Poll: spps for crowd and fouling cas: USE THIS POLL!!

[Soffa Blackeye]

I can´t see what´s wrong with (meaninglessly) fouling on the last turn. Even if it doesn´t help your team at all, it´s just (IMO) the nature of BloodBowl. It´s not a game where you give the Fair Play award to the nicest players at the end of the season. Why are you complaining?

I voted yes all the way

[Munkey]

There is a difference between how the game is played in the Blood Bowl universe and what makes the game a fun tabletop game in the real world though.

It is best not to get too involved in the fluff as sometimes this may cloud judgement over what a good rule might be.

For example cheating by bloodbowl players is positively encouraged in the bloodbowl world, but back in the real world if a coach cheated deliberately when playing me I wouldn't play him twice.

Similarly fouling may be greatly encouraged in the bloodbowl world, but rewarding it too greatly in the rules may be detrimental to the game being fun in the real world.

[grotemuis]

here, here

[Marcus]

If I have to play in another league where the Dirty Player on every team has the most SPPs I might just quit the game entirely.

I'm gonna take the gloves off on this one and pardon me for being rude:

I'm yet to meet the player who fouls every turn with his Dirty Player who can play this game worth shit. Every single last coach I have played who did that has been a clueless player who will never, ever, be any good. The sad fact is that when you get SPPs for fouling every two-bit muppet who can't play the game comes out with dirty players, rolls block dice, fouls, out goes a player. There is no skill, no tactics, no enjoyment. The DP gets more skills and yet he still doesn't score any goddamn touchdowns.

The first time I quit Bloodbowl it was because of this arms race attitude, it was deeply, deeply boring to play against people who could develop killer teams by doing nothing but fouling. Yes, they're out there, everywhere.

Nothing at all against players who foul players out as an adjunct to scoring. But they are not the coaches who need fouling SPPs, they are the coaches who are good enough to parlay the casualty into improving the scoreboard.

Like munkey said, the fluff and the reality are entirely different. It takes _no skill_ to cause a casualty with a dirty player, it's just an armour roll. If you want a reward for fouling a player, then take advantage of the casualty and score a f#cking touchdown. It's how you tell who won and it's why you play the game. If you want points for killing people, go play Quake.

Rant over, as you were

[wesleytj]

I get what you're saying marcus, I really do. I hate the retarded "foul every turn but have no skill" coaches as much as you do.

However, I will contradict you on a few points. I've known a few guys who fouled every turn and were still good coaches. They were just playing their team. Like my friend Doug...he played non-fouling High Elves with a very good record. Then he made a skaven team, and he considered his turn a failure with them if his dirty player didn't get some action.

He was a good coach, and incidentally he was a lot of fun to play against whether he fouled or not, but he liked to foul for flavor and fluff reasons.

Anyway, back on point, I really think that changing DP to +2 to av or inj only, and more importantly, IGMEOY, have discouraged this form of play to the point that it's either a wash, or more likely counterproductive. I don't think giving spp's or not has an effect on this either way. The people who were going to foul will foul, and the people who weren't usually won't.

The difference lies in team balance. As I've said on here about 20 times, it's about the zombie (and other player types) who can't get skills any other way. It's about maintaining game balance. And (less importantly)it's about making excpetions where they aren't needed.

We've already done a LOT since the outset of 3rd ed to reduce/limit the amount of fouling that goes on, and it's effectiveness. Sigurds rule, IGMEOY, weakening DP (and MB), and so on. When is enough enough?
It's not like I'm suggesting we go back to 3rd ed days...

[Soffa Blackeye]

Marcus,

I can see what you mean. I hadn´t thought about it, because I have never met such a coach you described. But you still didn´t manage to change my opinion. I still think there is nothing wrong with fouling, meaningless or not. It´s a big part of blood bowl.

For me the fun of blood bowl is that I can imagine that I am on that pitch, in that world. So when I play, I play like I would if I were a real blood bowl team coach. Sure, sometimes that means playing dirty, but it´s bloodbowl.

As wesleytj says, I think that IGMEOY with weaker DP and MB reduce the amount of fouling. There´s no reason to make it even harder.

[dakkakhan]

What makes Bloodbowl one of the best games is Team Development.

