Talk Fantasy Football

Hello,
I will be starting a blood bowl league through a hobby store in my area within the Month. I hope to have between 12-16 players for the first season.
I was wondering what people use at their basic rules for the league? I was going to have it run 2 to 3 months. Have players play whoever they wished in the league that they could schedule time with. Have a mim of 5 games and maybe max of 8 games. I don’t know if it is crucial to force players to play the same number or not.
Then I was either going to go off of win % or team rating for a playoff games.. 8 person tourney if I get close to 16 or just a 4 player semi and final if I get close to 12 people.

How you determine who goes to the tourney? Team rating or winning percentage? And if so, do you make it same amount of teams.

I am not worried about stuff like which teams to use or house rules as we are working that out.

The best way to do it would be to run it straight from the Rule Book for the first season and then get the other coaches input before you change anything for the next time.

With 12-16 coaches I would put the cap at around 10-12 games and then use the formula from the LRB to allow the top 8 to go to the Tournament. (I suggest Quarter Finals in addition to the Semi Finals and the Blood Bowl that the book lists because it allows more players to feel good about their sucky season). My league always had fun having the 2 lowest ranked teams play a Loser Bowl. Don't offend them or cause bad feelings but if they seem ok with it then do it!

It's not crucial that teams play the same number of games but what you should do is put a minimum number games to be eligable for the Tournament. The LRB formula is a good one to start with. Just go right from the book to please everyone and once you all know each other then tweak the rules.

I would go with the LRB if you favor an open season, which I think you do from your post. Not only does it go with the fluff (and gives you some sense of authenticity, for what that's worth) but it is really flexible. Another idea is to check out Galak's chess system (which I strongly urge). It has worked prettly seamlessly. I doubt I would suggest relying completely on team rating, because team rating is an artificial way of measuring team strength, depending largely on the amount of money in your coffers and the value of your side.

the rules for league have a sort of system set up for the end with picking the top 3 games for playoff reasons.

do you think its makes more sense if we have a limit of say.. 10 games.. and max of 12.. but just add up scores for the top 10 games for playoff spots?

10-12 games is a long season, I believe. Are you sure you want such a long campaign? Assuming you've 12-16 players, I wonder the turnout from week to week. Assuming you lose a few every week to conflicts, and then 1 or 2 that drop out, I wonder if the season won't be extended much further than the 2-3 months that you anticipate. You might cut the regular season down to 5 or 6 and apply the living rule book system, or Galak's. Then, if you apply the open season, coaches that want to play more can, but others who can't quite meet the 10-12 game commitment won't believe they are automatically handicapped by their extenuating circumstances.

i'm just trying to figure out how many weeks or the miminal amount of games there should be. You did bring up a good point about not wanting to go to long and having people drop out and such..

lawquoter wrote: Another idea is to check out Galak's chess system (which I strongly urge). It has worked prettly seamlessly.

also where do i find this? it sounds interesting as a couple people have mentioned it now.

I just started a league at my local GW store, and here's what I'm doing.

Open league format, maybe with a tourney at the end (they're offering prizes if enough people join).

Inspired a bit by SkiJunkie's java client, there are no wizards or star players allowed.

We're also trying out the 3 new undead teams, even though I know a lot of people around here are against some of them.

Mostly though, it's straight out of the LRB.

-Zergo

If I were you I'd have 4 weeks of open play. Maximum of 10 games and a minimum of 4. That way you have to play at least one game per week to make it to the quater finals. Then do the quarter finals and semi finals one weekend and the final and the loser bowl the next.

Oops, sorry carnage, might actually help more if you saw it. You can find it at www.midgardbb.com/MBBL2/LeaguePoints.html
It is really nice and simple formula, and I think it will work perfectly for what you want to do.

In my league we are using the chess rating system for the league title. We run a long term league with shorter tournaments thrown in - like a direct knock out (FA CUP) style tournament and a standard open play tournament. The winners of the 2 cups and the top 4 from the League get to play in the Blood Bowl which will be a weekend long play-off.

Thanks for the link to the website about the chess style. I am going to hopefully demo blood bowl here once more and see how many players will be playing. I figure from the looks at it. We will have about 7 to 8 players that have played before and possible 3 to 4 new players to the game.

we will be sponsered through the local game store here, so that should help nicely they are even going to offer prizes and such for us.

No problem. Have a great season, and let us all know how it went.

That "Chess" system looks very good . . . but what happens if the teams tie? (Due to time restraints, we often have to call a tie game at the end of regulation . . . a tie.)

So (since I know that ties happen in chess as well) what happens with a tie?

I don't know what the official points system for a tie is when using the chess points scoring rules, but I added a tied column to the chess points scoring systtem I use in my league which is basically 0 points for a tie between equally rated teams and then +1 point for the lower rated team and -1 point for the higher rated team in the next bracket, +2/-2 in the next bracket, +3/-3 in the next bracket etc... so a draw is really not a great outcome for any team - which I like as it encourages results.

go to my leagues website rules page:
http://users.lantic.net/merry1/rules.htm
to see the table as I have it.