DrDiscoStu
Joined: Feb 20, 2006
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 Posted:
Apr 28, 2016 - 01:00 |
 
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I have answered this without reading the other responses (not wanting to prejudice my answers) so sorry if this has been said before: I think you really need to know what sort of player is answering. I am nearly 100% a perpetual league player. Tournament players, ranked, BB, will likely see things different.
1. Would Blood Bowl benefit from being less random in both team-building and on the field, or is the random nature what makes it fun?
Team building is fine
I think a bit less random on the field would be good. Things like blitz, perfect defense, really change a game too much.
2. Would Blood Bowl be better if inducements were worth their listed value (making games 'fairer') or is a favourable match-up the reward for building a team?
A very difficult question. The problem in perpetual leagues is that it is so hard to maintain an side like elves. Compared to my orcs. Elves won't stay above 200 for long.
I really like the current way inducements work, but only if it becomes a bit easier to build an elf side.
3. While it is commonly accepted that CPOMb is is powerful, is the problem that it's too good, or that it's not available to everyone? Or that it's too easy to achieve?
Too good. Yes too easy to achieve is part of the problem. It takes the skill out of the game.
4. Disregarding how it's achieved, do you think Blood Bowl needs lower or higher attrition levels than are currently in the game?
I think it is fine the way it is. It is pretty hard to build a legend. I think there are 6 at the moment in SWL, a perpetual legue for 60+ seasons with around 50 sides.
5. Is TV a good mechanic, a wholly bad mechanic, or a flawed mechanic that could be implemented better?
A good mechanic
6. Are Spiralling Expenses good, bad, or flawed?
Good but IMO the best chance to level the field with the av9 "rich sides" and the av7 "forever broke sides". Generally the easy it is to kill players, the more exempt from spiraling expenses they should be. The richer they are, (orcs, cd, dwarf) they more they can get penalised.
7. Would the game benefit from Fan Factor being worth it's TV, or does it serve the purpose of a 'success tax'?
Worth it's TV. Inducements is the success tax
8. Should Star Players be priced according to their abilities, or is their over-inflated cost correct?
I think it works pretty good now.
9. Should rosters strive to be completely balanced against each other, not at all balanced, somewhere in the middle, or some teams balanced while others are 'novelty'?
Half to Three Quarters balanced. The rest can be less than them. TO what degree it doesn't matter.
10. Would the game benefit from encouraging faster play, more TDs and higher scoring?
No!
11. Would the game benefit from making stalling less desirable?
No
12. Should ageing be a thing (recently re-implemented on BB2)? As LRB4, or as Cyanide, some other way or best gone completely?
No No No!!!!!!
Get rid of it
Let's pretend it never happened
13. Should secret weapons and other 'sillyness' be encouraged, discouraged, or is the current balance about right? Should weapons be auto-banned?
Unsure. I think things work pretty well now. I guess the only thing is that the coin flip can really hurt secret weapons. I think you should have the option to put them on the field or not. e.g. a t8 autoban sucks
14. Would Blood Bowl benefit from removing the Wizard option, increasing it's cost, decreasing it's cost, or something else?
Well it clearly needs to go up, but probably not by a lot.
15. Would Blood Bowl benefit from Gold being more useful/having more uses?
Unsure. Think things work well now.
16. Should Kick-off table results have more of an impact on the game, less of an impact on the game, their current impact is about right, or they should be removed entirely?
