I'd appreciate it if you looked over these stadium rules.

[Cervidal]

Remember that any effect to armor, especially if you want the effect to only go against players failing dodges and GFI's, means that you're going to hammer on agility teams (or boost, in the case of Lush Turf) pretty badly. Orcs, Dwarves, and Chaos aren't going to be rolling too many dodges and thus will be the least affected.

Any stadium additions probably shouldn't mess directly with injuries or armor. I DO really like the suggestion of a few more effects for lower end stadiums. Something like...

Hooligans - Fans are notoriously rowdy at this stadium and often take out their enthusiasm on the players. Any injury sustained by a player pushed out of bounds adds 1 to the die roll.

Cheap Fans - the winner does not get the usual +1 bonus to his/her winnings as the fans are notoriously cheap and often sneak food of their own into the stadium, hurting sales of Bloodweiser and McMurty burgers.

Bigoted Fans - The fans from this run down burg easily anger when a team is flashy about its wealth. They would rather see their ratty local team pound the daylights out of bigger teams. Whichever team has a lower team rating gains +2 for all FF rolls throughout the match.

[Anthony_TBBF]

Instead of adding +1 to Injury on Astrogranite and -1 on Lush Turf, how about making a KO occur on a 7-8 for Astrogranite and a 9 only on Lush Turf?

[Pink Horror]

You mean KOs on 7-9 for Astrogranite, right?



Pink Horror

[DaImp]

I think these rules have great potential and add an element of the history and reality of the Warhammer world into Blood Bowl. I am gonna use them in my league (with a few minor adjustments) and see how they turn out.

I think the effects of the stadiums should be kept to a minimum. What they should add is character and atmosphere to the game.

[DaImp]

the way I read the rules, astrogranite results in a KO on a roll of 7-8 and a serious injury on 9-12 / soft turf results in a KO on a 9-10 and a serious injury on 11-12.

[Lucien Swift]

i think sticking to roll modifiers as opposed to table rewrites is a better solution just because it's easier to remember and impliment...

[TiMuN]

neo .. that's quite a nice bunch of rules, and it really adds up colour and flavor .. but i guess it really needs some serious texting and twisting.

.. i did some minimal checks of my last 4 matches, and conssidering they were all in the 47,001-53,000 and the 53,001-59,000 ranges i noted chances were to play in these fields:

4 Mountains
2 Artic
2 Lush Turf
1 Jungle
1 Desert
1 Coastal
1 Underground

So the thing is, my matches are likely to had been played at Mountains (4/10), which makes the teams not nice passing abilities, and there could be ice storms and all .. (That's ok for my Chaos Dwarves), Artic places (2/10) and Lush Turfs (2/10) which by the way make my chaos dwarves 10AV ..

Apart from that, i would specify chaos dwarves don't fall over on quakes too, and give some more advantages to underground races at these types of fields.

hope you make it through next October!

[DaImp]

A modifier to the existing weather table would be easier, but I think the addition of new tables allows for more varied weather conditions according to the region. This adds colour to the games and is IMO worth the extra rules. A +1 to the 2d6 roll on the weather table is just not as engaging to me.

[Acerak]

Nice article, John. Here are my observations:

1. There are too many stadiums. The random angle is ok, but I notice that there's still a stadium for every 1,000 fans, roughly, just like the last draft. I think a more open article would be easier for each league to adapt. So each range rule should be something like this:

1-3 - Stadium in this band
4-5 - Better stadium in this band
6 - Stadium one band up

Then expand the band ranges for every 20,000 fans, just like the Gate table. So you might have something like this:

0-20,000 Fans?
1-3: Green Acres stadium
4-5: Grom Stadium (or some Goblin-style stadium)
6: Red Eye Stadium

20,001 - 40,000 Fans?
1-3: Red Eye Stadium (from 6 result on previous chart)
4-5: Hidden Arena
6: Ariel Dome

40,001 - 60,000 Fans?
1-3: Ariel Dome (from 6 result on previous chart)
4-5: Naggarond Arena
6: Orcidas Arena

Etc. Note that I've just pulled names at random moving up the chain. This would cut down on the number of pre-defined stadiums used in the table.

2. Eliminate the racial exceptions to weather. Undead shouldn't be affected by anything by this logic, yet they're immune to Arid Heat and vulnerable to Sweltering Heat.

