiency wasn't quite as important as you say (it still was, but in a different way, you had to develop teams in a structured way instead of skill stacking) but the handicaps were a mix bag, some were completely ineffective like Virus against a team with no injuries. Or completely destroyed your team so you could only field 4 players, the odds of getting all the handicaps that could cause this were low, but they were still stupid on the whole.

anyway more feedback on the rest later

[Hitonagashi]

From what i remember, the handicap table in Lrb 4 was not half as scary as the current Inducements, so watching your TV (and/or your ratio "TV/efficiency") was not as important as it is now.

Thats not quite true. It is true that TV efficiency wasn't quite as important as you say (it still was, but in a different way, you had to develop teams in a structured way instead of skill stacking) but the handicaps were a mix bag, some were completely ineffective like Virus against a team with no injuries. Or completely destroyed your team so you could only field 4 players, the odds of getting all the handicaps that could cause this were low, but they were still stupid on the whole.

anyway more feedback on the rest later

Come now, you aren't seriously trying to tell me you *ever* got a fair matchup at 700 TR difference? . That's one of the most competitive gaps in LRB 6, but in LRB 4, 400+ was generally a complete slaughter.

I keep meaning to write a blog post on that on FUMBBL(though you aren't guilty of this). I find it extremely hypocritical, the amount of coaches who call it "min max cheese ruining the game" watching and managing TV with player skills, whereas constantly handing off with your players that were important to rookies, so they didn't get more SPP to bloat you was "just good strategy"....

[garion]

Star Players :
Kick is a very valuable against slow opponnents, and Dolfar is still a very interesting option for any elven team, even for HE (a lot of rookie HE teams can use the MA more than the AV, not to mention three bonus skills). Sure, he may have a limited use (personnaly, i only consider him for a starting elf team), but he still has a very good cost/effectivenesss ratio ; so, if you want to make him more useful, fine, but you don't need to improve his cost/efficiency ratio, in other word, if you make him better, make him more expensive as well (Star Players are meant to be expensive, for both fluff and balance reasons).

While we're at it, imho, you should rethink your changes to Htarkh and Count Luthor : there is a reason why those guys were nerfed ! Personnally, i don't like making both of them better than Morg'n'Thorg, but making them better and cheaper than him ... ?

There is no need to make him more expensive because I have dropped one skill and replaced it for another, if it makes him useable then great. I personally don't see the point in having a star player that no one in their right mind would ever take. You may take him, and thats nice to see, but I have never used him in my life and i never will, I also have never seen anyone or even heard of any one using him before. Wrestle just means he can actually function.

However I do need to re-address some of the star player costs, because I forgot to change them again after reverting to the new system of more skills/skill stack=increased cost.

I will do that today or tomorrow.

As for Hthark and Luthor, Luthor hasn't gained any extra skills he has swapped one for another. SS for Dodge, he should never have lost Dodge. He has always had it, there is no reason for him to lose it. Same goes for Hthark, he loses Jugga and gets his +st back, so there should have been a +30k increase which i may have missed? and then a further +10k for a stat increase (this is how all stars were officially priced). But yeah the stars prices will all change today or tomorrow.

Why make put them back to how they have always have been. Because I want to play my Bloodbowl which is true to the fluff, it is the most important factor in the game and I constantly feel that CRP is devoid of the rich fluff that made this game so great, another major factor that has made CRP a really bad edition imo.

Also I saw in a post somewhere you said that +Av has been removed. It hasn't?

About Norse - we have been through this and now you are repeating your self. To keep it short, the Thrower has been removed because it is just wrong that they had one, all the races in the game perfectly match their fluff except zons and the Norse throwers, they just shouldn't be in the team. There is just no reason he should be in the team at all.

About zons - again starting to go round in circles now, and yes i understnad this will always be a contentious issue, personally Zons is a team that I would rather get rid of all together, their team design has always been extremely flawed, boring, one dimension and goes against almost everythign that is written about them.

I have stayed true to the fluff to create this team, and also tried to create a team that would be worse off against everyone at low TV except dwarves and CDs who they need to better against. My other aim was to make them better long term, when competing as a high TV team against other high Tv teams, where they appear to struggle at the moment. This is not an easy thing to do at all, and from teh limited testign i have done with them it appears to be working so far, though it is still far to early to say for definate.

Your two main hang ups about the zons seem to be the av8 and the stand firm on the blitzers. So to address some of your points -

Look at all lightly armored human players in the game : they're all AV 7, even Norses (and they are reputed to be tough, probably more than 'zons). Sure there are difference between individuals, but with the current scale, it's not enough to justify an AV change for amazons player: there is no reason (fluffwise) to make all amazons blitzers so much out of the norm, especially when all norses are AV 7 (of course, i'm talking about "human" Norse).

