OFFICIAL RULES

SPIKE! MAGAZINE 1997 TOURNAMENT

The following details the rules for the 1997 Blood Bowl Tournament.

General Rules

  1. The commissioner of the 1997 Blood Bowl Tournament is Dan Becker who can be reached at dan@danbecker.info, (512) 335-5563. The assistant commissioner is Brian Peebles who can be reached at peeblesb@dialogic.com, (908) 276-4280.

  2. The official web site of the tournament is located at http://www.danbecker.info/ under the Games pages, under the Blood Bowl pages. All official rules and standings shall be kept at this site. The web site is guarded by a userid/password of league97/bitch in order to prevent non coaches from entering game results or mucking with the standings.

  3. Rules of the 3rd edition Blood Bowl and Death Zone games shall be in effect, except where superceded by these rules. Descrepancies and other ambiguities shall be resolved by the commissioners. Disputes during a game shall be resolved by dice rolls and addressed by all coaches at a later date.

  4. The tournament is in effect from December 1st, 1997 until January 4th, 1998. Tournament games must be played by coaches and teams that are registered. Coaches may enter more than one team in the tournament. Coaches are responsible for reporting game information by the system described below.

  5. A team may play any number of games in the tournament. However, a team may not play the same opponent twice.

  6. All teams shall be newly established (rating=100, value=1M GP) teams. The first team game must be an official Tournament game. All Blood Bowl rules for organizing a team apply.

  7. Only Star Players as listed in Blood Bowl and Death Zone are allowed. Only one Big Guy (Ogre, Treeman, Deathroller, Minotaur, Troll, or Rat Ogre) is allowed per team. Star Players may coexist with the Big Guys on one team.

  8. Experienced players are allowed on each team as a substitute for normal players. Experienced players are purchased at the beginning or during the season in the same manner as normal players. The rules and prices for experienced players are described below.

  9. All winnings, injuries, etc. carry through to subsequent games per normal rules, except as revised by League rules.

  10. Games that are tied after a complete game will be decided by one half of sudden death overtime. The game will be considered a Tie if neither team scores by the end of the overtime period.

  11. Normal handicaps will apply to all games.


Tournament Standings

Tournament results shall be kept in an ongoing manner. Unlike previous tournaments, this tournament will not hold a playoff round. At the conclusion of the tournament season, final results will be tabulated and victors shall receive the spoils.

  1. Coach and team registration, games results, and tournament standings are kept at the official web site. Online tools are available at the web site to report standings, register coaces and teams, and record game results. Results and registration may be also be reported by phone or by letter to the commissioners.

  2. The result for a game shall be reported as soon as possible following the conclusion of the game. The submission for each game must include the teams playing, and for each team the result (win, loss, or tie), points, casualties, gate, winnings and game comments. Also the post game fan factor and team rating should be reported for each team.

    Here is an example game results submission form
    Date Name Result Points Cas. Gate Winnings FF Rating Comments
    12-18-97 The Necro Knights W 4 1 14000 120000 3 120 Frankenfurter kills two elves
    The Swifties L 2 0 17000 90000 5 116 Ethelred passes for two TDs

  3. The standings in the tournament is calculated by the following formula:
    Win 15 points + difference in final score
    Tie 10 points
    Loss 5 points - difference in final score (minimum of zero points)

    All games count toward the tournament, and the results shall be added. Example: A team submits Win: 2-1; Win: 3-1; Loss: 1-2. Total score 16+17+4=37 points.

  4. If there are tie scores, the results will be decided by the following factors, in descending order:
    1. Outcome of common game (if any).
    2. Total number of wins.
    3. Total number of touchdowns scored.
    4. Total number of casualties made.
    5. Team ratings.

  5. Winnings and prizes for the tournament will be as follows:

    Winner: 200K Gold and + 1D6 to Fan Factor and SPIKE! trophy (with Trophy reroll)
    Second Place: 100K Gold + 1 to Fan Factor
    Third Place: 60K Gold + 1 to Fan Factor
    Fourth Place: 30K Gold + 1 to Fan Factor

    Fan Factor increases are in addition to any increase due to the normal Fan Factor roll at the end of the game.

