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House Rules - I have an odd tweak to make the game of Blood Bowl go faster
neoliminal - Jul 17, 2005 - 04:29 PM
Post subject: I have an odd tweak to make the game of Blood Bowl go faster
I have an odd tweak to make the game of Blood Bowl go faster. I've playtested it myself and it works, but I really want some input from players other than myself and the few who have had a chance to play the change with me.
So, without further ado, here's the tweak.
Set up:
Get a cup and fill it with 40 d6.
Team Turns:
You will NOT be moving turn markers.
At the start of each Team Turn, take a die out of the cup and roll it. The result is the number of actions you get that turn. For example if you roll a "3", then you get to take three actions that team turn. All other rules about team turns apply (including turnovers ending your team turn, only one blitz per team turn, etc etc.)
When the last die is pulled from the cup and that team turn is played, time has expired for that half. Refill the cup and play the second half.
I'm looking for a few bits of information in particular:
1. How long did the game take to play?
2. Did it still "feel" like Blood Bowl?
3. What were the best things about the change?
4. What were the worst things about the change?
Final note: Yes, I'm on the BBRC. NO, this isn't an official variant. NO, it's not getting put in the vault, NO it's not going in the LRB. It's just an idea for speeding play up while keeping the spirit of the game intact.
So play a game or two and let me know what you think.
Melifaxis - Jul 18, 2005 - 03:23 AM
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What makes you think any of us have 40d6 lying around...oh yeah...we're gamers. Nevermind.
Interesting idea. I'll give it a try.
Apedog - Jul 19, 2005 - 11:43 AM
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It's a bit of a mad idea but I quite like it.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it may benefit agile teams (ie. elves) though as they can do quite well with a couple of players and if they turnover early in a turn they won't have to suffer the whole team being blocked.
neoliminal - Jul 23, 2005 - 06:45 AM
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Apedog wrote:
It's a bit of a mad idea but I quite like it.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it may benefit agile teams (ie. elves) though as they can do quite well with a couple of players and if they turnover early in a turn they won't have to suffer the whole team being blocked.
We found that this was countered by the fact that they don't end up with supporting defenders and if your opponent gets a decent roll they get knocked down and kicked.
Anyway, try it!!! I want feedback!!!
absent - Jul 23, 2005 - 09:08 AM
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so you roll a 1 and a 2, opponent rolls a 5 and a 6, you lose
too random, might be fun for one off games, but for a tourney or league it would just be frustrating
GalakStarscraper - Jul 23, 2005 - 10:41 PM
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absent wrote:
so you roll a 1 and a 2, opponent rolls a 5 and a 6, you lose
too random, might be fun for one off games, but for a tourney or league it would just be frustrating
I think you meant ... consistently roll a 1 or 2 vs your opponent's 5 and 6.
Given each half is now in effect 20 mini-turns (man re-roll burning like you've never seen) ... normalization should even out dice probability.
But yeah ... if you really suck at rolling and your opponent is hot (I'm remembering play Undead at the Underworld Cup ... my dice rolled 1 and 2s ... his rolled only 5 and more. Then it could be a really long game.
But heck that is true when you take normal turns as well. When the dice are against you ... they are against you.
Its an interesting varient John ... cool idea.
Galak
Cervidal - Jul 24, 2005 - 11:51 PM
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Tried it, Necromancy v. Dwarves. Developed teams, ~180s
Necromancy 2, Dwarves 0.
On offense, the Dwarves found themselves often unable to form up their cage, as the Necro player (me) kept using his actions with his werewolf to push the dwarves out of position every 'turn'. This left the other speedy players enough room to interfere with cage formation, and the Dwarven offense was never able to get started. The zombies were almost never moved, except maybe to stand up and run interference. I strongly doubt more than a half-dozen zombie blocks were thrown all game.
As for the Necromancy offense, speed once again ruled the pitch as each 'turn', all the actions were used to manipulate the ghouls and werewolves. The Dwarves found themselves unable to ever find good defensive positioning as they were often so overmatched having to play catch-up with only a couple of players each turn.
It didn't really feel like you were using your team. The higher movement/agility/strength pieces were the ones used over and over again; linedwarves and zombies ended up becoming afterthoughts as both teams would struggle to cover side to side movement.
The game took substantially longer than usual, mostly because of the deep thought involved in using a limited number of pieces to cover a lot more area. Also, the number of blitzes was much greater, leading to longer action time.
I wouldn't likely try this again because of how position players ended up completely ruling the game, especially with a pair of teams whose players' number stats varied so much from player to player.
Chunky - Jul 25, 2005 - 06:26 PM
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What if it was 2D6 each time?
