Sponsorships, Rostered Stars and Stadiums

[Milo]

Death Zone season 2 adds a bunch of optional rules for different stadiums, sponsorships for teams and adding a star permanently to your roster. I know with league cycles and such that it's unlikely anyone will be using them immediately, but if your team plays on (or becomes resident in) a unique stadium, gets a major sponsorship or invests in a rostered star, I'd love to hear your stories and how these rules influenced both your games and your team development.

[DaImp]

We already use house ruled Stadiums in our league and they have been very popular, adding a lot of fluff to the season. I will be keeping them in for the next league season and adjusting them to work with the Death Zone rules (which I have not read yet). I will also be allowing permanent Star Players on teams and if the sponsorship rules look decent will probably include them as well.

I am keen on making the league play as fluffy as possible with loads of these sort of rules. Tournament play is where things can be strict and balanced but leagues allow greater freedom in upping the fun. Will post back with out experiences here - next season only starts in a couple of months though.

[lunchmoney]

In the last league I ran (about 5 years ago now) we used old stadium rules from WD, custom star players (created when old league teams retired) that could be perma-hired, and sponsorships (I awarded an extra 10k in a team treasury when the coach wrote a match report that included their sponsor).

Some sponsors I can remember of the top of my head:
Fester's - Because you wouldn't want a warm one (Nurgle sponsor),
Arrogance - a fragrance for Elves,
HaribOgre - soft chews to save your Snotlings from being eaten,

Plus an absolutely brilliant one by a coach called Rumble. He invented an entire town called Rumble, where his teams came from, and variously moved around the town finding different sponsors; everything from the WI to an Aglet Factory.

[Milo]

sponsorships (I awarded an extra 10k in a team treasury when the coach wrote a match report that included their sponsor).

I like that! That's a fun way to incentivize your coaches to really build a background and story for their teams, which in turn makes the whole league feel less mechanical and stale. I hope you don't mind if I borrow that for my own leagues.

[stashman]

Really like the new DZ2 stuff.

But the new Refs was not my cup of tea...

Sponsorships
This is cool and it gave our league a new dimension for our next season. We play minor and major leagues and 2-3 cups during a season (with diffrent teams) and sponsorship puts an easy winning prize for winners with a fluff story. Not just a free reroll anymore

Rostered Stars
Awesome! But we try and configure a highest bidder at the redraft when more than one team wants a star.

[lunchmoney]

I like that! That's a fun way to incentivize your coaches to really build a background and story for their teams, which in turn makes the whole league feel less mechanical and stale. I hope you don't mind if I borrow that for my own leagues.

Crack on

[nazgob]

I love this book so much.

[harvestmouse]

All interesting. I think I'd prefer (and how I play) stars 'for the season' this allows for Blackburn Rovers or Leeds Utd or even Leicester City scenarios.

[lunchmoney]

All interesting. I think I'd prefer (and how I play) stars 'for the season' this allows for Blackburn Rovers or Leeds Utd or even Leicester City scenarios.

Your analogy is lost on me

[Djay]

Leeds is the only one I know because I watched The Damned United.

[harvestmouse]

One hit wonders. Rather than Manchester Utd and Chelsea dominating each season; Recycling the stars means teams could have that 1 dream season and win a league.

[Lyracian]

All interesting. I think I'd prefer (and how I play) stars 'for the season' this allows for Blackburn Rovers or Leeds Utd or even Leicester City scenarios.

Your analogy is lost on me

Leicester City won the Premier League last season which for a team that was almost relegated the year before is quite an achievement.

[Moraiwe]

Yeah, but they didn't do it by recruiting some star players for one season. It really doesn't work as an analogy.

[Baxx]

Tried a couple of games in the weekend using ALL rules (WD, DZ1, DZ2, Blitzmania, app, experimental teams, match events, team specific balls...).

Stadium and sponsorships was so difficult to acquire, all rolls failed.

Did get to play on a stadium that awarded both teams with a bribe each half. Wasn't very spectacular, but that should be the dream stadium for dwarves!

My impression is, yes there's alot of fun stadiums, but the probability to get one perfect for your team is low. To also be able to become residents there is almost as low if not lower. And to buy that stadium, well, that would take ages.

Ref was allright. I wanted to keep the WD ref rules, so added Goblin on 6 and Halfling on 8 for the referee table.

[harvestmouse]

Yeah, but they didn't do it by recruiting some star players for one season. It really doesn't work as an analogy.

Blackburn certainly did. Leicester did to a certain point (hired Kante; Vardy and Mahrez hit peak performance for SPP worth). What I am saying is that the same teams tend to dominate league type sports (unless there's a balancing system like American sports). With a star for a season teams that generally don't have any chance, may in fact peak for 1 season before going back to mediocrity.

If you have stars for life, this would really favour better teams that can look after valuable players.