  6. At the end of the Finals, the Spike! MVP award will be given to the player with the most Star Player Points. Only players from teams in the Tournament are eligible. The player receives 5 SPP's and his team receives +1 to their Fan Factor as a result of his award.

    Blood Bowl Rules Revisions

    1. Players killed during their team's first three games may be replaced by coaches at no cost. The replacement must be a player of the same or lesser value. All Star Player Points earned by the killed player are lost. The replacement takes place at the end of the game.

    2. Players which are seriously injured during their team's first three games do not have to roll on the Serious Injury table or miss additional games. The player does miss the remainder of the game in which thev are injured.

    3. All optional rules will be in effect INCLUDING the KickOff table and the Weather table.

    4. The four minute turnover rule is in effect. A coach who has not completed the movement of their players in the alloted time must end the turn immediately. A stopwatch with pause capability should be kept handy to time the turn. The pause capability should be invoked when an out-of-game action occurs, e.g. the pizzaman rings, another beer is needed, or the phone rings. Players may agree to forgo this rule at any time in the game.

    5. Coaches do not roll to determine the quantity of Special Play cards that they receive. Each team will be given two Special Play cards plus any additional cards allowed due to their handicap.

    6. Regeneration skill is based on revised rule. Regeneration rolls are successful on a roll of 4 or more.

    7. Coaches may make purchases at the start of a game in lieu of having to make all purchases at the end of the previous match.

    8. The following Special Play Cards will not be used: "It Wasn't Me", "Flu Bug", "Press Gang", "Injured in Practice", "Blatant Foul", "Crazy Referee" and "Away Fans Banned".

    9. Coaches may start and enter a new team at any time. All new teams are to have a value of 1,000,000 gold. Players may not be transferred between teams.

    10. Game MVP's will be randomly chosen from five players nominated by the team coach. If a team is to receive more than one MVP, the head coach has the option of nominating five new players for each selection or of selecting the MVP from the players remaining in the original nomination. A player may not receive two MVP's per game.

    11. A team may have up to two Apothecaries. Each Apothecary may perform one action per game.

    Experienced Player Rules

    In order to provide flexibility to the basic game, a system created by the Blood Bowl game designer was devised and posted to the Blood Bowl mailing list on 30 November 1995. These characters simulate players not found in the normal game: mercenaries for hire, loner players of other races, and oddballs picked up by official Blood Bowl teams. This system is in effect for this tournament.

    1. Experienced playes may be created and substituted for normal players any time during the season.

    2. Experienced players gain star player points like normal players. They do not count against the big guy rules.

    3. ADDENDUM: There is a soft limit of 4 experienced players per team. Coaches may exceed 4 experienced players per team, but such a team shall be made public. The consensus of all coaches shall dictate on a case-by-case basis whether a given team with more than 4 experienced players may be allowed.

    4. The cost of an experienced player is given by the formula below. The limits of an experiences character's attributes is also given by the rule below. Experienced players must be a minimum value of 3 points or 30,000.

    5. The cost for an experienced player is as follows:

      • STARTING VALUE: Players start with 5 points, to which is added the following:
      • MOVEMENT: MA2 = -4; MA3 = -3; MA4 = -2; MA5 = -1; MA6 = 0; MA7 = +2; MA8 = +3
      • STRENGTH: +/- ((ST-3) * 3),
        plus a further 3 points if the ST>3,
        plus yet another 3 points if ST>6
      • AGILITY: +/- ((AG-3) * 2)
      • ARMOUR: AV6 = -3; AV7 = -2; AV8 = 0; AV9 = 1; AV10 = 3
      • SKILLS & THINGS: +2 per skill/mutation/etc, the block skill counts as +4
      • COST IN GOLD PIECES:
        10 or less points, cost = points * 10,000
        11 or more points , cost = 100,000 + ((points-10) * 5,000)

    6. A utility for calculating experienced players is available at the tournament web site.

    7. An analysis of the standard Blood Bowl and Death Zone players shows that the player price is often less than the value of the character generated by this forumla. This is shown in the Cost and Value columns of the Experienced Player Reference Sheet. Therefore, this rule is best used to provide odd ior unique characters not provided by the normal rules: an Dwarf that can catch, an Elf with regeneration, a fast mummy.

    Commissioner Dan Becker author