Taking Back Blood Bowl

[frogboy]

But GW still own this game and so far haven't exploded the world and flooded the BloodBowl pitch with fantasy space marines, plus they are about to re-release the game.

Not sure this game needs to be "taken back" it's still the same game we've played for years essentially.

[GalakStarscraper]

GalakStarscraper. You clearly know your stuff

It was the consolation prize that comes from spending 3000 volunteer hours modifying, proofreading, editing and re-doing the layout every page of the rulebook for GW.

[frogboy]

Effectively the game has already been taken back, is a more clearer example of what I was trying to say. When The 9th Age came out it was because GW drastically changed the game so it was unrecognisable to the current fan base. The 9th Age is essentially the same game as Warhammer 8th edition with all the rules ironed out and all them 1000s of games discussed etc and put right, it's what 9th edition would have/should have looked like. GW dropped it so the fans picked it up, but it's still the same game.

You can go and find other examples of this on the internet, haven't been there for a while but, specialist arms forum had done a similar thing to the BFG rules for example.

This has already happened to BloodBowl. With the LRB, after which GW picked it back up (this was days they had play testers and communicated with some of the community) they then released CRP, this was when they were still selling the models and had the specialist games tab on their Web site.

This is how I remember it, although Garlekstarscrapper and the others will have a better record of what happened. The point is and that which others have made is there will never be a GW "official" rules committee again. The rules have already been fixed so unless GW destroy the game as we know it then I expect people to continue to follow the rules we have, this is because they are official rules and there can be little argument in the interpretation of them.

It won't stop you from playing unofficial teams in your own leagues etc or use house rules. Fumbbl is a great example of both these things as well as following the official rules in other leagues and divisions.

Waffling now...

[Bakunin]

1) Because people are not all game designers.

Choosing to have Daemons of khorne, Bretonnia etc to be ranked team is not a 'game designer' question. It would be easy to have a vote on just these two teams, but not having one, really do make the NAF seems like a old boys club.

2) Because many people have dumb ideas.

4) Because people can have self-interest, prejudices, or be open to manipulation.

Like the BBRC? The story goes that they where a bunch of power-gamers that did't want anybody to touch their WE. (Only by the hard work of Galak, where they nerfed a bit - Thanks). If this is correct, the BBRC was a failed process in some regards....



Fine. . . but dont kind yourself that the NAF is democratic. Anyways' since my idea of a democratic NAF is being compared to Trump of all things, I find justification in calling the BB community waaay conservativ.

[Deus Magi]

GalakStarscraper. You clearly know your stuff

It was the consolation prize that comes from spending 3000 volunteer hours modifying, proofreading, editing and re-doing the layout every page of the rulebook for GW.

I bow down to that greatness and utter dedication. I also back away slightly first, before bowing down, due to the possible madness!

But seriously, thank you for that.

[Regash]

When The 9th Age came out it was because GW drastically changed the game so it was unrecognisable to the current fan base. The 9th Age is essentially the same game as Warhammer 8th edition with all the rules ironed out

This reminds me of the Pathfinder RPG.
When they f**ked up D&D with 4th Ed., some fans kept the 3.5 rules and made new products, calling it Pathfinder.
And boy, was that successful!
From what I've heard, Pathfinder not only took a huge share of the D&D market, it also is selling way better than the original.

Basically, doing the same with Blood Bowl would mean to stay true to the classic game.
And still, this would take a lot of effort, time, money and work.
You'd actually had to release not only rules but a boxed set and miniatures.

And I'm pretty sure GW would sue the crap outta you!

[Darkson]

4) Because people can have self-interest, prejudices, or be open to manipulation.

Like the BBRC? The story goes that they where a bunch of power-gamers that did't want anybody to touch their WE. (Only by the hard work of Galak, where they nerfed a bit - Thanks). If this is correct, the BBRC was a failed process in some regards....

The "story" is a load of BS told by people that don't have a clue and are prone to passing misinformation as gospel.

[Wifflebat]

Choosing to have Daemons of khorne, Bretonnia etc to be ranked team is not a 'game designer' question. It would be easy to have a vote on just these two teams, but not having one, really do make the NAF seems like a old boys club.

As I implied, I agree that including the new teams from Cyanide deserves consideration, and perhaps even a vote someday. I think that the NAF would admit to being conservative regarding what is, from a certain perspective, a "rules change." (From another perspective, I think it could be considered to be simply a change to what the NAF sanctions, and as such could be voted on without setting untenable precedents).

That said, I stick by the idea that the fact that the majority of people want a thing does not make it a good thing. The majority of people might well, for example, vote to change the interception rule because "it doesn't make sense," not considering that the rule is that way for a reason, and in fact, deliberately included in the rules in its current state even knowing that people might find it odd.

