Making sideline staff more interesting?

Got some ideas for rules? Maybe a skill change or something completely different!!! Tell us here.

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macabeo
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Making sideline staff more interesting?

Post by macabeo »

Cross post from Fumbbl.

Three things bother me about the design of the sideline staff (apart from the fact that they are not very useful):

- The first thing a new player does is creating a new team, and one of the decisions he must make is whether he wants to hire staff. BB has a steep learning curve, and this only makes it worse and may frustrate the new coach after a few games when he realizes how little they bring to the team.
- Diminishing returns.
- Because of their lack of usefulness many people don't bother to buy and paint miniatures for them (just like many people don't use referee miniatures anymore now that the eye is gone).

So here's a suggestion to make them more interesting. Sideline staff affects "Cheering Fans" and "Brilliant Coaching" as always, but also:

- 0-5 cheerleaders: Players will try to do anything to please the fans and impress the hot cheerleaders, looking forward to show their skill in spectacular plays and feats of strenght. If the team has 3 or 4 troupes of cheerleaders a player may reroll a Dauntless roll or a catch roll to catch a ball passed by a teammate once per game. If 5 troupes of cheerleaders are hired this can be done twice per game.
- 0-5 assistant coaches: While the head coach works on the great scheme of things, assistant coaches can focus on individual players so the team works as one. If the team has 3 or 4 assistant coaches, a player may reroll a Loner roll or a Pro roll in his turn once per game. If 5 assistant coaches are hired this can be done twice per game.

The choice of rerolls aims to make offensive passing plays a bit more reliable, to encourage using Big Guys more actively and to buff a bit Dauntless and Pro (not that they need it, but I think they go well with the theme).This is pretty subjective though, something along those lines could do, I guess. Also, this encourages the use of miniatures as reroll markers. Thoughts?

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Chris
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Re: Making sideline staff more interesting?

Post by Chris »

Well, there is nothing that stops your league making side line figures mandatory - so a necromancer/apoth for most teams. I always liked arguing the call so would houserule that and bring the coach model back. And change any mention of assistant coaches to head and assistant coaches. Then why not use a model for each team re-roll, have them be specialist coaches model wise and use them instead of counters?

Mechanically bar arguing the call (various mechanics as to how), you can alter fan totals (which affect fame) by saying teams can add the number of cheerleaders, coaches and fan factor to the 2D6 roll, if they have the models of course.

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Vanguard
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Re: Making sideline staff more interesting?

Post by Vanguard »

Interesting rules - first thought off the top of my head would be changing twice per game to once per half, just to make it a little bit more predictable for the opponent.

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macabeo
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Re: Making sideline staff more interesting?

Post by macabeo »

Chris wrote:Well, there is nothing that stops your league making side line figures mandatory - so a necromancer/apoth for most teams. I always liked arguing the call so would houserule that and bring the coach model back. And change any mention of assistant coaches to head and assistant coaches. Then why not use a model for each team re-roll, have them be specialist coaches model wise and use them instead of counters?
Oh, don't get me wrong, I like when people uses minis for the sideline staff and the ref because it makes the experience more inmersive and modelling and painting much more rewarding (I'd appreciate a cheerleader mini much more if she saved the day thanks to her reroll instead of just being an object of display). I wouldn't enforce the mandatory use of minis, not everybody has the time/money/skills for that.
Vanguard wrote:Interesting rules - first thought off the top of my head would be changing twice per game to once per half, just to make it a little bit more predictable for the opponent.
Fine by me :wink: It wouldn't change much.

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Fold
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Re: Making sideline staff more interesting?

Post by Fold »

I agree this is an issue. Your rules have a couple of problems though IMO. These skills and actions are quite narrow so the rules will benefit some teams more than others. The effect isn't linear either which bothers me. Having 4 assistants is not worth it here, you'd always have 3 or 5.

The basic issue is that players want to avoid TV bloat so one simple solution is to have assistant coaches and cheerleaders cost cash but not add to TV. Just that change and you'd probably see more sideline staff in use.

This also opens up the possibility of making them much better, and hiking the cost, to introduce real decision making into the process of selecting a staff. I haven't thought about how this would work in detail but it just becomes an option then to have specialist coaches that cost 20 or 30k and have a genuinely desirable impact on the game, like, say, a "defensive coach" who on a 4+ could turn a blitz into a perfect defence when receiving.

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macabeo
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Re: Making sideline staff more interesting?

Post by macabeo »

Fold wrote:I agree this is an issue. Your rules have a couple of problems though IMO. These skills and actions are quite narrow so the rules will benefit some teams more than others.
Not necessarily a bad thing as long as it's not broken. Elves are already strong and a cheerleader reroll could be a great addition to them, but apart from that I don't see great imbalances... Could you give me an example?
Fold wrote:The effect isn't linear either which bothers me. Having 4 assistants is not worth it here, you'd always have 3 or 5.
It is not linear to counter the diminishing returns of their effect both for the kick off table and the rerolls. Failing a Loner roll once per game is more probable than failing two, so having two rerolls specific for that is less cost effective. Although yeah, that makes exactly 4 a bad option.
Fold wrote:The basic issue is that players want to avoid TV bloat so one simple solution is to have assistant coaches and cheerleaders cost cash but not add to TV. Just that change and you'd probably see more sideline staff in use.
Money is not an issue for many teams, they would just buy a bunch of them with no drawbacks.
Fold wrote:This also opens up the possibility of making them much better, and hiking the cost, to introduce real decision making into the process of selecting a staff. I haven't thought about how this would work in detail but it just becomes an option then to have specialist coaches that cost 20 or 30k and have a genuinely desirable impact on the game, like, say, a "defensive coach" who on a 4+ could turn a blitz into a perfect defence when receiving.
Maybe, but this may be a bit too complex and hard to balance for an already complex game.

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