BB2016 Rules - Seasons Completed start at zero or one?

[Vanguard]

To approach this from another angle, if the intention was that only entire season should count for 'Wants to Retire' rolls then we would need to track which players were hired mid-season. Since there is no space on the roster for this information, we can assume that when a player was hired is not important to any aspects of tracking your team. Therefore, 'Wants to Retire' is only interested in whether the player is on your roster at season end.

[dode74]

Now that is a fair point.

[Wifflebat]

To approach this from another angle, if the intention was that only entire season should count for 'Wants to Retire' rolls then we would need to track which players were hired mid-season. Since there is no space on the roster for this information, we can assume that when a player was hired is not important to any aspects of tracking your team. Therefore, 'Wants to Retire' is only interested in whether the player is on your roster at season end.

I was just going to say this. This is the simplest way to play the Wants to Retire rule, and I think if it were meant to be done any other way we'd see a lot more rules explaining this.

So, when the season's games are over, the season is completed. Then players roll their rolls regardless of when they started. There's no need to argue about common English verbs and we get to play more Blood Bowl.

[CyberedElf]

Has he completed one season when he has played one whole season of games

And there is your mistake. Like I said in my first post, you are swapping in the adjective definition of complete when you say "whole season."
You were not using the definition you just gave. You would be using that definition if you said:
"Has he completed one season when he has made whole the season . . ."
But that is obvious nonsense, and hence why the "made whole" choice of definitions is also nonsense.
(Assuming that they are not writing nonsense, which may not always be a safe assumption.)
That leaves only the "finished" definition. Which makes the rule non-ambiguous and easy to keep track of.

Complete seasons vs completed seasons?

The rule book only says "completed." Past tense, verb.

[Regash]

This was an interesting question in the beginning.
The discusion became ridiculous on the way...

[dode74]

"Has he completed one season when he has made whole the season . . ."
But that is obvious nonsense, and hence why the "made whole" choice of definitions is also nonsense.

Why is it obvious nonsense? I'd use the indefinite article: "Has he completed one season when he has made whole a season-worth of games or when the season ends?" That's a genuine question because I don't see the problem with that question at all.
This is what the rulebook says:
"For each player on your roster that has completed at least
two seasons, roll a D6. If you score less than the number
of seasons they have completed,"
So when has he completed a season? Is it when the season ends or when he's played a season-worth of games? The ambiguity is there.

That said, the point about not tracking new players within a season is the best clarification I've seen. I don't think your grammatical attempts cover it, nor do I think the authors are sufficiently pedantic to have thought such wording was sufficiently explanatory.

[CyberedElf]

"Has he completed one season when he has made whole the season . . ."
But that is obvious nonsense, and hence why the "made whole" choice of definitions is also nonsense.

Why is it obvious nonsense?

The season is "made whole" because it came to an end, not because of anything about the player. The player is irrelevant to the season being made whole. In a previous post you tried to argue that the player is relevant to the season being made whole because we are counting the players seasons. That is circular logic. I. e. "We know the player made whole a season because we need to know how many seasons the player made whole."

I'd use the indefinite article: "Has he completed one season when he has made whole a season-worth of games or when the season ends?" That's a genuine question because I don't see the problem with that question at all.

And, still, the player has not "made whole" the games or the season.
You added more than the indefinite article "a." You are now introducing a direct object into the discussion that was never mentioned in the book, "season-worth of games." The book says "seasons." Since I have finally pinned you down on "completed," you are now introducing a new definition of "seasons." The book defines seasons. In the details, a season is not even a fixed number of games. The rules mention unplayed games. If a coach doesn't play all of his games did all of his players fail to "make whole a season-worth of games?" Again, the season is "made whole" regardless of the player. Therefore, we are counting how many seasons the player "finished." You are stretching so far, it is starting to get silly.

So when has he completed a season? Is it when the season ends or when he's played a season-worth of games?

Since this rule talks about "seasons" and not "season-worth of games," it's an easy answer.

nor do I think the authors are sufficiently pedantic to have thought such wording was sufficiently explanatory.

Obviously they did. If they thought it wasn't sufficient they would have added more. (Unless it got lost in an unprinted version.)