3. Encourage coaches to drum up the results to be more in tune with their league structure. For example, a team comprised mostly of Dwarf teams might play in more Dwarf stadia and fewer Orc venues. They can tilt the arena lists in such a fashion, using the 1-3/4-5/6-from-previous-table formula.

4. Don't discard your other stadium configurations! Present them as options for leagues who want to use different arenas, or leagues who want a particular racial flavor.

5. Similarly, present the Stadium Options (Lush Turf, Bad Officials, etc.) even if you don't use all of them in your original list. (I imagine you would, but even if you didn't, don't discard them!)

6. Finally, lay out some guidelines for configuring your own stadium rules. For example, you might suggest that leagues not combine Dome and Arid Heat - though it might be possible in an underground Khemri mausoleum!

Anyway, that's my input. I think the stadium rules would have more room and more flow if presented in this fashion.

-Chet

[neoliminal]

1. There are too many stadiums. The random angle is ok, but I notice that there's still a stadium for every 1,000 fans, roughly, just like the last draft. I think a more open article would be easier for each league to adapt. So each range rule should be something like this:

Do other people think there are too many stadiums on the list? Would you prefer less stadiums or perhaps a series of tables that gave you the type of stadium you were playing at without the location?

(Chet, there are so many stadiums because there are so many in the game world. If you look at the map in BB, you'll see I've mapped them nearly 1 for 1, with a couple added from flavour text.)

[Lucien Swift]

i think the names of the stadiums and locations are useful as article fluff and fallback for players... however, i'd expect that if i used this in a league, i'd rename them all for local flavor...

names and locations are purely cosmetic, what matters is the game effects...

i think chet is onto something with the idea of ranking stadia and their effects on availability in a band... i think you might want to rank the climate and upgrades and develop a formula that'll give you a stadium index (even if you don't divulge this to us), then, and you'll probably need fewer attendence bands to do this right, have every attendence band have a pattern like:

d6: 1 - lower quality stadium
2-5 - stadiums from this index level
6 stadium from teh next level up

i'm a big fan of enforced patterns and conformity...

[High & Mighty]

The size of the list is pretty overwhelming at first, but you'd only be rolling for it once per game (no kick-off result of Change Stadium), and the benefit of having the variety is you'd likely really feel the progression as teams advance in terms of better arenas. Not any more overwhelming than the 36 options on the handicap table...

But if you wanted to simplify it, you could have a d8 to determine the region (which then determines which specialized weather table you roll on), and then d8 to determine what kind of facilities there are, with some negative modifiers based on gate so low gate still equals poor facilities.

And could we see a new handicap roll where the coach gets to pick the stadium?

[Thadrin]

Yeah. You want coaches to agree on a location - this can be determined by each coach choosing an environment from a list and then the two dicing off, then determine gate and have a table like Chet proposed. Its a lot of dice rolling, but its fairly straightforward and would add a lot of atmosphere.

The only problem is that its getting a bit AD&D/Rolemaster with all these tables....

[Anthony_TBBF]

You mean KOs on 7-9 for Astrogranite, right?

Doh, yes that is what I meant.

[Lucien Swift]

personally, i think the weather tables may be a bit too dramatic, and have a bit too much effect on the game... just because the original table had a lot of effects and some pretty dominant ones, doesn't mean a new approch needs to include either that table or that design philosophy...

instead, consider making each environment, with the exception of dome, include at most 1 severe effect and more likely 2-3 minor effects. dramatic weather is still a possibility, but it is not a given in every climate...

temperate, for example, could be pared down to very sunny, nice, and pouring rain... blizzard moves to cold climate, heat wave to desert and jungle... etc...

the majority of stadia should be in climates that are temperate, the second most should be in weather bands 1-degree away, thus, those with the option of 1 sever effect, and then a very few should be in the harsh climates where there might be a possibility of 2 severe effects and minor effects are most common...

i also like the idea of coaches agreeing on a region, then rolling for stadia.... coaches agreeing on the old world could end up with anything from the blustery north coast to the warm southern beaches... coaches playing in lustria might get jungle, mountain, coastal, etc... you'd have to dice for region choice if there isn't initial agreement, i suppose... and these regions would also be written up initially as glabal in an article context, but could be renamed and adjusted quite easilly to local leagues (or a local league could exclude this step and declare all games take place in a given region... a lustria-based league, for example... which is kind of a cool possibility...)

this, of course, reflects my opinion that weather should play less and less of a roll in the game... it also keeps us from having those ridiculous games where a blizard gives way to a heat wave...