Funny idea for limiting Star Players: Star Power

[mattgslater]

The problem:
I) Big guy Star Players in particular, and Star Players in general, are game-breakers.
II) Big guy Star Players in particular, and Star Players in general, are lots of fun.
III) Making these guys more expensive isn't going to help. Or rather, to the extent that it will, it's already been done.

The solution:
1) Each Star Player has a Star Power equal to 1/150k value, rounded up. Star Players with ST6 or greater always have Star Power 3.
2) If you want to hire a Star Player, roll 1d6. If the result exceeds that player's Star Power, fine. If not, roll 1d6 on the Ego Trip Table to see what happens. Roll before you spend the money; if you don't like what you get, don't hire the player. Roll separately for each player each match, but only once per player per match.

Ego Trip Table
1: "You gotta be kidding." The player won't play for a no-hoper like you. He won't take your inducement cash, either. Spend it somewhere else, maybe on a different Star Player. If you prefer, you may offer the player an extra 50,000 GC x Star Power, and roll again on the Ego Trip Table.
2: "I won't play with him!" If you've already hired any Star Players or Mercenaries, you can't hire this player. If you hire this player, you may not induce any other players.
3: "I don't play for peanuts!" The player doesn't mind playing for your team, but doesn't trust the league to pay its debts, and wants some earnest money from the team. Add the player's Star Power x 10,000 GC to your Spiraling Expenses.
4: Classic Role-Model. The player is a brutal thug, and his entourage leaves your fans very unhappy. Your opponent adds the player's Star Power to his FAME for Cheering Fans and Throw a Rock rolls, as well as Pitch Invasion rolls against this player. If your opponent's fans Throw a Rock, it automatically hits this player. If the player is pushed into the crowd, add his Star Power to the injury roll.
5: Classy Guy. For all that he's great, the player comes with a reputation as an attention-hog. You may not leave the player in the reserves at the start of a drive. While the player is on the field, your opponent adds the player's Star Power to his FAME for all Brilliant Coaching rolls.
6: Ol' Buddy, Ol' Pal. Everybody knows this guy... and the players on the other side just hate hate hate him. For this reason, opposing players may add the player's Star Power to all injury rolls made against this player on blocks, fouls and uses of Stab or Chainsaw.

Do you see any problems or opportunities for improvement? Would this solve my basic concern? Is this basic concern legitimate?

[Darkson]

Is this basic concern legitimate?

No - both I and II are incorrect.

[Pagan]

I think the opposite is true. Star Players are rather easy to eliminate from a game and the inducement cash spends most of the game in the Dead and Injured box.

I'd rather see something like the old 2nd edition skeleton rules for them, where they just keep coming back into the game(after a drive) due to their vastly superior medical team. The Hall of Famer, Morg, has yet to make it past turn 3 against my Chaos Pact. 430k down the drain.

[voyagers_uk]

I agree with Pagan, if you understand what you are up against it is easy to either take them out or ignore them completely

[mattgslater]

I guess it's just a few stars that we're running into as problems, specifically the big guys without anti-skills. Frankly, nobody takes any star player here who isn't a killer; the others are all just guys, and usually are best at the kind of things that you live in terror you'll accidentally do with a non-rostered player. Except for one guy who had a bumper game with Moranion, for the most part it's Ripper and Grashnakh running all over, largely because the teams inducing them are already really, really high-ST. Ripper is an engineer of destruction, able to get even a pretty novice Orc team up to 6 blocking-targets on the first turn of the opening drive. Grashnakh is marginally less effective at the same thing (Grab vs. Frenzy: both can get you chains, but Grab is better for that), but he's a better overall blitzer-type.

This season, after maxing out my primary team, I started playing some lesser teams alongside, just for giggles. In the last 9 games, my Nurgle are 2-3-0, with all three ties coming without Grashnakh and both wins with him, both times as a 500k+ underdog. The guy has 7 casualties in 2 games. Deeproot has single-handedly carried my Halflings to 4-0, with 9 casualties and a TTM TD in four games (the two Block Halflings after game 1 didn't hurt). And it's not just me. We have one Orc coach who refuses to play as a 250k+ underdog, which the rest of us think is hillarious, because we have lots of guys who refuse to play Orcs as a 270k+ overdog.

[Darkson]

I guess it's just a few stars that we're running into as problems,

I wonder if that has anything to do with all the other rules you've changed?

[mattgslater]

We use almost none of the rules I propose. I'm like a beaver; I have to gnaw on rules or my teeth poke through my brain. That doesn't mean we have to implement everything! A few years ago, we had two camps, one that would play only a really-heavily modified 3e, and one who wanted to keep up with the times, even if it sometimes meant holding their noses. The second one won out with LRB5. People come up with problems, we hash over fixes, playtest them a bit, have a little fun, and then do nothing even if we like how they turn out. Right now, our house rules are:

1) You can re-roll your MVP.
2) You can induce +10k winnings or an MVP for 100k and 200k respectively. There's also a "side bet" for 100k that's 1d3x10k winnings only if you win, but nobody takes it (I'm afraid of offending people, and nobody else is overconfident enough to spot the other guy 100k for no gain if it fails). We're debating changing the +1 winnings to +1 FAME for 200k.
3) We're probably going to either implement 1 SPP for foul/SW/Stab cas, or just broaden the definition of Cas to include all those (and maybe crowding) and some bigger penalty for getting caught fouling. But we haven't done it yet.
4) Sort of a hybrid between a fixed and open league with tournaments every few months and a cap on the rate of play. We have a "waiver wire" where teams can hire or induce their favorite players from old disbanded teams, usually at a high premium. We reset after the tournament, except the final 3-4, who play in sort of a perpetual graduate league. We plan on holding tournaments with these teams every few years, but haven't done it yet.

I really fail to see how any of that is amazingly relevant to the issue. #1 does encourage the hiring of stars, but it's a butt-saver for rookies, and is very popular. #2 competes with stars (well, the MVP does; +1 Winnings competes with Babes, Wandering Apoth #2 and Igor #1, and to a lesser extent SW stars or bribes), #3 probably encourages star big guys over chainsaws, but is really meant as a Zombie development aid because we have so many Undead-happy newbies, and #4 is intended to keep teams from loading up too much in advance of the tournament.

[Pagan]

Even with those changes(we personally award a cas for any player action that results in one on the opposing team, since that player learned how to do something better) your league doesn't sound that far off.

Not sure why you are having such a hard time with Star Players, unless the rolls just keep going great for them. Morg has been induced 9 times in our leagues, and he has 3 cas and a 2-6-1 record.(W/L/D)

My Dark Elves in their last 4 games have had to face Morg + Headsplitter twice, Morg + Slibi, and Grashnak + Lord Borak. All I usually did was put either a 9 armor Lineman or a Blodger on them the whole game and kept drives as short as I could.

[Smurf]

I just used the (Spike) team rating. Over 150 the star player is interested. Under 150, they are not interested.

Another idea I have is permanent star players. However if you lose, they walk and can only be rehired if you have won again.

Most people do not like Star Players in our league. I might get my 15 year collection of all the star players, so anyone can induce anything (almost).

Can't find Speccy McGroan though!