I'd be interested in the results of a poll on the Cyanide teams. I think we'll maybe see such a poll from the NAF before too long.

[Darkson]

There is a poll on the Khorne team on here (somewhere) and the majority of voters didn't want it.

There is also a poll on a Bret team (not the one Cyanide use, but the roster it was based off) and that was also voted against by the majority of those that voted.

[Bakunin]

The "story" is a load of BS told by people that don't have a clue and are prone to passing misinformation as gospel.

I only know what I heard. But okay, what as the real story?
For the question then becomes, why wasn't the WE nerfed more?
Why wasn't the more 'fun' and probably better "break tackle khemri" roster chosen? etc.

[ddancer]

The "story" is a load of BS told by people that don't have a clue and are prone to passing misinformation as gospel.

I only know what I heard. But okay, what as the real story?
For the question then becomes, why wasn't the WE nerfed more?
Why wasn't the more 'fun' and probably better "break tackle khemri" roster chosen? etc.

Why are you worried about Wood Elves being nerfed or overpowered? They are a team that is beatable.

[Bakunin]

The "story" is a load of BS told by people that don't have a clue and are prone to passing misinformation as gospel.

I only know what I heard. But okay, what as the real story?
For the question then becomes, why wasn't the WE nerfed more?
Why wasn't the more 'fun' and probably better "break tackle khemri" roster chosen? etc.

Why are you worried about Wood Elves being nerfed or overpowered? They are a team that is beatable.

Yes they are not broken, but I think they are overpowered and I dont find that to be 'fun'.

[GalakStarscraper]

The "story" is a load of BS told by people that don't have a clue and are prone to passing misinformation as gospel.

I only know what I heard. But okay, what as the real story?
For the question then becomes, why wasn't the WE nerfed more?
Why wasn't the more 'fun' and probably better "break tackle khemri" roster chosen? etc.

The only other WE nerf that was ever proposed beyond the change we made to the catcher was to remove the Tree from the team. %wise the team was just above where we wanted it to perform and the final vote was that nerfing the catcher should do enough to get the team down to a 55% win rate. Babs did fight viciously to keep the Tree on the team for flavor not power reasons and Babs is a loooonnnggg way from being a power gamer. Because of their abilities maybe Chet, JKL, Paul or Ian might get that accusation but I did not at any time see a BBRC decision to create rules to help with power gaming. The BBRC developed Tier goals for the rewrite to CRP and that is what we focused on. Tier 1 55%-45% / 1.5 50% to 40% / 2 45%-35% / 3 35% to 30% Given that these tier % were a key focus for us to reach (and a lot of the stats show we did nail those pretty darn closely even these years later) ... it is difficult to prove evidence of power gaming decision made by the BBRC to keep in their items.

As for the Khemri ... what you see with the Khemri team was the one example of a deadlocked jury. All BBRC members agreed the Khemri team needed altered. We just could not find consensus on how to do it. ALL BBRC members had their OWN idea on how it should be fixed. It was literally a case of each idea getting one vote. The rules of the BBRC per Jevis required ALL BBRC to vote yes on a rule change for it to become official. So since we all agreed something really needed to be done we had to spend a long time in discussion to come to a compromise that all members would be willing to agree to. The current Khemri team is that result. The side effect of this is that all BBRC members will tell you that they are not happy with the Khemri team but what you don't realize is that if you dug into that you'd see that each person had a different result they wanted. So it is not that the Break Tackle team was wanted by a majority and got killed somehow .. it was the one topic that the BBRC members could not through debate and discussion win over the majority to their 1st choice.

That would be my feedback. Whoever told you the BBRC were a group of power gamers was clueless. Jervis personally invited each person on the BBRC ... these were not gamers who went to him ... he picked them from what he saw in the forums about their ability to rationally discuss rules and a desire to make the game better. I did not witness anyone trying to make the game more power gamer friendly for them. Such accusations were common (I was frequently accused of overpowering Halflings) ... but definitely had no evidence to support them being real.

I want to be very clear so I saved this for my final sentence:

The BBRC was the opposite of a "failed experiment". In my opinion it was the one of the very few times I've seen GW get something right.

[Regash]

I was frequently accused of overpowering Halflings

Does that mean that I, losing every game with 'flings, suck THAT much at Blood Bowl?
I can't even win with an overpowered team?

Oh god, I need to look for another game to play...

[GalakStarscraper]

I was frequently accused of overpowering Halflings

Does that mean that I, losing every game with 'flings, suck THAT much at Blood Bowl?
I can't even win with an overpowered team?

Oh god, I need to look for another game to play...

No good sir ... what you are seeing is that I was trying to very hard to avoid letting my personal interests effect the game that the team was keep down pretty much during the process.