Overtime: how long is long enough?

[mattgslater]

OK, so I'm trying to shorten overtime. I want more overtime in my leagues so I want to make stalling inadvisable. I also want to benefit speedy teams which often suffer in OT, having taken 16 turns of beating. So I want to make a random turn-ending mechanic that makes it likely the game will only last so many turns. What's the minimum number of turns I can give a team? What's optimum as a mean? 3 and 5 or 3 and 6 are the easiest to engineer. In any case, each coach will know when they have one turn to go.

I could also forgo the randomness and just set it at 4, 5 or 6 turns.

Here are the mechanics I'm considering.

A) Receiving coach rolls 1d6 before moving turn marker. If result is less than current turn # (before moving marker), both coaches move to Turn 7, so there's one more turn. 3 turns min, mean roughly 5 turns.

B) Receiving coach rolls 2d6 before moving turn marker, if result is ≤ turn #, move to Turn 7. 3 turns min, but almost all games will go longer. Most games will be 5-6 turns, but some would last longer.

C) Receiving coach rolls 1d6 before moving turn marker. If result is 4+, each team moves turn marker an extra square. Min 4, mean 6.

D) 4, 5 or 6 turns, flat.

[mattgslater]

I did the math on B. Check this out.

Chance of 3 or more turns: 100%
4-8 turns: 97.2%
5-8 turns: 89.1%
6-8 turns: 74.3%
7-8 turns: 53.6%
8 turns: 31.3%

Chance of any given turn being the last:
1: 0%
2: 0%
3: 2.8%
4: 8.1%
5: 14.8%
6: 20.7%
7: 22.3%
8: 31.3%

Mean: 6.465 turns.
Median: 7 turns.
25th %: 5 turns.
75th %: 8 turns.

I like that. And it's simple. Roll 2d6, try to roll higher than last turn (equal to coming turn), or suddenly it's the top of Turn 8. You probably get at least 5 turns, but you never know, so if you're not a speed team you need your hurry-up offense. You always know when you've got one turn left.

[Carnis]

I would never make overtime compulsory, or use the changes you suggest.

It makes stalling more advisable during the course of the normal game (1-1 is enough for overtime), and power the bashteams more (16 turns of bashing). All the while making stalling the preferred play during OT ->

If the last turn is always known, then stalling is as valid as ever!

Just wait at the endline, when its 1T to end -> score => 100% win certainty (barring a oneturner).

Draws are extremely rare in our games, so these rules would barely effect our league anyway. In our games a win is 3 points, a draw is1 point, so the underdog often goes for straight equalizer and risks losing rather than plays for a draw.

[mattgslater]

Hmmm... I could just make a tie the equivalent of a loss, and not calculate anything other than wins for record (that is, the first tiebreaker is "most wins," so 5-7 ties with 5-4-3). Or I could differentiate 2-half ties from 3-half ties. Like a point system with 3 points for a loss or draw without OT, 4 points for an OT loss, 5 for an OT draw, 10 for a win?

I still really feel like I need a mechanic to speed up OT, though. Just something to prevent the Turn 8 waltz. I see your point that this would just make it a Turn (5-8) waltz, but I also see that as less egregious. It also means that the defender, if they do their job right, can win without taking away, by keeping the receiving team out of scoring position until the receiver fails.

I strongly believe that ties in sports are shameful unless a resolution mechanic is applied and fails. So OT is a must. Personally, if someone refused to play OT against me in a league game without a good excuse, I'd never let them live it down: I'd heckle them like I'd never heckle someone I'd just beat.

Another option: two 5(?)-turn drives. If no team scores in the first drive, the receiving team kicks off for a second drive.

[Grumbledook]

think our league has 12 draws out of 83 matches so far, 7 more to play

not a fan of overtime

[mattgslater]

See, that's too many for me.

There was a tie in the NFL last year: the Eagles and the Bengals. No less a football great than Donovan McNabb observed in the following press segment that he didn't know ties were allowed in football. For the record, I did: if you look at any great coach with 20 years experience, you'll see records like 182-137-1. That proportion is cool by me. Heck, there could be two or three times as many and I'd be ok. But I'd like to set it up so that people will play overtime if they can, and if they have to reschedule then so be it. And I really don't want a situation where one coach's cowardice causes harm to another coach, which is what allowing people to take the tie does. The rules I have up there let one coach concede the match without suffering any of the usual penalties (other than the "L", which seems to me a fair absolution for the sin of being too chickens**t to go on). Isn't that enough?

I could also rate OT losses as a tiebreaker. So the first tiebreaker would "most wins", the second "most ties and OT losses," then head-head, SOV, etc.

[Grumbledook]

so american ;]

we will just have to beg to differ then

[mattgslater]

Ooh... allow a concession without penalties at any point in OT. Tell your opponent that you've lost at the start of any of your overtime turns, shake his hand, and he assigns a Comp and a TD to two different players of his choice. Then work out the post-game as if he'd scored normally. That's how to avoid objectionable stalling.

[Darkson]

We actually did away with OT, unless both coaches agree to play it.
Can't see the problem with ties myself (fyi, I voted for 8 turns on this poll, but if I had to have OT, I'd just stick with the rules as written).