Homefield Rules

Cephalopod · Homefield Rules

I was flipping through an old Citadel magazine and it had rules there for homefields. It got me to wondering if anyone else had liked those and what we'd have for Elfball.

I had a couple ideas:

A coach may only place markers on his side of the pitch.

Timberline Elves: Before setup at the beginning of the game each coach selects 3 hexes and places a tree marker in it. If a ball is thrown and the throw string crosses a hex with a tree marker in it the ball bounces d6 paces in a d6 direction from the hex with a tree marker. A player may not enter a hex with a tree marker.

Siringit: Before setup at the beginning of the game each coach selects 3 hexes and places a punji pit marker in it. If a player enters a hex with a punji pit marker for any reason remove the punji pit marker and that player must perform an immediate injury challenge using their grit attribute.

At any rate, this was just a random musing. If you like the idea feel free to make up your own.

Dark Lord

The only thing I worry about with those rules is that since EB uses a 1 hex goal it may be easy to place the 3 in front of the goal and then make it nearly inaccessible.

This configuration would force players too close to the edge of the pitch and make it very easy to shove them out of bounds.

I like the idea but I think for Elfball home field advantage should help offense rather than help with defense. It can hard enough to score in Elfball...I'm tired now and need to get to bed. I will come up with a suggestion in the morning, so I'm not just being a negative nellie.

SillySod

If I saw that formation I'd probably shove your player into the goal circle....

Dark Lord

And if it was a Tantor?

Cephalopod

Pick that one that isn't a Tantor and shove.

We could easily rework it. The markers may not be placed in any hex that is adjacent to a white or yellow line.

mattwakeman

Like the idea of homefield advantage but care has to be taken that it is something quite slight. Maybe pushing a team to win 55% of its home games rather than 50% for example.

I would be more tempted to think more along the lines of allowing the home team to be able to heal players slightly better, reroll potions or if they get more than two momentum from one action then they get another one automatically. The latter is more like the crowd helping the players along when they have done something great. I would be more tempted to try and make homefield advantage something that happens more off the field rather than on it if only to make it easier to design and balance.

brownrob

you could always place a piece anywhere you liked, then roll a d6 4 times to scatter the pit from its original location. If it goes out of bounds its lost, so the incentive would be to keep it more to the middle of the pitch

Some thoughts on racial pitches.

Desert Dogs: You could have a sandstorm tornado thing that would scatter 1 hex per home turn. Getting caught in the storm results in you getting thrown 1d3 hexes away, and being placed dazed. This will also scatter the ball

Gnomes: Mines could be placed on the field randomly, though they are unreliable and they may not go off when walked on, but may go off even if you are in an adjacent hex! I can envisage something like the fire template that thew wizard uses here

Valkyries: You could have Ice patches on the pitch that make it difficult to disengage

Divine Wind: To me seem to be into meditation. Thier pitch could have some sort of "pep" items they could use (1 extra jog for a turn)

Just a few suggestions

Dark Lord

Thom

This idea has some merit! What if. . . ? ? ? The home team has three local features which must be placed in NON-Adjacent hexes.

Perhaps in the case of the "Elven Trees", the Elf team would be able to pass through the tree hex while others could not. And of course the tree would block pass attempts through it's hex.

Valks would suffer no footing penalties on the "Ice Patches" while all others crossing the ice would have to make a dodge challenge or slip and fall (And perhaps scatter 1 hex?).

Same might apply to the Desert Dogs and the Pharaohs with their "Sandstorm Tornado" or "Dust Devil", they can pass unhampered but others must face a dodge challenge, (Tossed by the wind and scattered 1 hex?) it would also scatter a pass attempt.

Perhaps the Samhaino might have plowed furrows while the Deadlings or undead might play in a cemetery with tombstones or crypts occupying certain non-adjacent hexes. A crypt would block a pass attempt just like a tree or tornado.

Perhaps the Siringit would have "Watering Holes".

The possibilities really make things interesting, particularly if you exapnd the territorial concept. The Crocks on the Pharaohs might be able to handle the watering hole as well as the Siringit. Thunder Hammer Dwarves might be able to handle the Ice Patches as well as the Valkyries.

Some teams may not have a home field advantage at all. Perhaps it should be purchased during team creation? Wow, it really gets the ideas flowing for me at least!

Cephalopod

I like the idea as a means of providing variation between games, but since it wouldn't make sense for both teams to have a home field advantage at the same time I'm not sure it is something that should be bought. It should probably be an optional rule.

