Racial rules? Another houserule thinking session...

mattwakeman · Racial rules? Another houserule thinking session...

Whilst waiting for my version of Elfball to arrive I have been thinking about the different ways that I want to play the game (apart from the vanilla version of course). And in my mind I still have the idea of being able to create a league in which teams don't have positional limits. And the Elfball rules actually help here much more than in BBowl because a midfielder is a midfielder is a midfielder. There is no difference between them.

But what if there was?

What if a Night Elf was able to choose a Dodge / Skill advance for only 4 experience points instead of 5 for example. Or an Orc could do the same with Might? What I am thinking of is the old kind of racial rules that used to exist in BBowl a long time ago.

Of course this is completely in the bounds of houserules but I was wondering if any others out there not only can see what I mean but had any other suggestions for how I could tweak ever so slightly the differences between the races in ways that would make a mixed-race team that little bit more interesting when it came time to think up rules to create teams and player selection.

Dark Lord

The idea of some skills being easier for some races to learn is interesting but it is a path wrought with pitfalls and traps.

Would it unbalance the game? In my opinion no, not if the skills generally were available to everyone equally and only a select 2 or 3 were easier to get...not entire categories like Dodge & Skill.

If I had to guess it would make bashy teams fall seriously behind since bashing isn't half the strategy in EB as it is in Bl00d B0wl.

I'd be curious to see some rules drawn up though.

mattwakeman

Now the reason that I don't want to go down the route of individual skills is that on first glance it tends to make certain teams and players prescriptive but then I have to keep reminding myself that I am only suggesting that certain skills are easier to get not that they can no longer get other skills.

When I first looked at Elfball rosters I was concerned that every player having 21 attribute points would lead to boring rosters but I really don't think that this is the case. Rather it leads to balanced teams which removes much of the *ahem* arguing that takes place in certain other games. Players being designed this way means that they can be average or where they are good in one area they are bad in another and this is in fact the direction that I want these suggested house rules to go in.

In my example of Night Elves for example if they can get a Skill advance on only 4 exp points then the flaw is that they can get a Might (or whatever) on 6. Thus the balance is kept. I am only interested in slight tweaking so that if a coach has a certain style and there was an Night Elf Striker and an Orc Striker available then he would tend to prefer one. That is fun, but what is more fun if the coaches tendencies are not supported by any of the players available!

I am also interested DL (and thanks for contributing by the way mate) why you think that bashy teams would fall behind? I thought that one of the strengths of Elfball (and of course the suggested rules by Phil Bowen for BBowl) was that of players not being rewarded individually for achievements. If this is the case then why would skill teams prosper?

Also I have long admired the lunacy which is inherent in the league rules for the other game by someone called Pac. They are hugely complicated and can be found here but one of the things that I most liked about them was the idea that players had a value which determined how likely they would be to become star players. In my mind's eye I can see rules which would create a system in which players are more or less likely to get skills quicker (or slower) or even be able to get skills to which they are not normally allowed to get. Players can boom or bust and means that coaches have to make harder choices about team selection and the like. This is all very vague at the moment but again, any and all comments are very gratefully received and I shall continue to think out loud and try to get some framework together so I can see how it goes when my game actually gets here!

Dark Lord

I like your enthusiasm but I think you should play 2 complete seasons with the vanilla rules before you change anything.

GalakStarscraper

mattwakeman

Yeah thank for the email Tom, having to wait just gives me time to think up lots of new crazy rules! Oh and DL I know what you mean about just playing the game as it at least initially but one of the things that I really like about Elfball is the teams appear so balanced initially and even more importantly than that, the skills themselves.

The other game has suffered tremendously because of the nature of some skills being soooo good that to not take them is to actually disadvantage yourself. Elfball's skills seem to be different in this respect in that none of them on first glance appear to be desperately overwhelming. Rather they just offer more subtle shades. EB seems more about the coaches whilst FF is more about the individual players if that makes any sense.

I think what I am trying to work towards when I play with these rules is giving every player, even if in a slight subtle way, the sense that they are just a bit different to all of the others. An Orc Midfielder who is just a bit slower in being able to pick up Middy skills instantly has some character to him. A Black Widow player who becomes available which has the ability to get a skill from any category would be worth her weight in gold...possibly.

There is a lot of work to be done in making these suggestions not only workable but elegant and most of all fun to play but I like that Elfball is simple enough on the pitch and balanced enough as well to give some real space off the pitch to think up rules for more engrossing gameplay and some really tough choices on what players to keep and develop and which to let go.

Dark Lord

mattwakeman

Ok, I have been doing more thinking about this and using some of the data that I gleaned from here I have come up with a rough and ready list of variations on how each race can be differentiated from each other.

