Help with preseason rules

[Shortstop]

I’m still pretty new to blood bowl, but I’m joining a new league with some friends. Thie following might be a completely horrible bad idea. If so just tell me. The problem will not show up for a little while, but we generally have a few people join and leave our group each year. I think we should come up with a solution to this now instead of waiting until later. Since I don’t have a lot of experience with blood bowl (none of our group does, we mostly play war hammer), I’m not sure if this would work or not. The problem I’m seeing is that inducements will help to even out matches to some degree, it doesn’t help the new teams catch up to the old teams. The below proposition will hopefully let the new teams develop at a faster pace than the older teams, while still letting the older teams use a few favorite players.

Every year at the same time the league holds a preseason to help new teams gain experience. The team value for matches in the preseason cannot exceed 1200000. A team can choose to leave any of its assets (players, re-rolls, coaching staff, etc.) off it’s roster before each match. These assets will return after the match with no penalty. Teams with less than 11 players after the assets have been removed from the next games roster will receive journeymen as usual. To hire any of the journeymen used in the preseason you must pay what their new value after any improvements would be, not their base cost. When calculating spiraling expenses, use the team value for all of the assets not being used in the game (unless they are forced to miss the game due to injury), and don’t count the value of the journeymen. Each team plays 4 games in the preseason. Fouling is not allowed in the preseason. All teams with access to an apothecary that doesn’t have one gets the services of one for free for the preseason only. Preseason games don’t count for league standings.

Please help me with this system or point me to anything else with the same intent. If this is a lost cause we could try to get the new players to play each other, but if we only have 2 new players that would get boring quickly.

Thanks for any advise.

[IONDragonX]

The problem I’m seeing is that inducements will help to even out matches to some degree, it doesn’t help the new teams catch up to the old teams.

I wouldn't advise using those preseason rules. It seems to make strong teams into stronger teams by providing skilled depth positions. (ie, the lineorcs all start to get Block) Just make some house rule adjustments to the inducements themselves.
I think that you are worried about the SPP that the rookie teams don't have and I can understand that. There's no faster way to earn SPP, however.
If you are looking for the team value to increase faster then use the optional league rules (p34) for additional cash with a tighter cap for spiralling expenses. The two of those together tend to bring everyones team value together faster.

[Shortstop]

I don't want them to get spp's faster, just faster than the expeirianced teams. A lot of the people that I play with, myself included, like building up our stuff to really high levels (such as in our warhammer campaigns), so changing the spiraling expenses doens't seem like it would suit our group. Question, if we do the extra gold wouldn't the expierianced teams benefit as much as (or more if using the doubled fame) as the new teams? The few games I've played have been one offs so I'm still not sure exactly how leagues generally play out. What if you could only hire one of the journeymen? Has anyone else done something similar, I searched but couldn't find anything. Thanks again.

[Darkson]

I don't want them to get spp's faster, just faster than the expeirianced teams.

Isn't that a contradictory statement?

[brynolf]

I don't want them to get spp's faster, just faster than the expeirianced teams.

Isn't that a contradictory statement?

No, it could theoretically mean that the more experienced teams get less SPP than usual, while the less experienced get the normal amount.

[Shortstop]

What I meant was that I wanted to let them get more by slowing down the experianced teams and not speeding up the new teams.

[IONDragonX]

What I meant was that I wanted to let them get more by slowing down the experianced teams and not speeding up the new teams.

Sorry, that really can't be done. Experienced players with more skill actually earn SPP faster than rooks! As a house rule, however, you could slow the more advanced player development. Like this, perhaps:
1st roll @ 6SPP
2nd roll @ 16SPP
3rd roll @ 36SPP
4th roll @ 66SPP
5th roll @ 101SPP
6th roll @ 201SPP

[Darkson]

What I meant was that I wanted to let them get more by slowing down the experianced teams and not speeding up the new teams.

Then you want to punish experienced teams because you have rookie teams?

Tbh, the "problem" you describe is exactly the reason why inducements were added instead of the handicap table. There shouldn't be any reason to penalise player that have had there teams for a while.

[fen]

Experienced players naturally slow down in the speed they get skill rolls and it's the number of skills, not the number of SPPs that really matters in the end.
Add to this that a lot of rookie teams work just fine without too many skills and allowing Star Players as inducements and things work out just fine.
I used to tackle TV170+ Elf and Human teams with rookie Chaos and Nurgle thanks to Star Players and often come out on top.

