Mid-Season one offs? good or bad?

risu · Post by **risu** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 5:25 am

Hello all have to say this is a great resource. Found lots of little things I had overlooked. Okay enough butt kissing on to the question...

We're getting ready to run our second season at a local store. We've grown from six teams to twelve teams. Five of the six will returning with one player retiring his team for a new one.

We have fourteen week season planned and I was planning on between week 7 and 8 running three tournaments.
1) Mithril Spike - this would be run just like listed in book between the top two rated teams. Not win/loss just team rating. All results except win loss counted for season. Obviously this will be biased towards the returning teams but 7 games is enough for a young team to get lucky I think

2)Halfling Medic Cup - (my own poor stillborn idea) The two worst teams (as thats all they can convince to show up) are invited by the Halflings to help participate in their medical final exam. The game is played as normal except any serious or dead results or ignored after the game. Win/loss not counted for season but SPP's, money are.

3)Chaos Cup - Four of the remaining 8 teams are randomly invited to the choas cup tournament. They have one week to play the three games or else no one wins the cup. All results stand except win/loss for season.

Okay that lets 8 of the 12 teams play in games during the mid-season break and can help boot strap some teams or may reinforce existing strong ones.

What are your guys thoughts?

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 6:22 am

The first one is an obvious attempt at making the existing teams unreachable. There's no way that a new team can match the old ones in team rating. I don't like the concept of deviding teams in terms of TR either. It makes it appear that those teams are the best, when there's no reason that this should be the case. TR is not an indication of a good team, just of having played long or having been lucky with the winnings.

The second one seems to be an attempt at helping the new teams to catch up. It has the unfortunate effect of making the teams WANT to be last, just so they could participate in it.

The 3rd one is way too random and will leave the remaining coaches complaining because they didn't get picked up.

All in all, good creativity, but poor league balance.

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 9:43 am

I don't really understand what you are trying to achieve.

If you want your coaches to have a break then why not make them play different teams (e.g. pub league/goblin league) for a bit of light hearted entertainment or maybe death bowl or dungeon bowl.

If you want to try to balance the league then let the new teams play extra games but make the experienced teams sit it out (not necessarily the coaches though).

Zombie is right about the new teams - they will not catch up in 7 games. Their growth will be slightly slower than normal as the experienced teams should be able to beat them and cause more casualties.

Ian

risu · Post by **risu** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 7:25 pm

Okay I'll try to defend a bit of the thinking...

For the first one, yes it will be probably the top two returning teams. Yes it will push them even higher. However we have played a few matches with the current teams versus new teams to give the new players a chance to see what they are up against. The handicaps were killing the returning players. I alone give the new players 4 rolls and their choice of handicap.
In games with just one good handicap I have seen teams given a run for their money. Then factor in the fact that it will most likely be the two teams that will go on to the final later that year and do I really want to subject my team to basically a bloodbowl at midseason with 7 more games to go? Yeah the benefits are great but the potential for gimping my team with injuries is great as well.

For the halfling one, that has already become a joke as we try to picture what teams will most likely end up in mix for it. Some coaches are saying that they would be embarrassed to even receive the invitation. As to coaches that would gimp their team to get into it...why? Would you take two losses just to get an extra game where you only get it cause your the worst team in the league? I also like it cause if there is a team that is dead last with no hope of getting back into the mix then a game like this can help keep him into the league and prevent flakiness from setting in.

As for the third, yea that is just an attempt to keep the other coaches from crying no fair, I admit it. I really have no justification for it except it's already been discussed and is popular with the coaches.

Reasons for doing it at all would be that it's an interesting break for the season and something to look forward to till playoffs start. Most of the new coaches are already resigned to the fact that they are going to lose to the established teams but they look forward to beating up on each other in the proccess.

I appreciate the feedback guys and will talk it over with my league.

Skummy · Post by **Skummy** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 7:44 pm

As a quick aside, our league has a fairly unique way of dealing with coaches who want to play unscheduled matches. Every coach in our league is allowed two minor league teams that can play up to 1/2 the number of games that were scheduled for whatever tournament we are running at the time. This lets teams get some games under their belts before they are promoted up to the majors. The only limit we put on minor league teams is that they are at an additional -1 on money rolls.

This generally lets people play as much or as little Blood Bowl as they would like in one season.

