Talk Fantasy Football

This is for a fixed schedule league. I need concession-lite rules because games will be missed occasionally and it's not always anyone's fault. That's my primary motivator. I also want to eliminate overtime stalling, and to give both coaches a chance to receive without taking away the sudden death nature.

WDYT?

Overtime and Concession
You may only concede a match at the start of your turn or the start of a drive, at any time before the ball has been kicked, only in the second half. If any players quit your team as a consequence of conceding a match, those players go to the Waiver Wire with no Head Coach listed. Your team may not re-hire or induce these players this season, but others may.

Involuntary Concession: If one team can't set up 4 players at the start of the drive, that team's coach may concede without the usual penalties. If a coach concedes, the opponent gets a free touchdown and a free completion on two different players and wins by one point in his first turn.

Matches not played: If both coaches agree that neither can play the match, the two coaches may petition the league for a 0-0 draw, which is granted by a simple majority of all members. If one coach cannot play and has a valid excuse that satisfies the opponent, the coach may petition for a 0-1 loss, allowing free touchdowns and completions to the "winner" as per involuntary concessions above. Otherwise, failing to play a match within a reasonable period of time (as determined by scheduling dictates) results in a concession per the rulebook.

Overtime: After turn 8 the second half or an overtime drive, if the score is tied, determine if there will be overtime. The home team flips and the visitor calls to determine which team will receive. A "sudden death" overtime drive is then played. If one team scores, that team wins. If not, determine if there will be another drive using the process below; if so, there is no coin-toss: the team that received last kicks this time. Because emotions run high and strange things happen in overtime games, roll twice on the Kickoff Event table, unless the first roll is a 4 or 10.

The Overtime drive is supposed to be a full half, but the refs and timekeepers get tired and the drive could end prematurely. To represent this, the receiving coach rolls 2d6 each turn before moving his turn marker. If the result is less than or equal to the current turn number (before moving the marker), both coaches move their turn markers to 7, so there will be only one more turn in the drive. Note that there is no chance of getting fewer than four turns, and no roll is required until just before turn 3.

To determine if there will be overtime, coach takes a block die, picks a result and hides it behind his or her hand, placing the chosen side (pow, push, or skull) face-up. Then both coaches reveal their chosen results to determine what happens.
* Use Defender Down ("pow") if you want to play overtime, and won't accept a draw.
* Push ("arrow") is for when you'd rather take the draw, but will fight it out if you must.
* Take Attacker Down ("skull) if you want the draw, and will give up if the alternative is playing on.
If one side takes a pow and the other a skull, the side with a pow wins 1-0, as an involuntary concession (above). Additionally, the winner automatically passes his Fan Factor roll. If one or both sides take a pow and neither side takes a skull, play out overtime. If neither side takes a pow, the match ends in a draw. If overtime is played out, the home team tosses the coin and the visiting team calls the result.
Reading Overtime
1st 2nd Result
Pow Pow Overtime
Pow Push Overtime
Pow Skull Concession
Push Push Tie
Push Skull Tie
Skull Skull Tie
There are some exceptions. Overtime is mandatory in the Challenge Round or in any Bowl Game, including a playoff final: if the score is tied, both coaches must fight it out (prepare for this possibility when scheduling such a game). In other playoff games there is no overtime, and if the score is a draw the higher-seeded team is considered the winner (there is no bonus score; a 2-2 tie would be a 2-2 win or loss).

Your concession rule favours those who want to play OT. One change I really like from LRB4 is that players will only now play OT if they both want to-nothing wrong with draws in leagues.

Shorter OTs always favour AG teams. There is little point in stalling in OT, unless you just want to destroy the opos team (which might, or might not be a "problem" in your league).

(I'm somewhat biased as I don't like OT )

And I can't really see how concessions are less bad now if your advanced players (over 51SPPs) leave and can be hired by other teams but not your own!?

