Rosters in advance....

[Itchen Masack]

I would like rosters to be checked pre-tourney as standard, although i understand this adds loads of work to the organisers.

There are many inexperienced coaches, many slow coaches, and at least 1 very lazy coach (me!) which are highly likely to allow mistakes in rosters pass them by.

Once I turned up to the Welsh Open with about 150k extra on my roster, and if it wasnt for Dionysian being (thankfully) nosey, i almost certainly would have accidentally cheated that day.

[montanhas18]

To be clear... I pre-check rosters in Bloodbowl because I'm new to BB TO, and in all other systems I "worked" in before, we always pre-checked. It's very common around here (Portugal) that when I tried to run a BB Sevens tournament and said "I'm not checking lists beforehand" a few players asked me if I was throwing a hissy fit or something

Another small reason I just thought of... in tournaments with extra skills... let's me decide the full colour range for skills (for the elastic bands I hand out at the tournament) beforehand.

We also have a lot of new players and it really helps them out. Saying "Don't worry, send me the list, if there's any mistakes I'll guide you through it" works when you're trying to get them to sign up for "World Cup training - Day 3" tournaments...

[Tojurub]

Requesting rosters in advance could also put coaches off coming.
.... I dont know if I can go to a tourney until Saturday morning. I may have been able to make Foul Bowl, but as you, Jip, want rosters in advance I'm automatically out.

So far I'm not convinced rosters are needed in advance, for the majority of the time.

I have been asking for rosters in advance for 5 years now. That is because my rule set asks for two specialties: a) the first round swiss based on NAF ranking, and b) I record every SPP during the event (except MVP) to find the best player (not coach!!!). I use a special Excel roster where people can add their skills and I also print the rosters on the day of the event as score sheets. I would never turn down a coach if she shows up at the last minute as long there are spaces left, then I would just put him on my laptop and create one/copy paste his and go from there.

The organizers I know from around here are also asking for rosters in advance for several years now, just because it makes the check-in on the tourney date more relaxing and detect errors in advance. It happened quite to often that people did some last minute roster changes, which happened to cause the roster to be illegal according to th rulesset (accidently). But also, I never heard about a TO rejecting a short-term-notice coach (except the above case)...

I'd say asking for rosters in advance is in general not needed per se, unless you have a more complex ruleset, which basically asks for mistakes, but I would say it is a nice to have feature which makes (in general) the live of the TO a bit easier.

[RoterSternHochdahl]

To expand my question; why are TO's suddenly doing it now (for a given value of now as I've only really noticed a this happening a lot recently)?
What's changed?

The answer you are looking for is cloud computing

[lunchmoney]

What's cloud computing got to do with it?

[RoterSternHochdahl]

It simplifies collection of the rosters, but more importantly it helps implementing all those little features in running a tournament like putting rosters online in advance and similar stuff, paper free tournaments eventually. "Mobile internet" would have been more specific here as a catch-word but cloud apps are the key to make it practical for most people who do not earn their money in IT.

[lunchmoney]

It simplifies collection of the rosters, .

But what I'm saying is, in general, there is no need to collect rosters.

[Jip]

Most (all?) of the responses so far seem to differ with that opinion though, don’t they.

[lunchmoney]

Sure, and everyone is allowed to have an opinion.
However, I'm still not convinced that it is needed, in the majority of cases. No one has presented a case that persuades me that I would need to ask for rosters in advance. I have one tourney left that I'm running, I don't need or want rosters in advance and I'm not likely to ask for them should I run another.
Unless someone comes up with a compelling reason?

[fromherashes]

Sure, and everyone is allowed to have an opinion.
However, I'm still not convinced that it is needed, in the majority of cases. No one has presented a case that persuades me that I would need to ask for rosters in advance. I have one tourney left that I'm running, I don't need or want rosters in advance and I'm not likely to ask for them should I run another.
Unless someone comes up with a compelling reason?

So you don’t think looking at meta data is valuable in shaping future rules packs?

[lunchmoney]

So you don’t think looking at meta data is valuable in shaping future rules packs?

No need to do it in advance.
If you are a TO who wants to review all that info you can collect it on the day.

[fromherashes]

So you don’t think looking at meta data is valuable in shaping future rules packs?

No need to do it in advance.
If you are a TO who wants to review all that info you can collect it on the day.

It’s immeasurably easier to do it with digital files than it’s is to do from someone’s chicken scratch handwriting...

[lunchmoney]

It’s immeasurably easier to do it with digital files than it’s is to do from someone’s chicken scratch handwriting...

But you still dont need it in advance for your meta review.
Sorry, you have not convinced me either.

[Jip]

Being able to check them in advance just means your players can turn up and start rolling dice without any danger (assuming the TO has vetted them properly) of illegal rosters giving people a bad experience. That’s as simple as it needs to be.

There’s no way of knowing what has (or will continue to...) happened at your own tournaments with regards to players using illegal rosters (either inadvertently, or on purpose) if you don’t take ownership of checking them. It’s easy to say I don’t check rosters and there’s no roster issues at my tournament, because you wouldn’t ever know. Ignorance is bliss.

Doing it on the day means players have to stand around waiting for you to go through every roster, which impacts their experience at the cost of your own (less work for you in advance).

Asking them to check each other’s risks newer or returning players not spotting mistakes, or potential confrontation if someone has to openly challenge another player directly; particularly those that struggle with anxiety, don’t want to make a big deal, or just don’t see it as their job to manage players (which it isn’t).

I’m new to running tournaments, but I’m too worried about the player experience to just leave it to chance, or everyone else, to be responsible for the outcome of something I’ve taken peoples money and time for.

Not sure what you’re looking to be convinced about. It’s as simple as ownership; who is responsible for roster ‘purity’ (and, as a result, the player experience) at your tournaments - you, as the organiser, or your customers?

*you refers to the royal ‘you’, not you in particular, Al, as I’m sure others probably share your views, though based on the replies so far, they’ve not found this thread yet.

[lunchmoney]

It appears I'm in a minority, but that doesnt matter really as I've retired from TO'ing.
The only issue for me is TOs asking me for a roster in advance, especially if every TO starts doing it, as I cant commit until late, these days, so wont be going to any tourneys anymore. One wonders how many others make the same decision but remain silent on it?