Post by **Dave** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 11:45 pm

We play a rather organized league (10 teams), a lot like normal football (SOCCER) leagues. We play the cup during the season, devided in the usual rounds with some league matches in between. The Cup Final closes of the season just before the Play Offs (top 2 teams)

We had the funny thing that, just like in football cups, the underdogs seem to win a lot of their cup matches. Due to handicap or because it just happens to be their first victory that year ('Flings)

This makes the Cup rather more interesting and funnier besides too!!

gallowin · Post by **gallowin** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 12:23 am

Risu, why don't you play a pre-season with the new teams so that they can get some games under their belt and knock some of the rust off??

We usually take a break between seasons and this time I'm running a small "exhibition" series of games for new teams only. New players can get an experienced team up and ready, experimental teams can be tested, and hard core players won't have to wait until the next season to get their fix on.

Zombie · Post by **Zombie** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 12:30 am

risu wrote:Then factor in the fact that it will most likely be the two teams that will go on to the final later that year

No it won't. Like i said, TR doesn't tell you how good a team is, only how much it's worth. The two teams with the highest TR probably aren't the best two teams.

risu wrote:Would you take two losses just to get an extra game where you only get it cause your the worst team in the league?

Yes.

risu wrote:As for the third, yea that is just an attempt to keep the other coaches from crying no fair, I admit it.

If that's what it is, then it will fail for sure. Some teams are not invited, and it's decided randomly. You can be sure that the teams that won't get a lucky pick will be shouting their hearts out.

risu wrote:Reasons for doing it at all would be that it's an interesting break for the season and something to look forward to till playoffs start. Most of the new coaches are already resigned to the fact that they are going to lose to the established teams but they look forward to beating up on each other in the proccess.

Then i suggest you consider:

1. Dividing the season into two separate seasons so that people don't need to wait as long before they see some play off action.
2. Leaving two "wild card" spots for new teams in the play offs, so that you ensure that at least two new teams will be there. This gives them something to look forward to.

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 9:40 am

risu wrote:The handicaps were killing the returning players.

This is surprising as we haven't really seen the handicap rolls provide enough extra for the lower ranked teams to be competitive. In my league the top four teams on TR are the top 4 in the league after playing ~7 games (3 new teams and 2 badly damaged ones make up the rest).

Admittedly we haven't had too many games where the difference was over 100.

Ian

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 10:57 am

ianwilliams wrote:
risu wrote:The handicaps were killing the returning players.
This is surprising as we haven't really seen the handicap rolls provide enough extra for the lower ranked teams to be competitive. In my league the top four teams on TR are the top 4 in the league after playing ~7 games (3 new teams and 2 badly damaged ones make up the rest).

Admittedly we haven't had too many games where the difference was over 100.

Ian

You missed this bit mate:
"I alone give the new players 4 rolls and their choice of handicap."

Post by **DoubleSkulls** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 11:59 am

Deathwing wrote: You missed this bit mate:
"I alone give the new players 4 rolls and their choice of handicap."

Hence the sentence about differences over 100

Ian

Joaquim · Post by **Joaquim** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 12:21 pm

You can try to make a small league just for starting teams, the "old" coaches allowed, but with rockie teams... that way new teams and coaches get some games, and you start to know them better - perhaps one or two will quit the league - it's better now than later....

Our league is also soccer type... and I'm thinking of making the cup a experimental thing... one season you can have the "Kicking Cup", in wich we'll try the kicking rules (wich I deslike, even if untried...)...

One thing great about cups and play-offs is that Star PLayers can appear, as with this rules they just don't show up in «normal» league games....

Joaquim

Deathwing · Post by **Deathwing** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 1:17 pm

ianwilliams wrote:
Deathwing wrote: You missed this bit mate:
"I alone give the new players 4 rolls and their choice of handicap."
Hence the sentence about differences over 100

Ian

Ah, I read it as ' if a new player takes on a returning payer, he can choose any 4 handicap table results, irrespective of TR'.

Post by **Dave** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 10:33 pm

We found that the 100 TR difference doesn't reflect the difference between (if you will) the cost of the team.

The difference between a 100 and a 200 TR team is much (much, much) bigger than that between a 250 and 350 team.

This is why we use the TR difference as a ratio

In the example above the TR 100 team would get 4 Handicap rolls and would be allowed to choose 1

The TR 250 team would only get 2 xtra rolls (ratio is 250 : 350 = 1 : 1.4)

this works rather well in our opinion.

Perhaps this belongs in the house rule part, but it feels OK here