Game #10: Championship Dynasty

These are my replies to Torrent's comments. Scurra, I haven't read your comments yet... I will later today. :)

That's cool... the only reason I was able to get the game up in time was because I was on vacation for all of last week. 8)

Yes, it would. There's one impact on gameplay this would have... remember, after the Initial Draft that opens the game, the four Player decks are shuffled into a single deck, and is drawn from at the beginning of each season for the Amateur Draft. This means that everybody will know the first card in the Amateur draft for the next season. This isn't a bad thing at all, because it would resemble the buzz a young number one draft pick gets just before he graduates college.

Actually, extra game time would be a problem... that's the only reason why I'm a little cautious about changing the match play system. I'm obviously open to suggestions; otherwise I never would have posted this game on the GDW. But I ask that you consider two things when critiquing match play.

First, as the rules go now, we can assume each match takes 30 seconds, tops. In a four-player game, there are 12 matches. That translates to 6 minutes for that part of the game. If we can assume the other two game phases total to 15 minutes per season, then we're looking at about 20 minutes per season. In two hours, six seasons can be played. That's probably not enough to decide the game; it would realistically take closer to three hours. That's not a problem; but if you add any strategic thought into the phase, the game would balloon to four to six hours to play. IMHO, matches need to remain less than a minute, to keep the playing time practical.

Second, the meat of this game is really in the Offseason and Training Camp phases. That's when most trades will be made, players will get upgraded (and downgraded), contracts renegotiated, and teams built and dismantled. In a computer sports sim, the regular season is the time when the GM has the least influence. Anytime a real GM is seen during a real sporting event, he's usually up in the press box sweating as he watches his team perform.

So as much as it sounds like a copout of an answer, I don't really mind the regular season being so deterministic. A stock market simulation shouldn't be completely strategic, because of the market's chaotic nature. GMing a sports franchise is similar, in that you can't completely control your team's outcome.

Of course, if someone suggested a killer mechanic for matches that was under a minute, I'd absolutely consider it. :D

Yeah, I threw that in at the end because I've had one solo playtest of this game, and without that rule. Its purpose would really be to break up overperforming teams quicker, to keep the game competetive. I think you're right... it should eventually end up in the main rules.

I'm not too sure about the MVP getting Raw tokens, only because it would be a "rich getting richer" situation. I'd rather keep the coaches' decisions difficult. :)

I thought about this for awhile while originally considering the MVP rule. The problem with it is, if the MVP is going to cost more money (in the form of a potentially higher contract), then giving money for the MVP is somewhat pointless. In any event, the team with the MVP will wind up get more money under the existing rules, because each Win token translates to $1 at the end of the season.

Yes, absolutely. "Seed" or "Rank" would be better terms here. However, they would have to go in descending order. That might be intuitive or counter-intuitive; I'll have to see in playtest.

This is a good idea, and any way to avoid slips of paper would be great (hey, did you spot the rule I thought of as I was writing the rulebook? :) ) I'm hesitant to add another set of bits to an already bit-heavy game, so I'm curious what everyone else thinks. But seperate draft order tokens would be very interesting.

Very interesting idea. That would certainly spice up drafts. A player like this might need to have an extra contract card dealt to him (like the MVP), because he is more valuable.

Yes, but I don't want this to be a "gotcha" phase. By having the Ammy Draft before Contracts, coaches can better plan for next season. Most coaches will have to release one or two players in the offseason, and they'll be better informed as to who to drop if they have their replacements in hand.

Also, all real-life teams have scouts, so by having the new players come out of the blue after all the contracts are locked up, the game might not feel true-to-life... not a huge consideration for me, because I don't really want this to be a sim. But I don't want it to feal cheap, either.

Now that I think of it, the best way to do this would be to prepare the 3-5 new Amateur Draft players first, then do the Contract Negotiations, then Free Agency, and finish with the Ammy Draft. This is how computer sports sims do it. There would be some turn angst, but this may not be a bad thing. Is it too fiddly, though?

Oops, rules omission. The team with the highest Order token (highest-ranked team) is the home team. I'll get that in for the next rules draft. Nice catch!

This is one of the most important mechanics of the game, so naturally, it's one of the most difficult to explain. :) You're right with your second sentence, in that coaches may need to downgrade their players' skills to pay for injuries. The Upgrade improves a player's skill, which improves his performance in matches.

Not a bad idea, and would keep the stakes high. I considered giving coaches the ability to spend money to modify the die roll, but it just didn't keep with the theme. Paying Raw tokens is a better idea. I'd imagine that it should be the player indicated on the Positional Die who spends his Raw tokens, because the other way would be too much of an advantage.

