But obviously the current system is not designed for that and has created a league that is much looser for obvious reasons. But I have been thinking about how to do this recently and so have decided to show a very rough skeleton or concepts and ideas for comments and suggestions at an early stage.
At this moment in time I think it is much more likely that a league such as this will not happen than it will. The rules could quickly become bewilderingly complex or just turn into an exercise of having to make 613 die rolls at the end of each game which is an obvious non-starter.
But here they are and I intend to keep nibbling away at these for a while as and when time permits. I envision a smallish league of about 12 teams (the original 12 maybe) with the following rules:
League and Draft Rules
Team Setup
Teams will have a budget with which they will buy players and team re-rolls at set-up (1.5mill?)
# will there be a random list of players using the farm rules to set-up? #
Initial teams will come from own roster but maybe create some random free agents and allow teams to have some flavour from the word go.
Position limits are abolished.
Any player from any roster can play on any team but there will be disadvantages (as well as advantages?) depending on your racial mix. A Halfling team should consist mainly of Halflings.
Each player will have in their skill list the number of seasons played starting with (R) then (2), (3) etc.
Players can leave
Will the budget then stay fixed or will there be a slight increase year on year?
# probably better for it to stay fixed #
Teams CANNOT have a roster that exceeds the budget set by league and must cut players to get below the limit
# veterans? Will there be exceptions to not bloat the budget to get rid of vets? #
During Season
Players will not be allowed to be released during a season regardless of what injuries they receive.
To replace casualties teams can either:
Use their own farm teams
If a team is below its budget then it may go to its farm system to see what players are ready to play at the top level. To determine what player is available use the stat tables for each team.
Example: Humans have 27 players on their roster (12 lineman + 4 blitzers + etc) so you roll a 27 sided die (or just use excel with a random number generator) and then compare to the list to see what player is available:
1-16 lineman
17-20 catcher
21-22 thrower
23-26 blitzer
27 ogre
So if you roll a 27 then you can have an Ogre...but what if that would push you past the budget? Does the player go into the FA pile? Do you have another roll?
or
Teams can either try to sign players from the Free Agency pile
But they have to make a roll to see if the player will sign for them with modifiers for things like different race, undead, stunties etc
Money to be used only to sign free agents and draft choices
# not sure if I wish to eliminate cash altogether though #
Player Development
Possibly unhooking Skills coming through Star Player rolls completely. Instead of a player magically getting a skill after they have got so many SPP's in a game maybe working out a system in which players gain skills (um magically) at the end of the season. This way skill rolls or Physical gains can be tied into the chance of negative things happening. Have to think much more about this one though.
All players that come through the farm system or are drafted are considered to be rookies. They have a ‘R’ in their player skill description and are considered to have the loner skill OR they must roll on the rookie table to see what hindrances they come into the league with.
Rookie table to include many of the skills that are in the PBEM tool such as fragile or idleness
At the end of the season all rookies lose their ‘R’ and lose the loner skill and rookie problems OR they have to make a roll to see whether they fully develop.
End of Season
Ok I have had more thoughts on possible things to do at the end of the season and I think I may have come up with quite an elegant solution (though it does involve quite a lot of rolls).
For every player you roll a % dice. If this number is lower than the players SPP's + his Years experience X 5 then he rolls on the bad table, if it is greater (or equal I guess) then you roll on the good table. This is coupled with removing gaining skills by gaining SPP's.
So for example a team has a 2nd year lineman with 5 spps. If the % roll is 14 or less he gets a bad roll, 15 or more he gets a good.
This means that players will always be gaining and losing skills at the end of the season rather than mid-point and will mean that all have the chance to change into some strange combinations. The only thing to worry about is 1) player developement and 2) not making the changes too drastic.
Bad List
Instant Retirement
Possible Ret.
Mods: roll a d8 (d6?) with a -1 applied for each niggle or stat loss and if total is LESS than no. of seasons played then the player retires
Test Free Agency
FA unless a raise
Player demands a raise. Their value goes up by 25,000 unless the team refuses and they then will test FA. If they move on to FA their value does NOT go up.
Restricted Free Agency
If another team wishes to claim this player from the roster they can do but if nobody does then he will stay with his original team
1 roll on improvement roll table with +1 mod and 1 roll on minor table
If this results in a characteristic gain then it counts as a loss and a skill gain means that the player will lose one random skill.