But if you really really have to do something like this. Hand out an extra MVP to the rookie teams. There's no reason to penalise/boost either type of team any further.

[Shortstop]

Okay, like I said I wasn't exactly sure how leagues worked out. Just ignore this then. Thanks for all of the replies.

[Jural]

Basically these are the only leagues I play in, leagues where some coaches return teams (generally with TV's between 1750K and 2000K) and others start rookie teams.) We give the rookie teams a 4 game preseason, during which we allow them to play each other. If not enough rookie coaches are around, we allow rookie teams to play experienced teams.

Our league is scheduled, so nobody dodges anyone. In the end, inducements do a good job of balancing it up, but the experienced teams do get a slight advantage (Except experienced Dwarf teams, which get MAJOR advantages.)

I honestly think the system as it is is good enough- try it out before messing with it. That would be my advice

What I meant was that I wanted to let them get more by slowing down the experianced teams and not speeding up the new teams.

Then you want to punish experienced teams because you have rookie teams?

Tbh, the "problem" you describe is exactly the reason why inducements were added instead of the handicap table. There shouldn't be any reason to penalise player that have had there teams for a while.

[mattgslater]

You can use the preseason as an opportunity for everyone to try new teams, and only allow rookie, out-of-the-box teams to play in the preseason. If you want some preseason-season continuity, allow experienced coaches to hire their own preseason players onto the current team. This is, incidentally, more-or-less what the NFL does; preseason is a chance to show off your practice squad and second-stringers.

[Pil]

I don't want them to get spp's faster, just faster than the expeirianced teams.

What about giving an experience bonus to the underdog, you could do it like in Necromunda and Gorkamorka, for example give every player playing a game against a better opponent +1 SPP for every say 150k difference in team value. That way the underdog gets both inducements and faster XP.

The 150k is off the top of my hat, but I think with 100k it might go a bit too fast with the XP. Alternatively, you could give bonus XP to the underdog but at the cost of inducement money, for example have the underdog pay 100k in inducements to give every player playing the game against the opponent +1SPP.

[mattgslater]

Here's what we do for the preseason:

First, everyone builds a fresh rookie 1-mil team, including teams with developed players. After you've built this team, play it in a few matches (we use a scheduled 3-week system, but anything works as long as everyone gets about the same number of matches, say 2-3 or 3-4). Then, rebuild the teams with 1 mil, plus 200k or so to use to "purchase" TV increases (above base cost) on players you built in the preseason or in the previous season(s), or to be added to or spent as treasury (that is, double cost for TRRs). You'll be turning over a lot of veterans from one season to the next, but you'll be able to keep the best ones, and every team will be more-or-less equal. Remember to enforce the requirement that the teams must be legal after the initial 1 million is spent. So a Human Blitzer with Dodge, Mighty Blow and Tackle would cost 90k of the initial 1 million and 70k of the supplemental 200k. This feels very NFL-y: there's turnover every year, starters only see a lot of preseason play if they're unknowns or are competing with someone else for the starting job, and rookies get a big chance to show their stuff before they go on/get cut. Lots of players will go into the regular season with SPP but no skills, making early season development feel faster as well.

If you'd rather have everyone playing their old teams except for some expansion teams, then run a short season (3-4 games) for the expansion teams only; invite coaches with experienced teams to play new teams (different races, preferably), and let them pick at the end of the preseason which of their teams they'll use in the regular season (most would probably go back to their old teams).

[mattgslater]

I don't want them to get spp's faster, just faster than the expeirianced teams.

What about giving an experience bonus to the underdog, you could do it like in Necromunda and Gorkamorka, for example give every player playing a game against a better opponent +1 SPP for every say 150k difference in team value. That way the underdog gets both inducements and faster XP.

The 150k is off the top of my hat, but I think with 100k it might go a bit too fast with the XP. Alternatively, you could give bonus XP to the underdog but at the cost of inducement money, for example have the underdog pay 100k in inducements to give every player playing the game against the opponent +1SPP.

Or let teams induce an extra random MVP for 50k or 100k or something. I think 100k sounds better, but you could just as easily make it a cumulative 50k (50k for the first one, 100k for the 2nd, 150k for the 3rd, etc.).