Another idea would be to spend a Raw token to improve your performance a level, but I don't think the resulting spend-fest would be much fun.

No, once Health is gone, it's gone. Each player is a ticking clock. I should clarify this in the rules.

Those would probably best go on the Training Camp cards as flavor text. It would be a nice touch... good idea!

Shoot, so much for double-checking my rules. :)

First off, they were originally called Offseason cards, but they made more sense as Training Camp cards. I'll have to correct that in the rules. Also, I forgot to mention in my disclaimer that the "Type" is just for me; I have different types of TC cards, some more extreme than others. I want to see which ones I can get away with in the game. If the game is ever completed, Type won't be included.

The Bench is positive in the four cards I picked as examples, but there are plenty of cards where they're negative numbers. Nowhere to hide.

Thanks, and I appreciate your input! I have pretty high hopes for this game myself... it might be the first one of mine that playtesters may actually like! :D

Keep 'em coming!

I appreciate the point that this being a game that involves sports, people want more on-field action. I suppose that this is where hard data from playtesting would come in, and we could see whether players are missing anything or not. I wonder if I could run up some odds about how teams of varying skill level would compete against each other.

I had a similar system in a previous version, but I didn't like the multiple die rolls.

You know, I wonder if coaches could use a hand of cards instead of the dice to make the matches more strategic... and yet, if the game were decided by one card from either player, then they'd fit the time limit. Of course, the cards couldn't just be a raw qualitative value, because then a coach could get hosed by a bad draw of cards, and we're back to determinism again.

It would have to have enough strategy to justify having yet another component to an already-complex game. I'm thinking of some samples, but they're all variations of Paper Scissors Rock (better than Nothing Beats Rock, I suppose... :) ). I'll think about it...

It would be a little mathy, and would take a couple of seconds to do the math, yet, it might be a good bridge between die-rolling and power-cards.

I'm at work now, so I can't really dive into this, but this has potential. The Training Camp cards will become Play cards. They'll have the same Training Camp values on them, but will also have Play information on them.

One Play could be "Add up the total of your lineup, with Backups being 1, Starters 2, and Playmakers 3." Another could be "Take the player with the most Raw tokens, and multiply the number of his Raw tokens by 2." Another could be something like Jeff's idea, "Add up your Forward and Center, and subtract the total of your opponent's Defensman and Goalie from that number. Multiply it by three." Yeah, that last one's a little long, but you get the idea.

During the Training Camp phase, coaches draw X number of cards, and choose Y cards from them. At this time, coaches can spend $1 to draw another card, but they still must choose Y cards. Discarded cards go to the bottom of the deck.

Training Camp cards work the same way as before. Remember, the Training Camp info is still at the bottom of the card. The better the Play, the better the Training Camp, so players will have to choose where they want their good cards to go.

The Play cards determine how a team performs in a match. One card is played by each team per match. The card is placed face-down, then flipped over.

I'm toying with the idea of having each card being worth a certain amount of money, from $.50 to $2. The better cards would be worth more. A player can trade in cards for the sum total of cash, rounded down.

Another idea would be to print the value of the card on the card back, and have players purchase the cards. Perhaps really bad cards could have negative numbers.

This might be something, because I see three paths to victory here... either through playing your cards early and developing players, playing your cards late and having strong scores, or saving up for lots of cards and having a well-coached team, with a plan for everything. If all three are balanced, the game might become more strategic, with no significant time added to match play.

I don't think I'd need to add a coach, because spending money to get more Play cards would be the functional equivalent to spending lots of money on coaching.

Fantastic idea, Jeff! Thanks!

Hokay, here's where we stand right now...

I'm removing contract cards from the game. Each Play card will be worth $1. For every Play card played on a specific player (say that three times fast), his asking price will increase by $1 the following season. Every Skill token will have a base salary on it, so Playmakers will always be the most expensive players. So now I've successfully lost two components of my game (win tokens and contract cards), and it's much less bit-heavy. Awesome!

I'm considering moving the Ammy Draft to the last stage of the offseason, as long as the available draftees are drawn and prepared at the beginning of the offseason, so Coaches can plan for their next big things. By doing this, I don't have to worry about Rookie contracts, because all the contract payment will be done for non-rookies beforehand, and the free Rookie contract is implied. Much less fiddly.