[dode74]

The season is "made whole" because it came to an end

Or is it made whole because the requisite number of games have been played? Most of the time those two are the same thing. A whole box of eggs contains 6 eggs, but if I eat a box with 1 remaining egg in it have I eaten a whole box? We're discussing "completed seasons". So a "completed box of eggs" contains 6 eggs: it is a box with 6 eggs in it. Will I have completed eating a box of eggs after that one or will I need to eat another 5? Similarly, a whole season of games is (for example) 14 matches, but if a player plays the 13th and 14th matches has he played the whole season or does he need to play another 12 matches?

I'm not arguing the point of when the count is made now - the lack of tracking of mid-season recruiting has convinced me. This is a point of curiosity over semantics now more than anything. I discuss this out of genuine interest.

[CyberedElf]

Dode, since we are no longer discussing Blood Bowl, I'll send you a PM later.
Everyone else, the hot troll-on-troll action seems to be over. Move along.

[dode74]

So, PM discussion brought up the following:

a closer look at redrafting finds the following:

"As well as hiring new players from your team list, you
can re-hire players that were in your team last season
by paying the cost shown for them on that season's
roster. Copy across their entire row from your old roster,
including any Niggling Injuries, Star Player points, and
whether they want to retire, and add 1 to the number of
seasons they have completed."

That makes it explicit: any player who was on the roster last season gets 1 added to the Seasons Completed column if they are redrafted regardless of any other stats.

Which resolves the "completed seasons" issue entirely. However, it would seem that it changes (at least for me) the point at which the first WTR roll is made. The sequence, as far as the rules are written, would appear to be:

Play season 1
No players WTR (Seasons Completed = 0)
Players redrafted - add 1 to Seasons Completed
Play season 2
No players WTR (Seasons Completed = max 1)
Players redrafted - add 1 to Seasons Completed
Play season 3
Roll for WTR (Seasons Completed = max 2)
Players redrafted - add 1 to Seasons Completed
So it would seem your players get 3 seasons of play before they are at risk of a WTR roll.

So first WTR is end of season 3...

[CyberedElf]

For those that don't have the book, the Wants To Retire (WTR) roll occurs at the beginning of the off-season and redrafting occurs at the end of the off-season.
And because I can never just simply agree with Dode:

However, it would seem that it changes (at least for me) the point at which the first WTR roll is made.

And it also makes every season thereafter 1 less than I had thought. I. e. at the end of season 4 they only WTR on a roll of 1 or 2 because the number of "seasons completed" is still 3 and has not yet incremented to 4.
I am usually a very hardcore Rules As Written believer unless an authority comments otherwise. But, while I read these rules the exact same way as Dode, I can not believe that this was the intent. If it ever comes up in my league I will argue that the "seasons completed" increments before the WTR roll is made, but the change is just not recorded until the redraft. Since I have no authority to prove that this is the intent, it would only be a house rule.

[Djay]

You're both wrong, because if you read it in the original Hebrew, Wants to Retire actually translates to Wants Free Pizza. They actually start at a -1 for wanting it, and it increments by 1 on every season in which a Bull Centuar was killed and every 3rd season in which Nuffle personally told them they were hungry.

[Jorgen_CAB]

This is a typical way of over reading the rules.

It is pretty clear to me that whether a player has played in "1" or "15" games makes no difference. If a player is there at the completion of a season you simply add one to the number of seasons that player played. Anything else is just reading something which is not really in the text.

If it had been any other way it would have been clearly stated that a player needs to play all the games on that season to qualify for having played a season, there is no such clarification and it is a bit strange to interpret it in another way.

[dode74]

That bit has already been resolved as it is explicitly stated in the text, as quoted above.

The question now is whether the number is changed before or after the WTR roll. That matters because it defines the minimum number of seasons before a player can fail said roll. According to the text the first time a player can fail that roll is after 3 seasons of play.

[Jorgen_CAB]

That bit has already been resolved as it is explicitly stated in the text, as quoted above.

Yeah.. sorry I missed that in the above comments...

The question now is whether the number is changed before or after the WTR roll. That matters because it defines the minimum number of seasons before a player can fail said roll. According to the text the first time a player can fail that roll is after 3 seasons of play.

Is this not also about reading into the text something which is not really there.

To me it would clearly be after two season being played. That seem both obvious and logical from a game mechanic/balance perspective. It just seem a bit convoluted and unintuitive if it would be any other way. At least I'm 99% sure this is how it is intended.