Journeymen question

[Jimmy Fantastic]

This came up on FUMBBL.
They have a rule that stops teams using JM for extended periods of time in order to build a bankroll.
The main argument seems to be "It's a spirit thing. Playing with JM and saving cash is just plain ugly. "
Do you agree with this? Also the most vocal supporter of the rule asked: Why were JM introduced? Fluffwise, what do they represent?

[Steam Ball]

Go with the Bank rule instead.

Maybe I misremember, but it seems that was the plan all along, JM and Bank, not JM and Petty Cash.

It was suggested years ago, too, for same reason, leave JM as is, change the money handling. http://fumbbl.com/index.php?name=PNphpB ... ic&t=19005

[Fassbinder75]

Playing with Journeymen has as many disadvantages as it does advantages. Its a needless rule, even with Petty Cash as opposed to Bank.

[Moraiwe]

Also the most vocal supporter of the rule asked: Why were JM introduced? Fluffwise, what do they represent?

People didn't like having to start games with only five players. In third edition I could go to a game with my team in my pocket I had so few healthy players.

I imagine they represent blood bowl amateurs who have always dreamed of becoming professional but never showed enough talent. They jump at the chance to play for a professional outfit, and there are always enough of them going around to fill empty roster slots.

[dode74]

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=36052&p=635231&hil ... en#p635231

[frogboy]

Journeymen have fluff too !

[Itchen Masack]

Hope this is just a certain league on FUMMBL and not a general FUMMBL-wide rule otherwise some high horses are off to the glue factory

[frogboy]

Where exactly is this rule on FUMBBL ?

[Digger Goreman]

In my most generous of moods, JM were an attempt to keep teams in the league after being unluckily/properly trashed....

It fails miserably in favoring those for which loner is a joke, and teams with front end skill loaded linemen: (not so much) the third tier stunties with personal rerolls who need the help, but the dwarves, elves, norse, zons, lizzies whose "fodder" are so inherently superior to the unskilled line of other teams.... Mini maxed, straight Undead certainly don't need the help either....

The most abusive relationship comes from weeding an elf team to eight players, concentrating spp there, and relying on the three journeymen's Ag 4....

Not sure if the bank rules can possibly mitigate this abuse... though they seem a step in the right direction....

[Jimmy Fantastic]

The 11 player rule is that you should strive to have at least 11 permanent players on the team. More or less this means that you aren't supposed to have a high treasury and (ab)use journeymen.

Specifically, it's this rule from the rules page:

Teams in competitive divisions are expected to strive for at least 11 players on the roster. While this doesn't mean that any team below 11 players must immediately hire a new lineman, coaches are expected to not let the team deteriorate on purpose.

This is the PM one of the admins sends out to coaches about Journeymen:

Hi,

I'm one of the Security Officers on Fumbbl. It came to my attention that you've got a team with a pile of cash and not rostering 11 permanent players.

https://fumbbl.com/p/team?team_id=xxx

You're in violation of the rules, quoted here:

"Teams in competitive divisions are expected to strive for at least 11 players on the roster. While this doesn't mean that any team below 11 players must immediately hire a new lineman, coaches are expected to not let the team deteriorate on purpose."

You may ask where that line is - we expect that you can save up some amount of money toward new players, but if you find yourself with 200-300k+, then we expect you'll be hiring some players toward the requirement of 11 permanent players.

Please ask if you have any questions.

[frogboy]

OK, well that's news to me and slightly disappointing as I was planing on doing that with a few teams which have been beaten up. Well not in a SPP abusive way, I just wanted to try and same 1 million GP so I can restart the team. It would be much easier if we could keep the same Team name and just retire a badly beaten up team though.

[Darkson]

IIt fails miserably in favoring those for which loner is a joke, and teams with front end skill loaded linemen: (not so much) the third tier stunties with personal rerolls who need the help, but the dwarves, elves, norse, zons, lizzies whose "fodder" are so inherently superior to the unskilled line of other teams.... Mini maxed, straight Undead certainly don't need the help either....

The most abusive relationship comes from weeding an elf team to eight players, concentrating spp there, and relying on the three journeymen's Ag 4....

From someone else I'd point out that this was tried by multiple coaches in playtest leagues, and always failed miserably, especially Lizzies, where the "fodder" need to be able to use rerolls for the simple things like picking up the ball.
From you with your widely distorted views I won't bother.

[Smeborg]

Before Journeymen existed, things could be a bit silly (in 3rd Ed.), you might have to play a match with 5 or 6 players, not fun for either coach. For AV7 teams (WEs were a good example), it was easy to get into a "death spiral". The only option was to re-start the team from scratch. Bear in mind that aggressive and highly effective fouling (once per turn) was the norm in 3rd Ed. This made it easy to beat up any short-handed team.

The problem with the rule in the FUMBBL league is that it is deliberately vague. I suggest it needs to be precise, for example by specifying the circumstances in which you must buy players.

I have to say (perhaps because I only play tabletop), that I have not encountered any team trying to abuse the Journeyman rule (for example by running with 8 rostered players for a long time). It seems to me that such teams would be easy to beat up with pretty much any developed team with (say) 14 players. What I do see (and have done myself) is to run a team with 8, 9 or 10 rostered players for a short time while building up a reserve of cash prior to buying (say) 3 players at one go. This sort of practice seems to be positively encouraged by the current Journeyman rule. WEs and PEs seem the typical (but far from only) candidates.

At a more general level, I find the practice of running with less than 16 players a bit odd (I do it, it is strongly encouraged by the TV-dominated current ruleset). In 3rd Ed., developed teams would typically consist of 16 players. This felt more "normal", like a sports team (11 players + 5 subs). Turning up with no subs is strange. Perhaps there is scope (in the future, I'm not holding my breath) to improve this aspect of the rules, including (as a subset) the Journeyman rule (not to mention the Star Player rules as well).

All the best.

[Fassbinder75]

Additionally the 'spirit' indicates you must try and field 11 players at all times, which would mean buying Rotters instead of a replacement Beast, Hobgoblins instead a Bull Centaur or Zombies instead of a Werewolf.

The phantom illness that is 'Journeyman Abuse' is usually just a coach wanting to fix a broken roster in the optimal manner, rather than blowing cash on mere bodies.

[dentt]

I play table top, so the rule may be different

"If a team can only field 10 or less players for the next
match, the team may bring Journeymen onto the roster for
free until the team can field 11 players for the next match. A
Journeyman is always a player from a 0-16 or 0-12
allowed position on the team's roster. He counts his
normal rookie cost towards the total team value, but has
the Loner skill as he is not used to playing with the team.
Journeymen may take the total players on the team
(including injured players) to more than 16 at this point."

Doesn't that imply that if you have the coin you have to field team player?