Yeah, I have a pro-OT preference, but I don't mind others taking the tie. I want to make conceding in OT a less-painful thing. You give up the loss and any hope of extra SPP, and walk away whole. The blind pick is to keep people from being railroaded: maybe I should put in a rule about rescheduling OT if it's in the first 7 days of the 10-day "game week"? So if your opponent is trying to force OT to make you concede because it's late or you have other plans you have a way out, unless you've been procrastinating. Then it's your problem.

I agree that shorter OT favors agility. But any OT favors bash, especially in a short season (the regular season is 12 weeks, with 4-5-round tournament at the end). Shortening it is a balance mechanism.

Cleaned up, clarified. Overtime section omitted for brevity (didn't change anything).

Overtime and ConcessionThere are two different kinds of concession: "Voluntary" and "Involuntary". Voluntary concessions are treated as per the rulebook. If any players quit your team as a consequence of conceding a match, those players go to the Waiver Wire with no Head Coach listed. Your team may not re-hire or induce these players this season, but others may. Involuntary concessions are better than voluntary concessions: you lose, but that's all. You may only concede involuntarily if:
* You can't play the match in a 15-day period (10-day "Game Week" and 5-day extension) and have a good excuse.
* You can't set up four players.
* It's Overtime and you took the skull.

Ceremonial scores: If one coach concedes, the opposing coach may play out a ceremonial drive on the pitch, where one player tosses the ball to another (it's a lot easier when there are no opponents about). The victorious coach may pick a player to make the completion and another to make the TD. If no match is played, this happens at a special rally, which handles a post-game sequence in the next week's pre-game as if the team had FAME 0 and won the match.

Matches not played: If both coaches agree that neither can play the match, the two coaches may petition the league for a 0-0 draw. If one coach cannot play and has a valid excuse that satisfies the opponent, the coach may petition for an involuntary concession. Either way, the petition is accepted if half of all non-involved coaches (2 if we have 6 coaches, 3 if we have 8) agree via e-mail or text -- be sure to cc the coordinator!

Seems like you've put a lot of thought to come up with such detailed rules. Maybe you have such a highly competetive player mass, that you need heavy rules to keep them in check . After reading through all of it once, the rules seem fair enough, but overtly complicated for my taste. Probably a bit intimidating for newcomers. But to each their own.

Thus ends the feedback and a quick counter-suggestion follows, feel free to ignore it

I admit that I don't prefer overtime in league matches. But if overtime was wanted, I'd suggest something on these lines:

Three points for victory, one for a tie, zero for loss. In case of a overtime victory the point spread would be two for the winner and one for the loser. If neither wanted to play overtime then one point each and if only one, then two for him and one for the other. This would also encourage for decisive action during regualtion time.

Plenty of SPP to go around during regular playtime, so no mandatory ovetime needed. Also, to avoid metagaming, a possibility to reschedule overtimes, especially if the game has already taken a long time. Blood bowl is fun, but after a certain number of hours you need a break.

Oxynot wrote:Seems like you've put a lot of thought to come up with such detailed rules. Maybe you have such a highly competetive player mass, that you need heavy rules to keep them in check .

The concession rules are there because I know you need two kinds of concession to manage a fixed-schedule league with a bunch of people with day-jobs and personal lives. The overtime rules are there for two reasons:
A: I like Overtime. I'm a Yankee and I likes me my Yankee football: ties are to be rare: you mostly win or lose. I have a few other coaches who agree that taking the tie is wussy (though they aren't sports fans).
B: I thought the gimmicky mechanic would be cute. It really isn't necessary.

I already have a tiebreaker system that encourages overtime: when calculating record, the tiebreakers are "most wins" and "most ties" in that order (always the same number of games, remember). So 6-5 is better than 5-0 with 6 ties. But in my format, record isn't very important if you're hot at the end.

The short overtime is both a balance mechanism and a stalling-discourager. My league has a dangerous mix of evil farmers and fertile fields, and with only 11 matches to build up to the games that really count I don't blame any of them.