Marcus in tourneys the score is the only thing that matters...I absolutely loathe that type of play. I hate the idea of starting a team and playing 4 games and only having 4 skills to show for it. That Sucks!

League play is not just about winning and losing. Though more and more it is becoming that way. It used to be you could take a mediocre team into the semi-finals and through survival make it to the playoffs. You could find yourself playing an opponent that had scored many more TD's than you had throughout the season, but you were still a good match for them. Because Team development allowed you to advance your team down other avenues. A fouling hobgoblin could pick up sure hands, or pass.

You sound as though you'd like to nix all SPP's for anything besides TD's. Then we'd just have tournament play I guess.

[Darkson]

I have a DP on my 30 game Norse roster, and as we awarded SPP's for fouling, yes he did lead the league in cas. However, I didn't go in for gratuitous fouling. He was there so that if I managed to knock over the player/s I considered the most dangerous threat, I could try to get them off the pitch/out of the game (ie Wardancers/Big Guys/Mummies/anyone with PO)

I also found he was a deterent AGAINST last turn fouling for SPP's (if I kicked of 2nd half), as my opponents hated the idea of him getting in the foul back, and as I play with a group of friends we would often make agreement's, they don't foul me and I won't foul them back.

[Dangerous Dave]

I'm all with Marcus on this.

To me the game should be fun and strategic. Having played games when the winner is determined by whoever receives (ie block foul etc) then that is not much fun.......

NO SPPS FOR FOULING.


Zombies should take forever to get SPPs.


Dave

[dakkakhan]

NO SPP's for Completions either. It's only fair, people do the same damn thing with a completion at the end of the game...all throughout the game in fact.

Blocking is done at random for the most part too. You could just as easily Leap or Dodge your way through the line so no SPP's for hurting someone, that's just condoning that sort of rough behavior. They might just pick skills that make them better blockers for God's sake! We don't want that.

C'mon people this is crazy...its like an elf convention on this board...if it's only cheezy to foul because someone fouls every turn, deal with that coach, not the rules that he's exploiting. Some of us actually like BLOODbowl and use just bowl to hold stuff, like cereal.

[dakkakhan]

As a side note but somewhat related to the topic of random violence, and even whakiness, does anyone find this funny? It's a news story here in the U.S.

Calif. Police Seek Bicyclist for Attacks
3/4/03

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Police were searching for a bicyclist suspected of randomly riding up to at least 21 different women and punching them in the face.

An arrest warrant was issued Monday for Richard Jiron, 42, who has been linked by witnesses to three of the attacks, police said. Jiron was last seen Thursday, the day police released a composite sketch.

This guy needs to find BB, but only if SPP's for fouls is re-instated.

[MistWraith]

No SPP's for compleatins is one of the silliest ideas ever. Does a failed foul cause a turnover? No it does not, because you can not fail a foul.

When you make it so a turnover is not caused by a failed pass action, then we can talk about it.

[Snew]

That was sarcasm. It was dripping with it. I had to wipe it all off my desk.

[MistWraith]

Ahh.

[Marcus]

Addressing points in no particular order:

I'm quite happy to have fouling in the game, I'm happy for people to foul every turn if they have to, what I'm not happy is for people to earn SPPs for it. I know that it's riskier with IGMEOY and everything else, the problem is this does not stop players who are happy to lose so long as they get their foul SPPs. They're of the opinion that by the end of the league they will have a good team. It's usually at the end of 3 leagues that they have a decent team, by then everyone is bored of playing them because they always beat them and they always try to murder their team.

You want to talk about boring? Facing another player who doesn't even care about winning the game is boring. You've got no competition, there's no point sitting down in the first place.

Keeping SPPs away from fouling means that those dickheads will get bored and go play something else. For me it's a small price to pay. Fouling is still tactically and strategically viable, I'm quite happy to take Dirty Player and foul frequently, but I'm always focussed on winning the game and having a laugh with my opponent. Players whose sole goal is to murder your team and not to win give you no competition and no enjoyment. It's all schadenfreude and no sportsmanship.

As for the "but it's BLOODbowl" argument. I've never heard anything so daft in my life. You may as well write in a rule that Trollslayers always have to attack Trolls because they're TROLLslayers. The game is what it is, a game of football first. That's how you tell who won. If you want to be rewarded for killing things, play a game where that's the object.