Most are fine with a few that are way way too good. Perfect defense and blitz. |
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ArthurWynne
Joined: Sep 23, 2015
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Apr 28, 2016 - 01:06 |
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| licker wrote: |
The rule is actually very clear. Cyanide does not handle it properly, FUMBBL does. You should never be able to 'top off' free inducements, that is clearly a path to madness and abuse. At least the bank rule holds it in check for BB2, but even that is not a particularly well received rule, considering how it impacts your ability to use for money for fluff (stadiums). |
We shouldn't derail this thread, so I won't argue the point, but I have to ask: How is this a path to madness and abuse, assuming that buying extra inducements gives your opponent inducement money of his own equal to the difference? (Eg, you have 50k free, you pitch in 100k to get a wizard, opponent gets 100k free to get a bribe.) I honestly don't see it but I may well be missing something. |
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licker
Joined: Jul 10, 2009
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Apr 28, 2016 - 01:11 |
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| ArthurWynne wrote: | | licker wrote: |
The rule is actually very clear. Cyanide does not handle it properly, FUMBBL does. You should never be able to 'top off' free inducements, that is clearly a path to madness and abuse. At least the bank rule holds it in check for BB2, but even that is not a particularly well received rule, considering how it impacts your ability to use for money for fluff (stadiums). |
We shouldn't derail this thread, so I won't argue the point, but I have to ask: How is this a path to madness and abuse, assuming that buying extra inducements gives your opponent inducement money of his own equal to the difference? (Eg, you have 50k free, you pitch in 100k to get a wizard, opponent gets 100k free to get a bribe.) I honestly don't see it but I may well be missing something. |
Well if you do it that way it's still not really right, but it's ok. Thing is, cyanide doesn't do it that way. |
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Irgy
Joined: Feb 21, 2007
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Apr 28, 2016 - 02:29 |
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| mister__joshua wrote: | Everyone seems to love discussing the rules of Blood Bowl, and recent threads have been filled with interesting and varied opinions on different blood bowl rules topics. I wanted to approach the 'ruleset' question a different way, and ask a series of questions to gauge opinion on a variety of matters. I'll attempt to show as little bias for my own preferences as possible. The answers will then provide a useful resource for anyone undergoing rules projects and creating house rules of their own.
Below I will ask a series of questions, and people can answer as many or as few as they like in response. Some will be quite large and general, some will be more specific. There's a bit of overlap on some questions, but I wrote them as they came to me 
So, let's begin:
1. Would Blood Bowl benefit from being less random in both team-building and on the field, or is the random nature what makes it fun?
2. Would Blood Bowl be better if inducements were worth their listed value (making games 'fairer') or is a favourable match-up the reward for building a team?
3. While it is commonly accepted that CPOMb is is powerful, is the problem that it's too good, or that it's not available to everyone? Or that it's too easy to achieve?
4. Disregarding how it's achieved, do you think Blood Bowl needs lower or higher attrition levels than are currently in the game?
5. Is TV a good mechanic, a wholly bad mechanic, or a flawed mechanic that could be implemented better?
6. Are Spiralling Expenses good, bad, or flawed?
7. Would the game benefit from Fan Factor being worth it's TV, or does it serve the purpose of a 'success tax'?
8. Should Star Players be priced according to their abilities, or is their over-inflated cost correct?
9. Should rosters strive to be completely balanced against each other, not at all balanced, somewhere in the middle, or some teams balanced while others are 'novelty'?
10. Would the game benefit from encouraging faster play, more TDs and higher scoring?
11. Would the game benefit from making stalling less desirable?
12. Should ageing be a thing (recently re-implemented on BB2)? As LRB4, or as Cyanide, some other way or best gone completely?
13. Should secret weapons and other 'sillyness' be encouraged, discouraged, or is the current balance about right? Should weapons be auto-banned?
14. Would Blood Bowl benefit from removing the Wizard option, increasing it's cost, decreasing it's cost, or something else?
15. Would Blood Bowl benefit from Gold being more useful/having more uses?
16. Should Kick-off table results have more of an impact on the game, less of an impact on the game, their current impact is about right, or they should be removed entirely?
...and I think that's it for now. I may think of some more later. If anyone has any more/different questions I can edit them into the OP too.
Thanks for any responses  |
1. Blood Bowl is all about randomness, it's the absolute core of the game. The key to the design is that there's enough randomness in the future to potentially cancel out all of the randomness in the past. Take away one random element and you take away a check and balance on all of the other elements.
