Is one allowed to choose not to catch a ball?

[Gorbad]

Oh, and don't forget that you can use a REROLL to try and fail a catch if you'd like.

But also remember that under LRB4 rules (don't know if that's changed in the new ruleset) you _cannot_ use Catch skill to reroll a successful catch.

[kadu-c]

It will be the same in LRB 5:
"A player who has the Catch skill is allowed to re-roll the D6 if he fails to catch. It also allows the player to re-roll the D6 if he drops a hand-off or fails to make an interception."

[Gumbo]

Yeah its always seemed a slightly odd rule to me. The only virtue i suppose is that it stops 10 minutes of bouncing balls being scattered, but i cant see this as a major flaw in game play. 'Having' to catch it, when you think about it, doesn't really make sense. But i guess this has been hacked to pieces as a topic so i suppose its not really worth too much energy debating

[Darkson]

so i suppose its not really worth too much energy debating

Lazy sod.

[Strider_fr]

Yeah its always seemed a slightly odd rule to me. The only virtue i suppose is that it stops 10 minutes of bouncing balls being scattered, but i cant see this as a major flaw in game play. 'Having' to catch it, when you think about it, doesn't really make sense. But i guess this has been hacked to pieces as a topic so i suppose its not really worth too much energy debating

The two main points from the "must catch" side (the way I understood it anyway) are :
- it's not realistic, as BB players are supposed to try to catch any loose ball ;
- the rule is not "broken enough" to deserve a rule change.

I am really not convinced by either of those points. It's actually one of the rules I truly hate. I added it at the end of my suggested changes for LRB5 but don't get your hopes too high...

[DoubleSkulls]

It was on my list too, and didn't make it