That being the case, it is probably best that the item have the same impact on both teams, so one team being at a disadvantage wouldn't be a good thing there.

That being said, there are a lot of cool ideas that spring to mind.

Samhaino: Each player places 3 pumpkin markers on the field. These pumpkins can be picked up and thrown just like the ball. A player that fails to intercept or catch the the pumpkin when in a position to do so is knocked down. This special catch challenge gets more difficult for more accurate throws, add one to the number of successes needed on the catch challenge for every success beyond the number needed on the throw. Remove the pumpkin marker from play.

Dark Lord

My concern is that having it only available to one side, and not having it affect team value directly disrupts the balancing mechanism of Elfball.
If I wanted to play a game where one team has no chance against the other, I know where to find that.

Also, like I said things that inhibit scoring in Elfball are only going to result in long games of attrition.

I like the idea of homefield advantage in concept, but I don't think the Bl00d B0wl method of "pit traps" is what should be used here.

How about home field advantage costing 5 or 10 points and being somethings like:

Players entering the field can enter 5 spaces deep instead of 3.

Opponents must subtract -1 success from their first injury rolls (or first two).

Cheerleaders add 2 points of momentum each instead of 1.

One player's Jog is increased by +1 for the first test.

There's plenty more I could list like this...not directly harmful to an enemy's scoring ability, and not a game breaking bonus to the home team.
Apply them to what teams you see fit...or better yet, create a random table to roll on for being the home team and having "home field advantage" on your roster.

mattwakeman

In real life (pffft, boring I know) studies in football (and bear in mind that I am English so you know what version of football I am talking about here) have shown that home field advantage is shown the most on the decisions that the referee takes, we all want to be loved after all. So a boring solution would be to allow the home team to have a bribed ref for no cost.

Having said that of all the ideas here I think that DL's (and please call me matt, mattwakeman sounds so formal) suggestion is by far and away the best. Yes it lacks the flavour of pits and ice and racial differences and the like but it is nice and simple and easy to balance. It gives fun without a huge advantage to one team and most of all it allows for a huge amount of houseruled fun. Adding it to the roster means that like everything else it is a choice that the coach has to make (though of course some leagues might like to give one free to the team that wins each year (lots of lovely new fans) or even to the wooden spoon (some fans just are masochists at heart) etc etc.

For me, I like the idea in principle but as I have already said I think that it should be more subtle rather than making one team feel as though they won/lost purely because they were/weren't playing at home.

MidniteXpress

How about after set up, but before face off, both teams roll 3 dice (+1 per cheerleader). whoever has the most successes is said to be the home team and has the choice to purchase homefield advantage. if the home team can't afford the points then no advantage.

the home team then rolls against a table of DL's ideas and gets a random advantage.

Dark Lord

I love all the EB enthusiasm. We need to keep it up and keep harping on Tom to publish an Optional Rules handbook.

I have secret weapons rules, that I think work okay...but need more testing. Our little league isn't enough IMO.

MidniteXpress

i was also thinking about advanced rules and the creation of professional teams. it seems unlikely that a professiona team would only take "local" talent, but would seek out the best from all over the world.

there is no clear distinction between "good" and "evil" races, so how about a set of rules for making mixed teams? we could add them together with the homefield advantage idea to make a set of advanced rules.

we could also add some fluff that effects the mixed team, like black rock and thunderhammer don't work together so you can't have them on the same team. night elves and timberline etc.

mattwakeman

With the rules as they already are it would be very easy for someone to create a league with draft rules and no positional limits. Throw in some different ageing and potential stuff and the sky is the limit. DL described Elfball ages ago as being such a well balanced game that it was crying out for houserules and I really think that he is right. Weather, secret weapons, crowd, players with quirks and personalities. All can be added because the core is so solid.

Dark Lord

We don't ignore positional limits but we do allow coaches to trade players, and coaches can pick up players who have been cut from other rosters (as long as they have the position available.)
It's only happened a couple of times but in one example the Samhaino team picked up a Black Widow thrower who was cut. The BW Thrower had lost a point of jog but had Agile and 2 GP. She wasn't as good as my other thrower so I let her go, and the Samhaino team didn't have a thrower with any GP so they snatched her up. He didn't use a BW model tho...I wish he had. I told him I would even paint a bandage on her leg.

Thom

I love the idea of having an optional rules test/trial using a posted set. But to be completely fair, I don't get to play often enough to fairly judge ANY rules, original or optional.