2. The inducement value is about perfect as it currently stands. Bigger teams need rewarding or else there's no point to the whole team building metagame. If inducements were worth their value then TV-optimised ("minmaxed") teams would suddenly be a problem everywhere, rather than just in TV-matched systems like [B].
3. None of the above. The problem is really that it leads to unsatisfying games for both parties. Remember I said about randomness balancing itself? The killstack and the bash approach to the game generally has the tendency to dominate the rest of the game, meaning it either works and there's very little the other team can do to stop it, or it fails and teams built around if have no fallback. It's one random element which isn't as well balanced by others (though on the flip side it does have value in controlling other game elements). Also that game losses to cpomb are particularly disheartening as you don't get to play the game and you're usually punished in the metagame to boot. Finally the biggest problem is that it's ubiquitous in [B], which is caused by a number of factors.
4. From a league perspective at least, attrition levels seem about right to me.
5. TV is perfectly fine the way it is, for the purpose of determining inducements. Matchmaking based on TV is what's flawed if anything. Even that is only partially flawed.
6. The whole gold system could be improved. The interesting part of team development is about skills and the skill resets when players are lost. Gold is mostly just a nuisance mechanic, and only affects certain teams anyway. Spiralling expenses is better than if it was replaced with nothing but isn't really effective on the whole.
7. I don't see why we need a success tax in this form. I think Fan Factor should have no effect on TV (and then be of less value to compensate).
8. See the above answer on inducement value (2).
9. The game would be best if every roster was balanced. There can be rock-paper-scissors style matchups (in fact it's important to in order to allow the distribution of teams to pull things into better overall balance), but the overall balance would be best with everything equal. This whole business about some teams being deliberately bad is garbage, it's just a rationalisation to cover the failure to balance the teams. That said, perfect balance is impossible, and certain teams might have a particularly negative impact on the game if they were overpowered. It's important to err on the side of a team being too weak rather than too good.
10. Faster in what sense? If you mean spending less time thinking then no, that's a loss to the game if everyone just plays on autopilot. Really what everyone wants is just for their opponents to play too fast. As for more TDs, see 11 for the stalling side of this. Otherwise, yeah more TDs is probably better than less, just to reduce the frequency of tied matches, but it's not a big issue either way.
11. If a mechanic discouraged stalling in some way then that would be a positive aspect of that mechanic, but on the whole I don't see it as a problem that needs solving. Most rules which might punish stalling are not worth the side effects.
12. Aging is stupid. Legends are the heart and soul of the game, let them die on the field where they belong.
13. More silliness please! Just so long as it doesn't become overpowered and overused.
14. What's wrong with wizards? They're fine.
15. Absolutely not unless the gold system was better implemented and balanced in the first place. Even then, spending a meta-game resource for any sort of significant in-game advantage would be bad for the game. Also, teams that save gold easily are advantaged enough already in that regard, at the very least major rebalancing in other areas would be required to compensate.
16. They have maybe slightly too much impact currently, but they are important. Things like Blitz and Quick Snap impact the way people set up even when they don't occur, and I think their existence is an important part of the game balance overall. |
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DarthPhysicist
Joined: Jun 14, 2015
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Apr 28, 2016 - 02:39 |
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| Irgy wrote: | | This whole business about some teams being deliberately bad is garbage, it's just a rationalisation to cover the failure to balance the teams. |
That's just not factually true. The game designers deliberately made gobos, halflings, vamps and ogres bad. There are several articles on this topic from the original designers. |
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DarthPhysicist
Joined: Jun 14, 2015
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Apr 28, 2016 - 02:42 |
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| pythrr wrote: | is this data mining?
i thought data mining was done to be more efficient, like creating an AI search of previous fora etc? |
Data mining is best done by dwarfs to keep them off the pitch. |
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tussock
Joined: May 29, 2011
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Apr 28, 2016 - 03:38 |
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1. Less random means any disadvantage you gain is harder to recover from, and it's much less likely for the joke teams to actually get anywhere at all. If anything, the balance issues people see in teams would benefit from greater randomness. But I like the large player-skill component to winning, makes the struggle worth taking on.