Cervidal - Jul 25, 2005 - 08:38 PM
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What would you do if you rolled a 12? Or any other number greater than how many you have on the pitch?
Chunky - Jul 25, 2005 - 09:41 PM
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Make it so that once all players have moved, one of em gets an extra - that would be kind of interesting.
Another idea would be to make it so that getting up from prone doesn't use an action.
2D4 would actually be the dice I think would work best - an respectable average of 5, and a maximum of 8.
As a house rule thing its hardly restricted to the normal dice.
Longshot - Jul 28, 2005 - 11:11 AM
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is the idea about giving extra luck things in the game?
cos this is what it will do and i suppose that peedy teams will have advantage of that systeme (need feedbacl of course but i see it coming).
Other idea: try chess clock with 6 min / half.. blitz bloodbowl: we tryed it with Valen, Trambi, Lucifer and some others.. it rocks 
neoliminal - Sep 27, 2005 - 08:49 AM
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Cervidal wrote:
Tried it, Necromancy v. Dwarves. Developed teams, ~180s
Necromancy 2, Dwarves 0.
On offense, the Dwarves found themselves often unable to form up their cage, as the Necro player (me) kept using his actions with his werewolf to push the dwarves out of position every 'turn'. This left the other speedy players enough room to interfere with cage formation, and the Dwarven offense was never able to get started. The zombies were almost never moved, except maybe to stand up and run interference. I strongly doubt more than a half-dozen zombie blocks were thrown all game.
As for the Necromancy offense, speed once again ruled the pitch as each 'turn', all the actions were used to manipulate the ghouls and werewolves. The Dwarves found themselves unable to ever find good defensive positioning as they were often so overmatched having to play catch-up with only a couple of players each turn.
It didn't really feel like you were using your team. The higher movement/agility/strength pieces were the ones used over and over again; linedwarves and zombies ended up becoming afterthoughts as both teams would struggle to cover side to side movement.
The game took substantially longer than usual, mostly because of the deep thought involved in using a limited number of pieces to cover a lot more area. Also, the number of blitzes was much greater, leading to longer action time.
I wouldn't likely try this again because of how position players ended up completely ruling the game, especially with a pair of teams whose players' number stats varied so much from player to player.
If I were playing the dwarves, I think I would have spent the majority of my turns trying to kill that damn werewolf.
Out of curiosity, have you played this team before? Were the results similar?
Xeterog - Sep 27, 2005 - 01:27 PM
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I might like to try it sometime, but it does seem on the surface to hamper slow/bash teams like dwarves.
Maybe 1d6+2 for number of turns..or the 2d4 idea.
Or maybe teams can have a modifier to the roll..say slow teams like dwarves get 1d6+2, while speedy teams like Skaven get 1d6-1 (obviously it'd need to be determined for each team..I could see flings and gobo's getting +3!)
Another idea. Limit blitzes to once every 12 'moves'. You could set aside each turn's die to keep try of it.
Paul - Sep 27, 2005 - 01:49 PM
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Quote:
It didn't really feel like you were using your team. The higher movement/agility/strength pieces were the ones used over and over again; linedwarves and zombies ended up becoming afterthoughts as both teams would struggle to cover side to side movement.
this is an interesting idea to try out, but to combat the above situation I would suggest that you cannot move a player until every other player on your team has moved. This would keep the star players from dominating the game, while
Joemanji - Oct 01, 2005 - 02:45 PM
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Wow ... a really interesting discussion! 
My initial thoughts are that this would favour those teams who are built with fodder linos & uber-positionals (e.g. Necros, Skaven) over those with more balance throughout their structure (e.g. Humans, Orcs). Cervidal's game highlighted this. With a average of 3.5 actions per mini-turn, the Necros were essentially fielding a team of Werewolves plus spare parts ... more than every other action would have been made by a Werewolf. 
In contrast, the Dwarf team, which relies on close support from player to player rather than individual flair, struggled.
I think this might be an interesting variant to try for BB 7s though. What do you think?
neoliminal - Dec 13, 2005 - 07:25 PM
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The idea here was to speed the game up. The game should take less timeto play using this system. It also slightly hinders the better team because they are the one's who are more likely to get all 11 players to make a move without a turnover (because of skills). So it limits things, but still has a nice feel because players who aren't moved are normally next to other players... they still feel "active" even though they aren't actively taking turns.
The mechanic of having the dice in the cup to keep track of time is very usefull because it removes the turnmarkers from the game.
neoliminal - Jan 10, 2006 - 08:30 AM
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Anyone else try this variant yet? I'd like more feedback.