Finally, each Play card is going to have a set of arrows at the top, like yay... (apologies in advance for my terrible ASCII art)

<br />
  /\         ||<br />
/    \       ||<br />
  ||       \    /<br />
  ||         \/<br />

So each card has an arrow pointing up on the left, and pointing down on the right. These arrows come in four different colors, with the two arrows on each card probably colored differently.

During a match, the Play cards are flipped over in a way that their top edges are adjacent. So each player has two arrows in a row pointing towards him. If those arrows are the same color, then he is injured. Perhaps there's an extra variable I can add, like a dot on some arrows, to decide if the injury is worth one or two points.

Nevertheless, the nice thing about this is that a coach has no idea whether the card he plays will injure either player, which is the way I want to go. Le Goon was nice in Slapshot, but that's not what I'm aiming for here. :) Perhaps I can juggle things so some cards are "riskier" than others, but this is my plan for now.

And hey, that ices a third component of the game... the four match dice!

Unfortunately, with my work schedule, I'm not sure I'm going to have time to update the rulebook today. I'll try, but there's a lot to change... which is absolutely nothing to complain about. :)

Two days, and the game seems to have improved tremendously. Thanks for your replies, everyone! Keep 'em coming!

So, if you have time to make changes, go for it, but don't feel like you have to as part of your participation here, or that you must post those changes within this one week slot.

Yes, that's cool. I understand. However, I've noticed one thing that happens in the GDW is that the thread gets so long, someone who jumps into it mid-week may read the rules and comment on them without reading all 2 or 3 pages of the discussion where the designer may have completely changed the rules. Heck, I've done it myself.

So I just wanted to lay down a disclaimer for anyone who skims the discussion that the rules are not current at this point. That's all. :)

Yes, that's exactly the feel I want to grab. Not a single game on the field or even a single drive to a championship, but the ebb and flow of a team over the course of several seasons.

I didn't think it was too bad originally, and I may recycle it into a similar game. But I think coaches could use the extra immersion, and it greatly helps the strategy. Plus, it drastically cuts down on the number of bits, which is always a plus.

Not exactly... :) Each team gets $8 at the end of the season, plus $1 for each win. Of course, the team with the most money is in the best position to negotiate for free agents... but since they have the highest Order token (or lowest Rank token, depending on if I change it), they won't get a shot at the available free agents until the other teams have had a crack.

Also, I'm aiming for an end-of-season dollar amount through which most teams will have a hard time hanging onto a bunch of stud players. One Playmaker and a Starter, yes... but anything more starts to stretch the budget. The Play cards add to this, in that a coach can forego extra players and buy more cards that can help him.

Finally, the Ammy draft consists of teams drafting players for free, with the worst team drafting first. The best players in the draft can be immediately turned into Playmakers the following season with the right Training Camp results, so things can turn quickly.

The above is very similar to how most American sports handle their offseason, so it shouldn't look to foreign to people who play lots of Front Office Football and Out of the Park Baseball... or those of you who remember Sierra's Front Page Sports series.

In Training Camp (I'll call it TC), you get a set of, say, three cards. Perhaps you can discard cards that you don't already like (I haven't decided yet), but once you're up to three cards (or five, or however many that I end up deciding on), any further cards that you draw cost $1. One of these cards is played as the TC card, and the values in its TC section are used. The rest of your cards are played throughout the season.

Hmmm... interesting idea. I'm not sure if I want to get into weighting the cards that much, but it could help the game's strategy. I'll think about it.

Yes, the higher score wins it. If Coach A gets 7 points and Coach B gets 5 points, then Coach A wins it. Raw tokens still break ties.

Yeah, this needs fine-tuning. Why have each win get you $1 when it'll just cost you $1 later on? Perhaps one way is for the player with the most play cards (the MVP) to ask for a set amount of money, second most to get a set amount of money that's a little less, and so on. I'd have to figure that out, but at least that way, the player's cost isn't exactly the same as the amount of Play cards they have.

Already covered. :) That's the MVP rules I have for the player with the most Play Cards (previously Win Tokens) at the end of the season.

I don't want to introduce this for no reason other than chrome. The current MVP rules are in to keep winning teams from becoming too strong.

Thanks for your comments... keep 'em coming!

I appreciate the time everyone's taken to look at my game. And as my moment on the stage comes to an end, I just wanted to thank everyone for their input. Of course, this being the GDW, comments are welcome anytime; this thread will never really close. I may even post updated rules, once I start testing the next version of this game.

Scalability shouldn't be impossible; I'd imagine much of it will have to do with the amount of money coaches get at the start of Offseason. Perhaps that can vary depending on the number of players. Playtesting will provide the answers.

Anyway, thanks again!