2. Inducements should be fun, and they mostly are. Weapons and Bribes and so on are great, but the Chainsaws could be cheaper.
3. CPOMB is good for cleaning out the high AV teams that used to dominate the game before it came about. There's still a problem with Nurgle teams, in that they stay too big for too long compared to everyone else. Decay on Nurgle Warriors, really, or fixing the bank rules to force them to spend up sooner and sack the rare injuries quicker.
4. Higher turnover needed for some teams, lower for others. To some extent, Claw should just make the player with it AV 7 when blocked down too, that fixes most problems there.
5. TV is OK. There should probably be a small amount of extra +TV on stars, superstars, and legends, like +10/+30/+60 or so, to balance the high-TV squads better. A few teams also really need a cheap bench option, even if it's just Halflings or Chaos Goblins.
6. Spiralling Expenses are very good. They are a less useful tool against slow-building high-AV teams because we lack a bank limit, and we need a custom limit for Leagues, but other than that it's all good.
7. Fan Factor is tricky. It would be good if it was an even bigger success tax and failure bonus, but then people can always just lose a few games deliberately.
8. Star Players should be better costed compared to each other, the inflated price is still a great deal for the good ones, not so much for the weaker skill combinations.
9. We're supposed to have a few good teams (50-55% wins), mostly middling teams (45-55% wins), and a few joke teams (30-45% wins). So a couple of squads are too good at parts of the TV range, and the stunties are all far too weak. But I think the goal was fine, and the teams should be nudged to fit that.
10. Some teams benefit from fast play and high scores, some teams benefit from slow grinds and 1-0 scores. That is a good thing.
11. Clock management is a big part of the player-skill in this game. Not only do you have to shift the ball forward, but also shift enough protection with it to control the clock as you go. Delayed passes and side-to-side moves with light and fast teams serve the same ends. It's a skill, learn it.
12. Ageing is terrible. If you must, all players should get a Niggle on reaching Superstar, instead of extra TV for them as mooted above.
13. Weapons are an excellent tool for rubbish teams to take on giants, and also a good deal of fun.
14. The Wizard is good, taking it off the better team and giving it as an option to the little guys is really good. It's already pretty cheap for a high-chance turnover.
15. Gold just needs capped, so spiralling expenses can work on every team instead of just most of them.
16. Kick-Off events are good for forcing you to set up to guard against them, stops the offence getting too one-sided or not marking up dangerous players on the line, or pressing too hard down one wing, it also gives everyone some shot against good stalling. I'd even like more common weather events. |
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Irgy
Joined: Feb 21, 2007
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Apr 28, 2016 - 07:56 |
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| DarthPhysicist wrote: | | Irgy wrote: | | This whole business about some teams being deliberately bad is garbage, it's just a rationalisation to cover the failure to balance the teams. |
That's just not factually true. The game designers deliberately made gobos, halflings, vamps and ogres bad. There are several articles on this topic from the original designers. |
That's not a fact I missed, it's exactly what I'm referring to. What I'm insinuating is that if they could have built those teams to be competitive then they would have. But because they couldn't, they give this rubbish excuse that it's somehow a good thing.
Seriously, if you really do want to gimp yourself to make life harder, there's no shortage of other ways to do it, even without pre-gimped rosters. And even if you try your hardest to balance the rosters, some are still going to be bad, and therefore appeal to people who want to play bad rosters. It's not a real need that actually requires filling, and it's certainly not more valuable than having a larger number of competitive rosters.
I'm sure they wouldn't agree with me, I'm sure they honestly believe their own excuse, but it's still garbage.
