Would you like blood bowl to take less time to play?

[Longshot]

Time is good as it stands IMHO

[Grumbledook]

Indeed the game plays fine, some matches only take 2 hours anyway, or even shorter. Take games like monopoly, these can take far longer than blood bowl, or even worse trivial pursuit, which is hardly trivial

[Rustycan]

Ok I thought I would jump in here with opinion. In my league (I use that word in the loosest sense as we get together so infrequently that it is sad) our average game takes about 2-2.5 hours. And that is BSing and getting sidetracked by many things. I think if you tried to shorten the game sthen you would have to take something out. What could you take out?? In what way could it be made quicker??? Make each turn 2 minutes? I can even find where my dice rolled last in 2 minutes. I say just leave it as is. IMO it is ok as is.

[shaniepoo]

I think that the time is fine. The way i play the game is over dead quick...im always falling over

[Balrog]

The only way to reduce the timespan of a BB game is by limiting choices, and the only way to limit choice is by making tha game simpler, and that would lessen the value of the game.

Now, they were able to reduce the time it took to play BB from 2nd ed. to 3rd ed. However, most of that came in streamlining the game and getting rid of the huge blocking wars.

In the new BB rules there is no single mechanic which is more time consuming than another. The reason BB matches go to 3+ hours is because one coach (or both) is a slow player. Play at a tournament and most games last less then 2 hours, about right for experienced BB players with rookies teams. When you start adding skills, that's when the game takes longer.

BB is a semi-complex game, and that's part of it's appeal. The mental challenge is part of the fun, take that away and you're left with mindless die rolling - kind of like monopoly...

-Balrog

[Mr. Sanity]

I think the current game takes the right amount of time. When I and a friend play it, we often finish in just over an hour to hour and a half, unless the dice are EXTREMELY kind. There have been many evenings where we decided that there was enough time for a second, and occasionally a third game to play. Also note, that I'm only an intermediate player, and my friend is just getting to be intermediate himself.

[Zombie]

I'd like the game to take shorter. Around here, the average time for a game is about 3 hours, except for slow coaches where it can take up to 5 hours. We don't use the clock most of the time. And we do lose a lot of players because they don't have enough time. Many of them would play if games lasted 2 hours or so.

I disagree that the game needs to be made simpler in order to take less time. There are other options. For exmaple, halves could last 6 turns instead of 8. Before you start screaming blasphemy, ask yourself why 8 turns is so important. Couldn't 10 turns work just as well, maybe even better? If it was 10 turns and someone was talking about bringing it down to 8, you'd probably start screaming all the same. Doesn't mean that 8 turns is bad.

There might be other alternatives. But please, don't simplify the game, otherwise i change my vote to "no".

[Darkson]

We used to manage it in 2-2.5 hours and we were all pretty much rookie coaches. Admittidly we used the 4min rule but that includes al the time spent in rules discussions, laughing at others misfortune (in a friendly manner of course) and other sundry tomfoolery.

I personally wouldn't want it to be shorter as I only game once per week and if the game only lasted 1.5-2 hours the evening would be over quicker.

[Trambi]

I have answered "yes", so I have to use the 4minuts limit.

[Balrog]

The 4 minute time limit is a great rule, but difficult to enforce without chess clocks, and they cost a fortune.

Also, try coaching a TR 300 team with 4 minute turns, it's very hard when all your players have skills and so does the other guys. I don't really mind, but two of my coaches are the type to analyze a game until they are sure that no mistakes are made - this sometimes takes a long time... *sigh*

-Balrog

[Zombie]

It's easy to enforce the 4 minute rule with a simple kitchen timer, and they cost around US $5.

[Dragoonkin]

I think it's fine as it is...while two guys play a game of 40k, we can get in two games of Blood Bowl fairly easily. It works out nice.

[Mestari]

BTW, if I was trying to sway the voting (which I wasn't) it didn't work. By the time you said something the voting was already 6-1.

Well, you wrote

"If the game could be shortened without changing the basic feel of the game, would you want a shorter game?"

This basically means
"If the yes option was better than the no-option, would you vote 'yes'"

Now, people have already factored in the fact that there has been no evidence that this would be the case. Namely, I don't think people have voted no because they want the games to last long. They have voted no because they believe that there is no way of shortening the game without making it worse. And in their (our) opinion you have not provided evidence to counter that.

But to back up TH.Lapin:
If you want shorter games, use the clock. Heck, you can even make the limit two minutes if you really want some speedup. Allow coaches to buy one more minute by spending a reroll.

Time rule:
-Each player turn takes x,yy minutes of time.
-When the time runs up, a TO takes place
-Player can buy d,ff more time by spending a reroll
-The clock is stopped whenever the opponent takes time thinking something.

The mechanic is there. If you want shorter games by any other means than forcing the time limit, you have to take a lot away from the game. Simply because (as someone already noted) there is no single big contributor to the length of the games.

[Marcus]

Neo and others, try this:

http://www.talkbloodbowl.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2878

Let me know what you think. There's obviously resistance to shortening the core game. By the same token there's certainly a market for a shorter variant.

[Planatgenet]

I personally feel the length a Blood Bowl game is about right. Compared to many games it is very quick. If you havent got a couple of hours free play something else