Norse are bigger hitters, no where does it suggest they are tougher than zons or better at taking hits than zons. There are also many references to them wearing no armour. So yeah they must be quite tough to still have Av7 whilst wearing no Armour aside from helmets and loin cloths. Zons on the whole are av7 but it stands to reason that their most fearsome warriors are tougher than the average zon lino. This is not true of the Norse as their warriors are not better at taking hits, they are just harder hitting fanatical killing machine type players, perfectly happy to die fighting in a similar vein to Troll Slayers and their fluff.

Saying Dwarves should have Dodge is just being silly. Yes dodge makes them tougher to knock down, but it also gives them an ability to Dodge with more reliability, some thing that Dwarves are not meant to be able to do. Block is a perfect skill for representing this and it also fits the rest of their fluff very well.

anyway, you do make a good arguement for them having Side Step instead of stand firm and I would be happy with that as an alternative to Stand Firm, that would work as well. But Stand Firm does make sense in regards to the fluff for all the reasons I have already given, I understand what you are saying about big players having stand firm, but it also works for these players as they are the only players with St in the team. I have also started play testing them like this so I will not change them again. I think it adds a more interesting tactical element to the team than SS does and either of the skills selections fit the fluff perfectly and I personally feel that Stand Firm does more so for a player that brings the only element of Strength to the squad.

[garion]

Come now, you aren't seriously trying to tell me you *ever* got a fair matchup at 700 TR difference? . That's one of the most competitive gaps in LRB 6, but in LRB 4, 400+ was generally a complete slaughter.

No no, Im not saying that for a second. I didnt like the handicaps at all and I would not defend them and never have. Im just saying it wasn't as simple it "wasnt scary", personally i found it more scary, you know what you are facing now, back then it would either cripple you beyond belief do nothing at all, or be a very minor buff like giving the underdog an invincible player. I have played league games in LRB4 where i was a fairly big TR underdog and I got moreleys and the one where you cant play your two best players on the pitch at the same time (i forget the name) i think and my opponent was without 4 of their best players and a couple of others were out, and when you play 12 players versus 6 you have a massive advantage. So they were still a worry, but my point was you had to look after your TR still with even skill distribution instead of 4 stars the rest scrubs as so many people play now.

[Rhyoth]

Norse : the main problem is : this kind change can't make anyone happy ! So, if, as a commish, i don't want to ruin the mood in my TT league, then, before i introduce such rule in my league, i need to make sure either :
A) i have a very good and obvious reason to make this change (and my personnal interpretation of the fluff is not enough, so in this case, i'd go with option B)
OR
B) i make sure i give something substantial in return

Norse are bigger hitters, no where does it suggest they are tougher than zons or better at taking hits than zons.

And nowhere did i read the opposite, but i did read numerous quote picturing Norse as particulary resistant.

Still, in general, there is no need to try to fit so much to the fluff for a simple reason : most of the fluff was writen after the rules ! So, when those fluff quotes say Norse or Amazons blitzers, it' s just because the Authors saw that those players had Block.

Saying Dwarves should have Dodge is just being silly. .

My point exactly : i used the same logic as you when you gave SF to zons, and i ended making the same mistake :

Yes dodge makes Dwarves tougher to knock down, but it also gives them an ability to Dodge with more reliability, some thing that Dwarves are not meant to be able to do

And Stand Firm makes Amazons Blitzers better at dodging, but it also gives them an ability to be impossible to push away, some thing that Amazons are not meant to be able to do.

Also I saw in a post somewhere you said that +Av has been removed. It hasn't?

My mistake, i compared too many documents at the same time, and forgot to re-check, sorry

[garion]

Norse : the main problem is : this kind change can't make anyone happy ! So, if, as a commish, i don't want to ruin the mood in my TT league, then, before i introduce such rule in my league, i need to make sure either :
A) i have a very good and obvious reason to make this change (and my personnal interpretation of the fluff is not enough, so in this case, i'd go with option B)
OR
B) i make sure i give something substantial in return

They dont need anything substantial in return as they are already a top starter team, and I have always felt strongly that this player should not have been there in the first place. Had they removed the thrower when they did the rest of the changes as they should have, then no one would have given a toss really because the other changes are already a enough of a boost to compensate for this. Fluff is the all important thing about BB, yes the fluff may have been written after team creation, but surely that is even more reason to make sure they match which they don't.

Anyway we clearly don't agree on this point and that fine, but I for one would prefer to keep the sanctity of the fluff as it should be. When i play with lizardmen, norse, chaos etc... I want it to feel like i am actually playing with those races first and foremost, not just another non descript team.

But we have both stated our cases and I appreciate the feedback as it was constructive, but I think we should leave our discussion there, as we have both said our bit I think and I think it has run its course really.