I'm not saying I could balance the teams better myself or even that they've done a bad job, I'm just calling this rationalisation out for what it is. |
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Irgy
Joined: Feb 21, 2007
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Apr 28, 2016 - 08:06 |
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| pythrr wrote: | is this data mining?
i thought data mining was done to be more efficient, like creating an AI search of previous fora etc? |
Data mining is taking large volumes of existing data and using computer algorithms to search for information, usually in the form of correlations.
This is almost the opposite, generating new data in small quantity which will be manually processed.
But it's just terminology, who cares, this is an interesting exercise whatever you call it. |
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harvestmouse
Joined: May 13, 2007
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Apr 28, 2016 - 08:12 |
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| Irgy wrote: | | DarthPhysicist wrote: | | Irgy wrote: | | This whole business about some teams being deliberately bad is garbage, it's just a rationalisation to cover the failure to balance the teams. |
That's just not factually true. The game designers deliberately made gobos, halflings, vamps and ogres bad. There are several articles on this topic from the original designers. |
That's not a fact I missed, it's exactly what I'm referring to. What I'm insinuating is that if they could have built those teams to be competitive then they would have. But because they couldn't, they give this rubbish excuse that it's somehow a good thing. |
That's not true. In second edition if you wanted to play Snotlings you could only take 16. This was a way of self handicapping. However, if you played Snotlings on a mixed race roster then you could take 2-1.
JJ explained that he never wanted the rosters to be equal. It was one of the reasons why Goblins and Halflings lost catchers for 3rd edition.
These are 2 examples where they deliberately made the rosters even more inferior. Since then Galak has expressed that was his policy too, and a reason why he's against NTBB policy.
So either they did those things deliberately or it's as you say, which isn't really feasible in my opinion; cutting off your nose to spite your face. |
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mister__joshua
Joined: Jun 20, 2007
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I've renamed the thread title due to my misuse of terminology 
Some interesting highlights so far:
- Despite the claims of dicing and the cries of Nuffle and RNG, nearly everyone feels that the level of randomness in BB is fine, and could maybe be increased!
- Contrary to my predictions, most people think Star Players are priced correctly. I wonder why we don't see them more often?
- Some people are FOR ageing, which is nice to see. I like the reasoning for this point of view. Often people against mechanics like ageing see it from a personal 'my team' point of view rather than a wider picture.
- CPOMB is being discussed reasonably(!)
That's all, carry on  |
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Rawlf
Joined: Jul 15, 2007
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Apr 28, 2016 - 13:32 |
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1. Would Blood Bowl benefit from being less random in both team-building and on the field, or is the random nature what makes it fun?
I like randomness when you can play against it, like perfect defence, blitz!, scatters, throw-ins etc.
I dislike randomness when it hurts you and you couldn't do anything about it, like ageing, throw-a-rock kills etc.
I would appreciate more randomness in this context. Traits for teambuilding were also great.
2. Would Blood Bowl be better if inducements were worth their listed value (making games 'fairer') or is a favourable match-up the reward for building a team?
Inducements should narrow the gap, not close it. Cost should be somewhat higher then reward.
3. While it is commonly accepted that CPOMb is is powerful, is the problem that it's too good, or that it's not available to everyone? Or that it's too easy to achieve?
Yes to all plus that CPOMb ist the only way to reliably produce CAS. There should be more equal alternatives.
4. Disregarding how it's achieved, do you think Blood Bowl needs lower or higher attrition levels than are currently in the game?
Higher attrition, but on-pitch only. No off-pitch attrition!
5. Is TV a good mechanic, a wholly bad mechanic, or a flawed mechanic that could be implemented better?
TV is what it is. A simple, quick-and-dirty measure of what a team's strength could be depending on race, team-building skills of its coach and other factors. Team-building skills include skill selection, injury management etc.
It is awful as an indicator for "who wins this matchup?"