Is this better? It satisfies objective A without the gimmicks.

Overtime
After turn 8 the second half, if the score is tied, either coach may request overtime. If one coach requests overtime, the other may accept the challenge or suffer an involuntary concession. Overtime may be rescheduled if it's still in the game week. If you are in the 5-day extension period and unable to play overtime you may not reschedule. If a rescheduled overtime goes unplayed by the end of the extension period, the game ends in a draw, barring any unlikely claims of bad faith. If neither coach requests overtime, the game ends in a draw. If it's after 9:00 pm and the game cannot reasonably be rescheduled, either side may end the game in a draw.
There are some exceptions.
* Overtime is mandatory in the Challenge round (Week 6) or in any Bowl game (Weeks 12, 16). If the score is tied, both coaches must fight it out (prepare for this possibility when scheduling such a game). If Overtime yields a tie, do it again, until somebody scores. If you have to reschedule outside the extension period, contact the coordinator and your next opponent.
* In non-Bowl playoff games (Weeks 13-15) there is no overtime, and if the score is a draw the higher-seeded team is considered the winner (there is no bonus score; a 2-2 tie would be a 2-2 win or loss).
If there is Overtime, the home team flips and the visitor calls to determine which team will receive. A "sudden death" overtime drive is then played. If one team scores, that team wins. If not, the team that received last kicks in a second overtime drive, unless both coaches agree to accept a draw or one coach takes an involuntary concession. If nobody scores in the second drive, the game ends in a draw.
The Overtime drive is supposed to be a full half, but the refs and timekeepers get tired and the drive could end prematurely. To represent this, the receiving coach rolls 1d6 each turn before moving his turn marker. If the result is less than the current turn number (before moving the marker), both coaches move their turn markers to 7, so there will be only one more turn in the drive. Note that there is no chance of getting fewer than three turns, so no roll is required before Turn 1 or 2. Either coach may spend a Team Re-Roll Counter or a Bribe to convince the Ref to give a little more time, ignoring this rule for one turn (immediately after the die is rolled) on a d6 roll of 2+.

I'm back from vacation, so I have not yet had the chance to mull over your latest system, but looks to be in a better direction.

A thought occurred to me though: would it be a good idea to tie the participation of overtime to the casualty difference? Say if the regulation time ends 1-1 and the casualties 4-1, the one with +3 casualtys be declared the winner? Unless the other team agreed to an overtime. If the difference was between that set threshold normal overtime rules were in effect?

This would not let anyone be a total coward, but would not force you to play if you're many men down and the other team is just looking for a slaughter (yummy SPPs) and maybe a goal too, for a cherry on top.

edit: as just an addition, and not as a replacement, to your variable length overtime rules, of course

A solution to that would be to make an overtime concession just a straight-up loss. If you concede at the start of overtime or any of your overtime turns, your opponent gets to play a ceremonial drive, where they get a Comp and a TD distributed as they see fit, so if you're afraid to take on your opponent 'cause they've been whipping you, you can just lose, shake hands and go to the post-game, where you'll get winnings and MVP normally, may or may not lose FF normally, and nobody quits. The idea is that the real shame is in backing down during regulation, and that ties should be rare.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that all I really need is:

1: Ranking is based on wins, not on win %, with ties as the first tiebreaker. Based on win %, 8-2-2 is 0.8, while 9-3 is 0.75, so ties would be a good thing. Based on wins with ties as tiebreaker, 8-2-2 is 8.2, while 9-3 is 9.0, so 9-3 is better and ties are only barely above losses. So overtime is a good bargain unless you're sure you can't win, and in that case a loss is more-or-less the same as a tie, if you don't have to suffer an LRB5 concession.

2: If you don't want overtime, you can get your opponent's permission to take a tie, unless it's after 9pm and you have no effective way to reschedule or both teams agree in advance not to play overtime. If you concede the match in overtime, there are none of the usual penalties. Instead, a player on the opposing team of that coach's choice gets the ball, throws an automatic Completion to another player of choice and scores the winning Touchdown with the selected receiver. Resolve the post-match sequence normally as for a game decided in overtime.