Black Widows Skill Grit
Deadlings Might Dodge
Desert Dogs Grit Tackle
Divine Wind Position General
Dwarves Tackle Dodge
Gnolls Jog ?
Gnomes Might Jog
Middle Kingdoms Position General
Night Elves Dodge Grit
Orcs General Position
Pharaohs Skill Might
Ratmen Jog ?
Razorbacks ? Skill
Samhaino ? Skill
Sarcos General Position
Singrit General Position
Timberline Dodge Tackle
Valkyries Position General

Looks confusing right! Ok, what this means is that the bold are what players may be good at whilst the italic is what they may be bad at and as with all things in Elfball you can't have one without the other. So my idea here is that for each player there is a chance, and no more than that, that they may not have the usual gain skills at 5 exp points.

But, if they are to be different (and not sure how I will choose this yet but I would like about 35% of players to not be standard, maybe slightly more than that but I think that it depends on just how complex and cluttered the rules become) then the player can gain a bold skill on only 4 points but can only gain the italic skill on 6 points. If there is a '?' mark then it means that the skill will be a random one. The General and Positional ones are things that I am still not entirely sure about. What I am suggesting is that if the player is to be 'different' then they can gain either positional or general on 4 but the other on 6. This might be too big a change but I didn't want to have some teams not be different at all.

Let me make this clear, what I am NOT suggesting is that, for example, every single Timberline player is better at gaining Dodge skills but worse at getting Tackle skills. But some players will have that tendency, that is all. I also could never see these suggestions ever finding their way except into a house-ruled league in which all teams can sign all players. It is the only way that they don't become unbalanced.

Obviously still a work in progress but I thought that I should stick them here whilst I kick ideas around to see what I like and indeed if others have any thoughts or suggestions.

GrumpyGrizzly

Hey Matt,

I was looking over your list and it seems you missed a fundamental point of EB skills. "Any player can learn a Basic or Advanced general attribute ability."
From page 12.

So any member of the black widows can take an attribute skill that they need to round out their player. For example I have taken Resilient (Grit/Basic) on a striker to make it easier for them to stand up.

Now if you were suggesting that it would/should be possible for a Black widow striker to learn Reach (Safety/Basic) - no safeties on a BW team - then I'm just not sure I'm behind that. I definitely wouldn't want to see 35% of a team with people having skills that don't belong to their type, or only pay 2 extra points for it (which would only count as 1 skill = 5 extra team points).

This really seems to me to be a form of grandma's "roll a double and choose any skill" kind of thing. We all know what ends down that path

mattwakeman

No, my example of the Black Widow was inappropriate in the context of these early ideas. All that I am thinking of at the moment is to make it so that certain races are slightly better at learning some skills quicker but at the cost of learning others slightly slower.

I am not suggesting that players cannot learn general and type attributes or that some players can learn type attributes that they cannot usually get (although in the latter case I kind of like the idea of very few special players being able to learn the basic skill of another position).

I think that I need to put these ideas in some kind of context to make it clearer just what I want from them and why I am thinking of them. Elfball looks on the surface to be a wonderfully balanced game but it suffers in that it isn't realistic in terms of real life sports (and put to one side why I think that realism should exist in a fantasy sports game).

If you lose a player in a position then so what? You just recruit another one and on you go. Now of course this is only right and proper for when you want balanced games but I am that perverse type of player who doesn't always want that. Bear in mind that these rules will be just part of a league in which teams are not split on racial lines. They will all be mixed and player recruitment will not be any player that you want at any time but will be more about a limited player pool. I actively want a league in which there won't be enough throwers or strikers or whatever to go around. I want shortages.

And the reason for this is that teams will then have to make much harder choices on the players that they take. If the only thrower that is available is one that is slower at learning skills then that is a pain! But what if you are getting close to skilling him up and then a much better thrower comes along? What I want is a league in which coaches have to make tough choices on players and to do that there has to be differences in who is available and what they can do. These suggestions are the first little steps in that direction.

Dark Lord

So if a player earns a skill early, say at 3 Goal Points, does he then learn a skill at 5 points?

Does he earn skills at 3, 6, 9 etc?

Also if a player learns a skill early do you still charge them 5 points in team cost? That seems like it could get confusing.

Just things to think about.

mattwakeman

No, this idea is that a player gains experience points at exactly the same rate as normal. But, if, say he was good at dodge skills then he could get one of those at 4, 8, 12 etc. But his bad skill would cost him 6, 12, 18...and all of the rest are the normal 5, 10, 15...So if he had 5 exp points then he could choose any of the normal skills open to him or take his good skill category and have one point left over (which I have taken to be how experience points work in the game).

It is a small change to the rate of development. That is all that I am after. I certainly don't want to go down the other game's route of skills for everybody everywhere. Just a little more flavour. It just seems that it would add a little to the coaches decision making if you end up with players that develop slower in the direction that you want to go in.