6. Are Spiralling Expenses good, bad, or flawed?
No off-pitch attrition please.
7. Would the game benefit from Fan Factor being worth it's TV, or does it serve the purpose of a 'success tax'?
Since it cant be managed, it should only let you profit from it. Not the case now, was better in lrb4.
8. Should Star Players be priced according to their abilities, or is their over-inflated cost correct?
Like inducements, somewhat more expansive than what they bring.
9. Should rosters strive to be completely balanced against each other, not at all balanced, somewhere in the middle, or some teams balanced while others are 'novelty'?
3 tiers are fine by me. Accept BB tradition.
10. Would the game benefit from encouraging faster play, more TDs and higher scoring?
Not necessarily. There should be different viable strategies to win, and there are. So I'm fine with how it is.
11. Would the game benefit from making stalling less desirable?
You can play against stalling if you know how so I'm fine with it. A benefit could be possible though, depending what you mean exactly. Wouldn't be a step forward but sideways imo.
12. Should ageing be a thing (recently re-implemented on BB2)? As LRB4, or as Cyanide, some other way or best gone completely?
No off-pitch attrition and no randomness you can't deal with somehow for me. Absolutely no for me. Aging worked well as a mechanic though. But it was terribly frustrating for people.
13. Should secret weapons and other 'sillyness' be encouraged, discouraged, or is the current balance about right? Should weapons be auto-banned?
Definitely encouraged, they are so funny! Secret weapons rolls are clearly better than auto-ban.
14. Would Blood Bowl benefit from removing the Wizard option, increasing it's cost, decreasing it's cost, or something else?
The new bolt is too strong, the old one was better. Should definitely stay in the game. Cost is too high on low TV and to low on high TV - dunno what to do about that.
15. Would Blood Bowl benefit from Gold being more useful/having more uses?
A coach should always be greedy for more gold. Sitting on a heap of 5 million gc is just wrong. Solutions are more on pitch attrition and one-shot goodies for the roster.
16. Should Kick-off table results have more of an impact on the game, less of an impact on the game, their current impact is about right, or they should be removed entirely?
I wouldn't mind if it was even more of an influence, as long as you can mitigate the effects through good planing, like with blitz!, pd and so on.
All just my opinion ofc.
Something I would like to see would be if all the induceable goodies (babes, wiz, bribes, chef, maybe coaches and cheerleaders) could be rostered too. Cost and amount varying with race. For example Elves get 0-3 apos for 40k, Humans get 0-2 apos for 50k, dwarves get 0-1 for 70k and so on. This might bring more racial fluff and variety to the rosters and give you something to spend your money on. Like the lrb4 wiz, you'd lose the assets after the next match but can hire them again of course.
Just to add one more pointless idea to dissolve on the internet.  |
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Irgy
Joined: Feb 21, 2007
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| Posted:
Apr 28, 2016 - 15:33 |
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| harvestmouse wrote: | | Irgy wrote: | | DarthPhysicist wrote: | | Irgy wrote: | | This whole business about some teams being deliberately bad is garbage, it's just a rationalisation to cover the failure to balance the teams. |
That's just not factually true. The game designers deliberately made gobos, halflings, vamps and ogres bad. There are several articles on this topic from the original designers. |
That's not a fact I missed, it's exactly what I'm referring to. What I'm insinuating is that if they could have built those teams to be competitive then they would have. But because they couldn't, they give this rubbish excuse that it's somehow a good thing. |
That's not true. In second edition if you wanted to play Snotlings you could only take 16. This was a way of self handicapping. However, if you played Snotlings on a mixed race roster then you could take 2-1.
JJ explained that he never wanted the rosters to be equal. It was one of the reasons why Goblins and Halflings lost catchers for 3rd edition.
These are 2 examples where they deliberately made the rosters even more inferior. Since then Galak has expressed that was his policy too, and a reason why he's against NTBB policy.