3: Overtime drives do not last 8 turns, but instead last 5 turns. At the end of turn 5, if no team has scored, the drive ends, the teams re-set with the receiving team kicking off to the kicking team.

4: There is no overtime during the postseason, except during the bowl games (2 per season per team), where concession and ties are not allowed, and teams must play 5-turn overtime drives until one team scores. In other postseason rounds, the higher-seeded team wins on ties.

Sounds very straight-forward and understandable to me. And a way to minimize the amount of ties. Although the completion and touchdown given to any players of the winning coaches choosing seems so powerful, that you might not want to give a concession even when you're beaten down.

I migth make those random or given to lowest SPP players or something, but it's probably again just because I don't mind ties, especially during regular league matches. It must have something to do with whether you're more predisposed toward European or American football. And blood bowl seems to give out believable soccer scores consistently: lot of ties and low scoring matches, rarely more than four goals total.

But as I said before this latest proposition seem functional when you absolutely, positively want to avoid ties, while still having the opportunity to avoid a massacre.

My gut would say that such a vigorous guidance towards a win or aloss would favor bashy teams, but a cursory glance at statistics of the league I'm attending seems to suggest that most ties happen in bashy versus bashy match ups, so it might all even out. But it is a very small sample.

Keep in mind that whoever wins in OT will get the TD anyway. The comp to a player of choice can engineer a roll, but it's only one SPP. Even still, I see what you mean: maybe I should keep the Comp back for games that aren't played, taking it out of the overtime rules.

Ok, this does not have an impact on the actual subject, but it just bugs me: is there something awry with the win percentages, but I'm not a huge sports fan so correct me if my logic is faulty or I've misunderstood the term. You said:

mattgslater wrote: Based on win %, 8-2-2 is 0.8, while 9-3 is 0.75, so ties would be a good thing. Based on wins with ties as tiebreaker, 8-2-2 is 8.2, while 9-3 is 9.0, so 9-3 is better and ties are only barely above losses.

I thought win percentage was calculated wins divided by total amount of matches. Not wins divided by wins and losses or ties. So on on 8-2-2 win percentage would be 8/(8+2+2) = 0.67. So whether you determine ranking on number of wins of the percentage, 9-3-0 is always better than 8-2-2?

Oops. I just looked it up: in the NFL, a tie is 0.5 wins. So 9-5-2 is the same as 10-6. But still, that varies from the way I have it, which would give 10-6 the tiebreaker over 9-anything.

Ooh. Standard overtime rules (no OT unless both coaches want), but an OT loss counts as a tie in the standings (a win is a win). Better? Simpler? Cleaner?

mattgslater wrote:Ooh. Standard overtime rules (no OT unless both coaches want), but an OT loss counts as a tie in the standings (a win is a win). Better? Simpler? Cleaner?

The Overtime Loss, NHL-style. My league used it in our first season with mixed results and it basically comes down to how obligatory OT is and whether there will be an OT period when only one coach wants it. If both coaches' assent be needed, then there's no point in adding the OTL unless you really, really want to encourage overtime play.

mattgslater wrote:Ooh. Standard overtime rules (no OT unless both coaches want), but an OT loss counts as a tie in the standings (a win is a win). Better? Simpler? Cleaner?

The problem with this is that just getting to OT gives you all the benefits of a tie without really earning one. The NHL does this, and it drives me nuts.

For Blood Bowl though, I think it works. The advantage of differentiating a small number of teams with a small sample of games (unlike the NHL) makes it worthwhile.

Jural wrote:The problem with this is that just getting to OT gives you all the benefits of a tie without really earning one. The NHL does this, and it drives me nuts.

Well, come on. There's a certain merit in the argument that an even score by the end of regulation time qualifies as 'earning' the tie.