Also, I think that his cost would still go up by 5 regardless because the whole point of these is that they gain a little in one area but they pay for it a little somewhere else. I don't want radical changes or fundamental shifts in how players and teams develop. I don't know the game well enough to try and change it to that extent. Just a little more colour and flavour.

Dark Lord

I don't think you're understanding me.

The way it works is (you are correct) for every 5 goal points you gain a skill.

However, goal points themselves do not count towards the 180 point cap.
It's not until you gain a skill that you add 5 points to your team's value.
Since they count as 5 points and you get one for every 5 goal points it works out. But if you never choose a skill you could have 55 goal points on a player and he would only be worth 15 points of team cost.
Players are not forced to buy skills if they don't want them. This is so coaches can manage teams a little better. It's not expressly stated that they are spending points. Just that you get a skill for every 5 points you earn.

So, that's where my questions were coming from.

Since GP do not count toward TV and skills do your system could have the reverse effect if you make them count as a sort of point buy system.

A player with more goal points could artificially lower his team rating by spending them on skills he was "bad" at. But if these are skills he shouldn't have it won't be reflected in the rating of the team.

That is unless you count the skill as 6 or 7 points of team rating...and then you have left the ease of 5 point denominators.

See what I mean?

mattwakeman

Yes I do see what you mean but I think that the comments so far (thanks to you both) have both focused on players being able to get skills that otherwise they cannot get and this not being reflected in the +5 that they will cost to the team.

This is something that I think would be incredibly rare if happening at all. The balance is, I think, so finely tuned that to allow players to gain positional skills all over the place would be a very bad idea. My suggested racial rules are not meant to allow players of a race to ignore what they could normally get. A Timberline player with these mods with 6 exp points could take a dodge skill and have 2 left over, a normal skill with 1 left over or a tackle skill with 0 left over. The only difference from the normal game is that once he has 5 then he can spend it either positional or attribute with 0 left over.

Now where I have talked about races with general and positional all I mean by that is, for example, a Human midfielder could get his positional skill at 4 points but a general skill would cost 6. I don't mean that a human midfielder could learn another skill that he couldn't normally get.

I can understand where you are coming from in the points buying thing but I don't really see how my suggestions actually differ that much from the main rules. I have just read it that players gain the exp points and then they can 'cash in' 5 points when they want to get a skill. If I am right in how I have read this then if you want to have a player who just hoards exp points and then doesn't spend them then it doesn't matter if he could spend them at 4, 5, or 6. And if you don't want to raise the team value, then why would you spend them at all?

Does that make my point clearer? Or have I singularly failed to understand what you are saying (this could be very likely!)

Dark Lord

Okay Let me use a sort of example because you are missing my point.

Lets say Razorbacks are bad at Skill skills.

A coach has a RB with 22 Goal Points that he has never turned into skills because of one reason or another. That player worth 15 points as it stands.

So he's got a big match coming up and he decides to get some skills.
He buys Agile, Bankshot & Focused for 21 points (7 ea). The player now is worth 30 points but has 3 skills that are supposed to be "harder" for that team to earn.

So a Razorback with 4 normal skills would be worth 35 points and a Razorback with the 3 hardest to learn (and therefore more valuable) skills would be worth 5 less.

It throws things out of whack. You have to compensate for it.

If you say those skills are worth 7 points of TV then you have a player that costs 36 points and everything in Elfball runs on increments of 5 for easy calculation...so it again throws things out of whack.

That's what I am saying. It's a noble idea but it has a lot of pitfalls that need to be sorted out before it can be implemented.

mattwakeman

Ahhh, yes I see what you mean now. Hadn't thought of it like that (perhaps I am still carrying the hangover of skills from 'tother game when all skills are equal to get but not in practice whilst here they are branching and incremental). Damn, I just hadn't looked at it this way. Will have to think about how to try and introduce some flavour without mad unbalancing taking place.

Dark Lord

I think it's a good idea, just not as easy to implement as you were saying.

I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

mattwakeman

I'm struggling to come up with anything that looks as though it will give some flavour without being unbalance so maybe one thing to do would be to keep the categories but limit them to only the basic skill. So a Deadling player can obtain the Basic Might skill for only 4 points but the basic Dodge would cost him 6. The advanced would still cost him 5. My only concern for this is that it is such a slight difference between races that it really doesn't add a lot.

When I have a little more time I will have to think more about it. Perhaps when the player base of Elfball goes up (which I think it will) then there will be more suggestions and houserules to be able to tinker with this idea more. But I will keep kicking it around and see if inspiration hits me.

Edit: Or maybe I should go the other way and say that instead of Basic skills being affected it is the Advanced skills that cost 4 or 6 and the basic ones always cost 5. Hmm, more to think about!