So either they did those things deliberately or it's as you say, which isn't really feasible in my opinion; cutting off your nose to spite your face. |
Look I'm not trying to make factual claims about knowing what they were thinking better than they do. I'm just calling their justification a rationalisation. I can't prove (or disprove) that, because rationalisations are indistinguishable from reasons. Other than that they tend to make very dubious reasons, which this has the hallmarks of.
What rational person would start with "Wouldn't it be good if some rosters were weak!", then think "How can I design a roster that sucks?" and then come up with (for example) goblins? On the other hand, when you're working to a lot of design constraints there are some rosters which are naturally inclined to be weak. Coming up with goblins first, then realising they suck, then thinking "well that's ok, it's good having some teams that suck" and "I never really wanted them to be good anyway", now that is quite a natural sounding sequence of events.
And yes sure either way they took it on board, went out of their way to make it so after that, and spent much effort justifying it. That's got nothing to do with whether it was a rationalisation in the first place.
Which, since it's not provable or disprovable, was never meant to be some kind of statement of fact. It's just a perspective. Given in the context of describing my opinion on balancing rosters, which I think, if nothing else, is at least pretty clear by now. |
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Wreckage
Joined: Aug 15, 2004
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Apr 28, 2016 - 17:39 |
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I'm pretty sure Goblins and Halflings were designed to be weak very early on. So to speak an option for somebody who wants to participate but also wants to make a statement that he isn't serious about trying to win.
However, the assumption that Vampires and Ogres fit the bill I think is very weird. Those are precisely teams that went through a process of balancing. Ogres were initially removed because they were unbalanceable. Only with the reintroduction of Big Guys in LRB4 and the necessary nerves became Ogres somewhat of a viable option. However, the roster was still not very well balanced because it was at low TV too expensive to afford and at high TV its power levels could blow out of proportion.
Vampires likewise were so incredibly strong that they were only viable with a strong negatrait.
So, when we talk about the so called 'challenging' races I don't see that there ever was a claim that they were designed to be second tier. In fact the word in itself suggests that they are hardly uncompetitive but rather.. well... challenging to start out with. Chaos fits the bill perfectly by the way. I guess nobody would claim that Chaos are really a bad race in spite of their initial shortcomings.
But of course that is also a debate from another time.
I think in the 80ies game developers of fantasy games generally really tried to emphasize more on the role play aspect. That BB survived was because it's basic game design was always solid and worth to competing in. The differences between races were never that massive. (Starting from 3rd ed anyways, I don't know how it was before that. I'm pretty old but I guess some people are still from the stone age.. or whatever the age before the internet was called.) |
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ArrestedDevelopment
Joined: Sep 14, 2015
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Apr 28, 2016 - 19:50 |
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Blood bowl comes directly from the Warhammer Fantasy Battles "universe". Warhammer fantasy battles comes pretty much from Hero Quest, which comes in its own way from D&D.
None of those games make any attempt to be balanced. They're not supposed to - you're playing a role: whether it's as leader of an army, a questing hero/villain or, in d&d, anything you damn well please to be honest. Your imagination is the limitation here.
Sometimes reading these threads I wonder how many of you actually played old Warhammer - if you did, and you had the old handbooks and magazines (especially during the "herohammer" era of the early 90s), you'd notice, right up until I'd estimate 6th ed, the emphasis on match reports and armies/cities/protagonists was absolutely never about winning - entire pages would be dedicated to the development of a lowly footsoldier through the ranks, or the slow treachery of an orc shaman over his warboss: the battles were just a sideline event that was used to explain a character progression (and the outcome didn't matter in terms of that personal character growth, but could be used to explain a world-wide change).
Goblins and flings and "low tier" teams fit exactly into that world, easily. Because people were not playing a game for the sole purpose of "winning a game". The same is true of early blood bowl, in fact, true of almost any game if you don't reduce it to a hyper-competitive "winning is my only goal" scenario. |
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Skittles' Centu...
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