1 roll on improvement roll table and 1 on minor table
1 roll on improvement roll table
1 roll on minor table
Rolls will be % based with a provisional breakdown of:
1 - 10 V. bad - Instant retirement and possible retirement
11 - 25 Bad - Free Agency (whether automatic or just possible)
26 - 50 Slightly Bad - Possible losses of Physical charactersitics or skills
51 - 80 Nothing happens
81 - 90 Slightly Good - Roll on minor skill table (yet to be created)
91 - 100 Good - Roll on improvement table
This may have possible modifiers on it such as: % roll - (Yrs Exp x 5) so a 3rd year player would make a roll and then subtract 15 from the result
Good List
2 rolls on improvement roll table, If not a characteristic mod then one counts as a double
2 rolls on improvement roll table, 1st with +1 mod
2 rolls on improvement roll table
1 roll on improvement roll table & 1 on minor table
1 roll on improvement roll table
1 roll on minor table
Again rolls will be % based:
1 - 10 - Bad - Small chance of demanding raise but also rolls on improvement table but you will lose characteristics or skills as above
11 - 20 - Slightly Bad - Roll on improvement table
21 - 50 - Nothing happens
51 - 75 - Slightly Good - Improvement table and minor table (as above)
76 - 90 - Good - 2 rolls on improvement table, some of this will be split so that the first roll will have a +1 modifier to it
91 - 100 - V. Good - 2 rolls on improvement table, if not both characteristic then one may be counted as a double
Possible modifier is to add SPP's (/2?) to the result so the better players are more likely to gain more skills.
If you wish to cut a player then you can do so but it will impact on your budget for the upcoming season. 50% of any player so cut will still count towards the teams overall budget. So for example if you were playing a Human team and a Blitzer got -1ST then you would obviously wish to ship him out. If he failed to retire and you sliced him then he would cost you 90,000/2 = 45,000 on next years budget. So you would overall go from 1.5 mill to 1,455,000 to spend (or 150 to 145.5 in real terms). This would mean that teams will carry players that they wish to get rid of which is good because that is real life. It may also mean the rise of suicide attacks by coaches to get rid of them...which is bad so have to think about this one.
Trying to sign players has certain modifiers that will make it harder to sign players that are not of your race (with additional mods for stunties and undead).
Players can gain some of the new skills that have an impact on staying with teams as well as more of the skills from the rookie table(?)
Draft
3 rounds (hard to think that more would be a good idea).
Some kind of roll to see if the player will sign with the team that they were selected for and if they don't then they would go into the free agency pile
Players are generated randomly but have both upsides and downsides.
So for eaxmple a player may be rolled up as a human lineman but he will get a physical attribute (unknown or known) and a skill (normal or double or any all of which are selected randomly)
or
two random upsides and one down
But they will also have the possibility of being busts and not getting their skills and just having negatives (lose physical points or skills)
Latent spellcasters (using on-pitch rules) so a player may have the knack or he may be a definite and thus much more valuable
New Skills
All players when they are created initially, farm team, free agent or draft will stand a 5(?)% chance of being a wizard. Working on the principle that there will be 12 teams with 13 players on each roster as well as free agents that should mean there will be roughly 10 wizards in the league. Obviously since there are no limits then it is possible that teams can have more than one wizard on the pitch.
ALL skills are random. Every last one of them all the time. I want to be quite free in giving (and to a lesser extent taking away) skills but the cost is that you will end up with some weird and wonderful combinations. Yes it makes team development more precarious but it means that some of the lesser skills get taken and player development will be a strange but fun affair
Things like: more loyalty, less loyalty, no loyaty, fan unfavourite.
Players will have the chance of gaining 'attributes' like 'ego' where their team value will be subject to a +25% modifier or 'team-man(?)' where it will be -25%.
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Thats about the beginnings of a skeleton so far. The thing that I want is to make sure that player shortages are actually possible. Imagine what would happen if you have a few teams that are short of a thrower and then one came onto the FA market. Or even the possibility of trades taking place between teams.
The idea of a human playing for an Orc team might seem weird but the current system is not really like sports teams at all. They are more like national teams playing sunday league football when you are never sure how many people will turn up. So this is my attempt to create rules for a real league.
As I said I will continue to develop the rules but I would welcome any comments or questions
